3/19/15 (Part Two) Love, Pink Bees and Inverse Matter

Tags

amnesia, Benoît Charest, Blu Mankuma, Brazil, cinema, class systems, dystopian future, evil corporations, film reviews, films, fish-out-of-water, foreign films, French-Canadian films, Gravity, haves vs have-nots, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Jim Sturgess, Juan Solanas, Kate Trotter, Kirsten Dunst, matter and inverse matter, Movies, Nicholas Rose, parallel worlds, Pierre Gill, romances, Romeo and Juliet, sci-fi, star-crossed lovers, stylish films, Terry Gilliam, Timothy Spall, upper vs lower class, Upside Down, voice-over narration, writer-director

Blame it on the Bard: ever since Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” first inflamed the sensibilities and emotions of its frilled sleeve and pantaloons-sporting audiences, it’s been pretty much the gold-standard of ill-fated pop culture romances. The tale of star-crossed lovers, doomed to be in thrall to each other, yet forbidden to be together thanks to a bitter cross-family feud, has formed the basis for an almost uncountable number of films, books, plays, TV shows, comic books, cartoons and stick-figure flip books. Every writer, filmmaker, content producer and artist brings their own spin to the story: the tale has transcended eras, notions of class, gender, race, sexuality, nationality and religious upbringing. Each and every generation finds something new with the story because, let’s face it: there have been star-crossed lovers since humanity emerged from the primordial ooze and there’ll be star-crossed lovers until our sun finally blinks out of existence.

Argentinian writer-director Juan Solanas’ Upside Down (2012), despite its fanciful sci-fi trappings, is yet another in a long line of films that look to Shakespeare’s iconic play for inspiration. In this case, the intent appears to be to dress up the age-old story of ill-fated lovers with the giddy fantasy elements of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and the grimy, dystopic worldview of Terry Gilliam. Rather than coming up with a fresh, new spin on the old chestnut, however, Solanas’ film ends up being trite, unapologetically dewy-eyed and overly sentimental: it’s basically a happy, multiplex take on Gilliam’s far superior Brazil (1985). As the old saying goes, if that’s what you’re looking for, look no further.

A star-struck, expository voice-over fills us in on the basics of the world from the jump. Essentially, Upside Down is focused on two planets, each with their own individual gravities, societies, social systems and matter (both “regular” and “inverse”). The planets are so close to each other that the metropolitan lights of the “top” world serve as the “stars” of the bottom world: a stark, industrial tower connects both worlds, allowing the privileged “top worlders” to co-exist (in a manner of speaking) with the lowly “bottom worlders.” That’s right, folks: the people in the gleaming, modern “top world” are the haves and the folks dwelling in the run-down, dystopic “bottom world” are the have-nots, condemned to suck up all the waste, pollution and detritus of their well-to-do “Northern” neighbors.

Our surrogate Romeo and Juliet, in this case, are Adam (Jim Sturgess) and Eden (Kirsten Dunst). She’s a privileged “up worlder,” he’s a lowly “down worlder” and they first meet as children, at a point where the two worlds almost touch. This begins a decades-long romance that is harshly curtailed when an “up world” hunting party takes a shot at Adam (“up worlders” and “down worlders” are forbidden to have social contact, you see) and ends up causing Eden to fall and lose her memory. He thinks she’s dead, she can’t remember anything before the accident and they each go about their separate lives.

An inventor, by trade, Adam comes up with a miraculous face-lifting cream that gains him access to the vaunted Trans World tower and the much-envied lives of the “up worlders.” While there, he makes a friend and ally in “up worlder” Bob (Timothy Spall), along with the more shocking discovery that Eden is still alive and well. Fighting against the restrictions and conventions of their individual societies, as well as their individual bodies (“up worlders” and “down worlders” are bound by the conventions of their respective gravities, even when “visiting” the opposing world…this, of course, makes the title a physical reality, while making personal interaction more than a little difficult), Adam struggles to make Eden remember the love they once shared, all while trying to carve out his own slice of the “up world” pie. As Trans World executives pursue the pair, however, they’ll come to realize that every great love involves sacrifice: sometimes, you have to lose everything you have in order to gain the things you really want.

From the get-go, Upside Down makes its intentions quite clear: this is a sappy, traditional, “boy meets/loses/gets back girl” story and any focus on other aspects of the narrative are, for lack of a better term, simply smoke and mirrors. Unlike Gilliam’s films, which take sharp, cynical jabs at the futility of modern life, or Jeunet’s films, which often point out the inherent absurdity of human interactions, Solanas’ Upside Down is really all about the trials and travails of this particular couple. Sure, there are pretensions to more, especially once we get to the giddy finale that seems to indicate that Adam and Eden’s love will, miraculously, transform their uncaring world(s) (as the ridiculously serious voice over tells us, “that’s a story for another time”…oy…).

As a traditional romance, Upside Down hits all of the required beats but never really catches fire: Sturgess and Dunst have decent enough chemistry, for the most part, but there’s never anything especially passionate about them. They seem like the kind of couple that have a good time in high school and then break up the summer before moving away to college: pretty far afield from lovers who would “die” without their partner. There are some clever attempts to make the notion of risking yourself for the one you love a more physical reality (Adam’s special rig, which is the only way he’s able to move around in “up world,” has a tendency to burst into flame when he overstays his welcome, meaning that he really is “burning” for Eden) but, for the most part, this is another example of “tell, don’t show.” The one good counter-example to this is also one of the film’s silliest scenes, as the two lovers hold each other and kiss as they gently spin in mid-air, caught between both of their opposing gravities. It’s the kind of silly, swooning moment that makes Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet (1996) seem like Bergman’s Cries and Whispers (1972).

Many of the film’s critical issues can actually be linked back to its frequently silly, nonsensical plot developments. The central idea concerning the opposing worlds is actually pretty great and would have made a really interesting, serious sci-fi film, ala Gattaca (1997), or even something inherently “artier” like von Trier’s Melancholia (2011). Here, though, the notion is squandered and given short shrift in favor of the much more mundane romantic angle: we’ve seen hundreds (thousands?) of takes on Romeo and Juliet over the years…how many films about parallel worlds with opposing gravities do you remember seeing? If you answered “more than one,” you’re doing a lot better than me, let me tell ya.

When the film actually takes the time to focus on world-building and puts the romance on the back-burner, there’s plenty of interesting, eye-catching stuff going on. Our first sight of the massive office room, with the upside-down matching floor right above, is pretty amazing and there’s a really cool sequence involving an extendable chair that managed to trigger my vertigo like gangbusters. A ballroom scene involving a mass of dancing couples, both upside-down and right-side-up, is instantly memorable, as is the Trans World tower, itself, that looks like it was pulled, wholesale, from one of King’s Dark Tower books. Visually, Upside Down has a lot to offer, even if the images are often murky and kind of ugly, alternately under-lit and over-blown.

At the end of the day, however, the film is really too obvious and ham-fisted to make much of an impact. There’s a strong central story, here, and plenty of good acting (Spall is typically excellent as Adam’s friendly “desk mate” and partner-in-crime) but it’s all in service of so much “more of the same” that the film ends up feeling rather generic, despite its wholly original central concept. I really wanted to be all-in here, but the film is just too dewy-eyed to ever take seriously. While I’ll admit that traditional romances aren’t necessarily my cup of tea, I’m more than willing to give a shout-out to any film that knocks it out of the park, regardless of style, content or genre: after all, films don’t get much better than True Romance (1993) and what’s that but a traditional “boy meets girl” story dragged through the gutter? Upside Down, unfortunately, never rises above the level of well-made, pedestrian entertainment: it’s a pleasant enough film, no doubt, but never more than that, despite how high it aims.

 

3/20/14: When Jackasses Attack

Tags

arrogance, based on a book, based on a true story, celebrities, celebrity, celebrity journalist, cinema, comedies, Danny Huston, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, fish-out-of-water, Gillian Anderson, gossip rags, Hollywood, Hollywood satire, How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, Jeff Bridges, journalism, Kirsten Dunst, magazines, Megan Fox, Mother Teresa biopic, Movies, New York City, obnoxious people, Robert B. Weide, Sidney Young, SImon Pegg, Sophie Maes, Toby Young, unlikable protagonist, workplace comedies

As a modern society, we’ve become pretty obsessed with celebrities and the private lives of these glitterati. In a classic case of “the grass always looks greener,” it’s very inviting to look over the elegantly wrought-iron fences, past the armed security and straight into the beating heart of the American dream. This, of course, is a steaming load of horse pucky: the grass is greener because it’s Astroturf and the beautiful people look a lot like everyone else do first thing in the morning. This, of course, hasn’t stopped an entire cottage industry of gossip shows, tabloids and paparazzi from springing up to document every celebrity faux pas, grocery store visit, nose job and million-dollar deal under the sun. While it often seems that these purveyors of celebrity “news” are jaded outsiders looking to blow holes in the rhinestone-bedazzled Hindenburg that Hollywood often resembles, the Simon Pegg-starring How to Lose Friends and Alienate People posits a slightly different theory: these paparazzi are just as obsessed, envious and in love with these folks as everyone else is supposed to be.

Based on Toby Young book about his real-life experiences, HTLFAAP introduces us to the character of Sidney Young (Simon Pegg). As a boy, Sidney was obsessed with the idea that all celebrities lived together in some sort of Shangri-La…a 24/7 Copacabana where the drinks were always comped, the makeup was always immaculate and the people were all cool as ice. If he could just get there, he reasoned, he would be one truly happy young boy. As the opening voice-over lets us know, however, “celebrity journalist” is as close as he’s gotten to this imagined paradise. As he sits with starlet-of-the-moment Sophie Maes (Megan Fox) at an award show, one Best Actress award away from some promised pity sex, Sidney reflects back on the events that led him to this particular moment in time. The flashback takes us into our movie proper: one part workplace comedy, one part Hollywood satire, one part old-fashioned romance.

We see Sidney as a scrappy, ultra-combative tabloid journalist, prone to celebrity attack pieces and raging against the machine of the big corporate fluff rags. He ends up on the radar of Clayton Harding (Jeff Bridges), a gossip-rag magnate, after he crashes one of his exclusive A-list Hollywood parties. Sidney reminds Clayton of himself, at that age and economic level, so he does the only thing that a respectable gossip-mag baron would do in a situation like this: he puts Sidney on the payroll. This puts Sidney into direct contact with your usual rogues’ gallery of assorted oddball characters: Lawrence Maddox (Danny Huston), Sidney’s slimy boss; Alison (Kirsten Dunst), the prickly co-worker that would never, in a million years, fall for a jerk like Sidney; fame-hungry starlet Sophie Maes, her little dog Cuba and reptilian agent Eleanor (Gillian Anderson); and colossal jackass/director Vincent Lepak (Max Minghella).

As Sidney navigates these treacherous, shark-filled waters, he finds himself falling for Alison (natch), although she has a mysterious absentee boyfriend that makes getting together seem a little impossible. There also seems to be some interest from Sophie, although she seems more than willing to do absolutely anything that would push her career one step closer to the big time. Sidney’s old rebel spirit begins to fight back as he’s asked to do a puff piece on Lepak, a black-hole of vapidity so dense that nothing can escape his crushing stupidity. When Sidney rebels, it seems like the only thing holding him back is himself: as Harding told him earlier, he’s standing in the first room and is fully capable of getting to the last room…if he wants it bad enough. Sidney must reconcile his own core values with his lifelong desire to fit in with the “cool kids,” all while trying to figure out just what, exactly, he really wants to do with his life.

My biggest beef with HTLFAAP is that the film ends up being so schizophrenic. On the one hand, it wants to be a snarky, razor-sharp satire on the inherent ridiculousness of Hollywood, complete with an epic Mother Teresa biopic starring Megan Fox. On the other hand, the film wants to be one of those ubiquitous workplace dramadies where co-workers conspire against each other, ideas are stolen, comeuppances are had by all and a quirky parade of characters engage in utterly quirky behavior. On the third hand, the movie wants to be an old-fashioned romance, one of those Cary Grant-starrers where the guy and gal don’t see eye to eye, you see, until they do, at which point they fall madly in love with each other and live happily ever after. As you can see, there’s about one hand too many here. This is a big reason why the film ends up being a bit of a tonal mess: one moment, it’s a frantic, ultra-high-strung slapstick comedy, the next moment, it’s a stereotypical “indie comedy,” with Juno-esque dialogue and sardonic voice-over. The film also gets serious, from time to time, mostly to remind us that Sidney is constantly in danger of losing his core values.

For my money, the most tired aspect of the film (and the one that I would have cut first) would have to be the hackneyed romantic angle. The romance steals the focus of the film almost entirely, especially by the final third, where Sidney is madly rushing about trying to win the hand of Alison. In fact, the final denouement has virtually nothing to do with any of the celebrity-chasing that came before, breaking everything down to that time-honored (and ultra-trite) notion that all you really do need is love. How nice. Were there some actual chemistry between Pegg and Dunst, the romance might carry a little bit more weight. As it stands, however, it felt very much like “Character A must like Character B”-level plotting and never felt authentic.

What worked? The film seemed to wring the most success from the celeb-mocking stuff (the Mother Teresa gag is, quite simply, one of the funniest jokes I’ve seen in quite some time) and the performances were pretty sturdy. It’s always nice to see The Dude in something but I kinda wish Bridges had been given more to do than bluster and offer the occasional bit of sage advise. Pegg did a decent job playing a shithead character but this kind of smug, self-absorbed nitwit is starting to seem like old hat for ol’ Simon: it would be nice to see him branch out a little. Ditto for Dunst, who’s been on this kind of autopilot for his last few roles. She’s a great actress but, too often, she’s just required to be withering. Huston and Anderson are great in some meaty supporting roles: Anderson, in particular, is a blast to watch and neatly wrestles the film away whenever she’s on-screen.

At the end of the day, is How to Lose Friends and Alienate People worth a watch? It really depends on your expectations. If you’re a Simon Pegg fan, you could probably do worse (like Mission Impossible III) but you could certainly do better (see a Fantastic Fear of Everything, instead). I’m not familiar with the original book, or the person it was based on, so I can’t really vouch as to the authenticity of either, at least as represented here. My personal take is that Sidney comes across as a self-absorbed douchebag but, then again, what do I know? I do know that the romantic aspect drags the film down, however, and that it would have been a lot better had it been a lot shorter and tighter. I also know that, despite my intense dislike of Megan Fox, I would pay very good money to see her play Mother Teresa in that promised biopic: I kinda wish the filmmakers had given us an hour of that instead of two hours of this.