museumofdave

If approached with a certain attitude about Kay Francis soaps, this can be great fun--who, in the year 2024, could possibly take this film seriously? Instead, enjoy the ways Kay and Warren attempt to skirt around the real issue of the film, i.e. A philandering husband and a pregnancy presenting itself from someone other than his wife! No one in films can suffer quite as easily and nobly as Our Kay, and when she gets that certain look, you know she accepts her fate with perfect equanimity. And if you don't like the plot, count the number of outrageously stylish outfits Our Star Parades with perfect assurance and her distinctive brand of Warner's charm.

The ability to make a compelling film is not questioned with this director, but increasingly, a completely unnecessary reliance on violence and vile behavior and grossness for it's own sake have come to dominate the narrative. In Tarantino's Hollywood film, I thought that at last he was going to strengthen his adult capability but avoiding the gross cop-out--but to the detriment of all that had gone before, we had folks in the swimming pool done in by a blow-torch--often and in detail, and that was that.

In Mother! The point has been clearly made (even in an appropriately confusing narrative) that heroine Jennifer has become ensnared in a net woven perhaps unintentionally by her writer husband, but in the last 30 minute, Aronofsky immerses the viewer in grossness for it's own sake...and without dropping plot points, what happen's to Mother's hope--and to Mother herself--is way beyond logic of any kind, and outside common decency for any sensitive viewer. There are some viewers, that, as Shakespeare said, "meditate on blood and savagery," but to what purpose--but to gross out? It's a brilliant film for such shenanigans.

Too many of today's kiddie movies opt for adult jokes, and "slip in' offer-color humor that they think the kids won't get--too often we get kid's movies about pee, poo, farts and anything some overgrown adult-child in Hollywood will get a laugh.

This film demonstrates how innocent childlike behavior that is silly can be fun, about how misplaced priorities by adults can be redirected when they tune into what the child professes and, more importantly, loves.

The relationship beetween Elf Will and James Cann his father provides a perfect example---adults will appreciate that Caan is remembered for several violent Hollywood classics, but kids don't care, and completely understand when Will is shunned by his Dad--who does come around.

Casting Asner as Santa is genius, and the redecoration of Gimbel's classic hilarity-- And--this is really important--the film is EXCITING!