Review

The Great Gatsby

Released: 2013
Director: Baz Lurhmann
Starring: Carey Mulligan, Leonardo DiCaprio & Tobey Maguire

Grade: A-

While no one in their right mind would call Baz Lurhmann’s The Great Gatsby a romantic comedy, it is a film obsessed with romance and relationships: lost loves, familial affections, infatuated friendships, unhappy marriages, and passionate affairs. It’s a sumptuous adaptation, one which depicts the roaring twenties as a stylized, saturated era in which the upper crust live in houses the size of museums, socialites are enchantingly blasé, and the parties rival the biggest Vegas show. There’s nothing subtle in Lurhmann’s world, and many reviews have criticized him for focusing on the glitz, glam, and romance while ignoring the book’s larger condemnation of all that opulence. I would argue, however, that the intention of Lurhmann’s film is not to romanticize the era, but to examine the subjectivity of the human experience.

Rather than depict the reality of New York in the 1920s (something a period piece like Downtown Abbey tries to do in England), the camera depicts the perception of New York in the 1920s. The colors aren’t really that bright, the cars aren’t really that fast, the houses aren’t really that large. That’s just how Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire), the film's narrator, drunk on booze and elation, experiences them. All human beings are limited to experiencing life from one specific point of view. While we can try to empathize with others, we can literally only see the world through our own two eyeballs. Nick claims to be able to see things objectively, but his perspective is still a subjective one.

Nick is fascinated with perspective. Ever the watcher and perennial outside, Nick views himself as both a part of and outside of what happens to him. During a rousing bacchanal, Nick enjoys the liberating feeling of being drunk, but remains aware of the party as part of the larger New York milieu. That age-old literary trope “the unreliable narrator” manifests itself visually in the look, feel, and tone of the film. Things are bright, loud, and glittering because that's how they look to a college boy who has never seen decadence like this before. It’s only in the background, in quick shots of a butler dumping half-empty martini glasses into a bucket, or fishing champagne bottles out of a pool, or chipping away at an ice block in sweltering heat, that Lurhmann hints at the reality Nick chooses to ignore. Once the party is over, someone has to clean up the mess. Only Lurhmann’s camera, seemingly accidentally, captures those moments of drudgery that make the glamour possible.

Understanding this subjective presentation of the story is crucial to understanding Gatsby himself (a charming Leonard DiCaprio). The movie doesn’t condemn Gatsby’s flaws because our point of view character doesn’t see them. When Gatsby reunites with Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan), we see a romanticized version of their reconnection. The film depicts their love in a soft glow because Nick, won over by Gatsby’s dedication to his former love, sees their romance as tragic, beautiful, and passionate. Gatsby gives Daisy a scrapbook of her life, containing letters, pictures, and newspaper clippings; he is so infatuated with her and she is so infatuated with herself that they both see it as a testament to true love. Lurhmann doesn’t knowingly introduce an ominous music cue to let us know something is deeply, deeply wrong with this relationship, and that makes it easy to assume Lurhmann doesn’t think there is anything wrong with it. Yet the film’s ending assures us Lurhmann is aware of the dark side of the decadent coin.

After her secret affair with Gatsby is brought into the open and Daisy accidentally kills her husband’s mistress in a car accident, only Gatsby remains under the powerful illusion of true love conquering all. Daisy returns to her husband, selfishly fleeing East Egg, and Gatsby is shot in retribution for her crime. Both Daisy and Gatsby are absurdly childlike, two adolescents playing at being fancy adults. Gatsby dies with the idealistic notion that Daisy is ready to run away with him, unable to deal with the idea she ever loved anyone but him. Daisy refuses to attend Gatsby’s funeral or say goodbye to her cousin Nick, as always taking the easy way out when things get hard.

Nick is so infatuated by Gatsby, so sure of his friend’s moral righteousness, that he is literally driven to a sanitarium after he dies, unable to cope in a world without Gatsby. As the winter of his unhappiness fades and the flowers of spring blossom around him, Nick finishes his novel, initially titling it Gatsby, then adding a few words to make it The Great Gatsby. From Nick’s point of view, this is a moment of triumph. He’s found catharsis in telling the story of the summer he spent with his enigmatic neighbor. Yet there’s something troubling about Nick’s hero worship. He claims Gatsby is completely innocent in the tragedy inflicted on him. While he may not have been driving the car that killed Myrtle or had an affair with her in the first place, Gatsby is still deeply disturbed. He’s a man who erased his identity, fabricated a new persona, based his entire self-worth on his bank account, and dedicated his life to creating a fantasy world for a former love interest. From Gatsby’s point of view, dedicating five years of your life to becoming rich and building a dream life for a woman who is married to another man is a sweeping romantic gesture. The ultimate tragedy of the film is that Nick never realizes that isn’t true.

So is Lurhmann’s film a perfect adaptation? No. I was rather uninspired for the first twenty minutes or so when the telling-a-recent-tragic-story conceit made the film feel too much like Moulin Rouge. I enjoyed watching the over-the-top party scenes in the way I enjoy watching music videos, but they didn’t elicit anything deeper than visual appreciation. The CGI is used so abundantly in the first world-building portion of the movie that I was sure I was watching scenes from The Great Gatsby: The Video Game. (I was much more appreciative of the tour of Gatsby’s house that seemed to take place in a physical space with huge walls full of paintings, two story closets, and winding staircases.) And while I understand the desire to preserve Fitzgerald’s prose, I found most of Nick’s narration to be both distracting and unnecessary. The cast perfectly conveyed the emotions Nick so carefully explained in voiceover, and I wish Lurhmann had trusted his actors to tell the story without all the exposition.

The film only begins to sing once Gatsby appears and the main ensemble is allowed to bounce off one another without the CGI tracking shots and elaborate production numbers. DiCaprio is equal parts boyishly charming and unsettlingly insecure, finding a way to display both Gatsby’s social awkwardness and the way that awkwardness comes across as charm. (Just look at his first meeting with Daisy where DiCaprio plays everything with a stone-faced earnestness that makes the whole sequence absolutely hilarious.) Carey Mulligan is a fantastic match for him, her Daisy not exactly jubilant but all the more alluring for the sadness she exudes with every sigh. She wants her daughter to be a fool because she isn’t one. She may play at being girlish and stupid, but she’s smarter than she lets on, she’s just too self-centered and too cowardly to use her intelligence to produce anything good. Maguire doesn’t make much of an impression as Nick (he’s a bit too smiling and cheerful for such an introverted figure), but it’s a hard part to capture and Maguire is by no means a huge burden on the film, he just doesn’t find the complexity Elizabeth Debicki (as Jordan Baker) and Joel Edgerton (as Tom Buchanan) bring to their smaller roles.

Perhaps most importantly, what Lurhmann presents on screen made me think. So much so, in fact, that I was motivated to write a (slightly off-topic) review about it. Part of this is due to the strong source material: Fitzgerald’s themes of class privilege, upward mobility, the past vs. the present, and the shallowness of the American dream remain scarily relevant today. And yet Lurhmann deserves his credit too, for crafting a film in which his trademark opulent style compliments rather than overshadows those themes. The film idolizes Gatsby the way Nick does, and Lurhmann leaves it up to the audience, each with their own unique point of view, to determine whether Gatsby is a figure of everlasting optimism or one of decadent delusion.

Reality factor: As a huge fan of British literature from this era (Mrs. Dalloway is my favorite book) it is so bizarre to see the limited role WWI played on the American consciousness in the 1920s. While Gatsby mentions the war a few times, the story mostly focuses on the boom and decadence of the postwar period. British literature set in this era, on the other hand, is fixated on The Great War: how it affected the men who fought in it and how it destroyed the 19^th century worldview forever. America, with its geographical distance and limited time spent in the war, just didn’t experience that level of cultural destabilization. Instead we just threw parties. [2 out of 5]

Eye-candy factor: I’m sure a lot of people went gaga over Leo in his well-tailored suits, but I was all about those comfy sweaters he wore when bumming around with Daisy. Also that one-piece bathing suit was pretty great. [4 out of 5]

Aww factor: The scene where Gatsby shows Daisy the house he essentially built for her is delightful to watch because DiCaprio just seems so damn happy. The utter glee as he throws his shirts at her is infectious, and I think it would be impossible to leave the theater without understanding why Nick idolizes him as the epitome of optimism.  

[3 out of 5]

Review

ROCK OF AGES

Released: 2012
Director: Adam Shankman
Starring: Julianne Hough & Diego Boneta (and Tom Cruise)

Grade: C-

 

As a big fan of guilty pleasure movies I had high hopes Rock of Ages would fall squarely into the so-bad-it’s-good category. Sadly, the movie is not so-bad-it’s-good, so much as so-bad-it’s-boring; a shiny, sleek, dull tale of 1980s hair metal that gets so bogged down by lifeless performances that not even the best Journey songs can save it.

Admittedly, I’m not exactly the right demographic for this film, a jukebox musical set in 1987 with a score made entirely of ’80s power ballads. Like The Wedding Singer, The Carrie Diaries, and the upcoming ABC sitcom The Goldbergs, Rock of Ages relies heavily on ’80s nostalgia to make its audience feel warm and fuzzy. Which means we get jokes about men with long hair, references to Michael Jackson getting pale, and riffs on Dirty Dancing. As a child of the ’90s, I recognize the songs, but don’t have memories of belting them out in my wild and crazy youth (if there were a musical made up of Spice Girls, Hanson, and Britney Spears songs I would be all over it). For better or for worse, I can't watch this movie with nostalgia-colored glasses. At its best, the film uses one song to unite characters in different locations with different problems all belting out the same lyrics. At its worst, people just stand around and sing songs you kind of like.

Probably indicative of how much thought went into these characters, the film’s DVD cover prominently displays the most famous cast members with superlatives like “The Puritan,” “The Diva,” “The Dreamer” and “The Legend.” The characters are one-dimensional archetypes you've seen in countless movies before. Alec Baldwin and his friend Russell Brand own a famous but financially struggling club called The Bourbon Room on LA's Sunset Strip. It’s where aspiring musician with a heart of gold Drew (Diego Boneta) works as a barback It's also where he helps our heroine Sherrie (Julianne Hough) get a job as a waitress as soon as she steps off the bus from Oklahoma (after getting her suitcase full of records stolen, LA is the worst!) Catherine Zeta-Jones is a moralizing Christian (wed to philandering mayor Bryan Cranston) determined to rid Los Angeles of moral corruption. Tom Cruise is as a legendary rockstar named Stacee Jaxx who is leaving his band for a solo career with the help of his greedy manger Paul Giamatti. Malin Akerman is a mousy Rolling Stone's reporter who falls for Stacee. And Mary J. Blige is a strip club owner with a hardened but charitable heart.

Following in the footsteps of pioneering movies like Coyote Ugly and Burlesque, Sherrie is a small town girl with big city dreams who wants to be a famous singer but ends up working at a strip club. Meanwhile Catherine Zeta-Jones crusades to shut down The Bourbon Room, Stacee tries to figure out who he is as a solo artist, Drew falls in love with and then dumps Sherrie (he thinks she cheated on him with Stacee) before selling out for his own musical career (he joins a preppy boy band). Elsewhere Alec Baldwin struggles to keep The Bourbon Room afloat and Russell Brand proves he can land a joke no matter how weak the material.

Like Hairspray, director Adam Shankman’s previous attempt at a movie musical, Rock of Ages can’t quite seem to find a way to blend the songs and book scenes. My current theory is this has something to do with the lack of applause. In live theatre applause is a natural button to a song and a transition from the fantastical production numbers to the more grounded book scenes. On screen, high energy songs just end and people start talking again. I've yet to see a modern day movie musical that makes the transition work seamlessly. It doesn’t help that while Rock of Ages' dialogue may have played well in a big Broadway stage, it feels hokey when it takes place on a real street. (Upon seeing The Bourbon Room Sherrie exclaims, “I have like 10 record that were recorded there.” “Don’t you mean had?” Drew quips.)

The movie is based on a highly successful 2009 Broadway musical which quickly became a critical hit and fan favorite (it’s still running today). In contrast, the movie adaptation tanked both critically and at the box office. How can you explain that disparity? I think a lot of it comes down to tone.

Diego Boneta and Julianne Hough are just too earnest in their roles as star-crossed lovers. (Which is unsurprising given that Boneta’s previous roles include a telenovela and a stint on 90210, and Hough was a dancer on Dancing With the Stars before finding greater success as Ryan Seacrest’s beard.) The film is bogged down by their by-the-numbers romance and perpetual duets. Weirdly, it also seems no one told Tom Cruise he was in a comedy (even though Stacee has a Scotch-carrying monkey named Hey Man). Cruise plays everything like he’s in an indie drama about an aging rocker (and he’s not bad in that film, it’s just not this film). His voice (or his autotune) is pleasant, but he can’t find the humor behind Stacee Jaxx’s stoic, serious performer. Instead he just comes across like a stoic, serious performer.

Although I never saw it myself, I suspect what made Rock of Ages so successful on Broadway was its fun, self-referential attitude. The characters may take themselves seriously, but the actors are in on the joke, allowing the audience to see the humor in all that commitment to rocking out. It’s a tricky tone to pull off on film (something like Baz Lurhmann’s Strictly Ballroom does it remarkably well, and Glee is occasionally successful at it as well). Russell Brand, doing his Russell Brand thing, Catherine Zeta-Jones as the vampy villain, and Malin Akerman as the dowdy reporter who experiences a sexual awakening come closest to finding the right balance, but sadly the film’s three leads are not up to the task. What could have been ridiculously stupid-fun ends up feeling dull and plodding. There's no denying the music is infectious, and that alone saves the movie from becoming a total drag to sit through. In trying to parody an era, Rock of Ages captures the glam and glitz but forgot to be funny along the way. 

Reality factor: I know that we’re not supposed to be too concerned with character motivations, but Sherrie’s desire to be a singer is weirdly dropped for most of the film. At one point Mary J. Blige informs her, “It’s not fame and fortune you’ve been looking for, it’s love.” Umm, I’m pretty sure she came looking for a career, but okay. [0 out of 5]

Eye-candy factor:  Yes he makes us all uncomfortable, but Tom Cruise does have a great body. Now let’s never speak of this again. [3 out of 5] 

Aww factor: Baldwin and Brand’s third act love confession set to “I Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore” is both funnier and sweeter than anything Hough and Botega do for the rest of the film. It’s a glimpse of what Rock of Ages could have been with the right cast of actors, rather than a random collection of pretty faces.   

[5 out of 5 for them; 1 out of 5 for the movie as a whole]

Review

BEAUTIFUL CREATURES

Released: 2013
Director: Richard LaGravenese
Starring: Alice Englert & Alden Ehrenreich

Grade: A- 
(NOTE: This movie was graded on a camp-value curve)

For the first twenty minutes I couldn’t quite decide what to think of Beautiful Creatures. It’s essentially Twilight set in the South, with witches instead of vampires, and the genders of the main characters reversed. For the first couple of scenes the film didn’t do much to distinguish itself from its supernatural romance predecessor, but at the twenty-minute mark something magical happened. As our star-crossed lovers bantered un-wittily, the camera swung around to reveal Jeremy Irons (or, as he will henceforth be known, Academy-Award-Winning-Actor-Jeremy-Irons), clad in a crisp, white, Asian-inspired housecoat that Liberace would die for, accessorized with Aviator sunglasses, leaning against the pillar of his mansion and inviting everyone inside with a heavy Southern drawl. What started as a boring teen romance suddenly took a sharp turn into Ed Wood levels of camp and I was onboard faster than you can say Plan 9 From Outer Space.

Beautiful Creature’s protagonist, Ethan Wate, is a charming Southern teenager with a tragic past (his mom died), who is still totally sensitive and intellectual (which we can tell because he loves Slaughterhouse Five and only reads banned books). What Ethan wants more than anything is to escape his tiny town of Gatlin, South Carolina and explore the world. We meet Ethan at the start of his junior year, as his teacher explains the mandatory Civil War reenactment all students must attend over Christmas Break. Just as we’re starting to suspect that conspicuously mentioned reenactment might feature heavily in the movie’s climax, a mysterious new girl ambles moodily into Ethan’s class. Turns out she’s Lena Duchannes, the niece of notorious million and town recluse, Macon Ravenwood (Academy-Award-Winning-Actor-Jeremy-Irons). All of the girls totally hate Lena because, I don’t know, she’s brunette? Also they assume she’s a Satanist and they’re good Christians and don’t want to be in the same room with her (oh by the way, this movie is set in the South).

Ethan falls in love with Lena because, I don’t know, she’s brunette? He shows up at her house after knowing her for one day and they have all this sexual tension, but Academy-Award-Winning-Actor-Jeremy-Irons is against the whole thing and uses a spell to force Ethan out. Thankfully, Ethan is way too hipster to be scared away by magic, so he sneaks back to Lena’s room where she confesses that she is a “Caster,” the politically correct term for witch nowadays. Like all female casters, on her 16^th birthday Lena will be claimed for either the Light or the Dark. (Sort of like in Star Wars, but with more mood swings and fewer lightsabers). At this point I began to wonder if this “claiming” was supposed to be a metaphor for female sexuality and the sexual double standard, but then I remembered I was watching a movie with the tagline “dark secrets will come to light.”

Just as I was starting to get a little bored of all of this clunky exposition, Academy-Award-Winning-Actress-Emma-Thompson shows up as a Bible Thumping Gatlin resident who is also (spoiler alert) being controlled by the evil spirit of Lena’s mother, Sarafine. In perhaps my favorite scene in the movie, Academy-Award-Winning-Actor-Jeremy-Irons and Academy-Award-Winning-Actress-Emma Thompson have an amazingly over the top confrontation that takes place in a church and has incestuous undertones and allows both actors to eat their fill of the scenery. Plus Academy-Award-Winning-Actress-Emma-Thompson gets to use the evil maniacal laugh I can only assume she spent her career preparing.

In order to protect Lena from Sarafine’s evil influences, Academy-Award-Winning-Actor-Jeremy-Irons turns to Academy-Award-Nominated-Actress-Viola-Davis (who is sort of living with Ethan as his mother figure or maybe she’s his housekeeper, it’s not really clear). What is clear is that Academy-Award-Nominated-Actress-Viola-Davis must have been paid a boatload of money to be in this film because it turns out she is a “seerer” which seems to consist of bringing coconut cream pie to her uncle’s grave while wearing tribal jewelry and decorative scars. It’s all vaguely racist and vaguely confusing and maybe Academy-Award-Nominated-Actress-Viola-Davis is just trying to punish us all for the fact that Meryl Streep stole her Oscar.

Since one major magic curse isn’t enough, there’s also a curse that says that if a Caster loves a mortal she will be claimed for the Dark no matter what. So Lena’s fighting an uphill battle here, and she’s totally upset about it, and then to make matters worse her super hot cousin Ridley (Emmy Rossum) shows up literally wearing lingerie. Ridley was claimed for the Dark and apparently her power is being sexy and everyone in the family hates her and you can tell Emmy Rossum has never been happier than while playing this part.

Lena’s family uses magic to separate her from Ethan, but his love for his paranormal paramour is so strong that it breaks the protection spell. And because the magical abilities of Casters are never clearly defined, we accept this turn of events. Ethan decides to help Lena break the curse and turn to the Light and they totally have sex (which is represented metaphorically through a sign catching on fire). At this point the more puritanical of the Twilight fans are freaking out because Ethan and Lena aren’t married, but it’s also kind of hot so everyone’s okay with it.

The plot just gets more convoluted from there including a spiritual connection to the Civil War, a magical bullet, and a secret underground library, but I’ll spare you the details in case you want to see this one for yourselves.

So what to make of the beautiful mess that is Beautiful Creature? On the one hand it’s got one of the most convoluted plots this side of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Even though it tries to set itself apart from Twilight by making the female character the supernatural one, Lena is just as dull as Bella Swan and perhaps even moodier (which isn’t aided by Alice Englert’s wooden performance). On the other hand, I thoroughly enjoyed watching every minute of this movie, if only to see what ridiculous Elton-John-inspired outfit Academy-Award-Winning-Actor-Jeremy-Irons would wear next. (At one point there’s even an extended scene of him playing the piano for no reason at all). Academy-Award-Winning-Actress-Emma-Thompson is having so much fun not playing a dowdy mother figure, and the unfortunately named Alden Ehrenreich as Ethan is actually pretty darn charming in a slightly James Dean-esque, boyish way.

While Twilight got bogged down in lingering glances and pained expressions, Beautiful Creatures allows its romantic leads to enjoy each other’s company, which, shockingly, got me more invested in their relationship. I was doubtful of the film at first, but once I turned off my brain I was happily swept away into the over-the-top world of the Southern supernatural. There’s a knowing campiness about the whole film that not even the most humorous moment of Twilight aspired to. You’ve got to accept is that this is Beautiful Creature’s world and we’re just living in it. 

Reality factor: A fact about Academy-Award-Winning-Actor-Jeremy-Irons’ character that is mentioned several times is that he loves Google. I am not kidding.  [0 out of 5] 

Eye-candy factor: Regardless of sexual orientation, I think we can all agree that Emmy Rossum was smokin’ hot in this film. [5 out of 5]

Aww factor: Alden Ehrenreich is charming enough to make a truckload of tormented teenager clichés seem adorable. [4 out of 5] 

What did you think of Beautiful Creatures? Campy fun or boring teen romance? Let me know in the comments section below!

Review

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK

Released: 2012
Director: David O. Russell
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence & Bradley Cooper

Grade: A

  

When you meet someone for the first time you probably run through a checklist of labels which help you conceptualize that person: male or female, old or young, gay or straight, married or single. Society seems to be creating more and more specific labels, words to identify people by their food habits, religious sects, age group, and ethnicity. (You can now introduce yourself as a panethnic, Protestant, pescatarian preteen.) Particularly in the field of mental health, labels (in the form of diagnoses) are constantly being refined. Centuries ago people were defined as either sane or crazy. As scientists learned more about the brain and the field of psychology rose to prominence, a whole arrange of conditions between sane and crazy emerged: ADHD, bipolar disorder, manic depression, OCD, dementia, Aspergers. These labels are undoubtedly a good thing. They help doctors and patients identify and treat conditions that in the past would have been written off as untreatable mental instability. But you also run into the danger of being defined solely by a label. “My gay friend Steve.” “My Jewish friend, Anna.” “Alan, the one with bipolar disorder.”

Silver Linings Playbook examines labels: the ones that are diagnosed clinically, the ones we give ourselves, and the ones others give to us. The film follows Patrick (Bradley Cooper) a former high school sub who has just finished an eight month stint in a mental institution after brutally assaulting the man he caught having an affair with his wife. Released on a legal technicality, Patrick returns to his Philadelphia home to live with his parents Dolores (Jacki Weaver) and Pat Sr. (Robert De Niro). Patrick is determined to get in shape and win back his wife, a woman currently holding a restraining order against him. He’s got good days and bad, sometimes functioning fairly well in society, other times driving himself to hysterics over a song.

Patrick meets his equal in Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence) a young woman with her own set of labels. She’s the widow of a former cop, she’s a “whore” who channeled her grief into sexual energy, and she’s the “screw-up” of the family compared to her successful older sister. Like Patrick, she’s been on every antidepressant under the sun. She too lacks a filter and projects an edgy, forceful persona that keeps her one step removed from those around her. Tiffany agrees to help Patrick get in touch with his ex-wife if he agrees to partner with her for a big dance contest. It’s a set-up that feels less contrived onscreen than it does on paper, and it works because of the natural chemistry between Cooper and Lawrence. They are both tentative yet aggressive, scaring people off even as they yearn for companionship. Perhaps because they are the two most heavily labeled people, they are able to see past the other's labels.

The film examines the impact a label can have on whether we view someone as sane or crazy. Pat Sr. makes his money betting on sports games. He folds handkerchiefs, carefully places remote controls in specific locations, and counts envelopes to send along good luck to his Philadelphia Eagles. While the younger Patrick’s stint at the institute has permanently labeled him as “crazy,” Pat Sr.’s condition goes largely unlabeled. To some he's exhibiting symptoms of OCD, to others he's expressing the normal quirks of a sports fan. Then there’s Patrick’s seemingly stable neighbor who admits to thrashing around to Metallica in his garage when he feels upset. After all, he reasons, “You can’t be happy all the time.”

That’s a lesson Patrick is unwilling to take to heart. He’s determined that with a little effort and self-discipline, he can make his life perfect. (The film’s title comes from Patrick’s positive-thinking, “silver linings” philosophy.) He makes mistakes and has unexpected outbursts, but he’s sure that if he can just explain himself on paper, write out what he meant to do, things will be okay. It’s a feeling I’ve had many times, and Patrick’s determination to get in touch with his wife and explain everything to her, though obsessive on the outside, probably isn’t too far off from desires we’ve all had. But Patrick’s history of institutionalization will forever color people’s perception of him. His behavior is labeled as unstable, yet my similar behavior may not be.

For all of it’s heavy subject matter, Silver Linings Playbook remains surprisingly enjoyable throughout. It’s a sardonic comedy that can flip on a dime to something much weightier. While it’s got some of the contrivances of a rom com, it thankfully exceeds the genre’s limitations. The laughs come quickly and often until suddenly they stop, brought to a screeching halt by an offhanded comment. And that perhaps is the best representation of Patrick’s struggle with controlling his aggression. He’s fine until he’s not. It’s a masterful understanding of tone and director/writer David O. Russell has crafted a film that takes itself seriously without losing its sense of fun. Cooper and Lawrence are both fantastic, playing against type and seeming to have a blast doing so. While I expected nothing less from the always-terrific Lawrence, Cooper proves here that he’s more than just a sculpted face and chiseled abs.

Russell doesn’t come to any grand conclusions about the dangers of labeling, but I’m not sure he needs to. This isn’t a film about mental health as a whole; it’s a film about one man and how he deals with his own issues. We label things to understand them, to give us a frame of reference. There’s not a way we can exist without labeling the world around us, and the best we can do is try to remember that the words we use to describe something are only the tip of the iceberg. And that’s where Silver Linings Playbook really shines. It’s a story that presents characters in a way that both embraces their labels and looks beneath them.

Reality factor: As he proved in The Fighter, director David O Russell has a great eye for capturing the family unit of the working class. Everything from the wallpaper to the food (crabby snacks and homemades) feels grounded in the grit and grease of real life.  [4 out of 5]

Eye-candy factor: Bradley Cooper is dressed in baggy sweatpants and trash bags for most of the film, which makes his dance contest ensemble seem that much more dapper. [4 out of 5]

Aww factor: The film’s finale may be too sentimental for some, but I thought it was a well earned and heartfelt moment that didn’t stray too far into fantasy. [4 out of 5]

Review

THE TWLIGHT SAGA
 BREAKING DAWN: PART TWO

Released: 2012
Director: Bill Condon
Starring: Kristen Stewart & Robert Pattinson

Grade: C++

I think something is wrong with me. I went to see Twilight Breaking Dawn: Part Two (on opening day no less) intending to mock and ridicule it for your enjoyment. After all, I had to make a drinking game just to survive the last one. As the previews started, I fantasized about the hilarious quips and biting satire I could write about this final film in the four part Twilight saga. And then something strange happened; I found myself actually enjoying the movie. Was I losing my mind or had someone actually produced a halfway decent film in the Twilight saga?

Even if you haven’t been keeping up with the series, you probably know about the human/vampire love affair at it’s heart. (This parody trailer will help you catch up on the rest of the plot). In many ways this movies feels distinctive from the rest of the series because Bella (Kristen Stewart) finally starts to resemble an actual character- with a personality and everything! And all it took was a makeover, er, a vampire-over. Breaking Dawn: Part One ended with Bella giving birth and being turned into a vampire. Which in the Twilight world means waking up with perfect makeup, a rockin’ bod and a form fitting blue dress. Now that Bella is pretty, she’s actually able to form complete sentences and express opinions. What a difference a makeover makes!

As a vampire, Bella’s confident, funny, and outspoken. A far cry from the brooding, stuttering, constipated girl of the first three movies. Bella wakes up perfectly coiffed, slightly sassy and ready for a little hunting. At some point she mentions something about that baby she WENT CRAZY trying to save in Breaking Dawn: Part One, but overall she seems way more interested in Edward (Robert Pattinson) than in her ridiculously named offspring, Renesmee. Thankfully baby-obsessed Rosalee is there to steal, I mean watch, the baby. (When Bella asks where the baby sleeps Rosalee replies, “In my arms.” Not at all creepy….) Edward and Bella hunt and then get it on vampire style, fulfilling the soft-core-porn dreams of Twilight’s tween audience. 

There are a few missteps in the first half of the film. Whoever decided a CGI baby would be a good idea has hopefully been fired by now, because that sucker was terrifying. No baby should have eyes that big. I also missed Bella’s awesome human friends who provided some surprisingly solid material in the first few films. I suppose Anna Kendrick finally realized she was way too famous to be a supporting character in a vampire love story. The Jacob-imprinting-on-Renesmee thing remains remarkably creepy. Stephanie Meyer did a decent job of explaining it on paper, but let’s face it, a grown man being in love with a baby is never going to work onscreen. At least the film does what it can to acknowledge the oddity and even wring a few laughs from the situation.

What’s most impressive about this entry in the Twilight series is its humor. Don’t get me wrong, all of the Twilight films have been hilarious, but I’ve usually been laughing at the movies, not with them. This film gives us some intentional humor that actually lands. Bella’s dad, Charlie (Billy Burke), is one of the best things about the series and he has a great scene with Jacob (Taylor Lautner) that manages to make fun of Lautner’s much lauded physique while also advancing the plot. I feel like I’ve died and gone to vampire heaven. 

Speaking of plot, this film actually has one, which is a huge improvement from the past three films. The Volturi (aka the vampire mafia) aren’t too happy with Reneesmee because they assume she’s an “Immortal Child,” a human toddler turned into a vampire. Immortal Children used to be all the rage in the middle ages because they were totes adorbs, but they also had a nasty habit of killing entire villages. And because vampires don’t age, there was no hope of teaching them better behavior. Immortal Children were outlawed and the Volturi come a-callin’ to kill Renesmee & Co. and protect vampire secrecy.

The Cullens decide to gather some witnesses to attest to how awesome/not evil Renesmee is. The second act of the film is essentially an extended assembling-the-team sequence. The Cullens have vampire friends from all over the global which means we’re treated to a veritable buffet of ethnic stereotypes. The Amazon vampires show up in “tribal” clothes which may or may not have been purchased at a post-Halloween Party City sale. The Irish vampires have red hair and love rebellion. The Russian vampires are  blonde, gay and reminiscent of SNL’s Stefan. And those poor hipster nomads don’t get a single line. There are too many characters to keep them all straight and I can only assume that one of the two scruffy, brooding vampire men inexplicably leaves because someone realized they had accidentally double-cast the role.

While they may be underdeveloped, the plethora of characters at least add a jolt of energy to the Cullen clan. Apparently vampires have superpowers and we get to learn about those as the good guys prep for their epic battle. The Volturi (lead by a scenery-chewing Michael Sheen) arrive in their hammy bad guy glory. They’re all lusciously designed capes, menacing stares and androgynous angst- just what you’d expect undead Italian villains to be. There’s a good guy vs. bad guy standoff and I give major props to the filmmakers for finding a clever way to introduce some action to a remarkably anti-climatic novel. It’s a pretty brilliant move that took my audience completely by surprise.

The cinematography occasionally has a nice sense of style and the visual landscape of the movie is far superior to the script. Renesmee’s super power is to project some sort of visual story to anyone she touches. The film refuses to ever depict these visions however, a move that feels like a cop-out from a director wary of making things too abstract. As a rule, the CGI in this film is awful (though nothing is as bad as that baby). I imagine a teenager with iMovie and some time on his hands could produce better results. Bella’s constant narration is also a bit tiresome, but this movie at least feels less reliant upon it than the past few.

As in the previous films, the romance feels a little flat, but Bella’s personality make-over seems to do the central relationship a lot of good. Edward even admits he has a bad habit of underestimating her; a remarkable feat for a relationship in which communication seemed to be a nonexistent priority. Overall the film is fun, funny and action-packed, three words I never thought I’d use in relation to Twilight.

So readers I leave this in your hands. Have I lost my mind or has the Twilight saga ended on a high note? Let me know in the comments section below! 

Reality factor: I would hate to be a vampire, eating and sleeping are probably my two favorite things in life. [0 out of 5]

Eye-candy factor: For all of his weaknesses as an actor, Taylor Lautner does have a smoking body. Plus Robert Pattinson is allowed to smile in this film. Much better than all of that brooding. [5 out of 5]

Aww factor: The sweetest (and strangest) part of the movie was when they gave a shout-out in the credits to Rachelle Lefevre, the actress who was replaced between movies one and two. Way to support your own, Twilight. [2 out of 5]