2/28/15 (Part Two): The Unexamined Life

Tags

'90s films, 1990s films, Andrew Kevin Walker, auteur theory, Brad Pitt, cinema, Darius Khondji, Dark City, David Fincher, detectives, dramas, envy, favorite films, Fight Club, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, gluttony, greed, Gwyneth Paltrow, horror, horror movies, Howard Shore, husband-wife relationship, industrial score, insanity, John C. McGinley, Kevin Spacey, lust, Morgan Freeman, Movies, NIN, Nine Inch Nails, police, police procedural, pride, R. Lee Ermey, Richard Roundtree, Se7en, serial killers, Seven, Seven Deadly Sins, sloth, The Crow, The Game, Trent Reznor, twist ending, wrath, Zodiac

I can still recall the first time that I saw David Fincher’s break-through, Seven (1995), as clearly as if it were a few days past. I was 18, at the time, and went to see the film on opening night with a high school buddy. The theater was filled with the usual mix of boisterous young people, couples on dates and large groups of friends, everyone ready for the weekend and focused on having a good time. By the time the end credits rolled, however, the entire theater was dead quiet: no one talked on the way out, no one hooted and hollered, nothing approaching a smile crossed anyone’s faces. I’ll never forget watching the formerly happy couples walk out in rather stunned silence, unable (or unwilling) to get any closer to each other than arm’s length. For our part, my friend and I said nothing to each other on the way home, each of us lost in our own thoughts, neither of us willing (or able) to deal with any other humans, at that particular moment.

20 years later, Fincher’s sophomore film may have lost the shock factor that allowed it to so handily eviscerate unsuspecting audiences: after all, in a post-Saw (2004) world, the very concept of on-screen human suffering has set such a high bar that it’s almost impossible to really shock people anymore…blame it on the internet, our own jaded sensibilities or the fact that the 24-7 news cycle has brought countless real-world atrocities right into our own living rooms but that’s just the way it is. That being said, Seven still stands as a towering testament to the inherent evil of the human animal and is still, to this day, my very favorite Fincher film. 20 years later, I offer Seven the best compliment you might give in this modern age: the film has aged exceedingly well.

The core story is nothing if not familiar: a jaded, cynical police detective, a mere week away from retirement (Morgan Freeman), gets an eager-to-impress, hotheaded, new partner (Brad Pitt) and a grotesque murder case. This particular murder was methodically planned, sickeningly creative and impossibly brutal: fearing the first sign of a serial killer, the veteran detective wants off the case…this isn’t the way that he wants to leave the force. His partner, on the other hand, sees the high profile murder as the first step on his rising career. When additional murders emerge, the older detective is proved right: it is the work of a serial killer, a seemingly genius maniac who kills based on the Seven Deadly Sins. As the pair continue to investigate the case, they uncover an increasingly complex plot that involves damnation, redemption and pure, unadulterated evil. In the process, the detectives plunge down a rabbit hole that, for at least one of them, will lead straight to a living hell.

As previously mentioned, much of the initial power of Fincher’s film comes from the shocking ways in which the story unfolds: it’s not necessarily a mystery, per se, since we’re never given quite enough to piece it all together. Rather, Fincher gradually unfolds the film, layer by layer, inching us towards the devastating conclusion one ugly atrocity at a time. The film is unrelentingly gruesome, although all of the focus is on the aftermaths: we never actually see any of the victims die, ala Saw, but we do spend plenty of time with the disturbing crime-scenes. Disturbing, in this case, is a bit of an understatement: each of the murders revolves around a particularly nasty detail that makes for some appropriately bracing visuals but, more importantly, worms its way straight into the viewer’s brain.

Unlike most slasher/serial killer/horror films, the various murders in Seven aren’t there to be “admired” by gorehounds (think of any of the latter Friday the 13th sequels or pretty much any Nightmare on Elm Street film for examples of cinematic slaughter tends to devalue the victims in favor of the “star” villain). The killings are painful, both physically and emotionally: Seven is the kind of film that you think about for days afterward, your mind constantly turning back to the various torments inflicted by the killer, worrying them over and over, like a dog with a bone. While “Gluttony,” “Greed” and “Pride” are all terrible, “Lust” and “Sloth” were the two that always got to me: there’s something so undeniably awful, yet undeniably clever, about those torments, something that I’ve never really seen replicated on-screen since (including any of the Saw films or their endless imitators).

Fincher and cinematographer Darius Hhondji (responsible for such eye-popping treasures as Jeunet’s Delicatessen (1991) and City of Lost Children (1995), as well as several of Fincher’s other films) shoot the film in the darkest, dreariest way possible, as if the evil at the core of the narrative has spread out to infect the entire world around them. Perpetually rainy, shadowy and claustrophobic, Seven pulls you into its thick atmosphere of dread and holds you there for the entire run-time: nothing sunny infiltrates this world, no joy, no hope…there’s only pain, sorrow and the promise of future pain for the denizens of Seven’s world to look forward to. It’s an atmosphere that’s as fully realized as more fantasy-oriented films like The Crow (1994) or Dark City (1998) but the grounding in “reality” makes it all seem that much more hopeless.

Across the board, the performances in Seven are impeccable, showcasing not only Fincher’s reputation as an “actor’s director,” but helping to keep us immersed in the narrative. In many ways, Brad Pitt’s performance as Det. Mills is a companion piece to his performance in Twelve Monkeys (1995), catching the matinee-idol in the transition between his twitchier, fidgetier past (there are lots of big arm movements, here, just like in Twelve Monkeys, and he often comes across as petulant, rather than driven) and his more polished future. For his part, Freeman is reliably world-weary and as sturdy as a rock: he doesn’t break any new ground, here (his performance as Det. Somerset looks an awful lot like many of his other performances, truth be told), but he’s the perfect compliment to Pitt’s brash, young enthusiasm and brings a welcome sense of “grounding” to the proceedings.

We also get Gwyneth Paltrow, in a nicely understated performance as Mills’ pregnant wife, right before her “star” would begin its meteoric rise into the stratosphere. She has genuine chemistry with both Pitt and Freeman, here: one of the films best scenes (and ideas) is the notion of the young wife seeking out the grizzled detective for life and relationship advice. There’s a subtle sense of father-daughter dynamics between the two that helps expand both their characters, as well as providing the shocking finale with an ever bigger gut-punch. As for Kevin Spacey: after first arriving on my radar via his demented performance as Mel Proffit in the old Wiseguy TV series, Spacey would go on to really impress me in Swimming With Sharks (1994) and The Usual Suspects (1995). While his role in Seven is, in some ways, little more than a cameo, he’s absolutely crucial to the film (for many obvious reasons): Spacey’s cold, reptilian, mannered performance is the embodiment of psychological evil in the same way that the gruesome killings are the embodiment of physical evil…you can’t have one without the other.

In many ways, it’s hard to gauge just how influential Fincher’s film has been in the 20 years since its release. If you think about it, so many modern genre film elements that we routinely take for granted spring from this film, like Athena from Zeus’ skull: the shadowy, dark cinematography and mise en scene; the industrial soundtrack (which features future Fincher collaborator Trent Reznor’s Nine Inch Nails); the focus on the aftermath of the killings; the complex pathology of the killer, complete with twisted “morality”; the shocking twist that puts a pitch-black bow on everything…Fincher wasn’t the first filmmaker to use these techniques, granted, but he was one of the first pop filmmakers to put them all into the same cauldron, freely mixing the “underground” with the multiplex. Without Seven, it’s doubtful there would have been a Saw (or an 8mm (1999), for that matter, but we won’t hold that against Fincher)…the film’s DNA runs so deep, by this point, that it’s almost subliminal.

In the 20 years since Seven careened into theaters, Fincher has become one of the most well-known, iconic filmmakers of the modern era: Fight Club (1999) and Zodiac (2007) are both neo-classics and if The Game (1997), Panic Room (2002), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) and The Social Network (2010) are all far from perfect, they’re also the furthest thing from dull, middle-of-the-road films as possible (even the schmaltzy Benjamin Button has some pretty dark undercurrents to it). Fincher may continue to define and improve his craft but, for me, Seven will always be his finest, most essential film: even if the film fails to “shock” me, these days, it never fails to make me queasy, unlike many other past favorites.

If anything, I envy modern audiences the opportunity to see Seven for the first time, with fresh eyes. As miserable and soul-shatteringly horrifying as the film is, it possesses a feral power that manages to cut through years of processed bullshit, cutting straight to our emotional core. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding: 20 years later, I still remember the experience like it was yesterday. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a classic.

5/6/14: It’s His World…We Just Live Here

Tags

absentee father, American Beauty, Ann Magnuson, Arizona, Catcher in the Rye, Chris Klein, cinema, coming of age, depression, developmentally disabled, divorced parents, Don Cheadle, drama, drug abuse, drug dealer, dysfunctional family, fate, films, flashbacks, Holden Caulfield, independent films, indie dramas, infidelity, James Glennon, Jena Malone, Jeremy Enigk, juvenile detention facility, Kerry Washington, Kevin Spacey, Leland Fitzgerald, Lena Olin, Martin Donovan, Matthew Ryan Hoge, mentally challenged, Michael Pena, Michael Welch, Michelle Williams, Movies, murder, Nick Kokich, prison films, revenge, romance, Ryan Gosling, shattered families, Sherilyn Fenn, Sunny Day Real Estate, The Notebook, The United States of Leland, troubled teens, vengeance, voice-over narration, Wesley Jonathan, writer-director, youth in trouble

Grainy, home movie footage of a yard gives ways to a slow pan across the bright, vibrant green grass, as Ryan Gosling’s familiar, rather bored voice talks about “not being able to remember that day.” The pan continues, as deliberate as a lazy summer day, before finally ending on the obviously dead body of a young man. Gosling stands there, looking pensive for a moment, before jogging off as the Pixies’ iconic “Gigantic” bursts from the soundtrack. It’s a dynamic, effective opening and as a good a way as any to pull us into The United States of Leland (2003), a coming-of-age downer that often plays like a lesser American Beauty, despite having a few extra tricks up its sleeve.

After the opening, we get the meat of the situation: Leland Fitzgerald (Gosling) has just admitted to his mother, Marybeth (Lena Olin) that he killed Ryan Pollard (Michael Welch), the developmentally disabled brother of his girlfriend, Becky (Jena Malone). The whole thing comes as even more of a shock since Leland is so easy-going and seemed to genuinely care about Ryan. His admission is emotionless, distant and he’s locked up post-haste. While inside the juvenile detention facility, Leland meets the usual, stock “guy in prison” characters: a kindly Hispanic inmate (Michael Pena) who tries to strike up a friendship with Leland and a young, black inmate (Wesley Johnathan) who is initially hesitant of the “devil worshiper who killed the retard,” but gradually warms to him. More importantly, however, Leland meets Pearl Madison (Don Cheadle), an aspiring author who teaches classes at the facility.

Pearl sees something in Leland and convinces him to keep a journal, which the boy dubs “The United States of Leland.” Seeing the perfect subject for his long-gestating novel, Pearl tries to get to the essence of Leland, hoping to figure out what drove such a seemingly nice guy to do such a terrible thing. Meanwhile, on the outside, the dead boy’s family is falling apart: father Harry (Martin Donovan) is obsessed with the idea of killing Leland, mother Karen (Bongwater-member Ann Magnuson) has completely shut down, sisters Becky and Julie (Michelle Williams) are a wreck and Julie’s boyfriend, Allen (Chris Klein) is doing his best to hold everything together. He can’t, of course, because the situation continues to spin out of control, even as Leland seems to get some semblance of peace behind bars. As the reasons for Leland’s actions become more clear, including life-long issues with his absentee, famous writer father, Albert (Kevin Spacey), and Becky’s backsliding into heroin addiction, via her slimy ex-boyfriend, Kevin (Nick Kokich), everything seems to move along the most fatalistic path possible. When Allen decides to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to heal the wounded family, his actions bring everything to a boil, changing all of their lives, forever, in the process.

Released the year before Gosling would find super-stardom with the romantic hit The Notebook (2004), The United States of Leland is an odd role for the burgeoning superstar. While an argument can be made that many of Gosling’s performances hinge on his handsome, slightly bemused face taking stock of the situation (any situation…every situation…), it seems a rather unfair criticism to say that he spends the entire film staring off into the distance. Yet, essentially, this is what he does for the better part of the film’s almost two-hour-run-time. There’s not a whole lot of acting going on here, to be honest, more like a studied attempt to under-act whenever possible. While this affectation may have worked wonders in films like Drive (2011) and Only God Forgives (2013), where Gosling served more as an enigmatic symbol than an actual person, it only serves to strip any chance of relating to his character: in most cases, Leland seems about as alive and “with-it” as someone in a semi-catatonic state.

With Gosling effectively out of the picture, then, the “heavy emotional lifting,” as it were, needs to come from American Pie’s Klein as Allen, one of the most obvious “white knight” characters in recent memory. Allen is such a ridiculously nice guy that he never seems to do anything for self-serving reasons: coupled with his kindly demeanor, soft-spoken strength and determination, Allen is just about the nicest nice guy you’d ever meet. Yet, time after time, the movie takes care to shit on Allen from a great height, beginning with the rather callous way that his girlfriend, Julie, kicks him to the curb when things get bad and culminating with his spectacularly terrible plan to “make everything better.” The film never makes any attempt to explain away Julie’s change of heart, which is actually pretty par for the course in a film where characters seem to make arbitrary decisions that are designed to propel the narrative forward.

Pearl cheats on his girlfriend with a co-worker, seemingly for the sole reason of giving Leland some moral high-ground on him. Leland’s father, Albert, is nothing but contradictions: the character seems so mercurial that it almost feels as if Spacey is playing two separate people, super-glued together. Becky, despite being a junkie (those folks aren’t normally known for being reliable), is a complete mess: none of her actions seem to go together and her motivations range from unknown to insane. While Malone is a more than capable actress, I felt a massive disconnect with her character: she seemed so arbitrary and calculatedly cruel that she was completely unrealistic: uber-nice guy or not, I find it hard to believe that Leland would put up with too much of her shit.

The film makes a few rather sharp points about the human tendency to mess up, something which Pearl repeatedly blames on human nature. In one of the most thought-provoking lines in the film, Leland smiles and tells Pearl that he thinks it’s amusing that people always blame bad stuff on human nature but not good stuff: that’s all us. It’s a smart observation and one of the few times in the film were we seem to get a (mostly) conscious Gosling. By contrast, the film’s coda, which purports to explain Leland’s mindset, is a complete muddle. There’s an allusion made to a family that he met years before, the Calderons, and we’re made to believe that sleeping with the mother opened Leland’s eyes to the sadness of the world. While it’s an intriguing thought, it’s also an underdeveloped one, coming as it does in the final few moments of the film. It’s not a revelation, per se (hence I don’t feel the need to warn about potential spoilers), mostly because it’s difficult to see how it actually influences the course of the narrative: it’s equivalent to finding out that someone wore a blue shirt on the day they killed someone. Since the color of the shirt, specifically, doesn’t have anything to with the killing, knowing this bit of information doesn’t provide us any further insight. It’s a sort of MacGuffin, if you will, but for character development.

One of my biggest issues with the film has to do with its structure. For most of the movie, The United States of Leland utilizes almost continual flashbacks: often, it’s difficult to figure out exactly what time-frame we’re currently in, especially with some of Becky’s drug activity. This seems particularly unnecessary since the actual plot of the movie is pretty straight-forward: the flashback structure just seemed like a way to “gussy up” the proceedings, some way to make the film stand out a little more. Ultimately, the flashbacks feel as unnecessary as Gosling’s constant voice-over, which does little to add to either his own motivations or the actual story at hand. Whenever I complain about voice-overs (which I constantly do) I’m complaining about superfluous ones like this. For the most part.

Most of the cast does just fine with their roles, although Spacey’s screen-time really amounts to more of a glorified cameo than anything else, which is kind of disappointing. During those few scenes, however, Spacey is a nearly perfectly pitched alpha-male asshole, a pretentious word-cruncher who can’t stop his compulsion to correct someone’s grammar even as they’re offering him help. Cheadle is reliably solid as Pearl but I can’t help feeling that much of his actions and characterizations were just as arbitrary as those of Becky and Julie. At least Albert’s actions all fit with his obnoxious personality but Pearl was always something of an enigma.

One notable aspect of The United States of Leland would definitely be the soundtrack and score. Beginning with the Pixies song in the opening, music plays a pretty big part in the overall design of the film. This isn’t surprising when you consider that Jeremy Enigk, the frontman for ’90s-era emo-band Sunny Day Real Estate, handles the score duties here. Considering that veteran cinematographer James Glennon – whose resume includes Flight of the Navigator (1986), Citizen Ruth (1996), Election (1999) and About Schmidt (2002) – was behind the camera, The United States of Leland has a consistently good look, especially with some nicely saturated colors. While the film isn’t particularly original, it’s never a chore to watch.

Ultimately, The United States of Leland is a decent effort but one that breaks no new ground whatsoever. Despite a decent ensemble cast, there just isn’t much here to write home about. If you’ve always wondered what a less-focused, more vague take on American Beauty would feel like, The United States of Leland might just fit the bill. Otherwise, it’s a pretty basic drama about dysfunctional families, our dysfunctional society and the million little ways we find to make ourselves truly miserable.