A Tormented Farce
September 17, 2015
Irrational Man (2015).
D/W: Woody Allen. DP: Darius Khondji. Starring: Joaquin Phoenix/Emma Stone/Parker Posey/Ethan Philips/Betsy Aidem/Jamie Blackley.
Many a critic will say or have said that Woody Allen has lost his touch. Many will endeavor to claim that he never had ‘a touch.’ Regardless where you lie on that spectrum, based on Irrational Man it is safe to say whatever he did or did not have had he certainly has lost now.
The film follows pot-bellied half-drunk slop of a philosophy professor, Abe (Phoenix), as he arrives to teach a summer session at a fictional liberal arts college. He soon befriends chemistry professor Rita (Posey) as well as student Jill (Stone). Through the first half of the film philosophical debates paired with silly love trysts bring the characters to the existential question of murder. Frankly, I think my plot description is better written than this film.
This is Allen’s follow up and reunion with Stone who was the lead in his last film, Magic in the Moonlight, but it is borderline unbearable. Both Jill and Abe provide needless voice-over to the entire story, even describing action that just occurred. Irrational Man functions more as a live reading of a book than a film or maybe something Allen wrote in a scotch induced rant when he wanted to write a novel. At a certain point you must relinquish to the silly.
Allen has given up casting himself as the messy male protagonist who dates women half or more his age. Here he gives us Phoenix in a boring forgettable role, sad as I thought he was fabulous in Inherent Vice. Phoenix lacks chemistry with Stone though you can tell they are trying their best. But Stone’s Jill is an infuriating young woman who in the same conversation flatters Abe for ordering for her yet then wants to assert her own opinions. Stone’s performance in Birdman will probably be her best for awhile based on these choices. And even as much as I like Parker Posey she can’t do much here.
Filmed entirely in Rhode Island, Irrational Man‘s setting is gorgeous. The campus used looks quintessentially American New England liberal arts elite with enough greenery to make you salivate. Some scenes on the shore help to distract from the pomposity of the characters discussion, but they cannot save the film. By the end Irrational Man is a laugh, a farce and another installment in the bad Allen in the vaults of cinematic history.
Whispering Little Nothings & Somethings In Our Ears
March 22, 2015
Inherent Vice (2014).
D/W: Paul Thomas Anderson. DP: Robert Elswit. Starring: Joaquin Phoenix/Josh Brolin/Katherine Waterston/Benicio Del Toro/Eric Roberts/Owen Wilson/Jena Malone/Serena Scott Thomas/Joanna Newsom/Maya Rudolph/Reese Witherspoon. (Based on Thomas Pynchon’s novel of the same name)
Maybe it’s because I love to read detective fiction? Maybe it’s because I used to live in LA? Maybe it’s because I find Joaquin Phoenix an anomaly no matter what he does? But, I really liked Inherent Vice.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2012 film, The Master, was a slog for me. Despite being intense and methodical, it was also long, dense, and moved at a snail’s pace. His new film, based on Thomas Pynchon’s novel, demands more attention as its crime story is brilliantly foggy and told through a haze of a smoker’s sense of memory as Doc (Phoenix) takes a private eye case with personal connections. But can a man do when his old flame shows up at his place needing help with her new one? Especially when she looks like newcomer Katherine Waterston.
Anderson has never been committed to straight forward narrative story telling, which is part of the challenge of enjoying his films. Inherent Vice is not an exception to this. The film demands your attention from start to finish not just as a piece of visual work, but as a piece of sound. Anderson forces you to lean in and listen intently to whispered conversations veiled by a stoner’s point of view. Compounded with a deliciously retro soundtrack and sly narration the film is not that hard to follow and more enjoyable for those who their PIs a little shaken.
Inherent Vice also luckily has fabulous costumes from Mark Bridges whose worked on all of Anderson’s films and incidentally also costumed Fifty Shades of Grey. Reese Witherspoon’s small role alone left me imagining a follow up film about her and that hair. Reese is one of many smaller roles with namey actors, Benecio Del Toro has a great scene rescuing Doc from the police station. Phoenix is certainly the pulse of the film, fluidly melting into stoner’s world complete with sideburns and sandals. His spars with Det. “Bigfoot” (Josh Brolin) are hysterical and ground the film for certain scenes.
Although I cannot speak to the novel’s adaptation, Inherent Vice has a lush sense of place with Venice acting as a kind of breathing heaping hot spot left on a couch after a stoner has been slumped in for days. The longer I take with the film the more I think about its maze like storytelling that I wonder if the rest of Anderson’s work is ready for a revisit. Inherent Vice is clearly not for everyone and I’m okay with that.