DETACHMENT

DETACHMENT
Written by Carl Lund
Directed by Tony Kaye
Starring Adrien Brody, Marcia Gay Harden and Christina Hendricks


Henry Barthes: That bag is empty. It has no feelings. You can’t hurt it. I’m just like that bag.

I don’t know what any of us ever did to piss Tony Kaye off but I’m pretty sure that whatever it was, it did not warrant DETACHMENT as retaliation. Kaye’s third feature film is a relentlessly bleak look at the American education system, designed to open the eyes of its viewers to a situation they are already well aware of, while simultaneously driving those same eyes mad with some of the most scattered, unfocused and plainly amateurish filmmaking I’ve seen from a supposed auteur.

Adrien Brody, who also executive produced this insult of a film, stars as Henry Barthes, a professional substitute teacher who takes the bus every day to work like a poor slob and feels nothing anymore as he walks morosely through life. To be clear, life according to Kaye, is not worth feeling anything for. In Kaye’s universe, every student is either a bully or a thug or a prostitute or a budding sociopath or just plain uninterested in learning. There is no hope to find in the halls of this school. Even the teachers are either  on happy pills or being spit on or so far gone that they simply laugh off the loss of their students when they kill each other. I have nothing against bleak and hopeless. There are situations out there that fit the bill. When these very harsh realities are exaggerated to such extremity to prove a point, it presumes a lack of intelligence on the part of the viewer. We do not need to go to the far, painful end of the spectrum to understand the urgency of this problem.

Perhaps it would all be easier to digest if Kaye trusted himself more as a filmmaker. His biggest success to date is AMERICAN HISTORY X, a film he infamously wanted his name removed from but that is also infinitely better than DETACHMENT. Between the poor quality of the video camera / cinema verite aesthetic and the constant need to cut up scenes with intensely hideous close-ups and the random inserts of chalk drawings to accentuate his already obvious intentions, its a wonder how Kaye was able to get people like James Caan, Lucy Liu or Bryan Cranston to sign on to the project. I’m sure none of them knew going in that they would end up making such fools of themselves. Because aside from how clear it is that Kaye lacks confidence as filmmaker, DETACHMENT proves beyond a doubt that he doesn’t understand how people connect to each other or the world around them.

470. Midnight in Paris

470. (20 Nov) Midnight in Paris (2011, Woody Allen) 54



There's clumsiness in both the film's key plot device and the way famous individuals who populated 1920's Paris are introduced. Though warmth and charm carry a handful of scenes, it's burdened by inobservant observances like no time period recognizing its own significance. Owen Wilson's character wants to take his chances with an entrancing young woman in the past rather than his clearly dreadful fiancee in the present; that sort of deck-stacking prevents the film from feeling romantic or insightful. There are also some smug moments like Wilson pitching a scenario to Luis Buñuel.

REVIEW: Midnight in Paris (A-)

(dir. Woody Allen, 2011)

There are many kinds of Woody Allen movies.  There are the good ones and the bad ones.  There are the tough-nosed Manhattan tales and his whimsical fantasies.  His dramas and his comedies.  For a man with such a specific style, he seems to blur such nuanced genres in line with his signature storytelling.  Unfortunately, he hasn't been doing much of that late.

Midnight in Paris is Woody's third European film, following London and Barcelona-based Match Point and Vicky Cristina Barcelona.  When Woody experiments with style, sometimes it can be thrilling (Interiors, Manhattan Murder Mystery) and sometimes it can be awful (The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Melinda and Melinda) but this fantasy tale so evoked the purity of the Allen form that it was a homerun from the beginning.

Set, obviously, in Paris, this is the story of a successful beat screenwriter (Owen Wilson) trying to fulfill his true potential as a novelist while vacationing with his snotty fiancee (Rachel McAdams, playing the role so well you hate her) and her equally snotty parents.  While there, Wilson falls head over heels for the City of Lights, finding that the purest pleasure from the city isn't material consumption, but rather just seeing the city.  Over and over he states how much wonderful Paris would have been in the 1920s.  It becomes very clear quickly that what McAdams and Wilson have isn't very meaty, which actually prompts Wilson's quest for fulfillment very believable.  One night, while walking the streets of Paris, the midnight clock rings, a 1920s car pulls up and transports him to the world of Paris in the 1920s where he meets artistic icons and one sultry muse.

It's been said that Wilson is the best Allen stand-in since Allen himself, and I tend to agree with that (after having to suffer the indignation of Josh Brolin and the atrocious Larry David), for Wilson understood and exacted the typical nebbish nature of the character Allen has penned.  Though, oddly, this successful Woody Allen film doesn't exactly have a standout performance.  In his career, Allen has been so prolific with writing great roles for actors and specifically actresses.  But in Midnight in Paris, a few bit characters really steal the show.  It's not the apt Wilson, the painfully truthful McAdams, or the perfect Parisian Marion Cottilard.  But rather, it's Alison Pill as Zelda Fitzgerald, Corey Stoll as Ernest Hemingway, and Adrien Brody as Salvador Dalí.

I dare anyone not to sit through Brody's sole scene without splitting a side; his ridiculous commitment to the absurdity of Dalí and his obsession with rhinoceroses is just magnificent.  Pill as the country-bumpkin turned booze maven is a delight, chewing her words and making Zelda just as we'd always imagined her.  Stoll, too, deserves some credit for not exactly having as a comedic a role as the aforementioned two, but still delivering a blisteringly true performance as Hemingway.

Overall, Allen's message in the film is a fine, clear one.  It's nice to see an Allen film not as focused on infidelity or sex as his previous films have been, and he's allowed his truly great story to shine.  It's a small, quiet tale told in fantastic measure, yet with such a profound and grounded conclusion.  I can say without hesitation, that this is Allen's best film in nearly 20 years.  Surely come Oscar time, this film will get at least attention for Allen's superb screenplay.  GRADE: A-

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