It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Went from seeing one of the absolute best movies of the year to one of the absolute worst.
Last night, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk:
Some of the advance reviews of this movie contained praise that was off the charts. I can't imagine what they saw because it is one of the worst, most perplexingly bad movies I've seen in a long time. As best I can tell, the source of the problem is the script. The acting is abysmal as well, but it's difficult to distinguish a poor performance from a bad script. Sometimes it's just impossible to pull something good from something so bad. And the direction is stylized in a way that makes you think you should be getting something more from what you're seeing, that there's some kind of meaning apart from the superficial. But there isn't. There's no great theme, no implicit message, no subversive underbelly to an otherwise utterly boring movie.
The whole package - script, acting, direction - are so off-putting that I spent a lot of the movie wondering whether it was setting me up for some big reveal. Once I had languished for nearly two hours, however, I didn't care. I don't write movies off when I enjoy everything but the end, so there's no way I would give this one a pass after such garbage even if it were a setup for some kind of twist or reveal. But it isn't. It just ends as you'd expect.
If you have any interest at all in this movie, watch The Hurt Locker and Born on the Fourth of July instead. Both do everything this one wants to do much, much better.
But I guess it wasn't necessarily only the best and worst of times. It was also the meh of times. I also saw Loving:
This one has the rare honor of being excellent but unexceptional. The whole package is truly excellent: flawless script, great performances by all, top notch direction and cinematography, and perfect set and costume design. So what's the problem? I guess it's that I don't really see the point in the movie.
You could broadly classify this movie as a semi-biographical advocacy film, not that the biographical portions are too thorough (it's mostly an approximately 7 year segment of the lives of the subjects) or that the advocacy is too risky (anti-racism). Those are generally death knells for movies for me. Biographical movies tend to get too hung up on portraying the true story to be a real film apart from it and advocacy movies tend to let the film take a backseat role to the message and feel far too manipulative (and on top of it all, both are so, so often merely Oscar bait).
But I saw this because it was written and directed by one of the best filmmakers working today: Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter, Mud, Midnight Special). And he does as good a job with this story as he has with any other. He is certainly as competent in presenting material as he is insightful in forming characters and story. The trouble is that he comes up against the brick wall of reality just as all filmmakers do when they take on a true story. Frankly I just don't see much point to it. He could have done all the things he wanted to do here, hit all the themes, with a totally original story that would have allowed him to create characters outside the confines of what we know of these actual people.
As I said, though, there is much to enjoy. Joel Edgerton is a master of the slight performance in this one and all credit is due to Jeff Nichols for having the balls to write a script that relies so heavily on Edgerton's performance. Ruth Negga's role is less obviously demanding, but it does require that she find a way to demonstrate at once the learned helplessness she likely felt when under the thumb of the law and the resolve that she obviously had to reach out for help in battling the commonwealth of Virginia.
Last night, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk:
Some of the advance reviews of this movie contained praise that was off the charts. I can't imagine what they saw because it is one of the worst, most perplexingly bad movies I've seen in a long time. As best I can tell, the source of the problem is the script. The acting is abysmal as well, but it's difficult to distinguish a poor performance from a bad script. Sometimes it's just impossible to pull something good from something so bad. And the direction is stylized in a way that makes you think you should be getting something more from what you're seeing, that there's some kind of meaning apart from the superficial. But there isn't. There's no great theme, no implicit message, no subversive underbelly to an otherwise utterly boring movie.
The whole package - script, acting, direction - are so off-putting that I spent a lot of the movie wondering whether it was setting me up for some big reveal. Once I had languished for nearly two hours, however, I didn't care. I don't write movies off when I enjoy everything but the end, so there's no way I would give this one a pass after such garbage even if it were a setup for some kind of twist or reveal. But it isn't. It just ends as you'd expect.
If you have any interest at all in this movie, watch The Hurt Locker and Born on the Fourth of July instead. Both do everything this one wants to do much, much better.
But I guess it wasn't necessarily only the best and worst of times. It was also the meh of times. I also saw Loving:
This one has the rare honor of being excellent but unexceptional. The whole package is truly excellent: flawless script, great performances by all, top notch direction and cinematography, and perfect set and costume design. So what's the problem? I guess it's that I don't really see the point in the movie.
You could broadly classify this movie as a semi-biographical advocacy film, not that the biographical portions are too thorough (it's mostly an approximately 7 year segment of the lives of the subjects) or that the advocacy is too risky (anti-racism). Those are generally death knells for movies for me. Biographical movies tend to get too hung up on portraying the true story to be a real film apart from it and advocacy movies tend to let the film take a backseat role to the message and feel far too manipulative (and on top of it all, both are so, so often merely Oscar bait).
But I saw this because it was written and directed by one of the best filmmakers working today: Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter, Mud, Midnight Special). And he does as good a job with this story as he has with any other. He is certainly as competent in presenting material as he is insightful in forming characters and story. The trouble is that he comes up against the brick wall of reality just as all filmmakers do when they take on a true story. Frankly I just don't see much point to it. He could have done all the things he wanted to do here, hit all the themes, with a totally original story that would have allowed him to create characters outside the confines of what we know of these actual people.
As I said, though, there is much to enjoy. Joel Edgerton is a master of the slight performance in this one and all credit is due to Jeff Nichols for having the balls to write a script that relies so heavily on Edgerton's performance. Ruth Negga's role is less obviously demanding, but it does require that she find a way to demonstrate at once the learned helplessness she likely felt when under the thumb of the law and the resolve that she obviously had to reach out for help in battling the commonwealth of Virginia.
