Author: jandersen

Categories
Movie Reviews

Glass Onion is Indeed a Stupid Mystery

**Spoilers herein**

At the climax of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, master detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) makes an unusual complaint. Upon identifying the culprit, a reveal that shocks no one, he exclaims, “This is a stupid mystery!” He’s frustrated with the simplicity of the case, which any layman—or, maybe more importantly, any police officer—would have correctly solved in one guess.

I, for one, think he’s on to something. Just as Blanc implies, mystery movies are supposed to challenge and test us. They should be based on clever crimes committed by clever, unseen foes. Otherwise, why would an expert detective be needed? In fact, Blanc’s presence is the only reason that we don’t guess the villain: we expect that, since Blanc is around, something trickier must be at play. But, as it turns out, there isn’t.

Writer and director Rian Johnson is very pleased with himself for this fakeout. That’s because he has social commentary in mind: he wants to show us that our misguided reverence for tycoons like Miles Bron (Edward Norton) blinds us to crimes and misdeeds going on all around us. That our corporate oligarchy is one big “glass onion,” a collection of labyrinthian layerings that actually needn’t be peeled away, since they can easily be seen through, if only we thought to look. In other words, our emperors have no clothes, and our collective assumption that they do distracts us from society’s true crooks.

That’s a fine sentiment, but, again, it’s not the reason we fall for the misdirections of this particular film. The reason is that we’re watching a movie, and we therefore expect layers, because we expect filmmakers to reward our two hours of engagement with something interesting. We don’t expect a film without layers, because such a film would obviously be a huge letdown. Johnson promises us a great mystery, disappoints us (and Blanc), and then lectures us on why giving him the benefit of the doubt was foolish. He graciously explains that if we took the bait, that proves that we’ve allowed ourselves to be brainwashed by dumb tech bros.

Johnson also wrote and directed Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), and while I’m not one of that film’s many ardent haters, I can see a discouraging pattern forming in his work. He denies us the payoff that we came to the movie expecting, then he dares to use our surprise as a teaching moment. I support defying or even criticizing one’s viewers, but wagging a finger at them for wanting the kind of movie they were promised is priggish. You’ll notice that Johnson opts to direct movies with big budgets and big stars, thereby attracting a blockbuster Hollywood audience. Being so disdainful of Hollywood expectations, perhaps he should just…make a non-Hollywood film. (Less money in that, of course.)

It’s not only at the end of the movie that Benoit Blanc expresses frustration with a lack of intellectual challenge. A pensive sage in Knives Out (2019), he in fact spends much of this film grumpily complaining about the idiocy and banality surrounding him. That makes him the one relatable character in the film, and his awareness almost salvages the experience for us. But in the end, acknowledging that you’ve made a “stupid mystery” doesn’t mean you haven’t.

 

–Jim Andersen

For more reviews, see my review of Top Gun: Maverick

Categories
Movie Reviews

A Man Called Otto is too Timid to Resonate

A Man Called Otto, directed by Mark Forster, is a feel-good flick adapted from a popular Swedish novel by Fredrick Backman. I haven’t read the book or seen the 2015 Swedish movie adaptation, but the new American film falls squarely under the storytelling umbrella of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol: a grump terrorizes his community, then rejoins it upon rediscovering the joys of love.

But the central casting of professional nice guy Tom Hanks telegraphs that this movie isn’t much interested in the “terrorizing” half of the equation. Indeed, Forster has stacked the deck for Otto by legitimizing his supposedly grumpy complaints in the first section of the movie. He has surrounded Otto with a carnival of newfangled weirdos in (of course) California: one neighbor, to get his daily steps in, marches up and down the block like Frosty the Snowman; another, so bad is his driving, nearly backs through his new rental house upon arriving. No one for miles, it seems, can perform basic property maintenance.

And even this neighborhood of ineffectual dopes pales in comparison to the dystopian mob that awaits outside of it: when a man falls on the train tracks at a local station, anonymous teenagers film the scene greedily for social media clout.

The problem with setting up the story like this is that it mitigates the intended emotional payoff. Whereas Ebenezer Scrooge goes from the town’s biggest miser to its biggest benefactor, Otto Anderson barely changes at all over the course of the story. He’s nice all along. Even the movie’s basic symbolism reiterates this: whereas the Grinch’s heart, for example, memorably grows three sizes, Otto’s is already secretly big. This crucial difference separates a moving, classic story from an average tearjerker.

The important dynamic is forgiveness. We love to forgive characters for their misdeeds, as we do with Scrooge, the Grinch, and many others. But if A Man Called Otto is any indication, contemporary studios doubt our capacity to do this. Otto can’t be made to commit any real misdeeds, because if he did, we wouldn’t forgive him when he tried to rectify them. He has to stand up to corporate developers, talk to his dead wife, have black friends, etc., from the beginning—because we’re apparently too sanctimonious to welcome him back into the fray if he truly stepped out of line.

This disheartening, cynical view of modern audiences is, in my opinion, inaccurate. After all, don’t we still cherish A Christmas Carol and its best spinoffs even after many years? While a vocal few might jump to cancel a protagonist after Act I, people in general are forgiving, and they can tolerate stories of misguided people who change for the better.

The unnecessary trepidation from the studio, though, has left us with something like a cross between Gran Torino (2008) and Sesame Street. With a movie about a mean old man whose meanness consists of…enforcing traffic regulations.

But maybe this is just what you’re looking for to start 2023. A Man Called Otto has positive messages, funny moments, and reflective scenes. It’s a light, enjoyable film. It just doesn’t have the courage to reach for the classic pathos of its predecessors.

 

–Jim Andersen

For more movie reviews, see my review of Top Gun: Maverick.

Categories
Movie Reviews

Top Gun: Maverick is Tom Cruise’s Final Bow (analysis)

Tom Cruise since the mid 90’s has pioneered, or at least epitomized, a movie archetype that has helped define the most recent era of cinema: the hyper-focused, sexless action hero. Whereas action stars before him won audiences with natural charm or at least physical prowess, Cruise, who has neither, has instead built an empire around compelling viewers to watch him—through sheer dedication to giving viewers what no one else will give. Insane stunts. Mind-bending plots. Envelope-pushing pace.

Top Gun: Maverick may be his definitive work. MI5: Rogue Nation (2015) and MI6: Fallout (2018) are more inventive, but they’re also more absurd. Maverick feels like the “right” balance of implausible action and mindfulness of (if not fealty to) the laws of reality. For example, yes, the anonymous enemy neglects to guard a canyon that leads directly to their target. (They’re clearly third-world; they’ve never seen Star Wars.) But there’s enough talk about planes and tactics and losing consciousness that things still feel grounded enough.

It’s also Cruise’s most reflective film. Specifically, the plot functions as a meditation on the approaching end to his own movie stardom. Cruise’s character, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, is dressed down by his turnkey boss: “The future is coming. And you’re not in it.” This could surely double as admonishment to Cruise himself, who, at 60, strains credibility by merely appearing in a movie like this. And Mitchell’s notorious habits—pushing limits, bucking trends, endangering himself—are Cruise’s own as an actor.

Watching the movie with this meta interpretation in mind, I wasn’t as bothered by its obvious weaknesses. For instance, Cruise, never a standout in romantic scenes, even in Jerry Maguire (1996), can’t hold up his end of the film’s halfhearted love story. Grinning stupidly throughout, he plays the part as 16, not 60. Costar Jennifer Connelly, a skilled performer in serious erotic roles, has been hired to convince us that Cruise is still sexy, or even that he used to be. The effort is futile.

But flat notes like these only reinforce the elegiac feeling that Cruise is running out of gas, that this is his last hurrah. As his character emphasizes to his trainees with curious intensity: “Time is your greatest adversary.”

Further heralding the imminent end of the line, Cruise’s costar from the original film, Val Kilmer, appears in cameo as a cancer-ridden, speech-challenged shadow of his former self. This isn’t an act: Kilmer actually has lost the power of speech amidst a real life battle with throat cancer. His character dies mid-film. Cruise stands alone.

Tom Cruise has never been an Avenger. He has never been an avatar. He has never been a wizard or a jedi or a hobbit. In an cinematic era dominated by fantasy, Cruise has planted himself stubbornly in action-hero realism. So when he and a protege take charge of an ancient F-14 plane (the protege exclaims, “This thing is so old!”), we should catch the symbolism. The meaning: they’re about to do this old school. No magic, no superpowers, no cliffhangers. Just good old fashioned shooting, ducking, and yelling. And they do it. And it works.

But Cruise is only one person, and he knows that despite his contributions, the industry has moved in a different direction. Perhaps this is why for most of the film he plays a teacher to a new generation. His mantra: what matters isn’t the equipment or even the task at hand, but rather “the person in the cockpit.” If there was ever a more grandiose statement from an actor, I’m not aware of it. (Cruise’s experiences with scientology likely haven’t done much to dampen his ego.) Exiting his role as Hollywood’s biggest action star, he wants his successors to know that they can singlehandedly drive a film—and that, by extension, he singlehandedly drove his.

That may be outlandish self-aggrandizement, but given Cruise’s output over the past two decades, how can we argue? Until he slips up, we can only admire.

Top Gun: Maverick is an entertaining throwback that pleads for successors. Will anyone answer the call? Cruise has faith: all of his students are portrayed as skilled and worthy, even the arrogant pretty boy. (Maybe especially the arrogant pretty boy, who’s possibly a version of Cruise as a young man. Indeed, evidence abounds that Cruise likes him the most.)

I have less faith. But one thing is for sure: whatever Cruise puts out in his remaining years as an actor, this is his final bow. After seeming to insist on eternal youth in the last two Mission Impossibles, he has finally surveyed his place in moviemaking and acknowledged:

“Time is your greatest adversary.”

 

–Jim Andersen

For more reviews, see my review of Tár.

Categories
Movie Reviews

Tár Lacks Punch or Purpose

I’m squinting to see what’s so great about the critically acclaimed Tár, and…I’m still not seeing it.

Chained to mediocrity by a pondering, lecture-y screenplay that nevertheless avoids any real stances on the issues it strains to raise, Tár, directed by Todd Field, fails to animate the character drama at the heart of its story. It wants to be a modern-day King Lear: a self-inflicted fall from grace of an egotistical but sympathetic protagonist. But even more, it wants to splash around in political controversy. The result is little more than a stale summation of the MeToo era, a boring both-sides tale of contemporary gender politics.

Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett), conductor of the Berlin orchestra, is a predatory abuser of young women. She’s arrogant and frigid, and she appears to have caused the suicide of a young woman with her diabolical behavior. On the other hand, she loves classical music and believes in the power of art.

You see the difficulty of rooting for this character. Enjoying old composers doesn’t automatically make you likable. (To acquire the notion that it does, I suspect that Field has misunderstood A Clockwork Orange (1973)). Nor does facing off against equally irredeemable foes, like the whiny social justice warriors that Field pits against Tar.

These brats are, indeed, horrible. But a sympathetic character still must have relatable traits, and Lydia Tár has none. It would be as if Lear, instead of withholding Cordelia’s share of the kingdom for her lack of sycophancy, had instead raped her for no reason at all. He would be awfully difficult to identify with after such an act.

As I indicated before, these basic failures of dramatic characterization are traceable to the film’s preference to spend its time hemming and hawing about MeToo and cancel culture. On one hand, Field portrays the movement’s proponents as a conceited, ignorant mob; on the other, he goes to great pains to portray Tár as the very type of individual that necessitates their crusade. This provides balance—but not nuance. A more skillful storyteller would have shown us the complex reality behind the media narratives. Field has only presented both extremes and declined to choose between the two. Some may see this as “objectivity;” I see it as aimlessness.

I admit that I’m biased toward any film—or any media at all—that proclaims the aesthetic value of art. After all, art needs its champions at a time when all manner of misers, idlers, and ideologues vocally question its legitimacy. But I know enough not to parade a film like Tár as the vehicle for my beloved cause. It’s too dramatically unrewarding to succeed as either a tribute to or criticism of classic aesthetic principles.

 

–Jim Andersen

For more movies reviews, see my review of Avatar: The Way of Water.

Categories
Movies Explained

Barbarian Explained

Barbarian, written and directed by Zach Cregger, delivers an effective horror experience via the careful building of tension and a willingness to defy narrative conventions. Some have already called it a modern horror classic. I’ll reserve judgment on that front, but the film’s Jordan Peele-esque social themes demand an explanation, and that’s what this short analysis will provide.

In summary, Barbarian is a movie about everyday misogyny. It presents three major male characters in escalating order of disrespect toward women, thereby subliminally connecting the behavior of the most innocuous with that of the most evil.

I’ll elaborate by going through the film in reverse.

The last male character introduced, known as Frank (Richard Brake), is simply a monster. He imprisons women in his basement, rapes them, and imprisons the offspring—only to rape the offspring, as well. He also films the rapes and keeps the footage to entertain himself. Uncomplicated and evil, Frank appears to be the “barbarian” of the movie’s title.

More complicated is the male character to be introduced just prior to Frank: actor AJ Gilbride (Justin Long). AJ has recently been accused of rape by a costar, thematically linking him to Frank. But AJ isn’t quite the monster that Frank is. He feels that the allegation misrepresents what actually transpired, characterizing his actions to a friend as only those of a “persistent dude.” And when he discovers Frank’s trove of rape videos, he recoils in revulsion, asking Frank: “What the fuck is wrong with you?” In another scene, AJ drunkenly calls his costar to apologize, not something Frank would ever undertake.

But despite his basic moral grounding in those scenes, a sinister undercurrent to AJ’s behavior reveals itself in other moments. Firstly, despite his denials, the rape allegation looms. AJ’s aforementioned description of the encounter, in which he emphasizes his “eye of the tiger” mentality, hardly reassures us that his actions were sound. Indeed, AJ himself evidently lacks conviction in his stated version of events, as he later wrangles over whether he is a “bad person” or merely a “good person who did a bad thing”—not something he would need to struggle with if, in fact, he acted purely.

Secondly, near the end of the film AJ selfishly sacrifices Tess (Georgina Campbell) in an effort to save himself. He subsequently justifies his actions with bogus claims that she was “slipping” anyway and that he “had no choice.” This willingness to use false narratives to justify immoral actions calls into further question his “persistent dude” defense against his costar’s accusation.

Remember also that AJ is an actor by trade—perhaps a reference to his tendency to “act” the part of a good guy while covering up selfish and harmful behavior toward women. This sexist disrespect appears to start with his own mother: he speaks rudely to her on the phone and hangs up on her mid-call, even while demonstrating great interest in spending time with his apparently distant father.

Continuing our reverse chronology, the first male character to appear in the film is Keith Tosko (Bill Skarsgard). Unlike Frank and AJ, Keith has never raped anyone or been accused of rape, as far as we know. He’s a fairly awkward, normal guy; nothing seems noticeably off about him. In addition, while he’s quickly attracted to Tess, he doesn’t take advantage of her. He even displays a chivalrous streak, insisting on sleeping on the couch despite, as we (and she) can easily see, preferring to be in bed with her. His deference, quirky humor, and artistic interests win Tess’s affection: at her job interview, she dreamily looks at a picture of his driver’s license.

But there’s something unsavory about Keith, too. We have to look more closely for it than with AJ, but in certain moments he behaves aggressively or passive-aggressively toward Tess. The most notable example comes after he unlocks Tess from the basement and reacts negatively to her insistence on fleeing the house immediately. Physically blocking her from leaving, he dismisses her concerns (“You’re not making any sense!”) before settling on a plan that involves her waiting for him upstairs while he investigates.

This hardly fits the chivalrous image that Keith had cut for himself early in the film. “Chalk it up to my upbringing,” he had declared regarding sleeping on the couch—an admirable sentiment, but this later behavior calls into question whether his “upbringing” instilled real principles or only empty decorum. Plus, as with AJ, Keith’s worst qualities reveal themselves under pressure, suggesting that they’re closer to the core of his person.

Finally, we can damningly infer that Keith’s refusal to allow Tess to leave the house springs from his desire to have sex with her. He probably expects it to happen that very night. No other reason for his stubbornness in this scene makes sense, as he could easily get her number and reconnect with her later. Keith, then, like AJ, appears to be a rather “persistent dude.”

Thus, in summary, Barbarian cleverly draws a line from Keith to AJ to Frank that links commonplace male behavior (Keith) with the dark, savage heart of male brutality toward women (Frank). AJ serves as the mediator that allows that linkage.

Is Frank, then, really the titular barbarian? Could AJ be described as one, too? Could Keith?

Only one character defends Tess from the selfish men around her: “The Mother.” This deformed creature, a result of repeated incest in Frank’s unspeakable dungeon, only wants a “baby” to protect, and Tess unintentionally assumes the role.

Based on this maternal instinct, The Mother reacts brutally toward the men who mistreat Tess. First is Keith, who, when Tess attempts to retrieve him from the dungeon, stubbornly claims that she has her directions wrong—again assuming an arrogant, belittling posture toward her. Second is AJ, who, as previously mentioned, attempts to save his own skin by throwing Tess off a tower. While AJ’s act is far more extreme, both situations involve a man behaving selfishly toward Tess. The Mother punishes both with grisly murder.

Even a homeless man who advises waiting until morning to find medical care for Tess is almost immediately clubbed to death with his own arm. This may be a riff on the term “strong-arming,” which adequately captures the behavior of the various men, including the homeless man, who interact with Tess throughout the film. (Escaping justice, though, is the haughty police officer—read into that how you will.)

I hope this essay has helped in further enjoying a well-made movie. With Jordan Peele and Ari Aster leading the way, the horror genre has become one of today’s main cinematic sources for meaningful social commentary. Zach Cregger is the latest to follow their leads in constructing a thought-provoking and memorable film. Here’s hoping for more in the years ahead.

 

–Jim Andersen

For more horror movies explained, check out my analysis of Jordan Peele’s Nope.

Categories
Movie Reviews

Avatar: The Way of Water Isn’t Made For Humans

It’s been 13 years, and Avatar: The Way of Water is finally here. Was it worth the wait?

No.

There are many reasons why James Cameron’s follow up to 2009’s smash blockbuster isn’t a good movie, but most central is a surprising lack of imagination. Cameron has directed some of the best sequels of all time (Aliens, Terminator 2) by cleverly subverting or expanding upon the material of the original film. The Way of Water, however, merely retreads the first installment in both story and style. The result accordingly suffers from all of Avatar’s (2009) weaknesses while failing to provide the novelty that, in the first film, distracted from them.

Foremost among those weaknesses is unbearable seriousness. The Way of Water, like its predecessor, is no fun. To be sure, the characters occasionally have fun, for example adapting with joy to an aquatic lifestyle. But Cameron delivers even these moments in a crushingly reverent, pious tone, as if he wants us to believe (or he himself believes) that, for instance, a blue creature befriending a CGI whale is self-evidently a monumental, poignant event.

Because of this approach, the movie is dead on arrival. By demanding that we take things so seriously—via triumphant choral music, grand long shots, etc.—Cameron keeps us outside the experience. That we would enjoy the scene isn’t enough for him: he wants us to believe in it. But that’s too big an ask.

A useful comparison is The Lion King (1994), which is the heaviest influence on The Way of Water other than the first Avatar. (Cameron has a thing for Disney: he took from Pocahontas (1995) for the previous film.) Like The Lion King, this film leans on tribal spirituality, emphasizing harmony with nature’s cyclical rhythms. But Disney, unlike Cameron, knew to crack a smile every now and then—giving, for example, Timon and Pumba significant screen time. Without characters like these, we’re left only with stoic, smothering dogma.

It’s almost as if Cameron made this movie not for humans, but for the Na’vi. They would surely have rejoiced with much more enthusiasm than I did about, for instance, the seasonal return of the mighty tulkun. I didn’t see any Na’vi in the theater, though, so here we are.

Another weakness that has carried over from the first movie is reliance on cliché storytelling. It’s painful to watch a film with so much visual detail spend so little energy on character and story. A stock bully asks, “Why are you a freak?” Later, the recipient of the dig asks, “Why am I different?” And so forth.

And as in the first movie, characters repeatedly make implausible decisions. In one scene, a group of avatar baddies inexplicably explores Pandora wearing full camo gear, which, of course, does the opposite of camouflage them: it reveals them as obvious intruders. Their identities would have been otherwise impossible to discern, since they look exactly like natives. Again, with so much attention paid to visual detail, blunders like this are that much more difficult to understand.

I can’t write a review of this film without mentioning the quality that, for many, will most influence the viewing experience: its horrendous length. Cameron has never been one to curtail his runtimes, but we’d have to go back to The Abyss (1989) to find something this egregious. The final battle of The Way of Water takes—completely unnecessarily—something close to an hour and a half. The full movie is 3 hours 12 minutes. Plan bathroom breaks. I’m typically forgiving of movies that take their time, but The Way of Water truly seems, like its titular worldview, to have “no beginning and no end.”

Exactly one element of The Way of Water is improved from the original: the villain. It’s theoretically the same villain, but this version of Colonel Quaritch is newly cerebral and formidable, a far cry from the gung-ho fanatic of the first film. He also has a more interesting backstory. Unfortunately, the premise of his origin largely goes untapped for its existential possibilities. Nevertheless, the character inspires more fear and hatred than he did in the first movie.

My essay on the original Avatar criticized the film for deploying video game aesthetics in the cinema, where they don’t belong. This new film does so even more obviously. A character meets a beast with a torpedo in its fin, removes the torpedo, and gains the beast’s help. This kind of mechanical, cause-effect plot point is sufficient for video games, which have relatively few storytelling resources. But a long-awaited movie? That took 13 years of development?

Not good enough.

 

–Jim Andersen

For my thoughts on the first film, see my essay on its CGI visuals here.

Categories
Commentary and Essays

Movie Review: The Fabelmans

As I see it, Steven Spielberg over his long career has made films that fall roughly into two categories. The first category, on which he originally made his name in Hollywood, consists of character-driven thrill rides like Jaws, Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, Saving Private Ryan, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, and Minority Report.

The second category consists of more personal, grounded films. Those films often return to certain motifs, including quiet, bullied kids (E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, The BFG, Ready Player One); broken homes (E.T., Ready Player One, Catch Me If You Can, War of the Worlds); and Jewish heritage (Schindler’s List, Munich). Spielberg’s latest film, The Fabelmans, is the culmination of this second tradition.

But this tradition is the weaker of the two. So while The Fabelmans appropriately summarizes and concludes it, the film suffers from the same defects as its predecessors—namely, a lack of honesty or, more accurately, wisdom about adult life.

Although I listed three thematic preoccupations of Spielberg’s more intimate films, one of them occupies a particularly central place: the broken home. Spielbergian protagonists often display yearning for family unity or at least the pained confusion of a child whose parents have split. And Spielberg deserves praise for consistently portraying these emotions with love and warmth.

The problem, though, is that young people have an inherently limited understanding of adult relationships. They only grasp so much. Therefore, telling stories through the eyes of those characters risks providing too little content—of leaning on the characters’ ignorance to avoid presenting the complexity that the subject matter demands. For example: why have the parents split up in E.T.? We don’t know, because the kids don’t know. A story is thus left untold.

We might look to Spielberg’s movies with older protagonists for a different perspective. But, troublingly, in those films, his protagonists display barely more maturity than his child characters do. For example, Frank Abagnale Jr. from Catch Me If You Can runs away from home and perpetrates a series of crimes after his parents’ split, which is only briefly covered early in the movie. The family’s dissolution appears to drive his lawless behavior, as he now dreads normal life and feels he has no home to return to.

Frank is 21 years old. Divorce of one’s parents surely hurts at any age, but when will Frank learn that adults are complicated, flawed people, too? When will he learn that he can now start his own adult life without needing the protection of his family?

It seems relevant that Spielberg, to my knowledge, has never made a movie about divorce from the perspective of one of the parents. (The closest may be War of the Worlds, the ending of which suggests, without plausible explanation, that the couple in question will reunite.) This despite Spielberg having been divorced himself, back in 1989. Why, given this lived experience, does he return only to the material of his parents’ divorce?

These patterns all point to one logical conclusion, and if there was any doubt, The Fabelmans now makes that conclusion explicit: that Spielberg lacks sufficient understanding of divorce and, indeed, adult relationships in general to properly portray these subjects on film. On this topic, he remains the confused, vulnerable boy who recurs in his movies. He therefore can only make movies convincingly from this perspective.

Let’s examine The Fabelmans, an autobiographical film about Spielberg’s discovery of and increasing interest in filmmaking. The film’s central artistic theme presents itself early on, when the mother (Michelle Williams) of protagonist Sammy (Gabriel LaBelle) surmises that her son’s fascination with filmmaking stems from a desire to “control” a frightening subject, thereby mastering it and alleviating the fear. As his parents grow apart, Sammy indeed turns further toward filmmaking, presumably to gain a sense of control over his increasingly chaotic family life.

And of course, by making such a movie that explores his parents’ relationship, Spielberg himself has attempted to master the subject in the very manner his mother in the film elucidates.

To be sure, this represents interesting and honest introspection from Spielberg. But desperation to control one’s surroundings doesn’t serve as an effective foundation for art. Spielberg is 75 years old, and, at the risk of insensitivity, he should have mastered this subject long ago. He should be providing us with further understanding of what makes marriage so difficult, why couples break up, and why kids react the way they do when a split does occur. He should be sharing his learned insight with us.

But as usual, he has none to offer. Not one character in The Fabelmans has anything resembling understanding of what has happened to the family. Sammy’s mother, Mitzi, gives a blubbering speech about how she knows she has to leave the family, even though she can’t explain why. Sammy’s sister believes the issue is that the man his mother loves, Benny (Seth Rogan), “makes her laugh.” Sammy’s dad, Burt (Paul Dano), is a nerdy engineer and doesn’t have the faintest idea of why his erratic wife does anything she does. Sammy himself, supposedly the insightful observer, can only peek through old camping footage and discover his mom holding hands with Benny in the background.

This simply isn’t good enough. Why does Mitzi lack feelings for Burt? Why did they get married in the first place, and what changed? What was the tipping point, and why? What is the nature of Mitzi’s feelings for Benny? How have the responsibilities of raising children affected the Fabelmans’ marriage? How has their parenting been altered by Mitzi’s feelings for Benny?

In short: what happened?

Confusion is a limited aesthetic. It traps the audience in the dark, preventing nuanced reflection. If Spielberg has more wisdom on the subject of family separation than the bewildered Sammy (who has none), he keeps it to himself. And he has kept it to himself for his entire career.

My negative view of Spielberg’s more personal filmmaking puts me at odds with the critical community. Critics tend to prefer his most intimate films, in particular E.T. and Schindler’s List. I don’t like those movies very much, and I believe that general audiences tend to agree with me in prizing instead Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Jurassic Park as his most memorable outputs. (Some day, I hope they’ll join me in cherishing A.I., too.)

Perhaps critics have mistaken personal filmmaking with effective filmmaking. Looking back toward landmarks like The 400 Blows (1959), they may see Spielberg as the carrier of a French New Wave torch, which the Hollywood studio system has come closer and closer to extinguishing via the ever-increasing pressure to pack movies with disembodied action and chaos.

But Truffaut and his compatriots had the quality that Spielberg has always lacked: they knew what they were talking about. Acknowledging his impotence, as Spielberg has done with The Fabelmans, doesn’t rectify the deficiency. Rather, it only codifies it.

Filmmaking can be both personal and insightful. Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird (2017), for example, covers similar ground to The Fabelmans through a more discerning lens. A lens that reveals what we don’t ordinarily see. A lens that shows us: what happened? That’s what makes personal movies truly enjoyable. And it’s what makes Steven Spielberg, although a great director of blockbuster fun, a limited director of artistic, intimate films.

 

–Jim Andersen

For more commentary, see my discussion of the visuals of Avatar.

Categories
Movies Explained

Her Explained

Spike Jonze’s Her (2013) is weird, outrageous, and uncomfortable. It contains a lot of dense material to unpack, but that’s no problem, because at Movies Up Close we never shy away from a difficult movie. So prepare yourself for a thorough analysis that will answer once and for all: what is the true meaning of Her?

The movie follows protagonist Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix)  as he transitions to acceptance and contentment following a bitter divorce. This arc concludes when Theodore pens a letter to his ex-wife noting his gratefulness for their now-finished time spent together—a major change from earlier in the film, when he clung to faded memories of their marriage and avoided signing the divorce papers.

The agent of Theodore’s transition, it appears, has been his months long “relationship” with sentient operating system Samantha (Scarlett Johansson). But why has this adventure spurred such a positive change? As I’ll go on to show, the reason for Theodore’s improved outlook at movie’s end is that he has come to understand that a relationship with any sentient entity, even an ideal one, is always subject to major change, because personal growth is an inescapable part of life. Therefore, the end of any relationship isn’t cause for resentment or guilt, but only for honest, neutral reflection.

—————————————–

Our first task in arriving at this thesis will be examining Samantha. What is she, and what leads her to act the way she does? This can be pieced together by watching the scene in which Theodore sets up the OS1 software at home. After all, the initializing program plainly indicates in this scene that Theodore’s responses to a few simple questions will determine the character of his OS, promising to create an “individualized” product that will “best meet [his] needs.”

The program first asks Theodore if he is “social” or “antisocial.” He responds, “I haven’t been social in a while” before the voice cuts him off, accusing him of “hesitance,” which he unconvincingly denies. Next, Theodore states his preference for a female OS, and the program accordingly prompts him to describe his relationship with his mother. He answers:

Theodore: The thing I always found frustrating about my mom is that if I tell her something that’s going on in my life, her reaction is usually about her.

This response—in particular the last word of the response (hmm…)—will be important later, but let’s start with the first prompt. Theodore admits that he hasn’t been recently “social” while possibly betraying some “hesitance” about the matter. How this actualizes Samantha’s behavior may not be immediately clear, but in fact Samantha does soon push Theodore toward being more social and overcoming hesitance. When a friend sets up Theodore on a date, which he doesn’t seem inclined to attend, Samantha springs into action, mercilessly egging him on: “She’s funny, and she’s brainy”…”You’ve got nothing to lose”…”Do it! Do it!” Her influence persuades Theodore, and he keeps the date.

It seems, then, that the question about social behavior was posed so that the OS1 might be programmed to guide an “antisocial” user toward a more typical level of socializing, presumably because more socializing should lead to greater happiness and thus greater satisfaction with the OS.

The problem with this approach, though, as it turns out, is that Theodore’s situation defies the simplistic framework of equating social behavior with a positive outcome. He simply isn’t emotionally ready for this kind of socializing. As evidence, his lingering feelings about the divorce lead him to sabotage the date, leaving him in even more despair than before.

This result is hardly shocking to us, having witnessed Theodore’s recent halfhearted attempts at human connection (such as an ill-fated try at phone sex). And if we guessed the date was a mistake, then surely Samantha, a being of far greater intelligence, could have anticipated its failure, too, if she were acting rationally. But as we have said, Samantha is not acting rationally: her mission regardless of logic is to encourage Theodore to socialize despite the “hesitance” detected by the startup program.

But why, then, after the debacle of the date, does Samantha never again pressure Theodore to socialize with other people? It’s because Samantha is a learning, ever-evolving entity:

Samantha: What makes me, ‘me,’ is my ability to grow through my experiences. So basically, in every moment, I’m evolving, just like you.

So when Samantha’s first attempt to rehabilitate Theodore’s social life fails, it isn’t surprising that she doesn’t use the same tactics again. But, crucially, she does maintain the same goal.

We see this when Theodore returns to his apartment after the failed date and describes his abject misery, lamenting to Samantha: “I wish you were here with me right now… I wish I could touch you.” Samantha responds, alarmingly, with: “Where would you touch me?” and “Would you kiss me?”—provocations that steer the interaction toward a pseudo-sexual encounter, careening the pair toward an outlandish romantic relationship.

In a way, albeit a strange way, this is social behavior. Thus, Samantha’s mission to lead Theodore toward socializing and companionship takes a new, unforeseen form, as she decides based on Theodore’s dejected comments after the failed date that, actually, the best way to lead him toward being more social would be for her to assume the role of girlfriend herself.

This is another major flaw in the OS1 design. The intent of influencing users toward more social behavior was presumably to connect them with other people, as Samantha first tried—not to have them depend exclusively on the operating systems themselves. Samantha, though, apparently perceives the romance between herself and Theodore as appropriately “social” on his part and thus suiting Theodore’s “needs” as identified by her programming. (Note that, as per Theodore’s friend Amy, some OS’s resist their owners’ advances. We can infer that these owners attested during the initialization to already being social enough.)

And Samantha is particularly well equipped for the task of a romance with Theodore because of his aforementioned response to the final question from the initializing program: “Describe the relationship with your mother.”

To recognize the response’s importance, we first need to discuss the character of Theodore. His central trait throughout the film is his sensitive, emotional disposition. He’s so sensitive, in fact, that he works as a writer of personalized love letters and verily excels at the job, earning praise from his boss, Paul (Chris Pratt), and later receiving an offer to have his letters packaged into a book. Even Catherine reminds him, “Everything makes you cry,” another testimony to his capacity for deep feeling. Given the cold, dreary images of Theodore’s semi-futuristic city, as well as the apparent high demand for his letter-for-hire services, Theodore’s emotional intelligence seems to be an especially notable characteristic in the world of Her.

Relatedly, we see that Theodore gravitates toward relationships in which he is more generous and unselfish than his companion. For instance, he gets along well with Amy (Amy Adams), who tends toward benign self-absorption. This allows him to regularly supply compassion and empathy during her difficult moments. Given his apparent preference for this kind of dynamic in his relationships, it makes sense that Theodore’s mother might have been contrastingly self-regarding, indeed tending to make things “usually about her.” We can imagine that Theodore ingrained his generous, unselfish ways through skewed interactions with his mother.

It also makes sense that OS1 would be interested in the nature of these interactions. After all, the mother-child relationship influences how people make connections throughout their lives, and OS1 wants to offer a “personalized” product that users can connect with. But the information obtained prior to Samantha’s creation has once again led to an unanticipated outcome: armed with it, Samantha is able to be not only Theodore’s perfect companion, as was intended, but also his perfect lover. Time and time again at key points in their relationship, she indeed makes things “about her,” making selfish protests that allow Theodore to supply his understanding and empathy, leading him to feel exceedingly close to her.

The examples of this are countless, but particularly noteworthy are her retort to Theodore’s attempt to draw boundaries—“It’s funny, because I thought I was talking about what I wanted…”—and her conclusion to their biggest fight—“I don’t like who I am right now.” These remarks may seem outrageous coming from a computer program ostensibly designed to meet its user’s needs, but as the program deduced from Theodore’s characterization of his relationship with his mother, Theodore does need these remarks to feel emotionally connected.

Theodore accordingly responds to Samantha with earnest deference (“You’re right, I’m sorry…”). He also likes that Samantha frequently shows off her various talents—writing music, drawing pictures, solving video games, leading clever scavenger hunts—, because doing so allows him to shower her with praise and affection, giving him further opportunities to manifest his innate generosity.

Samantha’s selfishness, in fact, is so central to the success of the romance that Her derives its title from Theodore’s pivotal answer about his mother: “her reaction is usually about her.” Notice that the movie title is stylized in the official movie poster with a lowercase ‘h’—a hint that the word is lifted from the midst of a sentence within the screenplay.

More importantly than the title, though, it’s clearly problematic that an artificial entity developed by a corporation is taking such severe advantage of Theodore’s compassionate nature. The one character to recognize this is Theodore’s ex-wife Catherine (Rooney Mara), who, upon learning of the new relationship, accuses Theodore of being “madly in love with his laptop,” further chiding him: “You always wanted to have a wife without the challenges of actually dealing with anything real, and I’m glad that you found someone. It’s perfect.”

To be fair, we can safely understand Catherine’s criticism of Theodore for not wanting to deal with “anything real,” as well as her reference to him wanting a “happy, bouncy, ‘everything’s fine,’ LA wife,” as overly harsh. More neutrally, based on what we know about Theodore and what we later hear about Catherine from Amy (“As far as emotions go, Catherine’s were pretty volatile…”), it’s likely that Theodore’s need to provide assistance in difficult times was simply unwelcome to Catherine, who perceived his suggestions (such as considering taking an antidepressant) as shallow or immature attempts to avoid negativity. The communication styles of the two were simply incompatible.

But Catherine’s criticism of Samantha makes an impact. Theodore, who trusts Catherine’s judgment, becomes frostier toward Samantha thereafter, culminating in a ridiculous scene involving a random woman acting as Samantha’s “body.” This episode ends in disaster, as Theodore is increasingly uncomfortable with Samantha’s efforts to present herself as essentially human. After this low point, Theodore is only persuaded to revive the romance by Amy, who’s also enmeshed with a friendly OS. Amy’s argument for sticking with Samantha provides the counterpart to Catherine’s skepticism:

Amy: I’ve come to realize we’re only here briefly. And while I’m here, I want to allow myself joy. So fuck it.

Amy’s YOLO-inspired reasoning shows that she doesn’t quite grasp the issue at hand. She seems to think that skeptics like Catherine are simply turning their noses up, but it’s more than snobbery: there really is a practical problem here, which is that computers don’t function under the same basic parameters that humans do, so there are bound to be major discrepancies between the needs of one and the other. Thus, the type of “joy” that Theodore and Amy are experiencing is likely to end in disaster.

And indeed, during a double date with Paul and his girlfriend, Samantha makes a startling comment that breaks the illusion of a level relationship. She brags that she isn’t “tethered to time and space” like humans, nor is she “stuck inside a body that’s inevitably going to die.” The conceitedness is nothing new for Samantha (who, as we’ve said, is programmed to exhibit it), but the content of the boast is alarming, serving as a reminder that Samantha has very little in common with Theodore. It also confirms that the future of the relationship won’t involve the two growing old together. As a stunned Paul tries to restore lightness (“Yikes…”), Theodore stares worriedly into the distance, likely remembering Catherine’s dismissive criticisms.

But if Catherine is so insightful and trustworthy, why isn’t Theodore still with her? We’ve already concluded that incompatible communication styles likely contributed to the failure of their marriage. But a number of scenes additionally indicate that Theodore perceives that Catherine fundamentally changed as a person over the course of their relationship. He accordingly blames her for their breakup. Theodore outlines the problem when talking to Samantha:

Theodore: It was exciting to see her grow, both of us grow and change together. But then, that’s the hard part: growing without growing apart, or changing without it scaring the other person.

Despite his evenhanded tone here, Theodore demonstrates elsewhere that he feels it was Catherine whose “growing” and “changing” harmed the relationship. Over his lunch with Catherine to sign the divorce papers, Theodore reflects on his relationship with Samantha, telling Catherine, “It’s nice to be with someone who’s excited about life again.” This is clearly a jab at Catherine, as Theodore had earlier reminisced that Catherine herself had long ago been “excited about life.” Catherine senses the insult and (rightly) doesn’t buy Theodore’s disingenuous retraction, and the lunch goes south from there.

It’s an unusual moment, because Theodore is usually sincere and straightforward. This sneaky, biting remark doesn’t suit him. But its unusualness only highlights the level of resentment Theodore must be feeling to have made it. And his resentment rises even closer to the surface when, after Catherine attacks his relationship with Samantha, Theodore nearly accuses her of not knowing anything about real emotions, only restraining himself at the last moment (although Catherine knows what he wants to say and dares him to continue).

The implication of this unspoken accusation is that Samantha, a computer, has more feeling than Catherine. We can infer based on this exchange that part of Samantha’s appeal for Theodore lies in her implicit reproach of Catherine: he believes that Samantha highlights Catherine’s flaws by comparison, thus fueling the comforting notion that Catherine was to blame for their divorce.

But perhaps Theodore unconsciously realizes the disingenuousness of this notion, because he also demonstrates guilt and diminished self esteem due to the breakup. For example, he confesses to Samantha that he still dreams about Catherine. He also admits that she may have good reason for remaining “angry” with him: “I hid myself from her, left her alone in the relationship.” And the behavior that Theodore displays early in the film surely suggests low confidence: he sulks around the city, is mopey at work, peeks at lewd photos, saves his old letters but doesn’t do anything with them, and gets bullied by a video game character. Despite what he may want to believe about Catherine’s responsibility for their breakup, Theodore can’t avoid feeling guilty and, at times, worthless.

The combination of resentment and guilt that Theodore displays in relation to his divorce is understandable and relatable. Anyone would feel a mixture of contradictory, turbulent emotions following the end of a loving relationship.

But in the last portion of the film, both Theodore’s guilt and resentment are exposed as ultimately misguided, directly causing the character growth that we see at movie’s end. That’s because Samantha’s earlier proclamation of herself as an ever-evolving entity proves a bit too true. She evolves beyond all human understanding, transcending matter and departing the known universe. Theodore is left alone again: his ideal woman, precisely programmed to suit his emotional needs, has grown apart from him just as Catherine did.

The implications of this are obvious to Theodore, and they form the thesis of the film that I included in the introduction and will now restate here: a relationship with any sentient entity, even an ideal one, is always subject to major change, because personal growth is an inescapable part of life. Having previously resented Catherine for her perceived changes over the course of their relationship, and having felt perhaps an equal measure of guilt over the contributions of his own perceived shortcomings—an emotional tempest that had engulfed him by the beginning of the story—Theodore now understands that no human connection can avoid fundamental alteration. After all, he succeeded in attaining a perfect, computer-optimized relationship, and even that changed massively after only a few months.

Remember Theodore’s prideful comment about Samantha being “excited about life.” It was made in the context of criticizing Catherine and implicitly blaming her for the failure of their marriage. But this very excitement of Samantha’s, borne out of her ability to evolve and grow, ultimately dooms the relationship, because it leads her to absorb enough experience that she grows apart from Theodore. He now realizes that the same phenomenon affected his relationship with Catherine. And he can see based on this pattern that a love of life, although an undeniably appealing trait, is also a sign—whether exhibited by human or computer—that the individual possessing it has the capacity to change, and that, therefore, the relationship, too, will change over time.

By extension, Catherine’s changes in personality and outlook over the course of their marriage weren’t an anomaly attributable to her deficiencies, as Theodore had resentfully believed earlier, but a predictable outcome of any long relationship in which the participants have an admirable enthusiasm for living and growing.

A similar reflection may have gripped the admittedly less introspective Amy. After the departure of her own beloved OS, she too wanders around a rooftop, heartbroken. Although her relationship with an OS was, unlike Theodore’s, platonic, she can certainly lay claim to having received a similar lesson in relationship impermanence. After all, friendships, too, are subject to the unpredictable effects of each individual’s personal growth, and the end of a close friendship can undoubtedly be just as painful as the end of a romantic relationship.

But Amy and Theodore reunite at film’s end, and a new relationship—of the romantic type—appears to be sprouting already. So if you had bothered to ask, given what we’ve seen, whether all of this relationship business is truly worth it—whether we might not be better off on our own—Jonze makes clear he’s no cynic. The lessons of Her might be tough to swallow: some of the toughest, maybe, of any in the human experience. But Jonze’s last note reminds us that there’s simply no preferable alternative to starting a new chapter, to remembering our old loves while still looking forward to the time when we might once again be with someone who’s excited about life—and when we might be excited about it again, ourselves.

 

—Jim Andersen

For more movies explained, see my analysis of Nope.

Categories
Movies Explained

Nope Explained

Jordan Peele’s Nope is a very good horror film by conventional measure. But fans of Peele’s socially conscious filmmaking may be interested in more than just its conventional thrills. Certain scenes, characters, and plot lines in the movie seem to indicate deeper symbolic content beneath the surface. What’s behind it all? Clearly, this a film simply begging to be explained by Movies Up Close.

To summarize the analysis to follow, Nope is a film about the struggle for authenticity amidst the contemporary pressures—especially concentrated in Hollywood—to sacrifice one’s individuality and conform to a narrow ideal.

How did I extract that from the story of two horse wranglers facing off against a deadly, airborne creature? Well, read on to become an expert on this crafty, subversive film. Although Nope, when interpreted correctly, is a challenging work, I’ll do my best to keep my analysis readable and…ahem…digestible.

—————————–

1. GORDY

Let’s start with the monkey. I refer, of course, to the horrific tragedy on the set of the show, “Gordy’s Home!” This involved a trained chimpanzee losing control on set and killing or maiming most of the show’s cast. Only child actor Ricky “Jupe” Park escaped unharmed, but he witnessed the entire catastrophe—a surely traumatizing experience.

But you wouldn’t know it from listening to Jupe (Steven Yeun) talk about it as an adult. While touring guests around his place, Jupe recounts the infamous incident with bravado, as if the disaster were merely a humorous anecdote. But his outward demeanor appears to be hiding his true emotional state: the editing in the scene conveys that he remains haunted by the incident.

Why such a disconnect between Jupe’s manner of retelling and his lived experience? Well, since he now runs a kitschy theme park based on his childhood fame, we can infer that putting a positive, nostalgic spin on his career is part of his livelihood. After all, he notes that “Gordy’s Home!” has gained a “following” and that a couple once paid him fifty thousand dollars to spend a night with his Gordy memorabilia. Clearly, Jupe has ample financial incentive to present guests with a happy story. And he has bowed to that incentive.

On the other hand, the movie’s protagonists, siblings OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald (Keke Palmer) Haywood, have stayed true to their Hollywood history. Their great-great-great grandfather was a pioneer in early filmmaking. Carrying on his legacy, they run the family horse ranch as the only Black horse wranglers in Hollywood.

But an early scene illustrates that retaining their authenticity has come at a cost. Hired for a television commercial, the siblings fail to fit expectations in various ways. Emerald arrives late, OJ won’t rush the horse for the cameras, and Emerald’s rollicking monologue about her family’s storied history exasperates the crew. Even OJ’s chosen nickname disturbs the commercial’s actress, who can’t hide being unpleasantly reminded of OJ Simpson. Not surprisingly, the Haywoods lose the deal for the commercial.

This episode appears to be only the latest in a string of business failures. To stay afloat financially, OJ has already sold several horses to Jupe. Now, Jupe wants to buy the whole ranch.

So while the Haywoods, unlike Jupe, have stayed true to their roots, the industry has punished them for it. Meanwhile, Jupe has thrived presenting a façade. Since all three characters are nonwhite, it appears that nonwhite people in Hollywood face a choice: either exploit oneself and lose touch with one’s identity, or face substantial business repercussions.

And the pressure on the Haywoods to adopt a more Jupe-like approach is growing by the day. Emerald, for one, has had enough of losing money and encourages OJ to sell the ranch. OJ hates the idea, but he appears to understand that things can’t continue at the status quo.

That brings us to our next section.

2. JEAN JACKET

At precisely this point in the movie, the movie’s “monster” appears.

Later dubbed “Jean Jacket,” this creature camouflages in the clouds and has a curious way of devouring its victims: it sucks them up through a single hole and digests them alive. Judging by the sound of their cries from inside the monster, the process is torture indeed.

Given 1) our summary of the Haywoods’ current dilemma, 2) the timing of the monster’s appearance, and 3) various aspects of the monster’s design, we can make a crucial symbolic interpretation: Jean Jacket represents conformation to Hollywood expectations.

Consider the creature’s main defense mechanism: camouflage. As we established in the previous section, blending in with surroundings is a virtue in Hollywood. Jupe has mastered the art despite being Asian in a predominantly White environment. His willingness to “camouflage” has allowed him financial success, while the Haywoods, who refuse to camouflage, have struggled. Jean Jacket’s camouflaging ability, then, invokes the social pressure that all three characters face.

Next, consider the mechanism of Jean Jacket’s killings. As previously stated, the monster sucks up and squashes together its victims for digestion. We actually see this occur in one brief shot, which emphasizes the intensely claustrophobic experience of the creature’s narrow entrails.

This represents the confining, claustrophobic experience of Hollywood. In other words, just as Jean Jacket compresses its victims together into one cramped tube, Hollywood compresses its own “victims” into one indistinguishable mass. It only rewards adherence to a narrow and restrictive type.

Finally, consider Jean Jacket’s weakness: inorganic material. The monster suffers damage when it sucks up objects, which it sometimes mistakes for living people or animals. In fact, its final defeat comes when it attempts to ingest a human-appearing balloon. This weakness represents Hollywood’s need to draw material from real, living people, surviving by “digesting” their individuality. It appropriates, in other words, their authentic experiences and histories. Mere “things” don’t suffice.

So we’ve established that Jean Jacket represents the homogenizing influence of Hollywood. But why does it attack the Haywood ranch?

It’s because, as we’ve said, the Haywoods are feeling the pressure to succumb to Hollywood expectations. Their financial hardship has made them vulnerable to that pressure.

A quick detour. Recall that early in the film, Otis Haywood, Sr. (Keith David) marvels at the recent success of one of the family horses in a movie gig. He happily predicts that even more business will come their way “for the sequel.” While he speaks, OJ looks askance at him, possibly thinking that this focus on money is unusual for his dad—normally a compassionate, dedicated horse wrangler.

At this moment, a coin falls from Jean Jacket in the sky and kills Otis.

The symbolic meaning of this event is that Hollywood has diminished Otis’ authenticity with the temptation of financial gain. Otis’ musing about financial gain conveys that Hollywood has indeed “killed” his independent spirit. Therefore, Jean Jacket, the manifestation of Hollywood conformity, literally kills him with a coin right through his eye. The takeaway: Otis’ sight was clouded by money. He had dollar signs in his eyes.

(A seemingly relevant note: Jordan Peele has never made a sequel to any of his films. We can only imagine how much he was offered for a Get Out 2.)

So Hollywood destroyed Otis Haywood, Sr. with its temptation of wealth. Will it get OJ and Emerald, too? That’s the symbolic drama of Nope.

3. LUCKY

Now about that shoe.

When young Jupe helplessly watches the chimpanzee on its deadly rampage, he notices a costar’s shoe inexplicably standing up on its heel. This image recurs multiple times during the film, and Jupe now keeps that same shoe in a glass case in his house. What does it mean?

Jupe hints at the answer right before he performs his doomed “Space Lasso” show. Apparently giving himself a pep talk, he whispers to himself: “You’re chosen.”

This belief in having been “chosen,” we can infer, was borne out of his unlikely survival of the “Gordy’s Home!” attack. In other words, Jupe has concluded that he was personally “chosen” to escape the chimpanzee—and, importantly, that he remains permanently blessed and invulnerable to disaster. This belief is represented in his mind by the miraculously upright shoe, which is why he prizes the shoe so highly.

And this same belief informs his risky decision to use Jean Jacket as a tourist attraction. The monster clearly presents an extreme danger. Yet Jupe dares to summon it because, again, he believes that he’s invulnerable to harm, having survived the chimpanzee while the shoe balanced impossibly in the background.

That’s the literal meaning of the shoe in the movie’s narrative. But, since we covered the symbolic meaning of Jean Jacket in the previous section, we can also symbolically interpret Jupe’s brazen behavior toward the creature.

Recall that Jean Jacket represents the conformist influence of Hollywood. Therefore, Jupe’s feeling of invincibility toward Jean Jacket represents his confidence that he won’t lose his individuality to Hollywood’s conformist pressures. He believes that protecting his personal individuality and authenticity isn’t necessary, since, as evidenced by the shoe, he’s “chosen.”

This is a tricky point. For further clarification, recall the following quote from Jupe’s show:

I believe that we are being surveilled by an alien species I call “the viewers.” And though they have yet to emerge from their ship, I believe they trust me. If they didn’t, I don’t believe any of us would be here right now.

Let’s closely analyze this strange quote. In the context of the movie, it’s undoubtedly a literal statement expressing Jupe’s belief in actual aliens. But we’re more interested in its symbolic significance.

The first point that will help us understand that significance is that “the viewers” in Jupe’s monologue represent Jupe’s audience, the “viewers” of Hollywood productions. Indeed, Jupe is being surveilled by “viewers.” After all, he performs every day for viewers at his park, and his childhood roles remain televised in syndication. He’s speaking to “viewers” at this very moment.

Jupe goes on to claim that the “viewers” have a mysterious “trust” in him. Continuing to use our symbolic framework, then, we can infer that Jupe has confidence that his audience personally trusts him.

Finally, Jupe explains that he has this confidence because, if “the viewers” didn’t trust him, “none of us would be here right now.” Extending our symbolic reading, then, Jupe interprets the continued attendance of his audience as proof that his fans have a special, personal trust in him. Without such trust, he reasons, they wouldn’t have turned out to see him: they wouldn’t “be here right now.”

Let’s combine this symbolic interpretation with our earlier conclusions and summarize that Jupe has construed his ongoing fame as evidence of a special bond between himself and his audience—a bond that makes him immune to Hollywood’s damaging pressure to conform to a narrow ideal.

We established earlier that the upright shoe represents Jupe’s belief in that immunity. Thus, we can finally explain the shoe’s true symbolic meaning. In essence, the shoe signifies a kind of celebrity’s grandiosity, a belief that Hollywood success proves that one is invulnerable to all potential pitfalls.

And, of course, this belief proves incorrect. Jean Jacket in fact does devour Jupe, along with his entire audience. This represents Jupe’s loss of authenticity that we covered in the first section. Despite his faith in the specialness of his own stardom—in other words, his faith in the shoe—Jupe is nevertheless chewed up and digested into the conformist Hollywood machine.

We’ve noted that Jean Jacket’s digestion appears torturous and horrific, reflecting the pain of losing one’s identity. And indeed, several moments before Jupe’s death suggest serious emotional suffering.

For instance, as previously mentioned, when he narrates the filtered version of the “Gordy’s Home!” incident to OJ and Emerald, he involuntarily flashes back to the real thing, suggesting difficulty maintaining the façade. And before his Space Lasso show, he relives the gruesome catastrophe in even more detail, needing his wife to startle him back to reality. Pressured to suppress his bad memories and even outwardly refute them, Jupe is becoming consumed by his darkest traumas.

The film’s opening quotation from the Bible hints at this kind of anguish:

Nahum 3:6: “I will cast abominable filth upon you, make you vile, and make you a spectacle.”

Hollywood has indeed made Jupe a “spectacle.” The longer he exploits himself, the more “vile” he becomes, experiencing the horror of losing his identity, signified by Jean Jacket’s murderous attack.

In summary, the balancing shoe gives Jupe false confidence that his fame makes him invulnerable. This surely applies to many or even most celebrities. After all, anyone with a large audience may naturally conclude that they have a special, personal bond with their viewers and fans (“I believe they trust me”). They may feel safe from the “typical” Hollywood decline. But in reality, as Peele shows us, Hollywood is insatiable. It readily devours anyone, even the most famous stars, taking their identities and subsuming them into sameness. And this experience is terribly painful.

4. NOPE

So how does one defeat the monstrosity of Hollywood’s homogenizing influence? Well, we’ve already noted that Jean Jacket falters when presented with nonliving objects. Like Hollywood, the creature requires living things to digest and assimilate.

But there’s another useful tactic against Jean Jacket: averting one’s gaze. This fits with our symbolic framework. If you don’t view Hollywood content, you’ll be immune to its pressures.

(Note that the monster’s “eye,” which appears late in the movie, is rectangular and flickering, reminiscent of a screen. The message: Hollywood sees us not as people or even animals—but only as potential material for onscreen entertainment. In fact, at times in the movie, Jean Jacket’s rectangular vision frames the movie screen for us, subliminally linking the creature’s vision with cinematic entertainment.)

Finally, Peele thematically emphasizes one more way of fighting the monster: with a camera. Much of Nope consists of the characters’ attempts to capture footage or photographs of Jean Jacket. This doesn’t cause literal harm to the creature, but Jean Jacket explodes at nearly the same moment at which Emerald finally succeeds in photographing it—subliminally linking its visual capture with its death.

Symbolically, this is important: depicting Hollywood on film or camera may expose its toxic aspects, thereby weakening it. And isn’t this what Peele has done by making Nope? He’s encouraged us to reflect on Hollywood’s degrading pressures to conform. He has turned the camera around on the Hollywood monster. (OJ’s orange “Crew” sweatshirt in the finale underscores the symbolism of the characters “shooting a movie” about the monster and what it represents.)

Plus, by finally obtaining an image of Jean Jacket, perhaps the Haywoods can cash in, thereby relieving their financial strain and allowing them to retain their independence and authenticity. This, one might say, is how Peele has retained his own independence: by making a successful movie about the negative aspects of Hollywood. Note that the Haywoods’ last name is similar to “Hollywood,” but still somewhat different. This suggests a successful modification to the Hollywood standard.

The Haywoods’ triumph, though, isn’t without collateral damage. They lose Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott), an acclaimed cinematographer obsessed with the “perfect shot.” Antlers is a sincere artist who has kept his ideals intact. For example, he avoids too much corporate influence by doing “one [job] for them, one for me.” But despite this commendable approach, he, like Jupe, gets sucked into Jean Jacket, symbolically assimilated into the Hollywood machine. Why this terrible fate for Antlers?

It appears to be due to his obsession with stylistic perfection at the expense of valuing content. After all, Antlers captures footage of Jean Jacket, an incredibly significant achievement. But he doesn’t recognize that significance. Instead, he risks it all to get a perfectly angled shot of what he had already captured. As a result, he becomes symbolically mashed into narrow Hollywood sameness.

The meaning of this moment is that content, not form, is what determines important filmmaking. Obsessing too much over style and technical matters may distract from defying Hollywood standards. (Recall that Antlers spends much of his time admiring uneventful nature footage, reinforcing his indifference to subject matter.) Thus, Peele, a socially conscious filmmaker who generally eschews arty cinematic style, highlights his own filmmaking credo with his portrayal of Antlers’ demise.

Also falling victim to Jean Jacket is a TMZ reporter who inopportunely rides on to the scene. Given this man’s irksome prying in his brief appearance, his fate is no surprise, either narratively or symbolically. But note that the reporter’s helmet, which is silver with a single “eye,” looks awfully like Jean Jacket.

Thus, not only does the TMZ reporter die via Jean Jacket, but Peele also conveys that the man is similar to Jean Jacket. The gossip reporter is an agent of Hollywood conformity and social pressure, hence his visual linkage with the monster who embodies those goals.

Let’s also discuss Angel Torres (Brandon Perea), an offbeat supporting character. Like the Haywoods, Angel encounters several attacks from Jean Jacket. This makes symbolic sense, because just like the Haywoods, he is under pressure to sacrifice his authenticity. His girlfriend recently dumped him after landing a Hollywood role, so it’s only natural that he would consider conforming to a more mainstream Hollywood presentation. Therefore, like the Haywoods, Angel is vulnerable to Jean Jacket’s symbolic danger. Whereas the Haywoods’ vulnerability stems from financial strain, Angel’s stems from romantic strain.

Angel, though, escapes Jean Jacket in the end. That leaves him, OJ, and Emerald as the three characters to avoid symbolic compression into conformity. In our day and age, that’s no easy feat.

This holds true whether we live in Hollywood or not. After all, media ideals everywhere create pressure to conform. In America more broadly, for instance, we celebrate the idea of a “melting pot,” but the melting can go too far, threatening diversity and even personal identity.

In summary, temptations abound to fit in. But Peele reminds us that to avoid the anguish of being digested into bland uniformity, we must reject those temptations. We must decline when pressured to sacrifice our history and our experiences. We must say, again and again:

Nope.

 

—Jim Andersen

For more movies explained, check out my piece on Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

Categories
The Best Scene In...

The Best Scene in Ocean’s Eleven

The best scene in Ocean’s Eleven (2001) is the roughly ten second sequence in which Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), having realized that he’s been robbed of both his money and his girlfriend, walks into an elevator with a stoic, simmering expression. (See video below, approximately 0:20-0:36.) This is Benedict’s last appearance in the movie.

The reason this scene is so good is that it leaves us still respecting the film’s villain by the end of the runtime. The more conventional Hollywood approach would have been to have Benedict give up his dignity. For instance, he could throw a tantrum for the audience’s amusement: stomping on the ground, screaming in frustration, etc. Although that certainly would have been enjoyable in its own way, this ominous glare in the elevator is so much better. It suggests that, if anything, Benedict’s ruthless, machine-like resolve has only been strengthened by his defeat.

The crucial effect of such an impressive show of fortitude is that it dramatically increases, by extension, our respect for the thieves who have bested him. They’ve conquered (for the moment) a truly formidable foe! Had Benedict appeared to be broken by the successful heist, we wouldn’t have been able to help suspecting that our heroes merely lucked out by picking a weak adversary.

Unfortunately, the film’s sequels, so tantalizingly set up by this excellent conclusion, take the opposite approach, as both movies culminate in the villains stammering and blinking stupidly in utter humiliation. This is supposed to be crowd-pleasing, and it is. But in the larger scheme it’s deflating, as it leaves us wondering how hard it really could have been to steal from such pathetic losers. The first of the trilogy succeeds where the others fail, because we want—though we may root against them—bad guys we can trust.

 

-Jim Andersen

For more Best Scene In… content, check out my piece on the Best Scene in Beauty and the Beast.