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?

Gone Girl

Keeping Up Appearances in the Tender Trap (Sir Reality in the State of Nancy Grace)
or
"We're So Cute I Could Just Punch Us in the Face"

One can see where people are enthusiastic about Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn's story of a missing person investigation.  It's so full of good ideas and banal dialogue and frightening concepts one doesn't know whether to hate it or love it.

It has gotten a comfortable fit for a director of the movie version from that master of discomfiture, David Fincher, who always manages to make movies that get under your skin and irritate, no matter the genre. Even a romance like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button has its seriously icky side the way Fincher envisions it.

And Gone Girl is hardly a romance, although the subject of marriage is prevalent throughout, but not in the form of Holy Matrimony. Everything about the marriage of Nick and Amy Dunne is unholy. As attorney Tanner Bolt (Tyler Perry in probably his best performance outside of Madea) says "You two are the most fucked up people I've ever met, and I deal with fucked up people for a living."

Even the first words of Nick's narration creep you out: "When I think of my wife, I think of her head...and what's inside it. I think about cracking her skull, unspooling her brains and sifting through it, trying to pin down her thoughts. What are you thinking?  What are you feeling?  What have we done to each other?  What will we do?"

"What have we done to each other?  What will we do?"

It's July 5th, the day after Independence Day (or "Co-dependence Day" as I call it) and Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) puts out the garbage, surveys his street and drives to the local bar he owns (well, not really) with his sister Margo (Carrie Coon) to talk about what he's going to get his wife Amy for their anniversary, and generally do some grousing about how lousy their marriage (five years in) is. He bitches and moans over a bourbon first thing in the morning, then drives home.

His front door is open and the cat's out. He goes into the living room and a glass table is shattered and a hassock overturned. Nothing's stolen.  

But his wife Amy is gone.

"Ready, aim...."

The police come at Nick's calling and do a forensics scan. The police investigator (Kim Dickens, who's terrific) does a cursory scan of the place, finds it suspicious and puts post-it notes on discreet blood-spatters in the house. A more thorough scrubbing of the place shows that there's been a lot of blood lost that has been cleaned up, indicating that there has been fouler play than what is immediately apparent. Nick falls under suspicion, although he is genuinely baffled by the circumstances.

"Smile for the cameras" might not be the best thing to do...

Amy's parents from New York (David Clennon and Lisa Banes) go into over-drive. Amy was the inspiration for a series of well-selling children's books—"Amazing Amy"—and their public media campaign to find Amy Dunne has plenty of opportunity for cross-promotional purposes and escalates the search to national attention. Nick's callow behavior before the cameras invites public speculation and suspicion and pretty soon, he's being pilloried in the press, especially when lookeeloo's and buttinski neighbors start sticking cameras and microphones and themselves into the proceedings. It doesn't help that Nick has been having an affair with one of his students (Emily Ratajkowski) and his public appearances pleading for the return of Amy do not sit well with her. Her revelations are (as they say in the press) "a bombshell" for which strategies need to be planned

Supermodel Ratajkowski "dressed like a Mennonite"

And Amy is still missing. The speculation fuels even more suspicions with the police. And evidence begins to mount up for motive and means that speak of Nick's secret life and their troubled marriage. "You ever hear the expression the simplest answer is often the correct one?" asks unsympathetic investigator Jim Gilpin (Patrick Fugit). "Actually," says detective Rhonda Boney "I have never found that to be true."

Arthur Conan Doyle had Sherlock Holmes say in "The Sign of Four" "...when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." In the age of the 24 hour news-cycle, truth does not matter as much as filling up dead air-time. Those outlets spew as much improbability as they can in their race to get the story first. So, CNN filled their valuable airwaves about missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 with speculation about black holes and other conspiracy theories, The New York police commissioner held a press conference saying that the Aurora, Colorado movie shooter was costumed like "The Joker" (he wasn't, and what does a NYPD commissioner know about Aurora, Colorado?). Bloviating talk-show hosts opine viciously about the actions of the parents of any missing child. The regularity with which purported news organizations "get it wrong" in the first few hours of an event are legion, so much so that the NPR press-critique show "On the Media" has come up with something called "The Breaking News Consumer Handbook" that offers tips for practical cynicism.

This is the reality that Gone Girl is based in, where victims of crimes can be perceived as perpetrators (and there's plenty of precedence, as in "experts" like the ghoulish Nancy Grace (snarkily satired here as portrayed by Missi Pyle) can be allowed to batter the desperate (and even drive them to suicide) in the name of media-justice. Fincher has directed movies showing the downside of media circuses, how they're becoming more bread and circuses) and, as in The Social Network, throws cold water on the "fun" trends of public distraction that are shown to be quite personal public destructions.  Oh, what a tangled world-wide web we weave.

That sinking feeling...

But there's something else going on in Gone... The media circus shenanigans are all too familiar to anyone who "watches" news channels (and it feels a bit like a documentary at times). But, the "other" theme running concurrently in the movie can only be spoken of in general terms, lest the thickened plot be given away. It's there, disquieting, maddening and just a little ballsy and brilliant, but sure to piss people off and pull loyalties every which way (I like that).

Because running concurrently with the plot of Nick being confronted with his past, there is a parallel telling of events from Amy's perspective—her diary...in fact. It's Amy's view of things that makes things uncomfortable for awhile—for the discriminating movie-goer, not in terms of the plot—only because it starts so gushily hearts and flowers that, like Amy says at one point "We're so cute I could just punch us in the face." The dialogue is so floaty and so "daytime television" that the movie is in real danger of losing any interest several minutes into it. Stick with it, though. That sentiment turns mighty fast, as that diary becomes evidence. It is damning.

You see, writer Flynn messes with stereotypes. That's all I can say. She pulls in one direction that breaks the mold and then pushes in another that feels hackneyed and "old" and, frankly, is a bit over-the-top—then utterly perverts it to make something truly horrifying in its implications and...appearances. At the same time that she's boldly staking new ground, she's also re-enforcing sexist attitudes and tropes to an alarming degree in a dance that's two steps forward, four steps back. She does this to the women portrayed, but lest one begins to feel the need to pick sides, she's just as tough on the men, too. One watches Gone Girl with an admiration of how unsympathetic it all is—watching it, I kept thinking (as a friend once phrased) "I got no dog in this fight." Everybody is nasty, but that's okay as long as things look good for the cameras...and how you spin it, so the court of public opinion looks more like a court of law—but without the rules of jurisprudence (or even simple prudence). 

Rosamund Pike is going to get her share of laurels for her multi-faceted portrayal of the amazing Amy, but Affleck has rarely been better as the callow and callous Nick, so comfortable in his skin that he bears the stink of entitlement. You never end up rooting for him, but you never have any sympathy for him, either, for all the travails he goes through...amid the risks and burdens of the couple's secret lives and secret deaths. 

I wandered out of the theater wondering: "If Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, what happens when a man comes up against Dejah Thoris?" Hell hath no fury, indeed...

Amy Dunne exults in a sugar-storm