BEFORE: OK, new theme for this past week, it's really all been about outsmarting or fooling the other guy. Think about it: Ben-Hur had to outsmart his competition in the chariot race, then the CIA tried to fake the moon landing, Renton and Simon in "T2 Trainspotting" were trying to outsmart each other, Jane and Dan had to outsmart the Bishop gang in "Jane Got a Gun", and then the buddy cops had to keep the magic wand away from the other cops and the bad elves in "Bright". Easy peasy, right? Maybe you can say that's a constant theme in any and all action films, but I'm gonna roll with it, because it looks like the trend's going to continue today, as Will Smith carries over from "Bright".
THE PLOT: Retreating from life after a tragedy, a man questions the universe by writing to Love, Time and Death. Receiving unexpected answers, he begins to see how these things interlock and how even loss can reveal moments of meaning and beauty.
AFTER: Howard, the central character here, is clearly a man in crisis mode. He's still reeling from the death of his young daughter three years ago, and even though he's going through the motions of daily life and work, he's not really present, avoiding all company meetings and spending his time just going back and forth between the office, his apartment and the dog park. He's not eating or sleeping well, and is basically an emotional zombie, cut off from anything that might make him remember or have any feels. AND he rides his bicycle in Manhattan, even on the bridges, so that to me suggests he's got a death wish.
But his advertising agency is circling the drain, and this affects his three closest friends, who happen to also be his business partner and co-workers. To get the best deal in a company buyout, his "friends" decide to have him declared incompetent, and to do this, they hire a private detective to follow him around. The detective learns (don't ask how) that he's been writing letters to three abstract entities - Love, Time and Death. Which, in another coincidence, just HAPPEN to be the three driving forces that he claimed drive all advertising, in an attempt at an inspirational speech when his company started. Because we all want love, need more time, and fear death, and somehow this makes us buy more stuff. I'm not exactly sure this is how advertising works - in fact, are we even sure that advertising works at all, especially on today's jaded millennials? Just saying...
So Howard's three friends devise a plan to either snap him out of his funk, or have him declared incompetent - it's a little unclear which is more important, because either result will manage to work for them. I've got to call this as a NITPICK POINT, because characters need clear motivations, and the motivation for the scam that they concoct is quite unclear, and keeps shifting around. They hire three actors to play Love, Time and Death to then confront Howard in the real world, as if those cosmic beings are answering his letters. Then they HAPPEN to encounter an acting company with just three actors, who in their own ways, just HAPPEN to properly represent the three concepts.
But which of the actors should play which part? They seem naturally to gravitate toward casting the older woman as Death, the younger woman as Love, and the twenty-something black man as Time. But why? Isn't this a form of ageism, sexism and racism? Who says the old woman has to play Death, why can't she represent Time? Or Love? Why does the pretty girl play Love, couldn't Death appear as a younger, attractive woman?
Forget that, do this man's friends really have his best interests at heart, or are they just trying to save their company? OK, maybe these are dovetailing mutual interests, but the concept is just so misguided here. "We really care about our friend/boss, so we're going to have him proven mentally incompetent." How does that make any sense? Not to mention, if he was already on the edge (for FIVE YEARS) before they took action, isn't there a chance that convincing him that he's seeing the personification of abstract entities likely to push him OVER the edge? He's deep in grief, let's make him think that he's also hallucinating, sure, what a great plan.
Then there are these three friends, and each one ends up bonding with one of the actors they hired. Wouldn't you know, each one forms a friendship that helps them see things differently, and also leads to a solution in each one of THEIR personal lives? Plain and simple, this story is manipulation, on an emotional level as well as on a "How the universe works" level. I don't let religious leaders tell me how the universe works, or fails to, so I'm certainly not going to let a movie do that, either.
You might think that the "Love" character would give Howard's friend romantic advice, but her main concern is about his daughter, who he's estranged from after a divorce from her mother. Her "great" advice is that even though his daughter doesn't want to see him, he doesn't need her permission to love his daughter. Great, so this turns him into a pushy dad at best, and a stalker at worst. Maybe his daughter just needs some space and time away from him, only now she's not going to get it. And maybe these actors should keep their crappy advice to themselves.
So, is Howard crazy or just damaged? The jury's still out on this - first he seems crazy because he just wants to topple dominos for days on end AND he writes these letters to abstract concepts. THEN maybe he's not, because it seems like some of his actions are having some therapeutic effects, and he is reachable, through his friends' actions. Then he seems crazy again, because he believes the falsehood, and is able to have these abstract conversations with the actors playing the entities. Then we learn more stuff at the end, and we're sort of back into crazy town.
I saw the ending coming a mile away, because I'm seen every episode of "The Twilight Zone" (including the one with Robert Redford, hint hint). I watched them all when I was a kid, and I got a feel for the cosmic sense of irony that seemed to pervade through all the episodes. But at a time in my life when I was trying to sort out what's real, what's a story and what's just plain impossible, they were a big help to me, because they often contradicted each other, so if any of them were fantasy, then logically they were ALL fantasy. To me they represented a form of comparative religion. If they ever bring back that show again, they should offer the hosting/show-runner job to M. Night Shyamalan, because I think his fascination with twist endings possibly rivals Rod Serling's.
My main NITPICK POINT tonight concerns the plan to secretly video-tape Howard talking to the three actors who represent Love, Time and Death, and to then "digitally remove" the actors, so that he'll be seen in the footage talking to no one, and therefore crazy. This is technologically impossible, given the state of editing technology today. Perhaps a giant, expensive special effects house could do this for millions of dollars, but nobody here had that kind of budget. Let's say Howard was talking to the Death character on the subway, in order to remove the Death character, there would need to be footage shot from the same angle of the same subway car without her in it, so that there would be something to replace her in the video. Since that didn't exist, removing her from the scene would not be possible. Yet we're led to believe that it was done.
I've got other issues over things that are not possible, but I'm going to withhold them to avoid spoilers. This could easily turn into a very grief-filled year, because I've got dying mother characters coming up for Mothers Day, dying father characters for Father's Day, and dead spouses worked into the chain too. Well, at least that's a theme.
Also starring Edward Norton (last heard in "Sausage Party"), Kate Winslet (last seen in "Labor Day"), Keira Knightley (last seen in "Atonement"), Michael Peña (last seen in "Vacation"), Naomie Harris (last seen in "Southpaw"), Helen Mirren (last seen in "Trumbo"), Jacob Latimore, Enrique Murciano, Ann Dowd (last seen in "Our Brand Is Crisis"), Kylie Rogers, Mary Beth Peil (last seen in "The Odd Couple II"), Natalie Gold, Liza Colon-Zayas.
RATING: 3 out of 10 grief counseling sessions
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