Reitman Delivers a Misfire With "Men, Women & Children"

Roy from The Office shows up for this one scene. Don't even think
he speaks. Very weird.

After the increasing success of his first three films (Thank You For Smoking, Juno and Up in the Air), Jason Reitman has gotten himself on to a bit of a cold streak. Young Adult scored with critics but bombed with audiences and Oscar voters, and then Labor Day mustered little support of any kind. The writer-director has tumbled even further from grace with Men, Women & Children, the biggest critical and commercial flop of his career.

The film, which employs an interconnected ensemble in an attempt to explore the alienating forces of technology, found its way onto its share of 2014 worst of lists, but it's not that bad. There are some good characters here, and the film circles a topic worthy of continued exploration, even in the wake of Spike Jonze's brilliant Her. However, the film's positives are outweighed by an overbearing, self-important approach that really has very little to add to the conversation of how technology is changing modern life.

The film focuses on five family units in a small Texas community. Here's the rundown:

1. Chris (Travis Tope), a football player who has become so desensitized by internet porn that he can't get excited for real sex (this concept was handled with much more nuance and humor in Don Jon) and his unsatisfied parents (Adam Sandler and Rosemarie DeWitt doing the best they can) who seek extramarital affairs via the internet.
2. Cheerleader Hannah (Olivia Crocicchia), an aspiring starlet who posts inappropriate photos to a web site with the help of her misguided mom Joan (Judy Greer) in the hopes of jump starting an acting career. 
3. Tim (Ansel Elgort), a football star who quits the team after his mom abandons him and his father Kent (Dean Norris, so damn good) for life with a new man across the country. Tim spends most of his time playing an online role playing game and openly discusses the insignificance of life in the context of our massive universe. 
4. Brandy (Kaitlyn Dever), an emo sort whose overprotective mother Patricia (Jennifer Garner) obsessively monitors her every move via regular social media reviews, GPS tracking and a whole slew of other intrusions. 
5. Allison (Elena Kampouris), a cheerleader with an eating disorder who hooks up with the callous jock who teased her before she lost weight. 

Clearly, there's a lot going on, and that's before we talk about the story overlaps -- Tim and Brandy, Chris and Hannah, and Kent and Patricia are all paired off romantically. The only odd fit is Allison's story, which is bluntly drawn and entirely unconnected to the rest of the narrative. There's very little technological hook to this one (beyond a chat room of other users giving tips on how to avoid eating food), and it plays like a tacked on thread considering she's the only kid who doesn't have a prominently featured parent (J.K. Simmons is wasted as her father).

Overall, the film suffers as a message movie (all the technology connections are pretty much just window dressing) and works best as a community melodrama, but even then, it's extremely flawed (it's like a vastly less successful Little Children or The Ice Storm).

The problem is that the bulk of these characters are basically just representing different ideas, so they end up with almost no dimension. The exceptions to that rule are Tim, Brandy, Kent and Joan. There's a good movie here about a father and a son dealing with abandonment with the help of two romantic interests dealing with their own shit, but it's muted by all the other fluff filling up the bulk of the run time.

When Elgort, Dever, Greer, and Norris are onscreen, especially in combination, the film really shines. Otherwise, Men, Women & Children offers a bunch of junk-time for unengaged audience members to scroll through their phones. C

"Draft Day" Wants to Be Football Movies' Answer to "Moneyball," but Falls Way Short of the Goal

Kevin Costner does his best to make Draft Day enjoyable.

“Draft Day is to football as Moneyball is to baseball.” 

That’s how I imagine Draft Day was pitched and sold, but while both films focus on the front office maneuvering and domestic issues of general managers, they don’t represent a correlation worthy of a verbal reasoning test. Better to say Moneyball is to a great film as Draft Day is to some ludicrous fantasy scenario with overzealous editing tricks that’s propped up and made serviceable by the charms of Kevin Costner. That probably wouldn’t get put onto any test either, but at least it’s honest. 

Costner plays Sonny Weaver Jr., the GM of the Cleveland Browns who has drawn the ire of fans for firing the beloved long-time coach of the team, a man who also happens to have been Sonny’s dad and who also just happened to die a week before the draft. 

With the seventh pick in the draft, Sonny is debating between Vontae Mack, the flashy linebacker he’d like to take, and Ray Jennings, the running back the fans and current coach of the team (Dennis Leary) want him to choose. Then he gets a call from the Seattle Seahawks with an offer: they’ll give him the first pick in the draft, which he could then use on heralded quarterback Bo Callahan, for his next three first round selections. Despite having a veteran quarterback coming off an injury who he believes in (Tom Welling), Sonny makes the deal because his owner (Frank Langella) has told him to make a splash. Then he spends the rest of the movie trying to convince himself why taking Callahan is a bad idea. 

For most of its length, Draft Day is satisfactorily amiable, even if it goes way overboard with overlapping scene editing and all the damn domestic issues plaguing Sonny on this of all days. That his budget person/secret girlfriend (Jennifer Garner) would tell Sonny she’s pregnant – on this of all days – seems odd enough, but then throw on top of that the fact that his mother would throw a stink about spreading his father’s ashes on the field – on this of all days – and it just comes across as a wee bit much. I mean seriously – on this of all days? 

However, the film really runs into problems with the climax, which takes a look at the far-fetched domestic pile up, and says “You want to get ridiculous? Fine. I’ll get ridiculous. Nothing is more ridiculous about this movie than me. ‘Ridiculous’ is my middle name.” (warning: spoilers coming). 

Draft Day employs a whole lot of overlapping split screens to liven
up what is mostly a series of phone conversations.

Convinced that Callahan doesn’t have what it takes, Weaver goes with his gut and takes Mack. When Callahan starts falling down the draft board, it begins to look like Seattle could end up with the consensus number one pick and Sonny’s next to first rounders – a true boon for Seattle’s GM, who has been getting crushed by the fans for giving up the rights to drafting the league’s next great quarterback. 

That's when the movie starts slinging bullshit. It becomes obvious Callahan will fall to the Jacksonville Jaguars at six, but their rookie GM is shitting his pants, unsure of what to do and nervous to pick Callahan since other teams are passing on him. Sonny calls the guy and offers him a safety valve against making a disastrous selection – trade Cleveland the sixth pick for three years of second rounders. Miraculously, the Jacksonville GM takes the deal, and then Sonny calls the Seattle GM. He offers him the chance to trade for the sixth pick, draft Callahan and calm the vitriol of the Seattle fans, provided he return the three first round picks back to Cleveland. Seattle takes the bait, Cleveland picks Jennings, and Sonny comes out of the whole thing looking like a genius. 

The problem here is that this whole climax is utter nonsense – it’s the type of thing only a genie could make happen, and even then I’m not sure. There is no way in hell the Seattle GM would just cave and give up the picks like that. He’d probably call the bluff, noting that Weaver passed on the quarterback once, and he’d probably do it again. 

And even if the Seattle GM would be spooked into doing what Sonny wanted, there is no way three second round selections would garner a top 10 pick in the draft. And even if the rookie GM was an idiot willing to do that, he’d still have a slew of advisers telling him, ‘No.’ And even if the team in Jacksonville did decide to trade the pick, they’d almost certainly use all of the allotted ten minutes to find a better deal (perhaps with Seattle, who would have all sorts of picks to deal). Instead, they trade with Cleveland before they are even on the clock – an awful decision that occurs solely so the movie can allow Sonny enough time to call Seattle and make a trade. 

Although it was criticized for being too inside-football for mainstream audiences, Draft Day, like Moneyball before it, tries to make things as digestible as possible. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but unfortunately, while Moneyball opted to focus on the simpler aspects of a complicated system, Draft Day flat out dumbs things down. Although reality isn’t something I really require in my movies, and it’s definitely not something I require in my sports movies, Draft Day is just too damn much to take. C-

"Dallas Buyers Club" and "Mud" Justify the McConaissaince

It's that damn McConaughey. He's so hot right now!

Considering Matthew McConaughey’s recent Oscar win, the fervor surrounding True Detective and his lead part in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film, it’s apparent that we are in the eye of the McConaissaince. As a result, this seems a perfect time to finally put together some thoughts on Dallas Buyers Club and Mud, two 2013 entries I enjoyed quite a bit but never got around to reviewing. I figure it's definitely a good idea to strike before the McConalash sets in.

As a long-time McConaughey defender, I've enjoyed every minute of his comeback. It’s been funny to see the reactions of so many people who had previously written him off solely based on a few paycheck gigs in hollow romantic comedies. Guy always had screen presence to burn, and although he’s limited in some ways by an unshakable accent, he actually operates within a pretty wide range.

At the Oscars, Ellen joked that McConaughey is dirty pretty, but that’s actually an accurate description of his general movie persona. He possesses an oily magnetism that naturally suggests a seedy slickster or a morally compromised antihero, but then there’s the likable swagger and the intense vulnerability bubbling under the surface. He’s sort of a new age Michael Douglas, albeit with a six pack and a Texas twang.

McConaughey deviates from that wheelhouse occasionally (i.e. Contact, Amistad and The Wedding Planner), but like many good actors, he’s found his greatest success by playing into and off of his stock archetype. That assessment is certainly true of Dallas Buyers Club and Mud.

Dallas Buyers Club is a biopic about Ron Woodroof, a homophobic, womanizing good old boy who contracted AIDS in the early ’80s back when it was largely looked at as a gay disease. When Ron realizes the U.S. medical system and the ass-backwards FDA can’t help him, he decides to go south of the border to gain access to unapproved drugs. Soon, with the help of a transvestite partner named Rayon (Jared Leto), he begins smuggling the drugs into America and selling them to fellow AIDS sufferers as part of a monthly membership called the Dallas Buyers Club.

Leto and McConaughey lost a lot of weight for Dallas Buyers Club.

It’s interesting to me that this film languished so long in developmental limbo, because, beyond the topic of AIDS, it’s basically a conventional David vs. Goliath movie, one I suspect most would enjoy if they could get past their discomfort with what they perceive as “gay themes.” The film casts a critical eye on the FDA for being in bed with Big Pharmaceutical Companies to the detriment of the public, but it’s mostly an inspirational character piece about personal growth, redemption and the strength of the human spirit. A large part of the narrative hangs on the growing friendship that develops between Ron and Rayon, and it is all reminiscence of the similarly affecting dynamic Denzel Washington and Tom Hanks shared in Philadelphia.

The film starts like a bat out of hell and then gets into a comfortable rhythm before basically petering out. There’s a structural imbalance to the film, but it is buoyed by an excellent cast that includes winning support from Jennifer Garner, Steve Zahn and Griffin Dunn. McConaughey and Leto both won Oscars for their transformative performances, and while I probably wouldn't have gone with either of them in the stacked year that was 2013, the awards are well deserved. Leto does about everything he can to make Rayon into more than a walking plot device, and McConaughey owns the screen. I know some were annoyed McConaughey rode his comeback story to a victory on Oscar night, particularly at the expense of Leonardo DiCaprio, but this performance feels more charged and awards worthy than those by recent winners like Colin Firth and Jean Dujardin.

Although Dallas Buyers Club received the bulk of the attention, Mud is actually the more interesting McConaughey film to be released last year. Steeped in southern lore and magical realism and populated by a community of river dwellers, Mud instantly recalls last year’s excellent Beasts of the Southern Wild, but it is largely a homage to the works of Mark Twain. There are stand-ins for Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and Jim, and there’s even a character named Tom Blankenship (Sam Shepard), which the internet tells me is the name of the man who inspired Huck Finn. The film even has the feel of classic American literature due to its poetic atmosphere, thematic parallels and rampant symbolism (one could easily imagine a term paper on the significance of the titular character’s shirt or the evocative image of a boat lodged high in a tree).

McConaughey plays Mud, a fugitive wanted for murder and hiding out in the aforementioned boat on a deserted island in the Mississippi River. When Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and Neckbone (Jacob Loffland), two tween boys from Arkansas, encounter him on an exploratory adventure, Mud makes them a deal. If they’ll bring him food and help him make contact with his long lost love Juniper (Reese Witherspoon), he’ll gift them his pistol and grant them the squatter’s rights to the boat. Neckbone is intrigued by the pistol, while Ellis is mostly captivated by the romance of it all.

Ellis takes center stage for much of the story, and the film is ultimately a fable about a boy coming to grips with the mad complexities of love. He’s struggling with both the dissolution of his parents’ marriage and his infatuation with an older girl, and in Mud he seems to a have found a kindred romantic soul. He holds out hope that the connection between Mud and Juniper can confirm his faith in love, which can often seem like a cruel joke in the way it melds euphoria with abject disappointment.

The three lead characters of Mud would fit right into a Twain novel.

There’s a lot going on in the film, and writer/director Jeff Nichols juggles most of it very well. While we see the entirety of Ellis’ relationship with his crush, the dynamic between his parents (Sarah Paulson and Ray McKinnon) is fragmented and the one between Mud and Juniper isn't on screen at all. We see what Ellis sees and understand as he understands, and it speaks to the mastery of what Nichols has done that confusing character motivations on the part of some of the adults (especially the women) come into sharp focus as the film reaches its conclusion.

If there’s a misstep, it’s in the inclusion of a subplot involving Neckbone’s uncle. While it allows Nichols regular Michael Shannon to log some screen time, the whole thing feels inconsequential and adds unnecessary bloat to a film that would've been well served by cleaving off 10 minutes.

The below the line aspects are all top notch, and there’s some really great and subtle acting on display here. Both kids give emotive lived-in performances, and Witherspoon does well with a tricky role, striking the right balance as a woman intrigued by grand romanticism, but ultimately reticent and skeptical. And as was the case in Out of the Furnace (reviewed here), Shepard gets to be an old bad ass, but this time he gets a bit more of an opportunity to flex his acting muscles.

As for McConaughey, I’d argue that outside of Rust Cole, this is the greatest performances he’s ever given. There are so many seemingly conflicting things to play here – hope, regret, deception, honor, disgrace, warmth, danger, desperation –and he does it all with such nuance, taking what is a pretty mythical character and grounding him in palpable reality. Nichols has said he wrote the role with McConaughey in mind, and that’s easy to believe. Mud is an excellent showcase for McConaughey’s charisma and chops, and the film even contains a meta joke about being shirtless that is somehow weaved into the fabric of the character.

Like McConaughey’s performance, Mud has an organic quality to it that makes it easy to overlook as merely good at first. But then it lingers in the mind, growing in stature the more you ruminate on it. There’s so much to love here – the themes, the tone, the performances, the cinematography, the music, the iconography. This film is literally overflowing with riches. My favorite takeaway was the shootout toward the end of the picture, a set piece that overcomes its clichéd nature through sheer excellence in staging and visceral impact. When a coming-of-age drama succeeds on so many levels that it even contains my favorite action scene of the year – well, that’s pretty neat.

Dallas Buyers Club B, Mud A-