Greenberg

With Greenberg, I find myself questioning not its execution but its project, its impetus and its worth. Technically, I don’t find much to complain about in the film. Performances range from effective to good (it’s not really the kind of film that permits acting of either extreme), the writing is on point, it is shot well but not distractingly, etc, etc. It achieved what it was aiming for; the space in between the underlying intentions and the result onscreen is remarkably small, which certainly is a kind of success worth having.

And Greenberg is not the first work to depict a misanthropic, unappealing lead (protagonist doesn’t seem like quite the word). It will not be the last, and when I say that my problems with the film stem from how much I disliked its eponymous hero, it is not to cast aspersions on choosing topics for fiction that are less than ideal, or somehow bad, ugly, or otherwise wrong. The ineffectiveness of depicting only the things we would like to see ourselves as has been proven time and again.

I cannot help but view Greenberg and his younger love interest Florence (Greta Gerwig, utterly guileless) from my own perspective, which in this case means my own age. In the simplest way, Greenberg is in this fashion a cautionary figure for me: don’t be like this. But that’s not enough to satisfy, and I don’t think it’s the whole story either. Even the most unappealing characters must be in some way sympathetic. The forms this sympathy can take run the absolute gamut, from fascination to empathy to the camaraderie of people who have nothing in common.

But Greenberg is none of these for me. He hovers infuriatingly on the edge of reasonableness and comprehension, which makes his sheer social repulsion all the more unfathomable, caught uncomfortably in between an intellectual and a visceral response. I think I resent that he is placed in the position of a character with whom we should come to find sympathy, and this resentment is driven home particularly strongly because at the core of his neuroses, his misanthropy and his cruelty, is an inability to grow up. As a young person who is just starting out in the world and looking to the future, I refuse to accept that his is viable.

And similarly, I find Florence to be a frustrating character, in part because it’s impossible to make any intellectual leeway against her. She is so carelessly likeable, so unaffected, so open and yet so vague that any criticism I am likely to make is one she would readily accept. She incarnates a certain form of the sometimes artificially balanced worldview that is so prevalent now, finding a medium and a compromise between all things. In her case, this compromise leads to a certain impotence and self-defeating quality. I get a little indignant at the possibility that she is representative of a culture that I largely buy into. I want to say that it is her, and not the culture, that led to her own affable stagnancy.

And can I? I think so, and perhaps it is a function of my perspective that this affirmation requires a rejection of its opposite. From where I stand, Greenberg is not bad, but Greenberg is, when really, it should be the other way around.

The stiflingly beautiful "A Single Man"

In terms of visuals, art direction, and even emotions, A Single Man is frustratingly immaculate. The costumes and hairstyles scream their perfection; the color-drained and -flooded frame looks exactly as it should. The framing is artful, the editing precise and striking, and every choice announces itself in every second of every shot. The performances constitute the one realm that escapes this constricting network of decisions, their more human aspects coming through almost in spite of themselves. On the whole, the film is too exceptionally lovely to make an impact beyond the kind of touching beauty of the way the story is told.

But it’s also a testament to the strength of that story that the film succeeds largely with the better half of a mixed bag. Colin Firth is very excellent, and the supporting actors—Julianne Moore and Matthew Goode, principally—are just as good. When they are onscreen—and particularly when they are onscreen with each other—you almost forget about the sets, about all the choices being made, and feel the poignancy and urgency of the grief and life underwriting the story. Its observations seem fresh and strikingly modern; I guess the way people make friends and flirt hasn’t changed much since the 60s, cinematically at least.

If only the thing weren’t so damn beautiful. It’s frustrating, and irritating, the way it incessantly announces its aesthetic choices. Every time you sink into the story, every time the truth of an interaction or a facial expression captures you and makes you forget about the movie you’re watching, within a few frames the screen will be reliably flooded with sepia-toned angst or another devastatingly sharp ensemble worn by a devastatingly attractive person and there you are, watching again.

It feels strange to complain about the movie looking too good, and admittedly I didn’t mind too much in the moment. But it was a constant barrier that stood between my senses and my emotions, a constant reminder that I was watching cinema, high art damnit, and I better acknowledge it as such. Consequently, the impact of the story was only glancing at best, while the rest seemed like a particularly weighty fashion shoot. (I’ve been trying to avoid saying that since the beginning because it seems like such the expected criticism of this director, but damnit, you brought it on yourself Tom Ford!)

In short, the movie is a museum piece that’s just effective enough to make you wish it were something more.

Julie & Julia

This past weekend I saw Julie and Julia with my family, and aside from the movie itself (it's light, cheerful, and maybe just a little—albeit in a truly wholesome way—subversive), the most indelible impression left is, unsurprisingly, Meryl Streep. She is an unquestionably superb actress, capable of incarnating a pop-cultural deity in a way that supremely announces her presence as a performer by vanishing, deft and quick, into the icon herself, but even more than that, she is a professional. This notion is perhaps one of the few modern myths that I buy into almost wholeheartedly. The idea of the pro: someone who performs their function quietly and efficiently, with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of success; one of the most enduring and realistic cultural legacies of a capitalistic society, and one that I cannot help but aspire to. What is the seductiveness in this notion of the professional, of someone who is not just good at what they do but good at being good? It combines an ability that is just crucially short of being unearthly with a sense of direction and duty that is forever grounded in the task at hand. It is perhaps the focus that makes the difference, the unrelenting drive to succeed. But that only accounts for part of the equation, and moreover, is too romantic a notion by far. The lack of romanticism is part of the professional's defining characteristic, and in its place a kind of clear-sightedness that leads to the endlessly practical. A professional is never a dreamer, never a cynic, but instead a pragmatic idealist: a realist with a firm belief in the unending power of ability. Perhaps the declaration of the professional as capitalistic was overly hasty, as a Marxian work ethic does not seem entirely incompatible. But in feeling, a pro is entirely too individualistic, and too far at odds with any sort of immediate collectivism.

The professional is attainably heroic, and only as capable as he has the power to be. A significant part of it is the sense of traditionalism, seen in the individual's utter dedication to the mastery of a craft. In the traditionalism is seen the existence within a community of professionals, though those of the past and future can suffice. Is the professional an anti-revolutionary figure? Perhaps, as they are almost necessarily dogmatic. Innovation is inevitably inefficient; inventors are always amateurs. Whether actress or soldier or banker, somebody who does what they do well, and for no other sake than to do it. The professional is a kind of livable crucible, a negotiation between extremes that does not compromise but draws strength from the tension instead. Part of it is that they must remain in motion, and dedicated to the task: a professional without a profession is nothing at all. I think the professional is perhaps a paragon of immanent idealism, if such a thing exists: a materialism (they must be craftsmen, not philosophers) that gives rise to a religion, one that exists in tandem with but independent of its origins. To be good, to be great at what you do; to have something to be great at, and know it.