Author: jandersen

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Commentary and Essays

The Twelve Movies of Christmas

‘Tis the season for Christmasy movies, so let’s discuss twelve holiday classics and where they fall in the definitive rankings.

BONUS – Worst Christmas Movie: The Polar Express

This film has its advocates. Why, I can’t explain. My top eleven Christmas films emphasize the value of family, the joys of generosity, and the importance of looking past commercialism. You know, Christmasy themes. On the other hand, The Polar Express argues that the real priority—so crucial as to determine the health of one’s very soul—is to actually believe in Santa Claus.

The problem with this message, identifiable by anyone over the age of nine, is that Santa Claus is not real. He’s only a symbol, a representation of childhood innocence and the spirit of giving. He isn’t a deity who requires and rewards literal belief in himself (with implied dangerous consequences for those who step out of line). The film’s ending, in which an adult version of the protagonist proudly reports his continued belief in Santa despite others’ lapses, leaves a strange aftertaste: is he mentally okay?

That’s to say nothing of the failed animation that looks worse with each passing year. But bad effects can be overcome by true aims. When a towering Santa in The Polar Express holds a contest to reward the child who believes in him the most—a terrifying spectacle straight out of the Old Testament—we know director Robert Zemeckis has shot well wide of the mark.

The Best Christmas Movies
#11: Die Hard

I’m giving Die Hard a token placement on this list. It’s a great movie, and it takes place during Christmas, so there’s that. But Christmas doesn’t have much to do with its plot or even its setting, so I don’t feel it warrants a high placement compared to others on this list. I’ve already written at length about Die Hard‘s ingenious script and direction here, so if you want a more in depth commentary on its successes, check out that piece.

Die Hard does have some semblance of a family drama, with NYPD detective John McClane seeking to reconnect with his estranged wife during the holiday season. For this reason, some viewers remain adamant that Die Hard is a legitimate Christmas classic—maybe even the Christmas classic. I don’t agree, but I’m including the movie here in deference to them.

#10: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

A somewhat more cynical vision of Christmas cheer compared to others on this list, Christmas Vacation highlights the trials and tribulations of the holiday season: the difficulties of coexisting, even briefly, with family who live very different lifestyles. But it’s all in the name of a good time—especially when the never-ending mishaps are juxtaposed with the determination of Clark W. Griswold, who insists that it’s all worthwhile. And although he’s wrong about nearly everything else, on this particular topic, he’s right. Even his evil boss joins the fun and turns out to be not so evil, a welcome suggestion that good times together can melt away material differences.

I dock points, though, for the movie too frequently crossing into bad taste. Griswold is Chevy Chase’s best character, but even here, his flaws as a comedian occasionally show through. One subplot involves the married Griswold ogling an attractive retail worker and later fantasizing about her. Maybe this was more of a knee-slapper in 1989, but I have a feeling that, even then, it was one of a few flashes in this otherwise heartwarming comedy of the trait that would eventually tank Chase’s career: that he’s kind of a jerk.

#9: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)

Rudolph is the longest running television special in history, so it must’ve done something right. I’ll admit, however, that, watching it recently, I had some difficulty discerning what that might have been. Although the dated claymation adds a silly charm, the special is dragged down by goofy antics and annoying supporting characters, and it ends on an odd note: bullied and rejected time and time again, Rudolph finds acceptance only when he does something useful for Santa. In this scenario, jolly old Saint Nick comes off as… quite transactional.

But the intended message of Rudolph does shine through more successfully at other moments. The highlight is Rudolph landing on the “Island of Misfit Toys,” where assorted playthings bewail their Christmas exclusion due to various defects. The toys’ direct plea for empathy—“How would you like to be a bird that doesn’t fly?”—summarizes the theme in a way that children can understand. And unlike Rudolph’s suspicious happy ending, in which he resolves his problems simply by becoming popular, the misfit toys find happiness by discovering that Christmas has a place for everyone, even the weirdos. That’s surely a message worth airing for sixty years straight.

#8: Elf

Elf is a crowd pleaser. It doesn’t break much new ground, and it risks overstuffing on silliness, but never quite goes over the top. I think that’s because of its sneakily realistic portrayal of a jaded New York City.

Nearly everyone who interacts with Buddy the Elf assumes the worst. His eventual love interest, Jovie, accuses him of stalking her in the shower. His boss interprets his handiwork as evidence of corporate sabotage. His dad pegs him as a bad practical joke sent to humiliate him. And their cynicism isn’t just Christmas humbug; in fact, the movie goes out of its way to suggest that the characters’ pessimism is justified. Jovie, for example, was only showering at work because her landlord cut her water off. Buddy’s dad has to give a presentation on Christmas Eve, and when he refuses, he loses his job. So there’s no sugarcoating it: greed and cruelty are alive and well at Christmastime in New York.

That might lead us to expect the worst, but might there also be reasons to expect the best? That’s where the fun of Elf comes in. Don’t sleep on this movie as a healthy argument for optimism alongside—not in place of—being realistic about troubled times.

#7: How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966)

Dr. Seuss’ immaculate rhymes and Boris Karloff’s perfect narration make this whimsical story a deserving holiday staple. Its ending is a legitimate challenge to young children, who likely doperceive Christmas as a primarily material event and who might be just as shocked as the Grinch to learn of the Whos celebrating “without packages, boxes or bags.” And for adults, the Grinch is a surprisingly relatable character: his conversion upon realizing that Christmas “doesn’t come from a store” implies, contrary to the catchy musical ode to his odiousness, that his grumpiness and isolation stemmed from dislike of consumerism rather than inborn nastiness. Even the Grinch’s most evil episode—deceiving Cindy Lou Who to escape detection—resonates for adults, most of whom, facing interrogation by kids, have, by necessity, “thought up a lie” and “thought it up quick.”

The 2000 live action remake would later butcher the character, the tone, and all of Seuss’ themes, offering a terrible Christmas viewing experience perhaps exceeded only by The Polar Express. If you want a trashy version of Edward Scissorhands, then good for you, because it exists.

#6: Home Alone

Macaulay Culkin’s turn as Kevin McCallister is one of the great child acting performances. I think the key to the character’s enduring popularity is how the film simultaneously conveys the dueling truths that 1) kids are far more capable than we give them credit for and 2) despite this, they still need grownups around.

The movie’s best moment, very overlooked, is when Kevin reacts to his mother’s return by looking away, pained, until she apologizes for leaving him behind. At this point, he’s made no mention of what he understands about his parents’ mistake or how he feels about it. But these two seconds tell us all we need to know. More than anything, they reveal how emotionally vulnerable Kevin really is. Sure, he playacts at adulthood. However, this is perhaps only to compensate for the overwhelming dependence of childhood: egregiously overlooked by his family, he’s reliant on them to set things right. Such is life as a kid.

In the film’s notorious finale, Kevin lays waste to two small time crooks—smashing them with a steam iron, shooting their testicles with a BB gun, setting their heads on fire, and terrorizing them with a live tarantula, among other tactics. Is this sadistic streak compatible with the spirit of Christmas? (The cops, portrayed as capable defenders, were a mere phone call away.) Apparently, in the opinion of most Christmas moviegoers, it is. I abstain.

#5: A Christmas Carol (1951)

Charles Dickens’ original novella has inspired, in some way, about half the entries on this list (including, sneakily, Home Alone). So it may justifiably be named the best Christmas story of all time. In my view, though, it’s a story somewhat better experienced through reading or onstage.

Having said that, the classic 1951 version starring Alastair Sims stands the test of time as a faithful adaptation of Dickens’ intentions. When other movies borrow from A Christmas Carol, they tend to cherry-pick the happiest element: the joyous turnaround of a bitter, wayward grouch. They often omit the darker sides of Dickens’ tale—for instance, the heavy portrayal of working class suffering and the harrowing projection of a life of greed.

This latter aspect is actually pivotal to the original story. Scrooge, unlike his many spinoffs, repents early on. He doesn’t vow to change, though, until witnessing townspeople celebrating his future death. In other words, there’s nothing like being scared straight. These days, nobody has the guts to send that message—which is maybe why A Christmas Carol keeps getting remade. This way, filmmakers can harness the original’s power while maintaining plausible deniability. That was Dickens, not me!

#4: Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

I consider this the beginning of the top tier. In other words, the films from here on have a legitimate claim to the #1 ranking. The claim for Miracle on 34th Street rests on its superior filmmaking: its production, script, and acting stand out from other holiday favorites. Because of this, it holds up extremely well: watching it this year, I was startled at how modern it felt. It’s thematically similar, in fact, to Elf, dampening any idea that the urban malaise portrayed in the latter film is new to the 21st century.

Kris Kringle—if that’s really his name—is not Santa Claus. He has no magic abilities, notwithstanding the movie’s final shot. He doesn’t even make toys; he only knows where to buy them. By all indications, he’s just an old man living on Long Island.

But he has made the conscious choice to assume the identity of Santa Claus. He’s a sort of holiday season Don Quixote, diving into a role with such aplomb that others begin to struggle to separate his fantasy from reality. Kris tips his hand when he gives young Susan a lesson in “pretending,” advising that using one’s imagination enables infinite possibilities. Indeed they do, since, as Kris shows, pretending to be Santa Claus has much the same effect as actually being him: in both cases, Christmas principles—generosity, kindness, love—inspire others, not the man himself.

The takeaway from Miracle on 34th Street is interesting and leaves much to ponder. Essentially, the film argues that Santa is effectively real because, well, we can’t do without him. Department store executives intervene for Kris because he boosts their bottom line. A judge rules in Kris’ favor because voters in the next election will reject an anti-Santa outcome. Parents acknowledge Kris as Santa because they sense their kids’ innate need for optimism and hope. In summary, we all need to play pretend: commercially, politically, parentally, even psychologically. So, by democratic inevitability, if not factual truth, Santa is real. Again, an interesting, thought-provoking statement—certainly worthy of a yearly Christmas watch.

#3: A Charlie Brown Christmas

There’s a melancholy to Christmas that only A Charlie Brown Christmas really taps into. It opens with a dreary jazz tune, bringing forward the Christmas blues that Charlie Brown just can’t shake. “I know nobody likes me,” he complains. “Why do we have to have a holiday to emphasize it?”

When Charlie Brown, inspired by Linus, leaves his commercial-minded friends behind on the theater stage, they shuffle after him. Why? After all, they make extra clear that they don’t like him or enjoy his company. Do they follow him out of sympathy? Guilt? Worry? It’s open to interpretation, but in my opinion, it must be that Charlie Brown, by openly pining for a deeper Christmas experience, has given voice to a spiritual hollowness that, really, they’ve all been feeling. They’re just too cool to say it themselves. (Remember that they’re all “actors” in an upcoming Christmas play.) With a big smile as he carries off his tree, Charlie Brown has suddenly become the one that, deep down, they’d all like to be. They follow him because they want what he’s got.

Of course, he falters soon afterward. But the group comes to his rescue, and their assistance is interesting, too. They steal the flashy trappings of Snoopy’s campy, prize-winning doghouse and use them to turn Charlie Brown’s tree into a tasteful Christmas centerpiece. To me, this is a reminder of the purpose of Christmas ornamentation: to bond through experience and show affection. Christmas does have an external component, but, to land meaningfully, it needs a proper foundation. The Peanuts gang had mastery of the former, but had neglected the latter until the neighborhood blockhead showed them the way. The takeaway: we make the holidays pretty not to attract attention or win prizes—but to rejuvenate the ones who, like Charlie Brown and his tree, need “a little love.”

#2: It’s a Wonderful Life

This movie’s soaring high points justify its silver medal performance on this list. True, an abundance of overly folksy scenes and dialogue may rightly turn off highbrow critics and confer It’s a Wonderful Life to the status of holiday classic rather than all-time great. But at other moments, the film veers back toward realism, creating some of the most memorable and inspiring scenes anywhere, let alone in the Christmas canon.

Chief among those inspiring moments is the finale, maybe the happiest in Hollywood history. It comes after a fun but somewhat cliche chapter detailing George Bailey’s glimpse of a world in which he was never born, courtesy of Clarence the Angel (himself a spinoff of Dickens’ Ghost of Christmas Future). The horror that George witnesses in this altered universe leads him to re-value his own life, even despite the certain financial ruin and imprisonment that await him.

Certain—but, in fact, not forthcoming. While Clarence may show George the value of life, even he can’t bring George (or us) to anticipate what’s to happen next. In an earlier conversation, Mr. Potter had gleefully imagined the scenario of George asking his working class friends to cover his shortfall: “They’d run you out of town on a rail!” It’s the genius of this movie that George had accepted this as the sad truth, and so had we. But what are the holidays for, if not looking after the ones who’ve looked after us? Valuing our own life is only the first step; the second is realizing that others value it, too—even in dollar terms, if necessary. Clarence knows enough to let George’s friends and family reveal that for themselves. For me, the ultimate tearjerker.

#1: A Christmas Story

If anyone wants to know what Christmas is all about, this movie, in my opinion, is it.

Christmas is for everyone, but most of all, it’s for kids. And A Christmas Story, more than any other movie, is concerned with how kids actually experience the holidays. It’s especially concerned with the thrill of Christmas: the barely bearable anticipation of wondrous, mysterious gifts. In fact, A Christmas Story is the only movie on this list (and possibly the only movie ever) to authentically celebrate the receiving of presents. While the other films and specials—not without wisdom—largely dismiss presents as a superficiality, A Christmas Story alone knows that for kids, it’s not. Ralphie, in desperately wishing for a Red Ryder BB gun, isn’t seeking material gain. He’s seeking a means by which to become skilled, important, and formidable—in other words, an adult. The gun, to Ralphie, is the vessel of childhood’s universal promise: that life in the future will be so much better.

Grownup Ralphie concludes by acknowledging that this promise doesn’t last forever: “It was the greatest gift I had ever received or would ever receive.” In other words, this was the most exciting time of his life. But by finally hinting at a tinge of sadness, Ralphie has only acknowledged the obvious. Because the truth is that all meandering childhood tales—of schoolyard bullies, quirky teachers, overprotective parents, etc.—are about loss: the loss of the magic of being new to the world. We tell these stories in the first place because we want to recapture that magic. And if we’re honest in our recounting, we might just succeed. Like in a seance, we can conjure up some of those long-departed sensations: the trepidation of the classroom, the alarm of family squabbles, the humiliation of the uncool, and even the euphoria of Christmas—what was once, and can still be, the best time of year.

 

–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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Commentary and Essays

Justice League and the Approaching Age of AI Screenwriting

A hot topic during the recently-ended Hollywood writers’ strike was artificial intelligence. Apparently, we’ve reached the point at which the industry legitimately believes that artificial intelligence is capable of providing tangible benefit to screenwriting, and the industry is turning its head toward the possibilities of the future.

For instance, some have speculated that AI programs like ChatGPT could be trained to produce a first draft of a screenplay, which would then be scrutinized and redrafted by human writers. This, of course, poses a threat to the importance of those humans’ jobs, since, in such a scenario, they become relegated to proofreaders rather than the crucial originators of cinematic ideas. Their role in the creative process becomes significantly less valuable.

The question for viewers, though, is whether, if AI were involved, such a process would be truly “creative.” And the answer, to me, is fairly obvious: no.

ChatGPT and similar AI programs do not create, nor do they claim to. They function only as “learning” models that rely on feedback from humans to build proficiency in producing suitable language responses. In other words, they merely learn (with extreme efficiency) what their masters deem “good,” and they spit it out flawlessly.

Most viewers likely have a negative reaction to the notion that film dialogue and plot lines may be computer-generated in the near future. But I posit that large studios have already adopted an essentially AI-like approach to their work. Therefore, the dawning age of AI-written cinema is less a paradigm shift than a fulfillment of what mainstream audiences have already embraced.

Consider a notorious example of troubled blockbuster production: 2016’s Justice League. The Warner Bros. superhero film was originally directed by Zach Snyder, but in post-production, Snyder stepped down to grieve death of his daughter. Following his departure, Warner Bros. hired Joss Whedon, who had directed The Avengers (2012) and The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), films very different than Snyder’re prior releases. Whedon, at Warner Bros. behest, rewrote and reshot large portions of the film. His contributions had the predictable effect of fundamentally altering Snyder’s vision.

In all cases, Whedon’s modifications resulted in a more sanitized, safe product. We know this because in 2021, Snyder’s director’s cut was released, and it’s laughably different from the theatrical cut.

Of course, the reasoning behind Warner Bros. onboarding Whedon is easy to follow. Snyder’s previous DC-based films had met polarized responses. His characteristically dark and brooding style had turned off many viewers and critics, and his most recent output, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), was a full on flop. On the other hand, Whedon’s “Avengers” films had enjoyed enormous box office and critical success due in large part to his implementation of a light, comedic tone. Warner Bros. got cold feet after reviewing Snyder’s footage and brought in Whedon to save the film by Avenger-ifying it.

But I don’t care whether Warner Bros. makes logical corporate decisions. I’m interested in whether a movie has any creative value. If it doesn’t, why am I watching it?

Whatever you think of Snyder’s abilities—I certainly don’t claim to be a fan—the kind of studio meddling that affected Justice League is antithetical to anything resembling a “creative process.” That might seem obvious, but…did anyone care? Was anyone rankled that what they were watching was a blatant ripoff of the “Avengers” series? Were audiences offended that Whedon had near-exactly aped the plot of Avengers: Infinity War and had even digitally reimagined the villain, Steppenwolf, to visually resemble Thanos? Were they disturbed that Whedon had reworked the main expository sequence into a flagrant duplicate of the opening to Lord of the Rings?

Maybe some were. The reaction to Justice League was mixed, and the movie fell below box office expectations. Nevertheless, the film has an audience score of 67% on Rotten Tomatoes, and critics mainly called the film an improvement over most of its fellow DC-inspired movies—although still weaker than the Marvel movies that Whedon had tried so hard to copy. In summary: copy harder next time.

That brings us to artificial intelligence. AI, after all, is the king of copying. It can copy far better than Joss Whedon or any other human intelligence. Using its “learning” algorithms, it can do exactly what Warner Bros. hoped Whedon could: regurgitate components of previously successful content without indulging in risky stylistic ventures. It can process our tastes—or, more accurately, our purchasing patterns—and cater to them flawlessly.

Mainstream audiences have already proven willing to cede originality for familiarity, as long as it comes with the degree of quality control that Marvel, for example, has perfected. Will audiences, then, also be willing to sacrifice the literal possibility of originality, by seeking out movie and television content that has been, by definition, processed from the material they’ve already seen?

If they rebel, it will be only against the optics. The age of algorithm-generated screenwriting isn’t approaching: it’s already here. And it has been for quite some time.

 

–Jim Andersen

For more analysis, see my review of 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 Reviews

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.

Categories
Movies Explained

Asteroid City Explained

Wes Anderson has released another postmodern masterpiece, and it demands some serious explanation. It only came out this weekend, so I don’t have repeat viewings or a pause button at my disposal, but I still think an extended analysis is in order.

In summary, Asteroid City is a complex reflection on Anderson’s own contradictory artistic impulses—and how they combine to produce honest, emotional filmmaking. I’ll support that statement by going through the various layers of the film, starting with the events that take place in the fictional town of Asteroid City.

1. Asteroid City

The “Asteroid City” storyline criticizes technological progress and champions human emotions and irrationality. Consider that Asteroid City sits, both proximally and chronologically, adjacent to the testing of atom bombs. It’s a literal witness, therefore, to technology’s bleak dead end: the devastating culmination of “progress.” Likewise, it hosts a Junior Stargazers’ convention, and the stargazers’ inventions (which are owned by the government) seem likely to promote greed and destruction. One contestant has invented a war-ready particle destroyer. Another has made a breakthrough in “interstellar advertising.” Meanwhile, a savvy motel owner (Steve Carell) sells sham real estate loans through a soda machine.

In other words, advancement abounds—but to what end? Perhaps the answer lies in the town’s most memorable feature: a ramp leading to nowhere.

But the ethos of Asteroid City begins to change when an alien descends during a stargazing and steals the town’s famous meteorite. This moment is typical Anderson: an inexplicable event that ties characters together through shared wonder. (Recall the jaguar shark in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and the lightning strike in Moonrise Kingdom.)

After the alien’s appearance, the town’s cult of technology begins to weaken. An expert astronomer (Tilda Swinton) can’t make sense of the alien or its space path. Genius contestants Woodrow (Jake Ryan) and Dinah (Grace Edwards) forget about their nerdy inventions and fall in love. A cynical, abused actress (Scarlett Johansson) opens up about life and heartbreak to a photographer (Jason Schwartzman). A group of kids, preoccupied with the alien, can’t focus on science lessons, so a cowboy (Rupert Friend) steps in to meet their need to know: who—not what—is this mysterious being?

Overall, it appears that the alien, by virtue of its mysteriousness, spurs the characters to forgo rational thinking and act instead on their emotions. When the alien appears a second time near the end of the film, this budding rejection of pure logic explodes into a frenzy: the crater, once a site of dutiful, rote learning, now houses exuberance and absurdity. Typifying the change that has taken place, Woodrow’s invention, previously purposed for “interstellar advertising,” now serves to commemorate his adolescent crush on Dinah.

This tale’s optimism doesn’t run too deep, though. In the film’s epilogue, another atom bomb goes off in the distance. It seems that despite the unshackling of the characters’ deep feelings and silly quirks, technology moves along in the background, climbing up the ramp to nowhere.

2. The Making of Asteroid City

So that’s the thematic drama of the “Asteroid City” timeline. But in an even more challenging layer of the film, a gruff TV host (Bryan Cranston) introduces these events as a fictional play and narrates a “making of” documentary about the play.

What is this all about?

Firstly, I would encourage viewers not to take these documentary scenes too seriously. At one point in the “Asteroid City” timeline, the host accidentally wanders on to the set. This makes clear that the entire production—both the Asteroid City events and the “making of” documentary”—is meant to be seen as one unified fictional work. In other words, the documentary isn’t a commentary on the play, although it claims to be. Rather, the documentary is part of the play, and the artist who created both components is never seen.

That artist, of course, is Anderson. The documentary footage, after all, features Anderson’s signature tight framing and deadpan deliveries. In no way does it feel “real” as an actual TV program; stylistically, it’s just as artificial as the colorful Asteroid City events. This is all one show.

Therefore, the true question is: why did Anderson include this black-and-white portion? What does the documentary thematically contribute to the Asteroid City events that we’ve just analyzed?

We can arrive at the answer by examining the character of Augie. In the beginning of the “play,” he tells his children that their mother has died three weeks earlier. Clearly, he has struggled to process the event: not only does he deliver the news inappropriately late, but he does so with an awkward, robotic delivery, and he later admits to his father-in-law (Tom Hanks) that he isn’t okay.

Based on our earlier analysis, we should expect that, following the alien’s appearance, Augie should increasingly embrace his painful emotions and allow himself to grieve his wife’s death. But strangely, this never quite happens. Augie remains fairly stoic and inward, in contrast to the obvious arcs of other, more minor characters, like Woodrow. Something seems off.

This is where the documentary portion of the movie becomes valuable. Via the black-and-white scenes, we see that the fictional “Asteroid City” play was written by Conrad Earp (Edward Norton), an eccentric playwright. Earp, according to the documentary, was a solitary, passionate artist, as well as a closeted gay man who had an affair with the actor playing Augie. Given this portrayal of Earp, it makes sense that his play would emphasize human-centric themes. The dismissal of technological progress and the prizing of releasing concealed emotion are consistent with Earp’s appearances in the documentary.

But the director of the play, Schubert Green (Adrien Brody), demonstrates different qualities. A manic womanizer, he’s about to be divorced by his wife (Hong Chau) “for an All-Star second baseman;” however, he receives her disdain with outward indifference. He also pens contradictory, rambling letters to the actress playing Midge, underscoring an inability to organize his feelings and communicate them maturely.

These scenes set up Earp and Green as opposites. And in accordance with their clashing personalities, we later learn that Green has cut a pivotal scene from Earp’s script in which Augie dreams of his wife (Margot Robbie) and shares an emotional goodbye with her. This scene appears to have been the missing piece that would have completed Augie’s character arc.

We can infer that Green cut the scene because he himself reacts this way to negative events. For example, he has failed to properly process the imminent end of his marriage. The final product of the play therefore reflects the visions of both the exuberant playwright and the stoic, pained director.

A combination of festive vitality and troubled inwardness—what could be a more suitable representation of Anderson’s artistic style? Thus, the documentary layer of the film is a meta-metaphor for the competing impulses that define Anderson’s cinematic work.

After all, the story of Augie attempting to grieve for his wife with ambiguous results is a fairly typical Anderson character arc. In The Royal Tenenbaums, do the characters find closure for their various regrets? In Moonrise Kingdom, do Stan and Suzy grow up, or do they retain their youthful fervor? We get clues, but Anderson never tells us for sure. His characters are too inward for the answers to appear onscreen.

Why does he make films this way? Why does he channel Earpian passion, then temper it with Greenian stoicism?

The “making of” portion of Asteroid City addresses this question. The actor playing Augie wants to know why his character’s actions seem so inconsistent. But both Earp and Green tell him to simply play his part and forget about the inconsistencies.

The takeaway is that an artist’s job is to be authentic, even when his varied instincts don’t make obvious logical sense. Just as Augie photographs the mysterious alien and distributes his work for the world to see, allowing others to draw their own conclusions, Anderson merely records and commemorates mysterious human behaviors. He has no pretense of being able to explain them.

In a late scene, actors burst forth with the mantra: “You can’t wake up if you don’t fall asleep.” This recalls Earp’s vision of the play as a story about a “slumber” that brings people together emotionally. It also recalls the cut scene in which Augie says goodbye to his wife while asleep during a dream. Both moments indicate that falling asleep is associated with emotion and irrationality, while waking up is associated with logic and intellect. The mantra repeated by the actors, then, means that logically interesting art is only possible when human emotion is embraced. In other words, “You can’t make intellectual art if you don’t embrace the irrational.”

So the actor playing Augie, in protesting the illogic of his character’s actions, has only stated a redundancy. People are illogical. Their actions don’t make sense. They, like Anderson’s characters, display both outward zest and inward torment. Explaining them intellectually is for scholars and critics (and bloggers). The artist isn’t interested in such things.

But he is interested in sharing honest recordings of humanity. Sending photographs to the newspaper. Releasing movies at the box office. Producing authentic work and letting the pieces fall where they may. After all, Augie’s prideful catchphrase recalls Anderson’s own fecundity:

“My pictures always come out.”

 

—Jim Andersen

(Note: Contributions to this analysis were made by Sharan Shah, film actor, see: A Simulation of Trendelenburg Gait (2016).)

For previous Wes Anderson reviews, see my piece on The French Dispatch.

Categories
Movie Reviews

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.

Categories
Commentary and Essays

The Twenty Greatest Movies of All Time

Friends of mine often ask for movie recommendations. I typically respond with recent films that received uncontroversial acclaim but undeservedly slipped under the cultural radar. Some examples might include The Father (2020), Nightmare Alley (2021), and even Marcel the Shell With Shoes On (2022).

Recommendations like these carry low risk, since they have low likelihood of jarring viewers, offending them, or confusing them (inordinately). Plus, they’re really good films.

But many are interested in recommendations of a higher order. Viewers already versed in older and more arty films may be searching for something more profound than the diatribes of a talking shell. They may be wondering: what, ultimately, are the best of the best?

That’s an incredibly loaded question, but also an important one. To answer it in a way that might be useful, I’ve used a combination of objective and subjective criteria. Essentially, I’ve chosen movies that often appear on respected lists of “best” films—but I’ve chosen my personal favorites among those. In other words, I’ve deferred to the larger critical community to curate my options, and I’ve selected from the consensus list they’ve provided. This, hopefully, has kept the list “personal” while also avoiding excessive idiosyncrasy.

I’ve also used two rules to further narrow the list:

  1. Silent films are excluded. This removes from contention many of the films that experts tend to deem the greatest of all time. But I didn’t feel it was fair (or possible) to adequately compare silent films with sound ones. This is in part because I don’t yet feel that I personally appreciate the aesthetics of silent films enough to authentically place them on a list like this.
  2. Only one film per director is allowed. This, again, guards against idiosyncrasy. For example, I’m an admirer of Stanley Kubrick, but this rule stops me from packing the list with his films.

The second rule also encourages a more diverse, representative list. And that’s important to me, because I want this list to function as a canon. In other words, if you’ve seen these twenty films, you’ve seen a fair representation of the best that cinema has to offer. Without further ado, here they are, in chronological order:

  • M (1931) – Fritz Lang, Germany
  • The Rules of the Game (1939) – Jean Renoir, France
  • Citizen Kane (1941) – Orson Welles, USA
  • Breathless (1950) – Jean-Luc Godard, France
  • Rashomon (1950) – Akira Kurosawa, Japan
  • Tokyo Story (1953) – Yasujiro Ozu, Japan
  • Vertigo (1958) – Alfred Hitchcock, USA
  • The Adventure (1960) – Michaelangelo Antonioni, Italy
  • La Dolce Vita (1960) – Frederico Fellini, Italy
  • Persona (1966) – Ingmar Bergman, Sweden
  • Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) – Robert Bresson, France
  • Playtime (1967) – Jacques Tati, France
  • 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – Stanley Kubrick, USA
  • Mirror (1975) – Andrei Tarkovsky, USSR
  • Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) – Chantal Akerman, Belgium
  • Taxi Driver (1976) – Martin Scorsese, USA
  • Blade Runner (1982) – Ridley Scott, USA
  • Spirited Away (2001) – Hayao Miyazaki, Japan
  • Mulholland Dr. (2001) – David Lynch, USA
  • The Tree of Life (2011) – Terrance Malick, USA

Notes

–I freely admit that I haven’t seen every film that many experts would rank among the best, so I’ll have to continuously update and expand this list as I become familiar with more films.

–Rule #2 created some very difficult choices. For the Kurosawa entry, I chose Rashomon over the great Seven Samurai (1954). The Hitchcock entry could have been Rear Window (1954) or Psycho (1960), but following my lengthy analysis of Vertigo, I chose it instead. Finally, I didn’t like leaving Tarkovsky’s Stalker (1979) off the list, but I couldn’t pass on Mirror.

–The list is skewed toward the 1950s and 60s. So be it. The films during that period were generally more aspirational, art-conscious, and socially conscious than those of the decades that followed. I only chose one film from the 80s or 90s. However, it should be said that some of the masterpieces from those decades were boxed out because their directors made even greater works in other decades (The Shining (1980) and Blue Velvet (1986) being two examples). In addition, it’s quite possible that some of the greatest works from that period have yet to be re-highlighted by critics after a quiet initial response.

–My most controversial choice is The Tree of Life. It’s fashionable these days to roll one’s eyes at Malick’s masterpiece, in part because his subsequent outputs were inconsistent and ungrounded. But don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. I’m confident that the tide will eventually turn back toward The Tree of Life.

 

-Jim Andersen

For more commentary, see my ranking of this year’s Best Picture nominees.

Categories
Movies Explained

Hereditary Explained

If you’re here, you already know that Hereditary is a very scary movie. Its disturbing imagery and scalding portrayal of family strife leave an impact long after the closing credits. Nightmares, anyone?

But there are also mysteries that invite us to look more deeply. For example: why do everyone’s heads keep coming off? What was the grandmother up to? What did the miniature models mean? Why is the movie called Hereditary?

In this piece, I’ll go on to answer all of these questions, plus many more. To summarize my conclusion before I begin, Hereditary uses horror movie tropes to dramatize the experience of developing hereditary mental illness, in particular schizophrenia.

Evidence and full analysis below.

At the beginning of Hereditary, Ellen Taper Leigh has died. Over the course of the movie, we learn that Ellen was no ordinary woman. She belonged to a pagan cult obsessed with the return of a powerful demon named King Paimon. In service of this cult, she fed her baby granddaughter, Charlie, special foods, preparing her body to one day be possessed by Paimon.

So far, what I’ve described is fairly standard horror content. It’s reminiscent of, among others, Rosemary’s Baby (1968). But there’s a deeper thematic significance at play. To discover it, we should start with a speech that Ellen’s daughter, Annie (Toni Collette), makes to a support group after Ellen’s death:

[My mom] didn’t have an easy life. She had DID [dissociative identity disorder], which became extreme at the end. … And my father died when I was a baby from starvation because he had psychotic depression, and he starved himself. … And there’s my brother. My older brother had schizophrenia, and when he was sixteen he hanged himself in my mother’s bedroom, and of course the suicide note blamed her for putting people inside him.

This is a severe family history of psychosis. I’m a psychiatrist myself, and I can attest that a family background like this raises immediate concern that a young person will go on to develop significant mental illness. Particularly worrisome is that not only did Annie’s father and brother both suffer from psychosis, but in both cases the symptoms were so severe that they committed suicide. Ellen didn’t suffer from psychosis, as DID is typically a sequelae of severe trauma (which she obviously did experience, through her family tragedies). So Ellen’s son apparently inherited schizophrenia from his father.

Viewed from this clinical perspective, there’s metaphorical truth in Ellen’s son’s suicide note. The note, remember, “blamed” Ellen for “putting people inside him.” And indeed, by procreating with her husband, who had severe psychotic illness, Ellen extracted and transmitted to her son the genes that conferred high risk for schizophrenia, thereby indirectly causing his hallucinations and torment.

This metaphorical connection between actual mental illness and supernatural pagan activity is the key that unlocks the symbolic meaning of the movie. The entire story reimagines Ellen’s transmission of pro-psychotic genes as a sinister plot on her part to subject her descendants to demonic possession.

The movie is called Hereditary, and now we can begin to see why. Symbolically, it’s about the passing down of “bad” genes and the devastation that can result.

Consider the theme of predetermined fate, frequently emphasized during the film. This emphasis suddenly makes sense when we recognize that, by virtue of their genetics, Annie’s children, Peter (Alex Wolff) and Charlie (Milly Shapiro), may indeed be destined to suffer severe mental illness. Annie, thankfully, doesn’t have schizophrenia. But her lineage is such that it would hardly be surprising if her offspring developed it. Again, these genetic facts manifest in the genre-familiar storyline of the children’s grandmother scheming to sacrifice them to King Paimon.

Recall that after Ellen’s burial, her body quickly goes missing and later turns up in the family attic. The meaning of this is that Ellen isn’t truly “gone,” since her long-ago act of procreation with a mentally ill man continues to dictate her family’s experiences. The genes that she helped pass on continue to “haunt” her family.

Here’s a picture of the seal for Ellen’s cult. The seal recurs at various points in the movie, often suggesting that the characters have terrible destinies. (For example, it appears on the telephone pole that later decapitates Charlie.) To me, it looks somewhat like a DNA double helix:

Fitting. Because, in the case of schizophrenia, DNA does often predetermine one’s fate. This seal eventually appears above Ellen’s dead body in the attic, underscoring what we’ve already said: that her influence on the family continues via the genetic transmission in which she participated long ago.

The theme of destiny also figures heavily in a classroom scene in which a teacher asks whether doomed literary heroes are “more tragic or less tragic.” A student responds:

I think it’s more tragic. Because if it’s all just inevitable, then that means that the characters had no hope. They never had hope, because they’re all just hopeless—they’re all just like pawns in this horrible, hopeless machine.

Her view obviously applies to Peter and Charlie, if in fact they’re genetically disposed to develop schizophrenia. Those who harbor the genes for schizophrenia indeed have “no hope.” Forces beyond their control—biological forces—have decided their fates.

Aster appears to be speaking through this student. We can infer that he, too, believes hereditary mental illness to be an extremely “tragic” subject. Hence his making a scary movie about it.

The discussion of fate can also help us understand one of the movie’s signature motifs: Annie’s models, also known as miniatures. Via fancy camera shots, Aster sometimes playfully suggests that the characters’ very world is a miniature—that they’re subject to control or manipulation by an unseen power.

Now, we can identify that power: the power of genetics. To use the student’s phrasing, DNA indeed makes “pawns” of those with inherited family illnesses. Again, the movie is called Hereditary for good reason.

It’s appropriate, then, that Annie is the one to build the miniatures. After all, her children’s genetics were determined in her womb. Therefore, Annie is the “modeler” of their lives, the architect who has—through uncontrollable cellular processes—laid out their fates.

Some scenes suggest that Annie has some awareness of this hereditary risk to which she has exposed her children. In one dream scene, Annie appears to confront guilt over giving birth to Peter. He accuses her in the dream of being “scared” of him, and she admits having desperately tried to abort him. In another scene, she recounts nearly setting her children and herself on fire while sleepwalking—suggesting a subconscious desire to undo her act of birthing them.

Let’s take a detour to focus specifically on Charlie. We’ve already noted that Charlie faces significant risk for developing psychotic illness based on her mother’s family history. But Charlie soon dies, and the bulk of the drama instead focuses on Peter. In addition, events seem to suggest that Peter’s troubles stem from Charlie’s ghostly return from the dead during a séance. What do these plot points mean in the context of our symbolic framework?

They indicate that Charlie should be seen as a human embodiment of the schizophrenia that runs in the family. Her death and subsequent return in the séance symbolize the trait’s “return” to prominence following its lack of expression in Annie.

For evidence that Charlie symbolizes the trait of schizophrenia, consider the manner of her death: decapitation. The loss of one’s head surely evokes the experience of losing one’s sanity. Schizophrenia interferes with one’s perception of reality, so decapitation is a logical (if grotesque) metaphor.

Plus, an unsettling scene involving a dead bird shows that Charlie makes a habit of decapitating others, as well. And she appears to do this for her dead grandmother’s sake, carrying the bird’s head to a vision of Ellen in a field. All of this fits with our symbolic framework. If Ellen’s evil cult represents the influence of the bad genes she reproduced, then it makes sense that Charlie, a human representation of schizophrenia, would cut off heads for Ellen. Several early scenes emphasize that Charlie had a special bond with her grandmother not shared by the rest of her family.

Next, consider Charlie’s calling card: making a clucking sound with her tongue. This sound resembles that of a ticking clock. And indeed, schizophrenia is a “ticking clock” for those with genetic predisposition. It typically emerges in young adults, most commonly in one’s twenties. However, in many cases (which tend to become the most severe), it emerges in teenagers. Given that Annie’s schizophrenic brother killed himself when he was sixteen, it seems likely that the Leigh family illness would present in teenage years.

Peter’s current age? Sixteen.

Finally, Charlie makes a habit of sleeping outside in the family treehouse. This angers her father, Steve (Gabriel Byrne), who doesn’t understand why she would prefer this uncomfortable space to the family’s posh, mansion-like house. But we can infer that if Charlie embodies schizophrenia or psychosis, she belongs, symbolically, in an environment outside of the “typical” realm. She belongs in a space like the treehouse, which sits somewhat removed from society, right on the edge of the wilderness.

If Charlie represents schizophrenia, might her death symbolize a positive development? Is the family illness gone for good?

As it turns out, no. That’s because Annie conducts a séance and brings Charlie’s spirit back from the dead. As previously mentioned, this represents the family psychosis returning after a skipped generation. Charlie’s death symbolizes Annie’s absence of schizophrenia. But Charlie’s resurrection symbolizes Annie passing the hereditary vulnerability to her offspring. In other words, Annie serves as the trait’s conduit to the next generation—just as she serves as a conduit for Charlie to return to the physical world.

And predictably, after Charlie returns, bad things begin to happen. Annie has a dream in which ants engulf Peter’s head, another rendition of the “decapitation” motif, which, as we’ve established, evokes mental illness. The same motif also underlies a different scene in which Peter sees Charlie’s head fall off and turn into a ball, then feels an attacker trying to rip his own head off. Lastly, the sound of Charlie’s clucking tongue begins to haunt both Peter and Annie.

In summary, all signs point in one direction regarding Peter’s approaching genetic fate. His clock is ticking.

Now for another detour. You might feel that, given the analysis so far, the movie is quite harsh on women. After all, it imagines the family’s grandmother, who helped pass on her husband’s bad genes, as an evil occultist aiming to have her grandchildren possessed. And it imagines the mother, who passed on those genes as a silent carrier, as a conduit for a malicious spirit haunting the family. Why do only Ellen and Annie receive attention for perpetuating schizophrenia in the family? Didn’t the men contribute, as well?

Yes. And this is the foundation for another mysterious scene. Annie recognizes that Charlie’s return has somehow put Peter in grave danger. She concludes that to save Peter, she must undo the séance and send her daughter back to the dead. Since she provided the link for Charlie to reenter the world, she reasons that she can sever that link and save Peter by destroying both herself and Charlie’s old sketchbook, the “object” that she used in the séance.

But this doesn’t go as planned. When Annie throws the sketchbook in the fire, Steve instead ignites. The meaning of this is that Steve also participated in the transmission of Annie’s genetics to their children. He, too, was a key transmitter of the bad genes—just as Ellen, who didn’t suffer from psychosis, nevertheless played an essential role in transmitting pro-psychosis genes to her descendants. Recall that Steve participated in the séance, thereby enabling Charlie to return—just as, by impregnating Annie, he allowed her family history of schizophrenia to take root in a new generation. He’s just as much a “link” for hereditary schizophrenia as Annie, hence his death upon the sketchbook’s destruction.

Steve’s incineration causes a dramatic change in Annie. Upon seeing her husband burn, her face goes blank, and she apparently becomes possessed for the rest of the movie. Why does this happen?

Recall Ellen’s diagnosis of DID, or dissociative identity disorder. As briefly mentioned before, symptoms of DID generally occur in response to severe trauma. Essentially, affected individuals develop a tendency to unconsciously “dissociate” from their original identity to escape intolerable emotional pain. Ellen’s husband and son both committed suicide, likely providing the trauma that led her to develop DID.

But now Annie, too, has experienced repeated, severe trauma. Watching Steve burn alive—by her own hand—appears to have been the last straw. Recall that she previously discovered her daughter’s headless body; plus, earlier in her life, both her father and brother killed themselves. Her ghostly condition in the final act of the movie therefore represents that she, like her mother, has developed DID.

Consider her most notable act following her sudden change: sawing off her own head with a wire. We’ve already explored how the motif of decapitation invokes the development of mental illness. But Annie’s self-mutilation is slightly different from the accidental decapitation of Charlie and the moment in which Peter feels someone trying to rip his head off. In this case, Annie intentionally removes her own head.

This corresponds nicely with DID. As I described, it’s a defense mechanism to escape the pain of repeated trauma. After the gruesome demise of her husband—her second loved one to recently die a terrible death—Annie’s brain dissociates for her own emotional protection. In other words, she subconsciously inflicts a mental change upon herself for self-preservation. This translates in horror movie imagery as cutting off her own head. A memorable (and disturbing) metaphor for DID.

Chased into the attic by his altered mother, Peter sees a naked man standing in the dark. We haven’t seen this man before. But we can reliably conclude that he’s Peter’s maternal grandfather, who starved himself to death due to psychosis. After all, Peter has apparently inherited his grandfather’s genes and is now on the verge of a psychotic break. (Recently at school, he had a terrifying vision and lost control of his body, suggestive of the emerging schizophrenia we had anticipated given the ominous signs since Charlie’s return.)

Peter then sees three more naked, ghostly figures, likely other family members who suffered from psychotic illness. This prompts him to jump out of the attic.

It’s possible to interpret this as a completed suicide. Peter may have followed in his uncle’s footsteps by killing himself at sixteen years old due to schizophrenia. This interpretation would certainly fit with the theme of genetic destiny we’ve explored.

Regardless, it’s clear that Peter ends the movie with full blown schizophrenia. After his jump, he follows his mother to the treehouse. Recall that Charlie favored this treehouse, which made sense given its “outsider” quality, conspicuously removed from typical society. Peter, having developed schizophrenia, now also gravitates toward the treehouse.

Inside, he finds Ellen’s pagan cult. He has become King Paimon, succumbing to Ellen’s malicious efforts. (These efforts, as we’ve said, correspond to her transmission of her husband’s pro-psychotic genes.) Among the cult are his mother and grandmother, both headless—symbolizing, as we’ve established, their respective DID. And the movie ends with a shot of the treehouse as yet another miniature, again conveying the predetermined nature of the characters’ fates.

I hope I’ve lent some helpful assistance in decoding Hereditary‘s symbolism and meaning. Most likely, you didn’t need my analysis to detect the movie’s thematic undercurrents of familial mental illness and trauma. But hopefully, investigating in more detail has allowed you a more comprehensive understanding of Ari Aster’s insightful and important debut. I’ve already ranked Hereditary as my favorite horror film released in the last ten years. I’m confident that given the substance reflected in this piece, you can see why.

 

—Dr. Jim Andersen

For more movies explained, see my analysis of Being John Malkovich.