Bells and Whistles but Nothing to Care About

Rating: 4/10 (16 December 2013)

There is a very simple way to put this: I didn't believe it. That sums up the movie for me. Yes, there is all the razzle dazzle you can imagine. But there is nothing at the heart of this film. In Silver Linings Playbook and The Fighter, for example, I was an instant believer, I bought in immediately, and loved every second of the ensuing ride. Maybe I could tell from the trailers that we were going back to LaLa land territory. Schmooze, slick, and schtick. That's what this movie is. I was literally falling asleep. Because I never cared for a second, because I knew it was fake, the world never invited me in. Perhaps opening the movie with the old 'start halfway through the movie and then go back and show how they got to that point' tactic failed at bringing me believably along. I don't know, and it doesn't matter. The bottom line is I feel like I was never invited into a believable world. I guess it's just not that kind of movie. I had come to have high expectations after Russell's last two outings, which were basically celluloid cocaine. In those two, I was emotionally invested, in the reality, of how believable it was, and then everything else clicked. The snappy dialogue, the electric energy, the rockin' soundtrack, etc., all supported and enhanced the story, because there was a foundation laid. The believability comes from the characters and their relationships, set up by a story, or plot. Apparently Mr. Russell has lost the need for a plot as he is purported to have said when asked by Christian Bale whether the impromptu dialogue would change the story. While having a passion for characters and relationships is great, the story is an equally important element, and one that is lost here. This movie is thematically all over the place. There is little gravitas or gravity that keeps pulling us in its direction. We wander aimlessly through it, like a pimply teenager, awestruck at the glamour, not noticing that nothing is actually happening. This movie is all fluff. My favorite W.H. Auden quote also sums it up: "What the mass media offers is not popular art but entertainment, which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish." The same could not be said about The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook. So far 2013 is a bad vintage.