February 16th, 2005
Braff’s writing/directorial debut is full of the touches one might expect from an actor with a good eye and several years worth of “images” saved up. The actor appears in a paisley shirt against an identical background. A bathroom mirror splits his face in two. A line of people in their underwear jump simultaneously into a pool. A doctor’s diplomas and citations outgrow his office and encroach upon the ceiling. A knight in armor quests for milk for his cereal. All of these images are good images. All of them served the film well during one of the few trailers of the past several years to do what a trailer ought; which is reveal nothing about the plot and yet spark an instant desire to see the film. And all of these images were called for by the plot. Well, almost. Some of them. If you squint.
That said, Braff should definitely not scale back his ambitions to here-and-there acting career he was enjoying previously. While “Garden State” has touches of the kind of semi-autobiography which sometimes warn that a writer has nothing else up his sleeve, the characters he creates are effortlessly endearing and as a director he shows an undeniable eye for the place were the absurd and mundane intersect.
Thoughtful people will enjoy this film. Then they will go home and realize that the emotions and the images don’t quite hold up to careful scrutiny. But that’s okay, because thoughtful people need their eye candy too. Hopefully, now that Braff has been able to work off some of his extraneous imagery, he can apply himself to finding a better balance between glib and honest, emotion and visualization, and keep the same keen eye and appealing characters he’s given us here.
In short, this film is pretty much everything I want in a superhero movie. And I’ve never been one to tailor my demands to the perceived limitations of the genre. Yes, this movie takes extreme liberties with science and logic. Yes, it must be watched with a liberal application of salt. But what we get here isn’t your typical do-gooder strives to keep his identity a secret for reasons we don’t understand. Nor is it your revenge-fantasy anti-hero fare. What I’ve always wanted to know was the inner workings of the hero. Why does he do these things? Why is his identity a secret? If I were a superhero, would I want to fake the guy who has to go to work every day, socialize with co-workers, and go through the really hard stuff I can’t just punch my way through or would the silly costume be my disguise instead of the glasses and mild-mannered reporter schtick? Peter Parker’s life is a study in those questions that plagued me as a kid watching this stuff. The film is an exploration of Peter’s life and the complications which arise from that phrase that makes anyone who’s ever known anyone who read comics either wince or hold their breath in anticipation whenever Uncle Ben comes on screen. This film is exactly what Marvel says they were trying to do in making comics accessible and relevant to the reader, only thankfully without the Stan Lee dialogue, true believer.
And there are very real reasons why it should. Jeunet’s visuals are breathtaking; beautiful and sad and playful all at once. His recreation of trench warfare in WWI is, like any reasonably faithful depiction of armed conflict, such a disturbing argument against war that it really isn’t an argument anymore. Mathilde’s (Audrey Tautou) search for her supposedly dead fiance is a romance full of despair and hope and all that stuff an audience wants when it’s in the mood for romance.
But two things stopped me from enjoying the movie, and they’re related. They have to do with pulling me from the world of the film into the less enjoyable world of critic. The main problem is that Jeunet has constructed a fable, the way Amelie and City of Lost Children were fables, only it doesn’t work here. City of Lost Children took place in a world we did not recognize. Amelie took place in a world we recognized but one which had been filtered by the wide-eyed fantastic vision of the title character. Jeunet is so good at creating that alternate reality that when he does it in service of actual historical background he makes the fantastic seem overly-coincidental. This creates a distance in the viewer who wants to be sucked in by the wonderful details but is continuously struck with things they can’t believe. Along the same lines, the relationship between Mathilde and Manech is romanticized and fairy-tale-esque, and I for one could not follow her quest on an emotional level because all I knew of Manech was a shell-shocked crazy.
I’m not sure what the cure for this is. I like the mixture of the fantastic and the familiar, but the mixture is tricky, and can too easily become something that works neither as fantasy nor as reality. Do I want Jeunet to be less talented at creating WWI? No. Do I want him to abandon his childlike sense of wonder at everyday things? No. But neither can I fully appreciate a film where these two talents are at war to the point where I am drawn out of the experience of watching every time they come into contact.
What saves this movie, ironically, is the performance (or perhaps just presence) of John Cho, whose most memorable scene to date was pissing all over Stiffler in American Pie 2. I remember watching that movie, liking “that Asian guy at the party” a lot, and wishing there were more people like him (like him as in Asian or as in likable, I’m not sure) in lead roles. This movie takes that sentiment to the extreme without sacrificing any of the adolescent comedy we’ve come to expect from American comedies. We’ve got Koreans, Indians, Jews, and Latinas all over the place, with several idiotic and villainized white guys. This isn’t to say the movie treads delicately over questions of race; instead, it drives a large car with a broken muffler right through them. What makes this palatable is the fact that the characters, not just the actors, are fully aware of the stereotypes they’re playing to. Harold knows he’s considered a “Twinkie” (yellow on the outside, white on the inside). Kumar knows that despite the fact that he doesn’t want to be seen as yet another Indian doctor, he’s got a gift for it and would probably enjoy it. The fact that the scene where he demonstrates this gift makes no sense whatsoever doesn’t do too much to lessen that.
Making the Asian guys the main characters and both using and disabusing us of those stereotypes is what saves this movie. “Saves,” of course, must be understood in a fairly liberal fashion. It is still, ultimately, a stupid movie about two overgrown boys with the munchies who spend all night trying to get crappy hamburgers (they don’t, by the way, ever address Kumar’s attitudes towards eating beef, although the actor requested vegetarian burgers). But if you want to spend a fun evening in your living room with some teen-movie-oriented friends and some popcorn, it’s sufficient.
Paul Giamatti is the perfect actor to play this role. And this brings up an interesting point: why the sudden windfall for a pudgy balding actor? Aren’t we supposed to go to movies to watch Brad Pitt and Ashton Kutcher? And while I personally would rather watch someone good and real than the latest pin-up, it does seem odd that Hollywood or society or audiences have recently decided it was okay for Giamatti (he seems to be an advanced scout for this group) to have a main role in a film. Thus far we’ve only seen it in smaller, quieter, less market-driven movies like this one and the incredible American Splendor, and it remains to be seen whether this trend will continue, but it’s curious none the less.
But on to the movie itself. It’s a quiet film; so quiet, in fact, that while I related to Miles and his difficulties (depression and writing, mainly) I failed to get emotionally entangled in it the way I like to. Perhaps this means it’s not manipulative the way Hollywood likes to be. Perhaps it means I’m frigid. Who knows? But the performances and the writing carried me along quite well, even if I wasn’t carried away. Giamatti, sometimes a laughably pathetic figure (witness Duets, if you must), pulls off a realistic portrayal of the pathetic that does not ever touch maudlin. Aside from a few very heavy wine=life metaphors, the script does not take the audience’s stupidity for granted. It leaves things unsaid. It leaves responses to Miles’ eye-rolls when it is suggested he self-publish. For a movie about a writer, Payne leaves a lot of words out. In fact, Miles is incapable of talking about his writing with any degree of coherence. It is only when discussing wine he waxes eloquent.
And that brings me to my final thought about this movie. I don’t drink. I have, at most, two glasses of wine a year. And I don’t particularly enjoy it. But there’s something about watching someone who’s obsessed that’s interesting, provided they know how to talk about it. The passion that a good writer brings to their chosen subject, or the subject that has chosen them, is paradoxically refreshing and cloying and it makes me long for the days I was able to devote my mind and soul to one pursuit. Those pursuits changed, from dogs to Sherlock Holmes to music and beyond, but they were all-consuming. I miss that about my life. Miles doesn’t make that character trait overly attractive, but he does make it human. Maybe that’s why one’s affinity for wine doesn’t make any difference here.
Nicholas Roeg’s 1975 science fiction epic is impressive in the way that a mural by a very gifted 10 year old might be impressive. There are going to be some amazing sights, and some bizarre metaphors, but in the end there’s not enough behind it to make any sense. There is so much to think about in this film’s visual offerings that it’s a shame one’s left with the sense that nothing they saw actually means anything since the script just couldn’t put itself together long enough to give any of the characters motivation or articulate dialogue. David Bowie’s title character is arresting to look at, letting me in finally on the secret of his fame (although I did like him as Pilate in The Last Temptation of Christ). And while his character is a bit stony, his acting is quite good. Candy Clark fares less well, but she may be more annoying than bad. Rip Torn is a disillusioned science professor who comes in on Bowie’s project to get back to his own planet, which is suffering from a drought. We never learn how exactly Bowie is going to fix this, or why he is prevented from leaving. If we ignore the lack of rational plotting, there is a nice visual trajectory of his metaphoric “fall to earth.” It’s just too bad it isn’t actually a good movie.
So given the fact that any opinion I have of this movie is going to be colored by my opinions on the matter itself, I must say that it is much more subtle, nuanced, and realistic than I had given it credit for. Vera Drake is a quiet, absorbing film of such strength I almost feel bad pointing out its flaws.
But there is plenty here that is not flawed. The title character is a bubbly, energetic, relentlessly cheerful woman we’d all love to have as part of our family. Her family is a loving one, and we see numerous evidence of their comfortable interaction. Throughout her day, Vera cleans houses, cares for the bedridden, and works quality control at a lightbulb factory. Indeed, some time passes before we see her perform what is the subject of the movie, and even then it is portrayed as another part of her busy day. Ah ha! you say. Bias! She’s only helping people. But it’s not that simple. No one but the woman who sets up the appointments knows of this extracurricular activity. And when her secret is revealed, only her family stands by her. Even they are motivated only by love and loyalty. Not morality.
Morality has little place in this film. Very herself never utters the words “abortion” or “pregnant.” In her own words, she “helps young girls out.” In her eyes, it isn’t a matter of right or wrong for the baby but for the mother and for the children that must be provided for. “If you can’t feed them, you can’t love them,” one character points out. This is as close as the director gets to a statement.
The movie is, however, quite slow. In the beginning this is bearable because Vera is such an adorable woman. You are drawn into her circle, and you care about the people she cares about. Nothing about this woman suggests that she would do anything to hurt anyone. And this proves to be the downfall of the movie. For when things go bad, her vigor, her cheer, her energy disappears and we are left with a barely articulate woman who seems ten years older. I cringed when I watched all the things Vera did for others, thinking about how it would sap my energy and maybe my will to live. But it was that caring and that usefulness that gave her energy. Once that was taken away, she was lost. And the film suffers for it. I thought at first the chin-wobbling and choked back words were overdoing it a bit, but I later realized that someone as ebullient as Vera, whose sense of self comes from her service to others, would indeed be brought low by the removal of that outlet.
One word about technique; the director uses very little in the way of establishing shots and no indicators of the passage of time. Characters appear in contiguous scenes which take place across town, as if stepping from one apartment and one day to another . Strangely, this was less disorienting than it sounds and lent itself to the “slice of life” approach the movie took. And it is that very realism that makes the movie so good. We are not being preached at. We are observing.
But the film presents no easy answers. We are convinced Vera believes she is helping people. We might even be convinced that she is. But she risks hurting and even killing them. Do we consider the unborn children? Or do we consider the society that makes people like Vera necessary?