BEFORE: So much for my plans - it only took five days for me to start second-guessing my choices for January's films. This was going to be the slot for a film called "Filth", starring James McAvoy as a policeman with Jim Broadbent in a small role, thus putting two crime films in a row - only I looked down the cast list and I saw a cameo from an actor who's also in one of the horror films that I've been having great difficulty linking to. I checked out my cast lists, and I think there's a strong possibility that this film could help me in October, as it links to both "It: Chapter Two" via McAvoy, and another Stephen King film, "Salem's Lot", from the 1970's. I could ignore this, only I can't ignore this. A few days after I put my October chain together, of course I'm going to be noticing ways that I could potentially make it better. So I think maybe I'll withhold that film, it'll probably still be on Hulu come October, and if not, I'm willing to let it slide, and just keep it on my radar for the future.
The other thing I became aware of is that I've got two films coming up this week in a row, one is a remake of the other, and I'd been led to believe that they share an actress in common. Now I've learned that this may not be the case, and to connect them, I may have to watch another film in-between. That requires a slot, so there's one more reason to drop "Filth" for now, as there are only so many days in January. I'm thinking Jim Broadbent is probably more prominent in this film, as he carries over from "Smilla's Sense of Snow".
THE PLOT: A man becomes haunted by his past and is presented with a mysterious legacy that causes him to re-think his current situation in life.
AFTER: Well, at least I watched back-to-back mysteries. Though this isn't really any sort of whodunit story, it's more like a man's memories that need to be unraveled, revealing some truths about the past. Still, I'm glad I didn't include this one in the romance chain, because there's scarcely any romance in it. Bits about relationships, perhaps, but nothing overtly lovey-dovey.
Only five films into 2020, it didn't take long to find a film that subverts traditional linear narrative storytelling, instead opting for a sort of split narrative, multiple timelines representing the present and the past, as Tony Webster tells the story of his younger days to his ex-wife, then to his daughter, and pretty much anybody who will listen to him. Old people, am I right? Of course this is an ever-increasing trend in film over the last few years, some wonks in Hollywood are convinced that the public is bored with linear narratives, I guess - but this also combines the technique with the trend of unreliable narrators, as seen in films like "The Girl on the Train" - here the main character, Tony Webster, is quite old, so it's very possible that his memory is failing, or perhaps he's had a lot of time to think nostalgically about the past, and over time he may have come to regard incidents as taking place in a way very different from reality. This isn't necessarily dementia, it's just that over time we all tend to put our own spins on things we did, and this can distort our memories.
Tony's very self-centered, unforunately, which may explain why he's divorced - though he seems to have a friendly relationship with his ex-wife - and his pregnant daughter sort of keeps him at arm's length. Maybe she just doesn't want to be embarrassed by his surly behavior, we all tend to get embarrassed by our parents in one way or another, right? But he does bring his daughter to NCT (National Childbirth Trust, I think) birthing classes when his ex-wife's not available. And they make references to him "sharing a business" with his ex-wife, I guess that's his struggling camera shop which doesn't seem to have made the leap to digital cameras just yet. Umm, I think I know why the business is struggling. Old people, am I right?
Tony's world gets rocked by a letter from an estate lawyer that informs him he's been mentioned in an old friend's will, only the item bequeathed to him doesn't get delivered. The person in possession of the item is an old girlfriend of Tony's, so in order to get the item, he tries to contact her, only she doesn't respond, not to letters or to inquiries through the lawyer. Tony then starts relating the story of his relationship with this woman to his ex-wife, though it's notable that he never did this while they were married. Because reasons. This triggers that split-timeline narrative, as we see the events of Tony's school days unfold as he relates his tale.
Telling the story in this manner does preserve the secrets and twists as long as possible, I'll admit that. But it also causes just as many problems as it solves, if you ask me, and the main problem is the great confusion that gets created over WHEN exactly, things happened. I'm not sure if the past timeline unfolds in the proper order, or if Tony's story skips around quite a bit. I also got confused because there was a school-mate (Dodson) who committed suicide in the past, and then the school-mate who died in the more-recent-past (Finn) also took his own life, so I couldn't keep them straight for a while, I had to rewind to certain scenes just to figure out which classmate was which.
Then, during the flashbacks, there are these annoying little flash-forwards, where the audience sees a quick bit of something that hasn't happened yet, and it's all so very enigmatic. Yes, I understand that people's memories aren't completely chronological when we reminisce about the past, but in a movie I think a flash-forward is a big no-no, unless there's a really good reason for it. Here it's just used as a tease, something to shock us with a quick glimpse of something that seems important, but narratively that kind of poisons the well, because now we're all going to be waiting to learn about that thing that we're not supposed to know about yet, and you may find that you can't stop wondering about exactly what that thing is, and how that thing is going to come about.
(It's notable, I think, to mention here that the novel on which this film is based is divided into two sections - first, the scenes set in the 1960's at school, then the second section starts with Tony getting the letter from the lawyers. This makes much more sense to me, avoids a lot of the split-timeline stuff, and still preserves the secrets and twists that we're not supposed to know at first. So this trend of time-jumping in modern movies is unnecessary in this case, they could have told the story in film the same way that the book did, only someone chose not to.)
Tony also claims that he was never in love with Veronica, or maybe he said that he never had sex with her, but I think the flashbacks prove him wrong on both points. More importantly, he's forced to remember the reaction he had when he learned that his friend and Veronica were a couple, and he didn't take it well at all, and wrote them a nasty letter. This doesn't really jibe with him being "not in love" with her, it kind of proves the opposite, so what gives? Was Tony misremembering the past before, or is he misremembering it now, or did he, over time, block out the fact that he acted like a jerk, because he couldn't face that reality? All of that is fairly unclear.
I guess it's more important that re-connecting with Veronica causes all this self-reflection, and he learns that he has to own his actions and his assholish reactions to things. It doesn't change the past, but it allows him to be more friendly to the postman going forward, so there's that. Lessons to be learned include, but are not limited to: always tell your girlfriend how you feel about her, never introduce your girlfriend to your best friend, and never flirt with your girlfriend's mother. Are we all clear on those? OK, good. Because you don't want to be in your late sixties and realize that your relationship situations in your twenties played out all wrong because you were clueless. If you know that you took your chance, made your play and avoided all the mistakes, maybe you won't have so many regrets. Ah, who am I kidding, we're all going to have regrets when we're old, because the people who didn't get married will wish that they did, and the people who got married and/or divorced will wish that they didn't. That's just plain universal. Old people, am I right?
NITPICK POINT: What was up with Victoria's mother frying that egg in the flashback? She broke the egg into the frying pan, immediately said, "Whoops!" then picked up the whole frying pan and tossed it into a clogged sink with water in it. Umm, the egg landed in the pan, so what was the error? Did she have OCD or something, and the yolk didn't land perfectly or something? I'm not seeing the mistake, anyway you can't really mess up dropping an egg into a frying pan - if you're not a pro chef or trying specifically to make a perfect sunny-side-up egg, any result is probably acceptable. Then to dump the whole pan like that seemed like a huge over-reaction. Maybe British people are very picky about their eggs, and if the yolk gets broken they just fly off the handle, throw it all in the bin and start over? This was just weird, even for a Brit.
Also starring Charlotte Rampling (last seen in "Red Sparrow"), Harriet Walter (last seen in "The Young Victoria"), Michelle Dockery (last seen in "Hanna"), Emily Mortimer (last seen in "Mary Poppins Returns"), Matthew Goode (last seen in "Allied"), Billy Howle (last seen in "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"), Freya Mavor, Joe Alwyn (last seen in "Mary Queen of Scots"), James Wilby (last seen in "Howard's End"), Edward Holcroft (last seen in "Kingsman: The Golden Circle"), Peter Wight (last seen in "Lucky Break"), Hilton McRae (last seen in "Darkest Hour"), Jack Loxton, Timothy Innes (last seen in "The Favourite"), Andrew Buckley (last seen in "Jimi: All Is by My Side"), Karina Fernandez (last seen in "Mr. Turner"), Nick Mohammed (last seen in "Christopher Robin"), Charles Furness, Guy Paul.
RATING: 5 out of 10 non-answers in history class
No comments:
Post a Comment