watched films

Friends With Benefits

When I first witnessed the trailer for the unambiguously titled Friends With Benefits, I thought they had remade No Strings Attached, a movie released not one year before now, with actors the same age, and a pretty similar exactly the same premise. Luckily, before I gave up on film as an entertainment form forever, I was told that this was just one of those crazy Hollywood coincidences where you have a super original script that someone else just happens to come up with as well. Okay, so I’m not blowing anybody’s mind with the ‘Hollywood has a formula!’ thing, and actually, accepting that collective wisdom is the biggest hurdle to enjoying this film. In other words, if you’re willing to accept that the romantic comedy genre is alive, kicking, and here to stay, it’s not too difficult to come out of this one feeling satisfied, and even a little refreshed.

LA-based Dylan (Justin Timberlake) is head hunted by NY gal (sorry) Jamie (Mila Kunis) for a big time job at GQ magazine (nice work making me reconsider the slick-ness of this publication. Not that I gave it much thought before. Still, effective product placement. I digress.) and they hit it off! As friends. As friends who bond partly because they’ve both had a shit of a love life so far, due to respective flaws - one is ‘damaged’ and one is ‘emotionally unavailable’…guess which is which. I know I claimed to have set my cynical preoccupation with ‘formula’ behind for this movie, but I just couldn’t help being irritated by these blatant gender stereotypes. Moving on. We see them hatch an ingenious plan to alter their relationship slightly, that is, keeping the friend part, adding the casual sex part. What could go wrong? At first, not much. The audience is treated to some quick witted, stylish, and genuinely funny exchanges (sexual and otherwise) between the two impressive leads, whose performances have enough charisma to carry their sometimes trite dialogue. Indeed, this palatable form continues even as things do start to unravel with the pair’s arrangement. Welcome support roles come from Patricia Clarkson as Jamie’s mum, charming her way through the ‘sexually liberated, spirited modern mother’ role, and Richard Jenkins giving a moving performance as Dylan’s father with early-onset Alzheimer’s.

The narrative continues through tried and true rom-com territory, with little or no surprises, but I was still perfectly content to be along for the ride. The movie is almost never cringeworthy or difficult to watch, and even though its continuous self-referential genre satire falls a little flat with each new silly Hollywood cliche that appears in this film, a playful tone and snappy pace prevent the film from meandering in any unwanted schmaltz. On the whole, gratifying chemistry between Timberlake and Kunis delivers this film from the all too common love story flat-line.

Better than this film: NOT No Strings Attached. See this instead.

Water for Elephants

I found this one a little hard to put my finger on. When people asked me how it was, I responded with a weak and indecisive, “yeah, it was good, I enjoyed watching it.” I guess this sums up the movie in some way - it was perfectly watchable, nicely played out, and the atmosphere was well created…but there was just something missing.

After a family tragedy, vet student Jacob (Edward Cul—no sorry, Robert Pattinson) runs away and ends up joining the Benzini Bros circus. There he takes up a job treating the circus animals and encounters a colourful cast of clowns, dancers, and other workers. But of course it is Marlena (Reese Witherspoon) who really catches his eye. The budding romance is marred by the fact that Marlena is married to the despotic circus ring leader, August (Christopher Waltz).

I remember absolutely loving Sara Gruen’s book a few years back, and although the movie did an admirable job of adapting the book faithfully to the screen with the help of some nice production design, I feel that a lot of the magic was lost in that transition. The three leading actors - Pattinson, Witherspoon, Waltz - perfectly portrayed their characters individually (Waltz in particular was gripping as the volatile ring leader). However, when it came to their interactions with each other, there was a disconnect. Especially between Witherspoon and Pattinson, I noticed a lack of chemistry, and the film suffers as a result. 

There are plenty of charming and authentic moments provided by a jaunty supporting cast of circus workers, and of course by Rosie, the punchy Polish pachyderm (hey alliteration!) who is supposed to elevate Benzini Bros circus to true greatness, and overtake the pesky Ringling Bros. There are also genuinely tense moments thanks to the aforementioned great performance by Christopher Waltz. These are the moments that help us to invest ourselves in the fate of this chaotic circus and make this film an enjoyable viewing experience, but this collection of scenes aren’t able to fully save the movie. It floats somewhere around the middle of the road, never reaching “bad” or “great” but merely settling for “good.” And that’s fine, for an adequately entertaining couple of hours.

Better than this movie: maybe having a nice big dinner (I settled for about a tonne of popcorn and litre of coke as a meal)

The Holiday

I really have to put it bluntly: The Holiday was just excruciating. I don’t have much more to say about this movie that doesn’t wordily elaborate on that simple point. Also, the fact that it came out a few years ago to a luke-warm critical reception makes the inclusion of it on my blog as the second-ever review I’ve done is pretty embarrassing. I’ll keep this short.

L.A based Amanda (Cameron Diaz) needs a holiday and enlists in a house-swap for two weeks with Surrey based Iris (Kate Winslet). Both have recently endured man trouble and need to get away for the Christmas period for some self-reflection and girl power woman time. But - oops! - both become almost immediately entangled in male flirtation, and romantic complications ensue. Who knows what will happen next?! Everyone who has ever seen a movie ever? Okay.

Look, I’m not an entertainment snob. I can sit through any given episode of Glee (not proud, and quitting this bad habit - but that’s another a kettle o’ fish), but I actually had to watch this movie in instalments. I thought the first 15 minutes were going to be where me and this abomination parted company forever. Alas, boredom, and lots of it, meant that I watched snippets throughout a day of procrastination.

Because it’s late, and in interest of honouring the words in the first paragraph about keeping this short, I’m just going to list the 3 main things that sucked about this movie.

1. Cameron Diaz. I’m sorry. Really, she is what turned me off at the very beginning. She overacted to the point of me worrying that she’d give herself a hernia. She was either gratingly hysterical, or vacant and emotionless.

2. The dialogue. Everything was overwrought, contrived, and embarrassing. I couldn’t immerse myself in the story, because the things coming out of the mouths of the characters were mostly so jarringly silly or earnest I just couldn’t take any of it seriously.

3. The length. A pretty standard, if slightly above-average, 2 hours and 15 minutes, felt a lot more and had me seriously regretting that time in my life that I would never get back. I mean people often say that about bad movies, that it was hours wasted, but this was one of the first instances in which I actually thought wistfully about that amount of time and how much better I could have used it.

And because now I feel like a miser, I’ll allow a few positive points:

- Amanda’s house in L.A is pretty cool

- The plot whereby Iris meets and befriends an elderly former Hollywood scriptwriter is sort of touching and genuine.

- Maybe Jack Black is okay in this. But only because he has worked for years to allow the world to accept that he is always going to act like Jack Black, and it’s not really hurting anybody.

That’s it! A bit longer than I thought. Shout out to my friend Mera who recommended this movie. Sorry for tearing it to pieces.

Better than this movie: I could go all hyperbole and say something like “forking myself in the eyeball” but I’m going to try and keep these little post-scripts reasonable and say, “doing the dishes, cleaning the toilet, and taking out the trash.”

Something Borrrowed

An embarrassing confession to get out of the way quickly: I sought out and downloaded this movie solely because of John Krasinski’s presence on the cast list.

While the fact that my love for Jim Halpert of The Office has led me into the murky waters of watching mediocre romantic comedies by myself at 2am is indeed worrying and more befitting of a 13 year old than a woman of 21, he was undeniably the best part of this movie. Critics agree - I checked. But this is my blog so I’m not just going to rest on what others say. Let’s rewind, I think reviews generally tend to introduce the plot.

Something Borrowed is the heartwarming tale of Rachel (Ginnifer Goodwin), who, in the second scene of the movie, hooks up with her best friend Darcy’s (Kate Hudson) fiancé Dex (Colin Egglesfield [?]). Oh no! But it’s okay, because within the first 5 minutes, we know that Darcy is an attention whore who doesn’t deserve a faithful husband, and with the help of a few nifty flashbacks post-hookup, we know that Rachel and Dex are perfect for eachother by virtue of a law school flirtation 6 years prior. Right. What follows is a painful and nothingy love tangle (not triangle, hint) set against New York City and the Hamptons in tandem, thankfully punctuated by Krasinski’s sarcastic and sharp-witted Ethan, the best friend figure for pathetic Rachel.

As the film progresses with Rachel moping, Dex moping, Darcy being shrill and unreasonable, and Ethan imploring Rachel to, effectively, ‘grow a pair,’ the film makers are prodding us to ask: gee, will Dex and Rachel find the courage to be together and slip out from under Darcy’s tyrannical rule? My answer prior to the half way mark was: I don’t know, yes, probably, who cares.

Sure, the film is a tad formulaic and perhaps predictable, and yes, the people and places are all too shiny and pretty…but these expected tenets of a romantic comedy don’t necessarily spell failure. For me, Something Borrowed is let down by lead characters who are thoroughly unlikeable. In Darcy’s case, this is forced and deliberate - a way to make Dex’s infidelity with Rachel seem justifiable and allow us to see their union as romantic. But the problem is that Dex and Rachel both come across as spineless and vapid, without any mutual chemistry. Unlike what the film hopes for, you aren’t rooting for them.

In the end, this is an empty, messy, mash up of stock standard rom-com lines, underdeveloped caricatures, and a few good, but wasted, jokes (guess who from!). I will say that it wasn’t totally painful to watch, with an attempt at bringing some complexity into the standard romantic comedy trajectory, however, it definitely fell short of achieving any level of depth that would salvage it from the mediocrity it’s mired in.

Better than this movie: Getting that extra two hours of sleep.