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Review: ‘Aquaman’ is a Hot, Wet Mess

I never had high hopes for Aquaman. The very first trailers revealed the movie to be the eye-rollingly corny mess it ended up being. Though their choice of Jason Momoa to play Arthur, the titular superhero, was a good one — he was certainly one of the best parts of the movie — in almost every other respect, the movie let its viewers down. It is an unfocused, unfunny, uninventive superhero flick, and it is not worth seeing in theaters (or possibly at all).

Despite the massive critical and box office success of Wonder Woman last year, DC did not seem to take to heart the idea that superhero movies should be more than just spectacle. As a consequence, Aquaman is two hours of fights and explosions (literally five discrete times a scene is interrupted by an explosion coming through a wall) with a trite “chosen one” storyline and a massive underwater war that ultimately don’t add up to an engaging plot to string the fight sequences together. One of the antagonists, Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), is laughably campy and completely irrelevant, and the other, Arthur’s half-brother King Orm (Patrick Wilson), is so under-developed that the emotional conflict that supposedly drives his every action seems completely unbelievable.

Jason Momoa and Patrick Wilson in Aquaman (2018)

In fact, that is one of the movie’s central sins: underdevelopment of both characters and plot. The movie seems to assume that the audience has some familiarity with Aquaman already, whether from 2017’s Justice League or perhaps just from the comics, and so Arthur, too, is already seemingly familiar with his Atlantean heritage and powers. Skipping out on an origin story for someone like Spider-Man, as in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, is understandable — we all know how that story goes. But when it’s omitted from the story of a less familiar superhero like Aquaman, you lose out on that incredible magic of discovery that can provide for a story that endears the hero to the audience while also developing his character. As it is, the only real personality Arthur has is the charisma Momoa brings to the role. He, along with characters like Mera (Amber Heard), Vulko (Willem Dafoe), and Atlanna (Nicole Kidman) — who was completely wasted on this movie — are criminally underdeveloped, and their relationships, too, are cheesy and forced.

The plot, meanwhile, goes much too big too fast. It tries to incorporate too many elements — King Orm’s war, Atlanna’s storyline, Black Manta’s quest for revenge, Arthur and Mera’s quest for the lost trident of Atlan, their romance, and the conflict between King Orm and Arthur, among others. As a result, each storyline is not given enough attention and all of them feel vague and inconsequential. The romance between Arthur and Mera is particularly egregious.

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The movie’s not all bad. Its visuals are stunning at times, especially the scene where Arthur and Mera use flares to ward off the Trench with a red flare. The underwater combat is admittedly pretty sick, especially when big sea creatures are involved. And Momoa is charming and occasionally funny when the overall poor writing permits. They even managed to make him look cool in his silly green and gold outfit. But these elements are not enough to save the movie.

Ultimately, though this will undoubtedly be another box office hit for DC if the opening weekend numbers are anything to go by, it is another creative stumble. With Disney’s Marvel films still going strong and Sony’s recent successes with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Venom, DC is still struggling to find a successful formula for superhero movies that are both spectacular visually and engaging narratively. And Aquaman is certainly not the solution. Better luck next time with Shazam, DC.

Score: 2/5

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Review: The Glitzy Inconsistencies of ‘Vox Lux’

The glitz and glamour of the life of a poster is one observed through television screens, newsstand tabloids, and online social media. The commodification and exploitation of stars and their personal lives that is carried out daily by these outlets are the targets of Brady Corbet’s sophomore film, Vox Lux. In today’s climate, it’s easy to see these targets are ripe for deconstruction. Going to the home page of TMZ, E! Online, or another chewing gum site will tell you all you need to know about why a film like this came into being and how its themes resonate today. The grotesque and easily criticizable profiteering of tragedy through the personal life of a pop star is center stage in this four-part drama, but unfortunately, the result is a little befuddled and not deep enough to get at the root of what Vox Lux wants to critique. 

After surviving a school shooting when she was thirteen years old, Celeste (played by Natalie Portman as the older iteration and Raffey Cassidy as the younger) is thrust into stardom after writing a successful single in the wake of the tragedy. From there, she navigates the tumultuous world of fame and fortune with her manager (Jude Law), and the drawbacks that accompany it. Plagued by scandals and her own personal demons, Celeste grapples with a world that seeks to exploit her suffering.

Right off the bat, the performances from Portman and Law are stellar. Portman is a whole other persona in this film as she adopts the fragile and demanding characteristics of a superstar drowning in her own world. Everything from her mannerisms to her accent is remarkably executed and dare I say transformative. Law is equally impressive as an exacting manager who gives off an edge of sleaze, providing a great counterpoint to Celeste, especially in the first two acts of the film. These two commendable performances headline the film but are underserved in a movie that doesn’t dive deep enough into their characters, particularly Celeste’s.

The most glaring issue with Vox Lux is how inconsistent it is. When a film is consistent, you tend not to notice because the film is actively disciplining itself to create uniformity, but Vox Lux opts instead to throw in assorted techniques, styles, and choices because it can and not because it should. Kicking it off, the pop music in the film goes on for too long, often resulting in lengthy screen time for Sia’s original songs for the film, rather than meaningful depictions of thematic relevance. The end, in particular, is pretty egregious in how devoid of meaning it is. It’s really kind of just there as the big finale and makes no strong statement about who Celeste is or as a coup de grâce moment. Then, there are the moments where Corbet throws in dashes of art house sensibilities, but not really committing to it, resulting in this weird style that is neither purposeful or aesthetically coherent. We get blurred, drug-infused moments that are sped up, credits that roll backward, a clearly defined act structure a la Moonlight, pretentious but witty narration by Willem Dafoe (which I’d argue creates more defining character moments than the action on screen), odd deviations in style, and so on. It’s like creative inspiration strikes for certain scenes, but there is no commitment to carry through and make it consistent.

Inside all of this is the film’s take on stardom and controversy. The film sets its thematic target on how we treat stars, the events surrounding them, who they are, and how we capitalize on tragedy. Celeste is only flung into stardom because she survived a school shooting. The propulsion she receives from that tragic event parallels the gains the media receives from exploiting travesties in her life. No good deed goes unpunished, and no bad deed goes unnoticed in this world, and I think this is a fascinating notion to dissect. How we treat stars or how we treat disasters and who seeks to gain from it are fascinating concepts, but in the end, it feels as if the film is afraid to really send it to the top, to pursue the deeper causal factors, and to explore the issue for how complex and controversial it really is.

The film builds on the promise of addressing this issue, but by Act III we start to realize how problematic its narrow approach is. Celeste is the focus here because others are gaining from her suffering, but no one else gets dragged into the mud to a problematic degree. The media is one of the players in the profiteering of tragedy, but they’re not given the time of day in the film. Celeste’s sister Eleanor and manager stand to gain from the spoils of her travesty, but they too are kept at arm’s length, always promising deeper development to their initial conflict, but never going anywhere. The whole thing just feels under-baked, and to know that everything was teed up, but never driven home is what is so dissatisfying about the film. The whole finale of the film is Natalie Portman dancing around on stage lip-synching to Sia in a final moment of celebratory release, and it’s all so devoid of preceding conflict and culmination. There was so much more left to accomplish which is the most disappointing thing I can say about something that had so much promise.

At the end of Vox Lux, we get this weird amalgamation of ideas, themes, and styles that don’t congeal into the popstar-drama one had hoped. Everything was right there in front of us, it just couldn’t come together.

Score: 2.75/5

Review: ‘Shoplifters’ Questions What It Means to Be a Family

Each year it seems that one foreign film captures the eye of the American public. This year, it comes in the form of Roma. Last year, A Fantastic Woman. The year before that The Salesman, whose director infamously refused to accept his academy award in protest of President Trump’s travel ban.  However, despite the critical success of these films, it seems that each year, a group of unique and interesting foreign films get overlooked by the ‘Romas’ of their respective year. One film that I hope doesn’t succumb to this fate is Shoplifters.

Continue reading “Review: ‘Shoplifters’ Questions What It Means to Be a Family” →

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Review: ‘Mortal Engines’ is So Hollow It Echoes

The book is better than the film. The film is better than the book. A debate as old as adapted material’s existence. The newest contender stepping into the ring to stir the pot on this debate is Christian Rivers’ movie adaptation of Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines: a YA novel about moving cities in the post-apocalypse. I haven’t read the book, and frankly don’t plan on it, but I can tell you, without a doubt, it’s better than the movie. In fact, it’s probably leaps and bounds better because what we got with this movie adaptation is just a hap hazard construction of narrative plot points to facilitate a steam-punk, CGI fantasy film. 

Set decades after the “60 Minute War” that scorned the face of the Earth, society has taken to mobile cities to survive.  The leader of London, Thaddeus Valentine (Hugo Weaving), moves the city out west in a desperate attempt to find smaller cities that can feed the larger one. In the mix is Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmar): a young rebel who attempts to assassinate Valentine in order to avenge her mother. After being thwarted, she is led on a perilous journey that uncovers a campaign that plans to use ancient tech for malicious purposes.

Let’s do away with the positive first and give credit where credit is due. The VFX work is great. WETA did a great job taking this highly improbable premise and making it not look entirely laughable. The sense of scale with these cities is astounding. Paired with movement, these cities look like nimble glaciers crossing vast terrains; the opening scene, and perhaps the best scene, shows just how well executed, designed, and animated these behemoths are. If anything, the film is interesting to look at.

Production design is equally well matched, but not entirely given its fair shake. The film travels from one location to another at break neck pace, not only making the film far too brisk, but also shorting the talents of the art department. One clear violation and example of this is when Shaw and crew are brought to a secluded, slave-trading, swamp town; the locale is an interesting bastion of lawlessness in this fantasy world that would of made for some nice commentary on the world itself, but which gets the short end of the stick because the film goes there for one brief reason, and after the plot point is delivered, it’s back to the traveling odyssey. This happens again with a water prison city, an air balloon rebel city, and a stationary wall city. Imagine being in the art department, working for months on creating these cities, and then having the film gloss over them with a shanty narrative. Probably doesn’t feel too good.

Part of the reason why the film is so technically sound can be attributed to the fact that Christian Rivers’ prior film credits are with the art or visual effects departments. Mortal Engines is his first directed feature, and it shows. His talents with the visual components and translating those components to the big screen are solid, but sadly, one lone contribution does not a film make.  

Narratively there are so many things wrong with this film. It’s painfully clear that the book fleshed out its lore better than the film and that scenes were cut for the sake of time. It’s a fantasy film so it needs to have a well-realized world, but there is no lore to explain anything on screen. I have so many questions about this film that were never explained, and I feel like they’re pretty fair questions. First of all, why do these cities need to be moving? In the film, there are pro-mobile and “anti-tractionists” individuals which is so baffling to me because any rational human would just stay still. The film never never tells us why the pro-mobile people insist on moving all the time. Just stay in one place. (To answer one of the film’s most pressing concerns, I had to go Wikipedia to find the answer. Turns out, pro-mobile people move to avoid natural disasters brought about by the 60 Minute War, but unless I missed something, they’re no where to be found in the film.) Why is Shrike (an emotionless robot played who raises Hester after her mother dies by Stephen Lang) chasing Hester? Hester abandons him after learning  Valentine is within striking distance, evidently causing the robot to lose his cool, but why can’t Hester just say, “I need to avenge my mom. I’ll be right back. Don’t freak out”? Instead the robot just gets angry at abandonment and pursues killing her mercilessly because of it. I mean, I guess that makes sense … but why is the robot so hell-bent on this? Why does Hester fall in love with Tom (an artifact collector played by Robert Sheehan)? He’s insufferable to no end and almost gets her killed on multiple occasions? How in the world can he, in any capacity, be the love interest? I’m so baffled by this.

And on and on and on it goes until the credits roll. Everything in this fantasy world is underdeveloped to a problematic degree. I spent two hours watching this imaginary fantasy world be depicted, but got none of the foundation that solidifies it. You know those chocolate molded bunnies sold around Easter where it’s just the shell of chocolate and it’s all hollow inside? That’s the physical embodiment of this film except way less satisfying. It’s remarkably hollow. So much so you can hear all the potential rattle around and echo inside the emptied out carcass of the original novel. 

Score: 1.5/5

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Review: The Affectionate Love Letter Found In Alfonso Cuarón’s ‘Roma’

Roma: Alfonso Cuarón’s newest feature and Netflix’s latest pickup in pursuit of Oscar glory. In years past, Netflix didn’t play nice with theaters, making them the self-made pariah of award shows, festivals, and the like. But with Roma, they seem to be keenly aware of what they have on their hands, choosing to change their strategy by giving it a wider theatrical release before it hits their platform. These actions are completely justified as this film is their best chance at an Oscar yet, and not just any Oscar, but Best Picture. Roma is a true piece of cinema, a sincere, affectionate love letter to the women that helped raise Cuarón in an elegant, realist package. 

Set in Mexico during the early 1970s, the film follows Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), a caretaker who works for Sofia (Marina de Tavira), the mother of four children and wife to the always absent Antonio (Fernando Grediaga). Over the course of one year, Roma shows the events in their lives and how they overcome the challenges they are confronted with. 

Light spoilers in the following paragraph.

At the heart of Roma is its affection for mother figures. The film underscores the unique position of maternal roles in society: to be the source of support for all while also being self sufficient. Both Sofia and Cleo are women who must be depended upon by others, but cannot depend on anyone themselves. The former must care for her children but cannot receive support from her unfaithful husband. The later must provide service to Sofia and her children, while her boyfriend abandons her in her time of need. Cuarón has cited the film as his love letter to Libo, the real-life woman who took care of him when he was growing up, and it shows. Cuarón frames both Sofia and especially Cleo affectionately as he retroactively thanks those that helped him and appreciates what the maternal figures in his life did for him.

A visual point of praise for the film is its cinematography. Any trailer or still you’ve seen of the film will show just how elegant and well-crafted the black-and-white photography is. In general, black and white can be misapplied as solely a stylistic choice rather than a contributing element of the film. (Ask yourself, “Why did this modern film need to be black and white?” and you’ll often find yourself coming up short on answers.) But Cuarón makes it an important element of the film. The film is shot on digital, so it lacks the texture you get from film, but like an old photograph, the use of black and white makes appeals to the distant past, contributing to the memorial aspects of the film. 

Being that this is a Netflix release, most will see this on their computer or television. That’s not ideal (as all films are made better in a theater except for something like Unfriended), but I wouldn’t consider it a dealbreaker. Most won’t even have a theater near them playing it, but the big screen does let the wide angle cinematography really flex and that combined with the punchy black and white photography makes for striking imagery that is sorely missing from other run-of-the-mill films on your computer scene. Cuarón is a bonafide auteur who knows what he is doing (he is credited as both director and cinematographer, after all), so while it’s small in scope, the film truly feels cinematic.

Additionally, Cuarón has seemingly mastered his trademark panning shot at this point. The camera moves elegantly over the scene, making use of extended long takes and excellent staging to create an all-encompassing view of the setting. The long takes and slow pans evoke an Italian neorealist aesthetic that leaves nothing out in order to present a true-to-life depiction of the past. As such, the film can feel aimless at times. The longevity and all-inclusive nature can make you feel as if the film is holding for no reason, and to some extent that is true.

The film is like a window into the life of Cleo. We open on an uneventful note and leave on one too, but that seems to be the point. Cuarón wants you to observe everything in the time span you are allowed and to draw conclusions about the people you see. It is a film with no central plot driving it, just events as they occur, in order, in the window you are granted. The camera’s eye plays into the aforementioned realist effect. Nothing is everything, and while the nothingness can feel disengaging at times, it’s simply the style of the film. Cuarón is just turning on the camera, recording what’s in front of it, and letting you take it all in.

Score: 4/5 Stars

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Review: ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’ is the Best Superhero Film in Years

To quote Greg’s Letterboxd review: “The best superhero film in years…came from Sony.” Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is the breath of fresh air that both the superhero genre and blockbuster animation truly needed. Fresh, funny, and inventive, the movie proves its central thesis by virtue of its own quality: that every great endeavor is just a leap of faith.

The film honors its comic-book roots with an animation style that blends 3D animation with 2D elements like cell-shading, motion lines, and onomatopoetic onscreen text. The animation is truly engaging and impressive, and it looks unlike anything I’ve seen in a mainstream animated feature film, and it is my great hope that future animated flicks take a hint from its inevitable success that audiences want to see diverse animation styles rather than the expected Pixar/Dreamworks style. I would not be surprised if it is nominated for Best Animated Feature this Oscars Season.

Even more engaging than the animation, however, is the story itself. The film follows Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) as he grapples with family, identity, and controlling the new powers he finds himself with after being bitten by a radioactive spider. He soon discovers he is not alone when Wilson Fisk a.k.a. “Kingpin” (Liev Schrieber) activates a device that brings together multiple alternate realities and brings five other “Spider-People” into Miles’ reality. Together with Spider-Man (Jake Johnson), Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld), Spider-Noir (Nicolas Cage), Spider-Ham (John Mulaney), and Peni Parker a.k.a. “SP//dr” (Kimiko Glenn), Miles must find a way to return the Spider-People to their own dimensions before their bodies decay and stop Kingpin’s device from destroying the city.

The movie is lighthearted and very funny and doesn’t take itself too seriously. Despite its admittedly off-the-beaten-path plot, it is easy to follow without being simplistic and will be appealing to comic book fans and casual viewers alike. It is a good solution to the plethora of Spider-Man movies in recent years (seven since 2002) and feels completely new despite acknowledging its many predecessors.

The film is, above all, a story of inclusivity and acceptance. Its central messages are of the importance of friends and family, and the belief that anyone can “wear the mask.” In a post-Nolan world of largely serious superhero movies, the way Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse balances admittedly dark themes and tragic moments with a reckless optimism and belief in what people who care about one another can accomplish together is heartening. It is exactly the kind of film we are desperately in need of right now.

Score: 4.75/5

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Review: ‘People’s Republic of Desire’ Offers A Damning Look at Popular Online Culture

People’s Republic of Desire is a documentary that follows two live streamers, Shen Man and Big Li, as they pursue digital fame via YY, a Chinese live streaming platform where individuals construct online personalities with the hopes of attracting followers, donors, and managers. As their fame grows, they become more and more obsessed with being number one streamers on the site, resulting in a detachment from the world around them. As they descend into their obsessions, we see how the digital realm has not only redefined notions of success and human connection for those who host, but also for those that watch. 

More than anything, the People’s Republic of Desire does a good job of presenting the dystopian aspects of this online culture. Hosts create online personas that distance themselves from reality to the point where they only find happiness in the admiration of their fan base. That fan base is divided into a two-part hierarchy: the Tuhaos and the Diaosi. The Tuhaos (the rich) donate money to the hosts so they themselves can gain popularity within the chat. The Diaosi (the poor) are the onlookers who watch the Tuhaos flaunt their economic wealth while the hosts get richer. The driving notion behind this is that to become more popular, you need more Tuhaos and agents funding you so you look more successful and thus attract more fans. 

It’s a vicious cycle where wealth is prioritized in sickening ways. Imagine Twitch, but with an increased emphasis on money, and that’s what YY is. It’s an online culture that promotes extreme amounts of wealth as the only way of being desirable and the more you involve yourself, the more your personal psyche is affected. The doc effectively conveys what can happen to a host who flies too close to the sun, who finds tremendous success only to let themselves down when they don’t outperform their prior records or the earnings of others. 

Big Li and Shen Man both compete in an annual competition on YY where they must earn votes from their fan base to be deemed numbers ones, but since votes are earned with money, it is essentially a flexing competition where hosts show how great they are through the donations received from their Tuhaos and their agents. Soaring into the millions of dollars, money is thrown around like nobody’s business and it really showcases the culture of opulence found in these live streams. Human beings aren’t judged on their actions, but rather their net worth, and for these hosts, that’s everything. To be wanted in a digital space is more than being desired in the real one, and this notion is true not only on this platform but others as well. The film provides a much-needed introspective about people’s online habits.

Much of the doc is concerned with a digital space. From Michael Mann’s Black Hat to Ralph Breaks the Internet, we have seen digital spaces rendered in many forms. On film, these spaces aren’t the easiest to convey visually, but in People’s Republic of Desire, the live streams are represented with digitally rendered chat rooms. Flashy, busy, and brimming with activity, these CGI renders help visualize a live stream in ways that a screen capture could not. While they can compliment real-life footage, they can also detract from it. It would appear that these digital renders stand in for a lack of footage and act as means to convey events which were not captured on film. This dependency detracts from the realism of the doc because much of what we are being told is constructed digitally; certain scenes work better with the reactions and verbal depictions from our characters rather than the artifice presented to us. This is a major concern when the annual YY competition takes place and most of what we are given are renders that show the back and forth battles between hosts; why can’t I see a tension played out in reality that ties more closely to the subjects? It is a mere stylistic choice perhaps, but in a medium that aims to show a real-life subject using real footage, these digital depictions are hit or miss in their usage.

The film is also somewhat one-sided in its depiction of this destructive culture. While we get plenty about the hosts and their managers, we get only brief glimpses about the impact on the viewers. One of the important elements of this dynamic is the viewership and the impact this culture has on them. The viewers, particularly the poorer ones, idolize these hosts and show how their rise has warped their perceptions of success and instilled bizarre social norms. This notion is loosely touched on as we only get stunted interviews with younger viewership, transitional news clips about their destructive behavior, and an underdeveloped portion that follows Yang, an 18-year-old migrant worker who worships these hosts. In this sense, the doc is contained, and it would have benefited from a better depiction of the wider social impact.

These two complaints are not a condemnation of the overall doc. Hao Wu has made a film that shines a light on the evolving social culture taking place online. Throughout, you find yourself amazed, repulsed, and occasionally shocked at this digital culture that has spread to millions of people, and perhaps more critically, you may take a look at your own online habits and wonder how those compare to something so socially damaging as this.

Score: 3.5/5 Stars

People’s Republic of Desire opens on December 14th at Northwest Film Forum. Details can be found here.

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Review: ‘Wobble Palace’ is an Anti-Rom-Com for the Modern Age

Eugene Kotlyarenko’s latest flick, Wobble Palace, is a quirky comedy that follows a young couple’s attempts to find emotional and sexual contentment amidst their atrophying relationship. Eugene (played by Kotlyarenko himself) and Jane (Dasha Nekrasova, the film’s co-writer) are on the brink of breaking up when they decide to timeshare their Los Angeles apartment and date other people. But as it turns out, the course of polyamory doesn’t quite run smooth. The awkward reality of impromptu hookups and Tinder matches leaves this pair of millennials as lonely and unfulfilled as they were to begin with.

The film takes place over the Halloween weekend leading up to the fateful presidential election of 2016. There’s a sense of something sinister on the horizon and Eugene is haunted by prophetic nightmares of the impending Trump victory. Incidentally, he and Jane met at a polling station in 2012 whilst voting for Obama, but now we see them as their relationship is falling apart just like their hope of having Bernie as president. Repeatedly, the film satirizes the rhetoric of the incumbent POTUS; when Jane suggests the pair split occupation of their house, Eugene asks “Umm like ‘build a wall.'” It’s clear that Kotlyarenko and Nekrasova wanted this to be a film with biting political relevance.

Eugene is one of those self-proclaimed “good guys.” At first, we’re invited to laugh at his pathetic sexual frustration, but when interactions with girls on social media and prospective sexual encounters don’t quite go to plan he turns pretty nasty; we see that there’s something evidently pernicious behind his facade of civility. The anxiety and paranoia associated with online dating and social media certainly don’t help Eugene to become a better person. In fact, the internet doesn’t really seem to do a whole lot of good for anyone in the film. Jane’s career as an artist is crippled by her fear of being “basic,” and when she takes a seemingly trivial online quiz it confirms her worst nightmare. The struggle of millennials trying to satisfy their narcissism is something that’s heavily parodied by Kotlyarenko and Nekrasova. Jane sums it up when she says: “They call us a generation of narcissists but it’s not like we have anything else besides student debt and front-facing cameras.”

Often, a shallow depth of field is used in the film, leaving Jane or Eugene in focus whilst the rest of the world around them is almost indiscernible. Even the cinematography seems to reflect the characters’ struggle with their own self-importance. With the same director of photography as the Safdie brothers’ Good Time (2017), there’s a similar lurid look to this film, and with most of the shots in soft focus, it’s got a strange, surreal beauty about it.

Wobble Palace is an anti-rom-com for the modern age. Its unique kookiness, witty humor, and cringe-worthy relevance mean it’s definitely worth a watch.

Score: 4/5

Wobble Palace is playing for one night only at North West Film Forum on Dec. 12. You can get more info here.

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Review: ‘Green Book’ is a Road Trip Dramedy With Surface-Level Racial Overtones

Green Book was an interesting theatrical experience, as it was, for all intents and purposes, one of the most enjoyable theater experiences I’ve had this year. I tend to have a soft spot for cheesy feel-good movies, especially around the holiday season. However, that same over-sentimentality is why problems with its underlying narrative begin to arise.

For a film entitled Green Book, the actual ‘green books’ that the film derives its name from (the Jim Crow-era guidebooks for African American travelers) seem, oddly enough, like a bit of an afterthought. They’re only briefly mentioned a handful of times and don’t have a significant impact on the narrative itself. The film seems reluctant to fulfill the role of being a sharp commentary on the racial prejudice of the time and instead relies on director Peter Farrelly’s trademark comedic sensibilities.  Fortunately enough, the comedy isn’t nearly as low-brow as his previous work (Dumb and Dumber, There’s Something About Mary) and is handled with sprinkles of charm and class. Unfortunately, the movie’s dramatic weight is diminished, especially when its racial motifs are handled with such a lack of substance or nuance. Instead of being a biting, potentially refreshing social commentary, it’s overly sugary, a bit dumbed down, and Oscar-baity. It seems like a completely missed opportunity, especially considering films from this year like Sorry to Bother You, Blackkklansman, Blindspotting, and hell, even Marvel’s Black Panther, none of which held back in making bold, interesting narrative choices in regards to racially charged overtones.

Green Book, on the other hand, plays it completely safe, opting to be as crowd-pleasing and enjoyable as this story can be (and reaping as much awards attention as possible, go figure). While there’s nothing inherently wrong with a crowd-pleasing film of this caliber, I can’t help but wonder why the film that feels so formulaic in comparison to its contemporaries seems to be one of the strongest contenders for Best Picture at the 2019 Oscars.

That being said, this film definitely isn’t without merit and is indisputably entertaining in its own right. What it may lack as a drama, it more than makes up for as a comedy, and much of its comedy stems from the infectious chemistry between the two leads: Viggo Mortensen as Tony Vallelonga (dubbed Tony Lip), and Mahershala Ali as Dr. Don Shirley. Based on a true story and a “true friendship,” Lip is an Italian-American bouncer-turned-driver for Shirley, an African-American jazz pianist about to embark on a concert tour in the deep South in 1962. The two are almost complete opposites in terms of personality and mannerisms: Shirley is intellectual, well-spoken, and proper, while Lip is anything but. It seems like pure formula, almost akin to an inverse Driving Miss Daisy (another awards show darling back in 1989) but Mortensen and Ali’s performances drive the film and are undeniably the best aspects of it; both are unequivocally excellent in their respective roles and breathe life into the film at every moment, despite the conventional tropes, cliches, and inconsistencies that hold the narrative back from being something truly special and groundbreaking.

Lip undergoes a sort of arc in the film, which, though earnest and obviously well-intended, is presented as uneven at best. At the beginning of the film, he’s shown throwing away water glasses used by two African American maintenance workers that came into his house, but from that point on, Lip is never shown as being nearly as despicably racist, unless convenient to the plot to create tension between him and Shirley. Nevertheless, the duo is an absolute blast to watch on screen and makes the perpetual cheesiness substantially more tolerable. Ali brings a level of elegance and class, yet also of immense vulnerability, to his performance, making Dr. Don Shirley an incredibly likable figure. You might even find yourself choking up a little near the film’s climax and resolution, where the movie’s themes, though shallow and sanitary considering its subject matter, are tied up neatly and in a perfectly satisfactory manner. Green Book is an exemplary feel-good movie, and though it’s over-sentimentality causing it to shy away from any real racial commentary is a missed opportunity, it’s sure to be a hit at both the box office this holiday season, as well as the Oscars next year.

Score: 3.5/5

Review: The Fiery Obsessions of Lee Chang-dong’s ‘Burning’

After generating considerable buzz on the festival circuit, Lee Chang-dong’s Burning is finally hitting Seattle theaters this week. Selected as South Korea’s Best Foreign Film nomination, Burning has a small release here in the states, but certainly, one that should not go unnoticed. It doesn’t have a big marketing push or wide release, only a week long stay at the North West Film Forum. So before Oscar season rolls around, I suggest you make some time to experience this methodically structured mystery thriller before you miss out.

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