Category: Movie Reviews

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Movie Reviews

Movie Review: The Zone of Interest

The Zone of Interest is the kind of once-in-a-blue-moon achievement that makes very good films seem paltry and pointless by comparison. In a year of troubled pictures that reckon with twentieth century evils—searching, clearly, for the secret to averting their twenty-first century recurrences—Jonathan Glazer’s Holocaust drama stands apart for its supreme daring, originality, and, most importantly, wisdom.

Allow me to explain my reverence for The Zone of Interest.

The film follows a Nazi family presiding over unspeakable suffering. Directly over the wall of their property lies Auschwitz, where father Rudolph Hoss has made a name for himself as an efficient and levelheaded manager of Jewish extermination. He isn’t a crazed maniac, though—at least not outwardly—unlike the cinematic villains of Schindler’s List and Inglourious Basterds. In fact, he wife, Hedwig, are, from what we can see, quite dull. They dodder around the house and act out a boring family drama: Rudolph has to leave town for a new post while Hedwig stays behind and cares for the kids.

An unremarkable tale. The film’s titular “interest,” though, lies in the way that the characters go through their daily motions without acknowledging the gunshots and cries of torture that pour steadily into their yard from the camp. These noises are easily audible to us, which means that the Hosses can hear them, as well. How, then, do they go about their day? How do they live with themselves?

Because of the remarkable dissonance on display, The Zone of Interest has been repeatedly linked to Hannah Arendt’s notorious formulation of “the banality of evil.” But I think the comparison is misguided. In Arendt’s argument, Nazis were guilty of substituting official commands—the “law”—for the truer law of Kant’s categorical imperative. Glazer’s Nazis, however, don’t appear morally confused in this manner. Unlike the mindless rank and file of Arendt’s imagination, these characters know what they’re doing, and they know that it’s wrong. They simply don’t want to know (because they stand to benefit from it), and they succeed in hiding their knowledge from their own consciences.

Several developments demonstrate that the Hosses, in contradiction to the notion of the “banality of evil,” know perfectly well the evil of Nazism. When Hedwig’s visiting mother, for example, tells a pithy story about a Jewish servant, Hedwig becomes visibly uncomfortable. Apparently, for Hedwig and Rudolph, even anti-Semitism isn’t good enough: what they require is total omission of Jews from discussion. Lies, after all, are leaky, since their fallacies risk being recognized. Constant, effortful ignorance, by contrast, is airtight. If Jews are never mentioned, the morals of their elimination never require consideration, let alone justification. (Indeed, Hedwig’s mother later leaves the house in discomfort: although bigoted, she alone, having spoken the victims into existence, finds herself haunted by the crematorium.)

The question, then, isn’t how the Hosses fail to realize their culpability—they do. The question is how they distract themselves from it. And this is what the bulk of The Zone of Interest illustrates.

Floors are swept. Hedges are trimmed. New clothes are tried. Board meetings are held. Parties are thrown. Gossip is exchanged. Work calls are made. Marital squabbles are had. These are the events shown in The Zone of Interest, because they comprise the all-important bubble in which the Hosses have ensconced themselves to guard against their own moral compasses. Not even the sounds of mass death can penetrate this bubble: dreariness, it seems, is a formidable shield. Only when evidence of such horror arrives unmistakably under their noses—such as Hedwig’s mother’s departing letter, or the appearance of human remains in the nearby river—is the bubble invaded, but even then, Rudolph and Hedwig quickly discard the relevant evidence, quickly rebuilding their mental fortress of domestic duty.

Mundane matters, it appears, can consume a life. They’re the blinders that, if we prefer, can shield us from real reflections. Such as: What is my responsibility to the world? Am I making society better or worse? What is happening outside of my immediate circle, and is it good or bad? The Hosses find it possible to participate in genocide because they know how to drive their ugly thoughts away: by keeping busy with trivialities.

But for a brief, perhaps inevitable moment, the mental fortress does falter. At the movie’s conclusion, Rudolph begins dry-heaving after a Nazi social event, suggesting, for the first time, discomfort. He’s so uncomfortable, in fact, that he experiences, apparently, a premonition of the future: the opening of the Auschwitz museum, where the horrors he helped implement are on display for the world to see.

There’s something wrong, though. The impact of this vision isn’t what it should be. The employees preparing the exhibits don’t seem to notice what they’re looking at: unthinkingly, they scrub the windows, vacuum the floors, sweep the cells. Just as in the Hoss household, it seems, there’s work to be done. And, just as at home, the little tasks at hand—not the explosion of suffering all around—command all the attention.

Rudolph sees this. He sees that, in the future, our eyes will glaze over. That we’ll be too busy, too distracted to shudder or recoil. That the same banality that shields him and his family so safely from having to consider their actions will, just as surely, shield us, far in the future, from having to do so, as well. After all, under the shroud of dreary goings-on, he’s escaped his own conscience. Why not ours, too?

Reassured, he stops dry-heaving. Composed once again, he slips down the stairs, into the darkness, unseen, unnoticed, his crimes forever in shadow, his villainy vanished from the world, which has more pressing things to do than think about it. Thinking, of course, is the scourge of atrocity, and people are endlessly good—and getting better and better—at finding ways to avoid it.

So: the banality of evil? Jonathan Glazer, our newest deserver of the title of cinematic master, has given us a new, terrible take: the evil of the banal.

 

—Jim Andersen

 

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Movie Reviews

Movie Review: American Fiction

American Fiction has two objectives. First, to parody the exploitation of Black artists by White people hungry for garish, insulting stereotypes. Second, to provide an alternative to these stereotypes by telling the nuanced story of a Black intellectual grappling with family troubles. Combined, that’s a lot for one movie, so it ultimately has to choose which objective is the priority. It chooses the latter.

Wrong choice. Unfortunately, the life of author Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright) isn’t all that compelling on its own, although it’s well written and acted. It’s only compelling when juxtaposed with Monk’s newest output: an intentionally exaggerated, phony novel of Black hardship and violence. But as American Fiction progresses, the farcical half of the plot—the key to the other half’s significance—fades into the background. Therefore, the movie becomes increasingly ho-hum and forgettable.

The result of the failed balancing act is a very good movie in parts, but not as a whole. There are scenes of first-rate satire, such as a White interviewer fawning over a popular Black author whose dumbed-down new novel (“We’s Lives In Da Ghetto”—hilarious) features two characters arguing in heavy vernacular about a trip to the pharmacy. On the other hand, there are scenes of laudable realism, such as Monk’s arguments with his wayward brother, Cliff. These two aesthetics are awkward bedfellows. Imagine if “South Park” had attempted to reshape itself into an Oscar contender.

Perhaps the film’s tonal inconsistency is why its narrative eventually disintegrates, unable to reach a conclusion. Caught between satire and realism, between sharp-edged humor and subtle drama, it can only peter out, shielding its own exit with tired postmodern games. This final indecision may be a meta-commentary on the impossibility of writing (and existing) as Monk Ellison. But even so, the smell of a cop-out is unmistakable, and this ending reeks. Given American Fiction‘s jumbled concept(s), one last disappointment may have been inevitable.

 

-Jim Andersen

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Movie Reviews

Movie Review – The Holdovers

The Holdovers is a quiet, thoughtful film, a worthy entry in the New England artistic tradition of contemplative musings. Like a Robert Frost poem, its action is minimal, its setting is poignant, and its conclusions remain unspoken.

Its success hinges on three excellent acting performances, any of which could have sunken the film had a lesser effort been made. In fact, the three stars, especially Paul Giamatti, routinely rescue cliché lines and situations with offbeat, surprising deliveries. In other words, while the screenplay itself is sometimes too cute for my liking, the cast (mostly) finds enough credibility in it to retain authenticity. There’s no doubt that the film, because of its plot, exists in the shadow of Good Will Hunting (1997), so I waited in terror for it to eventually assume the painful corniness of its predecessor—but the moment never came.

The Holdovers is about breaking free of the past and setting a new course for oneself. It’s also about a particular moment in time—the Vietnam War era—in which the mid-century American optimism had begun to fade, and greed had taken hold of the country in new, alarming ways. The movie’s three main characters reject this new normal: they’re the “holdovers” who still strive to find nonmaterial fulfillment with the help of family and friends. A story that will resonate for the foreseeable future.

 

–Jim Andersen

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Movie Reviews

Movie Review and Analysis – Killers of the Flower Moon

“I do like money,” admits Ernest Burkhart (Leonardio DiCaprio)—thereby joining the Martin Scorsese tradition of dimwitted, mercenary protagonists. Like his predecessors, Henry Hill of Goodfellas and Jordan Belfort of The Wolf of Wall Street (also played by DiCaprio), Ernest can’t resist the temptation of the green. But Killers of the Flower Moon takes a gloomier survey of American greed than those other two films because not only does Burkhart commit greater evils by far than his parallels, but, unlike them, he never attains the dream of wealth that motivates him in the first place.

Scorsesean violence has always allowed a glimmer of amusement: like Tarantino, he enjoys the suffering of the crooked. But what about when the violence is one-sided, and the victims are faultless? That’s the new territory of Killers of the Flower Moon. And perhaps surprisingly, Scorsese proves apt in supplying the appropriate tone. Absent is the humor of Goodfellas; absent is the clinical eye of Taxi Driver; absent even is the cynicism of The Departed. Pervading the film instead is a sense of elegy, of personal pain; for better or worse, the movie’s true precursor may be Schindler’s List. (Not accidentally, Scorsese imitates his peer with a late, Spielbergian cameo.)

Much of the pain is felt through the great performance of Lily Gladstone as Ernest’s Native American wife, Mollie. In the movie’s most memorable shot, Mollie wails in despair after the death of her sister. Gladstone’s acting gives the moment dignity and power, while Scorsese’s framing of the scene from above, with the characters huddled in a pitiful basement, conveys their helplessness in the face of unmoored scheming and violence. Bringing both truths to the screen has often stymied directors: Spielberg, for example, couldn’t strike the balance.

An even more interesting duality in the film has to do with Scorsese’s portrayal of the American everyman. Typically, blue-collar, plain-speaking types are sympathetic characters. Their lack of cleverness serves as a virtue, a promise of honesty. But Scorsese, in Killers of the Flower Moon and his previous film, The Irishman, has illustrated a darker side to ignorance. In those two films, witless simpletons commit unspeakable horrors because of their witlessness: easily manipulated by tyrants, they become unnaturally malicious. Ernest is aptly named, as he’s indeed “earnest” in his love for simple pleasures and for his family. But Scorsese shows us that earnestness isn’t enough: while the character sincerely mourns the declining health of his beloved wife, he injects her with the very poison causing her infirmity.

Overall, Killers of the Flower Moon is another variation on classic Scorsesean themes. If I had to summarize his body of work, I would describe it as an examination of money, stupidity, and violence—and their repeated confluence through American history. His newest output follows that track exactly. Nevertheless, with each new release, he brings a slightly different approach, challenging himself in a new way, even at 80 years old. He’s one of the masters, and his remaining work deserves to be cherished.

 

–Jim Andersen

For more reviews, see my thoughts on Oppenheimer.

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Movie Reviews

Movie Review and Analysis: Oppenheimer

It’s fair to call me a Christopher Nolan hater. I’ve criticized Memento, ripped Tenet, and even disparaged the Batman trilogy. I haven’t written about Interstellar, but I assure you, I’m no fan. On the other hand, I’ve offered reserved praise for Inception and lauded The Prestige, which, in my opinion, had been Nolan’s strongest work.

Until now. Oppenheimer is a tense, complicated tale of science, ethics, and politics. It’s a landmark of Hollywood cinema—the kind of American epic that supposedly doesn’t get made anymore. Stuffed with characters and bursting with contemporary implications, it sustains comparison to its great predecessors: The Social Network (2010) and There Will Be Blood (2007). By a wide margin, it’s Nolan’s masterpiece to date.

As with many of his prior films, Nolan employs nonlinear storytelling in Oppenheimer. But unlike in those prior films, especially Memento and Tenet, the fractured storytelling doesn’t disorient. Rather, it carries crucial thematic significance. In the first storyline, physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) leads the successful project to develop and test an atomic bomb. In the second, Oppenheimer’s reputation and influence are sabotaged by shady forces from inside the government. Telling these two halves simultaneously rather than sequentially conveys that the second half was preordained—that Oppenheimer’s rise and fall were intertwined. They comprised a single government endeavor: to use and, by necessity, discard a great mind.

This underscores the cynical vision of Oppenheimer: a vision of administrative power run amok. And the United States government in this film isn’t only greedy and ruthless; it’s petty and egoistic, too. One official plots Oppenheimer’s destruction for embarrassing him in a trivial committee hearing. Harry Truman mocks Oppenheimer for expressing guilt over Hiroshima—not based on ethical disagreement, but because Oppenheimer, in feeling any responsibility at all, has, in the president’s view, overestimated his contribution. In both cases the takeaway is clear: the government will not be upstaged. Not by a great scientist, not even by science itself. Truman’s rebuke to Oppenheimer functions as the United States’ position toward every American citizen: “This isn’t about you.”

I don’t often take time to praise actors, but Cillian Murphy’s performance in this film is something special. Like Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Murphy conveys the increasing torment of a would-be hotshot navigating the twisted modern world. His Dr. Oppenheimer, forced to confront the morality of his work, can’t draw firm conclusions, nor can he even explain his own actions. Multiple characters remark on his persuasive abilities, including self-persuasion. So has he been duped? And if so: by others, or by his own self? Murphy’s sensational acting in late scenes animates these impossible reflections. Watching him, we feel the historical genesis of a new state of moral confusion: used as pawns, how can any of us judge the game?

After Tenet, I’ll be honest: I thought Nolan was done. I thought he, like the magicians in The Prestige, had lost his way amidst the pressure to startle and impress. Gimmicks had overtaken his films’ characters, style, and even basic logic. But now I have to revise my view. Because with Oppenheimer, Nolan has vaulted himself into a new sphere. Formerly a mere showman, dependent on dubious slight-of-hand, he has proven himself a legitimate commentator on history, morality, and modern life. This movie must be seen. The best magic trick, after all, is a good story—prepare to be amazed!

 

–Jim Andersen

For more, see my review of Barbie.

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Movie Reviews

Movie Review and Analysis: Barbie

Barbie is a glitzy and ultimately suspicious barrage of feminist gender politics. Storywise, it’s the latest of many, many movies to feature a fictional character experiencing the “real world” for the first time, having left a cheerful, cartoonish utopia. But it changes the playbook somewhat, because rather than the character helping out humans by bringing some of that cheer into our gloomy world—as in Elf, The Smurfs, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Paddington, etc., etc.—in this film, the character brings the gloominess back to her own. And the results are…odd.

We’ll get back to that.

There’s no questioning that this film is sold on the ideals of contemporary feminism. Women can do or be anything. Men often try to stop them. Still, nothing can erase that the movie’s hero is, by any reasonable accounting, the modern feminist antichrist. In one scene, a teenage girl dresses down Barbie as a “bimbo” who promotes “consumerism” and threatens female empowerment and mental health. Well, she’s right, isn’t she? So why is a feminist blockbuster celebrating this villain?

Therein lies the inherent discomfort. Talented director Greta Gerwig has made a deal with the devil, so the movie guiltily wants to undo itself, to atone for existing. It accomplishes this, but what was the point of it all? The marketing team pumped up Barbie, and now the movie has deflated her again. (She spends much of the film crying about how disliked she is.) It’s over, and we’re back to where we started.

Part of the problem may be that feminist doctrines, like all doctrines, don’t lend themselves well to being filmed. For instance, multiple characters in Barbie emphasize that women should be able to choose any path they like. That’s a great principle, but the movie has to be about somebody. It can’t be about every woman living every kind of life. Pure equality can only be spoken about, not shown onscreen. Thus, Barbie grinds to a halt in its second half, as various characters give speeches about female empowerment. These motivational diatribes belong on TikTok, and luckily, there’s no shortage of creators who have obliged us. But movies have to get on with the business of storytelling.

Prior to this, Barbie does tell a story, although it’s a strange one. The gist is that Ken, having learned about patriarchy during a brief visit to Venice Beach, brings it back to Barbieland. This causes the previously hyperfeminine paradise to become a dude haven, complete with…fur coats? And…mini-fridges? And…pull-up bars? And…the music of Rob Thomas?

My doubts about this vision of unchecked masculinity aside, the choices made in this section will date the movie rapidly. But then again, that may be inevitable for any social justice-oriented film. What’s progressive today is regressive tomorrow. Piss off conservatives in 2023, feel the wrath of liberals in 2028.

I’m analyzing because I want to provide good content. But to be honest, I was skeptical from the first act. Because the movie’s central conceit is that although, yes, Barbie has damaged society, Barbie herself doesn’t know that, so she’s still sympathetic.

I don’t buy it. Look at those eyes.

She knows.

–Jim Andersen

 

For more reviews, see my review of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1.

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Movie Review: Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1

Do you like action movies? If so, you have to see Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1, and you have to see it in theaters.

Action franchises are supposed to get lamer over time. They’re supposed to increasingly struggle to generate coherent plots and character arcs. They’re supposed to lose their grit and lean on uninspiring CGI. “Mission Impossible 7” sounds like a made-up movie in a joke about the decline of cinema.

Yet the franchise has only improved with time. Tom Cruise is now over 60 years old, but he continues to perform the most impressive stunts in Hollywood—no double required. And director Christopher McQuarry has proven again, with his fourth consecutive must-see installment, that he’s the modern master of action set pieces. Amidst all the adrenaline, the character development doesn’t fall apart.

This film has a leg up over its fellow impossible missions by virtue of its antagonist. Ethan Hunt’s nemesis in MI7 is a godlike AI that has weaponized our digital world against us. It’s threatening to use its limitless influence to dismantle truth, hijack the world economy, and manipulate the masses for inscrutable ends. (As Benji quips, “It was bound to happen sooner or later.”) So deistic is The Entity that it speaks through a messenger named Gabriel and foretells a disciple’s imminent betrayal.

These campy touches are welcome in a franchise that has always been a little less fun than it could be, thanks in part to Cruise’s relentless intensity. And don’t overlook that, like every good villain, The Entity reflects some of the hero’s qualities. Like Ethan, The Entity has gone “rogue” and has proven impossible to “control” by traditional means. Various governments greedily jockey for the key to The Entity’s power, just as they’ve tried to subdue Ethan time and time again. A true rival, indeed.

Plus, a digital adversary is a natural fit for a character played by Cruise, given that he’s become arguably the leading skeptic of the digital era of moviegoing. My showing of Dead Reckoning Part 1 opened with Cruise and McQuarry appearing onscreen to thank viewers for watching in a theater. Clearly, they don’t want their special craft subsumed by the vast, all-knowing algorithms of the digital platforms. Relatedly, at one point, The Entity demands that Benji feed it personal information, presumably to use to manipulate him later on. Is this a rogue supervillain? Or is it Netflix?

On the negative side, there are moments during which the movie’s action feels somewhat familiar. And it doesn’t only borrow from its series forerunners. In fact, I noticed similarities at various moments to: Speed (1992), The Lost World (1997), Spiderman 2 (2004), Casino Royale (2006), and even, at one uncharacteristically silly moment toward the end, Aladdin (1992). But when MI7 borrows, it does so only when it knows it can improve on the original. Its train-top tunnel brawl outdoes Speed‘s. Its Italian car chase outmatches Casino Royale‘s.

And no cinematic precursor features anything like the jaw-dropping motorcycle leap that marks the film’s most memorable moment. In every new installment, it seems, Cruise pulls off a showstopper, and this is one of the best.

So again, for an adrenaline-filled fun time, I highly recommend this movie. I wish it weren’t a two-part installment, but when you keep delivering the goods like Cruise does, you can do what you like. I can’t wait for the finale.

 

–Jim Andersen

For more recent releases, see my analysis of Asteroid City.

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Movie Review: Beau Is Afraid Is Too Difficult Yet Too Simple

Few American directors have made a movie as important as Hereditary (2018), so Ari Aster deserves our attention with each new output. But his newest release, Beau Is Afraid, falls well short of his best. In fact, given his also-disappointing intervening film, Midsommar (2019), I’m beginning to wonder whether he can ever reassume the heights of his debut.

Execution has never been a problem for Aster. Scene after scene in Beau Is Afraid is well shot and well acted, and many bits are quite funny. The problem is concept. Like Midsommar, the new film falls flat because it dabbles in surrealism without offering the benefits of surrealism. It presents metaphorical, narratively challenging content—but its underlying ideas lack complexity and therefore don’t warrant the challenging style. In other words, Aster, for the second straight time, has provided the worst of both worlds: a film that’s at once too narratively abstract and too thematically simplistic.

The first section of the film, the strongest by far, hints at a contemporary Eraserhead (1977), a paranoid urban nightmare for the 2020s. But even here, there’s a lack of visual verve that suggests that Aster isn’t totally committed to nightmarishness—that, unlike David Lynch, he’s a tourist in the dreamscape. And indeed, after the first act, the absurdist elements gradually fade away. The source of Aster’s inconsistency soon becomes evident: he doesn’t care about the nightmare; he cares about where it came from. He has de-prioritized filmmaking, prioritized psychologizing. An unacceptable flaw that pervades the entire film.

Recall that Aster at his best has captured scenes like Toni Collette’s dinner table eruption in Hereditary. In that film, the family strife felt primitive and scary: it felt real. The latter half of Beau Is Afraid, on the other hand, feels like a bad play, with characters airing grievances in icy, contemptuous monologues. This is weak stuff. The movie’s finale, in which Beau (Joaquin Phoenix) literally goes on trial for being a bad Jewish son, is the inevitable letdown the film has been racing toward. Aster, having started at Lynch, has ended at Woody Allen. Not a favorable trajectory.

I worry that Aster may have attained artistic and financial freedom too quickly, thanks to the success of Hereditary. Stanley Kubrick had to labor through Spartacus (1960) and Lolita (1962) to learn how to package his ideas into studio-financed films. Lynch had to suffer through Dune (1984). These were formative experiences not only because they offered lessons in industry tact, but also because they forced their respective directors to overcome resistance, to learn to squeeze more artistry into less space. Weightlifters have to train with heavy weights.

Aster, treated like a prodigy from the moment of his debut, may be atrophying.

 

–Jim Andersen

@jimander91

For more on Ari Aster, see my full analysis of Hereditary.

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Triangle of Sadness Throws Power Dynamics Overboard

Triangle of Sadness, directed by Ruben Ostlund, serves up plentiful food for thought. Told in three sections (a triangle indeed), the film follows a young couple, both models, who first argue about monetary responsibilities, then join a group of wealthy vacationers on a cruise, then finally wind up marooned on an island. Together, these episodes form an intriguing examination of the slippery nature of power dynamics.

Ostlund’s message is best understood by following the trajectory of male model Carl (Harris Dickerson), the movie’s central character. At a casting call early in the film, a photographer tests Carl’s versatility by prompting him to alternate between smiling and frowning. The smiles, as the photographer reminds him, accord with ads for cheaper brands like H&M. The frowns, meanwhile, correspond with designer brands like Balenciaga. The reasoning: the rich look down on the poor, so a model for luxury brands should emote condescension and even annoyance toward regular people viewing the ads.

Perhaps worried by this uncomfortable message, Carl soon confronts his girlfriend Yaya (Charlbi Dean) about having to pay for meals at restaurants. Yaya makes more money than he does, so Carl feels that she should at least split some of the bills. But Yaya rebuts him, initially citing his responsibility as a man to provide for her—but later admitting that she merely plans to become someone else’s trophy wife and has no emotional investment in the relationship. The photographer was right: Yaya, the wealthier and more influential of the two, looks down on Carl. It isn’t about fairness, as Carl advocates for. Rather, it’s about power: since Yaya is more influential, she can use him as a ploy for Instagram clout and dump him when the time is right. She can even openly admit to this without fearing a breakup.

Carl insists that he’ll make Yaya change her mind and fall in love with him. But on a luxury cruise, things don’t change. Carl becomes jealous when a shirtless crewmember greets Yaya, and, pathetically, he whines about it to the staff and gets the man fired. It’s clearer than ever that Yaya holds all the cards in this relationship. In our society, after all, female beauty comes valued more highly than male beauty. Yaya’s social media following—much larger than Carl’s—has allowed the couple to board the cruise in the first place.

Variations and commentaries on the couple’s power dynamic abound on the cruise. The rich guests boss around the crew and staff. Two characters drunkenly argue about capitalism and communism. Amidst all of this, the ship symbolically begins to tilt in stormy seas: the power dynamics may be shifting. And such a shift would cause quite a shock, as evidenced by the memorable bodily reactions experienced by the pompous vacationers.

In the last section of the movie, this shift has occurred. Shipwrecked by a pirate’s grenade, the survivors, including Carl and Yaya, establish an island community. But wealth no longer holds sway in the new hierarchy. Instead, toilet manager Abigail (Dolly de Leon) takes command, as only she knows how to survive in the wild. And one of Abigail’s first orders of business is to request sexual favors from Carl in exchange for special treatment. He readily complies.

On the island, it seems, things have reversed: male beauty now has greater worth. Yaya tries to inflame Carl’s old jealousy to win him back, but her efforts are futile. Without her former influence, the old power dynamic between the two doesn’t apply.

Carl’s position on the island, though, is awfully similar to his old position. He has merely swung from being used by Yaya to being used by Abigail. Both women hold great power in different types of societies for different reasons. And Carl gains special treatment from each by supplying something that each of them needs: Instagram aesthetics for Yaya, sexual favors for Abigail.

So the movie ends with Carl running through the jungle to rescue…whom? Yaya? Abigail? Does it matter?

Ostlund won’t show us the rest of the scene because it doesn’t. Carl is no romantic, as he claims to be in the first section. Rather, he’s like everyone else: someone who exchanges what he has to get what he can. His supposed principles go overboard on stormy seas, leaving only a weak, common person, smiling up at the powerful—who frown in condescension back at him.

 

–Jim Andersen

For more movie reviews, see my review on The Banshees of Inisherin

 

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Movie Reviews

The Banshees of Inisherin Insists on Dark Realities

The Banshees of Inisherin, directed by Martin McDonagh, is an odd movie about a friendship that suddenly fractures. Its oddness serves it well. While not a perfect or even a great film, Banshees has artistic purpose that leaves certain images lingering in the mind long afterward. For that reason alone, the film is worth watching.

The film’s literal narrative follows the consequences of the decision by a musician named Colm (Brendan Gleeson) to suddenly break off his longtime friendship with neighbor Padraic (Colin Farrell). Colm explains that, feeling his advancing age, he no longer wants to spend his days mulling trivial matters with Padraic. He wants to focus on grand matters like music and philosophy, which fall outside Padraig’s understanding.

Like Padraic, we refuse to accept this reasoning. What, after all, is grander than friendship? But Colm has made up his mind, and he’ll do whatever it takes to convince his former friend that a reversal isn’t in the cards. Not much happens in this movie, but suffice to say that Colm’s intransigence combined with Padraic’s desperate incomprehension initiates a downward spiral for both characters. Without each other to reign in their excesses—Colm’s lofty intellectualism and Padraic’s emotional quaintness—each descends into an equal and opposite type of madness.

Some have said that the story is mostly compelling for its allegorical value. It recreates the wariness and heartbreak of the Irish Civil War, and references the conflict multiple times to reinforce the link. But I don’t know much about the Irish Civil War, and chances are that you don’t, either; so I don’t think this is particularly relevant to the experience of watching the movie, unless you’re very interested in Irish history.

I’m pretty much out of things to say about this highly acclaimed film. And I suspect that McDonagh wanted it this way: The Banshees of Inisherin simply doesn’t lend itself to analysis or discussion. Rather, its power lies in its reminder that, as the loquacious Padraic eventually comes to understand, some problems are unsolvable—that words don’t always help or even illuminate. That’s a bitter pill to swallow for Padraic, and it’s perhaps even more bitter for us viewers. But it forces us to take the film seriously, and it forces us to confront dark realities that we’d otherwise prefer to ignore.

 

–Jim Andersen

For more reviews of 2023 Oscar nominees, see my review of Women Talking.