THE INCREDIBLE BURT WONDERSTONE: FEATURING THE INIMITABLE MR. STEVE CARELL!

DIRECTED BY DON SCARDINO 

STARRING: STEVE CARELL, STEVE BUSCEMI, OLIVIA WILDE, JIM CARREY with JAMES GANDOLFINI and ALAN ARKIN 

I like to think we’re on a low-tide of humour, lately. This is not to say that Hollywood hasn't been trying. This is to say that most efforts at comedy have been futile, with studios having to turn to the trusted lot to work it out for them. When I say ‘work it out’, I am not talking about box-office returns. I am talking about a funny film that’s actually funny, like ‘The Incredible Burt Wonderstone’ which rides on some of the funniest men in Hollywood. 

I write this in the aftermath of ‘the Hangover’, of films that have sincerely tried, which have been pushed and pummeled ahead by the financially turbo-charged studio that would do anything for a laugh – anything but anything remotely funny, that is. I write this in the wake of having encountered people like Jason Sudeikis on screen. I write this in the era of the R-rated rom-com where mainstream actors try their hands at comedy, going for your leg but pulling the rug from under your feet instead. I am not lying when I say I have been more disappointed in this so-called comedy lately than even, say, ‘Man of Steel’ where Superman doesn’t realize the joke’s actually on him. 

It is precisely in this department that ‘The Incredible Burt Wonderstone’ works. It is a funny film that is actually funny, and that’s wonderful, given current standards. 

Even otherwise, ‘The Incredible Burt Wonderstone’ is an incredible film experience. It is directed by Don Scardino who has directing credits for half the episodes of the Tina Fey vehicle '30 Rock' – possibly the only show I have followed from beginning to glorious end. Though we barely get past star performances on a TV show, Scardino’s ability to run a gag in the subtlest manner possible is evident in almost all episodes that he has directed/overseen on '30 Rock'. And he brings the weight of that experience with directing comedy into a film that desperately needs a hand like that. 

Plot-wise, there is nothing incredible about ‘The Incredible Burt Wonderstone’. Have you watched the Pixar film ‘Cars’? For the sheer delight of wacky storytelling and an inimitable message that John Lasseter delivered through automobiles in a man-eat-man world, ‘Cars’ would rank highest on my list of favourite animated movies. Anyway, that trivia aside, I could take ‘Cars’ and ‘The Incredible Burt Wonderstone’, put them side by side and match each plot detail, one after another. Rockstar protagonist who’s lost his love for the game to some fame that he later realizes is inconsequential? Check. Endearing sidekick who lasts till the very end and might possibly have a sequel written around him? Check. Feisty lady-love who’s probably the most normal character, a buffer between the quick and the dead? Check. Moronic, mindless buffoon of a bad guy who’s meant to make your focus clear and not just be defeated? Check. Yesteryear legend who comes around to up the game of the present day, preferably on the hero’s side? Check. 

Let me tell you that having made all these comparisons and perhaps having realized that ‘The Incredible Burt Wonderstone’ is a live-action rendition of ‘Cars’ at best doesn’t change my mind about how good a film it is, because – and let me tell you this too – it is a good film. It has everything that makes a good film good, and this might sound laughable at first. Every film has that, right? Every ‘good film’, at least? I don’t think so. The summer’s biggest film event (read ‘Man of Steel’) stands as a cutting example. 

‘The Incredible Burt Wonderstone’ has Steve Carell play a truly incredible Burt Wonderstone. If there is one man who acts while simultaneously providing a commentary on his acting, it is Carell. Like Owen Wilson did with his voice to Lightning McQueen, Carell accentuates Burt Wonderstone with body language that calls for attention to itself. He is the performer who performs while drawing attention to his performance and the fact that he is, actually, performing. Steve Buscemi as Wonderstone’s partner and magical friend Anton Marvelton is the exact opposite – he is the Mater in this movie, oblivious to his own innocence. Olivia Wilde is beautiful as Jane/Nicole, the aspiring starlet magician who sees the human being in the money-machine that is Burt Wonderstone and has the heart to sit him down and talk. 

Two performances need mention. First is the late James Gandolfini as the casino magnate Doug Munny, who is so ruthless it’s actually funny. Gandolfini’s performance and an uneventful death has made me consider watching ‘the Sopranos’. I guess I’d get around to it as time permits, but here as Doug, the over-achieving shark, Gandolfini joins the likes of Andy Garcia and Al Pacino in their respective stints as bad guy in the Ocean’s series. He is unbelievable. 

The second performance is that of Alan Arkin, who’s the funny equivalent of Paul Newman’s Doc. Hudson in ‘Cars’. Arkin plays Rance Holloway, a former Vegas headliner who lost it for his magic, went into oblivion and, later, to an old age home that Burt Wonderstone ends up performing in. Coincidentally, Holloway has been Wonderstone’s role model and the reason he took up magic in the first place. Together, the two of them contribute to Wonderstone’s rediscovery as Arkin belts out some of the funniest sequences in the film, including and especially his final ‘disappearing act’. 

Out of the six main characters, I have thus knowingly and with full awareness left out one, perhaps the most eye-capturing of performances. Jim Carrey as Steven Gray the ‘Brain Rapist’ (a clear parody of Criss Angel: Mind-Freak, where I thought Wonderstone himself sounded a lot like David Copperfield) might own the role, but the character is as insignificant to ‘The Incredible Burt Wonderstone’ as Chick Hicks was to ‘Cars’. It has to do with the fact that Wonderstone’s problem is with himself and not with competition. Success here gets redefined as his ability to rediscover the magic in himself, which he will and does, with or without Steven Gray. There is a scene where Gray and Wonderstone have a war of words and Wonderstone tells Gray that what he does is “not magic, it is monkey porn.” I took that as a subtle comment on Carrey’s own presence and performance, even though I’m sure it wasn’t intended to be that. To see Carrey invest in such a second-rung character was pitiful to say the least. 

But that doesn’t spoil the fun one bit, and I take the liberty to say here that it is all Steve Carell. Mr. Carell is the perfect reaction-comic. He’s someone who can make stupid knock, knock jokes work, because he’d have the best things to say in return. By that I mean he’d have the worst things to say in response and they would end up being funny, only adding to his character. I’m still haunted by some of his comebacks in ‘Date Night’ as I write this line; as James Franco’s incredulous statement rings: “Is that all you’ve got? Is that your best line?” Carell thus complements Carrey’s monkey-act like nobody can; like nobody ever will. 

I wasn’t kidding when I said that there could be a sequel, and that if there was a sequel, I’d watch it. I would like it to be called ‘The Remarkable Anton Marvelton’ with a bigger part played by ‘The Astonishing Jane’ as Burt Wonderstone sits a quiet life teaching magic to children, heading the Holloway School of Magic. This would mean a return of all these men (and woman) to save Hollywood again from the clutches of its evil witches of comedy, their laughs mirthless. And I would love for that film to be directed by the Skillful Mr. Scardino again – the man behind this self-parody, who performs his tricks as well as he makes fun of them; who is both the Farrelly Brothers on steroids, minus the shit humour.

ON ETERNAL SUNSHINE AND SPOTLESS MINDS

DIRECTED BY LORENE SCAFARIA 

STARRING: STEVE CARELL, KEIRA KNIGHTLEY, MELANIE LYNSKEY, ADAM BRODY, ROB CORDDRY, TONITA CASTRO, DEREK LUKE, T.J. MILLER with PATTON OSWALT, NANCY CARELL and MARTIN SHEEN 

Lorene Scafaria wrote and directed ‘Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist’ that starred Kat Dennings, Michael Cera and Ari Graynor. You can almost see that in the premise of her new film ‘Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.’ A woman who is in control of an existing relationship meets a man who isn’t. The difference here is that now he has the option to not want to do anything about it. Nick O’Leary (Cera’s character in ‘Nick and Norah’) needed mending. Dodge Peterson, (Steve Carell) on the other hand, awaits doomsday. The least he can do is sit tight. 

The thing about casting Steve Carell is that you’d find the character hollowed beyond what you’d have intended him to be. Dodge has just had his wife (played, incidentally, by Carell’s real wife Nancy Carell) drop him like he’s got dirt all over. He goes over to a friend’s place in the aftermath. The friend’s wife, initially, sets him up with a friend of hers (Melanie Lynskey) who intends to get the best out of the rest of her days. She then makes a pass at him herself. “Linda (Dodge’s wife) got to do what she wanted to do,” she says. “Why not me?” Dodge is dumbstruck. His only answer is to jump the fence and run away. He does exactly that. 

Penny (Keira Knightley) is introduced to us before she’s introduced to Dodge. We have a shot of her leaving her boyfriend (Adam Brody) as he clings to the door like it’s her, not letting go. Her hair short, Knightley reminded me of her character in ‘Love Actually,’ Richard Curtis’ collage of love stories. She’s from England – not New England, old England – and has an accent. That’s about the only thing about her that is strange in a character that is archetypical American. Emily Blunt was an example in ‘the Five-Year Engagement.’ I don’t know if it’s a trend, but if it is, it’s worth noticing. 

The film begins like it’s going to hang loose on an existential thread, but quickens to define a task for itself by means of its lead characters. Dodge comes across a letter that hadn’t quite reached him, from a high-school sweetheart by the name of Olivia. “Is she the one that got away?” Penny asks him. “Well, they all got away,” he responds, with Carell’s defeatist smile. “She was just the first one.” In that letter, needless to say, Olivia expresses undying love that had just resurfaced, given recent events. Having mentioned he hasn’t got the time or energy to handle ‘someone new,’ Dodge fixates on a past that he intends to bring to whatever remained of a future. 

Penny, on the other hand, calls it quits – something we see right through. It’s not even the usual movie-resolution. “I haven’t seen two people as much in love as they (her parents) are,” she says, when she insinuates that that’s what had possibly had her set such high standards for herself. 21 days wouldn’t be enough to find the one. Knightley works like a miracle in both aspects of frivolity and intensity that doesn’t help a character who finds herself in the most predictable of positions. There is, for instance, a sequence where Penny takes Dodge to Speck (Derek Luke), another ex-boyfriend, who claims he knows her enough to know she’s a “survivalist, more than a romantic,” and hence would choose to stay with him. You smirk because you know better. 

The writer, you find, distorts characters with whims of her own. Is it like Dodge to have his Dad (Martin Sheen) fly her back to where she’s from? Debatable. But mostly, yes. Is it like Penny to come back? You don’t know, for Penny isn’t Penny anymore. The end of the world is bound to do strange things to those who are to face it; perhaps more to those who want to write about it. Lars Von Trier showed us with his ‘Melancholia.’ ‘Seeking a Friend for the End of the World’ could’ve been better if only the ‘end of the world’ part was driven home stronger. What we have looks like a meta-narrative of two characters who are, slowly, becoming aware that their film is going to end. And they simply had to do what the author intended them to do – one shaken out of her skin because she doesn’t know what she’s doing, the other ‘madly in love’ for he’s known to be resolute. 

Yet again, Scafaria evokes memories of another film that you’d almost think she has tried to implicate it. Penny asks Dodge to not let her fall asleep. In ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,’ Clementine (Kate Winslet) asks Joel (Jim Carrey) to not let her sleep so she can cling to her memories – the last she has of them together. Penny’s excuse is hypersomnia. She says she could sleep through an apocalypse and not know the world had ended. But she couldn’t sleep through a flight back home, which means she wouldn’t sleep through an apocalypse. Dodge doesn’t have to do anything. It’s all the work of the end of days - on two promising characters and a writer who shows promise, but in flashes.

A SOURCE OF HEDGE(S)D HAPPINESS

DIRECTED BY PETER HEDGES

STARRING: STEVE CARELL, ALISON PILL, JULIETTE BINOCHE, DANE COOK, MARLENE LOWSTON, BRITTANY ROBERTSON, NORBERT LEO BUTZ, AMY RYAN, JESSICA HECHT, FRANK WOOD, HENRY MILLER, ELLA MILLER with EMILY BLUNT, JOHN MAHONEY and DIANNE WIEST

The thing about Peter Hedges is how less he tries to stop you from classifying him. And how, as a result of that, you don’t want to. He’s a writer-director of independent films who doesn’t stick to routine and thus produces a stronger outcome. ‘Pieces of April’ was reflective of that. ‘About a Boy’ probably lesser so. You could credit him for inventing a unique blend of feel-good fiction with a relatable storyline that’s simple and straight as people can be. There’s something very wholesome about the experience, a strong sense of empathy that he inspires. With Hedges, it’s not your life on screen. It’s a life you like, idealized, where everything is in the perfect amount, neither amplified, nor diminished. The ups and downs. The contradictions. The resolutions. And best of all, Hedges doesn’t push his luck – he tweaks it.

‘Dan in Real Life’ is no different. It’s a Hedges film. It’s about Dan Burns (Steve Carell), a columnist who gives parenting advice and who, appropriately, is a widower raising three girls on his own. Is he doing a good job? Who knows? Parenting as such is a paradox of free will and enslavement as well as everything in between. Who knows what a good parent is? Lilly Burns (Dan’s youngest daughter, a proud fourth-grader) could probably have the best answer when she calls Dan ‘a good father but a bad dad.’ Dan’s skeptical about the fact that she coined it; he thinks it came from his oldest daughter Jane (Alison Pill) or the lovestruck and angsty Cara (Brittany Robertson) and is probably right about it. But then they have a point. He’s the strict father of great kids who don’t look at themselves and admire his work. They’re defiant, and at their ages, they’re justified. We know for sure that they’re bound to grow up and feel more affectionate. For Dan’s the kind of Dad who’s better looked-back upon than lived through.

The four of them head down to the Burns’ family home, a seaside bungalow that always has someone running around, kid or adult. It’s Thanksgiving and they can afford to miss school for that. I’m unclear about the number of siblings, but there are four couples in the house including Dan’s parents Poppy (John Mahoney) and Nana (the ever-delightful Dianne Wiest) Burns. It starts with three, initially, with Marie (Juliette Binoche, who is as Americanized a Frenchwoman as Julie Delpy in ‘Before Sunset’) being the last one in. She is the newly-found girlfriend of Dan’s younger brother named Mitch (Dane Cook) like all younger brothers are. Marie calls him ‘fun to be with’ in a gym-instructor sort of way. We understand. He’s the real-life rebound guy that’s great at his aerobics. You know at once that he isn’t going to come good on the longer run. Literally.

A darker drama might feature intrigue, but here Dan and Marie find each other by accident and in ignorance. He plays librarian to her book requests. She gets his jokes and commands his actions. They’re like the movie-definition of soul mates. She then excuses herself and leaves early saying she has a new boyfriend whom she has come to visit. She gives him her number though and asks him not to call. He is hesitant, but his brothers disagree. They deem it not unethical as long as she’s not engaged. Dan, on the other hand, knows that for family, those rules don’t apply.

Steve Carell is the perfect Dan Burns. Not just him, but everyone is at home with their characters. Alison Pill is convincing as a seventeen-year-old. Dianne Wiest hits an uncanny high as a romantic-comedy-Mom with her portrayal of Nana Burns. Juliette Binoche, John Mahoney; even Dane Cook is well-cast. Every side character has been written, not just filled. They’re all well-defined, the mark of a novelist. The household is integral, Dan sticks out. It’s a love-hate thing. He’s the columnist who speaks too soon, only to find that life’s problems aren’t solved by printing retractions. “Someone hasn’t been reading his own column”, he says. Haven’t you felt that? It’s not a moral dilemma as such. It’s the bane of nature. Like finding yourself driving on the wrong side of the road in Rhode Island – you can’t even have a police officer set you right. For Dan, however, there’s hope. There’s Marie.

Roger Ebert derided the film’s soundtrack (by Sondre Lerche) as it its only flaw. He says it gives too much away. I was surprised to find I felt that too. It rang a bell. Aren’t all indie scores like that? ‘There’s Something about Mary’ spoke too right too soon – we need a new reminder. But then, ‘Dan in Real Life’ is beyond such letdowns. It’s organic and concise at that. And I found that to be a deadly combination.

SWEETLY CRAZY, CURIOUSLY STUPID, LOVEABLE

DIRECTED BY GLENN FICARRA and JOHN REQUA 

STARRING: STEVE CARELL, JULIANNE MOORE, RYAN GOSLING, EMMA STONE, ANALEIGH TIPTON, JONAH BOBO, JOEY KING, LIZA LAPIRA with KEVIN BACON and MARISA TOMEI

A Couple are having dinner together in a restaurant that’s like a do-it-yourself foot massage parlour. The two in focus are pretty still, though, you sense a casual, almost lethargic bit of tension between them. The air is then let out as the Woman (Julianne Moore) throws the D-word, much to the man’s (Steve Carell) surprise. You don’t know if he was expecting it, but it’s shown that he doesn’t take it too well. In the meantime, at their place, a 17-year-old Baby Sitter (Analeigh Tipton) walks into the room of the 13-year-old Robbie (Jonah Bobo) under her watch, only to watch him ‘doing something’ not too flattering that he assures he’s doing thinking about her. But that’s not before you’re shown that the Sitter harbours some pretty heady emotions for the man of the house. Elsewhere, two friends Hannah (Emma Stone) and Liz (Liza Lapira), the former asserting on the sexiness of talk show host Conan O’Brien, the latter ‘ew’ing at it, are approached by a leather-shoed line-dropper (Ryan Gosling) who goes for Hannah than the typical girl in Liz. To her, he’s just another ‘tomcat’ that she’d prefer to go home without. To him, she’s perhaps a Tiger-Moth to his Butterfly collection. 

With that, I have introduced you to the ninth minute and possibly the whole premise of Glenn Ficarra’s and John Requa’s ‘Crazy, Stupid, Love’ (punctuated like that, with understandable deliberation). When was the last time that you watched a film that completely dropped all pretence and proceeded to show what exactly it was going to be about? (“We’re going to make your wife rue the day she decided to give up on you”) Only Paul Thomas Anderson would have taken longer, but second-time filmmakers Ficarra and Requa (‘I Love You, Philip Morris’) have no intention to survive on mystery; not when they have the acting potential to live it out for them. So before you know character names, before you’re familiar with who’s who in what way, you know what’s going on with them. With the individuals. From one person to another. I personally think that’s pretty great. 

But the Weavers just can’t divorce each other from their lives. Remember the Fosters from ‘Date Night’? Well, this film could very well be a sequel of sorts where the goofy couple decide to give separation an actual shot just for kicks – an attempt at the impossible, only to learn later on. While the man talks about his wife to women out of his demographic, Emily watches ‘Twilight’ and takes to self-help books. Reconciliation could be thought as ‘just around the bend’, but the road is elastic, and it stretches and turns through the course of the film, through people and things and buddies and brawls before it ultimately gets there. Or somewhere close. 

It’s incredible how easy it is for Steve Carell to play the kind-hearted screw-up that one can never hate, that even someone as sweet as Julianne Moore’s Emily comes off as comparatively harsher. What is a bit of a bummer is that it’s never unexpected. We’ve watched him from ‘the 40-year old Virgin’, through ‘Dan in Real Life’ to the recent ‘Date Night’ and even ‘Dinner for Schmucks’. In ‘Crazy, Stupid, Love’, he just doesn’t disappoint. But Ryan Gosling is one who actually does. I mean, granted that his role as Jacob Palmer had shades of immense likeability, and granted that after ‘Blue Valentine’ (and the upcoming ‘Drive’) an actor is legally allowed to cool it down, I still had moments that I couldn’t stomach. A couple of things both said and done. Too ‘usual’. Emma Stone likewise. She’s so becoming a stereotype for the mature young girl that I wish she’d do something really stupid to get out of that mould. Probably feature in the next ‘Twilight’ as a replacement for Anna Kendrick, who’s wanted back in the real world real bad. Marisa Tomei is all-weather, Kevin Bacon (as the notorious David Lindhagen) not too much so, but they do their job with a fair amount of dignity or lack of the same. The pleasant surprise here is Analeigh Tipton, who plays the baby-sitter Jessica, torn between Boy and Man. To quote a friend, “For someone from America’s Next Top Model, not bad!” There is no way that Joey King (as Molly Weaver, the youngest) could have been given more weightage that I wished she had better not been cast, having carried the weight of ‘Ramona and Beezus’ on her shoulders earlier. Or dragged it along in a suitcase with a broken wheel. It just doesn’t make sense to give her a come-and-go anymore. 

And so we’re down to the title. What’s ‘Crazy’ is how the film had to depend on a bunch of A-list stars (including Jonah Bobo and even Liza Lapira to a fair extent) to convey an concept that’s likeable by itself. What I felt was ‘Stupid’ was the casting of Joey King, which brings us to the last part. The ‘Love’. The film has loads, tons and tons of it. No one, excepting Robbie, says ‘I love you’, but you’re sure everyone thinks it. I did. You will. It’s crazy. It might even be stupid. But it’s heartwarming.