BEFORE: John C. Reilly carries over from "Tale of Tales", which he was just in for about 5 minutes - let's hope he's got a larger role in today's film.
THE PLOT: In the Middle ages, a young servant fleeing from his master takes refuge at a convent full of emotionally unstable nuns. Posing as a deaf-mute man, he must fight to hold his cover as the nuns try to resist temptation.
AFTER: Ever since "Filmworker", this has been a challenging week, with films that are real head-scratchers, if you know what I mean. It's been frustrating to not even be able to tell what some filmmakers were even GOING for with films like "Dogville" and "Beatriz at Dinner". I think I get the point of the fairy tales in "Tale of Tales", but still, it feels like any point being made is rather obtruse. And so I arrive at today's film, which is about nuns in a convent during medieval times, but since they talk and react almost exactly like modern women, I'm just wondering what the point of this little exercise was.
Sure, there's a style of comedy that just puts modern-speaking people into past situations, for comic effect - all of the Mel Brooks movies like "Blazing Saddles" and "History of the World: Part 1", there's no attempt made to have the actors talk and think like people in the Old West or in ancient Rome, and that's usually funny. But is that what's really going on here? This is not really a laugh-out-loud kind of spoof comedy, it's more subtle than that, but what, exactly was the intent here? It seems like somebody just wanted to see a bunch of women dressed as nuns using the F-word repeatedly, and then breaking their vows of chastity, fooling around and dancing naked in the woods - and that represents a very specific sort of fetish. I'd keep an eye on whoever enjoys watching that sort of thing if I were you.
I mean, is there a larger point to be made here, something about how impossible it is for religious people to keep their vows of chastity? I believe there's something unnatural about denying human sexual impulse, plus there's no logical or physical link between not having sex and being "holy", whatever that means, so why on earth would anyone do it? Just to say that they can be "closer to God" (more B.S.) or so they can feel superior to all the other humans who can't keep their pants on. But we've seen in the news, and the police reports, how this twists and transforms very religious people, if they deny these impulses within them, they'll only manifest in another way, and that can lead to duplicity, pedophilia and so on. All because they took a vow to a corrupt institution, in the name of an imaginary being that lives in the sky and sees all, loves everyone, but also wants to punish the unworthy in an eternal lake of hellfire. Umm, no thanks, I'll pass.
I can MAYBE allow the comedy here if that's the point, to showcase how ridiculous religion was back then (and by extension, still is today). But again, it's tough to say if that was really the intent here, or if somebody just wanted to make a slightly goofy comedy about nuns getting crazy on wine, drugs and dancing naked.
Ah, a little research tells me that this story is loosely based on "The Decamaron", specifically two of the stories from the third "day", but honestly I know very little about "The Decamaron", written by Giovanni Boccaccio - but that's two films based on Italian authors' work in a row, I guess I had a hunch when I programmed the two films next to each other.
But I feel there are so many in-jokes here that never really got explained well - are those references to "The Decameron", which hardly any non-literature majors have ever read? Like, why did Ginevra keep asking Marta, over and over, if she was really from Garfagnana? She already answered that question, like three or four times, so why keep asking? Who even cares where she's from, and why would she lie about that? Dumb it down - at least that part of it.
Filmed on location in Tuscany - so there's a very real possibility that this film was made just so a director and some actors could get a free vacation in Italy on the movie studio's dime. But it also occurs to me that this movie feels, in some ways, like the opposite of "Dogville", which featured a woman on the run who hides out in a town where all the men want to have sex with her, and this film features a man on the run who hides out in a convent, where all the women want to have sex with him.
Also starring Dave Franco (last seen in "Nerve"), Alison Brie (last heard in "The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part"), Nick Offerman (ditto), Kate Micucci (last seen in "Sandy Wexler"), Aubrey Plaza (last seen in "A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III"), Molly Shannon (last seen in "Casa de mi Padre"), Fred Armisen (last seen in "Battle of the Sexes"), Jemima Kirke, Lauren Weedman (last seen in "Wilson"), Adam Pally (last seen in "Shimmer Lake"), Jon Gabrus, Paul Reiser (last seen in "Concussion"), Paul Weitz.
RATING: 4 out of 10 "Our Fathers" said as penance
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