An Education (09 Scherfig C-)

Films like An Education exist to remind us how spoiled Mad Men has made us.

Here we have a film set in England the early 60's, on the cusp of various youth-driven revolutions; where the old guard barely held back a wall of social, sexual and cultural liberation that we recognize is only a few years away from busting through. Furthermore it's a film swathed in lovingly recreated period detail. Every costume, automobile and strand of hair feels picture perfect, evoking a time where the beautiful people seemed to radiate casual glamour. The film would seem to do for swooning Anglophiles what the gang at Sterling Cooper does for their American cousins every week.

Yet for all it superficially gets right, An Education falters in breathing energy and passion into what is ostensibly a swirling, turbulent affair at its center, or for that matter placing it in a larger social context. It is first and foremost a museum piece, safely tucked away behind glass with all those pesky emotions neatly compartmentalized. Aggressively middlebrow and ultimately cowardly in its revisionism, the film never transcends mere nostalgia for the era, only finding reason for existence in the chaste nuzzling between anointed star in the making Carey Mulligan and Peter Sarsgaard as her older, morally compromised lover.

Based on a memoir by British journalist Lynn Barber, Mulligan stars as Jenny a 16-year-old school girl destined for higher learning at Oxford at the gentle yet firm prodding of her middle class parents (Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour). A bright student frustrated that her appreciation of the arts and culture is to be limited to one of cello lessons and stuffy school recitals, Jenny is understandably smitten with David (Sarsgaard), an older, well-travelled man in a sports car who she meets while waiting on a bus in the rain. David says all the right things and has glamorous friends and exotic interests. He quickly seduces not only Jenny but her initially weary parents, who come to see him as a shortcut for their daughter into affluence and high society.

Yet all is not quite what it seems. As David sweeps her off her feet, whisking her away to night clubs and trips to Paris (much to the consternation of the teachers and administrators at her school, here embodied by Olivia Williams and Emma Thompson) he keeps much to himself like where he actually lives and how exactly he makes his money. Could this dashing man, who's shown to be an especially gifted liar, be misleading the naive young girl who has fallen hopeless in love with him? Or for that matter, is there any way the film's title is not meant to be taken in a forehead-slapping ironic way?

An Education was adapted by British novelist Nick Hornby (High Fidelity, About a Boy) whose works are often defined by a knowing specificity of pop culture and the ways in which it defines his characters, a specificity that's distractingly absent here. Jenny frequently extols the exciting films and music she's experiencing, yet the film remains oddly noncommittal in embracing the politics and culture of the era. Instead the film offers up a shrug and offhand dismissal in response to the civil unrest of the time, while discretely name checking classical music as an example of how a teenage girl chooses to cut loose.

The only thing that seems to excite the film and its characters are the post World War II London costumes and art direction, rendering the film as antiseptic and detached as an episode of Masterpiece Theater. Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig (Italian for Beginners) beautifully frames Ms. Mulligan in puppy dog sweet tableaus while nestled in the arms of Sarsgaard, dolling her up to resemble Audrey Hepburn in the flesh (a visual echo that has lead some misguided male critics to equate their talent). Yet both Jenny's passion and disappointment are strictly of the stiff upper lip variety. Mulligan feels like a passive voyager on this journey, whisked along by the events of her life, alternating between wide-eyed wonder and stunned sadness. The actress never really sells the giddy excitement of being fawned over by a wealthy older man nor the sense of betrayal at uncovering the truth about the life that he's kept from her.

Yet it's ultimately the audience that suffers the greatest betrayal. The film feels confused as to how much of a feminist statement it's willing to make about what it means to be a self-sufficient woman of the world. In the end, the film rewards Jenny for her fickleness and the abandonment of her dreams with nary a hint of lasting consequence. In essence, An Education ends up embracing the patronizing mentality it seemingly sets out to dispel. Ultimately the film is comfort food for The Reader crowd where all that matters is that everyone feels like they've comes away having learned an important life lesson for their troubles. So why is it I'm the one who feels like I've just had a ruler whacked across my knuckles?

Zombieland (09 Fleischer C-)

Republished at Gone Cinema Poaching



How much empathy should I have for Jesse Eisenberg at this point? Lanky, mop-topped and stammering his way into girl's pants, the actor has turned into the Michael Cera of the indie world, delivering variations on the same performance for the better part of the past decade. Introduced in 2002's Roger Dodger as the naive foil to Campbell Scott's motormouthed cad, Eisenberg creatively peaked with 2005's The Squid & the Whale which is still on the Mount Rushmore of myopic, self-involved behavior films.

But them returns be diminishing, calcifying with this spring's wet dream of mid-80's apathy and longing Adventureland and having finally spoiled with the similarly titled Zombieland opening this weekend. Now in his mid-20's, Eisenberg is once again coming of age, here chasing after that elusive girl who "gets" him while simultaneously pushing him away. In Adventureland he had to compete against a Lou Reed quoting Ryan Reynolds; I'm not sure whether the zombie apocalypse is considered an improvement.

Brightly lit, cheerfully violent and never afraid to run a joke into the ground, the brisk Zombieland gives us the neurotic and allegedly virginal Eisenberg as an unlikely survivor of an outbreak which has rendered the entire population of the country undead brain-eaters and littered our highways and byways with abandoned vehicles, downed airplanes and gutted corpses. But persevere Eisenberg has, surviving due to the anal retentive rules he's followed and his lack of human attachment. And we know this, because we're told this. Repeatedly.

A few weeks back Steven Soderbergh's The Informant! was tickling a certain segment of film fans who've long loathed the convention of voice over narration as an exposition device. Digressive, meandering and usually disruptive to the story it was ostensibly telling, the narration in The Informant! found Matt Damon's character expounding on any number of deep thoughts ranging from the hunting techniques of polar bears to tie patterns. It was as though it were thumbing its nose at the lazy habit of piping in a character's explanation of what they're feeling in relation to what's going on in the story or even what's happening on screen at that very moment, like the world's worst DVD commentary.

Which is exactly what Zombieland does, wallpapering over all the gaps in logic, story and character development inherent in writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick's screenplay. Eisenberg's droning monotone, often vocalizing things we're seeing on screen in LARGE TEXT, is as omnipresent as all the 80's ironic rock chestnuts on the soundtrack. Watching Zombieland is like having someone sit behind you, reading aloud from the film's official novelization while you watch it.

But here I am talking about voice over and a drippy protagonist when there's zombie killing to discuss. Where is my head?

Picking up the hyper-agressive torch thrown down by Zach Snyder's widely liked (although not by me) Dawn of the Dead remake, Zombieland depicts a world where killing zombies stems less from a need to survive and more out of boredom. A place where our band of heroes--which also includes Woody Harrelson as an ammunition-loving redneck in the ass kicking business (and as the film proudly proclaims, "business is good") Superbad's Emma Stone as our smokey-voiced love interest and Abigail Breslin wearing out that precocious stage of her career--often lobby for coveted "Zombie Kill of the Week" a stat that's still apparently documented and spread throughout the land despite the fact that all other forms of civilization have ceased. No kill is too grotesque or too creative, no witty bon mot delivered after the fact too glib. The entire cast seems to be preening for our amusement, investing little into their own story as better to make wisecracks while mowing down waves of the undead.


Zombieland has drawn comparisons to the other comedic zombie film of the past decade, Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead, but the gives the former far too much credit and makes the latter seem criminally slight. Missing here is Shaun's restlessness and waves of empathy that gave dignity to its characters even as they battled zombies by flinging Prince records at them. There's no one likable here; real emotions are footnotes and punctuation to stoner gags and already dated pop culture references (at one point Eisenberg's character says the best thing about the end of the world is no more Facebook updates, making his casting in the upcoming David Fincher film, The Social Network, either inspired or terrible timing).

Everyone here is doing shtick and first time director Ruben Fleischer encourages his cast to play it to the rafters as though that's the only way they'll stand out amongst his more garish filmmaking flourishes (ie: lots of sloooooow mo). Even when the film does stumble into gold, it has no idea what to do with it. At one point our survivors hole up in the "abandoned" home of a Hollywood celebrity only to find that the place isn't quite as empty as they'd thought (ruining this surprise cameo has turned into a sport on the net, but I'll obviously refrain). Yet the film can't be bothered to actually find something interesting to do with the scenario, making lame art deco jokes and mostly standing around as star-struck as its characters.

One doesn't go into these films looking for logic but the absence of consequence in the face of near-certain death is especially grating. This is how we end up with a detour to an abandoned amusement park where the characters are shocked (SHOCKED) that the noise and lights of the park might draw unwanted attention. If our characters can't even be bothered to care about their survival, then why the hell should we?

But what do you expect from a film that makes the threat of being torn limb from limb secondary to whether or not our hero is able to overcome his anxiety and convince the only of-age female in the Western Hemisphere to make out with him? It's been pointed out to me that while I've seen this routine from Eisenberg several times now, Zombieland represents his most public of offerings. This means after Zombieland he has potentially millions of new people who can be irritated three films hence. See you when you get there.

A Serious Man (09 Coens B+)

Republished at Gone Cinema Poaching.

Set in the mid 60's in a closely-knit, Jewish community in Minnesota, A Serious Man, the new film from Joel and Ethan Coen is being called their most nakedly personal film ("...their smart-alecky nihilism feels authentic rather than arch — you understand, maybe for the first time, where they are coming from" deduces A.O. Scott of the New York Times), a scenario bolstered by the filmmakers claim that the movie was inspired by their own experiences growing up in the Midwest. I'm not sure I'm buying it though. Like the "inspired by true events" title card placed in front of their last Minnesota-set film, the comparatively propulsive Fargo, I wouldn't put it past the puckish directors to be pulling another one over on us.

Here we have a film about the search for larger meaning, or more directly, straight-up answers in the face of the unexplainable. Why are we beset with miseries? Why is life so hard? Are there larger implications to the signs and symbols we see every day?

Yet for all the probing, the film resolutely withholds answers or flat out mocks the idea that anyone, even the most learned or devout, actually is within flailing distance of them. It's as though the Coens know we'll never stop looking for meaning or clues to unlock their own occasionally impenetrable work, with A Serious Man serving as a good natured raspberry to those foolish enough to lead the charge and do anything but "embrace the mystery."

Or is it misery? The actual quote is delivered by a disgruntled Korean student in clipped English to beleaguered physics professor Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) after half-heartedly denying his role in a bribe for grades scheme. Larry isn't sure he comprehends the expression and neither did I, but if it is indeed an auditory mistake, it's an understandable one. Over the course of a few weeks leading up to his son's Bar Mitzvah, we find Larry standing in for Job, as misfortune is rained down upon him.

A decent man (which could have served as an alternate title to the film) besieged by temptation in the form of the aforementioned bribe and the lonely housewife next door who sunbathes in the nude (photographed in a long, unblinking shot that somehow saps the image of all eroticism), Larry stays the path, searching out celestial answers to all that ails him. And does he have troubles: His wife is leaving him for the touchy-feely Sy Ableman (the unctuous Fred Melamend in a performance that would be legendary were he given but a bit more screen time) forcing him to stay at the oft-repeated Jolly Roger motel and someone has been trying to put the hex on his tenure application by sending anonymous, character-disparaging letters to the administration. His repulsive brother Arthur (Richard Kind) is an emotional and financial drain (it can't be a coincidence the character spends the entire film literally sucking pus from a cyst on the back of his neck) and his kids have little use for him beyond pilfering money from his wallet or nagging him to fix the TV antenna.

It's a life of a thousand, small indignities and Larry's desperate to find out why must they all happen to him. But getting a straight answer isn't in the cards as he jumps from rabbi to rabbi in search of guidance that's either useless, oblique or dangled just out of reach.

The film more or less follows suit: placing you in the same, always questioning, unable to locate your bearing, position as Larry. A Serious Man feels like a continuation of the famously divisive, final scene of No Country for Old Men, where we're left dangling in the wind as to what it all means. If No Country prided itself on concluding with an anti-climax, here's a film which scene by scene, nay beat by beat, is about deflating expectations often after much flurry and fluster.

In the film's best sequence, we see an extended anecdote about a Jewish dentist who discovers a message in Hebrew on the back of a patient's teeth and the great lengths he goes to to uncover their meaning. Employing every trick and knack in their playbook, the Coens breathlessly assemble the sequence like a comedian delivering a well-polished routine, stretching out its resolution to a near exasperating breaking point. To reveal any more would defeat the purpose of the scene but in a nutshell it serves to not only extrapolate the themes of the film but to serve as a reminder that often when it comes to faith, we really are in it for ourselves.

After I saw the film I knew I liked it but had a hard time pinpointing why and how much. I had trouble shaking my disorientation, as though my head were swimming and I was walking on an icy sidewalk. In the moment, A Serious Man often feels disconnected, like a bunch of assembled pieces operating separate from everything else around them. Characters and plot points are abruptly pushed off screen to make room for new ones which are no more likely to get their propers. It really does at times feel like one thing after another.

Yet appropriately, after some quiet reflection, the films intentions feel more clear to me. The experience not necessarily understood but certainly appreciated. A Serious Man handles largish ideas such as a divine plan, guilt and the idea of the Jews as, if not God's chosen people, than certainly one of his favorite targets ("just because the boss is wrong doesn't mean he's not the boss") and places them within a mundane, suburban context. The characters aren't motivated by greed or delusions of grandeur (which often go hand-in-hand in Coen brothers films). These events are merely brought upon them simply by existing (in a motif which skirts the line of being a Gump-ism, the film uses the Columbia Record Club as a metaphor for life: you do nothing and it keeps coming every month).

The film is both incredibly off-putting and enveloping. It keeps you at arm's length with its reliance on ellipses in lieu of actual resolution, yet ultimately it feels empathetic to the fact that we are all searching. And while A Serious Man might argue we're never going to find what we're looking for, at least it concedes we're all on the same road.