BEFORE: Still trying to catch up - if I want to hit my Mother's Day film in time, I'm going to have to watch two movies in a 24-hour period very soon. I have done it before, it's not a big deal, I just need to pick a day when I'm not working, and I have more of those these days. Today I really had to do some laundry, and also "Masked Singer" was on, so it wasn't a good opportunity - but maybe on Friday or Saturday, as I'm working Thursday and Sunday at the theater. We're driving down to North Carolina on the morning of Mother's Day, so I'd better get on track. I'll have a week in May then when I'm not watching movies, because it's harder to do once we leave the state and I don't have a way to play DVDs, because not everything is streaming - at least I can try to catch up on "Daredevil" or "Only Murders in the Building" that week.
James Franco carries over from "About Cherry".
THE PLOT: An unsettling look at reality TV, where a disturbing hit game show has its contestants ending their lives for the public's enjoyment.
AFTER: It's another movie about deadly reality shows, I watched a few of those last year, "Jackpot" and "Self-Reliance" - but tonight's film is a few years old, and is also not a comedy. At least I don't think it is, not even a dark comedy - perhaps it's all a metaphor for something, if not then I suppose we have to take the film as a serious matter, at face value. But where's the fun in that?
The jump-off point for the plot is the climactic ending of a show very much like "The Bachelor", or "Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire", where there are multiple women vying for a man's heart, but by the final episode they've been narrowed down to two, and the man must pick one to marry. But here there's a twist, the potential bride not chosen is so upset that she shoots the groom and then commits suicide with the same gun. The host of the show is clearly affected by the experience, despite his handling of the situation that prevented further loss of life, he believes that he will still be fired after he makes comments in an interview about how the show should be held responsible, and also the viewers, and reality TV in general.
However, there's some legal loophole in California (?) that allows shocking violence to be aired if it was unplanned or unexpected, plus a recent legal challenge to the Supreme Court (?) has made suicide not illegal, which kind of doesn't make sense at all, but OK, sure, let's roll with that. I mean, does it make sense for suicide to be a felony? Because you can't really charge someone who succeeded at suicide with a crime, are you going to charge people who tried to commit suicide and failed? That would mean that they DIDN'T do the thing that was illegal, although they tried. Wouldn't it be better to get them some counseling or therapy instead of putting them in jail, where they could just hang themselves when the guards aren't looking?
During a meeting at the TV network, the plan comes together, but it's a HUGE leap in logic, and I have NITPICK POINTS, of course. This is set in a world where suicide is now legal, however that would seem to apply to the individual decision, maybe if someone wants to use the old Dr. Kevorkian suicide machine at home, or take some pills at home and go night-night, but creating a TV show where people can kill themselves on camera seems like a whole different thing. Plus the network wasn't held culpable for the first death because they didn't aid or abet the crime by giving the woman a gun, while in the proposed show they would be giving the potential suicide the gun, the knife, or whatever PLUS the airtime as a platform. The network skated because the first death was unexpected, but on the new show each death would be totally expected and planned, it should logically follow that one would be allowed and the other would not. So, umm, where's the legal challenge to the network planning this show?
The TV host, Adam Rogers, demands to have input regarding the format of the show. He wants the viewers to call in or text and pledge money, so that the suicide victim's surviving family will get more money for their deaths, nobody should have to kill themself for scale, in other words. Plus he wants the network to match the pledged money, so if people donate $100,000 the network will kick in the same, but jeez, $200,000 isn't a lot of money once you pay for funeral expenses and legal fees. Just saying. The TV show gets titled "This Is Your Death", and once they run background stories on the contestants, and the home audience understands why they are killing themselves, the show becomes a hit, lifting the WBC Network out of last place, and they end up getting third place for this time-slot. Well, "Survivor" and "American Idol" have been on for a while, and they still have faithful viewers...
Meanwhile the film follows Mason Washington, who used to clean the offices at the same network, and the money struggles he's having at home. He can't pay the bills on his custodian salary, and his boss won't give him enough hours to earn benefits, so he works a second job as a restaurant dishwasher. When he makes the mistake of telling Adam Rogers that his new show is "barbaric", Rogers tells the restaurant owner that his dishwasher is very rude, so he loses that job and can't find another one that he's qualified for. Mason has a disabled son and a daughter, he likes to drive them to school when he gets home from his night job, and his wife reminds him that they're behind on the mortgage, the water bill, the internet bill and the electric bill. It's not too hard to figure out that Mason's going to end up on "This Is Your Death" at some point, but it's a long, drawn out downward spiral to get there. You'd think at some point he'd apply for unemployment, or let his wife go full-time while he takes care of the kids, but those don't seem to be viable options for Mason for some reason.
Also meanwhile, Adam's sister is working as a pediatric oncology nurse, and we learn that Adam had been supporting her through drug addiction and depression, and that's given her a chance at getting her life back, however she does not approve of the fact that the checks she gets from Adam were earned working on a show where people take their own lives, it goes against everything she stands for. Yeah, but she still cashes the checks, I noticed. Eventually after a fight with the mother of a patient, she relapses and steals drugs, and we assume then loses her job as well. It's not hard to figure out where she's headed, either, although this would have been a much stronger statement if she were JUST doing it to show Adam that he's on the wrong path in hosting this show.
Working on the show has clearly changed Adam Rogers, he supposedly tweaked the show to be more life-affirming, but over time became more obsessed with ratings than with helping people. Or maybe it was being so close to that shooting that changed him, it's tough to say. But it all comes to a head during the season finale when agents show up to investigate the suicide from car exhaust a few episodes ago, when a fan in the audience got footage of the woman in the car moving while the stagehands wheeled the car away, so that means she didn't die on stage, and Adam may have helped things along once she was backstage. It's a fine line, I suppose, but if you ask me the show assisted with her suicide by giving her the car, attaching a hose to the exhaust, and also giving her the air time, so in the end, does it really matter? The FCC still would have shut this show down, unless this takes place after all the DOGE cuts to the federal agencies...
Anyway, maybe the show was never meant to have a second season, but at least they went out with a bang, the finale was very explosive, and everybody had a blast. There, I think I snuck in a couple of code words that can't possibly be considered spoilers. But the big problem here is that there's no way around it, the show is still using people's suicides as entertainment, and in fact the movie is doing the exact same thing, through the magic of special effects. But even knowing that doesn't make it any easier to take, and I really don't feel anyone should be entertained by this. If you are then I'm pretty concerned for you. It's supposedly based on Giancarlo Esposito needing to declare bankruptcy after he got divorced, and I guess he briefly considered arranging his own death to provide insurance money for his children. Nope, that doesn't make it any easier to watch, either.
People have been predicting for years that this is where reality TV has been headed - but it just hasn't happened yet. A couple weeks ago we screened "On Swift Horses" at the theater and director Daniel Minahan was there to talk about the film, he made a film back in 2001 called "Series 7: The Contenders" which was about a fake reality show where contestants would try to kill each other for rewards. And of course there was the fake radio ad for "Liberty City Survivor" in the video-game "Grand Theft Auto III", among others. As bad as reality TV can get, I think there's been more interest in 500-lb. people, sister wives, 90-day fiancées and Kardashians of late, so I don't think blood sports are ever going to fly on TV. But who knows, maybe after the Trump Depression there will be an opportunity.
Directed by Giancarlo Esposito
Also starring Josh Duhamel (last seen in "Safe Haven"), Giancarlo Esposito (last seen in "Beauty"), Famke Janssen (last seen in "All I Wish"), Caitlin FitzGerald (ditto), Sarah Wayne Callies, Chris Ellis (last seen in "The Watcher"), Lucia Walters (last seen in "The Mountain Between Us"), Brooke Warrington, Jaeden Noel, Garry Chalk (last seen in "American Dreamer"), Giles Panton, Scott Lyster (last seen in "Frankie & Alice"), Sean Tyson (ditto), Johannah Newmarch (last heard in "Needle in a Timestack"), Elizabeth Weinstein (ditto), Cory Gruter-Andrew (last seen in "Okja"), Christopher Pearce, William "Big Sleeps" Stewart (last seen in "Coffee & Kareem"), Aaron Hutchinson, Chelah Horsdal (last seen in "Connie and Carla"), Mark Brandon (last seen in "The Company You Keep"), Matthew James Tomkins, Milo Shandel (last seen in "Love, Guaranteed"), Clare Filipow (ditto), Fiona Hogan (last seen in "A Guy Thing"), Beatrice King (last seen in "Skyscraper"), Scott Patey, Alexei Geronimo, Matthew Kevin Anderson (last seen in "Welcome to Marwen"), Carolyn Anderson, Dan Payne (last seen in "The Cabin in the Woods").
RATING: 3 out of 10 job interviews
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