Warrants deconstruction

Rating: 3/10 (28 April 2005)

This is a movie that I instinctively avoided seeing. The name alone suggested problems. But since a couple of people I know went to see it in the theaters--and I was inclined to be judgmental--I thought I should take a look.
In the early 70s Jean-Luc Godard made a movie in which Jane Fonda and Charles Aznavour play husband and wife. It was a sort of political movie. Soon after the movie was finished Jane Fonda made her infamous trip to Vietnam. After that trip Godard and his co-director for the movie with Fonda produced a one-hour film which consists of the two directors (we only heard their voices) analyzing a photo of Fonda in Vietnam that got published in French periodicals.
I am not sure, but I think it was an example of what is called deconstruction. What seemed like an innocuous photo of a serious Jane Fonda listening to a Vietnamese person--turned out to be pregnant with meaning. They went on and on.
I think the movie Meet the Fockers would be a good candidate for such deconstruction (if that is what Godard and friend were doing). I have noticed on several occasions that highly-regarded American actors and actresses allow themselves to participate in embarrassingly bad movies.
There seems to be a sort of moral or cultural blind spot among Hollywood types that makes this possible.
One thing that must be taken into account is that this movie was rated PG-13. It should be rated R, but then how many people would watch it? I can only assume that it is aimed at the adolescent audience. One possible mitigating factor in liking the movie could be youth. Things that seem trite when you have been around for a while might be entertaining when you are young--especially if you get pleasure out of naughtiness. But this movie cannot be naughty to an adult.
You get the impression with some of these movies that they negotiated with the censors to the degree that one more swear word and it would have to be rated R. In other words, the idea is to get in as much objectionable material in as possible without a change of rating. It is also clear that what is now rated PG-13 would have been rated R not very many years ago. There are many R-rated movies I would rather have my children watch than this and other PG-13 movies.
I think I have now been liberated from the 'two thumbs up' guide. Roeper gives the movie thumbs up and Ebert likes it more than he should, although he gives it thumbs down. So many good movies get made (e.g. Seagull's Laughter), such that someone's _recommending_ this movie is not a good sign.
The style of acting bears some resemblance to a falsetto in singing.
I said this movie warrants deconstruction. I have not done that here. I would be interested in reading a sophisticated critique of the movie. As a movie, it doesn't really warrant any critique at all. But as a symptom of something wrong with Hollywood, I think it might be quite instructive. Its problems are somewhat similar to those of Stuck on You--a British film.