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June 26, 2015

Friday Favorites: Gone Girl

I started writing film reviews on this blog with The Prime of MIss Jean Brodie; a still-odd choice for me, because I tend to be a more modernist film critic, and less about the past... and because that film is really, really dark. And I at least try to cover up my love of really dark, really messed up entertainment. Not necessarily successfully.

So it's probably appropriate to attempt a return to form with Gone Girl, last year's easy winner in the messed up (or, for the less refined, f*cked-up) film category. Nobody's idea of a date movie, Gone GIrl arrived as the adaptation of a monster bestseller, hinged on the selling point that you, dear reader, had no idea of the astonishing twist the narrative would take.

On that selling point alone, I bought the book ...and promptly failed to read it. For years. The book would taunt me. I'd see others reading it; I would ask and to a person they said it was amazing, and the twist was unexpected... and it couldn't be shared. So naturally, I waited for the film adaptation.

The film version does not disappoint, either. Director David Fincher has brilliantly realized Gone Girl both as a tasty, chilling thriller, but also as a deeply subversive, equally chilly dismissal of current pop culture, of true crime "journalism," celebrity obsession, and the way we reward the showy, the glib, and the insincere. This is not the film to tell you that things get better, or to simply root for the good guy and truth will prevail in the end. If you want a light, upbeat tale of true love... this film is not for you.

The film starts quietly, simply: Nick Dunne is a nice guy on the day of his 5th wedding anniversary to Amy, when she disappears under mysterious circumstances. As we unpack the mystery, we learn more about Nick, Amy, and what seems to be a beautiful relationship put under stress by the economy, and the tensions of two people maybe growing apart.

Things get more complicated as a series of revelations suggest that Nick is not the simple, concerned spouse he seems - there's an affair, some curious financial doings, and more. Also Amy has layers of complexity hinted at from the beginning - there's her complicated relationship with her parents, author of a series of books whose child heroine, "Amazing Amy," is an idealized version of the real woman. Amy's diary seems to suggest an uncertainty about her life and her marriage that only adds more questions. And still, no one seems to quite know what happened or where she is.

That's where the twist comes in, and it's a doozy, a moment, rare in fiction these days, where all that's come before is simply turned on its head. It's here that Gone Girl becomes more than a simple whodunnit, to a dark examination of roles and expectations for men and women, and how easy it is for us to simply believe what we see, what we are told. Gillian Flynn, who wrote the book, also handles the adaptation to film, and she has a real sense for the old adage about "show, don't tell" - there's a lovely economy of actual dialogue, a trust that we will see for ourselves what is actually unfolding.

Davids Fincher's been on this kind of kick for years, but I think Gone Girl may be his best effort yet at adapting a novel to film, while still preserving his own icy, subversive worldview. He's not afraid to explore darkness and true madness (as with, say Se7en, or the Girl with The Dragon Tattoo), buit there's a quality to Gone Girl that seems lighter, playful; Fincher seems better able to deploy sarcasm that sees the sarcastic humor of it all.

And of course, he's helped immensely by a superb cast. Ben Affleck has labored for years against that certain lunky presence he brings to film, and Gone Girl, well, wallows in just that. As he shambles, as he gets caught in a carefully spun web, you can see the mix of decency and loutishness, the guy who wants to be good... ish.

Then there's Rosamund Pike as Amy, beautiful, tightly coiled, as enigmatic as the greatest screen beauties (Gene Tierney's Laura comes most obviously to mind... but so many others as well) and every bit as dangerous. Pike does a remarkable job of making a highly improbable character real, complex, and fascinating. And even dangerously amusing.

The rest of the cast is similarly focused and effective - perhaps none so much as Neil Patrick Harris, as Amy's most dangerous ex; but one has to shout out Tyler Perry as an over the top cross of Johnny Cochran and... well, Tyler Perry, as a well known, wily lawyer. Who's probably the closest thing the film has to a purely good guy.

Nothing is simple in Gone Girl, and the remarkable thing, I think, is how this film found an audience of enough sophisticates to actually be a success. Dark, defiant, and deadly, Gone Girl doesn't celebrate America's greatness, or wallow in our culture's false sorrows. Instead, it says that behind the most glowing successes is a pretty dark, messed up interior. And I for one, thinks that notion captures us pretty damn well.

Posted at 04:45 AM in Favorites, Film, Gay stuff, women | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 25, 2015

See That Chair? He Put It There.

President Obama is getting a little (and not enough, I'd say) flack for saying to a heckler at this week's Pride celebration in the White House, "you're in my house." The sentiment, while understandable, belies the fact that dissent is enshrined in our American culture, and it will come through the doors of even the President's house. Eartha Kitt, famously, angered Lady Bird Johnson by speaking forcefully about deaths in Vietnam at an otherwise non-political luncheon. Laura Bush had to cancel her planned program celebrating poets when those poets made clear they didn't support the invasion of Iraq.

But more pointedly, being President doesn't make the White House yours.

The President has walked this line throughout his term in office; there's a tension between the "great man" pose he rode into the office and the sense that he's more than a bit diffident about the glad-handing, everyman aspects of taking lofty ideas into practical application, never mind the tension of disagreement and dissent. He seems aloof, even cold. He comes off as high handed at times - he's managed, more than once, to annoy congressional leaders because he seems to have no sustained relationships that he can leverage to achieve his own policy goals. He lectures, rather than attempting to persuade.

I don't think all of this makes the President terrible, just human, and flawed. He's a smart man. He's able to see the big picture. He'e clear-eyed about what need to happens to make progress. I think he's less thrilled with people who don't see what he sees. And he's not exactly patient about waiting for others to catch up. I'm also not entirely sure it gives him a real feel for the struggles of people, say, in poverty. Or the emotional pain of a man whose lover has to be deported (the point of the Pride protestor). Feelings, emotionality... these things get in the way of clear eyed assessments. It's hard to fake the caring side (just as it's also hard to pretend to be smart).

Oddly, that's why I think the Supreme Court had little choice today but to uphold the Obamacare subsidies. And that, really is where the President may be more accurately firm in saying "not in my house."

The Affordable Care Act made provisions for each state to operate a health insurance exchange, as a way to give individuals, the self employed, unemployed, or small business workers the opportunity to buy insurance as a group. The "individual market" had been one of the worst features of the insurance market for healthcare, where premiums were expensive and policies were often terrible, providing little coverage with high deductibles. While the exchanges have issues, and policies still have some fairly high deductibles, the exchanges combined with tax subsidies for low wage workers have enabled any more people to obtain insurance.

It was the subsidies that brought the case to the Court; a small group of (questionable) plaintiffs claimed the required purchase on the exchange was onerous, and that the subsidies were illegal because they should only apply to state exchanges and not the federal exchange, based on one clause in the mammoth law. For months, since the case was taken up by the Supreme Court, there was speculation that an adverse ruling would "destroy Obamacare." Doomsday scenarios were predicted. Panic in the streets. Dogs and cats living together. You get the picture.

Calmer heads - me included - have quietly pointed out the obvious: the lawsuit made no sense. If a state fails to operate an exchange - as many Republican led states chose - then the federal exchange operates as the state's exchange, and the subsidy is for the same purpose. That, in essence, is what John Roberts said today. And it's basically the same thing the President said, in his calm, definitive way when asked about it a month ago. He also said the Supreme Court should never have taken the case. That's accurate too, though, as always, he appeared somewhat high handed in saying it.

Conservative hatred of the President has everything to do with his calm sense of certainty. "Arrogant" is their first descriptive term about him, and it has, of course, everything to do with race, though that too just makes them angrier. "It's not because he's black" they fume, and at best we can't know. But it sure seems that having this black man be so smart and so right so often really annoys them.

The President came out today for a "victory lap" speech in the Rose Garden that again made his point: I was right, this thing is working, and opponents should just get used to it. It's my house. See that chair? I put it there. It may not be the "kinder, gentler" way of expressing it, but that is not the President we have. If anything, this is the notion of a Presidency that conservatives have favored more than the left: tough, no nonsense, certain of his mind and his actions. Which may explain why so much of the loathing the President gets from the right seems so, well, childish - it's the tantrums of overfed kids who can't get more dessert. Because daddy said so, that's why. Conservatives have replaced their strongest suit - a clear eyed, almost cold, assessment of human nature and the facts - with the appeal of emotions and feel good slogans. And liberals, God love us, have gone in the other weird direction - a party of clear eyed realists using data to support the feel good policies of helping the less fortunate. Because we love them, and everybody.

More than most lefties, conservatives need the kick in the head of taking in the view of the world that doesn't agree with their every whim: they've been blind sided by Mitt Romney's loss, by the unpopularity of endless war, and now by yet another decision that says more health care available to more people is better. And liberals, while embracing the President's forcefulness in standing up for his policies, might want to look around that house and ask, did we really need a chair? and does it really need to be just, well, there? It's our house, really. And it's ok to redecorate. No matter what daddy says.

Posted at 01:53 PM in 2012 elections, 2016 elections, anger, Current Affairs, Gay stuff, Health, Immigration, Inequality, Issues, Politics, Supreme Court | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 23, 2015

Maybe Now We Can Talk About Who Lost

In the wake of Charlottesville, I found myself coming back to this piece about the Confederate flag and Charleston and violence and race. The battle in Charlottesville was, we should all remember, begun over the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee (placed in the park by The Daughters of the Confederacy). Like similar disputes elsewhere - most vividly in New Orleans - these protests and "resistance" movements are driven by white supremacists, and the Klan, as a reminder that these "symbols of history" are, in fact, totems first for those with the worst racial hatred. That's behind the violence this weekend, and that's the thing that the right - and this President - have to face.

It's amazing, really, that the way we will solve all our racial problems - this time - is to finally take down the confederate flag.

It's amazing on several levels - and not just the obvious "because this has nothing to do with solving our racial problems" one, although... gee whiz. What's amazing is just how a symbol so fraught with the ugliness of our American past on race, especially across the South, finally gets called up for the symbol it actually is... as opposed to the benign "it's just a part of Civil War history" white apologists like to project.

Make no mistake, this debate about the flag and its meaning is a debate among white people: ask just about any black person and we'll all tell you just what it means, with considerable certainty. The real secret to the success of the hardcore, virulent racists - the ones who thoroughly hate black people and always have, and likely always will - is to succeed in creating a climate where milder, more benign forms of prejudice serve as cover to accomplish their goals. Thus, the flag that became the rallying cry for the KKK gets an apologist dress-up as "merely a part of southern history" and who, really, can be against history?

At every step on a long, hard fought, brutal journey to equality and justice, black people have encountered this morass. It's the reasonable ones, the slightly scared, don't move to quickly, "let's talk about this" ones who really gum up progress because they refuse to take on, and separate from, the true darkness. Let's end slavery... but keep the races separate. Let's have equality... at least on paper. Let's end segregation... but not in my neighborhood.

When Mississippi decided, defiantly and directly, to incorporate the stars and bars into their state flag that wasn't "history"... it was a statement to the rest of the country but even more clearly, to the people in their own state, of just how the state sees its people, and more precisely, its black population. Endemic poverty, lack of opportunity at every turn, the worst education system in the nation (which is saying something... to Alabama), a refusal to provide voting rights, some of the most violent responses to civil rights activism of any civil society... and yet, by all means, let's talk about "the Magnolia State" and it's tasteful charms, and that quaint history of defiance as if there's not a problem here (Haley Barbour: "I've never had a problem with the confederate flag." Of course not).

Who can't be at least a bit impressed with Nikki Haley (finally) standing up and saying the flag has got to go from the South Carolina statehouse grounds? Who can't give some really positive credit to Tim Scott for doing what any decent black man in his elected position would pretty much have to do in this moment, but work to finally end this insult? And yet... for years - and years, and decades, and centuries - the reality of South Carolina and its treatment of black people hasn't been hard to see, or understand. We do, really, know why South Carolina wouldn't take the flag off the state house itself for years. We do know why, even then, the flag had to be on the grounds, at full staff, forever, no exceptions, certainly not to honor the deaths of nine black people gunned down in a historically black church... no, actually, like THE historically significant black church of all Charleston.

Our history is awful. The reality of what many white people have worked so hard to deny for so long, so often, in so many places is just this, all of what's summed up in the sheepish, embarrassed moves this week to finally take down the flags from all the places where they quietly reward the virulent racism everyone's too polite to tackle head on. That flag should have come down years ago. Decades ago. One hundred and fifty years ago. But it's kept on, decorating bumper stickers, and beer coasters and wall hangings, a cheerful reminder of just what it says: these southern white people will never be forced to treat black people decently. Ever.

And by the way, they also lost that war.