tumbledry

Closer / I, Robot / Spanglish

The movie Closer gave me the shivers. To see that high level of human cruelty against the backdrop of an unyielding, dark, bitter look at the human condition is enough to make anyone wish to live the life of a hermit. Four people spoke throughout the movie, involved in the most convoluted and damaging “love square” that you can possibly imagine. The sex talk was explicit, the revenge complex, and at the end, the lives ruined. Worst of all, the viewer sees no motivation for these characters’ actions, giving us the impression that anyone can snap and become that heartless. Apparently, this is adopted from the stage version of a play by the same name; The New Yorker declared that the “acid was diluted” in the move to cinema; I shudder to think how intensely disturbing the stage version was. It isn’t that I always want the movies I watch to end with sunshine and butterflies, it’s just that I want the movies that provoke thought or disturb preconceptions to have a point - Closer simply disturbed at continually more deep levels, and then left us. If only we had had a couple of moments of the couples enjoying themselves together … some bits of true laughter, things would have been tolerable. But, there is no note of hope, and no twist to get us thinking, just the assertion that the human capacity for simply being mean is limitless.

I, Robot, however, did leave the audience with something to think about. Now, I have not read the book by the same name, and have heard that this movie does a terrible job of adapting it. Frankly, though, I do not think a book comparison is necessary: the movie sends its own message on its own terms. It makes us consider the consequences of creating beings that interact with us - when do we consider them “human”? Stylistically, the movie paints a believable picture of the future, and Will Smith gets to use his “oh hell no” line, which I do not think gets old. Besides, he’s really ripped and walks around in tight shirts - he somehow fits with the style of the movie. While the film does take itself pretty seriously, there are plenty of funny moments, and the dialog between the stiff robot scientist and Smith are welcome bits of humor. Incidentally, I would take this as an action flick tied together with decent dialog and a plot that works for these purposes: the movie gets us thinking a little, makes us laugh, and there are some fun explosions, car chases, and tense action scenes. So, considering its limited goals in entertaining a pretty narrow portion of our minds, “I, Robot” was good fun.

Finally, Spanglish was interesting. The first thing I wondered after the movie was “what should I take away from this?” I knew that it was trying to say something, and I felt that the Spanish maid in the movie did change the family she worked for, but I did not know how. I did not know if they were better off, or if the seed of the possibility of them being better off was planted, or if the family who hired her was screwed and the maid’s daughter (who was narrating) was the person on which we should focus. The acting was good, I believed every bit, and felt an emotional reaction when fights and tears flitted onscreen. Adam Sandler, as many have commented, did an admirable job of breaking his stereotypical role and showing us that he can “do drama.” Unfortunately, this movie is a case of good actors being handed utter crap for a script. If we could resolve the issue of the mother, the movie might have a chance of saying something; but as it stands, I could not really take anything out of it. Thankfully, there were some good funny parts, which kept the cheating theme from taking control and sucking all the joy from the movie (as was the case in Closer).

I’ve seen other movies lately (Young Frankenstein, Napoleon Dynamite) which were funny and light and simply do not need reviews. If you need a movie to see, see these. Also, if you liked The Bourne Identity, go rent the Bourne Supremacy - that was a fun movie; everytime Bourne was outside the “bad guys” window talking to them while watching them (and letting them know with a clever dialog twist), I let out a triumphant whoop of entertainment joy and said I could leave the movie at that point; I was happy with how cool that was. Bourne is fun.

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sagert

Rent “Punch Drunk Love.” Adam Sandler is really good in that, and it is all around a quality movie. I believe it was released by Focus Features (Eternal Sunshine, Lost in Translation - those have a similar feel).

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