Will Gluck Goes 2-2 With His Problematic Rendition Of Annie

The Good: Decent performances, Good (enough) story
The Bad: Direction/editing, Character types
The Basics: Annie is an ill-executed modernized version of the classic orphan story.


I am a fan of the works of Will Gluck. Gluck directed two films that get shown quite a lot around my household to visitors - Easy A (reviewed here!) and Friends With Benefits (reviewed here!). Gluck is a competent, entertaining writer-director who has something to say with his films and is already garnering a loyal cadre of actors who eagerly appear in his films, even as cameos. But until the Olive Bridge logo came up on Annie, I had no idea that Gluck was affiliated with the new film, which has been plugged at a ton of films I’ve seen this year. Olive Bridge is a reference to his protagonist from Easy A and was the name of the headhunting agency Mila Kunis’s character worked for in Friends With Benefits, so when the Olive Bridge logo came up, I was suddenly excited about a film that I otherwise had no real interest in seeing.

That excitement did not last long and, unfortunately, Will Gluck and/or the editor of Annie, Tia Nolan, are to blame. Annie is one of the rare films where the assembly of the film robs the viewer of much of the enjoyment of watching it. Will Gluck’s rendition of Annie is an obvious attempt for Gluck to get what he has long-deserved; mainstream recognition and a legitimate blockbuster. The near-Christmas release is a family film that is designed to compete against the final The Hobbit film by drawing younger audiences and black audiences (who have not, traditionally, been driving up the grosses on the Middle Earth movies) to the theaters the same weekend. But the Jamie Foxx/Cameron Diaz vehicle, which follows Gluck’s pattern of mocking the style of film he is presenting (in this case, musical), is put together in a way that does not allow any of the performers to truly showcase their talents, nor give the audience moments of catharsis for the character’s reactions.

Annie tells the familiar story of an orphaned girl – in this case, a ten year-old in foster care – who is taken in by a rich benefactor. Annie lives with four other girls in the home of Hannigan, an alcoholic who takes in foster girls just for the $157 the State pays her a month. Will Stacks is the CEO of Stacks Mobile, a cell phone company that is built upon the precedent of never dropping a call (which he delivers upon by hiding cell phone “towers” in plain sight on buildings all around New York City). Stacks has been encouraged by his right-hand man, Guy, to run for Mayor of New York City, but his campaign gets off to a rough start when his attempt to feed the homeless results in a viral video of him spitting out mashed potatoes at a homeless man. One day, when Annie is trying to protect a dog from two hooligans who are harassing it, Stacks rescues Annie from getting hit by a car. The resulting viral video gives Stacks a bump in the polls.

Guy recommends that Stacks take Annie in to help him win the race against Mayor Harold Gray. After a lunch meeting, Annie agrees to help Stacks (Hannigan was going to kick her out anyway after the social worker visited and Annie extorted her for a trip to the library). While Stacks’s assistant, Grace, has reservations about using Annie, she begins to bond with Annie. As the campaign goes on, Guy sees the only way to win the race is by jettisoning Annie after her part leads to a plateau within striking distance of Gray. Guy conspires with Hannigan to have Annie’s “parents” find her, but Annie feels like she has finally found her family and when she learns the truth, she assumes that Stacks never truly loved her or wanted her for his family.

Annie is a musical that attempts to exist in the real-world and it exists there in a murky, troubling, way. Initially, it is unclear how the film will tread; Annie’s first song is a distraction for a school assignment. But, she and her musical foster-sisters are called out by Hannigan when they sing while they clean. So, this is supposed to be the real world where it is very much an anomaly when people break into song and dance routines. Gluck manages to pull off the narrative aspect of the songs popping up well-enough (Annie often sings to herself or sings publicly to Stacks’s crowd), until late in the film. Hannigan and (especially) Guy are not creative people, so when they break into song (even if Hannigan acknowledges it) it just does not work. Equally troubling is the helicopter ride that results in Annie and Stacks singing to one another in which Annie does a little dance move before it is even clear they are singing!

But the bulk of the problem with the musical aspect of this incarnation of Annie is in the directing or editing. My affection for the works of Will Gluck, which often have moments that involve song/dance/decent cutting that has a visual rhythm to the scenes, makes me want to blame editor Tia Nolan (though Gluck, presumably, signed off on her editing). From the second song (“Hard Knocks Life”) on, the songs are almost universally cut in such a way that the singing and dancing of the subjects of the scenes is not well-showcased. For example, in “Hard Knocks Life,” the foster girls are tossing plates to one another in rhythm. The shots are cut in such a way that the rhythm is not established or maintained long enough to be enjoyable. In other words, by the time a plate is caught or thrown, the shot changes angle so it has an assembled look that does not showcase the talents of those putting a rhythm to the exchange. The best analogy for this would be a stunt fighter whose stunts were cut so that one sees them about to take a hit, then falling, then getting up (i.e. not having the hit appear to connect, nor have them hitting the ground, etc.). That type of gap does not allow one to appreciate the dance moves, scope or simple sense of motion of the big song and dance numbers throughout the film.

At least as troubling is how Gluck and Nolan rob the film of the big emotional moment for Stacks. At a museum fundraiser, Stacks uses Annie as a prop and when she sings to his crowd of potential donor, Stacks realizes that Annie has grown attached to him and that she is emotionally invested in the potential future he offered her. The only way viewers know what Stacks is going through is by the performance of Jamie Foxx. Foxx watches Quvenzhane Wallis’s Annie and he undergoes an emotional transformation without a word, only with subtle changes to his facial expression. The problem here is that the scene is cut in such a way that the viewer is not treated to the full transformation. The camera does not stay on Foxx’s face long enough for him to make the emotional statement he intends. This is sloppy and undermines the impact of the entire scene.

The song and dance numbers are further diminished by conceits that make no sense in a real world where people in the scenes are breaking into song and dance. Most notably, in one song where Cameron Diaz’s Hannigan is singing on her own, she is clearly accompanied by back-up singers and production elements that change her vocal quality. Of course, Diaz’s entire character is out-of-place in a modern adaptation of Annie. Hannigan as rendered in this version of Annie is a cruel has-been (more accurately, would-have-been – she got fired before actually dancing with C&C Music Factory) who is using the foster children for the monetary stipend they provide. But this version of Hannigan does not ring true in our modern world. Hannigan makes sense if she has a vice – to go dark, if she had been a drug abuser –, a goal (she needed the money to better herself, like by going to college or funding a small business, which could have been a cool twist if she was essentially using foster children as slave labor), or was just lazy (she is far too actively angry to be truly lazy or credibly as alcoholic as the characters around her claim). Instead, Hannigan seems more like an anachronism than a truly vital or viable character.

That said, Annie gives Rose Byrne a high point to end the year on. Byrne exploded to prominence this year with her role in Neighbors (reviewed here!) and Annie showcases a wider range of her talents. She sings and dances well (though her big song with Wallis wherein she is showing the girl Stacks’s penthouse apartment is notably robbed of flow and continuity of scope) and she provides a human connection that allows the viewer to believe that Annie might be happy with Stacks for more than just materialistic reasons.

Foxx and Wallis are fine in their roles of Will Stacks and Annie, though neither is given the chance to mine very deep for their characters. Foxx’s Stacks is unremarkable and seems to have less ambition than Bobby Canavale’s Guy. Annie is presented by Wallis with such resilience that Hannigan’s threat that she’ll end up in a group home does not seem like it would set her back and that the character’s literacy issue that comes up late in the film seems entirely unrealistic; she is smart, sassy and driven – how she has never sought out someone to help her read seems unrealistic. Cameron Diaz is over-the-top as Hannigan. Both David Zayas and Adewale Akinnoye-Agbaje are welcome additions to the cast, but are placed in fairly understated roles.

Ultimately, Annie is a film that suffers because its well-established, oft-rendered story means that the writer-directors of the project have to rely upon twists to the known and/or style to sell the new rendition. But Will Gluck’s Annie is put together in such a way that its stylistic flairs fall short and the film’s full impact can be achieved simply through watching the trailer.

For other films currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
To Write Love On Her Arms
The Seventh Son
Vice
Paddington
Inherent Vice
Selma
Still Alice
Predestination
The Interview
The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies
Expelled
Comet
Horrible Bosses 2
10,000 Days
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1
Interstellar
The Mule
Hit By Lightning
Horns
Stonehearst Asylum
Birdman

4/10

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

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Loop - Season 1 Is NOT Season 2 Or Quite Worth It!

The Good: Funny, Quirky, Excellent cast, Decent characters
The Bad: Standard sitcom plots, Only 7 episodes, Light DVD extras!
The Basics: A comedy I liked more in its second season starts out as a pretty sad DVD outing with just not enough to recommend it.


If you've never heard of The Loop, it's not surprising. This television series was a midseason replacement in the winter (March) of 2006, was renewed for a second season that was abruptly cut short in July of 2007 and appears to be a project that is dead in the water. I suspect if the producers knew that it was going to be axed prematurely, they would have waited and released The Loop - The Complete Series instead. Had that been the case, my rating would have been higher and a firm recommend. As it is, it is not.

In its first season of seven paltry episodes, The Loop tries to be a series that balances the personal and professional lives of a new college grad. As a result, the plots are somewhat banal and overdone. It is, on the plot front, a formulaic a comedy as, say, ’Til Death. But were it not for that, this would be a show I was enthusiastically recommending. Let me explain.

Sam Sullivan has recently graduated from college and he finds himself working for TransAlliance Airways. He is a suit and he works directly with the head of the company, Russ, and his quirky board. While Sam finds his workdays a strange collection of non-sequitors and disturbing requests, he returns home to his friends who do not have steady jobs or work priorities. As a result, the average plot involves exploring Sam trying to juggle the two halves of his life. He has a presentation to make, but the night before he gets completely drunk with his friends. Sam tries to reconnect with a woman who seems eager for him, but his boss continues to call on him to do more work-related assignments.

It's that type of banal, typical and overdone television plot that sinks much of The Loop - Season 1. On DVD the episodes show their weakness with no DVD extras to speak of (there's one featurette) and the entire seven-episode run crammed onto one disc. The reason I find myself lamenting this set is that the second season is truly wonderful. Almost completely abandoned are the non-work elements in Sam's life and the show becomes a quirky sitcom about a cog in the machine working for a major airline. The situations are zany, consistently funny and utilize the strength of the cast far better than this set. But then, that's not this set. Instead, this does have the episodes trying to balance Sam between the two and it makes for something very typical.

What is funny in The Loop as presented in this set is the delivery of the characters. Russ is an eccentric boss who is rich and crazy and wonderful, Sam finds himself in awkward positions and his brother Sully is the archetypal slacker with no ambition who drains him some. While the characters in the first season are not truly extraordinary, they are interesting. The main characters include:

Sam Sullivan - A cog in the machine. He is used to getting drunk with his friends and dating, but finds working for TransAlliance Airways to drain him of most of his time and his ability to pursue the crush of his life, Piper,

Sully - Sam's lazy brother who takes on such things as dogsitting to appear to earn money and make an effort at doing something,

Meryl - Sam's senior coworker who comes to slowly value his ideas and opinions,

Piper - The love interest for Sam, she is the archetypal blonde beauty who Sam pines for but never seems to have enough time for given his job. She has a love of the band the Dandy Warhols and becomes determined to see them in concert,

Lizzy - A friend of Piper and Sam's, she's a partier and a virtual nonentity,

Darcy - Sam's assistant, she is smarter and better at his job than he is and she finds herself constantly thwarted by his lack of ambition and ability,

and Russ - The boss. He is a veteran of the business and used to succeeding. He sees potential in Sam and takes suggestions from him frequently enough to make Meryl worried. He makes fast, swift decisions that makes him appear to be a good boss, but is completely indifferent to the lives of his workers and has quirks that make him fun to watch.

Actually, Russ is the only reason to watch the first season of The Loop. Russ is quirky, outrageous with the things he says and just plain weird. He reminds me some of Jimmy James from NewsRadio. Russ is played by Philip Baker Hall, the esteemed and dignified actor from such heavy dramas as Hard Eight. It's hard to believe that Hall could play such a weird character as the comedically blunt Russ, but he pulls it off, in part because of his legacy of dignity. Because we don't expect Hall to be zany, it makes Russ appear even more crazy and it provides Phillip Baker Hall with a truly unique part to add to his resume.

In many ways, Mimi Rogers is given the short end of the stick with her part of Meryl. Because the first season is obsessed with creating the push-pull on Sam, she is seldom given enough to do and fails to shine in this set.

Finally, Bret Harrison is charged with carrying the show and he is convincing as Sam. Sam's somewhat uncompelling conflict is handled well by Harrison who illustrates he has a decent sense of comic timing. He delivers his lines well, but most of the humor that comes from Sam comes from the lines as opposed to the delivery. This makes Harrison a decent vessel, if not a great actor.

But it's not enough. I wish it were because I truly enjoy the series and the second season, but with just seven episodes and only one little bonus on DVD, this set is hard to justify. When it comes down under $10.00 on clearance, it might have enough value to pick up for the viewing. I mean, Phillip Baker Hall is worth it, but it's just not there now.

For other works by Pam Brady or Will Gluck, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Friends With Benefits
Easy A
Fired Up!
South Park: Bigger, Longer And Uncut

5/10

For other television reviews, please be sure to check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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F-U! I'm Just Saying...Fired Up! Needs To Do Something (Anything) Original. (It Doesn't.)

The Good: One or two one-liners
The Bad: Obvious, Predictable, Not terribly funny, clever or original, Lousy characters, Reinforces homophobia.
The Basics: Fired Up! disappoints even viewers who go into it with low expectations for a sex-farce because it does not have anything new or more to it than that.


[Note: This review was originally written based upon a preview screening of “Fired Up!” in advance of the movie. Since then, my wife has fallen in love with the works of writer-director Will Gluck – who has since done “Easy A” and “Friends With Benefits.” So, when she wasn’t feeling well, I got out “Fired Up!” again and it turned out to be no better a second time or in an unrated form. That said, enjoy the analysis!]

The most disappointing thing about going into movies that one has low expectations about is when those low expectations go unmet. Last year, I was pleasantly surprised by a little sex-farce called Sex Drive that actually succeeded in charming me. So when I saw some of the previews for Fired Up! I allowed myself as moment or two of hope. Then, I grounded myself, called the entire plot and character arcs prior to the screening I went to tonight and figured that the film would be average-at-best. What ultimately makes Fired Up! below average is its stifling averageness. There is nothing original, clever or even entirely surprising or interesting in this film.

It is worth noting, as well, that Fired Up! is solidifying for me a new pet peeve. Those who read my many movie reviews know that I absolutely loathe films where the preview shows (essentially) the entire movie. After all, my argument goes, what is the point of shelling out money to see a movie that one has already seen in a condensed form, especially where the best moments are in the preview? My new pet peeve in this regard is when montages in the movie are cut into the preview. It is one thing to take and condense moments of time in a movie to keep the pace going and move it along, but to include those montages in the trailer, like the whole movie might be a series of clips is just tacky. I make this in reference to Fired Up! because one of the reasons I was even willing to subject myself to this obvious schlock comedy was that John Michael Higgins was in it. In the previews, there were quick clips of him doing physical comedy in the form of cheer positions. These clips, sadly, are exactly as they appear in the movie, cut as montages from a sort of "welcome to cheer camp" sequence and they do not fit the movie. In fact, if possible, they were funnier in the trailer. Note to trailermakers: Stop putting montages in your montage trailers!

Nick and Shawn are two popular football players who are looking at the prospect of two weeks at football camp and not relishing the thought of two weeks without girls. Given that between the two of them, they have had sex with all but one of the girls in their high school class, they have the libido to keep having sex and are not eager to go two weeks without girls. After outrunning the fathers of two girls they are trying to make moves on, they consider that a change of venue might be worth it and they overhear members of the cheer squad talking about Cheerleading camp and the three week program they are looking forward to. Nick and Shawn hit on the idea of joining the squad, having sex with new girls and ditching out after week two to make it back for a week with their drunk, idiotic football buddies.

After enlisting Shawn's sister, the boys convince the dim cheerleaders to accept them and convince head cheerleader Carly to accept them onto the squad. Arriving at cheer camp, Shawn begins to feel something for Carly, despite joining Nick in seducing as many girls as he can. Nick finds himself drawn to the over-thirty, married camp counselor, Diora. As the guys get more into cheering than they ever expected, they attempt to woo their respective girl and woman while training to win the competition that the Tigers have lost every year.

Fired Up! is a stupid comedy and if you called the film from what was shown in the trailer, odds are you guessed exactly right. It is the type of movie where there are no surprises: Shawn is interested in Carly, despite her romancing a lecherous college freshman who calls himself Dr. Rick. There is a cheer move that is prohibited, the Fountain Of Troy, so you can pretty much figure that someone is going to try doing that. And Diora being married is not a valid reason - it appears - for Nick to not pursue her.

The most disappointing thing about Fired Up! is that there is no charm or surprise, nothing that makes this movie even remotely unique. In other words, it is all hard-on and no heart. As a result, the football players outside Nick and Shawn are all idiots, Nick and Shawn are the idealized high school players and the girls are pretty much willing to go along with anything or even encourage the guys' stupidity, because it is that sort of movie. We expect that going in, but in Fired Up! there is nothing to contradict that or even make it remotely interesting.

In fact, the only real laughs I got out of Fired Up! were the political references and the wordplay outside anything to do with the main plot. So, for example, when signing in, Nick notes that they are from Gerald Ford High School with a comment like "mediocre president, great public school." The rest of the time, the humor is so easy to call that it is disturbing and the catch phrases, most notably one girl whose repeated line is "I'm just saying . . ." wears out quickly.

As it seems to be a requirement in PG-13 sex-farce movies of our modern times, there are references to homosexuals and lesbians and Fired Up! makes them without any particular sensitivity, subtlety or even humor. Most disturbing is during the closing credits where the youngest member of the cast presents alternate takes on a line where she was derogatory toward another character's lesbianism and the lines, even edited, become pretty hateful. In other words, this film reinforces the heteronormative and uses "gay" as a pejorative at times.

That said, Fired Up! is pretty harmless because it is essentially an excuse for PG-13 T&A, though I understand that it had to be pared down to get the PG-13, so expect an "unrated" DVD when it comes out in that format. There is a make-out montage, an overbearing soundtrack and good actors doing terrible things. Phillip Baker Hall plays a coach whose most frequently used word (no kidding, because the guys place a bet on the number of times he will use it in their conversation) is "shit." One assumes Hall did something on one of Will Gluck's other sets that Gluck was able to extort for his participation in this. The thing is, when the teen sex-farce was new, there was the potential to be original and now the key is to do something different or charming. Fired Up! does neither.

It does, however, make poor use of a number of talents. Phillip Baker Hall is not used to anything close to his potential as the foul-mouthed coach. John Michael Higgins, whose work I have enjoyed since before I saw him in Best In Show is underused and when he is utilized he gives us no shtick outside what we've seen from him before. None of the female leads stand out as anything other than Hollywood beautiful stickfigures (I swear, I remember seeing more diversity in body shape in EVERY cheerleading team I have seen in real life than in this movie) and in the group shots, the acting is terrible, if one chooses to look at anyone but the leads on screen.

The movie comes down to the acting talents of Nicholas D'Agosto and Eric Christian Olsen. Olsen, who played Sully in director Will Gluck's The Loop is essentially playing the same character in Fired Up! Both were the wisecrackers with a witty sense of intelligence to them and Gluck seems to be unable to utilize Olsen in any other way. D'Agosto plays Shawn with the most obvious character arc and while he cannot be held to account for the writing, he performs the part with no particular flair or charisma, making it in no way enjoyable to watch.

Fired Up! is exactly what it seems to want to mock, a cheerleading sex-farce that is exactly as the previews made it seem. And viewers deserve more. "I'm just saying . . ."

For other coming-of-age comedies, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Bride Wars
Bridget Jones’s Diary
She’s Out Of My League

3.5/10

For other film reviews, please check out my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Justin Timberlake Without Pants, Mila Kunis' Sideboob And Will Gluck Goes 2 For 3 With Friends With Benefits!

The Good: Consistently, laugh-out-loud funny, Wonderful acting, Fun characters
The Bad: Obvious plot arc and character development.
The Basics: Will Gluck and his team successfully turn a contrived idea into a hilarious and fun movie experience with Friends With Benefits!


Last year, my wife and I saw a movie via a preview screening that neither of us was terribly excited about - largely based on months of preview trailers that we felt showed the entire film - and we came out raving about it. It became one of my wife's favorite gifts for the winter holiday when I got her the Blu-Ray and we have watched it several times since, with delight each time. The movie was Easy A (reviewed here!) and with it, director Will Gluck got off my "Ack!" List (a spot he earned with Fired Up!). It was the credibility Gluck earned with Easy A that made me uber-excited that I scored tickets to a screening of his new film Friends With Benefits and that my wife (who had not been feeling well early in the day) rallied her health and was able to accompany me to the screening.

Quite simply, Will Gluck and his team have managed to do it again. Friends With Benefits takes an overly done and cliche idea and recreates it with enough self-referential pokes at the romantic comedy genre to make it all seem fresh and new once again. One of the games I play with movies these days is seeing how the PG-13 film will use the one "fuck" it is allowed by the MPAA. I went into Friends With Benefits without knowing its rating and was quite happy when it exposed itself as an "R-rated" film with multiple "fucks" in the first five minutes. It set me up for a movie that wasn't going to play it safe with language, visuals or concepts. And Gluck and his team delivered!

Friends With Benefits, as hard as it tries, is what it mocks. I'm not talking about how Gluck creates a parody film within the movie - amusingly titled "I Love You, I Love New You" - and comments on the inappropriate use of soundtrack, then uses the same song at the climax of Friends With Benefits; that is obvious parody and a funny joke worth the laugh it gets to the engaged audience. But as much as Gluck and his team mock the romantic comedy cliches, they use them. There is nothing so audaciously new in Friends With Benefits as to surprise moviegoers or make them feel like they have watched anything particularly new. So, Friends With Benefits has a soundtrack that might not telegraph all of the emotions, but it fills a lot of space with noisy music that is distracting or unnecessary. Regardless, viewers come away from Friends With Benefits with the feeling they have seen a higher caliber of romantic comedy than the standard fare.

Friends With Benefits is, as much as it tries to fight or deny it, pretty much the standard "two friends try having sex without complications" romantic comedy. This is a style so prevalent in contemporary cinema that it was done recently with No Strings Attached and with the more dramatic interpretation, Love And Other Drugs (reviewed here!). The fundamental difference was stated eloquently by my wife as we drove home last night. She did not like Love And Other Drugs, (among other reasons) because it started out funny and energetic and became something serious and moody. What I call "character and plot development," she called "bait and switch." What she loved about Friends With Benefits that I enjoyed as well was that it started funny and while it has some obvious heartstring moments in the last third, it never gets so serious as to make one think they are watching anything other than a well-developed comedy.

Dylan is a moderately successful blog operator whose girlfriend breaks up with him at a John Mayer concert right around the same time that Jamie's boyfriend is breaking up with her. Jamie is Dylan's headhunter, hunting for a new editor for GQ, who brings Dylan to New York City to try to seal the deal. With a tour of New York City and the help of a flash mob, Dylan takes the job and moves to the City where Jamie is the only person he truly knows. Hanging out one night, commiserating on their failed relationships, Dylan and Jamie admit to being emotionally unavailable and emotionally damaged and yet desirous of sex, so they make a pact to have sex as friends and not let it become more complicated than that.

Their experiment, predictably, goes quite well and the lack of romantic attachment allows them to be more open and honest with each other than they have been with any of their prior partners, leading to fantastic sex and a pretty solid bedrock for a relationship. So, when Jamie opens up to dating again, Dylan steps back and watches as she dates a pediatric oncologist who appears able to live with Jamie's "five date" (before sex) rule. But when that fizzles, Dylan invites Jamie back to his father's house for the Fourth Of July to heal and the true depth of their feelings comes out, with complications ensuing.

For all the good things about Friends With Benefits, someone ought to say it: Will Gluck, you are a pussy! Friends With Benefits has major plot developments around the Fourth Of July. Why didn't you release this to compete with Transformers Dark Of The Moon (reviewed here!)?! Seriously! Pussy! (FYI, I haven't taken leave of my senses here: Gluck and Screen Gems could have offered moviegoers a real option against the banal special effects film that won the 4th of July weekend and this is actually a reference to Friends With Benefits wherein Jamie gets Dylan to do something uncharacteristic simply by calling him a pussy.) Sure, Friends With Benefits might have competed against Justin Timberlake's other current outing, Bad Teacher, but this was a vastly superior movie (and it could remain that if it is not spoiled with more trailers that show more of the movie!). Regardless, writers Keith Merryman, David A. Newman and the other four writers have made a movie which might top ID4 for best 4th of July film.

What works best for Friends With Benefits is that it is funny and well-acted. The humor is smart and when it is crude, it is not upsettingly crude. So, for example, the teaser that sets up Dylan and Kayla's breakup (and features Emma Stone in a delightful bit role!) and Jamie and her boyfriend's breakup outside Pretty Woman is very funny and owes huge points to the film's editor who cut the scenes together to be exceptionally well-timed and funny. The humor continues with the initial agreement which has Dylan pitching the arrangement because "sex should be like tennis." The movie gets a comedy boost when Patricia Clarkson enters the film as Jamie's crazy mother, Lorna, and keeps the humor original with Dylan trying to urinate with an erection. Gluck is smart enough to keep that scene surprisingly classy by not making it explicit and the humor there works.

Gluck falls back on some of his successful conceits from Easy A, where he mocked "Pocket Full Of Sunshine," by lampooning Chris Cross's "Jump" and calling back to "Closing Time" a lot. The level of diction in Friends With Benefits is better than in most romantic comedies. In fact, the only comedic element that did not work quite so well was Dylan's problems with math, which becomes a running joke after the trip to Los Angeles, and could have been hinted at better earlier on in the movie. Fortunately, Gluck never detonates the joke he planted the seeds for, which would have been a tasteless bombshell that put Dylan and Jamie as siblings (Lorna does not remember Jamie's father and Dylan's Alsheimer's-riddled father mistakes Jamie for someone he once knew).

The acting, in concert with the hilarious writing and wonderful direction, helps Friends With Benefits transcend the stale formula for a romantic comedy that is constantly lampooned in the film and helps it all feel fresh once again. Jason Segal and Rashida Jones have cameos as the stars of "I Love You, I Love New You" within the film (and they get the post-credit scene which is cute enough to stay through the closing credits for). Richard Jenkins lends some dramatic strength to the latter half as Dylan's father and Jenna Elfman is resurrected from wherever she has been since Dharma & Greg to have a decent supporting role as Annie. Patricia Clarkson is more the product of typecasting as she plays yet another sage free spirit as Lorna, though Woody Harrelson plays Dylan's homosexual sports editor with genius comic timing. Harrelson's role is arguably to make the one pejorative use of the word "gay" less-offensive (Dylan's nephew's comment about "gay" Harry Potter is slightly sour), but Harrelson rules the bit role.

Mila Kunis veers away from the overly dramatic to make Jamie truly funny. Kunis has the dramatic gravitas to easily pull off the moments where Jamie must appear hurt or vulnerable, but in Friends With Benefits, viewers are reminded how she got where she is today. She is funny, she has a great sense of comic timing and it is hard not to smile when she tries to be charming. Her flirting with Justin Timberlake reads as very real and there is a spontaneous spark that comes frequently to her eyes that tells the viewer not only is Kunis having fun, but Jamie is as well. And for those for whom such things are important, Kunis's sex scenes with Timberlake are steamy, but the most one will see is a butt shot and sideboob.

Which, of course, is more than we see from Timberlake. Of course, we see his ass and his chest, but this is not Timberlake's full frontal attempt to get every fan who ever loved N'Sync to the theaters. Timberlake, for his part, has successfully reinvented himself as a real actor now. Between this and Bad Teacher it is clear that he is a very funny guy and Will Gluck plays off his innate sense of comic timing wonderfully. But what sold me on Timberlake were the two serious moments. When Dylan realizes how bad off his father's health is and when he understands just what he had with Jamie and how important that relationship is, he emotes with his eyes such a profound sense of loss and grief that the viewer is unable to resist empathizing with him.

Ultimately, Friends With Benefits is a reinvention of the romantic comedy for the stale "friends having sex" plotline. Random elements like the Shaun White cameo which initially seemed weird and disturbing work because they are called back to and developed and while I'm not much of a fan of the whole "flash mob" fad, even that works. Having seen the film twice now, this comedy holds up remarkably well over multiple viewings making it great for multiple dates or sharing it with friends. For adults looking for something truly funny this summer, Friends With Benefits is the movie we've been waiting for, even if Will Gluck was too much of a pussy to release it to compete with the big guns of Summer Blockbuster Season.

For other films with Justin Timberlake, please check out my reviews of:
Bad Teacher
The Social Network
Southland Tales


8.5/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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A Surprisingly Engaging Comedy, Will Gluck And Emma Stone Win With "Easy A!"

The Good: Very funny, Good message, Decent allusions, Generally good acting
The Bad: Title cards are annoying, Casting issues
The Basics: When high school student Olive is caught up in a lie, she is dubbed as a slut and she decides to use that to make herself more popular and help less cool students.



One of the general rules in Hollywood is to avoid, whenever possible, working with children and animals. In the new film Easy A, director Will Gluck proves that a wonderful movie may be made with a younger cast, as the retelling of The Scarlet Letter is one of the surprise successes going into the September slump of film releases. The truth is, I went into Easy A expecting a pretty predictable, vacuous comedy that barely had more substance than its trailer. I am proud to admit that I was wrong and Easy A is a wonderfully smart, if sometimes obvious movie.

On the plus side, Easy A is not so obvious that it is unpleasant. From the preview trailers, I had a pretty healthy fear that the movie would quickly turn from a sassy retelling of The Scarlet Letter to a predictable teen romance wherein the protagonist hooks up with the obvious good looking guy. While there is a teen romance subplot late in the film, it in no way overwhelms the storyline and the result is that Bert V. Royal's reimagining of The Scarlet Letter for a high school setting is funny, well-timed and one of the closest-to-perfect films with a predominately teen cast I've seen in quite some time.

At Ojai North High School, Olive Penderghast is slipping under the social radar, which is fine by her. She is overly smart, articulate and has a loving family that supports her. One Friday, to avoid going out with her gossipy friend Rhiannon, Olive lies and tells Rhiannon that she has plans for the weekend that would preclude her from going on a camping trip with Rhiannon's family, who are more earthy and nude than she would like. Olive's lie is brought up the next Monday when Rhiannon demands information on how Olive's supposed date with a college student went and Rhiannon leaps to the conclusion that Olive lost her virginity over the weekend. When Olive is not given the chance to contradict Rhiannon, Rhiannon quickly spreads the rumor around school.

Unfortunately for Olive, she is beset by the evangelical Marianne and her Cross Your Heart club of young evangelicals, who begin harassing her. Responding to a remark by one of those students, Olive is sent to detention and there she is reunited with Brandon, a good-natured boy who is gay and is beaten up for it. In detention, Olive reveals to Brandon that she lied about having sex, but that the rumor mill has suddenly made her accepted. Latching onto that idea, Brandon asks Olive to fake having sex with him so the rumor mill will tag him as straight and he can get through high school. The transaction goes well and soon Olive is faking sex with others in order to get gift cards. Hounded by members of the Cross Your Heart club, Olive's lie soon spirals out of control, having a profound effect on more than just the students at Ojai North.

Easy A is a reimagining of The Scarlet Letter which openly acknowledges the source material. Olive's class is reading Hawthorne's book and when Olive is deemed to be a slut by her peers, she starts wearing an embroidered red "A" on her chest. Bert V. Royal's script is smart enough to not try to pretend to be something truly new and as a result, there is no sense of betrayal for the viewer when the movie has a pretty obvious moral about the state of the grapevine in a high school (and, by extension, the world beyond it). This is not to say that Easy A is without surprises. The (almost) twenty-two year-old Micah from the Cross Your Heart Club picks up an STD, blames it on Olive and the actual source of the disease is an actual surprise for viewers.

Olive's world is populated by interesting characters and as the story unfolds as her confession to a webcam audience, the viewer is drawn to more than just Olive's story. Unfortunately, despite a wonderful performance by Thomas Haden Church, Mr. Griffith's story is not expounded on much beyond his limited interactions with Olive. While that makes sense for a tale that Olive is telling first person, it is less satisfying to the viewer as Mr. Griffith is a scene-stealer and Church's performance is memorable and too brief.

Also on the downside for Easy A is the narrative technique itself. The first person narrative to the webcam is all right, but the annoying title cards which Olive writes up to present (and then reads to the audience) just seem like the work of an amateur. The title cards feel like what they are, an organizational technique separating act breaks. They annoyingly break up the flow and set up a sense of dramatic presentation that ultimately makes no real sense - i.e. Olive complaining about not being asked out on a real date right before she gets a real date (sort of) is more of a dramatic letdown than it is a revelation.

The only other problem I could come up with was some of the casting. Cam Gigandet (James in the film Twilight for those keeping track) is appropriately out of place as Micah, but I was absolutely unsurprised to learn that Penn Badgley - who plays Olive's relationship interest, Todd - was in his mid-twenties. He does not look like a high school student and his performance comes with a confidence that seems overly mature for his character's age.

That said, the rest of Easy A is almost flawless. The dialogue is funny and the simulated sex scene between Brandon and Olive is utterly hilarious. The reversals needed to make a film enduringly funny are genuinely clever, insinuating that Easy A will actually stand up well over multiple viewings (this was the first film in a long time that my wife instantly told me she wanted for her permanent collection as the closing credits rolled). The success of the humor comes largely from having a protagonist who is engaging and smart.

Olive is likable. The viewer identifies with her pretty easily and it is hard not to feel bad for her almost from the beginning. While usually it would seem an annoying conceit that the protagonist simply does not correct the misinformation being started about her, Rhiannon is presented with such an annoying self-centered quality that Olive is not allowed the opportunity to object. Moreover, Olive articulates some wonderful ideas about peer respect (or the lack thereof) early in the film which goes right past Rhiannon, but not the viewers.

The supporting characters are equally interesting, from Mr. Griffith to Olive's parents, Rosemary and her father. Olive's father, played by Stanley Tucci, is liberal, articulate and makes for a reasonable source for much of Olive's wit and charm. Easy A misses an opportunity with Tucci and one finds themselves wishing instead of the commentary on The Bucket List, Will Gluck had expanded the scene between Olive and her father when Olive is altering her wardrobe. When Olive decides to confront her peers by embodying a slut, there is a moment where she has a chance to tell her father everything and that opportunity is lost.

Despite the problem with the casting of Penn Badgley, Easy A is one of those rare films that has a pretty amazing cast that uses that cast remarkably. Badgley is likable as Todd, Amanda Bynes is distinctly unlikable as Marianne and while there are moments that Lisa Kudrow channels Phoebe from Friends, she is able to deliver some of Mrs. Griffith's lines with a real heartfelt sensibility. Dan Byrd makes great use of his scenes as Brandon and his sense of both sarcasm and genuine pain is presented with equal quality.

But ultimately, Easy A hinges largely on Emma Stone. Stone plays Olive and given how she is in almost every scene, virtually every frame of the movie, she has a task that not many young actresses can take on successfully. She does it perfectly, though, and there is not a moment where Easy A is even remotely unpleasant to watch for her performance.  I had only seen Stone perform before in Zombieland (click here for my review!) and she was convincingly different in Easy A. She has a great physical presence, doing more than simply filling out the wardrobe when her character decided to openly tease. Stone's deadpan, sarcastic delivery of some of the movie's best lines ("Swell, guy I've never spoken to.") take what could be a series of more mundane one-liners and fleshed them into a truly viable character.

Easy A earns its PG-13 rating, but adults who want a comedy that is going to provide the most laughs of the autumn film season will find that this is the movie that delivers.

For other comedies banking on a lot of charm or originality, please check out my reviews of:
Going The Distance
Whip It
Ever After


8/10


For easy access to all of my movie reviews, please check out my index page!


© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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