BEFORE: Kristen Wiig carries over from "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", and I think you can probably see where I'm going with this, with just two days until the Age of Ultron. Or maybe not, maybe my linking is only blatantly obvious to me, I can't really tell. But after tomorrow's film my blog may be dark for a couple days, for reasons I'll explain tomorrow - it will NOT be because I'm viewing the new "Avengers" film over and over. But let me be clear, this film was a last-minute addition to extend my chain, so that I'd be ready for the Age of Ultron on Sunday, but now it looks like I'll have to play catch-up on Tuesday. Damn it.
THE PLOT: Having both coincidentally cheated death on the same day, estranged twins reunite with the possibility of mending their relationship.
AFTER: In last night's review of "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", I tried to describe the difference between story problems and format problems. Let me see if I can describe it better, because today's film also has format problems. Last Christmas, I made my annual mix-tape of songs, to send out with my cards to friends and family. I chose a theme of a cappella music, but some very contemporary acts, like Pentatonix (check them out if you get a chance) and other acts that were on "The Sing-Off". I didn't have quite enough for a whole CD, so I went back into my collection of CDs and picked out some older tracks to round out the field, but I felt that the arrangements on most of the songs were still very innovative, very fresh. I tend to favor tracks that present familiar songs, but in new and clever ways. On Christmas Day, when visiting with family, one of my aunts thanked me for sending her this year's mix, commenting on how classic it was, and how this was a nice change from my usual rock or alternative tracks. I thought, "What does she mean, classic? Those tracks were CONTEMPORARY a cappella, from albums in current release, with vocal percussion and some really new arrangements!" Then I realize she was confusing the content of the songs with the format, which was 100% vocal. To her, this meant that the whole thing was a throwback to the time of Mitch Miller and choral groups like Singers Unlimited (no need to check them out, you're not missing much). I didn't have the heart, or the time, to correct her, it was much easier for her to think of the mix as classic, and enjoy it, and I could go on, secure in the knowledge of how modern it really was.
Story = content, what the characters do and say. If you're going to tell me that THIS guy goes here and talks with THAT guy, which leads them to do something together, and talk about life or whatever, I've got no problem with that. But it's the WAY that this information is presented that sometimes gets called into question. That's a format problem. If you're going to show Walter Mitty having daydreams, then a set of "real" adventures, well, forgive me for wondering how real those adventures really are, because as we've already established, this is a guy, by your own admission, who daydreams a lot.
A format problem sometimes occurs, at least in my opinion, when an actor plays a gay character. This creates a conundrum for me, because unless the actor is gay in real life, this usually involves acting or speaking in a certain manner, and to put that sort of queeniness on is (again, in my opinion), the modern equivalent of blackface. It consists of a certain set of stereotypes - not the limp wrists and high-pitched voice seen in 1950's portrayals of gay men, but it now involves a sort of frailness, a fragility if you will. See Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Flawless", or Greg Kinnear in "As Good As It Gets". Now, if the actor happens to be gay in real life, this sets up another conundrum, which is - to what degree can we really call that "acting"? And how queeny should an actor be when playing a gay character? Should he be more like Tom Hanks in "Philadelphia", or more like Nathan Lane in "The Birdcage"?
I think Hollywood has made great strides - I'm a straight man so I don't really have a dog in this fight, but I would rather see a film that didn't fall back on silly stereotypes when it happens to have a gay character. Putting a gay male character in a dress just shows me that someone doesn't really get it at all - sure, there may be some overlap between homosexuals and cross-dressers, but I figure that it's nowhere near 100%, and most modern people should understand the difference by now. Some men are transvestites and not gay, and many men are gay and don't feel the desire to dress like a woman. Kudos to films like "Brokeback Mountain" (I guess) for showing men being manly men together and not feeling the need to cheapen that depiction by putting a man in a dress. Real gay men can also be cowboys. Or cops, or construction workers, you get the idea. My point is that gay does not necessarily mean feminine.
Anyway, one of the central characters here is gay, and he does wear a dress at one point. But it's Halloween, so maybe that's OK. What am I saying, of course it's OK, he can wear a dress if he wants, Halloween or not, or if the story dictates that he wear a dress. I'm just questioning what the film says by putting him in a dress, thereby the use of this as a stereotype creates the format problem. For good measure, he's also suicidal, and the victim of an incident when he was underage. Because when you're falling back on gay stereotypes, why not go all the way? But hey, this is the actor who played the very queeny "Stefon" character on SNL for so many years, and he never got any criticism for it, so it must be OK, right?
His twin sister, who he tries to reconnect with after 10 years apart, is also a walking stereotype, but the kind seen in dark romances like "Your Friends & Neighbors". She's dissatisfied with her marriage, flirting with other guys, and lying to her husband about several important things. She's living in a house of cards, by her own design, which could collapse at any time.
This probably did really well at Sundance and other film festivals, where dark material is often rewarded. Yep, I can still spot them - this won the Screenwriting Award at Sundance, and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. But to me it feels more like an extended version of a student film, and I don't mean that in a good way. If I had a nickel for every student film I've seen that started with a suicide attempt, I'd have a whole lot of nickels. I remember that after film students at NYU realized they'd be shooting on black and white film, you could not find a bottle of Hershey's chocolate syrup anywhere near campus, because all the complicated artiste girls and introverted Goth boys were using it as a cheap substitute for fake blood in their films. Razor blades were in short supply as well.
(NOTE: There's some real heavy-handed symbolism near the end that also evokes the worst things about student films. I won't spoil it here, but you'll know it when you see it.)
I know what the film WANTS me to think - these are two damaged characters who somehow became damaged because they spent time apart, and that getting back in touch with each other will "fix" them. Well, I can choose not to believe that. Because the format of the film seems to suggest that they're really messed up, whether together or apart, but I think maybe they're going to keep screwing up, just in different ways, until they start being honest with other people and possibly themselves. Plus, I don't think you can say a film has a happy ending if it doesn't really have an ending at all.
Also starring Bill Hader (last seen in "This Is 40"), Luke Wilson, Ty Burrell (last seen in "Friends With Money"), Joanna Gleason (last seen in "Last Vegas"), Boyd Holbrook (last seen in "Milk").
RATING: 3 out of 10 scuba lessons
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