Lullaby for Pi

Basically, this is a movie that for all intents and purposes, doesn't quite exist. I don't remember having heard anything about the movie, but came across it by accident while flipping through the movie listings on TV. And that is a shame! Okay, it hasn't gone completely unnoticed, as the tumblr blog people have an extensive post about it.

Synopsis: young brilliant musician goes into a deep depression with the death of his wife and stops music. Instead he spends his time in the hotel room where he first met her, waiting for her to call. A young woman, who doesn't want him to see her face and who lost several years of her youth to being in a coma, forms a friendship with him through the bathroom door. And, like magic, and with the help of the kindly chess playing hotel desk man, the two eccentric people tentatively and quirkily begin to live. He, again, she for the first time.

And it is the quirkiness that I can see being a thumbs down for some. Why? I've been struggling to articulate my thoughts, but it comes to what may be an odd split in the human population between those who delight in Magical Realism versus those who delight in cartoon violence or the un-magical realism of saccharine sentimental (happy / sad) movies. The emotional life of the characters is brought forward in the storytelling through exaggerated setting and character. So the young woman struggling to find her place in the world hides in the bathroom of the man having lost his place. Each have erected a wall between themselves and the world which, by the magic of life, is embodied in the locked bathroom door.

And thus we see a visual metaphor dance around the theme of finding/losing/rediscovering one's voice. The metaphor is re-enforced with the subplot of the young musician who has to struggle to keep his own musical voice while it is being excoriated by the good-intentioned father.

And, in the best of a magical realism typical of many Canadian writers, such as Barbara Gowdy and Margaret Atwood, the theme is explored in different ways. The young woman begins to find her voice using mute media: she uses film frames clipped from the movies she's paid by a theatre company to project and, with a kind of homage to Timothy Findley's novel Famous Last Words, journal writing on the wall of her loft that she would paint over until the day she met Sam.

This is a fun movie. The directing kept it light, and the performances by the leads are engaging and don't fall into maudlin sentimentality. Forest Whitaker as their unassuming spiritual guide was perfect in the role. The filmography is good and contributes to the story with its own subtle quirkiness. And the music is also excellent. As is noted, Charlie Winston contributes perfectly to the sound track, including Rupert Friend's extemporaneous blues/jazz 'hit' I'm in Love With a Bathroom.

Post Review: This movie participated in a delightful little synchronicity that, for the curious can be found at egajd.blogspot.com

For a move based on (in my opinion) some excellent jazz, why isn't there a soundtrack available. Long time since I've heard any jazz like this!

The film begins with a woman gaining access accidentally to the wrong apartment where there's a stock super-wise-man who hands out the keys. The invaded tenant is watching a cult favorite in his underwear. He asks if she's been sent by his friends to cheer him up. That is the first and last part of the move that rings true, that she's offended by the implication that she's a prostitute. But she forgives him quickly since she's in his room and made the error. Too quickly. She starts watching the movie too quickly too and, too quickly, finds it amusing. That's as good as it gets. She moves in too quickly and stays in his bathroom and he accepts that all too quickly because I guess he doesn't need to use it. Everything has to be established too quickly because not one character or relationship has an ounce of reality. Everything about this movie is forced because it's a compendium of cliches and stock sociological issues-du-jour. Point made! On to next point! Oh? It's a metaphor? For what?

The movie moves like quicksand. That would have been a good title: Quicksand. A lot of struggling and it just goes down, down, down.

Sam (Rupert Friend) is a troubled jazz musician who has stopped singing after a devastating lost. He runs a failing bookstore and lives in an old hotel run by George (Forest Whitaker). He befriends kids who walk in thru his ground floor window. His life changes when Pi (Clémence Poésy) breaks into his room and locks herself in his bathroom. She refuses to show her face as they both recover from personal heartbreaks.

There are great bits. I love Poésy and I don't mind Friend at all. The split screen of them on opposite sides of the door is great. They are good together. His musical ride into hip hop could have been very awkward but it actually works. Other than the character growth, the plot doesn't have much drive. It's like her pi tattoo where it has no ending and they dot dot dot it to put in a finale. It needs more in terms of plot writing and a bit more dialogue writing which could launch this romance into the atmospheres. It has a calm loving charm but the drama isn't there.

It only seems fair to start my review by stating that I may, quite possibly, be Rupert Friend's biggest fan. So I'm biased. The only work of his that I've seen so far that I didn't like was Hitman: Agent 47 (just not my style, I'm not a gamer, I got bored).

Rupert and Clemence are so charming together. I agree with another reviewer's comment that their relationship developed a little too quickly to seem realistic. But I loved the film so much I let that go. It's a love story; live a little. I usually avoid love stories because they're usually so bad. But this one is so refreshingly different--Sam and Pi expressing similar struggles (loss, grief, etc.) in different mediums (Sam through music and Pi through journaling and photography).

It's one of the more refreshing film experiences I've had in a while. I was glued to the screen. More people should see this.