Restless
Crit
Funny thing happened on my way to Weekend. Well on my way downtown, blabbing on the phone w/ my daughter, I realized that the pocket that is supposed to contain money, movie passes, Dunkin Donuts gift card w/ the Mets logo on it, etc., was in fact empty. Not enough time to return home, grab my heirloom money clip (rubber band), and get to the theater in time for the film I'd planned to see, but this one had a slightly later start + trailers, so I audibled.This has been getting savaged by pros and amateurs alike--a stunning 35% overall rating on RottenTomatoes.com, 28% (7 for 25) from Top Critics. Which would normally be a pretty clear sign to skip it (duh). But Denby didn't hate it in the New Yorker (a nod that RT missed), and A. O. Scott gave it a pretty good notice in the Times, and hell, Champaign-Urbana's own Roger Ebert loved it. Plus, Gus Van Sant.
So? Well, I don't think it sucks, but I can see why a lot of people disagree. Like a lot of Van Sant, it has much younger--one might even say less mature--sensibilities than you'd expect from a guy my age (a year and a half older, actually, but who's counting?). This feels a lot like the film the two central characters would have spun off from the dramatic scene we see them creating. And only a grown-up would insist on the inconvenient reality--to pick the lowest-hanging fruit from a tree lush and ripe--that a young woman less than 3 months from brain-tumor death might get sick occasionally, and wouldn't be apt to look as consistently luminescent as Mia Wasikowska probably can't help looking.
Still, Wasikowska and Henry Hopper (son of Dennis) make it easy to put strict critical standards on the shelf and just play along. I was about two-thirds charmed, I guess. Which is a lot more than I can say for yesterday's flick, which is pulling 82/73 on RT.
Trailers
- The Artist--Looks like a silent A Star Is Born; I'm intrigued, if not altogether sold.
No comments:
Post a Comment