I enjoyed this. I did. And I'll tell you also that is overly simple, hackneyed and largely unengaging. So why did I like it?
First, since I'm not going to actually recommend it, you need to know something about it. It is written and directed by John Duigan, so you know it will be coherent, and slickly produced.
You also know that it will have a simple "explanation," that the arc of the story will have grade-school clarity. And you know that the actors will embrace this because it makes their job easier, so you might get closer match with the actors and the directors intent than usual. And if you know Duigan's past work, you'll also know that the story will have not only grade-school clarity but a sort of simpleminded romanticism.
All his projects deal with sex, and unrealistic romantic notions.
So yes, this is just like your average pop song: a young girl singing about the depths of life though you know she couldn't possibly know much. These trivial insights served up as profundities. These profundities overproduced with creamy lushness with carefully placed hooks. Oh and that girl dolled up to maximize her physical appeal by reference to archetypes.
Its why critics hated it, and you probably will too.
But for me, it was one of those happy times where I fell into the rhythm of the thing and mapped a larger arc on it, one that no one involved intended, I'm sure. It is, in essence, about three people, each stupid in their own ways about the ways of the world. It is about three heads in the clouds. And it is done as if it were created from one of those heads, each in turn. Better, the film is in three acts, each with different cinematography and art design.
Each of the three acts maps onto one of our wifty characters. We have the central character: half American, rich, beautiful and fully self-absorbed. She's a photographer, so you can see some self-referential intent. Her two loves are an illiterate Spanish woman who was picked up in a strip club.
An honest, straightforward woman who has no idea how life works or what is around the corner.
And our British academic. Bookish, restrained. Not afraid to plunge in blindly to follow his fantasies but no matter how much reality slaps him in the face (through two wars) he tenaciously clings to the fantasies which drive him.
All of these are dumb in their own way and the reason the film implies that thugs rule the world.
"Dogtown and the Z-Boys" was a bad movie, but perfect in a way, just exactly the sort of thing that would have been made by one of the characters in the thing. This is the same. Go back to "Paranoid" which was widely dismissed. Its premise was that what you see could just be a dream of the main character. Or "Sirens" which implied that a full sexual life could be painted onto our imagination.
So think of this as a visit to three vacuous heads in the clouds. Think of it as "Dreamers" with less passion and less film reference. But equally cinematic in its vision.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.
First, since I'm not going to actually recommend it, you need to know something about it. It is written and directed by John Duigan, so you know it will be coherent, and slickly produced.
You also know that it will have a simple "explanation," that the arc of the story will have grade-school clarity. And you know that the actors will embrace this because it makes their job easier, so you might get closer match with the actors and the directors intent than usual. And if you know Duigan's past work, you'll also know that the story will have not only grade-school clarity but a sort of simpleminded romanticism.
All his projects deal with sex, and unrealistic romantic notions.
So yes, this is just like your average pop song: a young girl singing about the depths of life though you know she couldn't possibly know much. These trivial insights served up as profundities. These profundities overproduced with creamy lushness with carefully placed hooks. Oh and that girl dolled up to maximize her physical appeal by reference to archetypes.
Its why critics hated it, and you probably will too.
But for me, it was one of those happy times where I fell into the rhythm of the thing and mapped a larger arc on it, one that no one involved intended, I'm sure. It is, in essence, about three people, each stupid in their own ways about the ways of the world. It is about three heads in the clouds. And it is done as if it were created from one of those heads, each in turn. Better, the film is in three acts, each with different cinematography and art design.
Each of the three acts maps onto one of our wifty characters. We have the central character: half American, rich, beautiful and fully self-absorbed. She's a photographer, so you can see some self-referential intent. Her two loves are an illiterate Spanish woman who was picked up in a strip club.
An honest, straightforward woman who has no idea how life works or what is around the corner.
And our British academic. Bookish, restrained. Not afraid to plunge in blindly to follow his fantasies but no matter how much reality slaps him in the face (through two wars) he tenaciously clings to the fantasies which drive him.
All of these are dumb in their own way and the reason the film implies that thugs rule the world.
"Dogtown and the Z-Boys" was a bad movie, but perfect in a way, just exactly the sort of thing that would have been made by one of the characters in the thing. This is the same. Go back to "Paranoid" which was widely dismissed. Its premise was that what you see could just be a dream of the main character. Or "Sirens" which implied that a full sexual life could be painted onto our imagination.
So think of this as a visit to three vacuous heads in the clouds. Think of it as "Dreamers" with less passion and less film reference. But equally cinematic in its vision.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.