BEFORE: Frances McDormand completes a hat-trick tonight, and look who's back, Edward Norton, as promised. I realize that my subject matters this month have been all over the place, but that's Year 7 for you. I think I've succeeded, though, in crossing some important films off the watchlist.
THE PLOT: A pair of young lovers flee their New England town, which causes a local search party to fan out to find them.
AFTER: I don't know Wes Anderson personally, but I get the feeling from watching his movies that he somehow lives in a photograph of an elaborate birdhouse, or perhaps in a hipster bar that's decorated to look like a thrift store. And for the record, I don't recommend that anyone out there watch two Wes Anderson films within a 7-day period, or else they may be rushed to the hospital after being exposed to too much quirkiness, a condition I'll call "too-quirk-ulocis". Remember, I'm a professional, and I've spent my time building up my tolerance.
The "young lovers" here are, what, 12 years old? 13? It's a good thing that this film has got charm to spare, because with kids of that age in love, it could have easily veered into downright ickiness. The scene on the beach, with the underwear-clad kids embracing and kissing, seemed a bit questionable. Maybe I'm projecting, because except for one experimentation at age 6, I didn't get my first real kiss until age 20. My grandmother always told me to wait until I was done with school first, and the general consensus from the opposite sex sure made it seem like that wasn't going to be a problem. (missed it by a month, Grams...)
It's a bit of a regret, because if I knew then what I knew now - I sort of regarded the girls in high-school as an alien species, when it turns out that if you talk to them like humans, you greatly improve your chances of making a connection. I'm sure there were some screwed-up, complicated or misunderstood girls in high-school that could have accelerated my timetable if I'd only played along sooner. But anyway...
Like "Grand Budapest Hotel", this made me nostalgic for a time period that I never experienced, this time it's New England in 1965 - a time when boys went to scout camps, learned survival skills and built treehouses, while girls wore berets, short pink dresses and knee socks. Again, kids today may still do some or all of these things, but this represents a sort of heyday. People wrote letters, painted landscapes, and listened to LP records that explained the different instruments in the orchestra.
But since "Birdman" got me thinking about acting styles, after this I'm left with this question - why are most kids such horrible actors? Kids love to pretend, kids make great liars, but why do so many people cringe when forced to watch an elementary school play? At least half the kids in this film were just incapable of speaking lines in a believable way. Either they mumble, or stumble on the words, or just couldn't summon the proper emotion to make me forget they were acting - and the best acting is 100% invisible. Either these kids got bad advice how to act, which put them in a complicated head space that they can't get out of, or they just don't understand how to BE, instead of act. Look, just say the line as if you're a kid talking to another kid, and (here's the key) you want your words to be understood by that kid. That's all. If you think too much about it, you're just going to get in your own way.
I'm going to give this a rating just above "Grand Budapest Hotel" because it's that much more charming, plus there were no elaborate, unnecessary framing devices - see, Wes, you can just START the story in 1965, it doesn't need to be set up. And I liked the subtle use of foreshadowing, like making "Noah's Ark" references early in the film, and then following that up with a big storm later on.
Also starring Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward, Bruce Willis (last seen in "RED 2"), Edward Norton (last seen in "Primal Fear"), Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Harvey Keitel, Bob Balaban, Jason Schwartzman, Larry Pine (all last seen in "Grand Budapest Hotel").
RATING: 8 out of 10 merit badges
This is a near-perfect movie. It's about the deep first crush of a couple of pre-teen kids, and it's shot and presented confidently at that level. I understand how Wes Anderson's style can be faulted as "twee," but here, that style is flawlessly matched to the subject. This is a world that's focused on kids; even the Francis McDormand/Bill Murray/Bruce Willis triangle exists to serve the two juvenile leads. And overall, this story feels like it's being told by children.
ReplyDeleteIt's a deeply satisfying love story. And one that's hard to pull off convincingly with adults because it's a pure, unselfish love. They love each other and they want to be together...end of story.
I've seen it a couple of dozen times now and it still holds up. It's charming, but it isn't an empty charm.
For all of my praise of the kid-oriented story, it also features two actors we've seen a hell of a lot of, delivering two of their best performances. Bill Murray continues to prove that he's not interested in self-parody. That role could have been written by anybody, but after seeing the movie you're certain that nobody else could have performed it. Bruce Willis is expertly cast and can create a sad, quiet man who, at the end, does exactly that thing that you're sort of hoping Bruce Willis will do in any movie because holy cats is this man good at doing that thing.
Also: bonus points for anybody who casts Bob Balaban in anything.