Wes Anderson meets Vanilla Sky

Rating: 1/10 (29 November 2014)

Mr.Nobody is not really a movie, in any true, dramatic, storytelling sense, because the characters are (a) not grounded in a convincing reality; (b)not developed and sympathetic; and (c) do not undergo real transformations or heroic character arcs worth seeing. In fact, the entire movie seems to be merely a sequence of tenderly-shot close-ups of pretty white young kids in love and sci-fi scenes, combined with a steady stream of musical hits from classical Satie to the retro-classic Mr. Sandman (overplayed to a cloying effect). The direction and cinematography of Wes Anderson meets the conceptual mindscrew of Vanilla Sky, but at least Anderson can tell a story.
First of all, it was a mistake not to score the movie with actual mood music to enhance the drama, and instead sprinkle in a bunch of isolated paid-for scores every time the writer wanted us to feel the scene was profound, yet play them every few minutes to a baffling gratuity. This immediately distracts from any story-telling elements, and tells the viewer, "Look how beautiful or precious this moment is," except that when used every few minutes, the viewer quickly has to decide whether each successive scene is worth such profundity, or whether the filmmaker is trying to manipulate us into believing so. I chose the latter, as soon as I heard Otis Redding's "For Your Precious Love". It seems lazy and a bit pretentious to expect the viewer to conjoin each successive classic musical hit with the unrelated substandard and terribly glacial drama that is happening on screen.
Secondly, the gorgeous color, slow-mo, and hyper-unreality of the film, which is apparently supposed to woo us with Wes Anderson-ish charm, makes it even more important that the characters, at least, have some grounding in a reality we can identify with. Yet, what sort of parents would choose a train station as the location to ask their child to choose whom they want to live with? This incredibly cruel act, itself a traumatic story in itself, is simply used as a device to progress the idea of "choice", and since train stations are more dramatic, clichéd places where people run to those they love, why not have the choice made there? This not realistic, and worse, kills viewer sympathy for the parents. Secondly, why do three pretty young girls throw themselves at this socially awkward boy? Just because he's cute? This is not realistic, and it's hard to feel sympathy for such a teenage kid who doesn't have the actual real shortcomings and alienation most teenage boys feel, among both girls and boys. A pretty boy with pretty girls; how droll.
Thirdly, a good story needs sympathetic characters. The old Nemo sounds like any old wise-ass codger, not someone who has lived a profound, long life filled with the gift of prognostication. He speaks of screwing, drinking, smoking like your typical nostalgic geriatric; I had immediate contempt for him, and felt that, no matter what choices or non-choices this man made, he turned out pretty sour. Also, what has Nemo really suffered? The horrible dilemma between choosing which pretty girl from the neighborhood to be with? If the filmmaker wanted to make a film about choice, instead of simply boiling it down to three pubescent girls, why not have the choices be more varied, such as choosing to enlist in the army, or choosing a particular career? Instead, we are to believe that a 114-year old man believes that his most important choices happened at age 14. What about the intervening 100 years? What about a choice he made at age 50, or 75? It seems that only a male filmmaker would reduce the profundity of life choices down to which teenage girl's panties come off. The fact that he had different children with them didn't even seem to matter; he confused their names, so why was it that profound that he chose one girl over the other? How would it have really changed his life? All three girls came from the exact same neighborhood, too. How different could they be, actually? What about meeting women throughout his life and travels, such as a woman he met at age 45 in Peru, or a black man at age 70? No, it's just these three teenage girls from the same neighborhood, around the same time. How convenient and shallow. Do we get a sense of this man's life, as a husband, father, worker, or citizen? No, his entire story is a self-indulgent solipsistic world where even the planets freeze when something happens to him.
Finally, close-ups were heavily abused. The filmmakers of yesterday knew how to compose scenes and shots, and used closeups judiciously, when it counted. But this film is essentially a long continuous stream of closeups of pretty, white young faces. Not only that, we are somehow supposed to glean profound feelings and thoughts from staring at the blue eyes of the characters, without any other dramatic cues. This seems to be a trend in many dramatic American films, as if a silent, long, continuous shot of someone's face passes for dramatic development. Worse, this film was heavily bedroom-oriented, which further betrays that it was written by a male who has not yet reconciled his junior-high and high-school coming of age days.
The film is almost completely unwatchable as a sympathetic drama, and is too flaccid in the sci-fi department to rest on that, either. It seems to appeal to viewers who have no problem with two hours of close-ups and disjointed, yet great music, who are able to slap these two elements together in their mind and believe they are watching a profound bit of filmmaking.