Warning: Two Good Ones
1. "The Wrestler". Okay, let's get this out of the way at the start: yes, the story of a broken-down, has-been wrestler trying for one last shot at glory has more than a few passing similarities to the career of star Mickey Rourke. So in a certain sense he is playing at least an aspect of his own life. But if that were all that were going on here, this wouldn't be nearly as potent a film as it is.
Randy "The Ram" has seen his his share of glory, but that's all in the very distant past as the movie begins. Not only does he now resort to wrestling in small-time matches in high school gyms on weekends to help make ends meet, but he's never managed to establish a meaningful relationship with a woman since his bitter divorce, though he deludes himself that he's formed something solid with Cassidy, a stripper at a bar he frequents... he either doesn't see or isn't allowing himself to see how much of that relationship is completely professional (and monetary). And what little connection he ever had with his daughter was dissolved in years of parental neglect. As little as his current wrestling bouts give him, it's mighty close to all he's got.
Now, I don't imagine that what I've just described is going to make very many people excited about seeing the feel good movie of the year. I've had problems in the past trying to convince people to see anything that doesn't sound like an on-your-feet-cheering-the-hero crowd pleaser (I couldn't begin to count the number of times my raves about "The Sweet Hereafter" were greeted with "Oh, that sounds DEPRESSING!"). But anyone who understands that a movie doesn't have to make you feel good in order to be a good movie will appreciate a lot of what "The Wrestler" has to offer.
A friend of mine who'd seen this movie before I finally caught up with it said he thought that the story itself had nothing new you hadn't seen in other movies, but that the acting had so much heart in it that you couldn't help but care about the characters. That seems to me to be hitting the nail right on the head. Imagine just about any underdog athletic saga, but with a great deal less feel-good triumph, and you've got "The Wrestler" (say, Rocky if his life had turned out very differently). But Rourke is amazing in this performance. Before seeing this movie I could still barely recall when I used to look at him as a real talent, almost a Brando for his generation... but those memories were getting more faded with time. "The Wrestler" brings them all back full force. He rarely raises his voice, and never takes the easy route of exaggerated gestures and acting, but you feel every single blow life is delivering to his fragile esteem, as well as his desperation to connect with another human being. That is really Randy's tragedy: that wrestling has become his life so totally that he doesn't know how to relate to anyone else in any way that can give his life meaning, and it might now be too late to change that. I've seen my share of movies with actors playing parts that mirror their lives, and generally speaking, they're a big snooze. Rourke delivers a performance as "The Ram" is the emotional equivalent of one of Randy's "Ram Jam"s, a physically devastating wrestling move.
His fellow Oscar nominee Marisa Tomei isn't given quite as much to work with, either in terms of screen time or of a character who is equally well established, but proves herself very capable of creating a memorable opposite of The Ram... unlike Randy, who has no world outside of his profession, Cassidy, a single mother, desperately wants OUT of hers... she has the connection Randy lacks and is working to try and keep it. The script isn't as clear establishing who Cassidy is and what her dreams are, but Tomei does impressive work filling in the gaps with her performance. And director Darren Aronovsky, who in the past has given us "Pi". "Requiem For A Dream" and "The Fountain" (all of them much more unorthodox, experimental type films) works well within a more conventional frame of reference here.
It always seems to be said that a movie about a sport "isn't REALLY about (fill in the name of the sport here)". Usually that's nonsense. But not this time: Randy happens to BE a wrestler, but the movie is about the distance between him and the people in his life, and his faltering attempts to bridge that distance, and to find meaning in something other than his work. And that's something that a lot of people should be able to identify with, and even learn something from... whether it makes them feel good or not.
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2. "Coraline". And now, for something completely different.
Coraline is an apparently typical 12-year old: frustrated by the lack of attention from her distracted parents, wishing she had the parents she feels she deserves. One day she finds a hidden passage in the family home into an alternate world with alternate and seemingly perfect versions of everyone in the world she knows, including parents who indulge her every wish. Paradise, right? Well, maybe not: completely aside from the fact that they literally have buttons in place of eyes, the "other parents" have sinister designs for Coraline, and aren't about to let her leave. She has to find resources of cleverness and strength she never knew she had not only in order to get back to her own world, but to rescue her "real" parents from the designs of the imposters.
Neil Gaiman is one of the most imaginitive, creative writers of our time, and his works have provided the source material for films in the past, but never as effectively as with "Coraline". Director Henry Selick ("The Nightmare Before Christmas") creates Coraline's world... or, more accurately, worlds... on screen with complete understanding in visual terms of what made them work on the page. The story could ALMOST have been his own creation, so concerned is he with achieving Gaiman's vision. But that doesn't mean he's not contributing anything: quite to the contrary, the people and... well, THINGS that interact with Coraline are unlike anything you've seen in any other movie, and more than anything else I was struck by Selick's inventiveness and imagination. You might wind up wishing a few more directors would use stop-motion animation instead of always going for Computer Generated.
There are those who might say that this inventiveness and imagination manifests itself in rather strange, creepy ways. To which I say: and your point is? You're saying that as if it's a bad thing? I maintain that many of the classics of so-called children's literature have a strong thread of creepyness and the eerie about them (if they didn't, the Brothers Grimm and Roald Dahl would never have had careers), and that children appreciate and can handle a good deal more of that kind of thing than many adults. And after all, Coraline is a brave, resourceful girl who is able to overcome any strange creature or person trying to stop her, and who is willing to go to whatever lengths she needs to in order to save her family. Is this the worst role model a child could have? Or do we really want a nation of kids to grow up to be Hannah Montana?
In the midst of all of the bizarre visuals and plot twists of Gaiman's story, Selick also takes care to include his depth of character... he's smart enough to know that if we didn't have real, sympathetic people (okay, so maybe they're not all exactly PEOPLE) at the heart of this story, then all of the imagination in the world would eventually become not much more than a distraction from a story that was empty at its core. And thankfully, he also has Gaiman's sense of fun... this is absolutely the most sheer FUN I've had at a movie in quite a while. By the way, the film is being shown in both 3-D and in more conventional 2-D. I saw the 2-D version and didn't think I was missing a thing: you feel so completely that you're right in the middle of the story that I don't see how 3-D could have helped. In fact, I think it would probably be a gimmicky distraction, constantly taking you out of the story and reminding you that you're really watching a movie.
Gaiman lives quite near the Twin Cities, and as a result often is seen around town (I've met him four times: three times at readings, and once when I simply dropped into Dreamhaven Books one day and happened to spot him standing at the counter talking to the staff). So odds are good that I'll be seeing him again eventually. I know he's getting all kinds of questions about the film now, but I still intend to ask what he thought of it. I expect that he was quite delighted. And anyone who appreciates a thoroughly unique story of people you can recognize in a world you can't, told in a visually dazzling style that almost demands more than one viewing in order to take all of it in, should have a similar response.
Randy "The Ram" has seen his his share of glory, but that's all in the very distant past as the movie begins. Not only does he now resort to wrestling in small-time matches in high school gyms on weekends to help make ends meet, but he's never managed to establish a meaningful relationship with a woman since his bitter divorce, though he deludes himself that he's formed something solid with Cassidy, a stripper at a bar he frequents... he either doesn't see or isn't allowing himself to see how much of that relationship is completely professional (and monetary). And what little connection he ever had with his daughter was dissolved in years of parental neglect. As little as his current wrestling bouts give him, it's mighty close to all he's got.
Now, I don't imagine that what I've just described is going to make very many people excited about seeing the feel good movie of the year. I've had problems in the past trying to convince people to see anything that doesn't sound like an on-your-feet-cheering-the-hero crowd pleaser (I couldn't begin to count the number of times my raves about "The Sweet Hereafter" were greeted with "Oh, that sounds DEPRESSING!"). But anyone who understands that a movie doesn't have to make you feel good in order to be a good movie will appreciate a lot of what "The Wrestler" has to offer.
A friend of mine who'd seen this movie before I finally caught up with it said he thought that the story itself had nothing new you hadn't seen in other movies, but that the acting had so much heart in it that you couldn't help but care about the characters. That seems to me to be hitting the nail right on the head. Imagine just about any underdog athletic saga, but with a great deal less feel-good triumph, and you've got "The Wrestler" (say, Rocky if his life had turned out very differently). But Rourke is amazing in this performance. Before seeing this movie I could still barely recall when I used to look at him as a real talent, almost a Brando for his generation... but those memories were getting more faded with time. "The Wrestler" brings them all back full force. He rarely raises his voice, and never takes the easy route of exaggerated gestures and acting, but you feel every single blow life is delivering to his fragile esteem, as well as his desperation to connect with another human being. That is really Randy's tragedy: that wrestling has become his life so totally that he doesn't know how to relate to anyone else in any way that can give his life meaning, and it might now be too late to change that. I've seen my share of movies with actors playing parts that mirror their lives, and generally speaking, they're a big snooze. Rourke delivers a performance as "The Ram" is the emotional equivalent of one of Randy's "Ram Jam"s, a physically devastating wrestling move.
His fellow Oscar nominee Marisa Tomei isn't given quite as much to work with, either in terms of screen time or of a character who is equally well established, but proves herself very capable of creating a memorable opposite of The Ram... unlike Randy, who has no world outside of his profession, Cassidy, a single mother, desperately wants OUT of hers... she has the connection Randy lacks and is working to try and keep it. The script isn't as clear establishing who Cassidy is and what her dreams are, but Tomei does impressive work filling in the gaps with her performance. And director Darren Aronovsky, who in the past has given us "Pi". "Requiem For A Dream" and "The Fountain" (all of them much more unorthodox, experimental type films) works well within a more conventional frame of reference here.
It always seems to be said that a movie about a sport "isn't REALLY about (fill in the name of the sport here)". Usually that's nonsense. But not this time: Randy happens to BE a wrestler, but the movie is about the distance between him and the people in his life, and his faltering attempts to bridge that distance, and to find meaning in something other than his work. And that's something that a lot of people should be able to identify with, and even learn something from... whether it makes them feel good or not.
******************************************************************************
2. "Coraline". And now, for something completely different.
Coraline is an apparently typical 12-year old: frustrated by the lack of attention from her distracted parents, wishing she had the parents she feels she deserves. One day she finds a hidden passage in the family home into an alternate world with alternate and seemingly perfect versions of everyone in the world she knows, including parents who indulge her every wish. Paradise, right? Well, maybe not: completely aside from the fact that they literally have buttons in place of eyes, the "other parents" have sinister designs for Coraline, and aren't about to let her leave. She has to find resources of cleverness and strength she never knew she had not only in order to get back to her own world, but to rescue her "real" parents from the designs of the imposters.
Neil Gaiman is one of the most imaginitive, creative writers of our time, and his works have provided the source material for films in the past, but never as effectively as with "Coraline". Director Henry Selick ("The Nightmare Before Christmas") creates Coraline's world... or, more accurately, worlds... on screen with complete understanding in visual terms of what made them work on the page. The story could ALMOST have been his own creation, so concerned is he with achieving Gaiman's vision. But that doesn't mean he's not contributing anything: quite to the contrary, the people and... well, THINGS that interact with Coraline are unlike anything you've seen in any other movie, and more than anything else I was struck by Selick's inventiveness and imagination. You might wind up wishing a few more directors would use stop-motion animation instead of always going for Computer Generated.
There are those who might say that this inventiveness and imagination manifests itself in rather strange, creepy ways. To which I say: and your point is? You're saying that as if it's a bad thing? I maintain that many of the classics of so-called children's literature have a strong thread of creepyness and the eerie about them (if they didn't, the Brothers Grimm and Roald Dahl would never have had careers), and that children appreciate and can handle a good deal more of that kind of thing than many adults. And after all, Coraline is a brave, resourceful girl who is able to overcome any strange creature or person trying to stop her, and who is willing to go to whatever lengths she needs to in order to save her family. Is this the worst role model a child could have? Or do we really want a nation of kids to grow up to be Hannah Montana?
In the midst of all of the bizarre visuals and plot twists of Gaiman's story, Selick also takes care to include his depth of character... he's smart enough to know that if we didn't have real, sympathetic people (okay, so maybe they're not all exactly PEOPLE) at the heart of this story, then all of the imagination in the world would eventually become not much more than a distraction from a story that was empty at its core. And thankfully, he also has Gaiman's sense of fun... this is absolutely the most sheer FUN I've had at a movie in quite a while. By the way, the film is being shown in both 3-D and in more conventional 2-D. I saw the 2-D version and didn't think I was missing a thing: you feel so completely that you're right in the middle of the story that I don't see how 3-D could have helped. In fact, I think it would probably be a gimmicky distraction, constantly taking you out of the story and reminding you that you're really watching a movie.
Gaiman lives quite near the Twin Cities, and as a result often is seen around town (I've met him four times: three times at readings, and once when I simply dropped into Dreamhaven Books one day and happened to spot him standing at the counter talking to the staff). So odds are good that I'll be seeing him again eventually. I know he's getting all kinds of questions about the film now, but I still intend to ask what he thought of it. I expect that he was quite delighted. And anyone who appreciates a thoroughly unique story of people you can recognize in a world you can't, told in a visually dazzling style that almost demands more than one viewing in order to take all of it in, should have a similar response.
posted by Joe Bunce at
9:34 AM
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