Underrated: Life During Wartime

          Like Kevin Smith, Todd Solondz has created his own universe of characters who interact from one film to the next. These are not sequels as much as they are investigations. For instance, Mark Wiener, the older brother from Welcome To the Dollhouse and the character who most resembles Todd Solondz physically and temperamentally, shows up in three of the five Solondz movies made since his first appearance. Mark never lasts long in the film, and usually says the exact same line, but the context is always dramatically different. In Welcome To the Dollhouse, Mark tries to help his sister deal with her unpopularity in school. In Palindromes, Mark tries to help Aviva realize that human relationships, and human love, are much more complicated than the grace she seeks. And in Life During Wartime, when a young man asks how to forgive and forget, Mark wonders aloud if anybody could ever forget, but not forgive. What makes people feel the need to forget when they've already decided to forgive?

         Life During Wartime is about forgiveness. It is also about how dumb it is to forget what you've forgiven. If you don't remember what you've forgiven, what's the point?

        Solondz's film is a quasi-sequel to 1998's Happiness. I call this particular film a sequel because it is, more or less, a continuation of the story from that film. Of course, the characters of other Solondz films make appearances throughout, but the bulk of the story is still centered around Joy's many problems. Joy, now played by Shirley Henderson (of Moaning Myrtle fame) in an even more pathetic, childish manner than Jane Adams's version of the character in the previous film, is a middle-aged optimist who cannot catch a break. After several failed relationships and losing a job helping imprisoned rapists sort out their lives, Joy decides to visit her sister, Trish, now played by Allison Janney, who lives in Florida. Which brings me to the most written about aspect of the movie.

         Instead of casting the film with the same actors he used for Happiness, Solondz decided to recast all of the characters with new actors who could bring new life to the characters. In some cases, the actors don't resemble the previous ones at all. For example, Dylan Baker's red haired, pasty-faced, boring Bill Maplewood has been replaced by the tall, dark and handsome Ciaran Hinds. Jon Lovitz's Andy has been replaced by Paul Reubens, who plays the role uncharacteristically straight. It is Reubens, strangely enough, who delivers the finest and most powerful performance in the entire film. Other odd choices abound in the film, most notably Ally Sheedy taking Lara Flynn Boyle's spot from the previous film. Sheedy's performance is the hammiest and most underwritten of the film, but I believe that fault lies more with the director not really knowing what to do with her than Sheedy's talent.

     
           Although Solondz's films are classified as comedy, he has become famous for taking dark, disturbing subject matter and looking at it through sympathetic eyes. His characters often harbor dangerous secrets and strange habits that are often considered unforgivable or strange. However, Solondz has never dismissed a character because of their behavior. In fact, the kind of person most often abused in these films are the "normal" people. The people who shop for matching rugs and order incredibly specific salads are the ones under attack in these films. This is because Solondz sees these people as phonies. He believes that everybody has a darkness inside of them, and that those who do the judging are the most guilty of exerting this darkness.

           Solondz often skirts the boundaries of tragedy and dark comedy, usually ending up somewhere in the middle. When Timmy, the son of a pedophile in Life During Wartime, tells his mom that the other kids at school call him a faggot because his father molested boys, his mother tells him that he is "not a faggot. [He] will never be a faggot as long as she is alive." She says this to him in a protective, babying manner. It is like she is protecting him from some evil force that, if he isn't looking, might take over. The scene is all at once funny and horrifying. The shooting style, mixed with the music, is reminiscent of early '90's sitcoms, but the dialogue itself is deeply disturbing.

       Life During Wartime, while definitely a comedy, is by far Solondz's most bleak affair. The characters in the film are exhausted by the world in which they live. They are tired of the war. They are tired of behaving the way their parents expect them to and the way society urges them to be. Joy is exhausted by the world's cynicism and condescension toward her unique brand of optimism. While Happiness was about America's search for happiness in a world full of sickness, Life During Wartime is about the difficulty of living in a country that is all about appearances. It is no longer enough to be happy for these characters. They want to be forgiven for who they are. They want to be accepted for their idiosyncrasies and loved because of them.

      Life During Wartime is available on Blu-Ray and DVD from the Criterion Collection.

I give the film 10/10 miscast Ally Sheedys.

Underrated: Observe & Report

          I know it's easy, but don't blame Paul Blart. Really, don't do it. It isn't worth it. You know why? Because people ate up Paul Blart. He was a hit at the box office. And the way people are eating up sequels these days, they would have eaten him up again. Had the cheap jokes of Paul Blart persisted in this other mall cop film, Observe & Report, then things would have been peachy. Fortunately for us, instead of another Paul Blart, audiences got Ronnie Barnhardt.
          "What's the difference?" you say. Well, for starters, Paul Blart had a heart of gold. He tried to do good while performing, as some bribed critics would say, "hilarious hijinks."
          Ronnie Barnhardt does not do good. Ever. In fact, he does mostly bad. He has every intention of being a great guy, but he's a sociopath. And very rarely does a sociopath's intention of good equate to actual good. For example, Ronnie's idea of doing good police work is killing crackheads in cold blood. Okay, perhaps they didn't quite die, but he may have used some excessive force. And if that scene wasn't enough for you, watch the ending of the film. It won't be spoiled for you here, but lets just say there is more excessive force used.
           Ronnie Barnhardt's story did not meet much success. It is one of the lowest grossing Seth Rogen films ever released, and one of the critically despised films in his repertoire. But why? What is so wrong with this film? I mean, people have very serious reactions to it. Just look at some of the reviews online. Yikes. People react strongly to the violence, to its cynicism, to its anger. The film is mean-spirited and never lets up. Nobody wins, nobody changes for the better, and nothing is learned. Why would anybody want to see a film about a sociopath with a mundane job who creates a false catharsis for the audience by performing acts of unnecessary violence?
          Wait, actually, that sounds like a familiar plot. It sounds like some universally beloved film that has gone on to become an American classic.

Hint, Hint

          But Taxi Driver wasn't a comedy. It was serious. It had all sorts of drama and what some new, hip critics call "badassery," which is just another word for unnecessary, yet stylish violence. What makes Scorsese's film a masterpiece and Jody Hill's film too vicious and stupid to watch? They're essentially the same film. Only, Taxi Driver was a drama. This man is sick and depraved and his drama is somehow important because of this. Ronnie Barnhardt, equally depraved, is reduced to a bad fart joke by most critics because critics are watching this film as a straight comedy.
          Don't get me wrong, before we go any further, this is a comedic film. 
          However, I would not call Observe & Report a comedy. Comedies, by an antiquated definition, are supposed to have happy endings. This one does not (perhaps arguable, make that argument in the comments section). Comedies are also supposed to make you laugh.
          This film achieves the goal of making its audience laugh, but to what end? How far will the audience follow this film? I saw Observe & Report twice in the theaters. Once by myself, and the second time (in retrospect a bad decision) with my girlfriend. Both times I saw the film I noticed something strange about the audience.
         I was part of a very select few people who were still laughing after half an hour. Particularly after a scene that takes place a half hour into the film. After this certain scene, people rejected the film's attempts at humor. They sat, motionless, waiting for their ten dollar torture chamber to turn its lights back on.
          And it hit me, leaving the theater on both occasions, why they stopped laughing. The protagonist became completely unlikable. We were stuck in a comedy starring a man with no morals.
          Not only that, but it was Seth Rogen up there committing murder, performing date rapes (no argument, here), beating up children, and doing cocaine in a mall bathroom. At the time, we had come to expect Seth Rogen to be a certain character. We expected him to be the sort-of dumb, sort-of funny man child who has a good heart, not to be a totally dumb, sort-of insane sociopath with no heart at all.
          The film is shocking. Its violence is fast and brutal. There is an immense amount of offensive language. There are no likable characters. I'm still describing Observe & Report, you know, for all you Taxi Driver fans out there. However, that latter film is well-respected for its courage, and the former film is universally despised for its indecency.
         What is a courageous film if not a bold display of indecency? 
         I can tell you why Observe & Report failed.

      
          For the same reason that The King of Comedy failed. People don't like to mix their genres if they don't have to. And people certainly don't want any kind of ambiguity from their filmmakers.
         Comedy has an implicit subjectivity. Drama can dare to be objective because there are images on a screen and they play out in succession as a story progresses, fine, but a comedy is always commenting on something. The joke always has to have a point. There is always a means to an end. So when you release a problem comedy, there (bad joke?) going to be some problems. First of all, why are we laughing at this crazy person? Are we laughing at him, or are we laughing with him?
         We're just coasting along in this comedy, and all of a sudden a horrifying act of violence is committed. Are we supposed to laugh at that? Do we laugh at its absurd amount of gore? Is that even funny? What is my intended response?
         When people ask themselves these questions during a movie, they have already left the film. They are no longer following the story or buying into what is happening on screen. They see a fault with the film. And I can't really blame anybody. That is not how we have been trained to watch movies. They are supposed to have clear lines. Funny parts can be in serious movies, but when it gets serious, the music needs to let me know. The tone needs to change accordingly. We can't have the punchline be murder. It's unsatisfying.
          But sometimes we get films that blur these lines. And they're important. Especially films like Observe & Report that are marketed and sold to mass audiences. People need to know that lines can be blurred. Sometimes comedies can convey a message that is just as rich and profound as dramas.
         I'll admit, the film is not perfect, but it is extremely ambitious, thought provoking, and totally courageous. Yes, courageous.

        What do some of you think of the film? Let me know in the comments section.

Yes, That Was a Comedy: The Hilariously Cynical Films of Todd Solondz

What is going on in there?

     You ever seen a movie that hurt your feelings? You know, a film that seems to just attack your soul and everything it stands for?
     Was it a comedy?
     If the answer is yes, then it was more than likely directed by Todd Solondz, a man who has made a living creating some of the most offensive comedies ever made. And when I say offensive, I don't mean that the content is necessarily atrocious or that any particular group of people is getting picked on. I mean it in the way that the first line of this article means it. Todd Solondz wants to hurt your feelings. And how does he do this, you ask?
     It's pretty simple, actually. He just takes situations we have all been through and displays them in the way that we remember them. Solondz doesn't have much interest in how things actually were, and if you really think about it, neither do we (See: Forrest Gump). Solondz, instead, shows us the things about our childhood that we have tried to forget, and in the process of forgetting we have ended up making far worse in our minds. Yet, somehow, when confronted with these projected atrocities of our childhood, the scenes inexplicably make us do this instead of this. What makes us do that? Why does this guy have the gall to make us laugh at a movie that includes a scene where a little boy confronts his father about...something. How could he possibly call this scene a roaring rampage of delicious comedy?
    I don't think he does, actually.
    What Solondz is doing here is making you uncomfortable, and then interjecting each scene with something funny so that the audience can breathe. It's actually pretty scientific. I mean, this style of comic relief has been around for centuries. (there's evidence of it in Shakespeare's plays) Solondz's deeply troubling scenes, interspersed with humor, wouldn't find too much trouble working their way into Hamlet.

    Now before you get the wrong idea, I'm not comparing the previously indicated scenes to Shakespeare, but I do think that the same logic is being used here. However, the trouble with Solondz finding mainstream success (other than his total lack of enthusiasm for mainstream cinema) is that he does not make genre specific films. Probably his most straightforward comedy, Welcome to the Dollhouse, is still (as you saw in the bathroom scene) pretty dark for a comedy. I mean, in a movie where the comedic punchline is that the protagonist is constantly being threatened with rape, you're not going to find too many guffaws in the room.
     So are they comedies? Well, to put it simply, yes and yes?
     But this is a kind of comedy that seems to be going out of fashion. Strangely enough, I think the last time we saw real mainstream success in this kind of comedy, the kind that shows you a mirror and then laughs hysterically at how dumb you are, is when the first Meet the Parents movie came out. The sequels seem to have dumbed down the awkwardness, but they may still marginally apply. Yet Solondz is taking that basic structure and creating films with almost merciless attacks on every person of every belief and background.
     He is trying to offend. He is stirring you up. The films he makes challenge us to look at ourselves and laugh at how ridiculous we can be. While I would agree that using pedophilia (in no less than four movies!) as a consistent plot point is a little over-the-top, I would also suggest that it is the smaller things that he is really trying to show us, and he is merely using these large, blanket issues to distance the characters just enough to make us feel safe in our skin.

     When we're too busy feeling disgusted by the pedophilia and narcissism of his characters, Solondz throws in difficult break up scenes, characters who are casually racist, homophobic, exploitative, and incapable of finding joy in others. In what is perhaps his most successful film, Happiness, Solondz introduces his audience to an ensemble of characters with serious social issues, and the film ends with no real resolutions to any of them.
     It's nice to see a filmmaker who clearly has no filter and appears to see everything with clear eyes. It's also nice to know that that filmmaker is, at his heart, a comedian who is showing us these things to help us, not to hurt us. Well, not entirely to hurt us. As Helen says to Joy in the final moments of the trailer for Happiness, "Don't worry, I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing with you," I feel that Todd Solondz is saying the same thing with his films.
Only...What does Joy say in return?



     [If you haven't seen any of Todd Solondz's films, I would suggest viewing them in this order: Welcome to the Dollhouse, Storytelling, Happiness, Life During Wartime, Palindromes. Here is a short list of similar filmmakers: Luis Bunuel, Bobcat Goldthwait, Jody Hill, Miranda July, Jim Jarmusch, and the Mid-Period works of Robert Altman]