Bros: Major studios collectively deciding to pretty much throw in the towel on making romcoms somewhere around 2016 has allowed streaming services to develop a pseudo-monopoly on the genre. While it's commercial failure will undoubtedly reenforce this current line of thinking, Bros is a great film that got an extra pop from playing in theaters. Even in a crowd of only 20 or so people, the laughter and joy emanating in this space throughout the film was infectious. Nearly every single scene contains some sort of belly laugh and there are several moments where the dialogue was being drowned out because people were laughing so loudly (myself included). It's been an eternity since I've seen a comedy that has garnered that type of enthusiastic reaction from people, and I had somewhat forgotten how special it is to get swept up in laughter with other people.
Outside of the immaculate vibes it created in a room full of strangers, Bros wins marks for its commitment to portraying gay relationships in a manner that feels largely honest. While the final destination is every bit as mushy and jovial as you'd expect something in this genre to be, the road to get there is riddled with wrong turns and potholes. Star/co-writer Billy Eichner is able to turn a basic "two people with commitment issues try to start a relationship" into a thoughtful exploration of how the identity issues that gay men face (Eichner's character Bobby is very proud of his sexuality while his love interest Aaron played by Luke Macfarlane is a quiet, reserved former athlete who downplays it at every turn) and trickier relationship dynamics (several supporting characters are in open relationships) can impede the development of a serious romantic relationship. Throwing of all the character's insecurities on the table make the eventual formation of true love feel more earned and the disgustingly sappy moments this genre was built on more palatable, which is the ideal result in my book. Bros is the best thing the romantic comedy genre has delivered since Long Shot and the funniest fully narrative comedy since Good Boys, so hopefully people will find it somewhere down the line and give it the love it failed to get during its initial theatrical run.
Grade: B+
Amsterdam: David O. Russell had been away from filmmaking for 6 years before cameras began rolling on Amsterdam early last year. Given the extended length of his hiatus, he probably should've picked something less ambitious to return with. Although Amsterdam is pretty entertaining, it's put together in such an unwieldy manner that it feels like we're watching Russell try to shake his storytelling rust off for 135 minutes.
There was a really good reason that Disney made the plot so vague in the marketing. Breaking down this at least somewhat fact-based tale surrounding a trio of old friends (Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington) who met in Europe during World War I that find themselves unwittingly dragged into a massive government conspiracy couldn't possibly be coherently explained in a trailer or a TV/YouTube spot (honestly, there are parts of it that aren't coherently explained in the actual movie). On top of its plot that features a whole lot of moving parts and a revolving door of characters, it shifts tonal and genre gears so much that it becomes shocking when Russell remains consistent in his approach to back-to-back scenes.
What keeps this period screwball comedy political drama romance mystery thriller from becoming a completely irredeemable mess is the valiant efforts the carefully curated collection of superstar acting talents (Bale, Anya Taylor-Joy and Robert de Niro end up being the standouts of this splashy ensemble) make to admirably roll with all of the plot's scattershot punches and an ultimately important message about how democracy is something that needs to be constantly fought for since powerful people will always be plotting on how to take it away. Is Russell the best vessel to deliver a movie about the ever-present danger of fascism and combating it by loving each other? Fuck no. Is he able to sell his belief in that ideology well enough here? Yes, and that feat is very likely be my only significant lasting takeaway from Amsterdam.
Grade: B-
Luckiest Girl Alive: In a key final act scene of Luckiest Girl Alive, the writer protagonist TifAni "Ani" Farrell (Mila Kunis) turns in an article to her editor (Jennifer Beals) where she finally publicly discloses what happened to her during a shooting at her high school 22 years earlier. After reading the piece, the editor bluntly says that an approximation of honesty isn't enough to service the powerful story she's trying to tell. Luckiest Girl Alive doesn't adhere to its own advice and tells a story that never gives the viewer more than an approximation of honesty.
For the people that aren't familiar with the novel that the film is based on, Luckiest Girl Alive isn't just a story about a woman that survived a school shooting. Ani was gang raped by three of her classmates then accused by one of the men responsible of being involved in the plotting of the shooting as retaliation for informing the school's administrations about the event (she declined to inform the police after meeting with the principal).
Years later, Ani is living a seemingly idyllic life working as a senior writer for a women's magazine who is on track to be named an editor at the New York Times Magazine with a wealthy supportive fiancé (Finn Wittrock) by her side. This all changes when she's approached by a documentary filmmaker (Dalmar Abuzeid) to talk about her experience on the day of the shooting-which unearths her long-suppressed trauma and causes the dream life she always wanted to slowly unravel.
What sits at the heart of Luckiest Girl Alive is a well-intentioned examination of the lonely, silently consuming hell rape victims often have to live in. In this particular case, Ani is met with instances of intimidation, victim blaming and slut shaming that prevent her from telling the truth about the issues for over 2 decades. At its best moments, it demonstrates in a raw, powerful manner exactly why victims choose to internalize their pain instead of trying to bring their rapists to justice and how people from both genders stigmatize and demonize people that have been on the receiving ends of horrific acts of life-altering sexual violence. But since this is a mainstream Hollywood production based on a best-selling novel, these moments of real powerful truth are consistently undercut by manufactured melodrama.
The phoniness starts at the very foundation of the story in the form of writer Jessica Knoll's-who also penned the novel-puzzling choice to also make Ani a school shooting survivor. Ani doesn't seem to be phased by the actual shooting and this event-which is shown in explicit detail around the halfway point- mostly just exists to make her a less sympathetic character and add to the list of the reasons she doesn't want to go to the police to report her rape.
When you're making a film that's attempting to encourage rape victims to face their trauma and speak their truth, it's pretty bizarre to simultaneously make a film that not only doesn't show a shred of empathy for people that have lived through the hell of a mass shooting and the families of the people that didn't make it out alive, but uses their world-shattering pain to create additional layers of soap opera drama for a story that already had more than enough dramatic substance without it. Particularly as someone who has publicly spoken out about their own rape, Knoll should have the empathy and common sense to apply her own experiences with trauma to another group of people that have had a brush with one of the most barbaric evils human beings are capable of inflicting on one another.
While the other plot developments aren't quite as hard to stomach, the parade of contrivances it trots out when things are getting a little too sincere do provide plenty of aggravating moments. Ani-who is played with as much conviction and grace as the script will allow for by Kunis- can't just simply deliver a cathartic, heartfelt monologue about her experiences, the long-awaited opening of her heart has to be followed by a heated argument with her fiancé at their rehearsal dinner. After she initially ignores the request to appear in the documentary, Ani goes to a random work dinner with her fiancé and his colleague just happens to be married to the caring teacher (Scoot McNairy) who came to her aide on the night of her assault after she stumbled into a convenance store that he happened to be in after walking through the rain barefoot and subsequently encourages her to set the record straight on camera. When Ani sits down for the actual interview, she has to have her attempt to tell her story interrupted by an unannounced appearance by one of her rapists despite the assurances from the director that he wouldn't be there. It's almost like Knoll and director Mike Barker don't trust the audience to handle the weight of the issues at hand and need to soften the devastating realities of them by adding a liberal dosage of the comforting familiarity of blatantly dramatized fiction. Maybe it's disrespectful for me to say this as a man who doesn't know the mental, emotional and physical anguish of rape firsthand, but I think that the people that have endured these assaults deserve better than a movie that only displays an approximation of honesty when dealing with this subject.
Grade: C
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