Barbie and Oppenheimer Share the Spotlight...
Braden White
 |
| Warner Bros Pictures/Universal Pictures/AP© |
Imagine the room full of overpaid Hollywood executives learning that their summer blockbuster would be releasing on the same day as another highly anticipated, big-budget film, helmed by an acclaimed visionary director. I'm guessing they weren't too stressed because some low-level market analyst assured them there wouldn't be any audience crossover between a dark biographical drama and a film based on that one Aqua song. No chance they could've expected the tidal wave of free marketing they would receive from countless social media accounts eagerly anticipating the tonal whiplash they would experience on July 21st. The appeal isn't difficult to understand either. Variety is the spice of life, and you can't find a more varied experience than bouncing between two opposite ends of the spectrum. Just like french fries and milkshakes, let's check out the surprisingly delicious pairing of an existential exploration into the innate darkness of the human condition... and Oppenheimer.
Oppenheimer Review
 |
Universal Pictures© |
I wouldn’t call Christopher Nolan a versatile filmmaker. Not that he needs to be, mind you, it’s perfectly fine to stick to your area of expertise, and in his case, that’s high spectacle thrillers. That’s why it was a bit surprising to hear his next project would adapt the life of controversial physicist, J. Robert Oppenheimer, commonly referred to as “the father of the atomic bomb”. Although after watching the movie, “father” might be a bit magnified. Based on his actual involvement in its creation, I’d go with something more like “executive producer of the atomic bomb”.
This isn’t you Christopher Nolan, people expect you to give them big, loud, visually-stunning, mind-benders with dialogue that could best be described as “vaguely human-sounding”. Biopics are the direct opposite of that, they are the vanilla paste of movie genres. Adapting the life of a real person is so restrictive because a human life does not follow a compelling narrative structure. There is a built-in expectation to be authentic and adapt their story no matter how boring, bloated, or toothless it would be. Particularly stifling for the man who made Inception, someone who thrives off stories with more twists and turns than the High Five Interchange.
I bring this up because you could view Oppenheimer as a sort of test. Nolan is being tossed out of his comfort zone into new hostile territory, forced to survive without his usual bag of tools. In this case, the normal focus on aesthetics is replaced with quiet introspection, as we venture into the world of the character study. Powered by a career-defining performance from Cillian Murphy, the film flourishes at conveying horrifying, inescapable guilt. Unsurprisingly, the man who referred to himself as “the destroyer of worlds” possesses quite a complex psyche, which Nolan successfully explores in his most reflective project to date.
To be fair, saying the film lacks visual flair is entirely inaccurate. Sure, 95% of shots consist of a room full of white guys arguing back and forth, but that remaining chunk is easily able to justify the $30 IMAX ticket. Nolan is the king of what I have cleverly dubbed “impractical effects”, that being special fx constructed on a sound stage, which would've been immeasurably easier, cheaper, and safer to just create with a computer. Think of the truck flip from The Dark Knight or the rotating hallway from Inception. Without giving it away, safe to say this habit has likely reached its logical extreme, with a major set piece so stupidly extravagant it might etch itself into film history on brute force alone.
Unfortunately, a stripped-down experience also reveals all the less attractive moles and acne scars within Nolan’s style. In something like Inception, that signature mix of quick cuts and speedy transitions maintains a breakneck pace, appropriate for the intense, ever-evolving plot. Shockingly, this same approach feels jarring in a movie consisting almost entirely of people in a room talking about physics. By the end, the experience felt more akin to a rapid montage of life events and important conversations, a series of 30-second scenes strung together into a 3-hour movie.
Furthermore, I don’t know what Nolan has against linear stories, but he needs to accept that there is such a thing as being unnecessarily complicated. No lie, at one point we were jumping back and forth between FOUR different timelines, all of which then had smaller flashbacks embedded within them. What purpose does this really serve? His breakthrough film, Memento famously plays out in reverse chronological order, but there it was in service of a massive final twist, one which created a completely different experience upon rewatch. Whereas here, I can’t find any justification for such a creative decision. The only thing the time hopping adds is the most confusing element in a film about theoretical physics.
Despite seemingly trying to make itself inaccessible, I would recommend Oppenheimer to just about everyone. Provided you can find a theater with reclining chairs and that one hyper-specific type of IMAX. It really is the first movie post-pandemic that demands to be seen on the big screen. Watching Cillian Murphy's gawky naked body just won't have the same appeal on your living room tv.
7/10
Barbie Review
 |
| Warner Bros© |
Now after a dreary movie about mankind’s desire to destroy itself, let’s cheer ourselves up with a light-hearted meditation on sexism, consumerism, and death.
No, obviously Barbie is a lot of fun. It is a rare instance of a talented filmmaker being given near-unlimited resources, and the creative control to fully capitalize on it. Aside from a marketing campaign that must’ve rivaled the GDP of most second-world countries, the staggering budget is best displayed through the staggering collection of colorful, grandiose, practical sets. The production design team might've used enough plastic to single-handedly push global warming ahead twenty years, but the end result is an inspired and painstakingly crafted world that accurately scales the aesthetic of Mattel's flagship toy line. Or I mean, I assume, it’s accurate, I know nothing about Barbies because I was a boy and therefore played with manly shit like dinosaurs, and rocks.
I have mixed feelings about certified-girl boss Greta Gerwig. With her first three films, she has already proven to be one of the most consistent and versatile directors working today. That being said, I wouldn’t say she is particularly impressive at directing. Possibly the price of her versatility, she still has yet to develop her own style. He might be forever chained to the loud, complex, overly ambitious blockbuster, but you can tell a Christopher Nolan movie from a mile away. Gerwig has yet to find this type of creative stamp, as it’s entirely possible to watch Lady Bird, Little Women, and Barbie back to back and assume they were directed by three different robots.
Rather, her greatest strength has always been how she manages actors. Coming from an acting background herself, she knows exactly how to inspire and motivate a cast. No one in a Greta Gerwig project could ever be accused of “phoning it in”, with Barbie being possibly the greatest testament to her abilities. You have to imagine the majority of actors would see this job as nothing more than a paycheck with a Mattel logo, but through what I assume was a series of rousing motivational speeches Gerwig was able to assemble one of the most high-profile and passionate ensemble casts to grace the big screen. The highlights of which obviously being Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, who both put in a herculean amount of effort resulting in two of the most entertaining and deceptively complex performances of the year.
Even though I probably prefer Oppenheimer right now, I fully believe Barbie will hold up better over time. In part due to the fact that Christopher Nolan movies lose a large chunk of appeal as soon as you have to watch them on any screen smaller than an Olympic swimming pool, but more so because its core messaging will (unfortunately) be just as relevant 10 years from now. That gracefully transitions into the searing heap of shit that is the online discourse surrounding this movie. You see, I’m currently in a delicate position, where I need to be ultra-careful with my wording of the following critique. Else I get grouped in with all the “Jason Aldean fans” that were caught off guard by the feminist messaging in their Barbie movie.
So let me be clear, while I agree with the thematic center of the film, the way it was communicated at certain points in the 2nd half was…not…great. There's no requirement to be subtle, especially in a movie with more neon pink coloring than a highlighter factory. However, there is a difference between being intentionally flagrant with your messaging and inserting a bullet-point list of societal observations into a monologue about as seamlessly as splicing a Twitter thread into a John Steinbeck novel. I think this really annoyed me because up until then, I believed the film was doing a great job of conveying its key themes. It felt organic, as we were asked to asses our own society through the eyes of idealistic outsiders. Everyone in the room could hear you with no problem, why did you start using a megaphone?
Even beyond this, there’s just something that feels icky to me. Maybe it’s the fact that at its core this is a branded product, created through a symbiotic partnership between Hollywood studio and mega-corporation, existing to simultaneously cash in on a nostalgic property while rocketing said property into relevance. In any other universe where this project didn’t fall into the hands of a talented director, it would have been a completely soulless, inoffensive, 2-hour commercial. Even the actual film we got still seems obsessively concerned with portraying the Barbie brand as nothing less than an abject blessing to pop culture. The only character who expresses any kind of disapproval over the titular toy line is an angst-ridden middle school girl. Then by the end of the film when she changes her stance, it’s treated as a moment of clarity, like a racist old man finally seeing the error of his ways.
Or maybe it could be the fact that, as it does, Hollywood will look at this success and learn the completely wrong lesson. “Hey this Barbie movie did really well, I guess audiences really love…movies based on recognizable childhood toy lines”. I don’t know maybe I’m cynical, but when the Polly Pocket movie gets announced, remember this random, irrelevant blogger account that saw it all coming.
Comments
Post a Comment