Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings
Tax the Rich
Movie Monday - Remember Me
OK, I'll start off banal: I liked it. It's boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl - with originality. First, it has the usual modern touch: the boy (Robert Pattinson) is really fucked up. He's the son of an uber-powerful NY attorney, works in a bookstore, audits college courses, and lives in an apartment with a roommate, of which he says: We live like pigs. His demons include finding his hanged older brother and watching the negligence his divorced dad (Pierce Bronsan nails this thankless role, aptly stating: I know I'm a prick, but I have my uses.) visits on his young sister, Caroline. Tyler blames dad for a lot and, being fond of the Greek myths, he writes to his dead brother that he would like to metaphorically castrate dad.
The girl Ally (Emilie de Ravin) is traveling with her own demons after witnessing her mom's murder in the subway when she was eleven. As an adult, she takes cabs everywhere and eats dessert first.
This might all sound hackneyed and so, been there, done that, but director, screenwriter and actors jell this into a very fine film.
For example, the roommate Aidan (Tate Ellington.) Early on, Aidan and Tyler are picked up when the police (including Ally's father, Neil Craig) respond to a street fight. Although they are both released immediately, Tyler objects to Craig''s treatment of others rounded up, mouths off and winds up having his face smashed into a car. Both are then arrested. It's Aidan who gets the plot moving. He calls Tyler's dad to get them out and then, by chance, he sees Craig and Ally together and suggests a way for Tyler to get revenge. Tyler is reluctant, saying he doesn't want revenge but showing the driftlessness of his life at this stage, he's talked into approaching Ally for a very charming, first-meeting, hitting-on scene.
Aidan will continue to play a big role in the film and I'm honing in on him because this is a major side-kick role which if played or written poorly can sink the movie. Neither happens here. All the supporting actors, support well; down to the scene where Les, Tyler's step-dad, takes a step back and puts his hands in his pockets; a minor gesture which "talks."
The movie flows well. Watch the scene where Tyler walks across the room to Ally, just before they have sex for the first time. It's a long walk for an actor but Pattinson takes us across the room seamlessly. Then watch Pattinson trying to get Ally to stay after she learns about the "bet." The screenwriter keeps him clueless with responses which are sure to make her move out. There's no: But I love you moment here. And there shouldn't be.
There are other small subtle moments: when Janine, Hawkin, Sr.'s assistant, sees Tyler at the coffee shop or when both of them are looking at the photo gallery on his father's computer and Tyler realizes his prick of a dad has surrounded himself with family memories. The movie is filled with such vignette moments which work through their subtlety and good acting.
So much of this movie flows by without the usual Hollywood trumpet. You come into it where so many scenes have played out before you arrived. In a flash, you know who knows whom and who hates whom that it can chock itself full of a lot of story and themes in what seems like a very short time. You're in the middle of the story, waiting for this fairy tale to end. And then, a chance recognition on a train explodes everything. And you think: OK, the lovers split, what now?
Caroline's bullying by classmates provides the catalyst which reunites the lovers but with this reunion any discerning viewer has to be thinking: What's next for our lovers? Are they now both going to live off the rich prick, dad in that messy apartment? (With Aidan, I might add, since it's his apartment.)
Spoiler Alert: Stop reading if you don't want to know the ending.
I think it happens about the same time, the teacher in Caroline''s school walks past the chalk board and you see the date and the music changes into a softly pounding one-note beat. That's all.
But, of course, that's not all for Tyler has biked to Wall Street to meet with his dad and his dad is delayed because he's driving Caroline to school. You see the smile on Tyler's face as he gets that call; you see him happy as he takes the elevator up to his dad's office. And finally, you see him dwarfed in the window of a World Trade Center Tower as he looks out at that gorgeous late summer morning. For, of course, the date on the chalkboard was 9/11/2001.
I've watched this movie four times now and I, cynic that I am, have teared up every time at this ending as I watch Tyler become one of the victims in NYC on 9/11. For the first time, the human emotional toll of those deaths hit me. So often 9/11 has been draped in symbolism but real people's lives ended that day; dreams died, promises stopped, glass and lives shattered.
And I remembered from Cymbeline:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
Hug those you love and eat dessert first, if you want.
The girl Ally (Emilie de Ravin) is traveling with her own demons after witnessing her mom's murder in the subway when she was eleven. As an adult, she takes cabs everywhere and eats dessert first.
This might all sound hackneyed and so, been there, done that, but director, screenwriter and actors jell this into a very fine film.
For example, the roommate Aidan (Tate Ellington.) Early on, Aidan and Tyler are picked up when the police (including Ally's father, Neil Craig) respond to a street fight. Although they are both released immediately, Tyler objects to Craig''s treatment of others rounded up, mouths off and winds up having his face smashed into a car. Both are then arrested. It's Aidan who gets the plot moving. He calls Tyler's dad to get them out and then, by chance, he sees Craig and Ally together and suggests a way for Tyler to get revenge. Tyler is reluctant, saying he doesn't want revenge but showing the driftlessness of his life at this stage, he's talked into approaching Ally for a very charming, first-meeting, hitting-on scene.
Aidan will continue to play a big role in the film and I'm honing in on him because this is a major side-kick role which if played or written poorly can sink the movie. Neither happens here. All the supporting actors, support well; down to the scene where Les, Tyler's step-dad, takes a step back and puts his hands in his pockets; a minor gesture which "talks."
The movie flows well. Watch the scene where Tyler walks across the room to Ally, just before they have sex for the first time. It's a long walk for an actor but Pattinson takes us across the room seamlessly. Then watch Pattinson trying to get Ally to stay after she learns about the "bet." The screenwriter keeps him clueless with responses which are sure to make her move out. There's no: But I love you moment here. And there shouldn't be.
There are other small subtle moments: when Janine, Hawkin, Sr.'s assistant, sees Tyler at the coffee shop or when both of them are looking at the photo gallery on his father's computer and Tyler realizes his prick of a dad has surrounded himself with family memories. The movie is filled with such vignette moments which work through their subtlety and good acting.
So much of this movie flows by without the usual Hollywood trumpet. You come into it where so many scenes have played out before you arrived. In a flash, you know who knows whom and who hates whom that it can chock itself full of a lot of story and themes in what seems like a very short time. You're in the middle of the story, waiting for this fairy tale to end. And then, a chance recognition on a train explodes everything. And you think: OK, the lovers split, what now?
Caroline's bullying by classmates provides the catalyst which reunites the lovers but with this reunion any discerning viewer has to be thinking: What's next for our lovers? Are they now both going to live off the rich prick, dad in that messy apartment? (With Aidan, I might add, since it's his apartment.)
Spoiler Alert: Stop reading if you don't want to know the ending.
I think it happens about the same time, the teacher in Caroline''s school walks past the chalk board and you see the date and the music changes into a softly pounding one-note beat. That's all.
But, of course, that's not all for Tyler has biked to Wall Street to meet with his dad and his dad is delayed because he's driving Caroline to school. You see the smile on Tyler's face as he gets that call; you see him happy as he takes the elevator up to his dad's office. And finally, you see him dwarfed in the window of a World Trade Center Tower as he looks out at that gorgeous late summer morning. For, of course, the date on the chalkboard was 9/11/2001.
I've watched this movie four times now and I, cynic that I am, have teared up every time at this ending as I watch Tyler become one of the victims in NYC on 9/11. For the first time, the human emotional toll of those deaths hit me. So often 9/11 has been draped in symbolism but real people's lives ended that day; dreams died, promises stopped, glass and lives shattered.
And I remembered from Cymbeline:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
Hug those you love and eat dessert first, if you want.
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