As part of my going back and checking films that I should’ve
seen earlier in the year, I am also spooling through the archives for films
that I only saw segments of to complete. Back when I was doing some part-time
work in movie theatre as ticket checker/clean-up crew, along with growing to
hate Home even more because those sessions were easily the messiest of the
entire day’s run, I also caught bits and pieces of today’s film. Something
about a guy in a robe talking about his boat and David Bowie’s Golden Years
playing over the credits; that’s pretty much all I know. Somehow, I’ve seen
scenes from the actual film and this is still
the blindest I’ve gone into a film all year. Well, hopefully Ben Stiller is
still waiting to give a decent performance; considering Night At The Museum 3
and Little Fockers, I can’t be sure. So, as a sort-of road test before next
year’s Zoolander 2… because, clearly, thatneeds to exist, let’s get stuck in today’s subject.
The plot: Documentarian Josh (Ben Stiller) and his wife Cornelia (Naomi Watts) live in New York while Josh works on his latest film, which has taken him 8 years and counting to complete. After running into young couple Jamie (Adam Driver) and Darby (Amanda Seyfried), Josh finds new drive to finish his film and subsequent questioning from Cornelia about why he likes them so much. However, when Josh and Jamie start working together on Jamie’s new documentary idea, Josh discovers that maybe he isn’t the greatest guy after all.
The acting from our main four is top-notch. Stiller gives
Josh a real thirst for success, and a clear over-abundance of creativity, yet
grounds him through convincing self-awareness of his own actions. Jamie is an
outright jackass, and pretty damn smug to boot, but Driver somehow keeps the
character from being irrevocably unlikeable through a certain naïve charisma.
Watts often has to play the voice of reason to Stiller’s antics, but she fills
those shoes rather nicely while also portraying the pressures of wanting to be
a mother very well. Seyfried is probably at the best I’ve seen her in her
entire career, pulling off apathetic yet comfortable in her conversations with
Driver, while also showing real understanding about the world as it exists
today. There’s that self-awareness at work again. Other than the core group,
probably the big name that comes to mind is Adam Horowitz AKA Ad-Rock of the
Beastie Boys as friend of the older couple Fletcher. In a film that’s all about
the social effects of ageing, seeing a guy who’s a part of probably the only hip-hop group that has managed to
age gracefully is a bit distracting, but his rapport with Stiller is breezily
natural.
It seems like, no matter what age people are, they are never
happy. Josh and Cornelia both mourn how they feel like time has passed them by
when it comes to starting a family, yet they fit right in with the conveniences
of modern technology. Meanwhile, Jamie and Darby are happy in their own skin,
yet feel more comfortable with older technology like typewriters and vinyl.
There’s a word for people like that, but it’s been so overused that it’s become
one of those terms where people know the rough context in which it should be
said but necessarily the meaning of it. Hell, I’m not even sure if I know what
it means anymore. Still, regardless of the Starbucks-frequenting, irony-abusing
subculture that they both seem to resonate with, how they influence the older
couple makes for decent progression. Yeah, it sounds a lot like By The Sea all
over again, except this is actually interesting.
Josh finds new creative drive to finish his eight-year-running documentary
project, and Cornelia gains a certain youthful invigoration and liveliness
herself.
Using documentary filmmaking as the big cornerstone for
showing how the world has changed over the years was a risky move, but one that
ends up paying off. Basically, in their separate ways, both Jamie and Josh are at fault in their views.
Josh’s creative ambitions are just far too great for his own good; as much as I
want to hate Hedge Fund Dave (Ryan Serhant, and yes, that is his credited
character name), the long-winded and formless description of Josh’s documentary
makes it sound like it would be a disaster if it got a theatrical release.
Jamie, while having reasonably smaller ideas that work a lot better, is rather
unethical in his methods and his motives; basically, he has the lack of
perspective and sense of entitlement that I’ve come to associate with most
hipsters. The man is posturing incarnate… but that’s just the way things are.
I mentioned a little while ago about how so many people on
this planet have access to cameras now; by that same token, all of them are
documentarians. You could string together a single person’s Vine posts and have
a feature-length presentation right there. When Josh finally tries to expose
Jamie for his doings, it comes across like mouth-piecing for the director but
with full knowledge about what the reality of the world is. Josh should be in the right, but ultimately
comes across like the bitter old man that the film fully admits that he is. Jamie’s
methods aren’t the most orthodox in the world, but it’s not as if this is the
first time someone despicable has made apparently good art. He even mentions
how that exchange went down a lot better in his head, envisioning it like an
impassioned speech given in an Oscar bait drama.
Then again, in a film that is all about fiction, reality and
the nature between films and the real world, Baumbach has a habit of having his
cake and eating it too. His espousing about objectivity vs. subjectivity and
what truly is the ‘reality’ that we end up seeing on the big screen would be a lot easier to take if he didn’t keep
betraying his own word. Aside from Josh’s expectations of a more cinematic
outcome to his scenario, we also have Darby talking about how rom-com clichés
aren’t how the real world works. Clichés like having a character go to a dance
class and ‘hilariously’ fail to keep up with everyone else in the room, or
someone saying that they won’t do something then the film smash-cuts to them
doing it, both of which this film partakes in. Not that it stays secluded to
the entirely comedic moments, as even some dramatic horses are trotted out to
fill in the blanks. A boiling tea kettle being heard over a heated argument
between Josh and his father-in-law is weak but ignorable. Josh saying out-loud
that he is an old man which then proceeds to echo in the room around him,
something that it is painfully clear was done in post-production, on the other
hand? Seriously, with how disarmingly relatable a lot of the material and the
character troubles are, it’s insanely distracting how often Baumbach will go
for the decidedly ‘movie’ moments.
All in all, this film is basically one big impotent roar
against modern-day hipsters, and yet it doesn’t come across as pathetic in any
way. Rather, through its effective acting and incredibly self-aware script, it
deals with the subject matter expertly, even considering the clichés it
frequently digs itself into. Bonus points for an ending that does an amazing
job at defining the entire film’s crux in a single image.
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