butikas

Welcome to symptomatic reviews.

B. J. Novak's first feature film masterly toys with a stereotyped opposition of the upstate Now Yorker and Texas redneck mirroring the deepening political divide in the United States. It turns this stereotype upside down gradually unsettling our expectations when the comedic first part of the film unfolds into a cul-de-sac of crime investigation turned into an act of crime itself. Actually, the basic set-up of Vengeance reminds Martin McDonough's style full of witty dialogue and comic juxtapositions of starkly different characters thrown into criminal circumstances.

While Vengeance works best as a comedy, this dramatic shift and slowing down the pace make it a reflective and timely piece of American auteur cinema. In short - things hold together, and this is to the merit of B. J. Novak's triple effort at writing, directing, and playing the main character, Ben. In terms of acting, Ashton Kutcher stands out playing antagonist, Quentin, whose persona offsets the fast-talking New Yorker-type Ben.

So what does Vengeance symptomize? Production quality, style, fast-edit aesthetics and acting have come to prevail over writing in the last few decades so much so that the cinema public hardly misses original writing or barely conceives the difference between the two. Vengeance is a welcome exception in this regard. Remarks such as: "I didn't enjoy it and want my minutes back", "don't wait for movie to get better because it doesn't", or even worse: "I don't even know what the message was supposed to be and I don't know why he's talking about 2020 issues in 2022." merely reaffirm the premise of the film - the deep-rooted despair that has begotten an individualistic culture breeds pathological whims seeking to re-affirm identity claims based on personal preferences that leak out in acts of violence. When Ty Shaw played by Boyd Holbrook retorts: "It's probably something you should know about this place. This is the most wretched, God forsaken stretch of land in the face of the earth and I would never leave", it's Ben's response, "Ben: Yeah, that is how I feel about Twitter" that compels audience self-reflection guided through the second act going beyond the quality TV productions. Although the acting and technical aspects fall short of the better films that came last year such as Triangle of Sadness or The Banshees of Inisherin, the provocative yet funny and insightful tweak of crime-drama makes it a memorable contribution to the Social Media age and political tensions in the States. It's on the part of the viewer, in other words, not to be taken over by the presumption of narrative resolution. Ben excels as a hipster whose upright demeanor is somewhat annoying. Or at least it did annoy me. But that is the point.

This is a thought-through piece of writing that unfortunately fails to find enough of a receptive audience. Too bad for the audience, not the piece, which deserves a firm 8.

Is it only me who can never deter the question lurking in the background while watching dramas.. is it fake? How do I relate to it? The movie is beautiful but where is this beauty coming from? Is it artificial paint, however masterful the painter, that is elevating my emotional response to the character, situation, carrying or miscarrying the leitmotif of the movie or is it emerging from the deep narrative structure, a masterful juxtaposition of moments that are so familiar but have never been arranged in such configuration?

The question of real and fake in a feature film is superfluous as it can get. And yet I have a feeling after being under the Moonlight for a while, that somehow it is not the latter, it is the paint, the lights that have attracted so much hype to this flick. The second and third chapters of the movie break apart .. the outer as much as the inner of the character is lost, the only thing keeping them in transition is the aesthetics and over dramatization of a very dull script. Moonlight is a step back from Boyhood. Yet it is a beautifully painted movie and I can see why nobody would miss.. how do I put it.. self-reflection of the character? Its determination? Or maybe the hype is to do with the LGBT orientation? In my view it's neither something to applaud nor denounce, apart from the fact that the theme obviously needed a breakthrough in the cinema.

There is a very good reason to follow your character for decades the way Linklater did.. something I learned from Moonlight.

While, seemingly, all the elements which should make this into a short funny engaging flick are there, it just lacks backbone to substantiate the emotional transition of the main character, far-fetching the funny elements and banal, overused 'failed-marriage-injury' motif leaving audience (or at least me) uninvolved. That said, the film works as a funny attempt to create drama, not really getting there, although still being enjoyable, especially for the first half.

The concept itself is quite interesting, and could have been exploited to achieve more. Waiting to see what Tadas Vidmantas comes up with in the future.