Every Day (2018)

27 Sunday May 2018

Tags

Angourie Rice, Body swapping, David Levithan, Drama, Instagram, Jusice Smith, Literary adaptation, Lucas Jade Zumann, Michael Sucsy, Owen Teague, Review, Romance

D: Michael Sucsy / 97m

Cast: Angourie Rice, Justice Smith, Lucas Jade Zumann, Jacob Batalon, Colin Ford, Owen Teague, Maria Bello, Michael Cram, Debby Ryan

Rhiannon (Rice) is a sixteen year old schoolgirl whose boyfriend, Justin (Smith), surprises her one day by convincing her to skip classes and go to the beach. It’s a wonderful day, one that ends with Rhiannon believing that Justin, who isn’t normally so spontaneous or thoughtful, has changed for the better. However, the next day sees Justin finding it difficult to remember what happened the day before, and back to his usual self. Over the next few days, Rhiannon meets a handful of new people, all of whom are different but who also exhibit similar behaviours. One girl she meets tells her that these people have all been one person, inhabiting each body for a day, and that day at the beach has caused this person – who calls himself A – to want to spend more time with Rhiannon. Though at first she’s incredulous, Rhiannon begins to believe A’s story, and in the process starts to fall in love with him, despite the obstacles between them. But it’s when A finds himself able to stay in a body for more than a day that things become even more complicated…

A Twilight Zone-style scenario given a teen soap opera makeover, Every Day is the kind of inoffensive, and somewhat blandly presented movie that wants its characters to be better versions of themselves, but through the intervention of a body swapping entity instead of going on a personal journey of self-discovery. Rhiannon’s parents have their issues – dad had a breakdown some time before, mom now “works late” a lot – but it’s only when Rhiannon is substituted by A for a day that “she” does anything about these problems. Similarly, a teenager with suicidal thoughts is saved by A’s stepping up and saving the day. Every Day wears its wish fulfillment heart on its sleeve, and Jesse Andrews’ adaptation of David Levithan’s novel is keen to ensure that any drama is cleared away as tidily as possible, and as soon after it’s introduced, as if real life is ever that simple. What this means is that the material remains mostly good natured throughout and any lows are compensated for by the next high waiting around the corner. With the structure and the plotting laid out in such a straightforward, no frills way, the movie rarely moves out of second gear, or gains any real dramatic traction.

However, one area where the movie does excel is in its assembled depiction of A. Played by a total of fifteen actors and actresses (including Rice), it’s this aspect of the movie that works best. Watching so many different people playing the same character, and with all of them, even those with a limited amount of screen time, providing a consistent personality and mannerisms, is the movie’s trump card. A is handled with a great deal of care and attention throughout, and Sucsy and his talented cast ensure that his predicament is handled with a degree of sensitivity and even gravitas that is both unexpected and sincere. With A’s character feeling and sounding so grounded from the beginning, it helps the rest of the movie in terms of the drama surrounding his relationship with Rhiannon. As romances go, it’s not ideal, or practical, and the script doesn’t shy away from the likelihood that not everything will work out as it does in most other teen romantic dramas. But again, things run a little too smoothly, and any tension or close examinaton of A’s condition is passed over, making this a teen romance that can’t quite muster enough passion or depth to stand out from the crowd.

Rating: 6/10 – though the challenge of having fifteen different actors play the same role is achieved with a great degree of skill and confidence, it’s the overall story of Every Day that stops it from being better than it is; lacking in substance and/or dramatic thrust, it’s a movie that ambles along comfortably, while offering just enough to keep viewers interested until the end.

The Nice Guys (2016)

26 Sunday Jun 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Action, Angourie Rice, Car industry, Comedy, Drama, Kim Basinger, Murder, Porn movie, Porn star, Review, Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling, Shane Black, The Seventies, Thriller

D: Shane Black / 116m

Cast: Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling, Angourie Rice, Matt Bomer, Margaret Qualley, Yaya DaCosta, Keith David, Beau Knapp, Lois Smith, Murielle Telio, Gil Gerard, Daisy Tahan, Kim Basinger

Amidst all the super-hype surrounding the likes of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Captain America: Civil War, one movie stood out as a becaon of hope amongst all the spandex and super-destruction on offer in 2016. That movie was… Finding Dory. But after Pixar’s latest, there was another movie that looked like it could rescue the average movie goer from having to endure even more superhero shenanigans. And that movie was… Everybody Wants Some!! And then, after Richard Linklater’s latest, there was yet another movie that had the potential to offer a respite from the Marvel and DC Universes. (Drum roll please.) The Nice Guys!

Audiences needed this movie. Audiences needed it because it promised to be hyper-violent, occasionally crass (perhaps even borderline obscene), blackly funny, unapologetically profane (and profanely unapologetic), a twisted caper, beautifully acted, and fantastically written and directed by its creator, Shane Black. It was the anti-superhero movie that would remind us all that you could have a two-hour movie that didn’t rely on mega-destruction and angsty men in tights. And Shane Black, the genius who wrote Lethal Weapon (1987), The Last Boy Scout (1991), and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), he would be our saviour.

But…

Somewhere along the line, somewhere during the movie’s production, and at some point when someone really should have been paying attention, Black fumbled the ball. Not in a horrible, dying-seconds-of-the-match, the-other-team-scores-and-wins-as-a-result kind of way, but with the story, the movie’s reason for being, the set up if you will. Because the movie has a ton of promise. It has all the ingredients: it’s set in the Seventies, a decade that’s almost over-ripe for satirizing; it co-stars Russell freaking Crowe and Ryan freaking Gosling as two opposing private eyes who work together when they realise their cases are linked; it has action and stunts aplenty; it’s unfalteringly funny, with wisecracks, one-liners and visual gags sprinkled liberally through the script; and it “introduces” Kim Basinger. (Which is interesting/distracting. If you remember, Basinger played a prostitute “cut” to look like Veronica Lake in L.A. Confidential (1994). Here she looks like she’s been “cut” to look like her younger self.)

But what it doesn’t have is a coherent, or interesting plot. Somehow, Black has managed to take two of the biggest industries in America during the Seventies, the porn industry and the automobile industry, and contrive to mix them together so that neither one is interesting anymore. And then he throws in some unnecessary political scandal-mongering, and you realise it won’t get any better. (You could argue that that’s an achievement all by itself, but you’d be missing the point.) So contrived is the plot that every time Crowe and Gosling stumble over another clue and head off to make things worse, it doesn’t make any difference: anyone watching is just being carried along for the ride – and you don’t care where they (and you) end up.

So, The Nice Guys isn’t quite the triumph we were hoping for. It also makes you think of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang more than once as it drags itself along looking for an interesting enough plot to hook itself up to. Gosling is the new Robert Downey Jr, while Crowe is the new Val Kilmer (minus the gay characterisation). There are parties to attend, villains stalking the heroes, and a female character who appears to be dead but might not be. Black changes much more than he repeats, but the echoes are there, and they’re enough to make you wonder if The Nice Guys was conceived as a companion piece to Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, or if Black was thinking, “Well, it worked last time…”

However, the movie does have Crowe and Gosling as its trump card(s). Whoever thought that they’d make a great double act should be given the keys to Tinsel Town, because it is an inspired piece of casting. Crowe’s gruff, no-nonsense character we’ve seen before, but here he distills it down to its pure essence and then adds a thin layer of impish humour to boost it back up. He’s ostensibly the straight man, but thanks to Black, Crowe gets to deliver some of the movie’s drier, more acid-tinged humour, and sometimes with just a look. It’s been a while since Crowe had a role he could do real justice to, but Jackson Healy is it, and he grabs the opportunity with both hands (he looks more relaxed than we’ve seen him for a long while, as well).

If Crowe is the straight man then Gosling is definitely the funny man. He’s not known for his comedy roles, but as the cowardly, avaricious Holland March, Gosling judges his performance perfectly, squealing and flinching at the drop of a hat, and generally embarrassing his young daughter, Holly (a terrific performance by Rice). Watching him react to the several physical liberties that March is prone to during the movie is immensely rewarding, and again, thanks to Black’s way with clever dialogue, makes March’s innate stupidity more endearing than annoying (he refers to Hitler at one point as a “munich” because he had one ball). Like Crowe, Gosling looks entirely comfortable in his role, and the enjoyment both are having transfers itself to the viewer.

1977 is recreated with a great sense of fun – watch out for the billboards advertising that year’s Jaws 2 and Airport ’77 – and the movie opens with a reminder that the Hollywood sign didn’t always look so good back then; it also serves as an indication of the level of corruption that our “nice guys” will be getting involved with. The movie is given a level of off-kilter glamour thanks to the prowess of DoP Philippe Rousselot, and alongside John Ottman and David Buckley’s original score there’s a veritable hit parade of Seventies music to get down and groove to. Now, what was it all about again…?

Rating: 7/10 – despite letting itself down plot-wise, The Nice Guys should still be seen by anyone with an interest in clever storytelling and finely crafted dialogue; Black is still an inventive, ingenious writer/director, and there’s still much to enjoy from start to finish, but this is one movie that tries hard – sometimes too hard – to make itself more intriguing and engrossing than it actually is.