The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

The Insufferable Height of Perpetual Narcissism

or 

Putting the "Meh" Back in "Meta"
 

I like "meta" in movies, when the Hollywood fantasy machine suddenly turns transparent, and something walks into frame that reminds you that "it's just a movie." The painted back-drop rolls out of frame to show the less-than-inspiring back-lot and makes the point that everything is calculated to make you believe in the situation portrayed and not that everything is "designed" to reinforce the falsehood. "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" shouts Oz. Or the gaffer. Or the boom-operator. Or the perpetual green-screen. We want you to see what we want you to see. 

 

As Johnny Carson once joked "I can't believe 'Survivor' because I know that just off-camera there's a camera-grip eating a cruller."

 

But, it's a nice little joke to sometimes see the cruller. To see reality sneak in and wink. Like all the celebrity cameos in The Player. Like Julia Roberts (playing Tess Ocean in Oceans Twelve) trying to pretend to be movie-star Julia Roberts to pull off a scam (until Bruce Willis shows up and wonders why she can't remember their kids' play-dates).* Or when John Malkovich plays himself—or an actor named John Malkovich—in Being John Malkovich. Or, as in another Charlie Kaufman-penned screenplay, Adaptation., which is about the struggles of a screenplay-writer trying to write an "unfilmable" movie. Which starred Nicolas Cage.

Tom Gormicon's film The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is one shallow dive into the madness of the "meta"-verse while being a love-letter to the star appeal of Nicolas Cage, its star. The film is plastered and puttied with references and clips of past Cage films and roles as it builds up the character of Nick Cage—not Nicolas, notice—an actor of many iconic roles, beloved by a fan-base, but struggling with finding parts to pay off his massive debts, stemming from a recent (fictional, mind you) divorce.**

The problem is that "Nick"—fictional Nick—is an actor of intense sensibilities who has a tendency to go "all in" in his roles and that can be discouraging to directors who are looking for stable and not mercurial. Nick is a star ("of course, I don't have to do a 'read'") but hovering below the A-list ("Of COURSE, I'll do a 'read'!"), who has had a good run but now is in the doldrums of his career, discouraged by all the film-makers wanting "to go another direction." For a self-involved narcissist like Nick, this is a situation he cannot process and he endlessly obsesses over the unfathomable consideration that he might not be in demand. In another Cage-career reference, he debates with an Adaption.-like twin of his former self, Nicky (Nicolas Kim Coppola, Cage's birth name), who has all the insufferable grand-standing of...young Nicolas Cage. Nicky wants Nick to remember that he's not an actor, he's a *STAR* and the id/ego clashes between the two are the best parts of the movie (and though my view of the film is marginal, kudo's to real-life actor Nicolas Cage for being so brutally satiric in doing a brilliant imitation of himself!)

With a sizable hotel bill mounting up and no prospects, he decides to take an offer from his agent, Richard Fink (Neil Patrick Harris) to appear at a millionaire's birthday party for a sizable fee, despite his artistic ambivalence to the idea ("I'm not a trained seal!"). The millionaire is Javi Gutierrez (Pedro Pascal, at his puppy-dog best), who has made his fortune in olive oil (sounds familiar...), but under surveillance by the CIA in the form of agents Tiffany Haddish and Ike Barinholtz who suspect Javi of being a drug kingpin and the mastermind behind the kidnapping of a local politician's daughter.

Javi is, in fact, a massive fan of Cage's—maybe more so than Cage, himself) and, after some initial truculence on the actor's part, they bond over movies ("Paddington 2—it made me want to be a better man"), their mutual love for Nick Cage, and the possibility to collaborate on a screenplay. But, soon, Nick is in conflict as he's approached by the CIA agents to help their kidnapping investigation by being their inside man at Javi's compound, a task that he's thoroughly incapable of handling. No amount of "nouveau shamanic" acting can prepare him for "spy-craft, subterfuge, what-have-you."

The first blush of the movie and its premise is enjoyable, sometimes even brave, but pretty soon the movie is too meta for it's own good—especially when it starts to follow the two main characters' screenplay breakdown of "character driven opening—typical Hollywood blockbuster—we need to clear our heads and work on the third act." Boy-Howdy! That third act consists of a deliberately (but not amusingly) clumsy action chase that culminates in Cage suddenly proving competent—at gun-point—even while suffering from a vicious knife wound in his leg. What starts out as a mildly interesting little satire of narcissism and fan adulation finally succumbs to a by-the-numbers plot that would only energize a rom-com...or the vehicle for a flavor of the month comedic actor graduating from television.

Oh, the potential was there. And every once in a while there's a glimmer that either the writers or the director were waking up to the idea that this could lead up to something interesting...but the movie finally succumbs to formula and wasted potential, like an actor "settling" for a project, finally showing that it doesn't even have the courage to have anything less than an "everybody's happy" ending. Paddington 2 took more chances. You think massive talent has unbearable weight, consider that there's no heavier burden than a great potential.

One has to review the movie that's there, though, not its possibilities or its potential, so leave any worthless suggestions in the "might've been" section of the blog (there isn't one). But, one story intrigues me—that Nicolas Cage (the real one) liked the script but kept turning it down, and once he agreed, really wanted to play the "Javi" part.

 

Another reason that Nicolas Cage should keep working.

* On television, two of the best "meta" shows were "It's Gary Shandling Show" where Gary Shandling played himself in a sit-com or the blisteringly satirical high-wire act of "The Colbert Report" where Stephen Colbert played a windy blow-hard news reporter named Stephen Colbert.

 

 ** Cage in real life is in his fifth marriage. The ex-wife he's talking about in the movie is a fictional make-up artist he met while making Captain Corelli's Madolin, which is a real movie Cage made in 2001. Yeah, I know, it's confusing, but just keep in mind that the real-life Nicolas Cage is playing a fictional actor named Nick Cage, who looks, sounds and acts like Nicolas Cage and starred in all of Nicolas Cage's films. Got it?

The Card Counter

Defying All Expiations

or

God's Lonely Flagellant (You Want Hearts and Diamonds, But Get Clubs and Spades)

 

I take a journal to movies; I write notes in the dark while the film is playing, scribbling down some nice turn of dialog, diagramming a frame, noting performances and trying to suss out relationships, plot-lines and actors and sometimes highlighting possible "Don't Make a Scene" material (and there's a couple, one after the other, in this one). I usually spend a good hour after the movie trying to make head-way out of the indecipherable ink-spots I put on the page.

 

The thing is, it's one of those college ruled composition books, exactly like the one into which Oscar Isaac's character, William Tell, etches his thoughts in Paul Schrader's new film, The Card Counter. Having it under my arm as I was exiting the theater earned me a couple of worried looks from the other patrons and I wanted to say "nothing to see her, everyone go home, let the people do their work." I don't think it would have helped.

Because William Tell (real name Tillich) is another one of Schrader's existential loners, like Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle or American Gigolo's Julian Kay or Light Sleeper's John Le Tor or Pastor Toller in First Reformed, who are all closed off men whose closest relationship is locked up inside their heads and only spills out in the form of a journal that they keep for themselves or for some kind of self-therapy. They live simply, apart, and are somewhat ascetic in their habits and disciplines, in part due to some deep-seated guilt that they can only erase through some long-in-gestation act...or by writing those deepest, most private (and twisted) thoughts in their composition books. The journal only delays the inevitable.

Tell ticks off all the boxes. A wandering gambler, he's ascetic because, while traveling from casino to casino, he takes two valises—one for his clothes and the other for sheets and twine, so he can cover all the furniture in his motel room (for one night only, paid in cash). Disciplined in his lack of expression and the limited pallet of his wardrobe, he has the perfect poker face, while sitting at the table with the trademark strategem—wait, wait, wait, until something happens to take advantage of. Tell writes that he likes having a routine...a regimen—it's why he adapted to his eight years in prison better than he expected.

Wait a minute. He was in prison? Yes, technically a military prison, for his part in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. He realizes that he did wrong and totally accepts his punishment, but that doesn't stop the guilt for his responsibility in it or the nightmares that squirm through his brain at night (Schrader's depiction of which utilizes a lens-arrangement that wouldn't work for anything except a horror film). His affinity for isolation and his tamping down of emotions is also a strategy—it keeps the bitterness that his senior officers, specifically one (played by Willem Dafoe) walked away from Abu Ghraib scot-free, while Tell (being one of the ones with his face in front of the camera) is court-martialed and sent to his own form of Guantanamo.

There, with so much time, he learned card-tricks and the discipline of counting cards. It's why he does well at the casino. Blackjack, poker—he recommends only betting black or red on the wheel to those without skills, given the casino's odds—he wins just enough to not give anything away or arouse suspicion from the surveillance suits. Then, he moves on to the next stop, those two valises his only companions.

But, he has been noticed. Le Linda (Tiffany Haddish, serious this time, but her comedy background plays nicely) runs a "stable" of gamblers and she offers to stake Tell if he's willing to do some professional gambling tournaments, which he rejects. It's too conspicuous. He has a face and he doesn't like the scrutiny. But, in Atlantic City, he comes across a security-industry seminar, one of the guest speakers he recognizes—his old Abu Ghraib commander. He watches, but he leaves and quickly. But, he's followed by a kid, Cirk—"with a c"—(played by Tye Sheridan of Ready Player One), who gives him his number and says they should talk.

It takes awhile, but eventually Tell calls him and they meet. Cirk's story is an obsessed one—his Dad was at Abu Ghraib, too, and it broke him. Mom left. Dad abused the kid. And the kid did his research and wants to make that commanding officer pay—which disturbs Tell, and so much so that he comes out of his shell a bit—telling Le Linda he's all in for tournament poker, and taking the kid under his wing, driving him around, telling him to watch and learn. At least, it gets the kid out of his apartment and out of his own head.

Writer-director Paul Schrader has always done good work, but it's never been complacent work. His protagonists are always withdrawn outsiders—much like you'd imagine a writer to be—who are sparked (and often ignited) out of their self-imposed head-space into taking action, turning from hermit to Hamlet by whatever incentive they might have. And his Calvinist upbringing makes him one of those rare film-makers who know right from wrong, and makes sure that the audience sees it, too, not turning a blind eye to the evil of the world. Actually, he sorta revels in it, like dangling the threat of Hell over a Catholic student...and enjoying it. He and Scorsese are linked in that way—Marty set up the bankrolling entity for the film and "presents"—and it makes for an interesting antidote to the casual carnage of other films. Oh, there's carnage here, but Schrader doesn't dwell on it, skirting over it in a camera move, or simply staging it off-camera with sounds and letting your imagination do the work.

 

It's tough stuff, with a bit of a righteous indignation thrown in, and won't be everybody's sure bet for entertainment, but I was all in.