Commodity - not for critical thinkers

Rating: 5/10 (2 July 2006)

This "movie" had a few elements that reminded me of what classic Hollywood films had: focused, quality acting, and a moral underpinning. Unfortunately, the former quality (as the movie was lacking in all others) was true for only one actress (Meryl Streep), and the latter was good only in theory, as the moral underpinning came across in a misguided and tortured manner. The rest of the movie is a commodity: it is clearly targeted at Gen-XY women, and thus glowing reviews will tend to come from that camp, rife with uncritical emotional prose.
Hollywood is obsessed with formulas. Like lemmings they persistently try to manipulate audience minds into liking a movie if the right "formula" is met. Well you can fool some people sometimes, but not all people all the time. This movie had it all: 1) rampant product placement targeted at yuppies, 2) a young hip urban setting targeted at yuppies, 3) self- righteous and promiscuous urban Gen-XY'ers acting in their usual shallow and self-absorbed manner, and lastly 4) a tortured moral message.
Of course, the moral message, which is the center of the film, is nothing but an uncreative feel-good regurgitation of Gen-XY's conventional wisdom. Thus, the movie is not a creative endeavor like movies of old, but a commodity--written by marketers and designed to pander to Gen-XY female's shallow sensibilities.
Some specifics: 1) Anne's friends (including the boyfriend), besides their mono-dimensional personalities, condescend and insult poor Anne for working hard and succeeding. At no point does Anne become mean-spirited or self-obsessed like Meryl Streep's admittedly acerbic character. On the contrary, her friends are guilty of that act. They are snobbishly nonchalant, despite their clear lack of respect and etiquette. The boyfriend is a mean-spirited idiot slob.
2) In line with the first point, the movie's contorted version of a person "going bad" was written to match Gen-XY's identically confused sensibilities. Gen-XYers are overly concerned with their "identity"; they are obsessed with "selling out." Their morality is contradictory and ad-hoc. The movie is no different, and speaks directly to it. Thus, many of the "glowing" reviews of this movie are completely unable to grasp the illogic of the film's basic message-- that someone can go "bad" merely be being ambitious; that changing, developing, or evolving your adolescent opinions and life outlook is "selling out" (or, God forbid, if a Gen- Xer were to find religion and actually make "judgments").
3) This movie was marketed like Swimming with Sharks--where the pursuit of excellence is pushed to obsession and cruelty. This movie fell far short when it equated the pursuit of excellence with Gen-X's woeful and vague concept of "selling out." There is a hell of a lot of room between sloth (Gen-X, all the friends in the movie), and obsession, and Anne's character was healthily in between the two extremes.
Reviewers who have called the movie "family-friendly" due to an absence of sex must have been watching a different movie. Why oh why must Anne also be such a tramp? Must every female lead these days have sex with multiple partners in such a blase manner? Notice the Gen-XY way in which all this frivolous sex has no negative effects on her character. If this is the message viewers want for their families, then I fear for the future.
After reading this, one must think I hate the movie. Well I don't. Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep are entertaining actors. However, the movie reminded me of why I watch so few, and no television--surrounding any tiny sparkle of creativity is the odor of commodity tripe.