Natalie Keener, "Up in the Air," and the Impossible Ideal

If there’s one complaint I ever had about 2009’s Up in the Air, it’s that one half of the film’s core dynamic simply vanishes in the third act, a harsh reminder that the story truly belongs to George Clooney’s Ryan Bingham and not Anna Kendrick’s Natalie Keener.  The first two-thirds of the movie features the characters in a two-part dialogue on human connections, and puts forth the idea that Natalie is the yin to Ryan’s yang - or maybe the yang to his yin, a complementary force of nature designed to blow Ryan off course.  It’s unexpected, then, that Natalie all but disappears for the film’s final forty minutes.

But even though Up in the Air turns out to be more about Ryan than Natalie, it doesn’t take away from the importance of the character, both in her design and function in the film.  It may not be her story, but she is incredibly vital to it.  So while the movie is about Ryan… this character study is about Natalie.

The easiest way to initially examine Natalie Keener is in contrast to the film's main character, Ryan Bingham.  She is, after all, designed to be his perfect foil.  Their relationship is arguably the highlight of the film, and furnishes most of the conversation the movie puts forth about human connectivity.  They interact as interlocking opposites - antagonists even - who find themselves in the same place with different ideologies. 

So let's start with Ryan.  Ryan Bingham fires people for a living.  He comes into people's lives when they are at their most fragile, and he helps them on their way.  But while these people's lives are 'up in the air' in a metaphorical sense, Ryan's is literal: he spends 322 days of his year traveling across the US, his life compacted into a single suitcase.  His home is in airports and on planes; his sense of belonging in rewards cards and membership perks. He preaches the gospel of a life unfettered with personal relationships and the weight of material possessions.

Natalie Keener, 23 and impossibly smart, threatens to take that away from him -- unwittingly, of course.  Natalie has worked out a way to revolutionize the business of firing people.  With the cost of travel rising and technology marching forward, Natalie Keener's proposes to fire workers via the internet, using a Skype-like program and a conversation workflow that makes it easy for anyone to perform the task, from any place.  This plan not only eliminates the need for people like Ryan to travel around the country, but also dismisses the idea that Ryan Bingham is intuitively better at this delicate task than others.  It is, simply, an affront to his entire existence.

But rather than require these two to carry out their roles in plot-propelled opposition, Up in the Air instead directs Natalie and Ryan to friendly professional interaction.  Their boss requires Natalie to accompany Ryan on the road, so that she can learn the art of firing from someone who’s been in the “biz” a little longer. And to Ryan Bingham, this IS an art.  This is a way of life, a philosophy of being.  But to Natalie, this is a simply a business.  She creates an instruction manual for letting employees go, and touts practicalities over than the intricacies of human emotion.  Everything is by-the-book, and bottom lines.  Ryan, however, understands the power of empathy in such an intimate social interaction.  His pitches are not rote, nor are they impersonal.  Where Natalie is buttoned-up and formal, Ryan is profound and engaging.  

This is perfectly seen in their exchange with J.K. Simmons' character Bob, who belligerently asks what he should tell his kids about losing his job.  Smartly, Ryan lets the gravity of the question sink in, allowing for a moment of silence that validates Bob's point of view.  Natalie, however, misses the social cue, and jumps immediately into the conversation.  She reassures Bob, telling him that his kids' test scores will likely go up because of his career trauma.  Naturally, this lack of sensitivity pisses Bob off.  He tells Natalie to go fuck herself.  But Ryan has Bob's number: he's taken the time to study the man's resume, and tells him that his kids will admire him if he doesn't give up on his culinary dreams that he abandoned so long ago.  Ryan is able to successfully navigate the interaction, where Natalie falls short.

Thus, in their professional lives, Ryan Bingham is the heart, where Natalie Keener is the head.  He intuits; she makes judgments. Where he allows for poetry and complexity, she essentializes human interactions into a series of memorized lines and projected responses, and seems unable to perceive nuanced emotional cues.  As is, this is enough to construct Natalie as the perfect foil to put opposite the main character.  However, Up in the Air takes the notion and extends it further - into their personal lives… where they are exactly reversed.  "The head" and "the heart" are switched when it comes to personal relationships: Natalie speaks often of falling in love and having a family, whereas Ryan has no desire to "settle down" and commit to a long-term relationship.  While it can perhaps be attributed to the age difference between them, it remains that Natalie doesn’t subscribe to the idea of “casual (personal) relationships” in place of those that can be mature and meaningful.

Through her position as Ryan's foil, it's fairly straightforward to understand the basic construction behind Natalie Keener’s conceptual traits.  But there's more to examine with the character, in particular with how she is wielded by the narrative.  Natalie arrives as a catalyst to the film; without her, we have no story.  She is the "inciting incident," the wrench in Ryan Bingham's life that upends his way of living and puts him on a path to change.  But here's the funny thing: Ryan doesn't change.  Not really.  He's still "in the air" at the end of the film, even after having boldly tried to pursue a romantic relationship with Alex.  While the film's experiences certainly affect Ryan and leave us with a sense that he’s different now, fundamentally, he does not change.  In fact, the only one in the film to change is Natalie.  It’s ironic; the character introduced as the film's catalyst turns out to be the one changed most by the film's events.

By the end of the second act, we begin to see cracks in Natalie's conviction.  After seeing offices disassembled and rooms full of empty chairs, after hearing employees calmly threaten to commit suicide and tearfully plead for their livelihoods… Natalie Keener can't handle this world any longer.  During the first implementation of Natalie’s virtual-interaction program and after weeks on the road, you begin to see, through little flickers in her face, that she’s starting to not believe in her idea anymore.  And it’s a fascinating subversion of what we’d expect.  This is where the head and the heart converge in each character, and flesh each of them into three dimensions.  The man who understands the specificities of human emotion, Ryan, is desensitized to them; whereas the woman seemingly incapable of grasping their subtleties is wholeheartedly affected by them.  Ultimately, the final straw for Natalie is learning that Karen Barnes, in Wichita, actually did kill herself after Natalie fired her.

In a way, Natalie's character journey in the film adopts a kind of quixotic element.  While her role is more that of Sancho Panza than Quixote himself, she bears many similar identifiers to the tragic fantasist, and an awfully parallel arc.  At film's beginning, Natalie is armed with an impossible ideal and an uncompromising self-confidence… but by film's end, the events of the narrative - of life - have broken her belief system and stripped away her self-assurance.  She even occasionally demonstrates a similar kind of absurd ridiculousness: her introduction shows her coining the inane compound word "glocal," and a serious crying jag in the hotel lobby is comedically exaggerated.  And ultimately, like Don Quixote, the narrative communicates that she's not meant for this world.  For the Man of La Mancha, the world is too harsh and cruel for someone so idealistic and deluded.  For Natalie, the business of firing people became too harsh and unpredictable for someone so incapable of dealing with the imperfection - and reality - of human emotion.

But there's something else lurking behind the notion that Natalie Keener didn't ever belong in the business of firing people: she wasn't even supposed to be there in the first place.  After her boyfriend Brian dumps her, Natalie reveals that she had turned down a job in San Francisco to follow Brian to Omaha, on the promise that they'd have a life together.  From this light, Natalie's arc turns intriguing under the lens of feminism, and there's much to discuss - particularly as it plays out in conversation with Alex, a woman eleven years her senior.

The film very explicitly puts forth the idea that Natalie has been given unrealistic expectations about the kind of life she'll lead.  She directly states that by 23, she expected to be married, with a kid, and a corner office.  She was supposed to have a Grand Cherokee by now.  This idea is the Post-Feminist Dream - or is it the Post-Feminist Curse?  "I can have it all.”  With women's march into the office environment, it was first an expectation of them, by society, to maintain their place in the domestic sphere in addition to their newfound professionalism.  But as time wore on and the concept internalized, it frequently became women's expectations of them themselves.  Why choose?  Why not do both?  Fulfillment at home and at work is not too much to ask for, right?  We can have it all!  We have to have it all!  Natalie makes it very clear that she somehow still felt like career accomplishments weren’t enough to constitute life success until she'd found the Right Guy.  In other words, Natalie Keener was probably raised by a working mother and a slew of flat romantic comedies in which uptight working women feel unfulfilled without their dream guy.   It’s not hard to see how Natalie was sold a broken promise and clings stubbornly to the pieces of hope.

Of course, the society- and self-imposed stress of "having it all" can do wonders to create 20-something lady taskmonsters like Natalie.  After all, her life design is not unlike the flowchart she makes for business interactions.  There is a path to take, and protocol to follow, and an end target in mind.  She is goal-oriented to the point of having a laundry list of laughably specific characteristics identifying the Perfect Guy, with an accompanying relationship timeline.  Not only is a she a Quixote at work, but she's a Quixote in her personal life.  How can that rigid ideal possibly live up to the dregs of reality?  It can’t.  Ryan and Alex gently advise her that life’s not really about deadlines and unrealistic expectations for yourself.  But Natalie refuses to settle.  Settling, by definition, is failure.  

In a perfect world, Natalie Keener would have the corner office, because she perfectly implemented the perfect way to fire employees while saving costs.  She would have a perfect husband with a perfectly one-syllable name, and the perfect kids, and the perfect life.  She's come to expect no less - even if Brian weren’t the right guy, she could make it work, because this is a reflection on her life accomplishments more than anything else.

But nearing the end of Up in the Air, Natalie Keener's perfect plans have failed: the professional plan, the personal plan, the life plan.  And the film chooses only to show us this deconstruction in one single shot, of Natalie retreating from the camera on an airport conveyer, face hidden and body rigid.  These four seconds, this one singular shot, is almost enough to assuage Natalie's third act absence.  A jarring cutaway, it does more to communicate the tragedy of a quixotic downfall than any prolonged conversation or emotional acting moment.  For the purposes of her own character, independent of Ryan, it is her farewell shot... and for a fleeting moment, this is her story.

Most parting shots feature the camera pulling away, to suggest finality, and in doing so, the characters onscreen get smaller.  Natalie's parting shot achieves the same effect, but does so by leaving the camera static.  Taking advantage of the film's natural airport setting and the inferred poetry of travel, Jason Reitman puts Natalie on a conveyor, and lets her get smaller in frame without moving the camera at all.  As a result, there's no real sense of peace or happiness in the finality - the camera is static, the character is static, and she's simply being carried off.  The idea behind her leaving is beautifully muddled, because the fact of the matter is that she failed.  Her departure is actually a retreat.

Beyond that, she's moving towards a vanishing point: the parallel fluorescent lighting and the handrails of the conveyor all create a large "X" that the eye subconsciously processes - and that Natalie Keener is disappearing towards.  She moves towards a horizon, much like a cowboy into the sunset, and at this point in the film we don't know what's waiting for her.  She's not following a boy.  She's not making a plan, that we know of.  She's being set adrift, leaving a world that was never meant for her, and heading into the unknown.  And from what we know of the character, that's about the most terrifying thing she could possibly chance.

For one brief moment, Up in the Air lets us entertain the idea that Natalie Keener is the hero of her own story.  She may not be the hero of this story, which rests squarely on Ryan Bingham's shoulders… but she gets her own hero shot, and we get to see her soul in a moment of limbo.  It is, after all, a core theme of the film, and the concept Natalie herself never quite grasped.  Ryan Bingham lives in limbo, and ushers others into the condition with the attempt to make it more tolerable for them.  Limbo is inevitable, limbo can be beautiful, and without limbo we cannot grow.  Natalie may not ever come to terms with that spirituality; she may not spearhead the idea like Ryan… but she's still a part of it.  She didn't change this story; she was changed by it.

In the end, Natalie Keener ultimately moves forward, changed, and while Ryan doesn't quite evolve as much as the audience probably expected, she's also part of the small footnote Ryan makes in his life mantra, as his character’s development.  While the answer to life's problems may not be in a marriage or a romance, like Natalie thought, it's clear that life - like limbo - is more tolerable with others beside you.  They may not be dance partners, or life partners - but they're important.  So while Ryan doesn’t "end up” with Alex in a Hollywood fulfillment of life's meaningful relationships, he does give his miles to his sister and brother-in-law so they can travel, and he does write a recommendation for Natalie, to usher her out of limbo and into the life she was supposed to be living.  

Perhaps there, she is the hero of her own story, and finding a way to negotiate the life she leads with her list of expectations.  Perhaps there, it’s not a perfect world… but one in which she belongs.

Pitch Perfect, Bridesmaids, and the Female VomCom

After seeing Pitch Perfect this weekend, I found that my review of the movie could be summarized in one squeamishly staunch opinion: I hated all that vomit.  Because of an annoying case of emetophobia, I was slightly traumatized by the sudden barfiness of Anna Camp's Aubrey within the first five minutes, and never quite recovered my taste for the movie after that.  Aubrey became sort of a barfing time bomb in her uptight antagonism, and her presence onscreen made me instantly worried what the filmmakers had up their sleeve - or regurgitating out of Aubrey's mouth.  And just as I found myself relaxing into the pleasant lack of puking through the film's middle, there came an extended projectile vomiting scene to bring all that trauma screaming right back to me.

When it was all over and done with, I couldn't help but feel a twinge of disappointment.  I was prepped and ready to love this film!  Female ensemble comedy?  A cappella singing?  Penned by Kay Cannon? Starring Anna Kendrick and Brittany Snow and Rebel Wilson and Anna Camp and and and?  It was like Hollywood planets aligned to create a film for the express purpose of delivering directly to my doorstep with a note reading, "For you" with a little smiley face.  And maybe with a box of chocolates for good measure, which I probably wouldn't eat because who eats food anonymously left on one's doorstep?

But you get my point.  And you understand that going to see Pitch Perfect felt a lot like opening my door, discovering that beautiful package left for me, and realizing it was covered in barf.  So with this twinge of disappointment, I also feel a little twinge of guilt.  This was for me!  I was supposed to love this weird barf-covered delivery!  It's a lady comedy with singing!  And yet, I really couldn't give in and love it wholly and now I am sad.  So, I'm trying to negotiate the unfortunate dissonance between expectation and reality, and of course, all that puking.

It's difficult to mention Pitch Perfect without bringing up the film's clear predecessor - no, not Glee.   Bridesmaids.  The 2011 film kicked down a door for female comedy that refuses to don a "chick flick" label and instead hits notes of broad comedy, buddy comedy, sex comedy, and raunch comedy - all subgenres previously restricted to those dudes in Apatow movies.  And not only did Bridesmaids kick down that door, it strode through and was welcomed with applause.  Commercially and critically successful, Bridesmaids announced to Hollywood what should be (but, annoyingly, isn't) plainly obvious to the rest of the world: women are funny!  Women can be in comedy ensembles without looking like a Cathy cartoon!  Women can make jokes about how female comedy usually looks like it's a Cathy cartoon!  Pitch Perfect follows easily in the footsteps of Bridesmaids: both films feature talented female ensembles; they're both penned by women with strong comedy backgrounds; they both aim to make "female comedy" just "comedy," regardless of the gender of the actors.  They are also marketed the same way, as both movie posters feature the women in a line-up against a gritty backdrop, with expressions reading "don't fuck with us."

And, of course, they both contain a fairly over-the-top gross-out element.  In Pitch Perfect, it's the barfing that eventually leads to a physical brawl for leadership.  In Bridesmaids, it's the girls lunch at a Brazilian restaurant that results in a mass attack of food poisoning at the dress shop.  (And, y'know, Maya Rudolph's Lillian shitting in the street.  In a big, poofy, Disney-princess white dress.)

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why Bridesmaids and Pitch Perfect both have dedicated time for gross-out humor and the ensuing antics.  These two films exist to deconstruct traditional gender associations for Big Screen Females.  Characters like Annie Walker are meant to maintain the relatability of a "chick flick" lead, but expand the usual limits by including the awkward and messy realities of modern women.  She swears, she gets drunk, she talks about sex, she has sex, she feels alienated from her best friend, she messes up relationships, she has dreams, she has regrets, she has friends, she makes mistakes, she has good intentions, she acts like an asshole sometimes - not a bitch, an asshole - and she apologizes when she needs to.  She exists independently of a man, but it doesn't mean she's an Ice Queen who refuses love.  She has sex, but she's not a slut/whore/tramp/trollop/hussy/take your pick.  She may not look like what you're used to seeing in high-gloss onscreen females, but she's ultimately real, and relatable.

Furthermore, the relationships in these films are meant to redefine the boundaries of traditional onscreen female dynamics: in both Bridesmaids and Pitch Perfect, there are women who are friends, women who are at odds because of ideology, women who don't get along, women who make out with each other, women who love each other, women who respect each other.  Both films pass the Bechdel Test with repeated and sustained ease.  Characters like Melissa McCarthy's Megan and Rebel Wilson's Fat Amy are subverted away from body self-consciousness and towards brassy self-confidence, both of them generating comedy in their characters as opposed to having comedy derived from their character's weight.  These are active characters, active women, engaged in the narrative in all its messy glory, and we're finally at a place where people will pay money to see these three-dimensional and empowered women onscreen.

So it only makes sense that this deconstruction of traditional expectations for big screen ladies extends in parallel to the types of comedy onscreen women engage in.  And here comes all the barfing.  Gross-out humor is usually reserved for male-dominated comedies; the "raunch-com" of Judd Apatow is a commercially successful formula: romance for the women, raunchy comedy for the guys.  Women are rarely included in the low-brow humor, because it's simply not "ladylike."  She's never in on the joke - the famous semen-as-hair-gel scene from There's Something About Mary is a classic example.  It's a guy-specific masturbation joke that includes Mary only insofar as she's completely clueless as to what the joke is.  She puts semen in her hair thinking it's hair gel, and Ted is embarrassed about it but can't bring himself to say something, and all the while we're laughing hysterically as Mary cheerily goes about her date with her hair stiffened into a ridiculous, gravity-defying swoop.  Mary is simply an object in that joke.  She's not the subject.  She's not the barfer, the masturbator, the one exuding body fluids in any way.  (Women get tears.  That's the one body fluid we're allowed to secrete onscreen.  In action movies we are sometimes allowed to secrete blood, as long as it is blood spilled so the male hero can avenge us or protect us.  Also, I'd just like to apologize for using the word "secrete."  Twice.)

On the one hand, I love the idea that Bridesmaids and Pitch Perfect are decreeing "female comedy" mere "comedy" with the inclusion of male-ascribed body humor.  (Or bawdy humor.  Who didn't love Megan's in-flight seduction of Air Marshal Jon, or Stacie's casual reference to her own vagina as not only a hunter but a male one at that?)  But frankly, I'm not really a body humor type of audience member.  Body humor involves a kind of outrageousness to it, which, combined with the usual cringe factor, doesn't quite tickle my fancy.  Also the severe emetophobia probably doesn't make me a great candidate for barf-related chuckles.  Which is fine; it's awfully presumptuous to expect that all female-led films will cater exactly to my tastes.  But the cynical side of me wonders: does the specific effort of Bridesmaids and Pitch Perfect to include gross-out humor really break gender norms, or is it merely a way to somehow "validate" the movie as a "real" comedy and not just a "chick flick?"  It's as though the expulsion of body fluids is a badge of honor, somehow.  It seems to say, loud and proud, "We're not that kind of movie," and purposefully distances itself from being labeled with the "chick flick" target of ridicule.

Pitch Perfect in particular seemed to have this attitude more than Bridesmaids, confusing the words "chick flick" with "movies with feelings."  Perhaps skittish about being compared to their show choir counterpart, the overly-saccharine and heavily-messaged trainwreck that is Glee, Pitch Perfect chose instead to undercook their emotional moments.  After all, the "being different is what makes us better" theme, however wonderful, is nothing new - especially in a post-Gaga world.  Sometimes, this express decision worked for Pitch Perfect.  It was refreshing to avoid the lame suspense of a "who's going to win the championship?" moment with an overblown confetti payoff, which the film skipped completely.  It was equally as refreshing to see the love-interest-as-competitor conflict between Anna Kendrick's Beca and Skylar Astin's Jesse underplayed with minimum blowout.

But I do think this insistence to avoid stereotype and schmaltz came at something of a price to the film's structure, relationships, and thematic success.  For one, Chloe's approach of Beca as a possible recruit for the Barden Bellas was never paid off.  Chloe got right up in Beca's face and said, "I think we're going to be fast friends."  And then they never spoke to each other again.  In fact, no one was really friends until the last second, when it was time to come together for the championships.  The entire middle part of the film dragged out the conflict between Aubrey and Beca, and Chloe, who was in a position to actively progress this conflict, was almost cut out completely.  Instead of removing Aubrey from her position as dictator of the Bellas and allowing new conflicts to arise in the progression of Beca's change, the whole second act consisted of them singing "I Saw the Sign" over and over and over again.  It was maddening.  Why string out one joyless and one-dimensional conflict over the stretch of your movie?  This makes no sense to me.  I'm pretty sure I audibly groaned in the theater when we had to hear the "I Saw the Sign" mashup for the third time.  I know it was the intended audience reaction, but I seriously won't listen to that mashup on the soundtrack.  That is how much the movie made me dislike it.  

Of course, this all boomerangs back around to the barf.  For every time that "I Saw the Sign" made an appearance, I was immediately on High Barf Alert.  And when the filmmakers finally, finally remembered that Chloe was a character and also that they had a plot to get on with, right before the film's conclusion, they decided to return to the puke motif.  As the leadership of the Bellas crumbled and multiple members made a bid for the throne, Aubrey threatened to lose control and then projectile vomited all over the floor.  And then Beca walked in and they all decided to have a happy sharing circle, as the movie finally got to the point I'd been waiting for since the story's inciting incident: Becam joining the Bellas.  Except, like my doorstep delivery, it was covered in barf.  Every ounce of emotional payoff I'd been waiting for in the bonding scene was completely pointless because I could not believe they were having their Kumbaya moment six feet away from a monster puddle of vomit.  It must have smelled foul in there.

It's this express choice by Pitch Perfect to skirt away from valid emotional setup and payoff by pairing it with vomit humor that annoys me.  Bridesmaids told the story of a woman and her relationship with her best friend that was changing beyond her control, and it did so with emotional poignance.  You could even argue that the core of that film is the love story between Lillian and Annie.  But Pitch Perfect?  What exactly is the story being told?  It wasn't really the story of a group of girls choosing to be different and reaping the benefits.  It wasn't really a coming-together story.  It wasn't even really a nuanced story about relationships, or a cliché about how this one girl changed the face of the Bellas forever.  At most, it was a movie about Beca learning how to not be so emotionally constipated and try, for once in her life. And that story was split evenly between the Bellas and the subplot with Jesse, the latter of which received more emotional attention, progression, and pacing.  Pitch Perfect passes the Bechdel Test, but only in a crunch of numbers; the fear of being too "chick flick" sentimental seemed to swing any emotion away from the all-female Bellas and, ironically, into a rather basic guy-and-girl love story.

So the vomit is disappointing to me on a level that goes beyond my mere phobia.  It seemed to be included in the movie as a pointed and over-the-top signifier that this wasn't just a "chick flick," and was wielded in a way that precluded any moment of rest for emotional payoff or significance.  In fact, emotional beats tended to belong to the Beca-and-Jesse love story, which, when paired with the insistence to avoid female-centric emotion, sours me from the film.  Not unlike its main character, the movie seemed to not only be allergic to feelings, but completely ignorant of them.  So while Pitch Perfect had rhythm and song, it didn't really have a lot of heart.  It actively refused to go there.  And regardless of gender stereotypes, I want all of my movies to have heart.  Somehow instead all I got was a lot of barf.

CINEBLOGGO: Legally Blonde

There’s a strange myth out there that deems feminism and “girly” things mutually exclusive.  That feminists can’t like the color pink, or enjoy getting their hair done, or belong to a sorority, as though this is submitting to the patriarchy and betraying women’s rights.  But the suggestion that these “girly” things are anti-feminist is the real evidence of anti-feminism, because the implication is that women should not want to be associated with femininity.  Isn’t the point of feminism to celebrate womanhood, not shame it from our own bodies and minds?  Rejecting femininity for its “frivolity” only serves to reinforce the notion that masculinity is king and queen, the ultimate power.

There is, similarly, a misconception about the 2001 film Legally Blonde.  With a cheery sorority girl at the movie’s center, and a primarily pink DVD cover, it’s easy to dismiss it as a valid film, let alone a valid feminist film.  Upon closer look, though, Legally Blonde is actually a feminist treasure, supported wonderfully with the existence of its main female and her character arc, as well as the story communicated around her.

When we first meet Elle Woods, she’s attending college in California, serving as the president of her sorority, and expecting an engagement ring from her pre-law dreamboat boyfriend Warner (Huntington III, natch).  But it turns out Warner is actually dumping her, because he intends on heading to Harvard and needs a serious girlfriend - a “Jackie,” not a “Marilyn.”  Elle is devastated by the news, and decides to win Warner back… by attending Harvard Law as well.  This is a decidedly “romcom” premise, and under conventional romcom circumstances, we would probably see Elle meet a new guy who believes in her more than Warner, and when Warner comes inevitably crawling back to her, she would be faced with a choice between men that represented her identity shift from beginning to end.  If Elle chose Warner, she’d be choosing her old self, which isn’t who she really is.  If Elle chose New Harvard Boyfriend, she’d be choosing her new self, and someone who saw her for everything she never knew she was.  And y’know, it’s possible that, if scripted well, it wouldn’t be all that bad.  But Legally Blonde does so much more than that, which transcends romcom convention and typical stories given to main females.  Elle Woods chooses herself.  If anything, then, the love story at the center of Legally Blonde is that of Elle Woods falling in love with her true identity, her real self.  Ultimately, both the film and Elle’s arc demonstrate a shift from a traditional romantic comedy (wanting the guy) to a female-centered identity arc (wanting personal fulfillment) hallmarking Elle’s struggle to prove herself, redefine herself, and embrace herself.  It really can’t get anymore feminist than that.

Most movies concerning themselves with a female empowerment arc would probably show the lady lead differently in the beginning than in the end.  So, in the case of Legally Blonde, it might be an obvious choice to demonstrate Elle’s change by showing her less empowered at movie’s beginning, so we understand how much she’s grown when we’re watching the end.  It makes sense, right?  We’d expect a pre-Harvard Elle to be outwardly unempowered - a bit spineless, not at all shrewd, and least of all self-assured.  But Legally Blonde doesn’t bother with this; in fact, Elle is never portrayed as any of these things because they’re simply not in her character.  Our first real introduction to Elle is in the film’s second scene, where Elle is shopping for a dress.  The saleswoman, thinking that Elle is a dumb blonde with daddy’s credit card, tries to dupe her into buying an out-of-season dress for an exorbitant price.  But not only does Elle see through the ruse, she actually calls out the saleswoman on her attempted manipulation, even throwing in a thinly veiled insult to boot.  And this is the girl at the start of her empowerment arc!

But even though this seems like an oversight in communicating the change in Elle Woods from beginning to end, it’s actually a glorious detail that shows so much respect and affection for the story’s lead.  By showing Elle with smarts and a backbone within the first ten minutes, Legally Blonde is instantly and subtly indicating to the audience one single, beautiful message about her change: Elle Woods had it in her all along.  With this construct, this narrative always has faith in Elle, and her self-empowerment arc, as she herself points out in her commencement speech, is learning to have faith in herself.  You can even notice the no-change change in the fact that the same song plays over the end and opening credits.  In the beginning, when Elle is anticipating Warner’s proposal, it’s “The Perfect Day.”  In the end, graduating from Harvard with honors, it’s the same.  Elle had it in her all along.

It’s hugely important, with female character arcs, to manifest development without changing the character.  Would Elle be the same Elle if she started dressing like Vivian and acting like Enid?  Do we really want Elle to abandon her sorority friends and hobnob with the East Coasters?  I love dearly that while Elle does take some measures to fit in with her Harvard peers, the conclusion is that it’s simply impossible.  Her goal is not to fit in with them, but to achieve comparably to them.  She buckles down, devotes her time and brain power, and works hard to be in the same league as her peers.  But even when she endeavors to dress like them, she ends up wearing a shimmering smoking jacket and fashion glasses.  Ultimately, the film’s message is that Elle only has to be Elle to succeed.  When she’s on her date with Warner in the first scenes, she wears a bright pink dress - her power color.  And when she walks into the courtroom for her last scenes, she wears a bright pink dress - her power color.  Elle hasn’t changed; her power has only shifted.

It’s doubly important to avoid changing Elle’s character when considering the gender politics of the film.  Elle codes as a traditional “girly girl” - before we even see her face or know her as a person, we see her applying makeup and perfume.  Pink is her power color, she does get mani-pedis to de-stress, and she does know the particulars of perm maintenance (after all, the rules of hair care are simple and finite).  The premise of this film involves Elle moving away from her traditionally feminine environment, the sorority house, and into a traditionally masculine environment: Harvard law.  It could be disastrously offensive to suggest a rejection of Elle’s “feminine” past as she finds her true self in her “masculine” present.  But it’s simply not the case.  (Wait, was that an accidental lawyer pun?)  And while it’s perhaps a bit of a stretch to believe that Elle would be such a superstar on cases that don’t involve details about hair care, fashion designers, and gay men, it’s important to construct a plot around Elle that rewards her for her “feminine” strengths.  The film even goes a step further to introduce a thematic payoff.  On Elle’s first day, Professor Stromwell quotes Aristotle as having said that “law is reason free from passion.”  That statement basically exalts masculinity over femininity, because traditionally, reason codes “masculine” and passion codes “feminine.”  Lady emotions have no place in the courtroom!  But Elle proves that the opposite is true, and even says so in her commencement speech: passion is key, in law, and life.  What could potentially be rejected for its associations with femininity is actually embraced, just as Elle is.

So frequently in popular media, women receive a message that they should change themselves to fit a mold, and only then will they receive the love of a man, which somehow is the end-all, be-all goal.  To this end, it is not only fantastic that Elle’s power, strengths, and femininity are respected by the narrative, but that her love interest is not overplayed to be a dominant focus of Elle’s journey.  After all, this is Elle’s love story with herself.  It’s lovely that all the other characters, including Emmett, fall in line.  Legally Blonde even goes a step further to give Emmett a little character journey as a result of meeting Elle: she encourages him to have more faith in people, which he in turn invests in her.  He takes a chance in supporting her in the courtroom, and when others doubt him, he specifically recites Elle’s own words: have a little faith.  This wonderful, small-scale romance is made even better by the fact that Emmett never actually “saves” Elle.  Even when she’s down on herself and thinks she hasn’t earned any of her achievements at Harvard, it is not Emmett who puts her back on her horse.  Yes, he offers encouragement and support in the form of the film’s theme by offering Elle a hypothetical about her identity: “What if you’re trying to be someone you are?”  It’s a great touch, but in the end, the one to call Elle back to action is actually a woman: Professor Stromwell.  Hearkening to the idea that these are both women in a man’s world, Stromwell challenges Elle’s choice to leave by basically admitting that she grew to admire Elle’s conviction.  And with that, Elle changes her mind, and continues on her path.

Even beyond this one incident, Legally Blonde fosters and demonstrates positive female relationships across the board.  Elle’s sorority sisters universally support her, whether in her engagement to Warner, or her dream of Harvard.  Elle stands by Brooke even when she doesn’t know her alibi, and even then, refuses to break her promise to keep it a secret.  Elle’s friendship with Paulette serves to give her a home away from Harvard, at Paulette’s salon table.  The “bend and snap” is included to show Elle specifically empowering other woman - and even a few men as well.  Even the classmates who initially ridicule Elle ultimately become her friends.  I love that Vivian is the one to reach out to Elle, and she does so because she respects her.  Vivian specifically states that she admires Elle for not giving up Brooke’s alibi and sticking to her integrity.  Not only that, but they bond over their treatment as the only two women on Callahan’s team of interns.  Joy of joy, these are not characteristics often awarded to female characters in romantic comedies!  And even better still, the message with these women and their relationships is that there’s no such thing as “Marilyns” and “Jackies.”  

Nearly everything in this film lines up behind Elle’s empowerment arc as an independent, self-assured, feminist character.  Small moments like Professor Stromwell questioning Dorky David Kidney impart a lesson about self-doubt; when Elle overhears David being rejected by pretty girls, she springs to his aid when she hears them say that “girls like me don’t go out with guys like you,” because that resonates with her, and the reasons for Warner dumping her.  If nothing else, there is an actual closeup of Elle’s face, grinning wildly as she spots her own name on a list of those having earned an intern position.  The line of dialogue?  “ME!”  

Yes, Elle.  You.  And that’s what makes this film a little slice of feminist heaven.

10 Things I Love About "10 Things I Hate About You"

So, today's my birthday.  And in the spirit of doing absolutely nothing but the things you enjoy on such self-celebrating anniversaries, I have decided to watch my absolute favorite late-90s teen comedy: 10 Things I Hate About You.  Watching it now in my 20s, I must admit that I still unabashedly love this movie.  So without further ado, I present: 10 Things I Love About 10 Things I Hate About You.

X. Shakespeare!

It's based on The Taming of the Shrew!  They sneak in little Shakespearean lines, like when Cameron quotes, "I burn!  I pine!  I perish!"  Basically, this movie takes a rather erudite reference for a teen movie and crafts it into something that entertains and yet doesn't bastardize the original inspiration.  Petruchio becomes Patrick, Katherine becomes Katarina - Kat's last name (Stratford) comes from Shakespeare's birthplace, Patrick's (Verona) derives from the setting of Romeo and Juliet as well as the titular city in, well, The Gentlemen of Verona.  The high school is called Padua, the fictional town where Shrew takes place, and Kat's best friend is "involved" (a bit kooky, but sure!) with Mr. Shakespeare himself.  For a nerd like me, all of this adds up to one thing: delightful!  (We'll just ignore the fact that the tagline of "How do I loathe thee?" is actually a riff on Emily Barrett Browning and not Shakespeare, okay?  Okay!)

 IX. Allison Janney as Ms. Perky 

I cannot speak of this movie without mentioning Allison Janney's miniscule-but-memorable performance as the guidance counselor who scripts romance novels (or maybe just porn) at work.  Cameron, Patrick, and Kat all have brief sessions with Ms. Perky, but in each she's actively snarking and trying to come up with as many ways to describe a man's penis.  Never change, Ms. Perky.  Never change.

VIII. Kat and Bianca's dad 

Mr. Stratford is, in a word, divine.  His mama didn't raise no foo'.  Without him, we have no premise: he enforces strict dating rules on his daughters because he's up to his arms in placenta all day and knows all about those damn Dawson's River kids sleeping in each other's beds.  His dialogue is superb, his antics hilariously exaggerated ("I want you to wear the belly!") and yet, his relationship with his daughters is actually rather touching.  The writers gave him a sneaky back story in the idea that his wife left the family, and perhaps that's why he's controlling of Kat and Bianca's lives.  But at the end of the day, he only wants what's best for them, and is willing to shelve his overbearing nature to let Kat head to Sarah Lawrence for college.  Not only that, but that piece of information is cushioned in the most lovely scene where he reveals that he's proud of Kat's behavior, and just wishes he could be more a part of her life.  Aww. 

VII. the backstories

Speaking of back stories - both Patrick and Kat get lovely little back stories that help inform characters that run deeper than their (bad) reputations.  Patrick, it turns out, took care of his grandmother while she was sick in Australia, and simply doesn't fit in in American high school.  Kat, bless her, actually used to be fairly popular, even sleeping with Bad Boy Joey right after her mom left - only to regret it and start subscribing to the rule of meeting individual expectations instead of external ones.  Pretty good, right?  These histories help flesh out the characters and let them be real, instead of stock Teen Movie Tropes - the Frigid Girl who's "tamed" by the Seemingly-Bad-But-Actually-Good-Boy - and let's face it, no one likes a Teen Movie Trope.  Except for the people who make Not Another Teen Movie.

VI. Kat and Bianca's relationship

These sisters bitch and fight for a solid 80% of this movie.  They are technically very different.  But it's clear they love each other, especially by the third act.  Kat struggled with wanting to protect her baby sister but also let her make her own mistakes, and Bianca kneed an asshole in the crotch because he acted like a dick to Kat three years previous.  Kat caved when Bianca sincerely pleaded with her to go to Bogey Lowenstein's party because she knew how important it was to Bianca.  And oh, how much do I love that Bianca follows Kat out of prom and shares a look with Patrick, and checks up on Kat before going sailing with Cameron?  The movie does not forget that while these two are often at odds, they are still, first and foremost, sisters.

V. the couples

Rarely do I rhapsodize about a fictional couple - let alone two in the same movie!  But Patrick and Kat, and Cameron and Bianca make me squeal with emotion.  Patrick and Kat are clearly the older, more mature couple, and Cameron and Bianca are cutesy and innocent, but both are with their merits.  How much do I love that Pat and Kat (can I call them that?) squabble without being unlikeable, yet still have conversations that make them relatable and vulnerable?  They understand one another.  Swoon!  And oh!  When they slow dance to Letters to Cleo at prom!  They slow dance to a fast song, and I don't think you understand how much that makes me love them, because indeed, I am a crazy person. 

As for Cameron and Bianca, they're just damn cute.  Their French study sessions!  The fact that she genuinely does kind of fall for him!  His earnestness!  His chivalry!  He asks about her sister!  He calls her out on her princess bullshit!  She doesn't want him to see her room, or her underwear drawer!  And the way she kisses him... in the car!  It's all very, very darling.

IV. the dialogue

I could quote this entire movie.  That's how good the dialogue is.  And it's smart dialogue.  Characters are proven to be dumb/unlikeable or smart/likeable through the way that they speak.  Michael and Cameron are poetic and verbose, Kat is armed with a vicious vocabulary, and even Bianca spouts off triple-score words in an adorably intricate diction.  Only Patrick benefits from being taciturn and honestly-phrased, for the other characters who can't keep up are left to be villains or idiots.  Seriously, Joey Donner doesn't know the difference between "pensive" and "thoughtful" (or rather, that there is none, or at least, very little - wordsy people who want to dissect nuance!) and he is therefore unfit to be a Good Guy in this movie.  And the snob in me delights in that construct.

III. Kat Stratford, herself

Ladies and gentlemen, Katarina Stratford is my Queen.  She's such a lovely feminist character, in that she spouts bitter invectives about consumerism and the patriarchal society, and yet when it counts, she still has a heart.  She still goes to Bogey Lowenstein's party because her sister begs her in earnest, she still lets a guy serenade on the football field (if he must), she still flashes a teacher to get a friend out of detention, and she still gets up in front of the whole class and cries while she reads a poem.  Madam, you are lovely.  You eyeroll with the best of them, and while you snark with the vinegar of the briniest of bitches, you are still human, with strengths and flaws, and a beating heart.  Kat Stratford is a damn beautiful fictional creation.

II. Bianca Stratford

But let's not forget her little sister Bianca.  What I love about Bianca is that she changes.  The Bianca we see at the beginning of the movie, so in love with her Prada backpack and the sweet ride of a cute boy, is different from the Bianca at the end.  She doesn't make the same mistake that Kat did, she doesn't sleep with Joey Donner, and instead realizes that yes, indeed, he is massive tool.  And she does have feelings for Cameron!  Praise be!  The writing for Bianca is so stellar because, while in comparison to Kat, yes, she is a bit vapid and shallow and obsessed with popularity - but she is not stupid.  She still uses big words, grows exasperated by Joey's insistence on modeling in her presence, and even gets frustrated by Cameron's lack of asking her to prom.  And it's she, not Patrick or Cameron, who finally punches out Joey Donner, and in doing so, she seals her arc as a character who is no longer fooled by pretty faces and sweet words.  In all, she is just as much of a feminist character as Kat.  How lovely is that?  Bianca Stratford, you're the best.

I.  Kat's final speech

Is there a real need to explain this one?  There's not, but I will.  The thing that makes 10 Things I Hate About You so great is that it manages to be genuine, despite the scheming and the joking and the high school character tropes.  And no moment is more exemplary of this than Kat's poem (does it meet the requirements of a sonnet?  I'm too lazy to go and count up fourteen lines with the A-B what-nots...).  What's lovely is that the poem is a complete manifestation of the fact that while Kat pretends to hate a lot of things (in this case, Patrick) she actually does not.  And so it becomes a manifestation of not only her feelings for Patrick, but also a general character piece as well - perhaps why I can get on board with this coupling; Kat never loses her sense of self for this guy.  And it's cleverly communicated (words!) through a simple structure of intelligent irony mixed with late 90s teen mentality.  Julia Stiles' performance is spectacular, in the way that her voice cracks, and she kind of stumbles and reads the wrong line at first.  It's Katarina Stratford at her most vulnerable, more vulnerable than when she was drunk in the car, or dancing at prom, or talking about how she slept with the wrong boy at 14.

In short: it's pretty perfect.  As is this movie.  I think I could ramble on and on about a million more things I love (namely all the tall tales about Patrick's past - "Should you be drinking that when you don't have a liver?") but I shall refrain.  I still have an hour left of my birthday, and I'm a little whelmed.

CINEBLOGGO: Jurassic Park

So, if anyone happened to check my Twitter feed last night, you would have definitely caught on to the fact that I was watching Jurassic Park.  In fact, I was very close to live-tweeting the whole thing out of sheer joy, but I refrained because I figured that was a pretty easy way to lose all my followers.

Anyways, the point I'm trying to make here is that Jurassic Park is a damn near perfect movie.  I know it's probably trite to talk about Steven Spielberg being a genius, because really, his name is practically synonymous with genius after the career he's had, but - Steven Spielberg really is a storytelling genius.  And revisiting Jurassic Park only confirmed that.  It doesn't matter what story ol' Spielberg's telling.  It's always told masterfully.

So, without further ado, I'm taking DNA from CINEBLOGGO and crossing it with DNA from 10 Things to bring you a post called "10 TINY STORYTELLING DETAILS ABOUT JURASSIC PARK THAT MAKE IT BRILLIANT."  Hello John!

10. Grant asks, "Are you sure we're safe?"  Ellie replies, "Yes... unless they figure out how to open doors."  Now tell me you didn't get the worst attack of the heebie-jeebies when that velociraptor successfully used that door handle later on, hm?  I guarantee it gave you full-body goosebumps.  Genius setup, genius payoff.

9.  The music.  John Williams is a god.  That's all you need to know.  And past the fact that it's generally brilliant, the way in which it's used is brilliant.  It's used only to build, never to unfold.  When action is unfolding, like in the T-Rex rain scene, it's only diegetic sound (sound that is happening in the world onscreen that the characters can hear), never the score. 

8. There are two times when Dr. Grant expresses disbelief over the dinosaurs bred in the park.  The first is when he first sees the Brachiosaurus and asks about the speed.  He's dismayed that they have a T-Rex, and he stammers over it several times.  The second time, he's holding the hatchling and asks its species - velociraptor - and then makes a point to repeat the doctor's answer in shock.  And hey, which two species of dinosaur take center stage in the film's final act?  That would be the Tyrannosaurus Rex and the Velociraptor.  And we know exactly what to expect of them based on Grant's reactions. 

7. Another small detail in set up: when Dr. Grant finds out about the T-Rex, Hammond tells him it clocks in at 32 mph.  And that information is paid off nicely in the "Must go faster!" chase scene, where it's therefore believable that a vehicle could escape from that specific predator.  A tiny moment, but helpful for non-believers who may be taken out of the moment by wondering if that chase scene were even possible.

6. Dr. Grant's character arc.  He's given a lovely little bit of arc where it's set up that he hates kids, and forces him to be Protector to two kids in a truly terrifying setting.  He rises to the occasion swimmingly, and quiet moments like the "I-don't-think-he-saurus" scene give excellent payoff to the early examples of Grant being generally annoyed and intolerant of young people.

5.  Ian Malcom embodies the movie's entire premise.  His character exists simply to tell the audience EXACTLY WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN, and yet we're still surprised when it does.  Plus, Jeff Goldblum's such a kooky charmer, and he gets to wisecrack and talk to himself and hit on Ellie with his weird water droplet game.  Points all around.

4. When Lex gets in the car, the first thing she does is marvel over the interactive CD-ROM (!) and the built-in computer.  I'm sorry, who is it that's going to hack into the mainframe (that's a thing, right?) and solve all the problems in the final act?  That's what I thought.

3.  Speaking of, let's talk about the kids.  They're allowed to be scared, and a little foolish, but they're never stupid.  Tim's actually a really smart kid for his age, and as I just mentioned, Lex ends up saving pretty much everybody's asses.  Nobody in this movie is simply there to be recued.  The kids raise the stakes for Hammond and for Grant, and help complicate the danger because of their lack of knowledge, but they're afforded the opportunity to be actual characters.  I mean, poor Tim!  Tim survives a T-Rex attack, plummets fifty feet in a vehicle, gets electrocuted, and then gets chased by velociraptors.  Little kid's not getting off scot-free, here.

2. When Dr. Grant first gets into the helicopter that will be taking him to Isla Nublar, he realizes that he has matching ends of the same seatbelt, and can't buckle.  So, he knots them together around his waist.  Firstly, this is awesome because it's a tiny little character detail that shows us that Dr. Grant is resourceful, and will clearly be well-equipped to hold his own during the impending danger we all know is coming.  

Secondly, it's a cheeky little nod to the resourcefulness of life that Malcolm preached all movie long.  The dinosaurs in the park are all bred to be female so that they cannot reproduce.  Likewise, Grant's seatbelt consists of two female ends and cannot be buckled.  But in both cases, a solution to the problem is created, and that small little moment in the helicopter mirrors one of the film's main messages.  Genius.

1.  Every single storytelling reveal in Jurassic Park is done through reaction.  It's never, "A dinosaur!  LOOK THERE HE IS!"  Because that is two-dimensional and unsophisticated.  Instead, it's the sound of the rumbling footsteps as the water ripples back and forth in the cupholder.  It's wondering where the goat went and then seeing its bloody leg drop on the sunroof.  It's seeing Tim look at Lex frozen in place, spoonful of Jell-O wobbling in mid-air as she shakes with fear.  It's seeing Dr. Grant's reaction to laying eyes on a living, breathing dinosaur before we ever even see what he's looking at.

Basically, it's genius.  Because the unknown is scarier than the known, and parceling out the information a little at a time freaks us the hell out and makes us want to know more.  We see the footprint and hear the echo before we see what made it, and combined with character reactions, we get a full portrait of how we should be reacting, as an audience.

Ladies and gentlemen, this movie is flawless.  I rest my case - or at the very least, my endless gushing.

CINEBLOGGO: "Baby Mama"

Good news, everyone!  I decided to not be lame and actually keep up with a weekly feature!  Is the apocalypse nigh?  Perhaps.  But regardless, I give you the second installment of CINEBLOGGO, this time devoted to the 2008 film “Baby Mama.” 

In general, I really want to love this movie.  It features perhaps my two favorite people on the planet (excepting people I actually know, blah blah blah) in a two-handed female comedy.  What’s not to like? 

Well, unfortunately, I have mixed feelings about “Baby Mama.”  There are definitely great things about it, mostly having to do with the participation of the two leading ladies - but in its characterization and marketing, there are two things that irk me.

One of the biggest issues of “Baby Mama” is how it portrays Kate Holbrook, Tina Fey’s character.  She’s a bit two-dimensional, unfortunately.  We see her as an uptight, inflexible WASP who is unmarried and desperate to have a baby.  Her lifestyle is portrayed as the punchline to a joke that’s not terribly funny.  Plenty of women probably live like Kate Holbrook and are happy about it.

And yes, a punchline is made out of Amy Poehler’s character’s lifestyle as well - however, Angie’s existence is far more complicated.  Most of the jokes are played off on her common-law husband Carl (Dax Shepherd) and we’re given the impression that she’s almost a victim of her own circumstance.  We feel badly for Angie, because she wasn’t afforded the same opportunities as Kate.  I will say that this is one aspect I do commend the movie for - it presents the notion that Angie could be a lot like Kate if she just had a chance for a better education or salary or family support.  That’s a bold and respectable concept to put forth, and it gives Angie a lovely tragic, three-dimensional quality to her.

But what about Kate?  Kate is paper thin.  She wants a baby.  And?  That’s it.  It upsets me a bit that this is all the movie affords her.  And because of this, there’s a huge divide in the likeability of the two main characters.  This movie is meant to be a two-handed film.  There are two stars’ names above the title, and two stars’ faces on the poster.  They should be on even footing, in terms of relatability. 

But even though technically she is in the right for most of the movie, Kate is not nearly as likeable as Angie.  Angie is allowed our sympathy - our empathy, even, and yet somehow Kate is just a fixed object.  Consider the scene at Kate’s baby shower, when the truth comes out (I’ll spoil nothing) and Kate lashes out.  “She's an ignorant white trash woman that I paid to carry my kid,” she spits.  That is a harsh piece of dialogue right there.  We should feel badly for Kate for being fooled, but instead we feel badly for Angie for being publicly and personally insulted.

The second issue I take with “Baby Mama” is the manner in which it was marketed.  I watched and read endless interviews in which one of the main talking points was about the giving focus to the concept of creating families in non-traditional ways.  The movie is about a woman’s relationship with her surrogate, and so it seemed like a fair assessment.  I went into the theater expecting to see an interesting example of an atypical 21st century family.

If you’d like to stay unspoiled, go ahead and skip this paragraph, okay?  Because the movie did not result in any untraditional families.  Turns out everybody got knocked up the “normal” way - Angie’s baby is hers with Carl, and Kate’s is hers with her boyfriend Rob (Greg Kinnear).  They raise the babies in a traditional family, with mother and father and genetically-supplied baby.  Well then.  So much for an exploration of the different ways to build a contemporary family.  I don’t care that the idea of surrogacy propelled much of the movie - if your final arrangements involve no baby borne of surrogacy, you’ve knocked your legs out from underneath you.

This is not to say that the movie itself is a failure.  There are many good things about it, largely to do with the involvement of Amy Poehler and Tina Fey.  They only starred in the film, and I wonder what it would have been like if they’d written it as well.  As it is, the best scenes seemed to be filled will Poehler/Fey improv - comedic and dramatic alike.  The movie’s most vulnerable scene, in which Angie and Kate part ways after the truth is out, was entirely improvised by Tina and Amy.  Truthfully, that makes me love the two actresses, but not so much the screenwriter. 

As a result, the two leads are the best thing the movie has going for it - Amy Poehler in particular.  She managed the dramatic and vulnerable moments just as easily and effectively as the comedic parts - all while maintaining relatability with a character who made questionable decisions.  The only inconsistency was her on-again, off-again Philadelphia accent!  And Tina, Tina did a commendable job keeping her character soft around the edges, but I don’t think the writing supported her as much as it could have.

The rest of the cast is also excellent, with Steve Martin being reliably unhinged, Greg Kinnear being reliably adorkable, and Dax Shepherd being reliably dim-witted.  Not to mention, Sigourney Weaver and Romany Malco do their part to be silly and likeable peripheral characters.  They all help to round out the charms of the onscreen ensemble, but unfortunately, “Baby Mama” misses a few marks and it took me a few viewings to get past the aforementioned hiccups.

I will say, it’s rewarding to watch the outtakes.  Every scene has multiple improvisations, and they’re all hilarious.  And, the commentary with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler is worth it as well.  There’s actual audio evidence that Amy’s nickname for Tina is indeed Betty!  I love these two, and the fact that they've been friends for over fifteen years.  If only they were allowed more input into the construction and execution of the film.  However, nothing’s going to stop me from hoping that Tina and Amy will team up on the big screen again, and soon.  I’ll try not to complain so much next time.

CINEBLOGGO: "14e Arrondissement" (Paris, Je T'Aime)

Alright, so I’ve been trying to launch CINEBLOGGO, a new weekly feature wherein I review movies every Saturday.  It’s seriously taken me forever to get around to this, but today’s the kickoff!  I’m gonna make this happen!  I’m going to broaden my horizons and get out of TV Land (my happy place, not the television network... although I do find Green Acres amusing) and into Movieville!

Now, I’m not a film snob, nor do I profess to have superior taste in movies.  (Seriously.  I own two copies of Titanic.)  CINEBLOGGO will not be the most erudite reflections on capital-F Films.  But I will probably always talk about what worked and what didn’t in the context of the movie, as well as my favorite and least favorite parts.  What’s this blog without a little bit of rhapsodizing and critique?

So, without further ado, I give you the first installment of CINEBLOGGO!  And since I’m sneaky and I never do a cannonball into the pool without sticking a toe in first, I’m cheating and devoting the first review to a short film.  I’ve fooled you, people of Earth!

14e ARRONDISSEMENT (PARIS, JE T’AIME, dir by Alexander Payne)

Paris, Je T’aime, for those unawares, is a feature-length film comprising sixteen short films, all containing different characters and stories, helmed by sixteen different directors, and devoted to each of the sixteen neighborhoods, or arrondissements, of Paris.  Basically, it reads as a love letter to the city. 

"14e Arrondissement," directed by Alexander Payne, finishes the film and tells the story of a rather plain and unassuming American woman, Carol, who comes to Paris and reflects on her experiences through a narration in butchered French.  It’s meant to cement the film’s ode to Paris, with the quiet content of an American falling in love with the city, but I actually love it for being nestled squarely in the genre of tragicomedy.

Tragicomedy’s not a difficult thing to figure out - it’s kind of an awkward mashup of two very straightforward words.  But the use of tragicomedy is actually a delicate construction, and will almost always win my heart in any fictional setting.  It’s the beautiful merging of two opposites to create an overall effect - it’s bittersweet chocolate; it’s making her your heart swell so much it tears at the edges; it’s the pain and content of losing your yesterdays; it’s dipping a french fry in your Wendy’s frosty to mix the salty and the sweet and the hot and the cold.

It might be my favorite thing on this planet.  (I do that french fry thing, by the way.  If you haven’t tried it, you should.  I hope you have a Wendy’s nearby!)

I’m easily getting off track here.  Let’s talk about Carol, shall we?  Carol is the hero of this piece, an awkward American tourist in Paris.  She’s middle-aged, dresses out of style, owns two dogs, wears a fanny pack, and this is her first time in Europe.  She tries to speak French to the locals and they answer in English.  (Which, by the way, has happened to me and it definitely sucks.  And may I please say, with as much humility as possible, that my French accent is way better than Carol’s.)

Basically, Carol is laughable.  The film never lets us forget that, because she narrates the whole thing in perhaps the worst French accent ever spoken.  She mispronounces words left and right, and confuses Simon Bolivar with Simone Beauvoir.  She’s kind of pathetic: a single middle-aged woman traipsing by herself through Paris, the City of Love.

But the wonderful thing about “14e Arrondissement” is that Carol is not just a folly.  She’d be a fool if she weren’t self-aware, but she is.  She tugs at our hearts when she sits alone in a busy restaurant and talks about not having the expectation of falling in love in this city.  She chips away at our hearts when she reflects on the untimely deaths of her sister and mother.  And she flat out breaks us when she stands on the Eiffel Tower and feels like a fool for wanting to share the experience with her ex-boyfriend Dave, who she hasn’t spoken to in 11 years and who is currently married with three children.

Oh, Carol.  By this point in the movie, I just want to hug this lady and never let her go.  This is a woman who technically is a little silly, technically a little sad, but at the end of the day, she chooses to be happy.  Perhaps it’s the limited French skills, but she speaks plainly and clearly about her existence.  She communicates simplicity, and happiness. 

Her face, however, shows us that something is lingering beneath the facade - a longing, perhaps, or a sense of loss.  She is reflective, and self-aware.  We can infer that she’s had her heart broken, and that maybe her life didn’t pan out the way she expected it would.  But she’s happy.  She chooses to be happy.  To go and experience Europe for the first time, even though she’s lonely and this isn’t the ideal way to vacation in Paris.

“14e Arrondissement” concludes with Carol sitting in a public park, surrounded by people and eating a sandwich.  And suddenly, she is overcome with emotion.

Sitting there, alone in a foreign country, far from my job, and all the people I knew, a feeling came over me.  As if I recalled something, something that I had never known and for which I had been waiting.  But I didn’t know what it was.  Maybe it was something I had forgotten.  Or something I had missed my whole life.  I can only tell you that at the same time I felt joy and sadness.  But not a great sadness.  Because I felt alive.  Yes.  Alive.

Much like we do, Carol feels joy, and sadness.  She is the epitome of a tragicomic character, and what’s even better is that she experiences the mixed emotions that come along with it, within the narrative.  In the span of about six minutes, we chuckle at this lady’s external folly, then feel empathy towards her internal sadness, and wind up feeling just as sad and happy and peaceful as she does in that park in Paris.  It’s such a beautiful synchronicity of character, audience, and journey that I challenge you not to love this lady, or this short film, as a result.

Now go try the Frosty Fry.