Life Itself (2018)

Year 13, Day 49 - 2/18/21 - Movie #3,751

BEFORE: Another busy day in the trenches - my wife's vaccine appointment today, and I volunteered to go with her, since I'd been to the exact same site two days before.  She didn't want to drive in the snow, so we took the subway, just like I did on Tuesday.  Same process, same route, same leaving three hours early just so we'd have "stupid time" in case something went wrong.  And if they wouldn't give her the shot early, like they did with me, well the casino is RIGHT THERE so we could kill some time on the slots before her appointment.  But they took her early, she didn't have to wait long, and everything went off without a hitch.

They wouldn't let me go inside with her, though - they were only allowing that for people with physical disablilities, people in wheelchairs or who had trouble walking and needed someone for literal support, not just emotional support.  So I was outside in the cold for about 45 minutes, in touch with her by text message - still very worth it if it meant she got her shot today and didn't have to reschedule. These vaccine sites are being run with military precision - quite literally, there are army or National Guard people in camo gear all over, they're very nice but I'm sure they could all kick anyone's ass if they start causing trouble.  And who knows more about checking paperwork or maintaining order than the military people do?  Thank you for your service, one and all. And your understanding in letting us both slip in a couple hours early. 

It's funny how when you get your vaccine appointment, it changes your perspective - suddenly you want to be very careful crossing the street or walking on the ice, because it would totally suck on any day to get hit by a car or break an ankle falling down, but it would doubly suck if one of those things prevented you from getting your vaccine dose.  Same goes for dying in an accident the day after, that would be like the shot got wasted on you - so the impetus is there now to be careful and stay healthy going forward.  It's also funny how many people ask for advice when they find out you got the shot - which web-site did you use, how long did you have to wait, what day/time did slots become available, and so on.  I'm happy to give advice to anybody who asks, because who cares, I got my shot, why wouldn't I give advice to friends and family?  I can't help friends who have senior relatives in other states, though, I only know the NY state system and what worked for us, other states are on different schedules, with different procedures and different eligibility rules at this specific time.  But man, it's like the damn "Hunger Games" out there, with every district scrambling for their share of the resources.  Before long we'll have some kind of gladiatorial games to decide who gets the vaccine - or maybe not.  But much can be said about how inequitable the system is right now, especially for people who don't have computer access or don't know how to book stuff online.  

Olivia Wilde carries over from "Third Person". And a rare birthday SHOUT-OUT to Spanish actress Laia Costa!  She'll be here again tomorrow, also. 

THE PLOT: As a young New York City couple goes from college romance to marriage and the birth of their first child, the unexpected twists of their journey create reverberations that echo over continents and through lifetimes. 

AFTER: The inside scoop here is that this film was written and directed by the creator of the TV series "This Is Us". I don't watch that show, but I've read a lot about it, how it's a split-timeline show that bounces back and forth between the past and the present, and that it's heavy on the drama, and over however-many episodes it slowly reveals the key information about the important events in this family's history, because why give everything away at the start when you can hook viewers in for seven seasons and then maybe a movie?  That's a good tip as to what tonight's film ended up being about, my unintended theme for the week is "lots of characters, several intersecting storylines and possible split timelines".  That's "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee", "Third Person" and today's film in a nutshell.  

There are five main acts in today's film, I'll try not to talk about how they're all connected because that would mean spoilers.  But good things happen, bad things happen, a couple terrible things happen, as auteurs try and try to depict this crazy thing called life in cinematic form.  People fall in love, people fall out of love, people leave other people in various ways, and yet somehow humans still continue to lurch forward awkwardly, some knowing who and what they want out of life, and others just taking it all as it comes, and dealing with it the best that they can.  Maybe you'll see a bit of your story reflected in the life of a Spanish foreman on an olive plantation or a NYC hipster punk singer, maybe you won't.  But they're all pieces of a big puzzle here, as they were in "Third Person" - but the difference lies in how the pieces come together, and whether or not they do so to your own personal satisfaction.  

As I said yesterday, I don't really like fake-out, and this film starts with a fake-out. But Act One is (eventually) about Will and Abby, and this act itself is a split-timeline, we see Will in a bad way after Abby has left him, then the story flashes back to explain how they got together in the first place. They met at a college costume party (shades of "Made of Honor" here) but they were dressed as characters from "Pulp Fiction" - pretty much the only film that pulls the split-timeline thing with me and gets a free pass for doing so. (That's gotta be a inside joke, I'm sure of it...) Will might be way more into Abby than Abby is into Will, but that's OK.  They also pull the "A Christmas Carol" bits here, where Will and his therapist can virtually travel into the past and observe moments from Will's past, and even Abby's past, though all that information is by nature second-hand, and they can't change the timeline, merely observe it.  

Abby wrote her college thesis about the "unreliable narrator" concept, and that's both the impetus for the action here and also another giant inside joke.  Her posited theory is that EVERY narrator is unreliable by default, and somehow that's a mix of 17th Century French philosophy as well as a take-down of every story, ever.  Umm, including this one?  But just because you make references to the potential faults of your own tale, that doesn't excuse those faults - I have a feeling that some writers think otherwise, though.  Anyway, Abby and Will get married, Abby gets pregnant, and eventually we learn the details of their break.  Again, no spoilers here if I can help it. But they definitely disagreed about the merits of Bob Dylan's album "Time Out of Mind", which tends to be a very divisive issue. 

Act Two concerns their daughter, Dylan Dempsey, that NYC punk rock singer that I mentioned. Act Three takes us to that olive plantation in Spain, where Javier gets promoted to foreman and earns the right to live on the plantation with his young wife., Isabel  They also get married and have a child, and that couple also has issues.  (It's probably about Bob Dylan again, isn't it? JK) Act Four is about their son, Rodrigo, who excels in track and heads off to college in America. And I won't say anything about Act Five, but again, if you're a fan of "This Is Us", maybe you can use some extrapolation and predict what eventually feels destined to happen.  

Different people narrate different segments - because everything is connected, after all.  And everything ultimately ends up being important, which I think is something they were trying to hint at in "Third Person", but by comparison, man, that film really dropped the ball.  This one just puts the pieces together better, and that's ultimately how it ends up generating all the feels.  Are the situations unlikely? Probably.  Are the narrators unreliable?  Definitely.  But who cares? 

Also starring Oscar Isaac (last heard in "The Addams Family"), Mandy Patinkin (last seen in "Wonder"), Jean Smart (last seen in "Lucky You"), Olivia Cooke (last seen in "Ready Player One"), Sergio Peris-Mencheta, Laia Costa, Alex Monner, Isabel Durant, Lorenza Izzo (last seen in "The House with a Clock in Its Walls"), Annette Bening (last seen in "The Report"), Antonio Banderas (last seen in "The Laundromat"), Samuel L. Jackson (last seen in "Sphere"), Jake Robinson (last seen in "Set It Up"), Charlie Thurston (last seen in "Money Monster"), Gabby Bryan, Bryant Carroll, Carmela Lloret, Caitlin Carmichael, Jordana Rose, Kya Kruse, Yeray Alba Leon, Pablo Laguens Abad, Javier Verdugo Luque, Adrian Marrero. 

RATING: 7 out of 10 slices of meat loaf