jcbcritique

When one thinks of singers trying to act, the first culprits that come to mind are Frank Sinatra in "From Here to Eternity" and "The Manchurian Candidate", or Elvis Presley in anything. Usually, the crossover does not work because a particular kind of singer may just have too much personality (or "baggage") to fit himself into a particular role.

Here, though, the transfer works, and it is a result of the kind of singer Willie Nelson was, and always has been. His style of delivery as a musician is all understatement, quiet nuance, and behind-the-beat phrasing. There is a sort of conversational verisimilitude in his singing that crosses over into acting (screen acting, at least). His style of singing is almost the equivalent of the "method" school of acting -- it is all psychological and physiological recall.

So, Nelson is nearly perfect as Parson Shays, for that reason, and for another; the character was already fully-realized in the musical album version of "The Red-Headed Stranger." The screenplay is largely just a fleshing-out of Nelson's narrative vision. If you doubt that, give the album another listen; it has a surprisingly coherent, and direct storyline that connects all of the songs (even several not penned by Nelson himself, most particularly Hank Williams's "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain").

Now, of course, the question still remains: how good is the story itself, and how well has it been rendered on-screen? This is not a Western on par with Leone's, Ford's, or Eastwood's. Nor it is meant to be. It is, however, remarkably well-crafted bit of movie-making. For those who object to the seemingly amoral content (the murdering of women), the only response is that a piece of narrative fiction is not a sermon, and artistic judgment is not the same as moral judgment. Furthermore,the old-school, "white hat/black hat" type of Western was already on its way out around the time of "Shane."

For all of its arm-waving, panting dialogue, and (mildly) controversial subject-matter, the adjective that springs to mind is "forgettable." First of all, Ellen Page, in full Janeane Garofalo mode, is not terribly likable in the title role. The pixie-haired angel of death from "Hard Candy" was an easier sell for an actress of Page's physical type and emotional brittleness. She tries to compensate for this with over-delivery of lines, and exaggerated facial expressions.

But before too much of the fault is laid on Page, the awfulness of the dialogue must be admitted. It pleads, rolls around on the floor, and kicks its heels for attention, and worse than this, it becomes fairly predictable about fifteen minutes in. At about the halfway mark, I found myself guessing the punchlines to jokes before the actors could deliver them. Case in point; when the pregnant Juno first meets prospective adopters Bateman and Garner, and is offered a drink, I actually said aloud, "She's going to ask for alcohol." Of course, Juno asks for a Maker's Mark. But in a cute-fest of PG-13 proportions, of course, she immediately corrects herself to a juice (or maybe a soda).

In sum, then, the dialogue is the principal undoing of this film -- no amount of decent acting (which is not entirely absent) can save it. Honorable mentions, therefore, for Alison Janney and J.K. Simmons in largely thankless and under-written roles as Juno's parents. Justin Bateman, usually a sly comic actor, here seems unable to find the via media between harmless unction and dangerous sleaziness. Jennifer Garner phones her performance in, and to be honest, probably not much more could be expected of someone like her.

Michael Cera, out-hammed by Page in every scene he appears, may or may not be good. It's impossible to tell.

Some of my best friends are hipsters. Nevertheless, the velvet-jacketed, argyle-sweatered, knit-scarved armies of ironists that comprise young white culture today are all bit too anemic and muddle-headed for me to even get upset about. That is, like the sort of people who must be its fan base, "Igby Goes Down" ultimately annoys in a vague, wheedling, sort of way, like a small insect stuck in your bedroom at night. It keeps making thrusts and feints at your ear, and you keep batting it away, hoping that it will find the crack under the door.

In the final analysis, there is nothing really objectionable about the film. It is not poorly written or acted (Kieran Culkin is wooden, but that seems to be called for in this part), but it seems to want to be thought of as erudite, or at least, clever and snarky. One of the other commentators on this site compared it favorably to "The Graduate". That person obviously watched the older film with the "mute" button on the entire time. The perversity and wackiness of "The Graduate" is of a degree and kind that people like Wes Anderson and Burr Steers only dream of attaining in their product.

Maybe part of the problem is a lack of identity with us "normal" or "average" folk (there are fewer hipsters of the Anderson stamp that you might think). That is, in order to subvert "white middle class culture" (whatever that means these days) you have to be a card-carrying member of it to begin with.

By comparison to Wes Anderson, people like John Hughes and Mike Nichols are Average Joes. That's why their efforts are going to outlast the Andersonian wackiness. By the way, don't misunderstand me; I'm not holding up Hughes or Nichols as examples of "great" or "profound" art or anything like that. Let's keep in mind that we are talking about 20th and 21st century American film, a debased form to begin with. Examined against that yardstick, "Igby" is not terrible -- it's just very, very forgettable.