WARM BODIES

WARM BODIES
Written and Directed by Jonathan Levine
Starring Nicolas Hoult, Theresa Palmer and John Malkovich

R: Why can’t I connect with people? Oh, right. It’s because I’m dead.

Zombie movies have long been an allegory for the despondency of society. We all walk around as if in a trance, going about our business without seemingly giving it any thought whatsoever. We don’t feel anything; we don’t notice anything; we just blindly accept our fates that have numbed our minds into complacency. Plainly put, zombies remind us that being alive is a much better deal than being undead. And with all the chatter about a zombie apocalypse on the horizon, WARM BODIES, Jonathan Levine’s follow-up to 50/50, announces that even if it comes to this, there will always be hope as long as there is love.

In WARM BODIES, zombies already run the world. Well, they don’t so much run it, as that would require thought, but they occupy it. The remaining unaffected human beings live in a city that is protected by a giant, fortified wall, as everyone knows, zombies are not the greatest climbers. On occasion, groups of humans, young attractive humans as it turns out, go on missions outside the city to collect whatever they can find, from medicine to food. On one such outing, a young lady named Julie (Theresa Palmer), the daughter of the human’s leader (John Malkovich) no less, is captured by the zombie who eats her boyfriend’s (Dave Franco) brains. Now, zombies don’t ordinarily spend their time taking humans prisoner but this zombie, whom we will later know as “R”, and who is played by Nicolas Hoult, a boy far too pretty to be caught chowing down on brains, is no ordinary zombie. No, in fact, R is intensely nostalgic and underneath all that dead skin, very sensitive. He collects things from the old world, like records and books, anything that reminds him of what it used to be like to be alive. Bringing a human being back might be overstepping though, or in the case of a zombie, over-shuffling.

WARM BODIES should not work as a movie. And, in all honesty, it doesn’t always come together properly. Zombies don’t move very quickly and they don’t really talk all that much. So having one as your protagonist could make for a very slow experience. So Levine, taking his cue from the Isaac Marion novel, lets us hear R’s thoughts throughout his kidnapping plot. What you hear is a romantic so held back by his own inability to connect with people, what with his being a zombie and all, that the audience, if they have ever felt restrained by their own insecurities surrounding love, should want to root for his success. The trouble is, his success, which Hoult does make as endearing as he possibly can given the circumstances, means that the film has to break more zombie conventions than it can recover from. On the plus side, I did learn that we needn’t worry too much about the aforementioned zombie apocalypse. Apparently, it is no match for true love.

50/50

Written by Will Reiser

Directed by Jonathan Levine

Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick, 

Bryce Dallas Howard and Anjelica Huston

Adam: I can’t remember being so calm in a long time.

Katie: Would you describe it as numbness?

Adam: No, I would describe it as fine.

Up and coming director, Jonathan Levine’s latest film, 50/50, is being billed as a cancer comedy, only I cried about five times so I’m not sure the descriptor really fits. 50/50 is writer, Will Reiser’s first hand account of what it was like to get cancer in his 20’s. Clearly, as he is still here to tell the tale, he lives through the ordeal, but knowing this does not take away from the personal journey he shares with us. And fortunately for all involved, that journey is being taken on screen by the always impressive, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who easily makes 50/50 a sure bet.

Gordon-Levitt plays Adam, whom we first meet jogging down the streets of Seattle at dawn. Instantly, while we watch him wait at a red light to cross an intersection despite any trace of traffic approaching, we know that Adam is cautious and self-aware. Even when he is told that he has cancer, he protests on the basis that he doesn’t smoke or drink and that he recycles. Adam follows the rules and yet is being inexplicably punished. Adam is not particularly original, as far as characters go, but his emotional path leaves the character so exposed and vulnerable that we are deeply endeared to him. Commendably, Reiser does not make us pity him but instead it feels like a rare and  honest account of his experience. For Gordon-Levitt to be able to open himself up to this kind of candidness only further proves that he is one of the most relatable young actors working today.

I felt I could know Adam, that he could be one of my friends. That one of my friends could go through this is foreign to me and fortunately, not something I’ve ever had to go through. As much as 50/50 is about Adam’s plight, the other half of it is about how the people around him learn to support him. From his best friend (Seth Rogen, playing a role based on himself, as he is also Reiser’s best friend in real life) to his mother (Anjelica Huston, making the most of her little screen time) to love interests both potential (Anna Kendrick) and exiting (Bryce Dallas Howard), everyone in his life stumbles through supporting him as if they were blindly walking into walls. Everyone is trying though, reminding us just how important intention really is, and 50/50 surely has the best of them.

TIFF Review: 50/50

Written by Will Reiser

Directed by Jonathan Levine

Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick, 

Bryce Dallas Howard and Anjelica Huston

Adam: I can’t remember being so calm in a long time.

Katie: Would you describe it as numbness?

Adam: No, I would describe it as fine.

Up and coming director, Jonathan Levine’s latest film, 50/50, is being billed as a cancer comedy, only I cried about five times so I’m not sure the descriptor really fits. 50/50 is writer, Will Reiser’s first hand account of what it was like to get cancer in his 20’s. Clearly, as he is still here to tell the tale, he lives through the ordeal, but knowing this does not take away from the personal journey he shares with us. And fortunately for all involved, that journey is being taken on screen by the always impressive, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who easily makes 50/50 a sure bet.

Gordon-Levitt plays Adam, whom we first meet jogging down the streets of Seattle at dawn. Instantly, while we watch him wait at a red light to cross an intersection despite any trace of traffic approaching, we know that Adam is cautious and self-aware. Even when he is told that he has cancer, he protests on the basis that he doesn’t smoke or drink and that he recycles. Adam follows the rules and yet is being inexplicably punished. Adam is not particularly original, as far as characters go, but his emotional path leaves the character so exposed and vulnerable that we are deeply endeared to him. Commendably, Reiser does not make us pity him but instead it feels like a rare and  honest account of his experience. For Gordon-Levitt to be able to open himself up to this kind of candidness only further proves that he is one of the most relatable young actors working today.

I felt I could know Adam, that he could be one of my friends. That one of my friends could go through this is foreign to me and fortunately, not something I’ve ever had to go through. As much as 50/50 is about Adam’s plight, the other half of it is about how the people around him learn to support him. From his best friend (Seth Rogen, playing a role based on himself, as he is also Reiser’s best friend in real life) to his mother (Anjelica Huston, making the most of her little screen time) to love interests both potential (Anna Kendrick) and exiting (Bryce Dallas Howard), everyone in his life stumbles through supporting him as if they were blindly walking into walls. Everyone is trying though, reminding us just how important intention really is, and 50/50 surely has the best of them.