The Civilization of Maxwell Bright

Sex and Violence maintains an even resonance of brutal poetry, and it's also very very funny. Patrick Warburton brings enough vulnerablility to the despicable Max Bright such that his bilious reaction to life and the people in his sphere is bitingly funny. Ultimately S&V is all about pain and suffering, disease and abusiveness, but in such a way that the theatre where I saw it was rolling with laughter. My stomach muscles ached from laughing so hard. It felt like a Tennessee Williams play done really really well.

I wanted my husband to come to the Scottsdale Film festival to see this movie with me, thinking it was going to be a chick flick; hoping he'd see a few images of chauvinistic men seeing the light and then turning themselves around, (I love those gentle reminders). Instead my mother and I went and we rode an emotional roller-coaster during this "enlightening" movie. We Laughed, we cried, we loathed.... the movie was so unpredictable!! (It was a breath of fresh Hollywood air.)

Mai Ling was an inspiration. Her performance was beautiful, as was she. It ended up being me who was reminded of compassion and kindness. Patrick Warburton was fantastic... I hated his character so much initially I wanted him to die, and by the end of the movie my heart did a 180!! Well done David Beaird!!! This was definitely one movie worth the price of admission.

The Civilization of Maxwell Bright is an unexpected gem. The film is not only very funny but also surprisingly insightful and endearing. David Beaird has crafted one of the most winning American indie films of recent times with the help of a uniformly great cast.

Maxwell Bright is one of the most despicable anti-heroes to come along in some time. Max is a close-minded misogynist, living a painfully unhappy life in Los Angeles. After breaking up with his girlfriend, Max deems modern women too demanding and decides to buy an Asian mail order bride, hoping to purchase a sex slave and house cleaner in the one subservient package. Needless to say, Max gets more than he bargains for with Mai Ling.

At the core of the film is Max's transformation from a clueless Neanderthal to a reasonably well-rounded human being. This could have been incredibly trite in the wrong hands, but Beaird's acidic writing manages to keep any kind of sentimentality at bay. Beaird's writing can not be praised highly enough. He has crafted a truly hilarious screenplay with hidden depth. My only objection is Mai Ling's Buddhist nun back-story which seems very far fetched and out of place in a film so anchored in reality. The same could probably be said about the scene where Max takes Mai Ling to see a preacher.

Funny dialogue would be useless without the right actors and Beaird has collected a wonderful cast for the film. Patrick Warburton is a revelation as Max. Warburton gives a brave and honest performance, never shying away from the fact that Max is generally a bad person and knows it. This self-knowledge has the counter intuitive effect of making Max strangely endearing. Marie Matiko is good as Mai Ling but is somewhat hampered by the "wise Asian" syndrome, with some of her dialogue veering dangerously close to Grasshopper territory. Luckily Matiko is a good enough actress to imbue her performance with enough grit to be believable.

Eric Roberts almost steals the show as an uncharacteristically sympathetic character. Roberts, so renowned for playing sleazy thugs, is hugely affecting as Max's best friend, Arlis. The scene in which Max ends their friendship was the highlight of the film for me. I love Jennifer Tilly, so it was nice to see her in a small cameo as Max's doctor. The same can be said for the inimitable Missi Pyle, who has a memorable turn as a foul mouthed police woman.

The civilization of Maxwell Bright is a bitterly funny tale of one man's redemption. While I didn't quite buy into Max's "civilization" and found his fate somewhat theatrical, I still enjoyed the film immensely as a fascinating character study of an unpleasant, but very real, human being.

A plot synopsis of this film has been provided by at least one other reviewer, so I'll skip that. What was striking and refreshing about the film was its refusal to get psychological. I don't think anyone can watch this--especially the first 15 minutes--without wondering where Max's incredible anger comes from. It would have been tempting for the writer/director to include some sort of exposition of his childhood and/or his relationship with his mother and other women, either as flashback or monologue. Instead, what you see is what you get. Max is infantile and uncivilized (as the title implies) and no bones are made about it.

Still it's tempting to speculate. For example, one wonders if his life became chaotic after the loss of his initial girlfriend--the one we get a very good look at in the beginning--or if it was always like that. Does the absence of unconditional love throw his life into nihilistic disarray, or does he just require a girlfriend to keep his house clean? Why does Mei-Ling accept him twice, the second time after he's humiliated her horribly*? Does she see a big teddy bear in there or is she taking him on as a project? I see this as a strength of the film. Too much psychologizing feels like condescension. "Here. Let me explain every motive the characters have because I'm sure you're not sharp enough to think about them on your own." This is an excellent and powerful film, which ultimately imparts a sense of tenderness and peace without ever becoming mawkish.

*After having thought about it and, thanks to comments from other viewers, I have a theory about this question. If a Buddhist would enter hell in order to save another person from it, Mei-Ling continued to accept Max in order to take his place in hell. Perhaps the Buddhists know that such an act will redeem them both.

The film starts off with a disclaimer stating that a true Buddist would sacrifice to live their life in hell so that another would be spared the same fate. This is followed by an opening scene that could have been taken from COPS or a really bad porno flick. It quickly emerges that Maxwell is a profane, mentally unstable misogynist who makes his living hawking TV's on TV in Southern California. His collection of pitiful friends and his materialist lifestyle are even more pathetic than his abominable anger at everything and everyone. For the first two acts, it seems a black comedy that is heading down a clichéd path toward ignominy. Maxwell's behavior is so disturbing and contemptible, you may even be tempted to leave the theater, but a story of love and sacrifice emerges that you may never forget. Maxwell's life is ultimately changed when he is able to see life differently through the eyes of both his best friend and his wife, a Chinese woman who he has arranged to marry through a broker. This film will leave you with profound emotions and may even change your life.