August 12th, 2013
MEOW!
Director: Ryan Coogler
Writer: Ryan Coogler
Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Octavia Spencer, Melonie Diaz
Rating: 9.5/10
The Good: Wow. I mean...Holy Moses. Writing that it's so far one of the year's best films would honestly sound like faint praise. How Coogler presents Oscar Grant's story feels extraordinary yet real: there's a consistently authentic and believable tone, absolutely phenomenal performances from the entire ensemble, and a final act that will leave many heartbroken and spellbound simultaneously. So far, it's one of the most rewarding cinematic experiences I've had this year.
The Bad: As much as I believe it's one of the best films of the year so far, I wouldn't watch it casually unlike other films of great artistic ambition. However, if a couple of my friends asked if I wanted to watch it with them, I would certainly watch it again.
The Ugly: None.
THE EVALUATION:
Every once in a while, you come across a film with one scene that takes you back to a memory, whether it is good, bad, or incredibly personal. In the case of one scene in Fruitvale Station's extraordinary and heartbreaking final act, it brought me back to an evening that has remained in my heart to this day. It revolves around a man who, throughout most of my existence, taught me to find humanity in everyone that I meet, which is the main theme surrounding what I consider to be one of the most rewarding cinematic experiences I've ever had at the movies.
Written below is that memory...
On the evening of November 11th, 2011, I was waiting with my mother, sister, a few of my relatives and my former church pastor in a room at Rockville Hospital, praying that my father, Joseph Michael Connolly, would get better as the hours slowly pass us by. As 11:11 came around--the time when everyone would be making a wish on 11/11/11--there was nothing that we would've wished for more than for Dad to get better just in time for the holidays. Within the early morning hours of November 12th, despite praying as hard as we could, he never made it through the night. Although I didn't know what to feel at the time, I witnessed everyone around me bawling over the loss of someone that made an astonishing impact in their lives (It wasn't until late into the night of November 13th when I was crying in my bedroom; I was thinking heavily about the last number in You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown--the last production that my father was partially responsible for--and how it was exceptionally performed by veterans of the East Hartford Summer Youth Festival. It was an emotionally draining weekend that eventually led me to what I now perceive life to be, and all it took was a little happiness to figure that out...)
With the exception of a few differences (my father died around 2 A.M. in the morning while Oscar Grant died a little after sunrise), what is depicted near the end of Fruitvale Station is ninety-eight percent similar to what everyone was going through the night my father passed away. The waiting? Same. The feeling of eternity is successfully captured despite everyone in the audience knowing the outcome within the first minute. The praying? Same. What is being said are almost the exact words that we prayed for my father that night. The pain? Same. Some don't express it as much as others, while it's obvious everyone feels it inside their broken hearts. There are no sugar-coated moments, no melodramatic cheese, no performance that feels flashy or forced, no overly emotional score that demands you to feel the correct emotions--just a few members of his family and a couple of his friends doing everything they could for the person that they love to get better, until they receive the news that would inevitably send them into a prolonged state of grief. There's no doubt that I've been where they've been; it's the most authentic account I've ever seen of keeping the faith alive, only to eventually be shot in the chest by reality's worst nightmare.
As for the rest of the film, if there ever was something to successfully raise its voice on equality, Fruitvale Station has raised its own on a universal scale. Whether everything presented is one-hundred percent accurate remains to be entirely known (it probably isn't. Nowadays, it's the amount of believability, dedication and respect you give to its subject matter that...well...matters). What I can open up to is that Coogler presents Oscar in a manner where it allows many to feel as if he's the equivalent to one of their own, which makes the message of equality all the more strong-hearted. As much as Oscar is yearning to do good for the rest of his life, he still has anger issues that he's attempting to control, he tries to recover from getting fired after making too many mistakes, and he has inner demons that force him to think about his own troubled past. All of that certainly sounds like cliches that were taken from past true stories, but the details Coogler provides in Oscar's tale make all the difference in the world. Some include when Oscar is picking up his daughter at school, when he and his family are at his mother's house for her birthday party, and especially any moment during the final act. It's a testament to Coogler's eye for detail as both a writer and director; we're able to open ourselves up to Grant as if we knew him like one of our own.
It's also a testament to the outstanding ensemble cast, where everyone involved supports the believable and realistic tone Coogler is going for. There are two stand-outs that instantly come to mind: I enjoyed Michael B. Jordan's performance greatly in the under-appreciated Chronicle, but with this film, his performance will leave one blown away. He not only gives the performance of his career so far, but he also gives one of the most natural performances I've ever seen in a film. He treats Oscar with the utmost respect in every scene he's in, and leaves an exceptional impression once the final act is over. If the word 'justice' was in my movies + entertainment dictionary, it would be followed by "Michael B. Jordan will receive a nomination and possibly win come Oscar time" as one of the definitions. Then there's Octavia Spencer as Oscar's mother Wanda, who is partially responsible for gracefully bringing me back to that night almost a couple of years ago. If another definition was to link with the word 'justice,' it would be "Octavia Spencer will win another Oscar. The end." The amount of heartbreak that is expressed on her face when she sees her son dead in the emergency room will have people feeling emotional and spellbound simultaneously. It's a masterful performance that is, without question, the best performance of the year so far, and one of the best performances within the past decade.
As exceptional as Fruitvale Station is, and while I believe it's one of the most rewarding cinematic experiences I've had in years, I'll admit that it's not a film I would watch casually; it's the equivalent of someone you hold close to your heart being taken away from you much too soon (I'm not sure how my mother would handle the final act, especially since Wanda's reaction to her son passing away is as similar to hers when my father died). That being said, if a couple of my friends hadn't seen it yet, and asked if I wanted to watch it with them, I'd certainly watch it again without any reservations. That way, as soon as the credits have officially reached their end, I'd strike up a conversation about how my father was able to make more than sixteen years of my life one extraordinary journey. And perhaps, after watching it for the first time, they will be able to share their past experiences about someone who had changed their lives for the better as well. Who knows?
Yeah...who really knows, anyway?
THE VERDICT
A life is filled with many stories that are worth sharing to others. Fruitvale Station is, of all things, a story, and this particular story--no matter how tragic the outcome is at the end--could help others cope with their own personal losses if they are open to reminiscing about them. Then they'd come to realize that, while life is a road of occasional anger and sadness, it can also be a road of occasional hope and understanding as well. For my money, there's no greater lesson in life than that. This is a film that deserves to be seen, and in my opinion, it deserves to be one of the year's best films.
R.I.P. Oscar Grant. And as always, R.I.P. Joseph Michael Connolly.
Until next time,
MEOW!
August 4th, 2013
MEOW!
I am a sucker for any coming-of-age story set in the summertime, because while there is the inevitable heartache as summer reaches its end, any positive memory that you make has a lasting power for the rest of your life. None of that can be more evident when I'm with the East Hartford Summer Youth Festival. I know, some of you who read my posts have heard it time and time again, but oh, the stories I can tell surrounding my adventures with some involved. I can talk in detail about those who made my first summer as an EHSYF member one for the ages, or I could talk about the events that occurred before and during the midnight screening of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows--Part Two. Those stories I could tell--and I assure you that this next comment is not of arrogance but of genuine honesty--would probably be more exciting, heartfelt and realistic than anything I saw in The Way, Way Back, a cliched, shallow and unbelievably unlikable coming-of-age story that has a ton of electrons and a shortage of protons.
Let's see if you've heard this concept a-ways back, shall we? A depressed teenager (Liam James) heads to an unknown setting for the summer with his family. His jerk of a step-father (Steve Carell) is all "you know what you are, son? A three out of ten, which is close to the score of some reviewer's opinion on the film that we're coincidentally in." His loving but inattentive mother (Toni Collette) is all "you should get out of the house and get to know where you'll be living for the summer. As Charles Muntz says, 'adventure is out there!'" His witch of a sister (Zoe Levin) reluctantly takes him to the beach, and is all "Ugh. You're such a loser. Why can't you be a snot like me and everyone else in this stereotypical-to-the-point-of-unrealistic universe? Hmph." Then Sylvia, the owner of what used to be a honky-tonk, is all "you know what you need, Jim? A new wife. Or a dog."
Wait a suede...that's not in the film; that's me still recovering from All Shook Up withdrawal. Well, it would be more interesting than what we have here.
{Side-note: There are ton of overt EHSYF references in this film, especially when the Water Wizz-ard (Sam Rockwell) references "Holding Out For A Hero" from Footloose.}
But I digress. The depressed teenager finds sanctuary with two people. One is a blonde soul surfer (AnnaSophia Robb, who was charming in Bridge to Terabithia but insultingly wasted here) who is all "you know, I relate to you. I'm going to fall in love with you as I'm supposed to in a contrived and predictable manner." Then there is the Water-Wizzard, who is all "Son, I'm going to take you under my wing just like what Drillbit Taylor did with those three high schoolers. Please tell me you know the reference to the film I made just now. No? Well...um....c'mon kid, I'll show you around." As the depressed teenager is taken under the Water-Wizzard's wing, he finally figures out what his purpose in the world is. Spoiler alert: Unlike Hugo Cabret, he doesn't come across the great George Meiles for guidance.
If the word 'shallow' was in a "movies + entertainment dictionary" created by yours truly, it would eventually be followed by "literally see The Way, Way Back." The characters in this script behave as either contrived plot devices (the blonde Soul Surfer), jarring caricatures (the Water-Wizzard), or one-dimensional stereotypes (the depressed teenager...oh-ho-ho, we shall get to him in a minute) with little to no depth whatsoever, and all of them are contained in an environment that is inappropriate for their stories to be told. If this was a hyper-realistic animated film created by a studio like PIXAR, I can see their stories being told predictably but appropriately well. Yet, this is a live-action film that aspires to be raw and believable throughout the entirety of its running time, and as is, it plays out like something that would be more suited as episodes for television, whether it is a sit-com on Comedy Central, or a nighttime drama on FOX. Either way, I wouldn't give a half-an-hour of my time for characters that are either shallow or confusingly unlikable.
Ah yes, another word to add to my dictionary: unlikable. Along with the surprisingly mean-spirited Pitch Perfect, this film is populated with characters that I personally couldn't stand once I had officially reached the fifteen-minute mark. I could go on about the jerk of a step-father, or even the witch of a sister, but no, I'm here to discuss about our main character: the depressed teenager. Wow...just...wow. In my opinion, I found him to be one of the most unintentionally unlikable protagonists ever to be committed on paper. What's worse? I understand his pain. His biological father left the family in order to hook up with another woman. That's an incredibly difficult thing to deal with, and I would be surprised if people tried to find happiness in under a couple of weeks. But what do we get instead of him trying to find happiness with what he already has? We get him whining about "Ugh, I wanna be with Dad. Waaaah" while he sings about he "can't fight this feeling anymore (which is such an overused song to the point that it was actually used before the end credits of Horton Hears A Who!)" and sneaks away to a water park without his mother's permission in order to avoid the one who gave birth to him.
And this is where I kind of get a little R-rated....
R. YOU. F---IN'. KIDDING. ME?
First of all, I know his mother is not the most well-written of characters, but at least she tries to find happiness in her life. Even when she's with the jerk of a step-father, and sometimes ignores her son constantly, she moves on like a mature, responsible adult should, even if it can lead her down a bitter, conflicted path occasionally. Her son...not even close. He always tries to find a way out of the predicament instead of coping with a difficult situation. If he actually learned what his mother was going through, and maybe watched a couple of flicks that showed him how precious life can be, then maybe it could allow him to come of age in that direction rather than the one he goes through in this film. Nope, he NEVER sees through her eyes at any point in this film, which is one of the worst traits that can ever be given to not only a character, but an actual human being, which is EXACTLY WHAT HE IS BEING PORTRAYED AS IN THE SCRIPT. And the ending....oh my god. Don't get me started on the ending. It ends on such a smug note that I almost wanted to rip my hair out and become bald like Daddy Warbucks. Characters like him frustrate the dickens out of me because the script is saying "see, he has troubles. He has problems that any teen can relate to. YOU SEE?" NO, SCRIPT. I DON'T SEE YOUR PRETENTIOUS REASONINGS. Real problems are something like having your father pass away, and trying to cope with your heartbroken mother and sibling. Yet, with every day that a heart breaks, there is always a day where the heart aches with joy. Oh, he finds joy alright, but he finds it in the most despicable way possible: betraying your broken family and fixing it by saying "HA! I'M ALWAYS RIGHT!" No kid, you're not always right. You have wrongs as well. But hey, I guess you're too ignorant to see that, eh? You know what? I'm done with you for now, but I will have more for you when I announce my least favorite films of 2013. Until then, I'll see you later, you selfish fishbowl of unholy shallowness. Say hi to Bella Swan for me, will ya?
2013 in film hasn't been an excellent year for film (films like Man of Steel and Spring Breakers are one-of-a-kind exceptions), but there hasn't been a film that managed to make me feel genuinely angry than The Way, Way Back. The more I think about it, the more sour both the film and I become. There is no creativity in its filmmaking or screenwriting, no passion from any of the actors involved, and no depth given to any of the characters, especially when talking about that selfish fishbowl of unholy shallowness himself. It personally affected me in the wrong way as a film-lover and a person overall. You want realism? Go watch Before Midnight. You want an absolutely wonderful coming-of-age story? Please, please, pleeeeeeease try to find The Perks of Being A Wallflower. And you want to hear a good story about my adventures with EHSYF? I'll be happy to write one and save you a few bucks. You want to see a good film? In my opinion, this is not it. The Way, Way Back is, sadly, my least favorite film of the year so far, and unlike its title and despicable main character, I intend to keep moving forward and try to find meaning in everyone I can possibly meet.
My overall rating: three out of ten. YOU LOSE. GOOD DAY, SIR!
Until next time,
MEOW!
