There are a lot of drug movies and most of them are about illegal drugs. This week, I thought I wanted to write about them, but it was just way too depressing to describe five sets of characters doing meth/cocaine/heroin and coming to invariably untimely ends. Also, I felt it was important to illustrate that not all addictions are illegal, that many addicts appear fairly functional, and that sometimes their addictions are enabled by society.
Shame (2011)
Brandon (Michael Fassbender) is a successful advertising executive and sex addict. He reevaluates his life after a surprise extended visit from his needy sister (Carey Mulligan).
Don’t watch this movie for the sex. It isn’t sexy. It’s intimate, and visceral, and powerful, but it isn’t sexy. Steve McQueen tries to use an ambiguous ending but there’s no hope in the movie to imply that Brandon is going to make some positive life changes. I can’t wait for Steve McQueen to direct a feature-length comedy.
Limitless (2011)
Eddie (Bradley Cooper) is a struggling writer who tries NZT, a revolutionary pill that allows him to tap into his full neuropotential, with minor side effects of becoming cocky, impulsive, well-dressed, and massive withdrawal symptoms. He soon runs out of pills and into trouble with a Russian mobster.
First of all, the idea that humans only use 10% of their brain is a myth that stems from late 19th century neurological research. Early neurologists were unable to understand the functions of all the neurons in the brain. MRI scans show that all parts of the brain show some activity, even during sleep. Secondly, for a movie concerned with genius, Limitless would only qualify as “above average.” It has an interesting premise – hasn’t everyone fantasized about becoming a financial Batman-cum-Popeye? Indeed, it leads to some memorable moments: incapacitating a foe with ice skates while the kid is still wearing them, and literally drinking your enemy’s blood to get high. But the moral, psychological and physiological consequences of Eddie’s addiction to memory enhancers are only briefly explored, in favour of an uninteresting murder subplot and an ambiguous deus ex machina at the end.
Don Jon (2013)
Jon (Joseph Gordon Levitt) is so successful at picking up chicks in clubs that his friends call him “The Don”, which conveniently rhymes with “Jon”. But none of his HB8s and HB9s – nay, not even the legendary HB10 (Scarlett Johansson) hold a candle to his Black Mac, Portal to Pornography.
It would be a far cry to say that Don Jon is the lighter version of Shame. They’re about two completely different addictions: Don Jon is into porn, whereas Brandon prefers the real thing. The styles are different: Steve McQueen has opted for simultaneous NC-17 and emotional restraint, whereas Joseph Gordon Levitt has gone all-out, saddled normally-competent actors with Jersey Shore stereotypes, and sprinkled the whole thing with montages that are stylistically and thematically closest to Spring Breakers. This is not a bad thing.
His most questionable choice is the incorporation of a manic-pixie-dream-cougar (Julianne Moore) who exists to cry a lot, get Don Jon high, and introduce him to “meaningful” sex. Bah. It’s cheesy and doesn’t fit with the rest of the movie. I would actually have preferred for JGL to be less introspective with Don Jon’s epiphanies, and maintain the movie’s initial “punchiness” throughout.
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)
Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum), who lives in a one-room shack with his parents and both sets of grandparents, wins a trip to tour Willy Wonka’s (Gene Wilder) Chocolate Factory.
Roald Dahl, the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, had a very twisted, almost sadistic sense of fun. In his children’s novels, this tended towards revenge fantasies for kids, directed at bureaucratic or cruel adults. In his adult stories, he became downright macabre. As such, a live-action adaptation of a Dahl book is both cartoonish and disturbing. The children who are not the designated hero Charlie Bucket are clearly unsympathetic: there is a television addict, a gum addict, a chocoholic, and a spoiled daddy’s girl, who are all punished with situational irony. Willy Wonka himself might as well be an alien, for his shrouded motives, manic demeanor, and residence with the Oompa Loompas. This movie is a nightmare. I mean, imagine Looney Tunes cartoons were adapted in fully live-action features. It’d be horrific.
The World’s End (2013)
Gary King (Simon Pegg) is a high-functioning alcoholic bent on re-enacting the Golden Mile pub crawl of 1990 with his old chums (Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, and Eddie Marsan), who have since grown up and gotten adult jobs.
The conclusion to the Blood and Ice Cream trilogy is much darker than its predecessors, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Is it better? Hot Fuzz is still my favourite, but The World’s End feels much more ambitious than both Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead. However, I think its climax is less effective than Hot Fuzz: whereas Hot Fuzz packs all its running jokes and loose threads into the final action sequence, The World’s End pulls a Tolkien and has at least two climaxes: one in which Gary confronts his personal problems, and one in which he confronts the organization that had been responsible for the strangeness in his hometown. This detracts from the effectiveness of both endings.
However, The World’s End is still an excellent show of British talent and I’m sure if Hot Fuzz had never been made, I would think much more charitably of it. Gary’s individuality and recklessness is treated as neither completely admirable nor condemnable. Under the slapstick is a very careful, non-saccharine examination of the nature of friendships and of auld lang syne. This is bittersweet well-done.
Leave a Reply