"Accomplishments"
In theaters: I never watched To Catch a Predator, and was only vaguely aware of why it was cancelled, but I don't think that's required of Primetime (in fact, it comes just short of saying its finale was the stated reason). Robert Pattinson's idiosyncratic performance as Chris Hansen is one of his most iconic yet, a real-life media figure translated into a television Ahab, but you know what happens in Moby Dick when Ahab catches his whale, right? The film is about predation, obviously, but the child predators caught on the show are only the surface level and ancillary to the drama. Hansen is the predator hunter, and therefore an alpha predator himself, not just hunting these men, but luring them (while ignoring others) into almost committing crimes (since there's no actual child involved). His famous question, "What would have happened if I hadn't been here?" contains a fatal irony - if he hadn't been there, the situation would never have happened at all, opening the door to lawyers crying entrapment. There's also a lot of Hollywood predation, from Hansen manipulating his star decoy, to other shows trying to poach Predator's producer, to the tabloids going after Hansen's extramarital affair, to the general hunt for ratings. It's all gross, which is formally at odds with the look of film, which I quite liked. It's a mood, and that's how I prefer my biopics.
At home: With a title like that, Is God Is promises religious allegory, and doesn't disappoint. Multiple interpretations come to mind and aren't competing so much as complementary. Twin women, disfigured in a fire, are reunited with their mother - who presents herself as God - dying from similar injuries inflicted by her former husband who she now calls to have killed. A good ol' revenge quest ensues to find the monster and destroy him, a monster I thought at first might be Is Devil Is, if you catch my drift, but the evidence leads me elsewhere. Rather, I think both parents are God, but one is the Earth Mother, Gaea, an older religion, while the Father is the more modern Christian God, who punishes those who do not embrace him. All the Gods here are bastards, and the twins are two sides of the religiosity coin - kindness and vengeance - angels who fell into the fire and became demons... but are the younger angels any less murderous? I feel I could write ten essays about this movie, and that's always a plus. Adapting her play for the silver screen, Aleshea Harris transforms theatrical devices into cinematic ones - the literate way characters are introduced, the telepathy between the heroines - and offers a revenge flick that's actually pretty funny. I love the chemistry between the twins and the dark weirdness of their story.
Though the heyday of the three-camera sitcom is behind us, they still make them, and they seem dumber than ever. Kevin Can F*** Himself deconstructs the premise of a lot of those sitcoms in a most wonderful and layered way. When Kevin is in the room, it's three-camera set-up, no fourth wall, a laugh track and shenanigans. Imagine one of those blue collar comedies where the main guy and his friends are man-children getting up to no good every week while the guy's wife plays the naggy, reasonable adult. There's perhaps a secondary female character who sits there and makes wisecracks. Well, now imagine that in the women's heads, it was all happening for real. What kind of monster would Kevin be, everything circling back to him, his getting away with what are essentially crimes, his jokes all negging and gaslighting, his alcohol gag an alcohol problem. Annie Murphy (from Schitt's Creek) is the wife in question, Allison, and when Kevin ISN'T in the room, the show becomes a sad crime dramedy shot in the modern style, more like Breaking Bad or Barry. The same kinds of misunderstandings and slapstick happen, but there's no one to laugh at them, and Allison wants out, in any way possible. Over the course of 16 episodes (two seasons), she'll try her best to escape Kevin's reality, and the more she sabotages it, the more characters are perhaps brought into her orbit - into HER show. (The second season explores the comedy sidekick's hardships, for example.) And the more you watch, the more YOU'RE brought into Allison's orbit, too, and the "Kevin!" sequences become ever more obnoxious. So while it's about the existential dread of being a secondary character in a dumb situation comedy, it's also about leaving a toxic situation, whether a relationship, a job, or a town, and the show presents several examples. And on yet another level, it really exposes the misogyny of those old set-ups. You may never look at a sitcom the same way again.
[2020] Dinner in America: The spirit of punk lives! Kyle Gallner is an angry chaos agent who rejects authority. Emily Skeggs is a sheltered and bullied girl who loves punk music and may have some bars herself. When they meet, an unusual friendship/romance develops, and no one's safe. Built around several family dinners that become pivotal to the story, exposing the status quo of the American family (varied, but pushing "propriety" regardless), the satire rejects repressed and repressive society, and in its offbeat pair, even the expectations of what a romantic leads can or should be. It's set in the 90s, and that's probably when it should have been made, when it made the most sense to burn it all down, coming out of Reagan's 80s, when even punk needed to reject what punk had become. In 2020, it's a look backward at what we should have done more of as a culture, perhaps, cycling back to today where we need to be punk once more. Cool music, too, both diagetic and not.
[2021] The Worst Person in the World: The title, which wrongly made me expect a Scandinavian Fleabag, looms like a threat over the portrait of a young woman at one of life's crossroads. Her older boyfriend did call it correctly, that she would eventually leave him to find herself. And in that sense, it's the cry of every generation since Gen X gave way to the Baby Busters (the great rejectors - I, in fact, reject the notion that we have now been wrapped into Gen X), those who jump ship every few years, change careers, partners, approaches, something most connected to Millennials. Looking in from the outside, Renate Reisve's character Julie isn't just part of the "worst generation", she the epitome of what people hold against it. But how can she be the worst person in the world with that face? The way emotions flicker across Reinsve's face is just so honest and vulnerable that we can't possibly hold anything against her. Ultimately, the worst person is ourselves, and the film is about self-loathing and hopefully, letting go of it. Self-loathing imposed by others' perceptions, by our disappointments, by our analysis of our own weaknesses. Joachim Trier's loving portrait of Julie makes us love her in a way she can't love herself. And though this is probably his most accessible film, he still throws some wonderful surreal sequences at us, without undermining the characters' reality.
[2022] Living: It's dangerous to remake a Kurosawa film - even Shakespeare had trouble with it - and it seems Western film makers and their audiences may not be patient enough for Ikiru. Indeed, Living more than an hour shorter than the original, despite not changing the story. So the great Bill Nighy, playing a mid-level bureaucrat told he has six months to live, seems to only dabble in the things he thinks are "life" before finding his purpose, and then we most unceremoniously cut to that shocking third act. We don't "live" in any of the moments for very long. So it's not Ikiru, but it still managed to touch me. Nighy is great, of course, but Aimee Lou Wood, as his vivacious example, is altogether charming, funny and poignant. And the film is very well directed, with lots of beautiful and clever visuals. Trading Japanese repression with British repression isn't a big leap (they didn't even change the era, it's the early 50s), so I don't think it has anything new to say. We're really here for the actors, and they don't disappoint.
[2023] All of Us Strangers: There's already a certain strange reality established in those early scenes, which present Andrew Scott's character, a scriptwriter called Adam, living in a huge apartment block where only he and another resident (Harry - Paul Mescal) live, that makes you question a lot of what you're seeing. And that's well before Adam starts to make those forays into the past, visiting his parents before their untimely deaths when he was 12 years old. What would it be to come out to them now? To say all the things you wish they'd said, or more important, for them to tell you what you wish you'd heard? Whether psychological, imagination, fantastical time travel or consorting with ghosts, it's a nice idea, well realized and acted. And back in the "present", a frank love affair with Harry that stands askew from the old-fashioned suburbia of the past. And it all comes back to the title. On the one hand, a stranger Adam gets close to; on the other, the people who raised him, but for whom he has become a stranger. Perhaps we are all islands of one and stand apart, all of us strangers to one another. The feeling is even stronger for those who have had to hide or repress their identities. The film is not what I was expecting, but I'm not surprised to disover that it was based on a Japanese novel.
[2024] Harvest: Using the trappings of folk horror - a village in the British isles anywhere between the Dark Ages and the 19th century, Pagan rituals, black rams, people accused of witchcraft, strange animal deaths - Harvest's atmosphere redirects our expectations and makes its monster not Satan, but Capitalism. A rich land owner has the area mapped out and plans to exploit it, which essentially destroys the idyllic village, which seems outside of time. If maps "flatten", then so is time here, thanks to various strange anachronisms. In the global economy, isolation is impossible, and joining the rest of the world means an end to self-sufficiency, as our particular "cog" really only serves the "machine". And yet, isolation also has its pitfalls, and outsiders are generally badly treated. Athina Rachel Tsangari's Attenberg was also an "encoded" film, just more amusing to decode, but Harvest has absolutely gorgeous cinematography to keep you entranced while you do so.
[2025] Lurker: There have been a number of thriller or horror films lately about female pop stars, but Lurker's of the male variety, but as to who the "monster" in the tale is - the pop star with the monstrous ego and all-consuming vanity, or the fanboy who inveigles himself into his life through stalkerish means - that's a case of tables turning on the narrative. There's really no one to root for, as both (and the rest of the entourage) are either venal, fickle and arrogant, or else needy creeps who could turn sinister on a dime. On a world dictated by social currency, where popularity and fame are everything, what will our boy Théodore Pellerin NOT do to stay close to his idol? An idol who can't trust his friendships, but doesn't deserve them at any rate. Things do turn sinister, but as everyone is using everyone else, it's not the exact turn one might expect - success is the only reason for kinship, so there can be no consequences based on other values. And that's ultimately as icky as the stalkerism presented.
[2026] Fuze: It certainly had potential. Two types of thriller vie for attention - a bomb disposal procedural at a London building site where WWII ordinance has been discovered, and a heist taking advantage of the situation. I love both genres and both situations. And it certainly through a lot of twists and turns at us, especially as the thieves start to turn on each other. But perhaps... one twist too many? By the third act, the film has lost focus and delivers an ending that reveals all, but manages to be awkward, glib, and morally unsatisfying. Fuze just doesn't know who it has set up as its hero, if that makes any sense, and pays off it the wrong way. It's too bad. I was with it until the final few scenes, but as the fuse reached the bombshell, it exploded in its own face. How's that for thematic criticism? No? Yes? Cheesy? Well, perhaps that's appropriate here.
Comments
Post a Comment