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2000s, 2009, A+, Black & White, Crime, Drama, Grade, History, Review, review-movie, Year

Film Review: Polytechnique – 2009

February 5, 2023 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	Denis Villeneuve
Principal Cast	Karine Vanasse as Valérie Sébastien Huberdeau as Jean-François Maxim Gaudette as The Killer
Release Date	2009
Language(s)	English
Running Time	77 minutes
Report Card	Click to go to Review TLDR/Summary

Note: This review contains spoilers regarding the first 30 minutes of the film as opposed to the site’s usual benchmark of 10-20 minutes. The same effort towards sustaining the intrigue and momentum of the film is maintained in this review, and all plot details revealed are just meant to be a springboard to discuss the scope of the work in better detail. Nothing discussed should undermine the “best” portions of the film or the many mysteries that keep the story engaging.

Women photocopy documents while students chatter around them.

Two women operate a photocopier as a sea of students bustle and jovially engage around them. Within a minute, this peace is interrupted by a set of gunshots. One of the women falls down in pain while the other clutches her ear; violence has created a division and the two women are now framed separately.

The camera tilts from the woman holding her ear to the one wounded on the floor before cutting again to the former. The cut reinforces the disruption that’s occurred – the space has become split. Accordingly, the sound also complete cuts out to a deafening silence as the subject of the shot, both literal and filmic, stumbles to find a grounding. The title card drops in, and a message appears indicating that the story to follow is based off survivor testimony from the Polytechnique shooting of 1989 but chronicles a series of fictional characters.

The Killer (Maxim Gaudette) places the gun to his head

We cut back chronologically and open on the shooter pointing the barrel of his gun to his head; he’s in the throes of suicidal ideation but chooses to not go forward with his decision yet. Instead, he lingers in his dirty, unkept apartment, unable to maintain his gaze on anything in particular. He opens a fridge as if looking for food but his eyes are focused on nothing in particular – there’s something missing.

But his roommate pays no heed to this odd behavior and the two exchange an informal “goodbye” with one another before the camera slowly pushes in on the killer’s face in a close-up shot, reinforcing the isolation of its subject. Even while eating his breakfast, the killer simply goes through the motions and looks somewhere off to the distance.

But when he sees his neighbor’s apartment lights up from his window, he suddenly becomes very focused. He turns off the light in the dining room and stares across; a close-up highlights his focused, intent gaze. The score changes as a result and an ominous droning and somber piano begin to play.

His neighbor begins to move and the killer runs to another room in his place and continues to stare; his neighbor, a young woman, is his obsessive focus. She turns off the lights to her place and departs the location. The killer turns away from his window dejectedly and then begins to act.

The Killer (Maxim Gaudette) cleans his room.

He starts to clean his dirty flat before writing a letter and delivering its contents to us via a voice-over monologue; this is his “declaration” and explanation for the shooting he is to commit, a shooting we have already borne witness to. From its outset, director Denis Villenevue explicitly challenges this justification by placing it after the shooting itself; the shock of the violence makes the killer’s abhorrent reasoning untenable from its inception.

Yet, the deconstruction of the motivation doesn’t stop there. The killer exalts himself as a person of reason who believes in science and explains that this position has led him to want to eliminate all “feminists”, a position he attributes to women by virtue of existence. He claims that they usurp all benefits of men without having to do any of the same labor and that he’s tired of it; yet, he also admits that he, a natural genius who gets great marks without trying, does not wish to do any meaningful study, labor, and be subject to a government. The points are non-sequitur and do not make sense when given more than a moment’s thought; instead, the rant reveals that he’s unable to comprehend himself outside of his hatred.

His alienation must be caused by some other agent(s): women. As the voice-over continues, he stares at a mirror and sees himself alone in the reflection; but if he refuses to understand himself, then his reflection offers no solace. This distance from identity is reinforced when he goes to burn any photographs of himself underneath the mirror in the sink. His sense of self exists only in opposition to the women he has decried as enemy and has nothing to furnish itself on.

The film cuts to another apartment and the non-diegetic track finally stops playing. A young woman, Stéphanie (Evelyne Brochu), holds a cigarette outside the window. She brings it back in and takes a puff before calling out to her roomate, Valérie (Karine Vanasse), to ask a science question related to entropy. Valérie explains the answer and then gets for an interview.

She tries on a series of dresses while looking in the mirror and isn’t satisfied with how she looks. Thankfully, Stéphanie notices her struggling and helps out with getting a better outfit as a diegetic song plays; the two friends smile with each other as they look into the mirror while the music continues and livens up the moment.

Thus, the difference between the men and women’s apartments are formally rendered by Villenevue. One has closed windows while the other apartment’s is open. One has persons who are closed off to one another while the other has persons who eagerly assist and communicate with one another. One is silent and filled with a music that its subjects cannot hear while the other is filled with the sounds of a cheerful song that its subjects can enjoy. While the men are alienated and separate, the women are together and engage in community. This is why Valérie, as opposed to the killer, can find her identity vis-a-vis the mirror; she has a friend to help her out.

While the two young women make their way to university, the film cuts back to the killer who looks at people while driving; his car’s windows and side-view mirrors frame persons in unnatural manners and showcase the killer’s warped perspective. The non-diegetic track comes back into play as he writes and delivers an apology letter to his mother, a woman who he feels a need to explain things to – a sharp contradiction given his complete admonishment of all womenkind.

As the music continues to play, the film cuts to a slanted view of a library, before slowly arcing as it tracks to a new subject, Jean-François (Sébastien Huberdeau). When the young man enters the frame in the up-right position, the non-diegetic track disappears. A passerby calls out to Jean-Francois (JF) and greets him before departing – JF, unlike the killer, is not isolated and has connections.

Valérie (Karine Vanasse) goes to her interview.

Meanwhile, Valérie proceeds to her interview and tries to make a case for herself. But the interviewer immediately disrupts her when he questions her choice to pursue mechanical over civil engineering; the latter, he suggests, is more popular for women because it’s easier and allows them to raise a family. The misogynistic implication of his words is clear: Valérie obviously cannot handle the rigors of the harder discipline if she has “motherly” aspirations. The camera closes in on her face as she struggles to answer the question; the sexism has isolated her in the conversation. Far from finding it easier to get a job as per the killer’s proclamations, she’s immediately forced to jump through additional hoops that her male counterparts would never have to deal with.

She goes to the bathroom to deal with her frustrations and finds herself surrounded by a series of reflections, a sea of Valéries caught up in the fracture opened by the interviewer’s intrusion. But the camera pans through these series of reflections until it comes onto a frame of close-up of a singular reflection of Valérie; she’s found herself once again and proceeds forward. Unlike the killer who refuses to look inwards and seeks external scapegoats for his issues, she looks inwards and finds something to affirm.

The Killer (Maxim Gaudette) can make no connections even in a sea of people.

We cut to a cafeteria where a host of students converse among themselves and engage in everyday behavior. The killer makes his way through the crowd as if looking for something but ends up even more isolated amongst the crowd. He’s unable to find any connection and goes to his car as a non-diegetic score briefly comes into play again.

But it quickly dissipates as Stéphanie comes into the frame; she’s looking for Valérie to get the details on the interview and comforts her friend over the less-than-pleasant encounter. Valérie reveals that she got the job because she played the part expected by the interviewer and claimed she wasn’t interested in having kids; she was forced to repress her desire to get a “fair” chance”

The conversation dissipates and up-beat diegetic music starts to play as the camera goes through the students gathered in the cafeteria to find JF sitting in frustration; he’s incapable of figuring out a problem and spots Valérie and Stéphanie amongst everyone. He immediately goes to greet them and asks for help solving the problem. Valérie lends him his notes and he goes to copy them. Once again, Valérie comes to the aid of a friend, male instead of female this time around. The killer’s speech is once again emphatically disproved as the most knowledgeable person, the one willing to help both women and men, is a woman.

JF (Sébastien Huberdeau) talks to a woman next to the printer.

Furthermore, in sharp contrast to the killer, JF is more than amenable to women and accepts their help and friendship just as willingly as he would any man. While scanning, he exchanges kind words with another woman looking to use the photocopier and quickly takes his notes. But his gaze gets caught up in a painting.

The non-diegetic score creeps back in while the camera slowly pushes in on a copy of Picasso’s “Guernica”; the piece of art uses “lack of color to express the starkness of the aftermath of the bombing”. It serves as an “anti-war symbol” and an “embodiment of peace”. It offers multiple interpretations of its elements. ^[1] Guernica, 1937 by Pablo Picasso. 10 Facts About Guernica by Pablo Picasso. (n.d.). Retrieved February 5, 2023, from https://www.pablopicasso.org/guernica.jsp

The intensified focus on the painting thus serves a dual purpose: it foreshadows of the violence to come, a violence we’ve already been privy to due to the non-linear telling of the narrative, and aligns the films motivations and some of its structural choices with the paintings. We’ve seen the black-and-white aesthetic on display and the violence proper and, thus, we brace ourselves for the “aftermath” and the “peace” to follow.

This image of violence cuts to the killer’s hands clenched in prayer and his deep breaths merge with the score. He’s getting ready to (re)enact the shooting and looks to steady himself. He scribbles more into his letter, as if anything he has left to say can explain what he’s going to do. Then he hears a group of students talking outside and a women’s voice breaks through his trance. He is ready.

The Killer (Maxim Gaudette) enters the school as a haze.

He walks back into the school and the camera captures him in a blurry haze reflecting his ill-defined subjectivity. A close-up on his face captures his absolute inability to come to terms with himself in the world. He looks around the space but only sees men around him; his choice of victim does not seem available. But then, like JF, he catches sight of Valérie and Stéphanie heading to class; his choice is set and his victims, women, have been found.

The film continues to swap between these three primary perspectives – the killer, JF, Valérie – before, during, and after the events of the shooting in an attempt to demonstrate the fracturing effect of violence and the way it (re)forms bonds between both individuals and their surroundings. By showing us the violence at the beginning, the film primes us to focus not on the violence itself but on the manner by which it moves through a system and changes it.

In this way, the violence comes to be a formal marker that disrupts the film as much as it disrupts the characters’ lives. The scene of the shooting repeatedly intervenes, demonstrating its violent, traumatic effects on the psyche. The characters who survive are unable to ever fully forget this disruption as it keeps rearing its ugly head. This effect is felt by the viewer as well who is unable to ever enjoy the time with the characters knowing what’s to come; even a peaceful moment after the shooting becomes interrupted as the film threatens to cut to darker times and force us to relive the trauma again.

This editing approach transforms the shooting from a singular event to a site of traumatic commingling as the perspectives of the characters with their respective chronologies bleed into one another in oneiric fashion. A scene goes from being a flashback to being a dream based on whose subjectivity is being recognized; violence fractures individuals and splinters their experience before reforming them in a new image. The interpretatively ambiguous “Guernica” becomes a fitting double to the film as violence shatters the otherwise normal and forces us to question.

This is why the killer is introduced after the effects of his shooting, leaving him as only a symbolic placeholder as an agent of violence; even the credits list him as merely “The Killer.” Both JF and Valérie are introduced after a scene of the killer going through his plans for the day; the former parties are unaware of his presence but his actions will come to severely impact their lives and after they are made to experience the violence, just as the viewer does at the film’s start, time goes out of joint. The film circles this point of senseless brutality and forces us to engage.

But Villeneuve isn’t as interested in the violence by itself as he is in examining its relation to the sexes and the way those demarcations manifest in identity. This is why he jumps between two men – the killer and JF – and a woman – Valérie. The killer can only see women as the cause of his alienation while JF sees them as companions no different from himself. The film repeatedly highlights how the former’s alienation leaves him fully closed off from men and women despite his stated intentions while the latter’s openness leaves him able to freely interact with everyone. Windows being opened versus closed, diegetic versus non-diegetic music, and camera flips help to signify the difference in these spaces, while mirrors help to make sense of how subjects find themselves in relation these spaces. These attributes help visualize violence’s effects as the changes in spaces render women as fungible objects that can be sacrificed and make distinguishing between “good” and “bad” men much more difficult. The set-up allows Villenevue to suggest that the solution to this heinousness lies in communication, he ultimately leaves the final answer up to interpretation.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	Polytechnique formally breakdowns a school-shooting from a series of gendered perspectives, including that of the male killer’s, in a non-chronological format in order to examine the way violence fractures subjectivity. Its editing takes advantage of being able to shift between these multi-faceted approaches and is able to oscillate in oneiric fashion that captivates as much as it perplexes.
Rating	10/10
Grade	A+

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2020s, 2022, Action, C+, Comedy, Crime, Grade, Past, Review, review-movie, Year

Film Review: The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent – 2022

May 15, 2022 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	Tom Gormican
Principal Cast	Nicolas Cage as Nicolas Cage Pedro Pascal as Javi
Release Date	2022
Language(s)	English
Running Time	107 minutes
Report Card	Click to go to Review TLDR/Summary

NOTE: This is a new release and the review is based off a theatre viewing. This means the review won’t feature common elements like visual analysis, extended theme analysis, or long-form discussions of the cinematic techniques being used. Once I am able to get a copy of the movie to watch, pause, analyze, and get stills from the review will be updated to match the current site’s standard.

The movie opens with a scene from Simon West’s Con Air, a movie where Nicolas Cage plays the role of Poe, a former sergeant, current prison inmate who longs to see his daughter for the first time. Without even knowing it, we’re caught up at a climactic moment in that story and become invested in Poe’s struggles to get to his daughter. It’s at this point the movie proper starts and the scene from Con Air continues to play, this time as part of the scene as opposed to its entirety; a young woman (Alessandra Mastronardi) and her colleague continue to watch it in complete rapture. Given our proximity to the scene, it’s easy to relate to the characters’ investment in the moment- we, both the audience and the characters, wait with baited breath for the resolution to the moment.

But then the room is raided and the young woman is kidnapped by a group of trained men. This larger kidnapping narrative is the framing mechanism that the movie uses to couch its more intimate character drama, a drama which the film cuts to. Nicolas Cage (Nicolas Cage),a fictionalized caricature of the actor based on pop culture , attempts to land an acting job capable of catapulting him back to the top of stardom. He bemoans his lack of recognition and struggles to find himself.

When he begins to question his path, a fictionalized version of Nicolas Cage, Nicky, based on the manic persona of his younger days (Wild at Heart) comes in to raise the spirits. The younger Cage always pushes against the older Cage, raising the latter up. Stardom is the priority and getting roles capable of achieving relevant stardom is all that matters.

Unfortunately, Cage can’t land the gigs capable of satisfying his inner superego and his obsession consequently begins to affect his family life. His obsessions become projections which he forces on to his daughter, Addy (Lily Sheen); he refuses to allow his family to authentically engage in any interaction and forces his opinion at every juncture. He has to be the star of the show at both the films and at home and with no films capable of satisfying his inner aspirations, he has more than enough time to steal to the spotlight at home.

But eventually his bills come due and Cage is forced to make a pragmatic decision; with no other way to make money due to lack of work, he chooses to accept an invitation to attend a birthday party of a mega-fan of his work, Javi (Pedro Pascal). However, the CIA, suspicious of Javi’s affairs, taps Cage in as agent to extract information from Javi to help in the retrieval of the young girl from the movie’s opening, the daughter of a tough-on-crime politician; the echoes of Con Air can be felt.

Yet, Javi, far from being a criminal element, acts as a foil to Nicky, adulating Nicolas for being a gift to the cinematic craft. As opposed to knocking the actor for any roles, he expresses appreciation for any role, big or small, and attempts to jumpstarts the creative drive hidden within Nicolas, determining that the actor’s creative issues stem from the turmoil of his personal life, an issue exacerbated by Nicky.

This positioning of Nicky as a devil to Javi’s potential angel is where the story shines, allowing Nicolas Cage, as the actor proper, to go through a range of performances that fans of the thespian will wholeheartedly enjoy. Every Cage, from the manic and jittery to the macho and confident and so on is given a moment to shine in the limelight, demonstrating the range of Cage’s oeuvre. With Pascal playing the perfect second fiddle, the intimate character moments are filled with a dynamism that, when allowed to shine, makes the narrative a joyous ride.

However, the CIA framing narrative that this more intimate character drama is couched within absolutely lags the story’s momentum whenever it creeps up. When it becomes the focal point in the third act, the clever character work and meta-commentary on the nature of the movie’s logic and Cage’s persona are brushed aside in favor of something more generally palatable and less interesting. Instead of allowing Cage to lean into his range and engage in a subversion about his image and stylistic tendencies, thereby playing like a Cage-like version of Cinema Paradiso, the story lampshades its inability to be more clever and proceeds to close its “meta” commentaries in the most simplistic fashion, providing enough entertainment for Nicolas Cage fans to justify watching but never reaching the potential that a wholesale exploration of juxtaposing Cage’s popular persona against the actual totality of acting present in his work should be able to.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent should serve a more than satisfying time for fans of Nicolas Cage, providing him moments to act against both himself and an equally game Pedro Pascal, but the uneven overarching CIA narrative that encompasses the enjoyable character moments stifles momentum and more clever subversive moves.
Rating	7.2/10
Grade	C+

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2010s, 2017, Action, Comedy, Crime, D, Grade, Past, Review, review-movie, Year

Film Review: The Hitman’s Bodyguard – 2017

February 2, 2022 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	Patrick Hughes
Principal Cast	Ryan Reynolds as Michael Bryce Samuel L. Jackson as Darius Kincaid Élodie Yung as Amelia Roussel Gary Oldman as Vladislav Dukhovich Salma Hayek as Sonia Kincaid
Release Date	2017
Language(s)	English
Running Time	118 minutes
Report Card	Click to go to Review TLDR/Summary

A photo of Amelia (Élodie Yung) and suits.

The film opens with a series of split-screen shots depicting the routine of Michael (Ryan Reynolds), a private bodyguard for the wealthy and powerful. He puts on his watch, picks out a suit from his collection, drinks some coffee, gets his weapons, and kisses his partner, Amelia (Élodie Yung) on the cheek before departing his scenic abode. The split-screen shots demonstrate the rigid order he lives his life by; every moment is part of an elaborately planned sequence.

He picks up his client, Takashi (Tsuwayuki Saotome) and proceeds on pace for a secure delivery. Takashi gets on his plane and Michael waves him off with a smile. But right as the plane is about to depart, Takashi is shot and murdered.

Despite all precautions, Michael finds himself with a client down; he’s in shock. While his men run around him to take hold of the situation, Michael stares dumbfounded, unable to come to terms with his failure. Two years pass and his expression remains the same – the weight of his past remains. He escorts an drug-addled client in dejected fashion; clearly he’s still good at his job, but the loss of a client has certainly hurt his reputation as security detail, so he’s forced to take on much worse clientele.

Michael (Ryan Gosling) agrees to Amelia’s (Élodie Yung) deal to protect Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson).

While Michael tends to his mundane everyday life, his ex-girlfriend and current Interpol agent, Amelia, is tasked with escorting a notorious hitman, Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson), to the International Criminal Court to give witness testimony against Vladislav Dukhovich (Gary Oldman), the dictator of Belarus charged with counts of genocide and ethnic cleansing. But on their way to the court, Amelia’s convoy is attacked; far from being a secret, their movements have been leaked to outside attackers. Amelia and Kincaid momentarily team up to get out of the area, but now they must find a way to get to the court without Interpol’s help. With no else left to turn to, Ameilia phones Michael and asks him to help transport Kincaid.

Michael is initially reluctant to help. On one level, he doesn’t want to deal with Amelia due to their break-up. On another level, due to the nature of his work, he’s found himself on the opposite side of Kincaid many times, often having to keep his clients protected from the hitman. There’s a clear antagonism present in the group. But Amelia promises to help reinstate Michael’s company’s security rating through her government connections if he gets Darius to the court on time to testify. Thus, the reluctant duo between hitman and bodyguard is born.

Unfortunately, the plot that follows goes exactly as one would expect: a love-hate relationship is formed by the duo who ribs and endears themselves to one another over the course of their trip all while they survive increasingly elaborate attacks by Dukovich’s party. Though disappointing, the narrative would be fine if it at least served as a vehicle for stylized action sequences or entertaining character moments, but none of these moments ever bear fruit because the movie would rather tell than show.

The visual creativity from the opening never happens again which is a shame because the primary antagonism between Michael and Kincaid is how they orient themselves towards planning. While Michael is rigid and disciplined, Kincaid is very much the opposite, opting to play situations based on how they proceed in the moment. Consequently, when the character’s find themselves dealing with a threatening situation, they tend to have different reactions; Michael thinks something out and tries to stick by the book while Kincaid goes for the clearest immediate option available. Instead of demonstrating this visually like he does in the opening, perhaps by shooting Michael’s character with split-screen shots to showcase the sequential planning and Kincaid’s character with jump cuts to demonstrate the haphazard movement, director Patrick Hughes opts for standard coverage of the duo as they deal with their problems. We don’t get to see the difference between the characters manifest in poignant fashion and are forced to gleam the essence of their relationship through their conversations.

This proves to be an issue because most of the dialogue is insipid and insists on the basest humor to get a laugh. Ryan Gosling and Samuel L. Jackson may be talented actors, but there’s only so much they can do when most of their conversations end in a punchline about smelling like ass. This type of humor is uninspiring on its own but contributes to a serious tonal whiplash when the story jumps from these jokes to scenes of the primary antagonist planning/committing genocide and genocide-related activities.

All of this culminates in a general feeling of disengagement. There’s nothing to get invested in. The characters are placeholders for the story that give their actors little room to breathe life into the narrative. The jokes are indexed to the lowest common denominator of humor and undercut any sense of tension or gravitas. Even though the action scenes are shot competently and give a clear sense of what’s going on, you don’t care because there’s nothing to cling onto.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	The Hitman’s Bodyguard is a movie that lacks any sense of personality or identity worth investing in. The aggregation of safe buddy-cop story beats provides very little entertainment as even the most minute action is predictable. Even the comedic stylings of the leading duo can’t give the movie a pulse as the script insists on having them repeat the worst punchlines to jokes repeatedly.
Rating	D
Grade	5.5/10

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2020s, 2021, A+, Crime, Drama, Film Noir, Grade, Past, Review, review-movie, Thriller, Year

Film Review: Nightmare Alley – 2021

January 3, 2022 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	Guillermo del Toro
Principal Cast	Bradley Cooper as Stanton “Stan” Carlisle Toni Collette as Zeena Cate Blanchett as Lilith Rooney Mara as as Molly
Release Date	2021
Language(s)	English
Running Time	150 minutes
Report Card	Click to go to Review TLDR/Summary

A man, Stan, drags a body into a decrepit, disheveled looking house. He places the body into a small hole in the ground and sets the house to flames. Who is being burned and why are they being disposed of in this fashion? These are the questions the narrative circles around; as Stan makes decisions, the film cuts to the scene of the fire, highlighting how his choices shape his relationship to the aspects of his past that he wishes to burn and move past.

With only a suitcase, a watch, and a few knick-knacks, Stan makes his way away from the burning household towards a bus. He gets on board and passes out. Suddenly, he’s woken at the last stop, a carnival, and makes his way out. It becomes clear that outside of getting away from his past, Stan has no clear goals; he’s merely a wanderer trying to make the best of his situation.

Though he comes in to the location by random, it’s clear that Stan is more than competent at making do with his situation. He travels through the carnival and comes upon a “geek” show. The carnival’s owner, Clem (Willem DaFoe), exclaims that even though “geek” in question is so feral he’s still been classified as a man. But still, he insists on posing the question: “Is he man, or beast?”

The crowd becomes fully enthralled by the tagline and buys into the show, forking over change to partake in the festivities. A malnourished and broken-in man (Paul Anderson) crawls out of a damp, grimy enclosing and approaches a chicken which has just been placed in the enclosure. The audience watches with baited breath, but Stan seems more disturbed by the ordeal than anything else. When the “geek” bites down on the chicken’s neck and severs its head, Stan turns while the crowd cheers and jeers at the ordeal.

He leaves the area and is approached by members of the carnival looking for physical labor. Without saying a word, Stan agrees to their proposition and quickly begins to work. He gets acquainted with Clem (Willem DaFoe) and agrees to take on additional work for food and pay; all his negotiations are carried out without an utterance on his part, only gestures. He’s more than content to nod along and play his part, whatever it may be.

It’s only when Clem sends him to capture the carnival’s “geek” after the latter escapes his cage that Stan finds a reason to open his mouth. Upon finding the “geek”, Stan attempts to bargain with the escapee. Stan promises not to inform Clem of his location and instead questions the “geek” on the nature of their predicament; how did this fellow end up desperate enough to eat live chickens for an audience?

But instead of an answer, Stan gets a blow to the head from a rock the “geek” throws. Words can do nothing here and Stan resorts to physical action, proceeding to beat to beat the “geek” into submission. Clem manages to find the duo and stops Stan from killing the performer before then offering him a permanent position with the carnival. Sensing Stan’s mysterious past, Clem suggests that the environment is perfect for the wanderer because no one working at the locale would pry into his past; maybe the “geek” responded in such fashion because he, like Stan, wants to keep his past a mystery.

Regardless, like the “geek”, Stan agrees to work for Clem at the carnival and eagerly embraces the change of scenery. He goes from saying nothing to becoming very talkative. He’s a people pleaser and seems to know exactly what to say to people around him. He’s approached by Zeena (Toni Colette), a carny with a clairvoyant performance who takes a liking to him quickly.

Zeena’s husband, Pete (David Strathairn) is a mentalist and an alcoholic who acts as a surrogate father to Stan. He quickly takes the young man under his wing and teaches him cold reading techniques capable of fooling even the best. With the techniques in hand, Stan blossoms, captivating any soul willing to listen to his words. He goes from a silent wanderer to a charismatic charlatan capable of conning anyone who comes his way, saying exactly what he thinks people want to hear. With the world seemingly at his beck and call, Stan proceeds out from the carnival and into the world determined to to use his skillsets to get everything he wants. But as his marks get more dangerous, Stan is forced to confront the depths of his deepest desires.

The film’s focus on how his desire unfurls is motivated by psychoanalysis – references are made directly in the text. In particular, Stan finds that his journey intersects with three women, Zeena being one of them, all of whom act as both a surrogate partner and mother to him. The Oedipal nature of the relation is intentional and informs the way the film operates. As Stan makes critical decisions in relation to these women, his final trajectory becomes apparent. The weight of every choice he makes reverberates and can be measured as the film cuts to flames as a visual refrain, a visual-call back to his original act of immolation showcasing just how far or close he is to the past he’s trying to escape.

His psychic journey is manifested in the production design. Director Guillermo del Toro does great work to ensure that Stan’s psychic encounters and battles take place in backdrops which reinforce the the shifting tides of power between parties. del Toro uses the noir stylings of the genre and narrative to accentuate the sets, leaning into the use shadows, smoke, and slanted angles to emphasize the nightmarish alleys that Stan finds himself traversing. The rooms and locales that people own are part and parcel of each characters’ identity, so as Stan engages in his mental excursions with persons, the nature of what the characters are after and why they’re after can be felt in even the subtle ways the camera moves.

The narrative, based on William Lindsay Gresham’s 1946 novel, is clock full of detail, providing ample narrative strings for the viewer to parse and put together against these larger visual flourishes. Every thread in play is set-up for a particular reason, and del Toro knows just how to litter the call-backs and references to generate a feeling of catharsis. No beat overstays its welcome and by the time the film’s ending comes into view, any viewer who’s become entranced will already know what is going to unfold and why its going to play out as it does because the way the film’s threads congeal is sublime.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	Nightmare Alley’s meticulous machinations makes it a wonder to marvel at; each story and character beat has a purpose and watching the threads come together in explosive fashion makes the slow-burn journey all the more satisfying.
Rating	10/10
Grade	A+

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2020s, 2021, A+, Crime, Drama, Grade, Musical, Past, Review, review-movie, romance, Year

Film Review: West Side Story – 2021

December 22, 2021 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	Steven Spielberg
Principal Cast	Ansel Elgort as Tony Rachel Zegler as María Ariana DeBose as Anita David Alvarez as Bernardo Mike Faist as Riff Rita Moreno as Valentina
Release Date	2021
Language(s)	English, Spanish
Running Time	156 minutes
Report Card	Click to go to Review TLDR/Summary

The camera starts on street-level among scattered debris and slowly traverses the broken-in area, moving up towards the sky above. The sound of whistling can be heard as the camera continues to glide over a sea of rubble and torn-down buildings; a wrecking ball gets in position to knock another structure down, while the camera dips below it to reveal a manhole. The whistling is revealed to be coming from a young man who jumps up from the manhole; a sign of vitality among the disarray.

This young man quickly joins up with a group of all white men, all dressed in similar blue colors; these are the Jets. The group quickly breaks into synergistic song and dance, as their leader Riff (Mike Faist) leads them through the town; the camera feels like a member of the gang, pushing them forward in their choreographed tirade through the town, adding a kinetic surge to their movements. It becomes clear that the target of their march is none other than a painted flag of Puerto Rico – a symbol of national pride displayed in the Puerto Rican part of town.

Without missing a beat, the Jets quickly lay waste to the flag, smearing it with splotches of paint. But the Puerto Ricans refuse to take the vandalism lightly; a rival gang from their community, the Sharks, gives chase to the Jets as latter gang run off the premises. The groups converge and break into battle before the police arrive and break the brawl up. Even though both groups are at fault, the way the police interact with the parties involved makes it clear that their allegiances are racially charged; they’d rather arrest some Sharks. Neither side acquiesces to the request for information; it’s clear that both parties want to settle their grievances in a more intimate fashion than the law would allow. Lieutenant Schrank (Corey Stoll) admonishes both gangs for their paltry efforts at remaining relevant or trying to claim any turf given that their neighborhood both groups share is set to be demolished to make room for Lincoln Center, a place for the performing arts.

Unable to get a response, Schrank sends the Sharks off the premises. However, the leader of the Sharks, Bernardo (David Alvarez) doesn’t go quietly. He breaks out into a rendition of “La Borinqueña”, the Puerto Rican national anthem and the rest of the Sharks start to sing with him. Much to the chagrin of Schrank who constantly mentions the need for people to speak English, Bernardo and the Sharks refuse to give into linguistic domination and director Steven Spielberg matches their demand for equality by opting to not subtitle the lyrics. If the words of the English-speaking parties need no translation, then neither do the words of the Spanish-speaking parties.

With their brawl delayed, the gangs split ways from one another and vow to settle their dispute at another time. Riff mentions that the Jet’s former leader, Tony (Ansel Elgort), can serve as the group’s trump card. However, Tony, now fresh on parole for previously participating in a gang-related rumble gone wrong, is unwilling to go along with his former gang’s plans; he wants no part in Riff’s plans and makes as much clear to his best friend.

However, Tony’s involvement isn’t up to him – a lesson he finds out soon enough at the local dance that night. While the Sharks and Jets along with their respective partners engage in dancing qua battle, their choreography every much as energetic and exacting as an action set-piece, Tony locks eyes with María (Rachel Zegler), Bernardo’s younger sister, from across the room and it’s clear that a new love is blossoming. The love-struck couple makes their way to the back of the auditorium where the dance is taking place and take cover under some bleachers; their first dance takes place in the shadows away from the gaze of judgmental eyes. Alas, as the couple kiss they are discovered and María is taken away. A warning is issued to Tony; with the racial antagonism at a resounding high, no romance between the two sects can be allowed. The Romeo-and-Juliet inspired tale of star-crossed lovers is set in motion.

As someone unfamiliar with both the original stage musical and 1961 theatrical adaptation of West Side Story, I am unable to comment on the differences in Spielberg’s adaptation, but I can confidently say that this is an experience one can enjoy regardless of one’s level of familiarity. In fact, Spielberg’s decision to leave the Spanish sections of both the dialogue and songs untranslated adds to the sense of empathy the film is driving towards. Even if we can’t understand what’s being said between characters during a certain moment, we know the story trappings and can infer based on context clues not only the nature of what’s being said but also the emotions behind the same. It’s as if Spielberg is informing us that he knows that we know what’s going to happen, so as opposed to holding back any punches, he goes all out and embraces the inner workings of a musical to create an experience that fully entrances us in the magic of this world.

Never once does the film lag as the camera acts a constant participant to the dances the characters engage in – it’s an active member of the choreography and motivates how set-pieces unfold. The careful precision in getting the dancing right makes us aware of the slight space between fighting and dancing; both actions are physical, kinetic, and capable of creating new configurations upon interaction with other elements. The same hands that throw blows can also hold a partner. When the brutal fights happen, there’s a sense that it’s a dance gone wrong, or rather a dance that could have been; thus, the nature of the romantic musical serves as a powerful backdrop the racialized and institutional violence – a fantasy to aspire towards instead of a reality to fade into.

The minimal difference between these two modes of interaction is made explicit in the way the narrative cuts. Bloody bouts and horrific violence cuts to people joyously singing or acting in utter glee; life is precarious and it can teeter so rapidly in one direction vs another. What better way to demonstrate this than to show how violence and love can operate one after another in spite of the apparent discord; change and hope is always possible even if things look hopeless in the moment. In this effort, the actors, by and large, aid him as they seamlessly switch from cruel and brutal to vivacious, demonstrating the way temperament can radically shift. By infusing this contemptuous ebb-and-flow in every parcel of the film, Spielberg is able to present a vision on how the rhythm of life operates, transporting us to a wonderous world where wonders are possible even if they’re difficult to achieve.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	West Side Story is a captivating tale that grabs you by the wrist on its journey through the ebbs and flows of human emotion. The story of star-crossed lovers hits the story beats you’d expect but does so in such gusto that you can’t help but be invested. Even when the story hits its bumps, the feeling it provides never lets up, captivating you till from start to finish. Talk about the transformative power of cinema.
Rating	10/10
Grade	A+

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2010s, 2018, A+, Biography, Comedy, Crime, Grade, Past, Review, review-movie, Year

Film Review: Blackkklansman- 2018

November 19, 2021 The Critic 2 Comments

Director(s)	Spike Lee
Principal Cast	John David Washington as Ron Stallworth Adam Driver as Philip “Flip” Zimmerman Laura Harrier as Patrice Topher Grace as David Duke
Release Date	2018
Language(s)	English
Running Time	135 minutes
Report Card	Click to go to Review TLDR/Summary

Note: This review contains spoilers regarding the first 30 minutes of the film as opposed to the site’s usual benchmark of 10-20 minutes. The same effort towards sustaining the intrigue and momentum of the film, especially in its second and third acts, is maintained in this review, and all plot details revealed are just meant to be a springboard to discuss the scope of the work in better detail. Nothing discussed should undermine the “best” portions of the film or the many mysteries that keep the story engaging.

A scene from Victor Fleming’s Gone With the Wind plays depicting a Confederate flag floating in the foreground. This is the first start. Then a faux documentary chronicling the evils of black “savages” and the desecration of white culture begins to play; the piece is narrated by Dr.Beuragard (Alec Baldwin), a man who spouts horrifically racist drivel but finds himself unable to remember the prejudiced verbiage, often breaking out of the documentary to ask for the specific lines. This is the second start. Finally, the camera pushes in on the projector playing the aforementioned starts. The camera’s forward momentum is carried through in the next shot as it glides over a Colorado mountain range. The film cuts to pavement and text appears, explaining to the viewer that the film they’re about to see depicts a real-life scenario. The title card pops in. The protagonist of our story, Ron (John David Washington), walks into the spot where the title card resided. He looks up at a sign from the Colorado Police Department encoring minorities to apply. He stares at the sign more intensely before fixing his hair and walking towards the police station. This is the third start.

Thus, director Spike Lee’s BlacKkklansman succinctly demonstrates its raison d’être: it’s a cinematic counter-response meant to reshape cultural attitudes regarding race relations. The first start opens on a “classic” of American cinema, establishing that even the foundations of our “culture” are predicated on a logic which valorizes a time-period where black people were not treated as human beings. The second start demonstrates the way such romanticization engenders tangible movement towards racialized violence. Beuragard’s documentary intermixes news-footage with clips from D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, another film from America’s classic film canon filled with racist depictions, showcasing how fictional representations bleed into cultural discussions which affect people in tangible manners (ex: support for de-segregation). Even though Beauragard is inept as a presenter and can’t even remember his long-winded verbal absurdities, the power of his sound-bites combined with images imbued with cinematic power, give his words a persuasive power.

By taking the projector, which played white nationalist propaganda, back via the push-in of the camera, Lee is able to offer BlacKkklansman as a cinematic response to the canon; the third start comes from the same “source” as the first and second and can operate on the same playing field. Informing the viewer of the “real life” status of the narrative gives the film an authenticity that the documentary preceding it hopes to achieve, while the “traditional” presentation of the narrative gives it the same staying power as the cinematic classics it discusses. In this way, Blackkklansman is positioned as both historical and cinematic corrective, a step towards a restorative vision of the U.S.A.

The story proper follows Ron as he applies to the Colorado Police Department in an attempt to reform the system from the inside out. His interview process starts off professional enough but quickly diverges as his interviewers inform him of the prejudices at play in the department and the community, prejudices against having black officers. They double-check with Ron regarding whether or not he believes he’ll be able to keep himself in check in spite of potential racial jabs. He agrees and is subsequently hired.

Officer refers to a black prisoner as a “toad”.

Unfortunately, his agreement is tested right off the bat. It’s clear from his fellow officers’ behaviors and demeanors that he’s unwelcome at the precinct. The reason is made obvious: to be black is to be criminal. Ron learns this the hard way when he’s made to handle criminal records. Other officers come in, ask for a “toad’s” file, and then give Ron the name of a criminal to fetch from the files. In an attempt to humanize the criminals, the people underneath the caricatures, Ron tries to combat the vernacular, explaining that his files document persons and not toads. But his attempts are met only with condescension and insult. A particularly racist officer, Landers, goes so far as to lose the dog whistles and come outright with the unsaid sentiment, calling Ron “Officer Toad” after getting his requested file. But Ron cannot respond. He cannot retaliate because to do so would be to risk expulsion. So, he waits for Landers to leave and proceeds to karate chop the air. Within the confines of the police station, he must remain civil while experiencing insult abound. Yet he persists.

Eventually his dedication pays off, or so it seems. Chief Bridges (Robert John Burke) calls him in to help the branch infiltrate a potentially dangerous group: Colorado College’s Black Student Union. Why? The group is planning on hosting a national civil rights leader, Kwame Ture (Corey Hawkins), who might rile the “good” black people up into violent spirits. Obviously, being the only black cop in the precinct, Ron is selected as the perfect target to infiltrate the session and report back on any expressions of violence. He’s trained by fellow Detectives Flip (Adam Driver) and Jimmy (Michael Buscemi) on proper procedure and has to perform his jive dialect for them in satisfying fashion before being allowed to leave to the conference.

Ron (John David Washington) gets ready to hear Kwame speak.

After quickly acquainting himself with the Black Student Union’s president, Patrice (Laura Harrier), Ron makes his way in for Kwame’s monologue. Kwame speaks with emphatic passion as he tells the sea of black faces about the beauty inherent in their skin and the damaging manners by which they have inculcated attitudes against themselves. As his words ring true with the audience, Lee cuts to floating black faces, freed from the shackles of their predispositions and given an avenue by which to love themselves. However, Ron finds himself unable to do the same. The words have an impact on him, but he finds himself still trapped.

It makes sense. His presence at the rally is nothing but subterfuge. His liberated black persona is artifice meant to help him blend in. He’s a black man roleplaying black experience, so the conversation on accepting blackness as a lived and true experience breaks through the cracks between the mask he’s trying to put on and his true feelings underneath. By the end of the speech, Ron is the only one left keeping his fist down. He’s caught in thought. But this moment of reflection passes as Ron’s remembers his purpose for being at the rally. He raises his fist to blend in with the background, committing to the act.

Back in Chief Bridges office, Ron, Flip, and Jimmy ascertain that Kwame poses no threat, in spite of some of his incendiary remarks, but Bridges pushes back. It’s clear that he’s giving a gravity to the situation that he wouldn’t to other situations. The reason doesn’t need to be stated.

Ron (John David Washington) flips through the newspaper…

But Lee decides to make that reason clear nonetheless. Ron is transferred to Flip and Jimmy’s division and is allowed to pursue investigations. He flips through a newspaper and finds an advert for the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). After calling the number advertised and getting a response from the local chapter leader, Walter (Ryan Eggold), Ron switches to a “whiter” accent and begins to lambast minorities in an effort to gain favor. While Walter is pleased with the racist tirade that would put Dr.Beuragard’s to shame with its comparative polish and fluidity, Flip and the other detectives in the room are shocked with the ease at which Ron is able to recite such vitriol. Alas, Ron’s lack of expertise comes home to roost as he accidentally mentions his real name to Walter before agreeing to meet him in person.

Unlike the Black Student Union, the Klan offers very little camouflage room for Ron, so his investigation into their affairs requires the help of a white-passing officer to act as his double, a “white” Ron. He goes with Sergeant Trapp (Ken Garito) to get Bridge’s approval for the mission but, unsurprisingly, when it comes to investigating the Klan, Bridges is less than enthused, claiming both a lack of necessity and manpower for the job. Ron and Trapp explain that the former will communicate with the Klan on the phone and serve as the primary liaison with the organization while another officer will serve as the “white” Ron and infiltrate the organization. Bridges eventually acquiesces but not before threatening Ron’s job if anything goes wrong.

The addendum is interesting because it reveals the inherent hypocrisy underlying Bridges conflicting orders. Despite claiming that Kwame and the Student Union are a dangerous threat, he’s fine with sending Ron in with no concerns regarding the latter’s safety. However, when it comes to sending a white-passing officer into an organization which he claims is not an active threat, he voices concerns about the dangers and makes it clear to Ron that loss in this circumstance is not permitted. Either he believes that the Union isn’t as dangerous as the Klan and/or he believes that harm done to Ron isn’t as severe as damage done to a white-passing officer. Regardless of what is driving Bridges decisions, it’s clear the reason is racially motivated.

Nonetheless, with mission approval acquired, Ron chooses Flip to be his doppelgänger. Now the rookie is in charge of teaching his superior on how to act in the situation, a reversal of the duo’s introduction to one another. Thus, “Ron”, the composite of a black man’s interpretation of a white man and a white-passing man’s interpretation of that interpretation, is born and can proceed towards infiltrating the Klan. Consequently, Ron, who has formed a camaraderie with Patrice due to his black persona, is forced oscillate between two radically different worlds, one black and one white, that both cause him to feel alienated regarding himself.

It’s no wonder then that this story is the one Lee has picked for the purposes of staging an dialogue with America’s film canon. Ron’s story examines the way institutions and culture shape and cement identity in needless opposition to one another. As he gets deeper with both Patrice and the Klan, he’s forced into introspection and has to determine what being black, especially within the confines of the USA, entails in regards to his orientation towards the world. Given the introduction which establishes that black cultural identity has been forcefully interpellated by a “white” romanticization which renders them criminal and deviant, the move towards depicting a tale of black agency finding itself in the world is more urgent than ever. If media has helped establish an cultural attitude, then it can help change the same, and Lee demonstrates via Ron’s eventual journey not only how those changes could materialize but also the repercussions of continuing to leave harmful representations unchallenged.

The beauty of the film is that Lee is able to have this dialogue without sacrificing entertainment value; the plot never lags or lets up, remaining compelling from start to finish. A tense encounter with the Klan is followed by mocking conversation with the organization that reveals just how out of touch with the world they are. By swapping between Ron and Flip’s respective journeys as Ron at critical junctures, Lee is able to move from comedic to tense with ease, ensuring that no narrative thread ever overstays its welcome.

Ron (John David Washington) gets on the phone with David.

The story switches only work because Lee never phones in any of dialogue scenes involving Ron and the Klan, treating them with the same regard as the thriller set-pieces involving Flip. When Ron starts to get more intimate with the clan, his phone-calls with key members are shot at canted angles or in different split-screen configurations to keep visual interest up and to demonstrate the shifting tides of understanding between the relevant parties. The already crisp and hilarious dialogue is thus accentuated and made explicitly cinematic. And the decision is important. The conversations happening are absurd. Just think about it. They involve a black man trying to achieve a heightened level of camaraderie with KKK members who love his persona while openly calling for his death in reality. It’s morose and absurd and the presentation of the situation reflects that context.

Very few films are able to be so commercially entertaining while retaining poignant themes and Spike Lee should be commended for being able to achieve both feats in such exhilarating fashion in this picture. BlacKkklansman grips you with its intriguing, but real narrative but leaves you ruminating by the end of its run-time. It’s an meaningful addition to a myopic film canon that opens the space for discourse, allowing for the possibility of more multifaceted cultural understanding. Perhaps in a century, just like Gone With the Wind and The Birth of a Nation, BlacKkklansman will be played as an exploration of what America can truly mean.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	BlacKkklansman is that rare film that manages to stay entertaining while retaining a poignant and relevant set of themes for viewer’s to mull around about. While the real-life story of a black police officer infiltrating the KKK sounds interesting on its own, the film manages to take the narrative and present it as a response to a predominantly white film-cannon, offering an alternative view of what being black and/or American can and should look like.
Rating	10/10
Grade	A+

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2020s, 2021, A+, Crime, Grade, Horror, mystery, Past, Review, review-movie, slasher, supernatural, Thriller, Year

Film Review: Malignant – 2021

September 11, 2021 The Critic 2 Comments

Director(s)	James Wan
Principal Cast	Annabelle Wallis as Madison /Emily Maye Maddie Hasson as Sydney George Young as Detective Shaw Michole Briana White as Detective Moss
Release Date	2021
Language(s)	English
Running Time	111 minutes
Report Card	Click to go to Review TLDR/Summary

It’s hard to believe that a storyline involving a psychic monster capable of brutally murdering scientists, inept help from the relevant authorities, a woman who has psychic visions of a black-robed murderer who contorts and viciously slices apart its victims, and meticulously crafted murder set pieces is the basis of a James Wan horror movie when it feels like something plucked out of Dario Argento’s giallo playbook, in particular his fever dream film, Phenomena. In other words, the movie is a showcase of spectacle; the point is not the narrative but the audio-visual journey. Extravagance matters more than plot, which functions more as a vehicle for Wan to canvas off of. He’s always been a stylistic director, but Malignant showcases the height of his visual prowess; it’s an absolute treat to behold.

The movie starts with a small taste of things to come as the walls of a institutional facility are drenched with blood. Dr. Florence Weaver (Jacqueline McKenzie) escorts a group, which includes an officer with a gun, towards a room where people are flung out with bloody aplomb. She instructs them to shoot the patient, Gabriel, who is causing all the issues. The group suffers heavy casualties, but the nature of Gabriel along with his powers is left to the viewer’s imagination as the film cuts to twenty-eight years later.

A woman, Madison (Annabelle Wallis ), argues with her husband, Derek (Jake Abel) over the nature of her pregnancies, which seem to always terminate in miscarriages. He viciously attacks her for inability to conceive and beats her against the wall, causing the back of her head to bleed. Madison locks the door to keep safe from her husband, but then nighttime comes and a shadowy assassin makes its presence known. Its form is just a shadow creeping, and Wan teases the audience slowly with its presence before letting the violence continue; the husband is stabbed with no hesitation before Madison herself is thrown on the floor.

She wakes up at the hospital where she reunites with her sister, Sydney (Maddie Hasson). We learn that the siblings haven’t had contact with one another due to Derek’s controlling nature; he stopped Madison from reaching out. Thus, the black-coated figures first kill marks the end of the estrangement between Madison and her sibling and the start of her journey to move past and overcome her trauma at the hands of abuse.

However, later at night, Madison realizes that after this attack she’s now linked to the black-coated figure and can see the murders committed by the figure as they’re happening. These psychic drop-ins, which feel like the pensieve from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, feature the walls around our protagonist dissolving and reforming around her. Within crisp and fluid shots, Madison is transported from wherever she is to the scene of the next assault. Desperate to figure out the reason for this connection, she tasks Detectives Shaw (George Young) and Moss (Michole Briana White) along with Sydney in an race against time before the killer is allowed to strike again.

Wan said he wanted Malignant to be his take on giallo and the film more than delivers a set-up let lets him have fun. ^[1]Navarro, M. (2021, September 1). “My version OF GIALLO”: James wan lets us know what to expect from his new horror Movie ‘Malignant’ [Interview]. Bloody Disgusting! Retrieved … Continue readingThere’s a mysterious killer in possession of a distinctive weapon, brutal murders, a race to figure out the identity of the murderer, and law enforcement characters who are meant to help but who actively inhibit the protagonist while bumbling around. However, penchant of any great gialli, like the ones made by Argento and Bava, is to structure the violence with great care around fluid and dramatic camera moves which transform the macabre into the sensational. Malignant nails all of this and more. The plot moves along at a pace that keeps the audience invested until a reveal 30 minutes before the ending which then ratchets the film into an utterly enthralling cinematic experience that any fan of sensual cinema should watch. It’s entirely unpredictable; even if you guess one element of the way events will unfold, the entirety of the combined threads is something that can only be described as Shymalanesque in the best possible way.

Wan, who has always been stylistically talented, is allowed to push the boundaries on his own patterns. While the movie starts slow with some of his trademark sequences, like a tense overhead tracking shot which follows the characters as they navigate a household à la The Conjuring and The Conjuring 2, it really starts to show its hand once Madison is allowed to “dissolve” into the psychic visions that she’s made to see. The transitions are as evocative as the murders which follow and serve a purpose in delineating the contours of Madison’s psyche. As the film continues and Madison is allowed to explore the connection, its visualization changes in ways to reflect the same.

However, what pushes Malignant over the edge is the vitality and fury by which Wan shoots some of the larger set-pieces, moments which blow out scenes from even movies, including even Wan’s own Aquaman. The camera is an assassin and follows the path of blood and carnage with surgical precession. Every blow is brutal. Every slice is sinister. Every moment is an extension of the dance of the fabulous blood-bath. He lets the impact of the ferocity sit with the audience as the frame sticks on the murders unbroken. There may be a lot of the stereotypical horror movie teasing with the slow set-ups and the disappearing shadows, but the pay-off is bloody, excessive, beautiful, and utterly worth every moment in wait – a carnivalesque celebration of blood and splatter.

The supernatural slasher often takes place in rooms lit by rich reds and glowing greens along with rooms dyed in shades of dark blue and pockets of darkness. Often times, the camera glides from one room to another, swinging between colors in a way to accentuate the visual momentum of the spectacle occurring. Even though some of the needle drop moments feel like they could have been timed to synch up with the emotional intensity of the film a bit better, most of Joseph Bishara’s electric score fulfills what it sets out to do – provide a companion to the visuals that can match their energy. Many of the tracks inject a head-bobbing energy that add a fiery intensity to the scenes. The combination of both elements creates dynamite film-making that serves as proof that some things have to be seen on the big screen to be experienced in their full glory.

While there are some plot issues here and there, the muscular film-making put on display by Wan is more than worth witnessing for fans of the genre and for those people looking for a off-the-walls story to have fun with. It’s more than just stylistic homage. Malignant is a celebration of sheer and utter excess in the best of ways. It’s the best of Wan’s artillery amplified to the next level – truly bravura filmmaking.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	Since his horror debut with Saw, Wan has put out some of the most well-loved horror classics. Insidious galvanized a new-age of horror fans and The Conjuring confirmed that his arrival was no fluke. Malignant is a confirmation of the director’s potential and showcases some of the highest highs in his oeuvre as of yet.
Rating	9.0/10
Grade	A

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1940s, 1943, Crime, Drama, Film Noir, Grade, Review, review-movie, S+, Thriller, Year

Film Review: Shadow of a Doubt – 1943

August 11, 2021 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	Alfred Hitchcock
Principal Cast	Teresa Wright as Charlie Newton Joseph Cotten as Uncle Charlie Henry Travers as Joseph Newton Patricia Collinge as Emma Newton Charles Bates as Roger Newton Edna May Wonacott as Ann Newton Hume Cronyn as Herb Macdonald Carey as Detective Jack Graham Wallace Ford as Detective Fred Saunders
Release Date	1943
Language(s)	English
Running Time	108 minutes
Report Card	Click to go to Review TLDR/Summary

The “Merry Widow Waltz” plays as the title sequence goes on.

The title card opens on a shot of couples waltzing to the “Merry Widow Waltz”. A waltz is characterized as being a triple time^[1]A rhythym characterized by three beats to a bar,so it makes sense that this shot of the couples dancing will be be used 3 more times during the film’s run-time, each occasion marking one of 3 pivotal movements in the narrative: the start of the mystery, the mystery’s reveal, and the final conclusion. This shot dissolves to a view of two detectives eating underneath the Pulaski Skyway in New Jersey. The object of these men’s investigation is unknown.

We cut to children playing in a street – an image of innocence. This tranquility is broken by the next shots: canted images of a doorway followed by a window – a darkness hiding under the innocence. We go to a shot of a young man sleeping in a room. The camera pans to a stack of bills next to him and underneath; he has a lot of money but doesn’t care about it. The door to his room opens. A motherly figure enters and informs that him that two of his “friends” showed up and asked for him. It’s clear from the conversation that this woman has no previous relation to the young man but she dotes on him regardless, treating him like one of the children playing outside. He informs her that the two man who inquired after him have never met him before despite being “friends”. Our censors go off at the oddity but hers do not.

Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten) pretends to sleep as the blinds are closed.

Instead, she moves towards the blinds and closes them, insisting that the young strange man get some rest. The darkness envelops the mans face as he pretends to sleep before awaking – a denizen of the shadows react to move. He peers out the window and looks down on the two men who wait for him at the corner. This is a common motif Hitchcock employs to demonstrate power: the one who stands on the high ground comes out on top. The young man moves brazenly past the two detectives demonstrating to us that he is: 1. absolutely unafraid of his pursuers 2. the detectives looking for him don’t know what he looks like. They give chase to him but he gets away. The camera pans from the confused detectives who stumble on the ground up towards the young man who watches them from the upper floor of a nearby building; once again, he’s on top.

He goes to make a telegram to extended family of his in Santa Rosa, California. We learn his name is Charlie (Joseph Cotten) ^[2]I will be referring to him as Uncle Charlie for the rest of the review to make disambiguation easier. We learn that he’s an uncle. But we don’t learn why the detectives are pursuing him.

The traffic cop (Earle S. Dewey) stands as a symbol of the idyllic American life.

We cut from the wanted man on the run to the city of Santa Rosa. A cop monitors the traffic. This is a lawful place; an idyllic American city. The cop dissolves into a shot of a house. Like the transition from the children to the canted entrance to Uncle Charlie the transition from the cop to the house also shows a building in disarray. We cut from a canted back entrance of a house to a young woman, Charlie (Teresa Wright), in the same position we found Uncle Charlie in. Charlie explains to her dad, Joseph (Henry Travers), that she’s tired of her family who seems to be in a rut, especially her mother, Emma ( Patricia Collinge),who she feels is overworked and underappreciated. Desperate for a “miracle” she goes off to send a telegram to the family’s favorite uncle and her namesake, Uncle Charlie, hoping that he can shake things up at the Newton household.

Emma (Patricia Collinge) is trapped by Roger (Charles Bates) and Ann (Edna May Wonacott) who accost her from both sides.

At the same time Charlie, a telephone comes in for the Newtons. The call is picked up by Emma who tries to take the call while being accosted by her younger children, Ann (Edna May Wonacott) and Roger(Charles Bates ). The two children “surround” Emma on both sides. However, as soon as the caller mentions to Emma that her brother, Uncle Charlie has sent a telegram informing the Newton’s that he’s going to be visiting them , the camera pans to a new view of Emma; this time she’s “free” and is framed in a new light. It’s clear that Uncle Charlie means the world to his sister.

Charlie (Teresa Wright) walks home excited that her uncle is coming.

Meanwhile, Charlie makes her way to the telegram store where she learns the same information her mother had. She happily exclaims that her Uncle and her have a psychic connection with one another. As she makes her way home, the shot dissolves to a train going off in the same direction. The noise and smoke plume from the train serve as harbingers of the darkness to come. On the train, we learn that Uncle Charlie is “sick”, apparently so much so that no one on the machine has seen him. Uncle Charlie limps out of the train with the assistance of others but straightens up (un)surprisingly quickly upon seeing his family, namely Charlie, running towards him.

Immediately it’s understandable why the family loves him so. He regales Emma upon seeing her causing her to burst with joy. At dinner he presents every member of the family with gifts. Charlie initially refuses but acquiesces after her uncle places the ring on her right right finger. This placement is not a coincidence; if the left hand’s ringer finger marks a legal marriage, the right hand’s ring finger marks an alliance to prohibited.

Charlie notes that the ring is engraved with a couples initials but enjoys the mystery. Her uncle does not share the sentiment and comments he didn’t know it was marked; his face breaks into horror and the the shot dissolves to our first of the three “waltz” refrains; the “Merry Widow Waltz” mystery is finally afoot. This is made explicit as the camera cuts to Joseph talking to his friend Herb (Hume Cronyn) about their shared interest: murder mysteries their machinations. With all the key players finally introduced – the detectives, Uncle Charlie, Charlie, the rest of the Newton family, and Herb – Hitchcock’s thriller can begin with gusto.

Shadow of a Doubt is a story which examines the idyllic American fantasy and it’s nightmarish underside. In many ways the movie is a precursor to David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, seeking to explore the way two seemingly opposite worlds interact with and feed into the others construction. This is why our introduction to both worlds is so stylized. While Uncle Charlie’s world is one of darkness, Charlie’s is one where there is belief in the rule of law. The ring given to Charlie^[3] Speaking of Blue Velvet, Charlie finding the ring is analogous to Jeffrey finding the detached ear. It’s the start of the journey into the mystery world. What do the initials mean? represents the choice, both metaphorically and literally, she has to make, one where she chooses to marry the fantasy of order and legality or the fantasy of chaos and disregard for law.

This battle for dominant fantasy is reflected in the architecture of the Newton residence, which has both a front and back entrance and which serves as the primary environment the movie takes place in. The front entrance is the domain of the idyllic fantasy, while the back entrance is the domain of the nightmare. Connecting these entrances is the stairway which automatically positions people higher or lower than another. Thus, the “everyday” American house becomes the battlefield for the direction of its soul. As Charlie and her uncle learn more about one another, they swap positions; the cat and mouse game flipping on its head as each party vies for the “top” of the stairs. Eventually the intensity of the battle bleeds out to the city proper, as the characters venture to new locale which reinforce the dichotomy between the two worlds.

This movie, for me, is the first of Hitchcock’s masterpieces combining both his sensibilities as the “master of suspense” with an immaculate use of technique to get his themes across in as many ways as possible. From the opening to the final shot, there is not a single wasted camera movement or out-of-place shot. Multiple scenes demonstrate changes in character disposition purely through changes in lighting long before making those changes noted through dialogue. If my long-winded analysis of the opening 20 minutes above wasn’t proof enough, one only has to look at any scene’s ending image to figure out what the point of that scene was; that’s how methodical the direction is. Every minute detail has at least one counterpoint that is meant to draw contrast in order to constantly draw our attention to story’s thematic question. However, none of these moments are ever done for their own sake; every detail supports multiple narrative threads. What seems to be the point of one scene transforms into the set-up for an even more elaborate plot in the next, giving the movie a fully immersive and connected feeling in spite of plot details that would otherwise immediately draw ire. Instead of questioning the story, one is completely captured by it, desperate to figure out where its end will lead. In fact, Hitchcock intentionally uses ellipses in the story by not fully explaining certain plot threads to force us to imagine scenes in the movie without seeing them; that’s cinematic mastery.

Even if one isn’t captured by the way Hitchcock deconstructs the American fantasy, one certainly can’t help but be caught up by the propulsive energy of the narrative which is in large part helped by commanding performances by both Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotton. Both of their characters have to do a juggling act between personas, light and dark, while showing cracks in their personas depending on what the story calls for. There are multiple scenes involving the two of them as they go from scared to received to enthralled and so on without ever skipping a beat. They play off one another believably like partners in a waltz as their worlds bleed into each others.

The end result is a film that effectively demonstrates the fragility of our notions of peace and the dirty processes that result in the successful deployment of such ideas (think Nolan’s The Dark Knight ) without ever treating itself like an epic. By subtly incorporating the themes and driving ideas behind them in and around every small detail, Hitchcock manages to give the questions he’s asking a more universal feeling; their presence can literally be felt in every movement of the movie. In spite of this, the movie never feels overly “showy”, choosing instead to lull the audience into its rhythm until they’re glued to the screen to the very end.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	Shadow of a Doubt is a a thrill ride from start to finish, showcasing some of the finest craft and most impeccable storytelling. Even the smallest moment has meaning in this film-noir qua deconstruction of the American dream. Over 40 years before Lynch’s own masterpiece, Blue Velvet, Hitchcock’s work does much of the traversing between the two fantasies of American life: the beautiful dream and the terrible nightmare. And even now it’s just as powerful a watch.
Rating	10/10
Grade	S+

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2020, 2020s, A+, Black-Comedy, Crime, Drama, Grade, Review, review-movie, Thriller, Year

Review: Promising Young Woman

January 26, 2021 The Critic 2 Comments

Director(s)	Emerald Fennell
Principal Cast	Carey Mulligan as Cassandra/ “Cassie” Bo Burnham as Dr. Ryan Cooper Clancy Brown as Stanley Jennifer Coolidge as Susan
Release Date	2020
Language(s)	English
Running Time	113 minutes

Charlie XCX’s “Boys” plays accompanied by a montage of men’s hips thrusting and gyrating in a bar setting. A pop song that means something more.

Montage of men’s groins as they dance in the bar. The early montage accompanied by Charlie XCX’s “Boys” sets the stage for the analysis of phallocentrism and agency to come.

The song’s accompanying music video is a view on alternative masculinity – men commit to performing “sexiness” in alternate fashions ^[1]Kim, M. (2018, March 17). We need to talk about charli xcx’s very important “boys” video. Retrieved February 09, 2021, from … Continue reading. The video showcases men acting like prototypical women in sexy photoshoots, but treats the whole endeavor as more wholesome. The result is a exploration of the ranges of masculinity. As a result, the song’s hook, “I’ve been busy thinking about boys,” comes to mean something far more. It’s thinking about alternative instantiations of masculine agency. Promising Young Woman operates in a similar fashion- it has a lot to say about the way power and gender operates under its stylized poppy exterior.

The montage ends and the movie moves to a conversation among 3 men in the bar who engage in “locker room” talk. It starts off with them trashing on some coworkers until they notice Cassandra, a seemingly inebriated and thoroughly “wasted” woman, laying passed out on some couches.

Cassie (Carey Mulligan) slumped against the red couches in the back of the bar. Unbeknownst to her prey, she waits for them to make a move patiently.

The group’s insults turn towards her as they cast judgement on her poor decisions. If anything happens to her it’s her fault for not taking care of herself – rape culture. One member of the group, Jerry (Adam Brody), feigns worry about Cassandra’s state and goes to help her get home. He lets his friends know and they immediately and holler – the implication is clear. Rape becomes an in-joke – consent is murky and she was asking for it, but it’s all a joke so there’s plausible deniability. The moment he gets her out of the bar and into a rideshare vehicle, he announces that his apartment is “close by” and actively changes the GPS end location. He tells Cassie they can have some drinks at his place. The man who was concerned about the drunk girl getting taken advantage of takes her home to give her more alcohol. Did we expect something different?

Meanwhile, the cab driver feigns ignorance. It doesn’t matter that a drunk woman is being escorted by a stranger blatantly taking advantage of her. We’ve met 4 men so far -3 were willing to look past the obviously drunk woman being escorted by someone she doesn’t know while 1 is fine taking her home despite knowing she can’t consent to anything . Complicity is not direct participation says the former group but that complicity is what serves as direct affirmation for the latter person. As such everything becomes forgiven.

Unfortunately for Jerry, he’s finally run into someone who can’t forget and definitely can’t forgive. As he removes her underwear despite her protests and questions about what he’s doing, she looks up directly at the camera- at the audience – to clue us in on on a little secret; she’s the one who’s in charge. No longer relegated to the periphery of society, she flips the script and reveals her drunk performance was nothing more than bait set out to lure prey to her.

This moment is one of the most striking and demonstrates early on that this is Cassie’s (Carey Mulligan) story. As she’s being stripped she stares at the camera, breaking the fourth wall, to let us know that this is all going according to her plan and that she’s more in charge of everything happening than we think. This is an important idea the movie expands on, using Cassie’s status as “writer” of the story to explore the way agency can manifest under oppressive circumstances. Notice how the Christmas lights surround her in the first and third images like a boundary of sorts, but as soon as she reveals she’s in charge the next shot shows her with the lights below her. She’s outside of the box.

Furthermore, the way she carries over her “gotcha” look from the audience to Jerry reflects the way that the problems the latter represents are endemic in society proper, not just the world of the movie.

She had “been busy thinking about boys” all along – their agency, their ability to inflict violence, their nice guy personas, the way society actively helps protect/enable them, and had decided that enough was enough.

The movie cuts from Cassie revealing to Jerry that she’s very much conscious to her walking down the street, a red smear on her leg. In a typical revenge movie, this smear would be blood- the presence of the torture that Cassie enacted on Jerry in her “revenge”. However, this is a movie that’s painfully aware of narrative conventions and subverts them in an attempt to interrogate the underlying logic of a phallocentric society – one where rape culture, as the movie demonstrates heads on , is pervasive and built into the “rules”. The camera continues to tilt up and reveals a similar huge red smear on Cassie’s arm. However, it’s made immediately apparent that the red smears aren’t blood but are jelly from the doughnuts instead. What we thought to be blood turns to be something far more innocuous instead – violence transformed into something sweet and sugary.

Cassie (Carey Mulligan) wipes off jelly doughnut filling after her rendezvous with Jerry. The way the camera tilts up along with revenge-story tropes makes us think this is blood, but the deflection is done purposefully. It’s an early sign to to the audience to be aware of revenge narrative tropes and to break down why they are/are not being implemented in certain ways and what that says about a character’s position in relation to power structures.

As she continues to walk, Cassie is accosted by cat-calling construction workers across the street who deride/shame her for having had a crazy night out. They laugh at her. She stares back at them. She is unmoving. She is unfazed. Her gaze unsettles them to the point of distress. They immediately call her a spoil sport and go off. Her refusal to play along to the scripted relation by frustrates them. She continues on her path until she gets home. Once she’s inside her room she retrieves a journal, flips through dozens upon dozens of pages, deliberately and aggressive adds a count to a tally which appears to be color coded, flips to another section of the journal, and then proceeds to write out the name Jerry in a list that contains a staggering number of names. What’s been done to Jerry or any of these other names is still unknown at this point.

This is simple, clean, and effective visual storytelling. It’s immediately clear that Cassie has been playing rape culture vigilante for a while. The throng of names and tally marks give an indication of the count, but the way that indentations bleed from page to page show brutal and destructive the whole endeavor has been for Cassie. Hundreds of people have tried to do God knows what to her to the point where she has a healthy running tally. No wonder she’s so fatalistic. How does one live in a world where one is constantly reduced to a passive object that can be casually used and discarded?

Her name Cassandra is fitting. In Greek myth, Cassandra is a princess who catches the eye of Apollo, rejects him, and then is cursed with the power to tell of prophecies that will come true but that no one will listen to. ^[2]“Cassandra.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Cassandra. A woman cursed by a man for rejecting his advances who is then condemned to tell the truth but be ignored. That description seems to hit a lot of marks especially as we proceed through the story. Given that Cassie’s prophecies are doomed to be ignored the question becomes how does she exercise agency? How can rape culture be fought when it’s part and parcel of society at large – when people hear the truth but choose to ignore it? This is where the movie’s play and subversion on narrative ideology comes in.

The revenge story is the cultural mythos of this society – a man who is wronged in some way musters up the wherewithal necessary to beat down whomever stands in his way whether it involve underground criminal organizations or covert government forces. Even when women are written in as the leads, the way they deal with the problems and scenarios doesn’t differ in a meaningful structural level. The “good” guys win and the “bad” guys lose. The overall result is a kind of propaganda that doesn’t meaningfully wrangle with subjectivity. Promising Young Woman does the opposite of this by having Cassie act with a distinct womanhood. It recognizes that the world forces certain vantage points upon people based on their social position and actively positions the narrative and its development around Cassie and her subjective orientation towards the dominant social order.

Everything from the way she deals with her night-time vigilante situations to the way she handles her fundamental revenge mission plays on familiar tropes (look back to the aforementioned doughnut example). By placing her in typical revenge confrontations and delaying the reveal of what she actually done, the movie forces us to examine just how brutal the rules of the social order are for some while they’re unfairly stacked in the favor of others. We have images of what we think Cassie has done which help reveal our complicity in/normalization of the system and the movie cleverly shows us how out of depth we are when it reveals what’s actually happened. Furthermore, Cassie’s relation to her trauma is kept as anonymized as possible – there’s no “face” to attach to it per say. It makes placing yourself in Cassie’s shoes incredibly easy because her relationship becomes something more universal – the anonymization helps showcase just how deep seated rape culture is and how devastating it can be to all involved.

The end result is a striking dialogue that engages the audience on multiple levels. It becomes clear just how integrated certain ideas are within our psyches and how they colors our view on envisioning the realm of possible action, both for ourselves and other people. It shows us just how easy it is to distract away from violence by framing it in more abstract terms – a sweeping under the rug that does nothing but tidy the mess. This is reflected in the structure of the movie, which uses Cassie’s orientation towards her trauma as a way to constantly change the genre. As her character arc progresses the movie goes from thriller/black comedy, to rom-com, to drama, to fantasy with some some great transitory bits in between. Each of these moments uses Cassie’s character disposition, the music, the use of montage (like the one that starts the movie), and so on to reveal a vantage point that women can occupy in respect to a male dominated order. Some of these genre moves feel abrupt (ex: a rom- com styled dance sequence that pops up out of nowhere is a common criticism I’ve seen in some reviews) because they are meant to critique the way these issues are normally pushed aside in favor of more lighthearted and palatable discussions – the range fantasies go in concealing the true nature of what’s going on.

The framing mechanism takes elements from Cassie’s (Carey Mulligan) personal journal and makes them chapters in the story. This further emphasizes her agency in constructing what we’re seeing and helps to drive the point the story is making.

Structurally the movie makes use of a list of targets from Cassie’s journal as a framing device. This directly ties form to content – the story (movie proper) is Cassie’s tale. This is the story she’s writing and the framing mechanism does an important job in both establishing the way she thinks about how to deal with her trauma and what “winning” against the same looks like. Each genre shift forces you to think about what her agency means. There are multiple moments where you’re left wondering if her range of choices were really as limited as presented or if that limitation was meant to reveal something else entirely.

Holding all these strands together is Cary Mulligan’s standout performance as Cassie. She’s the emotional center of the movie and single handedly helps every story thread come together in a cohesive and moving fashion. Her deadpan delivery along with her witty dialogue makes her easy to root for. The anger by which she emotes make it easy to understand how serious what she’s dealing with is. There are moments where she moves around on the camera like a hunter- slowly pushing her target to the corner of the frame trapping them – cornering someone in the most literal sense of the term. The ease by which she controls situations makes it apparent that she’s skilled. It all coms down to one thing – Mulligan knows how to show the depth of what she’s going through which makes Cassie’s subsequent arc coherent and believable while still using it to explore social positions. This is also why so many members of the supporting cast were cast from likable comedians/actors who immediately make us trust as opposed to doubt them. The movie uses this previously built trust to reveal how deep seated and ubiquitous rape culture is and the danger inherent at the heart of it – anyone can hurt you and appearances are deceiving.

The end result plays like a Gothic fairy tale, albeit one with a bubblegum pop aesthetic as opposed to the traditional black and white palette. The traditional pop songs and the vibrant use of colors, namely pink and blue, come off feeling as something reclaimed as opposed to something campy -they are the artifice of womanhood that must be taken seriously. Likewise, the story actively forces you to engage with the point it’s trying to make, not in a way that’s preachy but in a way that demonstrates the ideological maneuverings we use to obstruct and get around difficult issues and conversations. Most importantly, it tells a story that needs to be heard because of how lasting and important it is. The way the movie tackles issues of culpability, consent, systemic injustice, and the manifestation make it essential viewing, but it’s presentation and examination of the way ideology plays into these demarcating these thoughts makes it an absolute masterwork.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	Promising Young Women is the type of debut that gets you excited for the director’s future movies. Fennell takes an idea – what does “real” agency look like in a world where rape culture is built into the way that world operates – and explores it in a way that actively gets the audience involved in examining their own prejudice while being wholly committed to a strong singular vision. The movie utilizes a bubblegum pop aesthetic comes in both the c olor palette and music choice giving this Grimm fairytale an updated makeover that’s infectious, fun, and serious. The script’s genre jumping tendencies gives Mulligan a huge canvas to play on which gives the story the emotional core it needs to sustain its more intense beats. The elements come together in a truly ambitious fashion that help it more than deliver on its promise.
Rating	10/10
Grade	A+

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2010s, 2012, A+, Art House, Crime, Drama, Grade, Review, review-movie, Year

Review: Spring Breakers

January 1, 2021 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	Harmony Korine
Principal Cast	James Franco as Alien Selena Gomez as Faith Vanessa Hudgens as Candy Ashley Benson as Brit Rachel Korine as Cotty Gucci Mane as Archie
Release Date	2012
Language(s)	English
Running Time	93 minutes

The movie opens with excess as the title credits splash onto the screen. Neon colors and stylized letters give an indication of the story to come.

The title card is a sign of things to come – normal letters that feel like so much more due to the neon infused colors and stylization. Spring Break is elevated into something that seems exceptionally beautiful.

Synth dance music starts to play as a montage depicting the festivities of spring break start to play. The camera leers at the debauchery – moving over the bodies of young 20 somethings fully embracing the pleasures associated with the season. Crotch grabbing, ass shaking, flashing the camera, a litany of phallic behavior (talk about Freudian) from fellating popsicles to jerking off beer bottles – it’s all a proclamation that this drive to enjoyment is the law of the land.

Phallic behavior is the name of the game at the sunny beaches of Florida as young women suck on popsicles suggestively while young men feed the former booze from beer cans positioned over their crotches. In a Freudian sense, this represents the symbolic law of the land has transformed. The only ethical injection is to enjoy and give in to hedonism.

This excitement is interrupted as the movie cuts to a suburban area – a college campus that’s boring and drab compared to what came before. We move to a classroom filled with bright, neon screens coloring the space. The professor at the head of room starts to talk about the Double V campaign – a slogan used during World War II to tie the fight against fascism abroad to the fight against racism at home. Despite serving in the troops, African Americans were still treated as sub-humans in their homeland of America. This discussion on the nature of race’s relation to the American dream and its ideological stronghold is ignored as the camera moves to two girls, Candy and Brit, who are more focused their upcoming spring break-cation. The plight and suffering of African Americans is drowned out by Candy performing mock fellatio on a drawn out penis that says “Spring Break Bitch”.

Candy (Vanessa Hudgens) ignores the discussion of the pervading antiblackness that haunts the history of America in favor of pretending to blow a penis representing Spring Break. This is a tie in to the earlier phallic endorsement of Spring Break and represents the way the drive for “new” pleasure is used to displace the call for justice.

This displacement is no coincidence. It’s a reminder to us that the anti-blackness that was started in the United States with slavery and plantations still persists – lingering in the background – an undercurrent to Americana that is constantly ignored and shoved aside.

The professor’s lecture drowns out and turns into the voice of a youth pastor trying to amp up a group of young Christians. In this circle of religious adherents is the aptly named Faith, a young women who’s dissatisfied with the seemingly boring goings of her everyday life. As the group says “Amen” together in hypnotic and repetitive fashion, the camera cuts to Brit drinking booze out of a squirt gun with a poster of Lil Wayne behind her. A black rapper and pop idol watching the young white women drinking alcohol from a gun – the gun as a tool of violence turns into one of pleasure as pop stars are respectively turned into idols which are to be consumed. The blackness of the star in question is not a coincidence – like the labor of African Americans during WWII, the cultural work done by this community is consumed without abandon without regard for the creators.

Brit (Ashley Benson) squirts alcohol into her mouth from a gun. On top of reinforcing the phallic imagery, the transformation of the gun as a tool to kill to a tool to deliver alcohol showcases the ties between violence and pleasure. The figure of a black rapper in the background is no coincidence. In a world where pop idols are “Gods” and blackness is consumes as a product, Lil Wayne becomes emblematic of the way pop culture is created by black people and coopted by others.

The movie cuts back to Faith, who informs her Church friends that she’s excited to go Florida with Candy, Brit, and their other friend Cotty to celebrate Spring Break. The three party girls make their way to Faith to make sure they have enough money for their upcoming vacation. Unfortunately, the girls realize they don’t have enough. This depression manifests itself in the color of their surroundings – blue hallways, blue rooms, and a blue ambiance. The blue normalcy that surrounds them is unbearable and they have to get away. They need to find themselves and awaken in a spiritual fashion that’s” impossible” to do in their current location. It’s at this point that Candy, Brit, and Cotty make plans to steal the money they need. They drive down a yellow road. Like the road Dorothy travels in Oz this is a path to transformation and change. The whole time a voiceover from Candy and Brit repeats over and over like the “Amen”‘s from before- “Just pretend like it’s a video game” , “Act like you’re in a movie or something” – an updated mantra for the new age. If pop culture and pleasure are the new Gods in this incarnation of the American Dream, then this repetition is the prayer adherents must believe to survive. They go into a local restaurant and steal from the unsuspecting patrons- emerging at the bright red exit. Finally, their journey can start.

The girls make their way down a yellow road to go from their boring dreary lives marked my a neon blue to escape to new and better pastures marked by a neon red. The colors not only make their burglary pop but represent their “spiritual” journey.

They make their way to Florida and the party begins. The girls lose themselves in the spring break assemblage as the images become hyper saturated, letting bodies blend into one another. To be one with spring break is to give oneself fully to pleasure. In this “new” world, all that matters is how far one’s willing to go to get what they want. There’s a newfound agency as the girl’s engage in the same debauchery as their male counterparts. They’re sexualized by the camera, but they embrace it and grab the pleasure bull by its horns. It’s during their escapades that they run into Alien – a white rapper with dreads who traps as his main form of currency. He takes pride in both “being out of this world” and being the only white boy in a black neighborhood. He loves the American Dream which as he explains is all about making change and acquiring more and more.

This is Spring Breakers – an introspective look into the transformed American dream, one that prioritizes material growth at the cost of everything else. The only ethical injunction is to enjoy pleasures to the max. However, this pleasure is nothing more than a pretty picture that covers up the emptiness at the heart of endless hedonism. When the girls are living their lives back home they watch tv, they drink to excess, they smoke weed, they go to house parties, they mess around with each other. When they go on Spring Break, they quite literally participate in the same behavior – it’s just ratcheted up higher and with more dazzling colors. All their spiritual awakening really amounts to is putting a nice filter over their everyday behavior – something that Korine quite literally demonstrates through the replication of certain shots under different lighting. The blue drab lighting that they do despised gives way to a bright red neon hue that demonstrates that it’s only their ideological investment in the idea of spring break as spiritual praxis that makes it so as opposed to the activities they engage in.

The girls do the same things whether it be at home or in Florida during spring break. This is made obvious with the repetition in shot selection. In both areas they have fun and relax by doing hand stands; however, they enjoy the experience more in Florida because they think spring break makes it magically superior. It’s an ideological investment that transforms the mundane into something special despite there being no material change in what’s going on. The change of colors from the boring and dreary blue to the exciting and vibrant red signifies that this is all about ideology.

In the background is the specter of African Americans- like the plantations and buildings they built centuries ago they have created the the pop culture that the young masses can’t get enough of. However, just like the fruits of their labors on the plantations and the respect /rights they deserved for fighting in World War II, their efforts are once again coopted by the system. They put in the work, but they receive very little if any of the fruits of their labor- relegated to the periphery constantly. From the professor’s early lectures to the constant imagery of black entertainment being consumed and emulated by young white 20 somethings , their presence is always felt.

While the subject matter is disgusting and excessive in the vein of John Waters, the presentation definitely reminds me of Terrence Malick. There’s immense attention given to compositions (there are multiple shots in the movie that feel like they could be wall art/post cards) and using lighting as mise en scène. Blue is dreary normalcy, yellow is change and transformation, while red is the promise of spring break – the heart of the American Dream. The colors permeate through every shot, giving the movie a visual splendor while tying the elements together thematically. The editing is elliptical and features a healthy dose of voiceovers. Lines of dialogue are presented in an almost innocent way to start – a promise of good things, but then are repeated again to reveal the true depravity of the situation at hand. On top of revealing the duplicity of spring break , the repetition of lines creates an hypnotic feeling that fully immerses you in the world. The movie is vapid and deceptive, but that doesn’t stop it from being beautiful and poetic in its own way. It’s beautiful to look and hypnotizing to listen to with very little underneath in terms of plot perfectly tying form to theme.

Complimenting this structure and the movies themes are the performances by the cast. Given the movie’s celebration of pop culture as idolatry, the casting of both Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens, two former Disney super stars, is more than apt and sets the movie up for success. Each member of our main cast of heroines demonstrates a different level of comfort with the transformed American Dream. Gomez constantly gives off an disconcerted feeling that she quickly disguises with faux happiness representing Faith’s conflict in embracing hedonism over her spiritual roots. Rachel Korine is constantly having fun and gives herself to the party scene fully showcasing Cotty’s desire to just have a good time. Both Hudgens and Benson express sheer ecstasy at the situation highlighting how how Candy and Brit respectively don’t care about anything than enjoying their experience, no matter how debauched it threatens to get. In particular, Benson showcases a cold danger in her eyes , demonstrating the cutthroat disposition one must have to succeed in the “new” America. Franco brings a surprising amount of depth to a white rapper who drops the n-word from the way he gleefully engages with the girls to the way he constantly has a disconcerted look that occasionally comes through in his eyes. His cover of Britney Spear’s “Everytime” in the latter half of the movie is heartfelt and touching in the most off-putting way possible, perfectly encapsulating everything Alien and the movie is about – celebrating the drive to pleasure and material goods as the end all be all.

It’s not surprising to see the low ratings for the movie : a 5.3 on IMDB, 67% on Rotten Tomatoes, 63 on Metacritic. Those looking for an believable crime story with traditional storytelling are going to feel betrayed by what they get. On top of this, the editing of scenes feels disjointed and fragmented while the repetitive voiceovers can feel lazy and just like an excuse to pad the run time. However, these criticisms miss the point. It’s not that the movie isn’t empty at it’s core. It definitely is. That’s the point. The emptiness is used to point out that way the ideologies we currently subscribe to are empty and vapid. The ideals we cling to are not only built on a bed of anti-blackness, but amount to nothing more than a nihilistic drive towards pleasure. If this famous clip of Spring Breaker in 2020 proves anything, it’s that Korine’s vision and analysis should be treated more seriously. What says hedonistic destruction more than Spring Breakers willing to get corona just to experience their long awaited festivities?

REPORT CARD

TLDR	In what can only be described as Terrence Malick directing a John Waters movie, Korine’s Spring Breakers is one part a celebration of excessive hedonism and superficiality, another part an elevation of pleasure seeking to a form of spirituality, and at it’s core an simultaneous indictment and valorization of the duplicity of the American Dream. The elliptical editing, use of repetition in lines, constant voiceovers, and bright and saturated compositions are intoxicating and transport the viewer into a world of excess that feels empty at its core. Though the movie might seem vapid at first go, it tackles a host of issues from antiblackness to pop culture idolization in thought provoking ways asking us to assess the state of our current orientation towards success and having a good time. Immersive and important, those people who are willing to look beyond the surface might find something worthwhile in Korine’s breakdown of modern ideology.
Rating	10/10
Grade	A+

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