Agent Dale Cooper's Horrific Version Of The Odyssey: How David Lynch Thrilled And Disappointed Twin Peaks Fans!

The Good: Most of the acting, A lot of good direction, Moments of engaging plot, Basic concept
The Bad: The end (seriously, way to piss on your legacy, David Lynch!), Drifts and tangents that go nowhere, More information undermines the strong concept . . .
The Basics: Twin Peaks returns for a long-awaited third season to bore, confuse, delight and ultimately infuriate the fans of the beloved, surreal series.


I admire an ambitious concept. I truly do. And it is hard to argue anything other than the idea that David Lynch is one of the reigning masters of ambitious concepts. David Lynch has a long history of making television shows and movies that demand attentive, engaged viewers. So, when David Lynch publicly confirmed that Twin Peaks would be returning to television for a third season - after being off the air for more than twenty-five years, the reactions of the die-hard fans was more of an indifferent, "we know; you told us it would be back around this time in the last episode!" than the enthusiasm some might have anticipated.

The third season of Twin Peaks, somewhat commonly known as Twin Peaks: The Return because all of the episodes were called "The Return Part X," was an ambitious concept and David Lynch met a number of serious challenges in executing the season that he had more than twenty years to conceive and tinker with. At its core, Lynch described the new season of Twin Peaks as The Odyssey for Agent Dale Cooper and it was widely reported before even the first episode aired that Lynch wrote the entire series as one massive script and then broke the story up into the episodes. That is an ambitious idea . . . and it shows in the execution of Twin Peaks Season Three. In fact, the episodes themselves often hold up much poorer as individual episodes than the season holds up; the sheer volume of detail and callbacks throughout the eighteen-episode third season of Twin Peaks virtually begs for a single binge viewing by an audience that is alert, engaged, and able to handle a lot of screaming.

Conceptually, David Lynch had a Herculean task in creating a third season of Twin Peaks. Since the very end of the original Twin Peaks (reviewed here!), viewers who invested in the concept of the show had plenty of time to accept the sad reality of the show's protagonist. Agent Dale Cooper was trapped within the ethereal abode of evil known as The Black Lodge, while a doppelganger of him - possessed by the ultimate evil entity Bob - was free on Earth. Within (what used to be) the series finale, Agent Dale Cooper was told that he would be trapped in the Black Lodge for twenty-five years. The thing is, for all of its faults, the second season of Twin Peaks was constructed pretty solidly in terms of its lore about the Black Lodge and some of the concepts pertaining to it. The Black Lodge was not, in the original Twin Peaks simply a place; it was a place that existed in physical reality only in specific times. So, right off the bat, David Lynch was somewhat hamstrung by his own concept; given all of the established information of the original Twin Peaks, saving F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper should have been a matter of his doppelganger being returned to the right place and time to push him back into the Black Lodge and Agent Cooper escaping at that time.

There is, alas, not much of a television show in that. So, David Lynch threw out his own book; in the new rendition of Twin Peaks portals are all over the fucking place. In fact, from the moment Agent Dale Cooper manages to escape the Black Lodge through one of the many, many other exits that manifest, the attentive viewer has to ask, "Why the hell did Dale Cooper wait twenty-five years to leave through one of these other exits?!"

Twin Peaks Season Three picks up with Agent Dale Cooper right where Season Two left off. Dale Cooper is in the Black Lodge and the twenty-five years have passed and he has aged. He encounters Phillip Gerard (the one armed man) and The Arm, who encourage him to take an alternate route out of the Black Lodge, noting that Dale Cooper's doppelganger did not return to the Black Lodge. Bob, still in Cooper, has become a crime lord who is doing everything he can to avoid returning to the Black Lodge and he has managed to avoid his old friends from the F.B.I. by using a laptop from a long-missing agent. When Agent Cooper manages to make it to our plane of existence, Cooper is in a car accident and incarcerated, which puts him on the radar of F.B.I. Deputy Director Gordon Cole, Agent Albert Rosenfield and their protege, Agent Tammy Preston.

Dale Cooper, however, has not managed to simply return to our plane of existence. He is insensate in the body of Dougie Jones, who has a wife, son, prostitute and gambling problem. In Jones's body, Cooper is deposited at a casino in Las Vegas where he wins a lot of money by following stimuli from the Black Lodge. While Dougie's wife, Jane, strong-arms Doug's debtors, Dougie is sent back to work at an insurance company where Dale Cooper manages to point out insurance irregularities to his boss and get on surprisingly good terms with the mobsters who run the casino. While Dougie is hunted by assassins hired by Cooper, Cooper manages to get released from prison, survive one of his compatriots attempting to assassinate him and avoid other attempts to get dragged back into the Black Lodge using technology from that place and ethereal beings who heal him whenever he is mortally wounded.

While Agent Cooper slowly asserts himself and Cooper cuts a swath of carnage across the U.S., Rosenfield and Cole enlist Diane to help them figure out just who Cooper is. And in Twin Peaks, Margaret (the Log Lady) sets Deputy Chief Hawk on a search that clues him into the idea that there are two Coopers and that the case of the long-missing F.B.I. agent is soon to be resolved!

The third season of Twin Peaks has its highs and lows, but for the most part it does tell one long, somewhat absurd, story with a bunch of nostalgia-driven tangents thrown in. One of the greatest limitations of the third season of Twin Peaks was that David Lynch had to tailor the story around the actors who were still alive, still acting, and still interested in participating. To his credit, Lynch got actor Everett McGill to come out of retirement to play Big Ed Hurley again. It's nice, it's very Twin Peaks and, sadly, it is entirely unnecessary.

Unfortunately, Michael Ontkean could not be persuaded to return to Twin Peaks for the revival. Within the narrative of the third season of Twin Peaks, Ontkean's absence as Sheriff Harry Truman is explained and not prohibitively conspicuous (there is a lot going on in the season!), but for fans of Twin Peaks, Lynch pushing the project along without his participation becomes a tonal unforgivable sin. One need not rewatch much of the original Twin Peaks at all to see that the lifeblood relationship of the series was the one between Agent Dale Cooper and Sheriff Harry S. Truman. They had a relationship built on mutual respect, professionalism and a shared desire for the truth that made them bond quickly. Twin Peaks had tons of relationships that were, essentially, soap operatic connections between the characters, but Truman and Cooper had a bromance long before the term was ever coined!

Within the third season of Twin Peaks Sheriff Harry S. Truman's absence is glossed over with medical excuses delivered by his brother, Sheriff Frank Truman, who has taken over the Twin Peaks Sheriff's Department. Frank Truman is played quite well by Robert Forster, who manages to be the least-obtrusive new addition to the Twin Peaks cast (for those keeping score, Chrysta Bell breaks out in Twin Peaks Season 3 as Agent Tammy Preston, but David Lynch uses her frequently for window dressing and there are several scenes where Bell seems to be trying desperately not to look like she is a supermodel playing an F.B.I. Agent . . .).

The third season of Twin Peaks is fundamentally two narrative streams - the story of Agent Dale Cooper, Cooper (Bob) and the law enforcement officers that are figuring out the long-cold case of the missing F.B.I. agent (Chief Hawk and Agent Cooper's former F.B.I. colleagues) and a series of nostalgia-driven scenes that pertain to Twin Peaks. Indeed, most of Cooper and Agent Cooper's narrative occurs well outside the Washington state town of Twin Peaks . . . and much of the drama within Twin Peaks has absolutely nothing to do with the dual-Coopers' narrative.

The second narrative track includes scenes with Norma Jennings (who is franchising the RR Diner), Shelly (who is still working at the RR Diner and has a troubled daughter), (former) Dr. Jacoby doing a podcast, Nadine Hurley listening to that podcast, and (eventually) Audrey Horne popping up to indicate that she suffered a psychotic break. There is a high nostalgia aspect to the Twin Peaks scenes involving the cast from the original - Norma Jennings has an opportunity, she changes her mind, she and Big Ed get a delightful happy ending, it's cute to see and it offers some minor catharsis for two characters who did not spend a lot of time at the narrative forefront of the original Twin Peaks. Similarly cute is the lone appearance of Andy and Lucy's son, who was named after the bird who witnessed Laura Palmer's murder and provided the sheriff's clues. The scene with Wally is dull as hell, but hardcore fans will find it cute that Lucy and Andy named their kid after the bird. Ironically, Jerry Horne being lost in the woods plays into the main narrative more directly than almost all of the other tangent storylines.

And the nostalgia storylines are not all thrilling or happy. Shelly and Bobby had a relationship, it burnt out, and they now have a cocaine-abusing daughter who shoots up a door. Shelly and Bobby's daughter is a distant tangent storyline that gets dropped mid-season as it appears part of Cooper's agenda is keeping drugs flowing into Twin Peaks High School, but that fizzles out after Cooper is captured in South Dakota. Those who love Audrey Horne will be excited when she eventually pops up in the narrative . . . until they follow the clues back and realize that after leaving the Black Lodge, Cooper raped Audrey while she was in a coma following the bank explosion and the ass hole hellion who has been running around killing people and beating up others, Richard Horne, is her son and she likely went crazy as a result of that abuse.

To the credit of David Lynch, Twin Peaks Season Three contains some explanations for the evil in the woods in the form of nightmarish, surreal divergent scenes that show how the entities from another place interacted with the Earth, seeding both Bob and Laura Palmer into the mix. Also to Lynch's credit, if he was going to break his own wheel, his cheats were pretty clever. Phillip Gerard prepared for the battle between Dale Cooper and Cooper, seeding manufactured people like Doug Jones (and another, far more spoilerific one) onto Earth to be a part of Agent Cooper's escape hatch. The second doppelganger gets explained, but the Doug Jones storyline is initially irritating, especially given that Jane Jones does not seem to stop to notice what the audience immediately observes; that Doug is simply repeating the last thing said to him. Lynch even insinuates that there is another person attempting to leave one of the alternate realities the same way that Agent Cooper is (i.e. by using a back door from The Other Place and replacing a manufactured doppelganger already on Earth), in the form of a prisoner at the Twin Peaks jail who exhibits the same repeating trait as Doug Jones. But, like so very many plots in the third season of Twin Peaks, that is not actually resolved and is unceremoniously dropped before the end of the series.

The third season of Twin Peaks is an investment for fans of Twin Peaks. So little of the third season occurs within Twin Peaks that viewers have to watch a lot of the season and take on faith that the show is going somewhere. Twin Peaks Season Three meanders, but it does return to Agent Cooper and his struggle to return to Earth after twenty-five years sitting on his ass in another dimension. The faith viewers place in David Lynch is justified in the seventeenth episode of the season . . .

. . . and then utterly shat upon in the season finale. Without any spoilers, Twin Peaks Season Three climaxes an episode before its end. The final episode of the series proves in the first few moments what most viewers will easily suspect coming out of the prior episode and then it turns the entire series upside down. And not in a good way. David Lynch had an audacious storyline for the third season of Twin Peaks, but its resolution is one of the most insanely conceived, poorly-executed finales that one immediately suspects will be one of the episodes fans of Twin Peaks watch the least. Seriously, watch up to the end of the seventeenth episode and you'll be happy. If you have a hankering to watch the final episode, go back and watch the second season episode of Twin Peaks with the "Miss Twin Peaks" Pageant. You might say, geh! This is terrible; whatever is in the eighteenth episode of the third season of Twin Peaks cannot possibly be this bad. You would be wrong. It's like David Lynch said to himself, "I hate every one of my fans and I want to not just undermine my classic Twin Peaks, I want people to think of how I end this season and make it hard for them to ever want to watch any part of the series again." Yeah, the end of the third season of Twin Peaks was enough to drag the entire season rating down by at least a point. Why? Because a season review is about how the whole story holds together and what it does and says. With one episode, David Lynch makes the viewer forget about the annoying, surreal tangents, the mysticism, the pointless added characters, the beloved classic characters, the essential struggle between good and evil, the delightful quirks of Twin Peaks and just get a sour taste in the mouth and a headache that cannot be cured by coffee and cherry pie.

All that said, Kyle MacLachlan is amazing in the third season of Twin Peaks. Straddling three roles with an effortless quality, MacLachlan makes viewers care about Agent Cooper once again and feel genuine emotions for him. When MacLachlan plays Dougie needing to go to the bathroom (having forgotten such basic things), it is painful to watch - expertly performed by the actor. Similarly, MacLachlan manages to make Cooper a stone-cold villain that raises the level of tension every time he appears on screen.

The supporting cast of Twin Peaks Season Three is good, but the highest praise should be reserved for the late Miguel Ferrer. Ferrer plays Albert Rosenfield and the magic of his performance is that Albert has mellowed considerably over the twenty-five years, but Ferrer plays him in a way that the viewer never once doubts they are watching Albert at work. Given that an acerbic quality and angry deliveries were the hallmark of Albert in the original Twin Peaks, it is no small feat to reinvent the portrayal of the character and make him feel like the same old guy!

Fans of Twin Peaks who were waiting for the event to be complete and for a final analysis before watching will want the bottom line. It is this: Binge watch the third season of Twin Peaks. Find one day you can devote to it, watch episodes one through seventeen and stop there. The event is worth it . . . up to a point and David Lynch rather politely gave a clear point where the season stops being worth watching.

For a better idea of exactly what this season entails, please check out my reviews of the specific episodes at:
"The Return Part 1"
"The Return Part 2"
"The Return Part 3"
"The Return Part 4"
"The Return Part 5"
"The Return Part 6"
"The Return Part 7"
"The Return Part 8"
"The Return Part 9"
"The Return Part 10"
"The Return Part 11"
"The Return Part 12"
"The Return Part 13"
"The Return Part 14"
"The Return Part 15"
"The Return Part 16"
"The Return Part 17"
"The Return Part 18"

6/10

For other television reviews, please visit my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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"The Return Part 13" Solidifies The Focus On Twin Peaks!

The Good: Good acting, Moments of character, Good ending, Most of the episode's mood
The Bad: Somewhat aimless plot for the latter half
The Basics: "The Return Part 13" mixes wonderfully concrete elements in Cooper and Dougie's stories with somewhat pointless Twin Peaks scenes.


As the new season of Twin Peaks enters its final third, the story is well-beyond the novelty of the prior cast members appearing and the show is committed to actually resolving the massive plot threads it began many episodes prior. "The Return Part 13" does a lot of things that are necessary to achieve that goal, most notably, returning Cooper to the narrative. As well, Richard Horne becomes relevant as he ends up in the same time and place as Cooper.

"The Return Part 13" picks up after "The Return Part 12" (reviewed here!), which was delightful in that it included the return on-screen of Audrey Horne, played by Sherilyn Fenn. Given the delight that fans had at her return, "The Return Part 13" had a lot to live up to. "The Return Part 13" does a good job of blending surreal and weird elements with concrete ties of elements and characters in the Twin Peaks universe. Unfortunately, it feels like David Lynch had half an episode and had to fill out the back half, so he threw in a ton of homages to the original Twin Peaks, including Big Ed's return to the narrative and James Hurley performing the song he sang back in the day with Donna.

At Lucky 7 Insurance, the Mitchum Brothers bring Dougie back, where they present Bud Mullins with a lot of expensive gifts for paying out his their claim. Cooper's agent at the firm, Anthony, is given a day to take care of Dougie. Dougie returns home to find that the Mitchum brothers have bought a gym set for his son and Janie is quite amorous to him. In Western Montana, Cooper arrives to confront Ray, who attempted to kill him. Cooper is given the opportunity to arm wrestle to take over Ray's territory and insists on Ray's life instead. When Cooper wins the match and kills the boss, he interrogates Ray about the scheme to murder him. Cooper asks Ray for the coordinates that Ray was given.

In South Dakota, the police discover that Dougie Jones is supposed to be both an escaped convict and a missing F.B.I. agent. The insurance agent approaches a police officer on the take for a poison to kill Dougie. When the time comes for the agent to attempt to kill Dougie, though, he breaks down and is unable to go through with it. At the RR Diner in Twin Peaks, Shelly gets a call from her daughter before Norma is visited by the man she is seeing, who has franchised her diner. Audrey confronts her husband with an identity crisis that he is unhelpful in resolving.

Kyle MacLachlan is amazing in "The Return Part 13." MacLachlan's arm wrestling scene is an impressive feat. MacLachlan embodies Bob with a vicious streak and a power that is impressive. His physical restraint in the scene is contrasted brilliantly by the very active physical performance of the man who plays Ray's boss. MacLachlan's role as Dougie is minimal in "The Return Part 13," but he continues to play him as appropriately stiff and out-of-touch as Dale Cooper slowly becomes conscious within Dougie's body. MacLachlan commits to a face-plant into a glass door as Dougie that is unsettling for its realism.

While the performances and moments of character - when they exist - are quite good, the plot goes from being delightfully focused and possessing a sense that the show is working to tie together important plot elements, "The Return Part 13" becomes aimless in its second half. Sure, it's nice to see Big Ed (though Everett McGill looks like "David Lynch pulled me out of retirement to eat a fucking cup of soup?!" over the closing credits) again and the reunion of Dr. Jacoby and Nadine is delightful for the sheer volume of crazy in the scene's subtext. While James may be stuck in his past, the viewer is not and we need something more than just to be trapped in Twin Peaks.

David Lynch starts "The Return Part 13" strong, but seems unable or unwilling to keep the focus and intensity of the first half of the episode in the second half.

For other works with Everett McGill, please visit my reviews of:
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
Twin Peaks
Licence To Kill
Dune

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Twin Peaks - The Complete Third Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the temporally displaced season of the surreal show here!
Thanks!]

7/10

For other television reviews, please visit my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Twin Peaks Evolves From Weird To Concrete In "The Return Part 11"

The Good: Good performances, Decent plot development, Special effects
The Bad: Light on character development
The Basics: "The Return Part 11" satisfyingly progresses the growing mystery in the new season of Twin Peaks.


For a show that utilizes surrealism and very oddly connected elements, Twin Peaks, at least its new season, has been developing in a remarkably traditional overall arc. In the classic dramatic/heroic arc, the hero is established, gets surrounded by adversaries, then has to rise to the occasion to overcome those obstacles and/or sacrifice themselves for the common good. As "The Return Part 11" begins, Agent Dale Cooper - in Doug Jones's body - is beset on all sides by enemies and faces threats from many real people (including people working for his Bob-possessed doppelganger, Cooper), as well as the potential supernatural threats from the Black Lodge.

"The Return Part 11" continues the story where "The Return Part 10" (reviewed here!) and it plays up the supernatural threats as Gordon experiences some of the otherworldly elements that Agent Cooper was lost to twenty-five years prior. Perhaps the most instantly compelling aspect of "The Return Part 11" is the implicit concept that there is more than one Black Lodge or there are widely disparate entrances/exits to the one.

Opening on the outskirts of the trailer park, Miriam crawls, barely alive to some nearby children playing catch. Becky is called by Stephen and she calls Shelly to, essentially, steal her car. Back in Buckhorn, South Dakota, Hastings is brought to the place where he claims he saw Major Briggs. Agent Preston is interrogating Hastings when Albert and Gordon see a shadow person appear and vanish. After Albert rescues Gordon from a cosmic opening into a horror dimension, Hastings is murdered by one of the shadow people.

Back at the Double R Diner, Bobby and Shelly come to Becky's aid. While they are there, a shot comes through the Double R's window. While he is investigating it, Bobby encounters a woman who appears to have a zombie in her car. At the Twin Peaks Sheriff's department, Deputy Hawk interprets a map for Truman. In Buck Horn, the FBI team tries to figure out what happened to Ruth Davenport's headless body and they corroborate their visions of the mysterious bearded figures at the place Hastings was murdered. At Lucky 7 Insurance, Doug's boss reasons that someone other than the Mitchum brothers is calling the shots in the conspiracy that Doug apparently exposed. Bud sends Dougie to meet with the brothers, with a $30 million check.

"The Return Part 11" finally clarifies the relationship of Becky to the narrative. Becky is Shelly and Bobby's daughter and the idea that Bobby and Shelly's relationship continued after the original Twin Peaks, but then ran its course is fairly well-presented in the new episode. Dana Ashbrook does an excellent job of emoting Bobby's sense of loss in his brief scene where Bobby watches Shelly run off with another man. Ashbrook acts the hell out of the moment with just his facial expressions and eye movements.

Twin Peaks is well-known for its surreal moments, but "The Return Part 11" is one of the most effective episodes of the new season to actually utilize surrealism without getting overwhelmed by them. For sure, there are some truly incoherent moments - the zombie boy rising up in the passenger seat is just terrifying and not yet connected to anything else - but after Gordon's encounter with the conduit to (potentially) the Black Lodge - the episode takes a turn for the starkly realistic. Becky is in a real-world bad situation and Dougie is moved toward a very palpable dangerous situation. Despite one of the Mitchum brothers being motivated by his own dreams, the rising tension in "The Return Part 11" is based on more practical threats than those represented by the forces of the Black Lodge.

Kyle MacLachlan continues to perform incredibly as Dougie Jones. Dougie is basically a vegetable and MacLachlan plays him with slow repeated lines and wide-eyed stares and he is magnetic to watch. Robert Knepper once again plays an incredibly good villain as Rob Mitchum, but for a change, Jim Belushi rises to match his gravitas as Bradley Mitchum. Belushi has to play a character who is remembering a nearly-forgotten dream and he pulls it off such that it seems like a legitimate process of remembering, as opposed to a matter of plot convenience.

Ultimately, "The Return Part 11" is weird, but it is the good weird that made Twin Peaks wonderful and makes fans believe that David Lynch could still make something good with all the elements he has in play in the new season.

For other works with Harry Dean Stanton, please visit my reviews of:
"The Return Part 6" - Twin Peaks
The Avengers
Rango
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
The Last Temptation Of Christ
Alien
The Godfather, Part II

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Twin Peaks - The Complete Third Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the temporally displaced season of the surreal show here!
Thanks!]

8/10

For other television reviews, please visit my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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"The Return Part 5" Rolls Like A Fog Back Toward Twin Peaks!

The Good: Good performances, Surreal elements work well with answering key questions
The Bad: No real character development, Irksome disconnected elements
The Basics: Twin Peaks continues to coalesce its narrative in "The Return Part 5."


As the new mystery in Twin Peaks begins to become clearer, the revival of the surreal show has gotten better. But, so far, the show has been somewhat erratic with episodes that bounce between providing viewers with concrete answers and others that simply seek to create a mood piece that confuses the story. So, going into "The Return Part 5," viewers had good reason to feel wary.

"The Return Part 5" follows on the events of "The Return Part 4" (reviewed here!) and, by necessity, requires some references to the prior episode to be comprehensively reviewed. After all, in "The Return Part 4," viewers were given some comparatively concrete answers about Dougie Jones and some of Agent Cooper's old FBI coworkers finally encountered Cooper.

Opening in Las Vegas, a strung out drug dealer texts "Argent." Elsewhere, the medical examiner on the South Dakota case performs an autopsy and discovers a wedding ring in the stomach of the corpse. In jail, Cooper reaffirms that Bob is still with him, while in Twin Peaks, Sheriff Truman is yelled at by Doris. Janey hides the money before driving Dougie to work. The thugs pursuing Dougie continue to stake out the house in the development where Agent Cooper manifested in Dougie and the number of people staking out the house because his car is out front increases. Dougie arrives at work where he follows coffee to the proper part of the office he works at.

While at a meeting, Agent Cooper begins to assert himself when he recognizes one of the other insurance agents is lying. Back at the casino, the casino manager is visited by the bosses who own the facility and object to the manager having paid Dougie out more than $400,000. At the housing complex, thugs attempt to take Dougie's car and it blows up. At the Double R Diner in Twin Peaks, Norma Jennings is alarmed when she sees Shelly give money to Becky, which Becky then gives to her dirtbag boyfriend, who is high on cocaine. While the Sheriffs in Twin Peaks work long into the night on the Agent Cooper case, Dr. Jacoby presents a podcast that rants against corporate influences in food and the environment. His podcast concludes with an advertisement for Dr. Amp's Golden Shovels, which Nadine eagerly listens to. At the Pentagon, an officer reports a new hit on Major Garland Briggs's fingerprints - the sixteenth hit in the past twenty-five years - and the Colonel on duty indicates it may be time to get the FBI involved. At the FBI, Agent Preston compares Agent Cooper's fingerprints to the imprisoned Cooper and discovers the fingerprints are different. And Cooper makes his one phone call from prison.

Janey continues to be a pretty horrible character in "The Return Part 5." The wife of Dougie Jones, Janey seems to recognize that there is something not quite right with her husband but she literally tugs him out the door and pushes him out of the car to get him to work. The relationship between Doug and Jane is characterized as entirely dysfunctional long before an assistant at the insurance office proves to be vastly more helpful than Janey. "The Return Part 5" starts to become more problematic on the Dougie front in that everyone else around Doug seems to be as unhelpful and oblivious as Doug's wife. The forced suspension of disbelief becomes unbearable.

Twin Peaks fans are unlikely to be impressed with the return of Mike Nelson to the narrative in one of the more random scenes since the show returned. Nelson was a character from the second season of Twin Peaks (reviewed here!) and he was part of one of the more ridiculous subplots in the season. His lone scene in "The Return Part 5" is used to introduce Becky Burnett's strung-out boyfriend. His appearance is a psychic nod to Nadine, who then appears without lines in "The Return Part 5" for no other reason than to imply that she remains as gullible as she used to be.

On the plus side, while the mystery of Doug Jones builds, Norma and Shelly pop back into the Twin Peaks narrative. Shelly is presented as an enabler for Becky, while Norma is still running the Double R and acting as a motherly figure to her. It seems like nothing has truly changed for them and that at least helps to make "The Return Part 5" feel connected to Twin Peaks. In fact, "The Return Part 5" might well have the most characters from the original Twin Peaks yet and that helps to make the episode feel more like Twin Peaks as opposed to a random television mystery than many of the prior episodes.

Also interesting is the use of Cooper in the climax of "The Return Part 5." Cooper appears to have knowledge of the Warden's personal life (or corrupt dealings) and he uses his one phone call to hack the security system at the prison, which allows him to send a coded message out to Buenos Aires. The surreal aspect of that phone call is well executed and director David Lynch manages to do interesting things like the compressing of the phone and the morph between Cooper and Bob in the mirror.

Not all of the direction is wonderful, though. Lynch made an awkward cut with the car bomb scene. While the cut might have been done to be more sensitive to viewers given the violence in the world today, the cheated car bomb scene makes very little visual sense. The car is being ransacked by three people when the bomb explodes and how two of those thugs walk away from the explosion is a complete mystery based upon the way the scene is cut.

Ultimately, "The Return Part 5" genuinely feels like an episode of Twin Peaks and it strengthens the ideas that Agent Cooper is possessing Dougie and that Cooper is slowly losing his ability to stay in our world. How Cooper is tied into the whole Twin Peaks drug trade remains to be solidified, but the idea that Cooper is a hunted man is implied heavily throughout "The Return Part 5" and is enough to get viewers excited about where the show is going!

For other works with Robert Knepper, check out my reviews of:
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2
"Power Outage" - The Flash
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1
R.I.P.D.
Heroes - Season Four
Prison Break - Season 1
Carnivale
"Dragons Teeth" - Star Trek: Voyager
“Haven” - Star Trek: The Next Generation

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Twin Peaks - The Complete Third Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the temporally displaced season of the surreal show here!
Thanks!]

6.5/10

For other television reviews, please visit my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Ultimate Tale Of Peer Pressure: Lovelace

The Good: Acting, Interesting character struggle.
The Bad: Very predictable plot
The Basics: Pounding the independent film circuit at the end of Summer Blockbuster Season, Lovelace should be Amanda Seyfried and Peter Sarsgaard’s ticket to Oscar nominations.


As Summer Blockbuster Season winds down, with a particularly crowded release weekend, there are a number of independent films being released alongside the mainstream ones that are largely getting neglected. One of the most anticipated ones that is nevertheless being overlooked by mainstream audiences this weekend is Lovelace. Lovelace is a drama/biography starring Amanda Seyfried and for those who are only into the salacious, there is no need to read any further: Amanda Seyfried gets naked in Lovelace. For those looking for something more substantive, there is plenty more to read, but for the audience who just wants to see more of Amanda Seyfried, the bottomline is that yes, Lovelace lives up to the potential of its subject by showing off more of Amanda Seyfried than in her other films.

For those unfamiliar with her, Linda Lovelace was the star of the classic porn film Deep Throat. Apparently, she was the first breakout, mainstream porn actress to capture the imagination of viewers in Deep Throat. It is worth noting up front that I knew nothing about Linda Lovelace and have never actually seen Deep Throat, so this review is only on Lovelace, not how it recreates reality on screen. Lovelace is essentially this year’s Boogie Nights (reviewed here!) where the protagonist is female. Structured in plot very much like Boogie Nights, Lovelace features a woman who is pressured by her husband into entering the porn industry.

Before she was a mainstream porn breakout, Linda Lovelace was just a girl. Hanging out with her friend Patsy, Linda is something of a prude who is pressured by Patsy into go-go dancing at a local roller skating rink. There she catches the eye of Chuck, who starts hanging out with her and actually works to impress her parents. Linda confesses to Chuck that she had a baby whom she was forced to give up for adoption by her mother and shortly thereafter, Linda and Chuck move in together. At Chuck’s house, she is exposed to porn movies and after she bails him out of jail six months later, Chuck reveals what his real business is (he is essentially a pimp for a topless bar’s women).

After Linda bombs an audition for Chuck’s backers, Chuck plays a home video of Linda giving him a blowjob and that captures the attention of producers Butchie and Gerry. Linda is pushed into doing a porn movie,

While Lovelace is a predictably dark plot progression of a character in an industry that is unforgiving and punishing to women. As After Porn Ends (reviewed here!) adequately documented, porn and erotica do not have a huge regard for women and Lovelace illustrates that women in the industry are often manipulated and pushed farther than they might want to go. As well, the aging porn star Dolly illustrates that the industry does not prepare women in the biz for other vocations, but the ones who are best prepared for life after porn are those who take on other vocations (Dolly is a make-up artist).

As these stories frequently go – in reality and in virtually every fiction about them - Lovelace starts as the story of a person with a singular talent filling a niche in the industry and quickly turns into a story of abuse, drugs and personal horror. What separates Lovelace from many other films, like What’s Love Got To Do With It? is a lack of pretense, a focus on overcoming, and some pretty amazing performances.

The lack of pretense manifests itself instantly in the form of Chuck. Chuck is a dirtbag and the moment he first arrives on screen, the viewer knows he is bad news for Linda. We see his arc coming a mile away. Lovelace does not try to shield or confuse the viewer. Instead, Chuck is a dirtbag, but Linda is not an innocent. Linda is not at all thrilled by all of Chuck’s mannerisms, but she goes along with him and is beaten by him long before he pushes her into porn. Lovelace is smart enough to leave some ambiguity; do the producers send Chuck away the day Linda is going down on co-star Harry Reems because he will inhibit her performance or because she is more likely to be easily manipulated without him looking out for his “investment?”

The seduction and calamity of Lovelace happens at a roller coaster speed, which leaves a significant chunk of the film exploring how Linda deals with her celebrity and overcomes the negative influences of Chuck. While the movie never quite gets into “inspirational” territory, it smartly does not sink so low as to be unwatchable or continually oppressive. The focus on Linda overcoming Chuck and their shared poverty and problems keeps Lovelace watchable.

The acting in Lovelace is so good it is hard to believe this film is not breaking out in mainstream theaters. With a supporting cast that includes Chris Noth, Wes Bentley, Hank Azaria, Sharon Stone, and Robert Patrick, Lovelace is an incredible presentation of talent in every frame. Amanda Seyfried is perfectly cast as Linda Lovelace. If for no other reason than Seyfried is able to perfectly embody both innocent and sultry, she seems like the ideal choice for Linda Lovelace and she sells the life story of the actress as compelling and engaging.

It was Peter Sarsgaard who rocked Lovelace for me, though. Sarsgaard has none of the creepiness of his villain from Green Lantern (reviewed here!) in his portrayal of Chuck. As a result, he is able to play Chuck first with credible charisma and then as a manipulative bastard who rules all of Linda’s life. The key to such a role is in making the character seem like one the woman would initially be drawn to and he manages to do that. The layered performance of Peter Sarsgaard and the on-screen chemistry he shares with Seyfried make it seem like a no-brainer that a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination is in his future.

Despite its tone and subject matter, Lovelace is a very accessible film that becomes one of August’s few “must watch” movies!

For other works with Amanda Seyfried, please check out my reviews of:
The Big Wedding
Les Miserables
In Time
A Bag Of Hammers
Red Riding Hood
Letters To Juliet
Dear John
Veronica Mars - Season One
Mean Girls

6.5/10

For other film reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

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So Many Great Actors Fail To Impress In The Big Wedding!

The Good: Moments of performance
The Bad: Predictable plot, Droll character arcs, Much of the direction and acting, Jokes and dramatic moments alike fall flat.
The Basics: Despite having an Oscarbait cast, The Big Wedding gives women and adults nothing substantial to watch this Summer Blockbuster Season.


I cannot think of a film in recent memory where I was so uninvested in how the film’s characters and plotlines would reach a resolution as with The Big Wedding. The last few years, as Summer Blockbuster Season has loomed, many of the smaller or more substantive production companies try to release counterprogramming to the big special effects-driven movies. They go after a mature audience and women with films like last year’s Hope Springs (reviewed here!). This year, Lionsgate tried to get into that niche right out of the gate with The Big Wedding.

They failed.

The Big Wedding is intended to be a family comedy with the usual tearjerker moments, but the film directed by its co-writer (or co-adapter, as it appears to have been based upon a French film) Justin Zackham is so thoroughly obvious and banal that most of the surprises are anything but and both the humor and dramatic moments fall painfully flat. The Big Wedding reminded me of a limited season television series The Big Day, which was also about a family gathering for a wedding and all of the mayhem that ensues. The difference is that that summer television show had a less well-known cast, but used all the players exceptionally well. The Big Wedding hopes the viewer will be blown away by the presence of Robert De Niro, Diane Keaton, Susan Sarandon, Robin Williams, Amanda Seyfried, and (I suppose) Katherine Heigl and Topher Grace that they won’t notice how poorly those performers are being used. Out of the bunch, only Susan Sarandon is given the chance to truly blow the audience away and she does in a single scene where her character, Bebe, does not say a word, but witnesses Don (her longterm boyfriend) and Ellie (her best friend, from whom she stole Don away years before, breaking up their marriage) having a moment where their chemistry is evident and Sarandon emotes so much with her face that one has to feel sorry for Bebe.

But, alas, one moment and one decent line (which, I swear, I have already forgotten, but it comes near the end of the movie) are not enough to make a flick worth watching and The Big Wedding falls into exactly that trap.

Alejandro, the adopted son of Don and Ellie, is getting married to his virtual nonentity of a girlfriend, Missy. So, the families are converging on Don and Bebe’s, despite there being a lot of tension in the family. Lyla’s marriage is falling apart and she is estrange from her father, Don. Lyla is feeling sick from something entirely obvious that her sexually unfulfilled doctor brother, Jared, investigates for her on their way to their parent’s house. Ellie, arriving early, lets herself in and comes across her good friend and her ex-husband and feels out of place. When Alejandro arrives, he breaks some bad news to his parents; his biological mother, Madonna, who has been invited to the wedding, thinks divorce is the greatest sin imaginable.

Rather than telling her to stuff it, in America we have divorce and the family is not as Super Catholic as she is, everyone decides to bend over backwards for the woman who gave Alejandro up for adoption. This means that Bebe, who has been like a mother to Alejandro, bows out (though she soon resurfaces as part of the catering staff for the wedding) and Don and Ellie pretend for Madonna that they are still married. At the same time, Jared hits very heavily on Alejandro’s biological sister and Lyla whines about the past as Ellie comes to the realizations that she truly is over Don.

The Big Wedding is just, unfortunately, stupid. We’ve seen all the clichés in movies in recent years. The whole “exes hook up” thing was done much better in It’s Complicated (reviewed here!) and the elements of addition featuring prominently at a wedding was Rachel Getting Married (reviewed here!) in a nutshell. But, any film that belabors a woman with marital issues getting queasy constantly and then acts like it is a huge revelation that the character is pregnant is just insulting. I swear, Katherine Heigl’s Lyla is the last one to figure out she’s pregnant.

What The Big Wedding has outside belabored exposition and a painfully ridiculous plot that would be a farce if only it were funny, so it is just mind-numbingly pathetic as it is here as (at best) a dramedy, is an impressive cast. Unfortunately, the cast is not used very well at all. Amanda Seyfried plays Missy (the bride) and she makes so little impression in this role that one wonders why she chose to do it at all. That’s okay because, despite being Latino, Alejandro (played by Ben Barnes) is such a white bread character that the two fit one another perfectly. Robin Williams’ role as the Catholic Priest Father Moinighan would have been audacious . . . if only Justin Zackham had produced the film fifteen years ago. As it stands, though, the ironic casting and usage of Williams as a Priest is a flat retreading of what Kevin Smith did with George Carlin (to much better effect) in Dogma (reviewed here!).

Topher Grace is fine as Jared, Katherine Heigl might as well be going for her Razzie as Lyla (you can always count on Heigl for doing that dumbstruck expression once per film, much like how Ben Affleck used to cry once per movie, and she doesn’t disappoint for the miniscule niche audience that still finds that charming or original), and the powerhouse casting of Robert De Niro, Susan Sarandon and Diane Keaton results in three performers constantly straining to do interesting things with their listless characters. Sarandon gets her moment and De Niro reminds us that he can perform when Don gets drunk, but Keaton’s part is unfortunately interchangeable with so many others she has had over the years . . . except here her character comes to an obvious conclusion she seemed to come into the film with.

The Big Wedding is not worth watching; not on the big screen, not on DVD when it comes out and not even when it is on network television edited for content and bloated with commercials. It is one of the surest racehorses for next year’s Razzies . . . if only the pundits even remember it exists at that time.

For other works with Topher Grace, please check out my reviews of:
Predators
Valentine's Day
Spider-Man 3
In Good Company

2/10

For other film reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Journey To Realize “We’re All In This Together:” A Bag Of Hammers

The Good: Interesting characters, Good pacing, Decent acting
The Bad: Virtually nonexistent plot, Miserable mood.
The Basics: A Bag Of Hammers has remarkably mature performances by two actors who have often been cast as slackers.


It seems that lately, I’ve been watching a lot of independent films. I like that; with so many mainstream films burning up the hits on my blog, I figure the independent films I review are good for me. After all, maybe one of the quirky, obscure films I take the time to watch and evaluate may lead a reader to discover a film they really want to watch or avoid on DVD, when avoiding the mainstream works in theaters this month. I always try to leave readers with an idea of whether or not the film I am reviewing is one that is worth their time and whether or not they should bother watching it. In the case of A Bag Of Hammers, I am actually not sure where I stand on it. It is certainly in the upper half of an “average” rating, but not much more than that.

A Bag Of Hammers is a simple and direct film and I started out enjoying it and finished enjoying it, but I was mostly ambivalent to the film in the middle. Ironically, considering how much I like True Blood and Carrie Preston in that show, the portions of A Bag Of Hammers that contain Carrie Preston are actually my least favorite and when she ultimately left the film, I found I enjoyed it all the more. And, more than any film that I can recall in recent memory, A Bag Of Hammers had a montage sequence I enjoyed near the end more than any other film.

Ben and Alan are grifters, taking their valet parking sign to cemeteries and art galleries and robbing cars that are left with them. Alan is Melanie’s brother and he shares some of his cuts from the jobs with her. Melanie, still sore over being abandoned by Alan as a kid, acts as his conscience and she works hard to do the right thing, while still living off his largess. When Lynette and her son, Kelsey, come looking for a place to stay following Hurricane Katrina, the guys rent the mother and a son a house. Melanie quickly gets frustrated at the squalid conditions in which Kelsey lives and she tries to report Lynette to the authorities, who are predictable apathetic.

When Lynette kills herself, Alan and Ben hide the evidence of how Kelsey lives from the police in order to effectively take custody of Kelsey. Wanting to raise Kelsey causes a rift to form between Alan and Ben, with Ben wanting to turn the child over to the proper authorities and continue their slacking and grifting together, but Alan seeing the boy as a chance for some form of redemption.

A Bag Of Hammers is a weird little dramedy and the awkward moments are enough to chill the viewer with their realism and the harshness of the world they portray. And yet, Alan and Ben are fun characters and Alan’s arc, especially, is a quest for redemption that is deeply touching. Yes, the story of a car thief who wants to raise a kid illegally becomes remarkably touching.

The strength of A Bag Of Hammers comes very much from the performances in the film. The cast of virtual unknowns – Carrie Preston is one of the biggest names in the film and Amanda Seyfried shockingly has little more than a cameo in the movie – is powerfully good. In fact, Chandler Canterbury, who plays Kelsey has such potent deliveries and some of the lines he is given are so simple on the page, but so powerful when he speaks them. He has more gravitas than any young actor to come up in recent memory.

Jake Sandvig, whose work I was familiar with from Fired Up! (reviewed here!) and Easy A (reviewed here!) completely upsets his typecasting in the role of Alan. Alan starts as Sandvig’s usual slacker role that has made him a gawky, but fun character actor. But in A Bag Of Hammers he has an energy and he tightens up his body language as the film goes on to present a character who is not only serious, but realistic for the level of responsibility he commits to. All of a sudden, Alan is a plausible father figure and Sandvig sells the transition like no other. Jason Ritter comes to the role of Ben with simple, smirking good looks, but rises to the occasion in the end.

Amanda Seyfried makes good use of her three or four minutes total screentime and Carrie Preston is fine as the deadbeat, down-on-her-luck Lynette. The scene-stealer is Rebecca Hall as Melanie. Melanie is the conscience of the little triumvirate, but Hall smartly plays the role with minimal heart (letting Sandvig pick up that responsibility). The result is that Hall is able to deliver some of the wriest lines in A Bag Of Hammers and present some of the most awkward humor in the most organic and funny fashion.

Ultimately, I’m not sure why I am not more enthusiastically endorsing A Bag Of Hammers; I liked it, but maybe tonight I was not in the mood for a film that had such an oppressive mood to it. The movie is enjoyable, not incredible, but has little I can point to that was not well-executed.

For other independent films, please check out my reviews of:
Butter
Daydream Nation
Mouth To Mouth

6/10

See how this film stacks up against all other movies I have reviewed by visiting my Movie Review Index Page where works are organized from best to worst!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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2012's Holiday Season's Obvious Oscarbait, Les Miserables Lives Up!

The Good: Mostly great acting, Decent music, Good cinematography, Great characters
The Bad: Eddie Redmayne is underwhelming, Pacing
The Basics: The latest cinematic version of Les Miserables may be an obvious grab for awards, but it is worth the accolades given the quality of this interpretation.


A year ago, there was much geeking out in my home. I was excited because of the earliest rumors and information about Prometheus (reviewed here!). My wife, on the other hand, was drooling over the information that was slowly leaking out about Les Miserables, one of her two favorite musicals. I figured I had the best of the year’s worth of anticipation; whether or not the epic I was enthusiastic about met my expectations, I would get a new Anne Hathway film on Christmas day. It was win-win for me (and I was one of the few who still loved Prometheus) and having to not wait until Christmas for new Anne Hathaway made it even better (if you want new Anne Hathaway now, check out the Funny Or Die video with her and Samuel L. Jackson online now!).

Les Miserables is a film based upon the play based upon the novel and it is worth noting that while I have seen the play or read the book, I have seen film and filmed versions of the play. I have also reviewed one of the celebrated soundtracks for the play (that review is here!) and my wife’s enthusiasm for it has certainly made me excited for it. However, I intend to limit this review to the Tom Hooper-directed Les Miserables that seems this season’s most obvious Oscarbait.

Unlike Chicago (reviewed here!) from a few years ago, Les Miserables is a musical that is presented as a film with its own reality. This is not a “play on film” like Chicago was. The musical interludes are a way to present emotions, exposition, and create mood, as opposed to intentionally replicating a theatrical (play) event. And, while Les Miserables is obvious Oscarbait, it manages not to fall into the same problem as Mystic River (reviewed here!) where there is predictable greatness. While I am tempted to say that anything that features Anne Hathaway is stacking the casting deck, the truth is she has a more extensive cinematic resume of romantic comedies, as opposed to deep dramas (though the dramas she has been in have been ones that show her easily able to handle an incredible range and a wide variety of situations). Moreover, Hugh Jackman has had some real cinematic lemons, as have Sacha Baron Cohen . . . and Russell Crowe is frequently typecast and used for a very limited range of character. Fortunately, on Les Miserables, the cast is used extraordinarily well and, with the exception of Redmayne, who is overshadowed in virtually every scene by his red-coated costar Aaron Tveit, in ways that they are not frequently captured on film.

Les Miserables is a story of one man’s struggles and strife amid the backdrop of the French Revolution. Having stolen a loaf of bread to feed his family, Jean Valjean is imprisoned for the crime and his attempt to flee prosecution. When Valjean, on parole after nineteen years of hard time, steals from the local bishop, the Bishop vouches for him to the authorities and Valjean is given a second chance to live right. Valjean becomes a respected citizen, mayor, and factory owner after years of being on the outside. Working at one of his factories is Fantine, a young woman who has turned to prostitution on the side in order to feed her baby daughter. Rescued from Inspector Javert following a conflict at Valjean’s factory, Fantine dies of tuberculosis.

Despite Valjean exposing himself to Javert to prevent an innocent man from being accused of being Valjean and having Javert’s wrath taken out on him, Valjean promises to return to Javert’s custody after he makes arrangements for Fantine’s daughter, Cosette. Valjean betrays Javert and takes Cosette on the run from the law. Years later, having raised Cosette as his own, revolution comes to France. Cosette finds herself embroiled in a love triangle with a revolutionary boy and Valjean has the chance to forgive Javert for a lifetime of pursuit when the revolutionaries are going to put Javert to death for being a spy.

Les Miserables is an epic and it is extraordinary. As a film, Les Miserables is presented by director Tom Hooper in a way that uses the medium exceptionally well. The locations are big and the sense of time passing is executed well on the actors, sets, and costumes. Keeping largely with the theatrical version, the cinematic Les Miserables includes comic relief in the form of the Thenardiers. While Madame Thenardier is well within the range or Helena Bonham Carter, her husband is portrayed by Sacha Baron Cohen. Cohen does an impressive job of being more restrained than in most of his other roles and while he makes the role work, this rendition of Les Miserables doies not actually need that entire subplot and set of characters. In fact, while plays like Les Miserables judiciously mix humor and drama to keep from being too heavy and to allow for sets to be changed, in this version of Les Miserables, the presence of the Thenardiers is more distracting (though they do add another viewpoint on the Revolution) than necessary.

Musically, Les Miserables is enjoyable, though my wife informs me the soundtrack is altered some to fit the ranges of the performers (most notably Hathaway). As one not tied to the original play or soundtrack, I have to say it all sounded wonderful. Jackman makes for an amazing Jean Valjean in his vocalizations and Samantha Barks is wrenching as Eponine. Les Miserables sounds wonderful with the vocal performances that do add additional depth to the characters.

Russell Crowe did not wow me as Javert, but he fit the bill for in-character stiff in a way that worked surprisingly well. Javert is supposed to be obsessed and rigid in his determination to find Valjean and enforce law and order over any understanding of human emotions. Crowe fits the bill for that. Crowe presents Javert as somewhat robotic and he stands out next to how Anne Hathaway takes a bit role and fills it with hearthbreaking pathos or Jackman as Valjean, who is so good that he makes viewers forget how he ever growled his way through Wolverine. Even Amanda Seyfried is able to display uncommon range and emotion as Cosette that makes the character more than a simple love interest for Marius. Seyfried, Barks, Cohen, Hathaway and Jackman are so explosively dynamic that they shine so bright to make Crowe seem stiffer and blander by comparison.

Les Miserables is a cinematic musical that transcends its source material to use the film medium extraordinarily well. Hooper creates a distinct time, place and mood that feels appropriately epic. While “epic” is, by nature, long, great direction can keep such a film moving along. Unfortunately, Hooper misses some key marks – especially in keeping truer to the play by giving the Thenardiers their due – and the film feels long.

That said, Jean Valjean is presented as an intriguing and sufficiently deep character to invite the investment of time and energy in his journey. Les Miserables might be a long film telling a great story with interesting characters, released at the time of year as appropriate to get most of the people involved nominated for big awards, but it is worth it and enjoyable, even when it is heartbreaking for the way it portrays the depth of human suffering.

For works featuring Anne Hathaway, please check out my reviews of:
Anne Hathaway For Wonder Woman!
The Dark Knight Rises
One Day
Rio
Love And Other Drugs
Family Guy Presents: It's A Trap!
Alice In Wonderland
Valentine's Day
Twelfth Night Soundtrack
Bride Wars
Rachel Getting Married
Passengers
Get Smart
Becoming Jane
The Devil Wears Prada
Havoc
Hoodwinked!
Brokeback Mountain
The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement
Ella Enchanted
Nicholas Nickleby
The Other Side Of Heaven
The Princess Diaries

8.5/10

For other film reviews, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of my movie reviews!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Say What You Will About It, Mean Girls Is Close-Enough To Perfect To Rave About!

The Good: Funny, Good character development, Decent directoral style, Generally good acting, Social commentary
The Bad: Minutia
The Basics: Funny and near-perfect, Mean Girls lives up to its hype as a wonderful comedy about high school cliques and those who challenge them.


For those who do not read my many movie reviews, it takes a lot for me to rate a film a ten out of ten, but there are occasional films that might not be absolutely perfect that get very close to that rating. Mean Girls is one of those films.

Truth be told, I had been hearing positive hype about Mean Girls for years. Had I known it was directed by Mark Waters, who bored me with one of the worst films in recent years, Ghost Of Girlfriends Past (reviewed here!) and left me underwhelmed with Just Like Heaven, I probably would not have been as excited about taking in the movie, regardless of the hype. Fortunately, while going through my wife's DVD collection to find a movie we could watch for the night, I was psyched to find she had Mean Girls! And watching it, Waters redeemed himself for his other movies. Mean Girls lives up to its hype as a wonderful comedy with actual social commentary, making its points well with humor and style.

Cady Heron was homeschooled by her parents, as she was raised in the wilds of Africa and at age sixteen is sent off to public high school in the midwest. There, Cady is befriended by the outcast Janis Ian and her gay friend, Damian. Janis tries to help Cady navigate the cliques, but despite her best efforts, Cady is noticed by the Plastics. The Plastics are the junior girls who represent the most popular, elite and mean clique at the school. When Regina George allows Cady into the Plastics, Janis encourages her so that Janis can get the dirt on the Plastics and break up the powerful Junior trio.

This plan appeals to Cady when she finds herself instantly attracted to Aaron, who is Regina's ex-boyfriend. Dating ex's of the clique members is strictly prohibited, a fact which leaves Cady disappointed and willing to scheme against Regina. To stop Cady, Regina begins making moves on Aaron - while cheating on him - and Cady tries to win over Aaron, destroy Regina and avoid being a mathlete. Regina, however, soon learns of Cady's duplicity when Aaron breaks up with her and seeks to ruin Cady.

What Mean Girls does so well is capture the look, feel and tensions of high school, while making commentaries that are more adult than childish. Peripheral characters, like Regina's mother who tries desperately to be a part of her daughter's clique, garner a great number of laughs which makes for a much richer movie; not all of the pressure is on Cady to get the laughs. In fact, Cady plays the straightman to virtually every other character and as a result, it is easy to empathize with her. She, like the older viewers, is detached from the society of the high school. As a result, she is the ideal vehicle for the fish-out-of-water type comedy that makes up Mean Girls.

This is done quite creatively when Waters and writers Rosalind Wiseman and Tina Fey illustrate Cady's viewpoint; she juxtaposes animal behavior she witnessed in Africa with behavior she sees in the high school. These occasional flights of fancy throughout the movie might cause viewers to recall Ally McBeal and the analogy is not a bad one, as there is at least one moment where Cady imagines something that is taken back seconds after it happens that is not the result of any sense of social commentary. Still, watching the performers in the film suddenly begin prowling around like wild animals and leap upon one another shakes up the movie when it finds itself in danger of slowing down.

In addition, the writers shake up the traditional high school teen movie by defying some of the paradigms, most notably in how Cady eliminates the competition with Regina as leader of the Plastics. Cady seeks to simple take Regina down a peg without realizing what effect that is most likely to have and there is a wonderful moment where Cady ends up as the new alpha and because the character has become so corrupted by her plan at that point, this does not phase her (her friend, Janis, makes this explicit and it works wonderfully in the film).

What works as well is the way Janis Ian and Cady play off one another; Janis is motivated by her own desire for revenge for a past incident and she uses Cady much the way Regina uses Aaron. Ironically, both Janis and Regina react similarly when their pawns (Cady and Aaron, respectively) rebel. As well, while young people might instantly see the Plastics as antagonists (or desirable, for those so programmed), older viewers are likely to see the high school layout and see that this is just one clique among many and not be as judgmental in the way the writers and directors hope we will be.

But what fans are equally likely to enjoy is the fact that the movie is genuinely funny. The dialogue is wonderful and both captures the young dialect and comments on it. Near the very beginning there is a great moment when Cady and Regina are talking and Regina uses "shut up!" as a reactive colloquialism and Cady stares at her blank-faced and says, "I didn't say anything." It's funny and well-timed.

Mean Girls is arguably known best as a Lindsay Lohan vehicle and this film does give the bright-eyed young woman her chance to shine. She rises to the occasion and delivers a performance that is surprisingly mature and also able to keep a fresh sense of comic timing to it. She is able to deliver an appropriately quizzical look that sells her character perfectly and her pauses and deadpan deliveries keep the movie funny.

Lohan is not the only talent in the movie, though. Amanda Seyfried has one of the best deliveries as the dimwitted Plastic, Karen. She plays the fool perfectly and she plays off Lacey Chabert's Gretchen wonderfully. Lizzie Caplan plays her usual outsider character as Janis Ian, but she is unrelenting in Mean Girls, giving her performance a darker edge than many of her other roles. And Rachel McAdam's performance as Regina is so good that it made it clear how she was cast for The Time Traveler's Wife (reviewed here!)!

The adult cast is led by Saturday Night Live alums Tina Fey, Tim Meadows, and Amy Poehler, which makes sense as this is a Lorne Michael production. Poehler gets to do her usual over-the-top schtick as Regina's mother and her sense of physical comedy is wonderful. By contrast, Meadows carries a great deal of his humor with deadpan, more subtle deliveries. Fey mixes a more serious role as Cady's teacher, Ms. Norbury, with a few out-of-school scenes where she is able to play the social-awkward card.

The mix is wonderful and the result is a strong comedy that has great repeatability for teens and adults alike. When it is not making social comedy, it is funny and when the humor fades, it actually makes one care about the characters on screen. What more could one ask for?

For other works with Lizzy Caplan, be sure to visit my reviews of:
New Girl - Season 1
Hot Tub Time Machine
True Blood - Season 1
Cloverfield
Orange County
Freaks And Geeks

9/10

Check out other film reviews by me at my Movie Review Index Page!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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