BEFORE: Well, I went and did it last night - I found a path to the end of the year, I guess that would be Movie #4,000 - planned for December. And yes, that's a Christmas movie - it's 75 degrees out today and I've set my sights on Christmas, hard to believe but that's where we find ourselves. Things could change, obviously, between now and then, but it's comforting to know there's at least one path to the end of 2021, that another "perfect year" is possible, and that would make three in a row. It can be done, as I've proven - assuming all my information is correct, and I stay a little flexible in the event that it's not.
Hayden Christensen carries over from "Shattered Glass".
THE PLOT: A group of young male friends become obsessed with five mysterious sisters who are sheltered by their strict religious parents in suburban Detroit in the mid 1970's.
AFTER: What I regret not doing these last few years is prominently mentioning who the director is on each film - that should have been important, right? Like I should say right before listing the actors who directed this - Sofia Coppola - and what the last film I saw directed by her was, which would be "On the Rocks". Maybe I should go back and retroactively update each film - but that would take me HOURS, perhaps even days. If I weren't due at the movie theater in a few hours, it's something I would consider doing on a quiet holiday weekend - but as it is, I've got no time for it.
But it seems rather important to point out that this was Sofia Coppola's debut feature - young filmmakers tend to be quite over-dramatic at first, or they go for the cheap plot moves, like, say, suicide, which is a narrative cop-out both in movies and in life, if you ask me. Some would say it's the coward's way out, and both in films and in life, I think it should only be considered when there are no viable alternatives, because it's permanent and undoable, and then everyone else around the suicide victim isn't quite sure how to react, and this has a jarring effect on them and the audience as well. It's the dramatic version of a "cheap laugh", just without the humor - or what some writers have their characters do when they've metaphorically painted that person into a corner, and it often seems like maybe a better writer could have found a way out of the situation.
Using that same device more than once, however, well that really is going to feel like a cop-out, several times over. Right? Well, I don't know what to do with this character, so maybe he (or she) just takes their own life, problem solved. Only, was anything solved, or resolved? I'm not sure, or did the writer just go for the cheap move that had the side benefit of ending things without really resolving anything?
This story is told from the P.O.V. of one of the younger high-school boys who are in the orbit around the five sisters - four of the sisters are in high-school, ages 14, 15, 16 and 17, and honestly that feels a bit convenient, that one's a freshman, the next is a sophomore, and so on. I guess Catholic families could be rather regular that way (did the parents have sex once a year on the same date, and conceive a daughter each time?). Sure, be fruitful and multiply, but jeez, at some point, give it a rest... I don't think we ever find out which boy is telling this story, perhaps it doesn't matter. I could have sworn that the narration was being provided by Hayden Christensen, who played one of the four OTHER boys who took the Lisbon girls to the homecoming dance, but no, that wasn't him, it was another actor.
Also quite conveniently, Mr. Lisbon is a math and/or science teacher at the same high school the Lisbon girls attend. Obviously this happens in America, that teachers live in the same town or district they teach in, but it's probably hell on any teenager to have to go to that same high school where one of their parents teaches. I mean, I guess they'll always have a ride to school, but they have to spend all day in their parent's workplace, and then every kid in their class is also going to be familiar with their father or mother, and the embarrassment factor is potentially quite high - OK, maybe I can start to see why these girls wanted to commit suicide.
But come on, there's so much to live for, like those first tentative yet also possibly horrible dating experiences, and there are so many great 1970's songs to listen to, as this movie demonstrates. I guess once their parents made them throw away the cool rock records, that was the beginning of the end. And once Lux (the, umm, second-oldest daughter?) stayed out all night after the dance and that meant she probably had sex with her date, I guess that was the beginning of the end? Can we therefore draw the conclusion that the sex wasn't that great, or maybe it was, and therefore she should kill herself immediately after, because life just isn't going to get any better after she loses her virginity? Again, I feel like maybe there's some faulty logic at work if you try to follow that line of thinking.
What's the overall point here, that teen boys are simple, but teen girls are extremely complicated? If so, why do you suppose that is, could it be that parents hold them to a different, perhaps impossible, standard? Maybe the message is that kids are eventually all going to grow up and start having "adult" experiences, and parents can't change this fact, and it's pointless and counter-productive for them to even try?
Or is the point that we build up certain experiences in our mind in anticipation of them, and then once they finally happen and don't live up to our expectations, we then spend the rest of our lives chasing that damn dragon to try and make things better, when we should just learn to be complacent with the things that do come our way? I'm just not sure, and I'm not sure that the director here was able to come up with a clear message, or if she just put together a bunch of things that happened, and hoped for the best - which is something that a first-time director might be likely to do.
I sort of side with the adult character, seen late in the film, who pokes fun at the Lisbon girls by jumping into a swimming pool, pretending to drown, who shouts out, "Look at me, I'm a teenage girl, and my life is SO complicated!" - or similar words to that effect. In other words, get over yourselves, teen girls.
NITPICK POINT: This film takes place outside Detroit - one public notice seen suggests the setting is Grosse Pointe, Michigan. So, umm, how is there a diary entry for one of the girls that mentions going on a whale-watching trip? I don't think there are any whales in the Great Lakes - maybe the whole family took a vacation on the East Coast, but this still feels a bit out of place. Also, I'm not sure that whale-watching trips were even a thing back in the 1970's - but I'm not quite sure how to check on this.
Also starring James Woods (last seen in "Once Upon a Time in America"), Kathleen Turner (last seen in "Serial Mom"), Kirsten Dunst (last seen in "Mona Lisa Smile"), Josh Hartnett (last seen in "Town & Country"), Michael Paré (last seen in "The Lincoln Lawyer"), A.J. Cook (last seen in "Elvis Meets Nixon"), Joe Dinicol (ditto), Hanna Hall, Leslie Hayman, Chelse Swain, Anthony DeSimone, Lee Kagan, Jonathan Tucker (last seen in "Charlie's Angels" (2019)), Noah Shebib, Robert Schwartzman, Joe Roncetti, Scott Glenn (last seen in "The Paperboy"), Danny DeVito (last seen in "Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond"), Chris Hale, Suki Kaiser, Dawn Greenhalgh (last seen in "Maps to the Stars"), Allen Stewart-Coates, Sherry Miller, Jonathan Whittaker (last seen in "Breach"), Michele Duquet, Murray McRae, Roberta Hanley, Paul Sybersma, Susan Sybersma, Peter Snider, Gary Brennan (last seen in "Molly's Game"), Charles Boyland, Dustin Ladd, Kristin Fairlie, Melody Johnson, Sheyla Molho, Ashley Ainsworth, Courtney Hawkrigg, Francois Klanfer, Mackenzie Lawrenz, Tim Hall, Andrew Gillies (last seen in "Fahrenheit 451"), Mairlyn Smith, Sally Cahill, Scot Denton, Catherine Swing, Timothy Adams, Michael Michaelessi and the voice of Giovanni Ribisi (last seen in "Middle Men").
RATING: 4 out of 10 diary entries
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