The Good Night

Making a movie about dreams or dreaming is tough, and it shows in this one. The difficulty with dreams in any bit of fiction is that they can't be held accountable; that is, by definition, there isn't any kind of direct correspondence between dream occurrences and narrative significance. A dream (singular) here and there can enrich a narrative with symbolism, causality, subconscious, but when the dream becomes plural then almost universally a story starts to break down. Having gritted my teeth through movies like Waking Life and The Cell, to name a few, I've come to associate "dream" with "lazy" in cinema.

That being said, I had to see what Simon Pegg and Martin Freeman would do in a movie together. And the bottom line is, due to these two guys, the movie is worth a watch. Don't may more than $4 to see it.

What you get really is a movie without consequences. You have Martin Freeman obsessed with a dream character. OK, kind of interesting, but there's not enough dimension to his girlfriend (Paltrow), who just seems like a nag, or his friend/former bandmate (Pegg), who, granted, is extremely funny but ultimately without Pathos, to really make his dream obsession a truly engrossing psychological/sociological study.

And again, what happens here is that the dream sequences, and even the obsession with them, because of the, by definition, incommensurable quality of dreams, their inability to be authentically expressed through proxy (language, film, journals, etc.), leave us as audience members bereft of any feeling of causality, arc, or direction.

Also, as a sidenote, the pseudo-documentary format that the film opens with and halfheartedly maintains is confusing and ultimately misdirecting. It ends up looking like the mistake of a novice director.

Martin Freeman performs his lines well, Pegg is funny, DeVito is a pleasing eccentric, and Paltrow isn't as annoying as she usually is (however Cruz is somewhat intolerable), so the movie is worth seeing once, if you've got nothing better to do.

The Good Night (2007)

Gwyneth's brother directs a curious but strained movie featuring both Gwyneth Paltrow as the real world lead and Penelope Cruz as some kind of vixen of the lead men's dreams. Now you might wonder what leading man Martin Freeman has wrong with him that he gets to sleep with his wife, played by Gwyneth, and yet he dreams of this other, Latina, woman. This is so filled with simplistic male fantasy, with stereotypes of ethnic types and gender roles, it's sometimes painful.

Most of the time you can, hopefully, gloss over this and see pure cleverness (in the footsteps of The Science of Sleep 2006) and layers of reality (a pale version of any Kaufman film like Eternal Sunshine (2004) or the more recent Synecdoche, New York). In fact, you might see the use of the woman's face in advertising as an echo of Red (1994). I guess I'm struggling to find the originality here, which I'm sure is meant to hold it all together.

Martin Freeman is likable but a little milquetoast for me, as the locus of the whole movie. Cruz is a relief in leather (the white fur on the beach scenes are total gag me clichés, even as clichéd dreams). I rather like Paltrow the sister as an actress when she is the normal young woman, which she is, but it does force the script to rise up and make their normal coupleness vivid, or trenchant, or comic. It is only slightly two of these. The fourth main character in spurts, besides the caricature that is Danny DeVito, is Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead fame), who is really a great presence, stealing his scenes.

Do I say see this movie? Only if there are some aspects here, and some influences, that are up your alley. It's not horrible at all, a kind of back-handed something to say without just saying it tries too hard.

If indie dramas are to believed, there are essentially two reasons why there is so much unhappiness in the world (at least among the more privileged classes who have the time and resources to think of such things): a) people can't stand the idea of being alone in the world, yet they also can't stand the idea of being with another person for long stretches of time either, and b) it's hard to come to terms with the contrast between what we imagined our life would be like and what it actually turned out to be.

A case in point is "The Good Night," a mid-life-crisis drama with a surrealistic twist. Gary is a songwriter/musician who used to be part of a band but who has now been reduced to writing commercial jingles and scores for second-rate TV shows. A somewhat de-glamorized Gwyneth Paltrow plays Gary's nagging long-time girlfriend who's definitely become disenchanted with their relationship, while the ultra-glamorous Penelope Cruz stars as the literal woman of his dreams – until she materializes and becomes a part of his waking world that is. In fact, a fairly large chunk of the movie's running time is taken up with Gary's dreams, which inevitably feature this alluring figure who stands in obvious counterpoint to Dora's flesh-and-blood imperfections. And then there's Danny De Vito as the scene-stealing New Age dream-whisperer who attempts to maneuver Gary through his crisis.

The point of the film, written and directed by Jake Paltrow (brother of Gwyneth), seems to be that ideal worlds and ideal relationships exist only in dreams, and that, if you want to survive and maybe even find a little bit of happiness in this life, you had better start accepting some compromises and limitations and not, as Voltaire once opined, make the perfect the enemy of the good. Even Gary's dream-woman is eventually unmasked as a relatively pedestrian fashion model who definitely does not live up to the dreams and fantasies Gary has about her before he meets her in the actual flesh.

The movie does a nice job transitioning back and forth between the world of reality and the world of dreams, and the actors demonstrate an astute understanding of the roles they are playing. Some of the conversations and arguments the lovers engage in are almost too painfully realistic at times, with Dora, in particular, unloading her feelings on Gary to withering effect.

It's not exactly a world-shaking human drama, but it offers some insightful observations into those maddeningly messy things we euphemistically call "romantic relationships."

I'm still not completely sure what this movie was exactly about. The initial layer suggests a story about an insecure bloke who tries to escape his run aground life through lucid dreaming. Real life and the dream world coincide as he finds out that the woman he is pushing away from his life is actually the one he wants to stay with. People trying to dig beyond this layer have some difficulty. Not because this movie is especially deep but simply because there's not much beyond it period.

Do movies have to be deep or insightful? Of course they don't. But this one to me suggested it may become that. And when it didn't, it left me feel a bit dissatisfied.

With an interesting story nonetheless, solid acting throughout, some great jokes and appealing visuals this movie rises well above the average Hollywood production. What it simply lacks are some really poignant scenes and build up towards the end. But just like the main character Gary who never rises above himself, the movie doesn't either. But maybe that was the whole point.

That said, there's absolutely no harm in bringing this one home for a view.

7/10

Saw the world premiere showing of the Good Night at the Sundance Film Festival last week and have come to report back on my findings. Was really looking forward to this one, story sounded interesting in an Eternal Sunshine kinda way, and the cast is top notch. The Good Night stars Martin Freeman as former brit pop star Gary, who hasn't exactly been doing a whole lot since his famed band went on the skids. Gary lives a less then fulfilling life with his long time girlfriend Dora, played by the excellent Gywenth Paltrow, and keeps company with successful ex bandmate Paul, played by the hilarious Simon Pegg. Gary spends his days doing meaningless commercial gigs in which his creative talents are kept in check in order to create more familiar music that sounds like the theme from "Cheers". Understandably Gary needs an outlet from his less then stellar career and from his almost non-existent relationship with Dora. One night Garys finds that outlet in his dreams, more specifically in the perfect female form played by Penelope Cruz. Desperate to escape reality Gary finds himself wanting more to live in his sleeping life then in his real life and he finds an unusual guide in Mel, played by Danny Devito. Mel mentors Gary on this lucid dreaming and soon Gary finds himself mastering his dreams, but in reality his good nights are turning into bad days.

Sounds interesting but does it work, well not so much. Much like a dream the story is scatter shot and incomplete. We only get a glimpse into the characters lives and as the story goes along we still don't have a lot of info here. Does Gary want to be a pop star again, is he jealous of the success of his friend, does he really care about his girlfriend - did he ever and whats so special about his dream girl? Gary is as lost in life as he is on the audience, he feels distant as do most of the characters here, aside from the amusing Paul. In the end this movie just doesn't quite work out, maybe it wasn't supposed just like a dream. All that being said its a nice first movie by Jake Paltrow, he's got a good vision and his effort here is obviously promising but frankly the story was beneath his directing talents. As for the actors, Martin Freeman, Gywenth, Devito - all very good work but again the story just is so-so and the acting can't save that. The Good Night, just a decent night at the movies