It's still October, still Hallowe'en month, and today is "Take Out the Trash" Day. But, instead of a trash-bag, this garbage has a highly stylish wrapping. It's still garbage, though.
The Neon Demon(Nicolas Winding Refn, 2016) I remember this hitting theaters and purposefully not seeing it for a couple reasons—1) it was directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, whose Drive I found half-baked and a bit pretentious (looked nice, though...) and 2) because it was getting a reputation for being "sick"—never a good word-of-mouth for me. And its star was 16 year old Elle Fanning, whose acting I've found competent but not compelling. The fledgling Amazon Studios bought it for distribution and that signaled to me that if I missed it in theaters, it would show up—and quickly—in their streaming service.
It did. But I never watched it. That's on me, not the film.
I occasionally do podcasts where the host, guests, and I talk about movies—they being articulate, me being hesitant, umming and uhhhing and nattering on until I forget the point of what I was saying (Thank God for editing!) and The Lambcast had me scheduled for one of their Movie of the Month podcasts, where people submit films they want to talk about and it gets voted on by folks with the Large Association of Movie Blogs, the winner getting its time in the spotlight. Last March, The Neon Demon was voted to be the MOTM and I dutifully watched it, so that I might give my thoughts on it.
Those thoughts were pretty damn dark. "I hate it with the heat of a thousand suns" I recall saying. Hyperbolic that may be, but it was only a matter of degree. For Refn's film, under the guise of making a point of exploitation, only reflects that exploitation while not saying anything new, unique, or even realistic about its subject. "The Demon" that the movie tangentially and unsuccessfully tries to make some sort of analogous reference to (the title's use of "neon" suggests the city) is basically the film itself, and it's just as clumsy, despite its scrupulous framing and art direction. It's a gilt-wrapped presentation that opens to find...absolutely nothing, lovely to look at (on occasion), but hollow not only to its core, but everywhere.
Stylish—but to a fault—The Neon Demon follows the path of 16 year old Jesse (Fanning) who's come to Los Angeles following the death of her parents and the film opens with a blood-soaked static photo-shoot she's having with a photographer she's met on the internet. As it's the first thing we see, we wouldn't be surprised that Jesse is already dead, as she lies lifeless on a couch, blood dripping down her arm onto the floor. That's all that's required of her—no personality, no expression—she's just an image, a concept, a commodity to sell something (god knows what...). After, Jesse is struggling to wipe the red Karo syrup off her body and is helped by her makeup artist Ruby (Jena Malone), who doubles as a mortuary cosmetician (natch!).
♪I love L.A.♫
Through Ruby, she gets a room at a fleabag hotel (run by a sleazy Keanu Reeves in one of his "please, don't speak" roles) and an interview at a modeling agency. She falsely signs a parental consent form and is told she should answer to 19...as 18 is a little..."you know." She then starts to make the rounds of cattle-calls, where she runs into two models in particular, Gigi (Bella Heathcote)—who's all about cosmetic surgery—and Sarah (Abbey Lee)—who's all about sleeping around to get jobs. They're catty and jealous and more than a little aggressive in their judging Jesse (I mean why not, the job's all about judging), who's a neophyte, probably a virgin, and has nothing going for her except her looks...like them.
But, Gigi and Sarah are more so. After one of those casting sessions that Jesse gets but Sarah is passed over for, Jesse cuts her hand in the bathroom and is shocked when Sarah tries to suck her blood. See where we're going with this?
The toxic male gaze; the female ambivalence to it
Yeah, that's where it's going...so I'd find the nearest cut-off (believe me, there'll be plenty of that later in the movie). Refn is portraying a predatory L.A.—something I admit I've always felt deep in my bones whenever I would visit the city—where the young models must contend with the predations and the manipulations of agents, the whims of self-designated artistes, and the jealousies and resultant scorn of their competitors and its products visited upon them. The predators being both male and female, there's plenty of blame to go around.
But, the movie only works as a metaphor and The Neon Demon gets it ass-backwards. Most horror films use the horror as a metaphor for everyday life, but Demon uses real-life to get to the horror. I don't see it as spoiling anything by revealing what eventually happens, but more of a public service. In their covetousness and jealousy, Ruby, Sarah and Gigi kill Jesse in a swimming pool and eat her. That's not a euphemism or a typing error. They eat her. Apparently to consume her youth, which they want. Great metaphor, huh?
Now, we don't see this past Jesse bleeding out at the bottom of the pool, but at the next photo-shoot, during a break, Gigi hoarks up one of Jesse's eyeballs...which Sarah then eats (waste not, want not, apparently). One might "buy" this, but the fact of the matter is Jesse was...what 5'9" and weighs 54 kg (according to some Elle Fanning web-site or other) and it beggars the imagination that the two rail-thin, near-anorexic models who supposedly consumed her don't look like they've had any more caloric intake lately than what one could suck from a celery stick. Argue all you want that they probably did some purging in the meantime, but...c'mon. Ozempic couldn't have solved this one.
I mean, yuck. The Neon Demon doesn't work as body horror, metaphor, or "pieces-of-meat" societal critique and for all the professions of "the cinematography is great" that is true in only some instances throughout the film's length and even then, those images are static, stylized, and sporadic. Most times, Refn is just "getting the shot" that he can. And although I hate to use this Pauline Kael quote (because when—panning Barry Lyndon—she used it she was wrong) but sometimes it's true that a director "isn’t taking pictures in order to make movies, he’s making movies in order to take pictures."
And Refn has a great future filming obtuse perfume commercials.
The Existential Angst of Contemplating One's Own Shelf Life or "Thanks a Lot, Inner-Voice!"
“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
1 Corinthians 13:11
I have a nasty habit of burying my lede. I start a post with what should be the last line of the thing, the zinger. But, I start writing with what I feel is the most important thought and find that when I finish up, the last line falls a bit flat. I'm not happy with it, at least. Should have ended the entry with the first line of it. It disappoints me. But, I'm gonna do it again, because it's the most important thing to say: Pixar is the most amazing producers of the finest films extant. You fan-boys can have Marvel—their percentage is nowhere near what Pixar manages to do. Marvel's film series usually peter out with the second one. The Harry Potter films were a mixed bag. And nobody's done what Pixar has done with their Toy Story series—each new chapter of the story is better than the last one, the most recent (that being Toy Story 3) was an emotional wringer and the best of the films.
Best one, that is, up to that time. Because Toy Story 4 is an improvement over it on all fronts: animation, story, presentation, screenplay, and direction. And it's deeper and more profound than anything we've seen yet, sophisticated in its themes, and makes changes to the characters and the dynamics of established tropes and story assumptions to challenge the audience and bring them along for the ride of growing up.
And it's about toys. Toys, for pity's sake. And it does all that while still being funny and extraordinarily entertaining to boot (with a snake in it).
When last we left Andy's collection of toys, they had been saved from incineration, and transported by Andy to little Bonnie, a shy 4 year old toddler with a rich inner life. The movie begins in flashback with a crisis: it's raining and Andy has brought in his toys from playing outside. All except one. The mechanical race-car, RC, has been left outside and is struggling to keep from being swept away in a gully-washer. Woody (voiced again by Tom Hanks) organizes a rescue party and with the help of Slinky-dog (voiced by Blake Clark) rescues RC. But, another toy is about to be lost—Bo Peep (voiced by Annie Potts) and her three-headed sheep is being given away as her lamp is no longer needed in Andy's sister's room. Woody tries to rescue her—it's what he does—from being exiled to another home, but Bo Peep will have none of it. She accepts her fate. "Sometimes, toys get lost in the yard or put in the wrong box. It's okay. I'm not Andy's toy. It's time for the next kid." And she gets carted away, while Andy can only watch hopelessly, lying lumped in the car-port in the rain.
Cut to now—and Bonnie's world. Woody organizes the toys—it's what he does—calming their fears as they're consigned to the closet on cleaning day. Bonnie comes back from the dust-up and pulls the toys from their temporary confinement, all except Woody, who can only watch and wonder what's changed.*A lot, it turns out. It's the end of summer, and Bonnie is now five—time for a big transition (there a lot of them in Toy Story 4), as the shy little girl is about to be thrust into the world of an unprotective collective—kindergarten, and she is required to go to "orientation." Bonnie has always been a shy child, tremulously so. And the prospect of going to kindergarten without a parental leg to hide behind is devastating to her, causing a melt-down. What she needs is a sheriff to come to the rescue—or, at least, that's what Woody thinks—so he stashes himself in her back-pack, a stowaway to school.
It's a scary place with other kids, kids without borders or boundaries and unchecked id's. When she sits down for activities, another child swipes all her arts supplies. Woody observes all this and manages to find a way to sneak out of his hiding place and toss Bonnie with supplies in the trash. She's inspired to take a stick, a spork, pipe-cleaners, and some play-doh and makes her own toy and companion—"Forky" (voiced by a wonderful Tony Hale)—who manages to sustain Bonnie through the day and give her a sense of accomplish. Good enough. But, when Bonnie gets home ("I finished kindergarten!!" "Uh...honey?"), Woody introduces Forky to the other toys.
But, Forky has issues. He's a bit pre-verbal and can't quite see himself as a toy, but, rather as trash. It's an instinctual fixation and he must be restrained from constantly throwing himself in the nearest dumpster. Leave that to Woody, who has his own instinctual fixation—it inspires composer Randy Newman (Yay!) to write a lovely gospel song entitled "I Can't Let You Throw Yourself Away" exposing Woody as a plasticene guardian angel, a caretaker—and he wails to Buzz Lightyear (voiced by Tim Allen) "I don't know if you remember what it was like when Andy was a kid, but, I don't remember it being this hard!"
A road trip with Bonnie and her parents as a final Summer fling before school provides ample opportunity for Forky to trash himself and for Woody to come to the rescue, whether the little spork wants him to or not. It also provides him the opportunity to re-unite with Bo Peep, who has changed considerably after leaving Andy's house and, ultimately, escaping from an antiques shop called "Second Chances" (heh).
As Bo tells Woody, "I don't want to sit on a shelf waiting for my life to happen." But, Woody is in a different place. For Woody, it's all about The Child, or any toy in crisis that might adversely effect said child. It always has been. And so much of his time has been about taking care of other's needs—he's taken his fake sheriff's badge too literally—and the movie spends much of its time with Woody coming to the rescue and realizing that seems to be his sole reason for existence, because he knows no other pattern of behavior.
Bo provides another perspective; she has a good life on her own without the need for a child in her life. But, Woody is stuck in his ways—there are only so many phrases in his talk-box if you want a literalness to the concept. It's all in service to the child. It always has been and always will be.
That's the crux of the movie: a toy's need to be needed, and the damage that such activity can cause to one's own shelf-life. Along the way, Toy Story 4 delves into parallel stories of toys' needs to be given purpose—of the toys at the antiques shop waiting to be given a chance at being taken home, and a pair of prizes that never seem to be claimed at a shooting arcade at a nearby carnival—all the while the toys are working overtime trying to get Forky back to Bonnie.
The major story is at the antiques store, which is given a creepy atmosphere recalling Kubrick's The Shining—at one point, an old 78 plays "Midnight, the Stars, and You"—with the long-abandoned Gabby Gabby (Christina Hendricks), a talking doll with a damaged voice-box that she believes is keeping her from being taken home to some needy child. She keeps Forky hostage in the hopes of taking Woody's so she can have her chance, and she runs the antiques store like her own personal führerbunker with demented ventriloquist's dummies as her shock-troops. Creepy.
Then, there are the plush arcade animals, Ducky and Bunny (voiced hilariously by Keegan Michael-Key and Jordan Peele), who've been hanging around as shooting gallery prizes for so long they've developed something of an attitude waiting for kids to just hit the damn targets. They get roped into the whole "Second Chances" plot and they have a rather aggressive way of handling problems. Probably been at the range too long. Also aiding is a Canadian stunt-toy called Duke Kaboom, whose stunt skills are used for an elaborate rescue, and who is voiced by Keanu Reeves, still nailing the mock-heroic voice.
Pixar ups the artistic quality a notch—the world is a bit more complicated and messier with dust-bunnies, cob-webs and dust-motes that dance in sun-beams, little details that one didn't realize were missing until the animators made it essential (Andy, too, in the flashback sequences looks far more real than the crude animator grids in the first movie allowed). But, it's also more sophisticated in the way the film questions the series trope—that a toy is useful only if it's needed by its possessor. This one dispels that idea as a given and makes it relevant, not only to the film's characters, but to the larger issues of the audience's as well...as we all (as Bob Dylan observed) gotta serve somebody. And that's if we're a caretaker, or just a work-a-day 9 to 5'er, a Mom or a sheriff. Yeah, we gotta serve. But we also gotta know that we're not just what we work at. We gotta know when the job is done. We've got to know ourselves.
Remember Toy Story 3? Remember how it had the perfect ending, even though it was kind of sad and changed things? How it worked outside your comfort zone, but you also knew it was the perfect ending for the story? Turns out that it was for its time. But, another story needed to be told. We just didn't know it yet. And Toy Story 4 tells it with such care and such skill...and wisdom—without taking its eyes off the entertainment value—that you might think it's a perfect ending.
You might even think—like me—that it was even better than Toy Story 3, which, as I said at the beginning, was the best of the series so far. And I wept like a baby at it. I'm at the point, now, where I wouldn't mind another Toy Story movie, so good are these creators at telling a story and making it essential. Making movies that matter and increasingly raising the bar...for themselves and for us.
So exceptionally well done.
* He is consoled by some other toys, which Pixar casts with some essential voices—Alan Oppenheimer, Carol Burnett, Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, and Betty White. That seems so right. Maybe not essential, but a lovely gesture.
** Newman does another brilliant score with two new amazing songs, and I always imagine Seth McFarland gritting his teeth and thinking "I write better stuff than THAT." No. No, he doesn't. But he tries so hard to do something better than what Newman seems to do so effortlessly. That's because Newman is a genius who makes it look easy. McFarland just studies and copies...and comes up short. Professional jealousy is a terrible thing...and not very professional
But, Gigi and Sarah are more so. After one of those casting sessions that Jesse gets but Sarah is passed over for, Jesse cuts her hand in the bathroom and is shocked when Sarah tries to suck her blood. See where we're going with this?
