A Clockwork Orange (1971)
– A long, long time ago, I directed readers to an essay by David Bordwell in
which he draws the distinction between an excellent film and a film that is to
one’s liking. I invoke Bordwell here
because I think he might be the key to my take on Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange; it’s a great film,
certainly, excellent by technical standards and one of Kubrick’s more
accomplished films, but it’s entirely different to “like” on a purely
evaluative level. For one, its
protagonist Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell in the epitome of a career-making
performance) is a brutal sadist who spends his evenings raping and engaging in “ultra-violence.” Perhaps worse, Kubrick’s filmmaking attempts
to get us to sympathize with – and even like – Alex, a disconcerting
premise once you realize what’s afoot. I’m
probably in the minority on this one, but I usually find Kubrick a bit...
boring; Dr. Strangelove is, I admit,
genius, but I’ve never been able to watch 2001
or The Shining in one sitting because
they seem plodding and aimless – which may be the point, perhaps, but they’re just
not “to my liking.” (The first hour of Full Metal Jacket, though, is brilliant.) But here Kubrick displays his ability to keep
a scene moving even if the camera is stationary, and though much of the film is
repulsive on a moral level, it’s transfixing on an aesthetic one, helped in no
small part by the quirky yet unspeakably evil performance McDowell turns in.
Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011)
– I’m on record as not being the world’s biggest Steve Carell fan, and Crazy, Stupid, Love does very little to
swing me in the other direction. Which
is not to say that the film isn’t enjoyable – halfway far from it. I say halfway because there are really two
movies going on in Crazy, Stupid, Love
(one, it seems for each unnecessary comma in the title): in one, divorcee Steve Carell tries life
without his wife Julianne Moore, while in the other his womanizing wingman Ryan
Gosling reforms his ways after meeting girl-of-his-dreams Emma Stone. As is usually the case with these kinds of
films, it’s the latter plot, the supporting one, that succeeds far more than
the former. The problem, perhaps, is that
Carell is too real as a man who’s had his heart ripped out; just when the supposed
comedy is getting to the funny bits, Carell mopes into frame with his sad-sack
character to remind us just how miserable he is. It’s a shame, because Gosling and Stone are
so talented and so charismatic together that one wishes for a movie revolving
solely around them. As a consequence of
being so schizophrenic, the film’s message is a mixed one – is love possible or
not? Or is it merely difficult but
worthwhile? If the latter, tell me
something I don’t know. Aside from the
Gosling/Stone scenes, I will credit the film with a rather clever third act
twist, something I didn’t know to see coming.
Friends with Benefits
(2011) – Remember that time that the two leads from Black Swan starred in separate movies about casual sex? I certainly do, but after seeing Natalie
Portman in No Strings Attached (with an
uninspiring Ashton Kutcher as her co-lead) I wasn’t exactly ready to join Mila
Kunis and Justin Timberlake in Friends
with Benefits. Turns out the joke
was on me, because Friends with Benefits
is by far the better of this odd couple.
Director Will Gluck, who made such a winner out of Easy A with Emma Stone, creates a solidly funny film here, which is
by and large victorious thanks to the infectious chemistry between Kunis and
Timberlake; their characters are likeable from the first, and – pivotally for a
comedy film – they’re funny, too. Also
back from Easy A is Patricia
Clarkson, who reprises her role as the kooky and sexually liberated mother,
this time of Kunis’s character. The only
part of the equation that doesn’t fit is Richard Jenkins as Timberlake’s
Alzheimer’s-afflicted father, whose outbursts lead not to comic relief but to
unexpectedly heartfelt pathos. While the
film falls prey to the clichés of the romantic comedy genre, it does so more
credibly than No Strings Attached,
without asking us to cry for the protagonists when their bizarre experiment
complicates itself. Wisely, the film remembers
that we have to like our characters in order to want to see them together, and Gluck
and company – particularly his leads – achieve both by leaps and bounds.
That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!
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