Seriously, Best Picture?

Rating: 5/10 (26 August 2019)

Magical realism in film is tricky stuff because it's just so damned easy to do on film. Novelists don't have the luxury of special effects, so when they transcend known reality, there has to be something mythic driving the scene to make it work (as in Morrison's Beloved or Allende's House of Spirits). It can work on film too--Pan's Labyrinth--but in this film, it's never clear what all the suspension of gravity is about. Is Keaton's character schizoid? Does he really have strange powers? Why do those powers never actually figure in the plot? The script violates many times Chekov's rule that a gun in the first act better go off in the third, though, of course, a gun does go off over and over again and if you can't guess what will happen the last time it goes off, then you weren't paying attention to the filmmaker's all too telegraphed intentions. The ending is downright bogus--why does the character do what he does and why does the filmmaker choose a magical realist ending? What has the character learned or gained at this point? And, why, seriously, did he try to off himself? Does any actor really try to kill themselves because their career isn't what it used to be--and especially before they find out whether or not the comeback they risked everything for is going to work? I can't think of a single actual Hollywood suicide that was simply a matter of a struggling career (no drugs, no disease, no alcoholism). To sum it up, I just don't buy what's going on in this movie. Keaton overacts as usual. Norton is awesome as is Emma Stone as a bug-eyed recovering addict whose sexy as hell. Naomi Watts has too little to do--oh yes, there's also a lesbian subplot with her that goes nowhere as well. And the jazz drumming soundtrack is annoying. I like jazz drumming; it just doesn't work here because it is always the same tempo and tone, so instead of punctuating changes and dramatic peaks, it becomes a guarantor of a monotonous frenzy. This movie is pretentious rather than profound; novel rather than original; self-congratulatory rather than truly self-examining. So, of course, Hollywood creamed themselves over it and gave it the Oscar. So it goes.