IRON MAN 3: THE RELUCTANT CAPITALIST

DIRECTED BY SHANE BLACK 

STARRING: ROBERT DOWNEY JR., GWYNETH PALTROW, DON CHEADLE, GUY PEARCE, REBECCA HALL, TY SIMPKINS, STEPHANIE SZOSTAK, JAMES BADGE DALE with JON FAVREAU and BEN KINGSLEY 

There will not be a more comprehensively American contribution to the superhero universe than Iron Man, and I have maintained this position ever since I saw Tony Stark take on a partner-in-crime of Stark Industries in a battle that destroyed half the city but had him ‘come out’ in style in an unexpected(?) resolution in the first film. I guess I cannot make it any clearer that I did not think much of the franchise. 

But I cannot say the same about Iron Man 3. It comes out a year after the super success of the Avengers and actually refers to the film in so many places – which might not be the smartest move considering it has us viewers ask what the Incredible Hulk was doing when the Iron Man was in chains, mortally wounded. Or any member of S.H.I.E.L.D. for that matter. Perhaps I was too keen on the lookout that I got ahead of myself a little bit, but I thought I could see certain characteristics of the Avengers absorbed into characters old and new in Iron Man 3. I would break two of the biggest and most exciting revelations Iron Man 3 has if I told you what those are. I will only say that they are just about enough to guarantee your satisfaction, if the action sequences have not done that already. 

There is not too much of a graduation where the plotline is concerned. This is where I would return to my previous assertion that there is no superhero who is as American as Iron Man. Please understand that I use Iron Man and Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) interchangeably. Somewhere in the beginning of Iron Man 3, Stark makes the assertion that the machine is a part of him. It is a scene where you would like to shout out loud at the screen, in clarification. The actual rectification comes much later, actually, in the last shot of the film. The Iron Man is not part of Tony Stark. Tony Stark is Iron Man. It’s Dr. Jekyll’s Hyde-side, where both people are salvaged by patriotism – something Stark calls plain old-fashioned revenge. Interesting. Kidnapping the President is like kidnapping the woman he has vowed to protect. Both deserve to be avenged for. On the one hand we have the man. On the other we have the patriot. 

Iron Man 3 borders on being a buddy-comedy on so many levels. Actually, so did the previous two. Maybe not the first film that much. Stark and Col. Rhodes (Don Cheadle, beefed up and striking), Stark and Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow, whoa!), Potts and Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall, like a sunrise in Barcelona), Stark and Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau), Stark and JARVIS (voiced by Paul Bettany). And, oh, Stark and Harley (Ty Simpkins, endearing) – a kid sidekick who is snarky by sheer innocence, possibly the most unbelievable character in recent times, miles ahead of Max in Real Steel. Stark makes a fair Charlie too. At no point in the film do these people (with the exception of Dr. Hansen) face actual threat. Stark himself had gone through bigger crises than the one in this film. Blasted, kidnapped and on the verge of death, he made Iron Man in Iron Man. His makeshift arrangement for a heart gave him complications in the second film, and he was on the verge of death, again, due to poisoning. In Iron Man 3, it is anxiety attacks. Hardly threatening. 

At no point in the film do we doubt that all would be well. Something would happen. Someone would step forward and take the fall, only to rise again. Stark. Rhodes. Harley. Dr. Hansen. Pepper Potts too, like the twelfth member in Ocean’s Twelve, does an exciting cameo. This reassurance is further backed by Stark playing narrator in the film. Thou shalt not take me seriously. This is one film that has played to the true spirit of Iron Man. It’s like Charlie’s Angels of America. There is even a red-white-and-blue suit which Stark never wears. Col. Rhodes does. So does the President and Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), the bad guy. Talk about political correctness! Iron Man 3 does well by keeping Russia and the Islamic nations out, even though many of the henchmen look like they’re from either of these places. Still, the wounds of America are self-inflicted. The remedy lies within. Where is he located? Stark asks JARVIS, in pursuit. Pakistan? No, says JARVIS. He is in Miami. It is part of a bigger comedic routine which, I have to say, is hilarious. Long story short, Stark asks Harley (boy-genius, like Stark himself) to shut JARVIS down and reboot him because he seems to be getting the last word of every sentence wrong. But Harley confirms that the man he is after is actually in Miami, Florida. He is called the Mandarin (HA!) and is a crony with the American dream acting from behind the scenes – that of total control. In him, we see the coming together of so many things distinctively American. The faux-British accent. The method actor. The junkie. The sell-out in Ben Kingsley. 

There are so many scenes that typify this self-identification, some of which you might miss; some of which are in your face. The American President is held for an oil spill. For that he is sentenced to death by oil. Col. Rhodes does well to reemphasize. It is only a reason to kill him, as Killian says. He is the pioneer of a new brand of biotechnology called Extremus – a mechanism that taps right into your brain cells and alters your DNA, in a quest to find the ultimate superhuman. There is a flaw, however, which also serves as a regulatory mechanism, for the people at AIM (Advanced Idea Mechanics). But the flaw is not merely physical. It has to do with the very conceptualization of the superhuman. I see a vague sort of intersection with an X-Men-styled pacifism here. The idea of the superhuman lies not in strength, but in control. Iron Man has a suit which is detachable. I hear that the actual Extremus arc has him fuse his suit with his body – where the man becomes one with the machine. The film does not support this concept. It separates man from machine and brings death to all who do not wish to do that. Power is power only when you can step out of your skin and – I don’t know – criticize yourself? Even if you were to ultimately resolve the question in your favour, like Stark always does. It is after all a toss between two Capitalists – one who lets the State do its job, another who wants it to do his. Both of them control it, nonetheless. The common man – who is but raw talent and aspiration – becomes a pawn in their game, as dispensable as Dr. Hansen. No marks for guessing what happens to her. 

All aside, what is most exciting about Iron Man 3 is its action choreography. As I have always maintained, the beauty of an action sequence is in the elaboration. Lightning strike or blitzkrieg, it first has to make sense. Director Shane Black (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) frames his action sequences keeping the viewer in the middle. Also interesting to note is the amount of time that Stark actually spends outside his suit, which goes well with the theme of Stark as the Mechanic, as he introduces himself to Harley. He is not the man in the suit. He is the one who made it. But he is also the suit. It is pretty confusing, if you think about it. But don’t. For the love of great visuals and spectacular action, watch Iron Man 3 discarding all analysis as I have made above. Or watch it, keeping them in mind, as long as they do not come in the way of childlike delight. And most importantly, watch it in 2D. For a better, more intimate experience, take your suit off. By suit, here, I mean your 3D glasses; your multiplex death-mask.

TAKEN 2: CARRIED AWAY

DIRECTED BY OLIVIER MEGATON 

STARRING: LIAM NEESON, MAGGIE GRACE, FAMKE JANSSEN, LELAND ORSER, LUKE GRIMES, KEVORK MALIKYAN with D.B. SWEENEY and RADE SERBEDZIJA 

To start talking about why Taken 2 did not work, one must understand why its predecessor did. Taken, a Luc Besson franchise – Luc Besson of Cinema du Look, which is French for empty-headed cinema that rides on thrills – revolved around the concept that a man would do anything to save his kidnapped daughter, provided he’s CIA-trained. Lesser mortals shall crumble in the way, but Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) reigns supreme. In Taken 2, there is a scene where his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) asks him what he’s going to do to save her mother Lenore (Famke Janssen). He answers her saying he would do what he does best. In Mills’ case, this could translate to so many things. He’s like the Rocky Balboa of first-person shooting – which is not just that he is damn good at it, but that he is a sport. He is a sport, a father and an honest man. All he needs is a little push. 

In Taken, Mills flew across the Atlantic to rescue daughter Maggie from an Albanian prostitution ring. He is a man of utmost focus, unmatchable relentlessness and an actual ability to care. He is the perfect father figure, in short, be it for Kim or Lenore, which is possibly why their marriage failed in the first place – not because he played Dad, but because he played an absent one. And the film, on its part, was the story of a man who was, to put it simply, making up for lost time. 

Everyone knows the popular line that Mills says to a laughing gangster on the other side. I will find you. And I will kill you. The line is epic. It could almost be the single most important reason why Taken turned out to be the way it was. It’s not that Mills does what he set himself up to do, but that he had to set himself up so he could do it. As the place where the plot kicks off, this scene has no substitute in the sequel. One scene came pretty close, though, I thought. The unstoppable force that he is, Mills is finally brought to a stop with a gun pointed at Lenore. He has time enough to call his daughter while still in negotiation with the enemy. He needs to ensure her safety. Then he lets go of his. The moment he chooses to drop the gun could be the single most defining moment had sacrifice been the theme. But it is, unfortunately, not. Neither is revenge. It is, in fact, absurdity that is the theme. 

The reason why Bryan Mills could single-handedly take on the entire ring in Taken was because he was nobody. In his anonymity, he found strength. But that is not the case in Taken 2. The film starts with him being hunted. It’s not you they want this time, he tells Kim. It’s me. Their revenge has specifications. Mills is to be taken to the place where the dead have been buried, and he must bleed to his own death there. That’s what would calm their spirits. They shall have nothing else. There are so many occasions when Mills could have been compromised at the drop of a hat, but he isn’t. There are so many occasions when Lenore could have been fed to the dogs, both figuratively and literally. But she isn’t. Kim, on her part, is saved by a shot that’s only too opportune; too good to be true, even for Bryan Mills to have fired it. 

Think the Dark Knight Rises. Think Ocean’s Twelve. Batman fighting in broad daylight is just absurd. Possibly as absurd as Danny Ocean and gang trying to knock something off the Van Der Woude residence, with the Night Fox at their heels. Mills has half of Europe that can recognize him, this time around. The syndicate seeks revenge. They’re likely to be doubly careful. He is, in fact, taken, tied and tortured. But to no avail. He wriggles his way out with the help of an amateur – his daughter. It is true that the manoeuvres are nothing but presence of mind and some rapid-fire thinking. If you remember, the last time was a tag-team match with Bryan and buddy Sam (Leland Orser) on one side. Mills and Kim are an unlikely pair, that way. They work as father and daughter, but not as brothers in arms. Kim slows him down to an extent that they miss by seconds a head-on collision with a train. I can’t drive, says Kim and rightly so. Can you shoot? Mills asks her. She can’t. She doesn’t have an option but to drive. And we have no option but to believe that she can. 

Beyond an unbelievable plotline that can be tolerated only because Neeson is a likeable dad, Taken 2 is absurd for its distinct lack of motive. Mills, in both movies, works well as the man pushed to a corner. The Albanians find, in them, neither the necessity nor the ability to match his, in spite of being a hundred against one. They are led by a man who wants dead the man who murdered his son. Mills has all reason in the world to defend, one would think. The man in question was someone who kidnapped girls and sold them to brothels. Not the kind you would see sense in supporting, right? Taken 2 thrusts its antagonists into such regions of insensibility that there is no escaping the wrath of the audience for what they have done – of pitting themselves against the all-encompassing American hero. You would think of it to be outrageous for the mob boss to even place his son and Mills on the same level. Surely the Albanians are viler beings! At least in comparison with the one-man killing machine that went haywire the last time he landed in Paris. We were over-sold the concept of the wrath of the caring father in the last film. Here we have that of a man who intends to be left alone. When asked why, he says he is tired. This coming from a man who’s probably already beefing it up for the third instalment – where they get kidnapped as a family, to be sold as servants to yet another Islamic nation. 

Taken 2 fails for the very same reasons that its predecessor was a success. Its action sequences lack direction, its screenplay lacks motivation and there is no such thing as a reality bite happening. Some of the sequences still pack the punch the first film was loaded with. But then any given scene would work only in as far as it is believable. In that department, Taken 2 is a parallel-park in mid-air on an American flag magic carpet. It's a driving test you'd rather give a pass, if you get what I'm saying.

OR CALVIN 'NARCISSUS' WEIR-FIELDS

DIRECTED BY JONATHAN DAYTON and VALERIE FARIS 

STARRING: PAUL DANO, ZOE KAZAN, CHRIS MESSINA, TONI TRUCKS, AASIF MANDVI, DEBORAH ANN WOLL with STEVE COOGAN, ANNETTE BENING, ANTONIO BANDERAS and ELLIOT GOULD 

The scariest thing about writing about writing is the possibility of being confined to just that. Authors can get carried away describing the creative process in an elaborate metaphor that can make up the entire length of their work. It is such cause for alienation if the protagonist of a story is going to be relatable only in as far as the reader/viewer identifies with the process of writing, where the crisis does not go any farther. I could be fighting a thousand demons, warding off insanity doing my own little thing, when it would only add to my frustration that I had watched something that could very well have been about me and life, except that it had decided not to be. 

Ruby Sparks is troublesome, in that way. She is the figment of author Calvin Weir Fields’ imagination. He is someone who might have found acclaim a little too early, and is played by Paul Dano, an actor of whom you can say the same. To tell a long story short, she is a character who comes to him, whom he writes about and who comes to life, as a consequence. She is also a girl whom he can – conveniently – fall in love with, because she is not real. She is not a person, like brother Harry (Chris Messina) tells him. She is a bunch of characteristics you can’t quite wrap around your head, where he wrote them all down in his own kind of meet-cute. She comes along as an immediate solution, he goes along in as much as she works. 

There is a significant amount of self-assurance that he would have felt about his decision to stick to her, but only as much as he would be uncertain all the same. He could write her to his whims, but he chooses not to. At first thought, it could be seen as a self-righteous gesture. On second thoughts, however, there is as much of a hazard in keeping her under control, as there is in freeing her. This is where we get back to the creative process, again, for this is about how much an author can let his character(s) take over the course of his story, where, the story – this time – happens to be his life itself. 

A welcome extension of this question could be this one – how much can you write your own life? Granted that you already have, so to say, defined the girl whom you can decidedly be in love with. How effectively can you write yourself to continue to be in love with her, where you would want to give her as much agency as you would want her to give you, which is – essentially – you giving yourself the right to call the shots? In earthly parlance, that is called being a control-freak. Calvin is constantly branded as one; Ruby makes it a point to put him in his place, at that. 

It is both important and mentionable that Zoe Kazan (granddaughter of the legendary Elia Kazan) is writer of Ruby Sparks, in which she plays Ruby Sparks the character as well. The very idea that an imaginary character in a film is conceived by the one who played her makes you ask the obvious question – what is the construct of Calvin like, in Ruby Sparks’ eyes? She is an artist and an unconditional lover, like she is introduced. Calvin could be the painting who jumped out of her frame. It would be a curious mess of meta-reality if we were to discover that Calvin is as much of a figment of her imagination as she is, of his. His moodiness would then be both cause and effect of his self-determination, which is actually not. Neither would hers be. These would then be two people who try to control each other in as much as they would want themselves to be set free – so they can love beyond their control. 

Everything else in the film is gimmicky. In my eyes, Ruby Sparks could have had any given plotline. It is a romantic comedy only because it was made to be. The meet-the-parents sequence was necessary in as much as it contributed to runtime. There has to be a therapist (Elliott Gould) because Calvin can’t be someone who is completely sure of himself. That would make him God, where fiction is about lesser beings. If we were to write about Gods, we would begin and end at the very first line that we read. Unless the God in question flexed some muscle in action sequences, or talked the talk like Morgan Freeman. 

The conclusion shall not be a spoiler when you completely expect it, where it is the magnitude of your expectation that renders the event of it happening sweeter than it would have been. Ruby Sparks becomes an obvious next novel of Calvin’s – he calls it the Girlfriend where I was thankful he didn’t write a second eponymous thing. Ruby tells him her friend found the book to be pretentious, but that she liked it, nonetheless. I wondered if I could say the same about the film. It is the second film of Little Miss Sunshine duo Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, and they are – needless to say – a delight to be welcomed back, especially with the dexterity with which they handle a host of neurotic characters. Which was their specialty, so to say, in their first film that compulsorily couldn’t have had a single, focused central character. 

Ruby Sparks has one. It is too much about Calvin Weir-Fields, the author. By that I do not request an equal share of screen-space for every actor in the film – I’d have been outraged had Antonio Banderas done any more than work the chainsaw, or had Annette Bening walked us through her house any further. I only mean that the film is less about Calvin Weir-Fields, the person, than it is about Calvin Weir-Fields, the author. He is someone who, in Harry’s words, doesn’t know women. Or, rather, he knows only as much about them to be able to fantasize. Ruby, on the other hand, has a Moth collection of ex-boyfriends, some of them twice as old as she is. This is – equally – a fantasy, as it is a cause of frustration. I was strongly reminded of Holden McNeill (Ben Affleck) in Chasing Amy, also about an author chasing his ideal, only to feel threatened by her and letting that insecurity of his get the better of him. Having asserted her as a loving, sexual being, there is only so much that Calvin can control. A little more of that helplessness – like we observe in the conversation between the two brothers beside the grill – could have rendered this film a little morose than cute - which is perhaps what I was looking for.

Doesn’t change the fact that Ruby Sparks is possibly one of the more solid, not that original (there is a man by the name of Charlie Kauffman, you know?) but smart, nonetheless, films from last year – intense, intricate and hilarious, with a protagonist who is endearing even as he’s detestable, like in a Coen Brothers movie. Too bad I couldn’t tweak the film a little like Calvin could tweak Ruby – it isn’t reassuring enough to know that the author is just about as much of a man as the one who makes a coffee-stop between work and home, not to write but to cool it off. I guess I was looking for a humbler experience, in a film I couldn’t control.

HENDRIX UNWOUND

MUSIC BY JIMI HENDRIX 

Listening to Hendrix’s People, Hell and Angels was like listening to SRV’s Texas Flood. This was to have been his fourth record, after Are you Experienced?, Axis: Bold as Love and Electric Ladyland – to which it was supposed to have been a follow-up album of sorts. This is as bluesy as Hendrix has ever been, for me, where I’d hesitate to throw an insinuation as saying “this is as bluesy as he can get!” – you’d never know. It has been four decades, almost, since an untimely death and record producers and sound engineers have made sure he’s heard every now and then, ever since. It had me wonder what sort of time-testing they ought to be doing in order to conclude that the world was/is/would be ready for something like People, Hell and Angels. 

When Valleys of Neptune (2010) was released, I thought they were selling memorabilia. I mean, come on. That was Hendrix as the world knew him, sold at re-sale value. Like a wobble-head; or, in his case, an action-figure, maybe, that sang and played guitar at the press of a button. Kind of like Buzz Lightyear. 

A common trend I have observed in all posthumous Hendrix records is that they tend to lean more towards the Blues than he had done in his lifetime. It is popular knowledge that Hendrix personified psychedelia and drove the hippie movement ahead in his small ways. Here, I think, it is important to quote a line from Bertolucci’s the Dreamers, an inimitable cinematic treatise on adolescence, culture and revolution, set in the early ‘70s. 

Clapton plugs in a guitar, he plugs in an electric guitar and he plays it like an acoustic guitar. Hendrix plugs in an electric guitar, he plays it with his teeth! There are soldiers in the Vietnam War right now. Who are they listening to? Clapton? No, they're listening to Hendrix. The guy who tells the truth.

It is like the film to be dialogic about any given topic, even though it might not limit itself to the same. The aspect in discussion here is the musician’s contribution to/with the electric guitar. The two people discussed are Clapton and Hendrix. What could be restricted to a discussion on guitar techniques slowly morphs into a debate on political/cultural relevance. To Matthew, who speaks these lines, Hendrix was not only a guitar-revolutionary, he was also an on-stage activist who spearheaded a cultural movement not restricted to the skill itself (which, in this case, is guitar-playing/songwriting). 

This, I think, is precisely the problem when you are an artist like Hendrix. Whether part of a movement or not, there needs to be a bridge between the musician they want you to be, and the musician you want yourself to be, where the plane of compromise is clearly defined with your intentions. This is not to say that Hendrix would choose popular demand over personal gratification. For all I know, it could’ve been the opposite, let alone being just a fine blend. 

Musical direction defines an artist’s success in a given cultural paradigm. Time has come and time has gone. So have dinosaurs. Why has someone like John Mayer enjoyed his position in the realm of the Blues when there are stronger contenders to carry the sacred flame ahead? It is because he plays the love songs that people listen to his Blues as well. It’s the rock/pop side of someone like John Mayer that attracts attention towards something normally construed as ancient, as the 12-Bar blues. A song like Something like Olivia is in good faith, even if not blatantly so. 

I don’t know if Hendrix could have released this record in 1969, the year it was originally intended. It was perhaps at the peak of psychedelic rock, where this record is almost puritanical with its relationship to the Blues. A song like Easy Blues is, of course, psychedelic, and so is Hendrix’s version of Elmore James’ Bleeding Heart. But that’s it. Which brings me back to my original point. Listening to this record was like the first time I listened to Texas Flood (1983) – something I can say without fear of being anachronous. Youtube has been generous with the number of comments on videos that criminalized SRV as a copycat of Hendrix. I have never seen how. With this record, however, I get closer to accepting that statement, even if not entirely. 

This is to never deny the prowess of someone like Stevie Ray Vaughan. If Hendrix can be called crazy, SRV is aggression. There is a quantum of control in the way he lets loose, a trait which I – curiously – saw in People, Hell and Angels. Here was Hendrix showing the world he can care, not just at heart, but also through carefully executed licks on a guitar that’s as close to ‘clean’ as he has ever been. I have read about Hendrix cite the likes of Elmore James and B.B. King as influences. Again, I have never seen how. People, Hell and Angels, in that sense, helped make a Martian a Man. 

Careful, I reiterate. Careful. That’s the best I could come up with to describe this record in a word. Superlatives can rule another world – you get mine with the care you show. Every track is like a handicraft, for a wanderer who finds himself tamed by home-cooked food. For the span of about an hour, Hendrix ceases to be the devil, the incomprehensible craftsman; the man who played the electric guitar with his teeth. 

Which brings me to an important aspect – production. This might be the best-produced Hendrix record I’ve listened to. I’ve never tried vinyl, my sources have been digitized versions – mp3 tracks – where there ought to be a significant amount that’s lost in translation. Analog in a digital world, like people say, which – incidentally – is also what creativity is about; what dreams are about. This record is like a sweet pill without a sugar coat, achieving compaction like a high-density solid in a solid load of more in less. It’s a kind of joy when every note is crystal clear without becoming an excuse for mediocre guitar-playing. It has always been a fantasy to hear Hendrix like he actually played, as far as recording goes. This record, I think, is as close as we have ever gotten. 

Why this record? I couldn’t answer. Thematically, Hendrix is in good hands. We are not discussing things right now that they hadn’t discussed in the ‘70s. Sound-wise, it is rich and inviting. But it is as out-of-sync in terms of musical direction now as it might have been in the good old days. It is for an entirely different reason that Clapton seems to be doing full-time with the Blues these days. It’s his pilgrimage. But when we talk about Hendrix, we talk about a man who has been dead for four decades, leaving behind a stockpile people didn’t know what to do with. Timing is everything, nostalgia can only work so much. Popular acclaim needs more than that. 

People, Hell and Angels could compete to be an artist’s creative best. It is a posthumous album unlike any other I’ve heard before. Every time I think of it, there is something stranger about it - it is as contemporary an effort as it is obviously not; nerve-wracking. John Mayer, in a one-minute review, said it sounds like a Black Keys album – this, coming from a man who said ain’t it a drag to say, at least I’ve still got yesterday. People, Hell and Angels renders time circular, that way. 

You’d better love me like it’s gonna be my last time, Hendrix sings, in Earth Blues. I think I love him like he’s going to live forever – which doesn’t sound too far-fetched, given the weight of this record - something I didn't know before.

THE FILM THAT DESERVED BETTER

DIRECTED BY STEPHEN CHBOSKY 

STARRING: LOGAN LERMAN, EMMA WATSON, EZRA MILLER, MAE WHITMAN, NINA DOBREV, DYLAN McDERMOTT, KATE WALSH, ZANE HOLTZ, REECE THOMPSON with MELANIE LYNSKEY, JOAN CUSACK and PAUL RUDD 

‘the Perks of being a Wallflower’ has a refrain that could make you wonder if John Woo made it. We accept the love we think we deserve. These lines are said twice in the film, one of them to the person they were originally intended for. Paul Rudd says it the first time as Mr. Anderson, the High-School English teacher who takes it upon himself to bring a protégé to the right path. His sad eyes speak of warmth and sincerity that remind us that his likeability as a comic had little to do with the goofball self he often portrays, but the person inside him who calls out through his eyes, once in a while, like a bathtub with lather and temperature that could be called just about right. 

Freshman Logan Lerman says it the second time, playing Charlie – a freshman as well. He makes friends out of the audience whom he writes to on a typewriter that had been gifted to him for that purpose. He would make for an excellent existential archetype, if you think about it. He lives so he can narrate his story to us, the audience – in much the same way that Lester Burnham (from American Beauty) dies so he can tell us all about his death. 

The line is thrown, initially, in an outburst when the frenzied teen summons enough courage to ask his favourite teacher the question that has been bothering him for a while. Why do nice people always pick the wrong people to date? We have seen/heard people say/feel the same thing, in real life as well as in films. The guy played by Jason Biggs in Loser, for instance. Peter Parker when he’s not Spiderman feels the same way about Mary Jane Watson. It’s the classic Hollywood love-triangle plot. Writers write it in so people wouldn’t hesitate to sympathize with their lead characters. We sympathize with Charlie for much the same reason; and also because Logan Lerman shares his dread, finding himself humbled by the weight of such a big performance that he finds he can do it after all, much ado intended. 

The second time – and we’re still talking about the line, by the way – is when you find it has a whole new connotation. It comes at a time when we know more about these characters, these people, that their suffering takes a different turn. Barely ten minutes are left in the film when the line is thrown and the film is opened; how much responsibility can the ending take? These are people who know no hatred, which is ironically the source-point of their frustrations. This is a film that reveres suffering, be it in the punk-Buddhist girl who hides herself behind badly done hair and dark lipstick and an immersion in mindless ambition; be it the English teacher whom we don’t see much of, who could have a whole arc like that in Half Nelson going on in his life for all we know; the happy-go-lucky homosexual friend and his closeted lover-boy who has to endure so much to keep his precious jock-life intact. 

Deep down, all these people strive to be better beings – so much so that they crack under the pressure. Every one of them. And the film on its part advertises the beauty in letting go – much like It’s kind of a Funny Story, which was about self-inflicted pressure due to parental expectations – both being vivid adaptations of young adult novels from the recent past. If I had to make a personal comment here, I find that all young adult writing seems to be dealing with the same thing – consciousness. It hurts to be aware of what you can’t cure. And that hurt seems like a promising central premise of any given story. The very mention of the Catcher in the Rye in this film, for instance, is both an inside-joke and a clear sign of where things are heading. 

Or the soundtrack, if you’d like a look. ‘the Perks of being a Wallflower’ finds beauty in music that glorifies pain. What it calls good taste – a term that Sam (Emma Watson) keeps repeating throughout the film – is in sadness. The girl in It’s Kind of a Funny Story talked about Ian Curtis. Sam here talks about Nick Drake and the Smiths (she calls them the best breakup band), even though the final touch has to be the significance of the David Bowie song Heroes to this film. These are kings and queens through their very own night-vision goggles – the same goggles they had used, previously, to place themselves in darkness, a shadow they had cast upon themselves. And they go through their rituals of pain and suffering, some of which is irreparable (you can’t change where you come from, but you can change where you go, says Dr. Burton – Joan Cusack – who contributes with her one-liner to match Mr. Anderson) only to liberate themselves in a physical show of grace under pressure that would render Hemingway and Bertolucci (the Dreamers) proud. 

I’m aware I’ve talked about a half a dozen films until this point without really telling you what ‘the Perks of being a Wallflower’ is about. That could be because I’m struggling with giving it credit for being itself. In its own words, to accept the film, I should think I deserved it. But what happens if I felt I deserve more? Let me tell you more about the film so you can decide for yourself. It starts as a film about a boy with a disturbing past that causes him to be confined to self rather than open to social interaction. It takes him a while before he makes an effort to shake hands, the other boy being someone who’s popularly called Nothing (Ezra Miller) – the butt of his own joke. He’s called Patrick, otherwise, and it is through him that Charlie (the boy) gets to meet Sam, who looks like the usual short-haired girl with a boy’s name, like Alex from Bridge to Terebithia – she’s not too far from her either, given her character and the role she plays in dear Charlie’s life. Sam is Patrick’s step-sister, their relationship affected in no way by that detail. There is no Cruel Intentions motif – Patrick, quite conveniently, is gay, which also adds one more to the wallflower lot, as they call themselves. 

In spite of the gay friend, there is not a single moment when the film compromises on its seriousness – probably the first time I liked a film for not wanting to be funny. Even it’s Kind of a Funny Story pulled a couple of gags. Not this one, though. There is no weak sibling character who fools around; no parent trying to lighten things up a bit. The siblings are, in fact, perhaps the strongest characters for they have made it to the grown-up world already as the rest of them hope to get there someday. Charlie’s sister Candice (Nina Dobrev) – a senior in high-school – deals with an abusive relationship with yet another marginalized individual called pony-tail Derek. The door of her room open a crack, Charlie sees Derek hit a high on frenzy and throw a full-blown smack across Candice’s face. The next scene shows her kissing him goodbye at the doorstep. When he confronts her about it, she tells him he wouldn’t understand. 

A similar instance is when Charlie – officially dating Mary Elizabeth (Mae Whitman) – kisses Sam in a game of ‘Truth or Dare’. Both women are outraged, which has Charlie wonder why. Patrick, another of the film’s more well-defined and beautiful characters, puts a hand on his shoulder and tells Charlie that these are girls who have seen a lot of guys before him, and that he wouldn’t understand what it means in terms of significance of his own actions. 

‘the Perks of Being a Wallflower’, that way, is beautiful in moments. And it has some  characters that genuinely care, backed by solid performances that show it. Logan Lerman gives life to Charlie like Alex Shaffer did to Kyle Timmons in Win Win. He wins our attention in the scene where he matter-of-factly confides to Sam on how his friend shot himself. Much like how she wins ours when she describes her first kiss. The beauty of that scene shall not be understood until towards the end – something I cursed the film for. We’ve both gone through the same things, Charlie tells Sam. It says so much about the film. Like Katradhu Thamizh in comparison. This is not just the story of an introverted high-school kid. And even if it was, it only speaks of the layers that might lie underneath a person’s introversion, or extroversion (in Sam’s case). I shall not tell you what was a part of Charlie’s life to save you some suspense, but I think you can understand what it might be that could’ve brought a whole new dimension to the film that seems unacceptable given the fact that the entire lead-up seems to have taken us away from it. It is given away in a moment that has us think we have been deceived, for this could’ve been a great movie, but it chose not to be. Kind of like Charlie himself, if you think about it. 

Otherwise, ‘the Perks of being a Wallflower’ is your typical high-school film with critical acclaim that comes as a twist to the tale. It discusses the future – admissions, aging, etc. – something that Election and It’s Kind of a Funny Story tried to touch. There is talk about SATs and applications and how that contributes to most of the frustration in the life of these characters – which is not all, though, for all of them come with additional baggage as well. It has an 80s soundtrack – the best way to set the tone, stoke the fire and make-out in front of it. Homosexuality has come to be a recent theme, as well as casual handling of the same. Easy A is a strong example where Olive Penderghast and her gay (male) friend pretend like they’re having sex behind closed doors so he can still remain in the closet. Here, Patrick makes out with Alice (Erin Wilhelmi), a straight girl with her eyes on film school, talking about fag-on-goth action. A line that’s in better taste would be when he calls a bunch of presents he receives as so gay, I thought I might have given it to myself. 

There’s sex, there’s drugs; even rock-n-roll (David Bowie – duh!) – a stage adaptation of the Rocky Horror Picture show plays a significant part in the film’s initial frivolousness, kind of like the elusive rock concert in Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, or the extended music-class jam of the Queen song Under Pressure in It’s Kind of a Funny Story. Parents are kept in the distance as teenagers take over all possible roles, including inhabiting an exclusive world of LSD and Merlot wine without the legal angle brought into it. Even a film like Superbad did well to criminalize it, even if to parody itself on that front thereon. And then, of course, other than the girl with the fairy lights around her, everyone else is ridiculous as a choice for a girlfriend. Like Mary Elizabeth, who is possessive, fretful, clingy; a burden, in short. 

What could have been a film as impacting as – and I’m going to give it away by making this comparison, but what the hell – Trust (2010), fizzles away into something relatively bleaker and haphazard; even less of a shocker than, say, the Lovely Bones for the simple reason that it didn’t want to take the skeleton out of the closet before a dramatic last act that only had me blame the film more, for having not played it closer to the body; much closer.

LIKE A BIG FAT BOOK IN A CINEMA HALL

DIRECTED BY JOSH RADNOR 

STARRING: JOSH RADNOR, ELISABETH OLSEN, RICHARD JENKINS, JOHN MAGARO, ELISABETH REASER, KATE BURTON, ROBERT DESIDERIO with ALLISON JANNEY and ZAC EFRON 

I like this book because it’s fun, it’s stupid and it makes me happy, Zibby (Elisabeth Olsen) tells Jesse Fisher (Josh Radnor), defending a trilogy of Vampire novels. She says she thinks he’s one of those people who thinks it’s cool to hate things. Talk about what you love, keep quiet about what you don’t. He says he thinks the country (and the world, in extrapolation) is in bad shape because of the things that people like – which, he says, are very bad. She asks him if he’d like to surround himself only with people who read the same books as he does. 

She snatches the book from him, throws it aside and asks him why he’d rather have an inconsequential (stupid) argument about something he doesn’t even feel that strongly about, when she’s sitting in front of him and they have themselves to talk about. 

It’s incredible how ‘Liberal Arts’ could reference itself in so many places. A lot of the things that happen in the film are much like the film itself. That, or I’m doing to the film what the film recommends us not to do to a work of art – be it a book, a song or a film (even though films aren’t really talked about) – dissecting it beyond measure, making an anatomy lesson out of something which can be beautiful without need for inquiry. 

This is not new in a film. As would be the bane of every film that has wanderers in its midst who thrust upon each other arsons of discussion and debate, all in playful camaraderie, if not joyful romance, ‘Liberal Arts’ reminds you very strongly of ‘Before Sunrise.’ Zibby is a girl who shows maturity that’s usually construed as beyond her age. Celine (Julie Delpy in ‘Before Sunrise’) was more American than her French-ness could permit. Jesse (Ethan Hawke in ‘Before Sunrise’) took lessons in romance from the very same woman he would go on to use it against. Jesse Fisher (possibly in a sort of tribute) has to go back to college and find a sophomore to get his act together. 

How much can what he does be called ‘getting one’s act together’? He is an admissions counsellor in New York whose routine we come across in a single montage much like Ryan Bingham’s introduction in ‘Up in the Air’ – where the asshole speaks – not as a narrator, but as part of a speech he delivers as later revealed, five minutes into the film. Here, Jesse speaks to invisible students with varying extracurricular achievements and writing skills. A while after we’re made familiar with his chores, we see him robbed of his clothes, having to buy a new shirt that a girlfriend of his says she doesn’t have to acknowledge on her way out. Ex-Girlfriend, that is. He receives a call, the next morning or many mornings after, from a professor of his – a favourite, the way it sounds – called Peter Hoberg (Richard Jenkins) back from University. The man is retiring and has discovered he’s being felicitated. He calls Jesse to do his share of the honours. 

In ‘Deconstructing Harry’, there is a scene where Woody Allen calls himself a sixty-year old adolescent. Not in the same words exactly, but in words that sound more or less similar. Jesse is that guy who needs just a whiff of fresh-mown grass to fall down and roll in it. We see a montage of golden flowers, footpaths with shades of foliage, people reading books under trees, someone playing the guitar in the open. It had me wonder how important it is for a campus to be aesthetically pleasing for someone studying something as grand as British Romantic Literature. Would that really work in, say, the erect, hapless, never-ending bustle of a city like New York? 

Why not? Zibby, a sophomore studying Drama who is part of a much talked about improv group, whom Jesse is introduced to through the Professor, would beg to differ. Jesse himself, after having made the discovery, wouldn’t get back to the same beliefs. How does she do that? Through a western-classical mix tape she gives him on the eve of their first separation. Jesse tells her he would write letters to her, in return. There’s no need to say that she would write back too. Cosi Fan Tutte, she says, would inadvertently make everyone more endearing than they would be, usually. In possibly one of the best-intended lines of the film, Jesse says: Grace, I realized, is not time or space-dependent. All we need is the right soundtrack. 

Again, another self-reference. ‘Liberal Arts’ – the film – has the same soundtrack as Jesse, the character. Having said that, how graceful does that render it to be? Does Cosi Fan Tutte really make these people more endearing? I don’t think the music is really required, honestly. Radnor, by himself, is quite the likeable guy – again, another thing that the film says too, through Zibby. So is Prof. Hoberg, a classic representation of the American left-leaning intellectual who finds it hard to even groan about his job – the communist has always been a tricky character when it comes to an American treatment. To have made Prof. Hoberg as sour as Jenkins’ usual is something to think about. Is he sour because he is, or is he sour because that’s all Jenkins can do? Let me make it clear here that this doesn’t mean I doubt Jenkins’ capacity as an actor. 

Considering that she plays a really hard role (speaking of which, I don’t really know how hard it is, because Jesse – you know – is easy), Ms. Olsen as Zibby is quite the catch. Life is improv, she says. No one knows the script. We’re just making it up as we go. Yet another self-reference that leads you to ask how scripted the film is. How fathomable is Zibby as a love-interest? There is no denying she’s fashionable, even if she has the habit of repeating clothes. What Jesse and Zibby share is unblemished as a college romance – complete with a roommate (almost) walking in on them. It is beautiful, because she is beautiful – as beautiful as the camera angles at the campus that oozes with the picturesque whichever corner you put the camera in. Like college, she reaches out and grabs. And takes you to places you wouldn’t have dared gone to had she not led you there in the first place. She’s like Suzanne, in the Leonard Cohen song. That the song itself wasn’t part of the soundtrack has got to be a surprise. 

‘Liberal Arts’ takes a scenic route in a world that’d rather bypass it. It’s both biased and non-committal towards its core premise. The fact that the film, and Radnor (writer-director) could make the Professor’s side-story an integral part of the central plot, where the film itself deals with difficult things like life, aging and coping with desire and deliberation, says a lot about its intent – to show as much despair as it inspires hope; to show as much optimism as it urges you to think twice. If or if not the film becomes a Zibby in itself – who takes the reluctant Jesse in you on an experience you wouldn’t have taken otherwise – is something for every viewer to decide for himself. Or herself, though a woman would be kind of pushing it. Like George Eliot, in the seventeenth century, the place where these two want to go back to, but find themselves damned instead, to twenty-first century alienation and post-modern critique. Life beckons, in short. 

But face it – it’s a scenic route to a felicitation ceremony that’s not even yours – a horrendous waste of your time, if you think about it. Harry Block (Deconstructing Harry, again) gets arrested at his for having kidnapped his son, where his real felicitation happens in his fiction. I found it extremely disengaging that Jesse didn’t have one of his own. He’s not a writer in crisis. He’s not the soul-searcher who finds closure in the very futility of his quest. His story begins and ends within the limits of the film. Optimism, sometimes, is not optimism at all without the adversity to pit it against. What we have here is a field-trip – a favourite restaurant, nostalgia-themed, which serves you food as your canteen did, back in the day. There is not as much in the food as there is in the memories absorbed from it. And there is only as much in these memories as there is willingness to submit to them. 

Life, as the sceptics would say, goes on. So would Prof. Hoberg, old loon and retired warmonger who has peace to deal with, now. In that context, ‘Liberal Arts’ says little to nothing. It is well-photographed, decently paced and clever enough to keep you hooked. But it only cures you of loneliness as much as the 1100-page novel that kept you out of action in the first place. It increases and decreases, at the same time.

ON AGING GRACEFULLY

DIRECTED BY JUDD APATOW 

STARRING: PAUL RUDD, LESLIE MANN, IRIS APATOW, MAUDE APATOW, ALBERT BROOKS, MEGAN FOX, JASON SEGEL, CHRIS O’DOWD, ANNIE MUMOLO, CHARLYNE YI, JOHN LITHGOW with LENA DUNHAM, GRAHAM PARKER and MELISSA McCARTHY 

That Judd Apatow has been (in my opinion) behind two of the best films Hollywood had produced in 2012 – ‘the Five-Year Engagement’ and ‘This is 40’ – is conclusive proof that the R-rated comedy is fast becoming one of the defining products of the industry these days. Apatow has teamed up with Universal Studios ever since ‘the 40-year old Virgin’ (2005), a collaboration that has given us a film every alternate year. As producer and director, Apatow works with a close-knit bunch of people – comedians and actors alike – a group that’s turning out to be thicker than the Frat-pack of the ‘90s, or maybe even the Monty Python crew. Together, they seem to be giving life to this new style of filmmaking that is so characteristic that it’s almost a trend. I shall leave it to the experts to come up with a suitable name. 

‘This is 40’ follows Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann) from Apatow’s ‘Knocked Up.’ In a manner of most Kevin Smith’s ‘askewniverse’ comedies, he doesn’t wait to develop these characters for us once again, trusting the audience with their memory, of the big details and maybe even the little things they might’ve noticed the last time around. Maude and Iris Apatow (real-life daughters of Apatow and Mann) play Sadie and Charlotte, who are thirteen and eight years old, respectively. Sadie resembles Debbie to such an extent, even in her compulsiveness and her temper. She watches the TV series ‘Lost’ wherever she finds it playing – on a computer, on her iPad, on a smart-phone – everywhere but the television. Charlotte, on the other hand, is a sport, probably following her Dad (and by ‘Dad’, I mean more Apatow than Pete), who is great at playing Angry Cow and the Trampoline. She also occasionally plays the keyboard, adding to a minimalistic soundtrack – just the way Apatow does it, all the time. 

The story is simple. Pete’s turning 40 soon. Debbie has just turned ‘38’. Which means she’s actually turned 40 but won’t admit it. She says she wants to be 38 for two more years. We have a feeling that these people stopped growing a whole lot before. From where we left them last, they seem to have gotten going better, with Pete setting up his own record label with an aim to resurrect people whom he liked listening to, growing up. A largely-contested move has him sign Graham Parker and the Rumour on their first record in 30 years. He aims to sell ten thousand records to Parker’s hardest fans. 

Debbie, on her part, runs a clothing line that shows unexplained losses. Jodi (Charlyne Yi) says Desi (Megan Fox) is behind it, both being sales clerks. Debbie – the famous control freak she is – is not going to let it go unnoticed. She watches tapes that show Desi to be guilty, but not of theft. She even goes Girls Gone Wild with her to get to the bottom of this. What she finds out is barely startling – as compared to what Pete seems to be hiding from her. 

If you expect extra-marital sexcapades, then let me bring you down on that right away; there are none. This is not a spoiler. Remember ‘Knocked Up’ where Debbie, Ben and Katie sneak upon Pete thinking he’s having an affair, only to find him playing fantasy baseball? Apatow jumps obstacles of mid-life crises as commonly represented in film. No one loses a job, even though there is a house on the line. There is a financial problem, it does stretch their marriage. But it doesn’t break it. Debbie isn’t as worried about Pete cheating on her as she’s worried about him sneaking money to give his Dad Larry (Albert Brooks) who’s raising three kids with a second wife. This worry – we second-guess – could be bitterness stemming from own absent dad Oliver (John Lithgow) – a neurosurgeon who does a cameo in her life for only as long as Mr. Lithgow does one in this film. 

‘This is 40’ is that sweet film of the year your kids can’t watch. Apatow seems to be popularizing that, getting middle-aged couples to go to the movies leaving kids behind with their baby-sitter – which is fair enough, considering they’d not want them inspired by the kids on screen, sweet though they are. What’s striking about an Apatow vehicle is the amount of depth he provides to the supporting characters. Even the weakest in this film – Jodi, another reeled in from ‘Knocked Up’ – has her moments, shaped by Charlyne Yi. Jason (Segel) retains keeps his flirtation with Debbie going as her physical trainer. There is an exciting scene in the film where he, along with Ronnie (Chris O’Dowd), one of Pete’s disapproving employees at the label, rates Desi against Debbie. Jason says she’s a seven who can become an eleven at best, as opposed to Debbie, who, he believes, has hit a twelve. This, for all we know, could be Apatow’s present to his wife, Ms. Mann, for her actual fortieth. 

I had called ‘the Five-Year Engagement’ and ‘This is 40’ as two of last year’s best that Hollywood had produced. I believe they are. Firstly, there hasn’t been much to compare them with. Secondly, like I said, Apatow strengthens his kind of filmmaking, retaining the influence of classic comic routines, yet giving his actors enough liberty that it almost looks like improv – which works for a film as this, where they’re either playing themselves or someone else as real. Third of all, Apatow – as both producer and director – has been consistently giving us comedies in the spirit of Hollywood storytelling, rooting themselves in both the romantic ideal of the dysfunctional marriage/relationship/household, and of dysfunction as it really is, presented in a vague self-parody. The effect, needless to say, is delightful – perhaps as delightful as a cupcake sneaked out from under your wife’s nose, or the little puff on a cigarette and a mint after, which your husband’s never going to know about. It’s a twelve on ten.