Get a Job (2016)

27 Sunday Mar 2016

Tags

Advertising, Alison Brie, Anna Kendrick, Bryan Cranston, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Comedy, Dylan Kidd, iStalkYou, Job hunting, Marcia Gay Harden, Miles Teller, Review, Teaching, The Decision Maker, Videos

D: Dylan Kidd / 83m

Cast: Miles Teller, Anna Kendrick, Bryan Cranston, Nicholas Braun, Brandon T. Jackson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Marcia Gay Harden, Alison Brie, Jay Pharaoh, Bruce Davison, Cameron Richardson, Greg Germann, Jorge Garcia, John C. McGinley, Seth Morris, John Cho

Be yourself. The movies are always telling us to be ourselves. If we do that then the world is our oyster, and we can achieve anything. But what if your name is Miles Teller? What if, back in 2014 you appeared in a movie called Whiplash, and right at that moment when the world was your oyster and you were on the brink of achieving anything, what would you do next? Would you capitalise on the recognition you’ve received as a dramatic actor and use it to land bigger, better roles? Or would you continue making comedies (romantic and straightforward), or would you try something a little different?

Since Whiplash, Teller’s cinematic output has been patchy at best. He’s appeared in all three Divergent movies (albeit in a supporting role), a romantic comedy, Two Night Stand (2014), an out-and-out comedy, That Awkward Moment (2014), and some superhero movie it’s best not to talk about. Later this year he’ll be back on funny man duties with Jonah Hill in War Dogs. It won’t be until either much later this year or in 2017 that we’ll see Teller in serious mode again. In the meantime, we have another comedy to wade through, the sporadically amusing Get a Job, a movie that feels like the kind of project Teller should have been making at the start of his career.

He plays Will Davis, recently graduated and with a job at a local newspaper. His specialty is video reviews, but he’s soon fired thanks to cutbacks. Looking around for a job that suits him he ends up working for a recruitment firm that specialises in making video CVs for professionals looking to make an impression on potential employers. Meanwhile his father, Roger (Cranston) also finds himself out of a job after thirty years. He quickly identifies an ideal job for his skills, but he can’t get to the one man who has the power to say yes or no, the fabled decision maker. And while the Davis men face a variety of obstacles both in and out of work, Will’s friends – stoner Charlie (Braun), commodities broker Luke (Jackson), and sleazy app designer Ethan (Mintz-Plasse) – have similar problems navigating the choppy waters of employment. And then Will’s girlfriend, Jillian (Kendrick), also loses her job.

Right from the movie’s start it’s clear that the script by Kyle Pennekamp and Scott Turpel isn’t going to be as tightly constructed or relevant to today’s modern day job market as it may have intended, and actually that’s okay. Get a Job is a piece of fluff, an inconsequential movie whose message – be yourself, remember? – floats on the surface of its semi-humorous approach to job-seeking. It’s a movie to be watched when there’s nothing better on, or when you need to switch off your brain and let a movie just wash over you. And thanks to Messrs Pennekamp and Turpel, along with the movie’s director, that’s exactly what you get.

But even inconsequential movies need to entertain, and Get a Job drops the ball too often to succeed. Three things we’re meant to find funny: Will taking dexedrine in order to work late(!) and behaving manically; Luke being coerced into drinking deer sperm to get ahead at work; and Ethan’s pervy iStalkYou app, that lets the user find someone even if they don’t want to be. With these and many more uneven attempts at provoking laughter, the movie is in constant search of a consistent comedic tone, and while there are some occasions when it’s successful, it does so against the odds. Teller and Kendrick are old hands at this sort of thing but even they can’t drag the material out of the rut it imposes on itself. The only cast member who seems to have the measure of things is Cranston; next to everyone else his is the only character whose situation you can sympathise with, and whose performance is actually enjoyable.

And like a lot of modern comedies, the viewer isn’t invited to like the characters in the movie, or even get to know them. They all have prescribed character arcs, and they all face challenges that are meant to show they can grow and be responsible as they take on adult roles. And although there is a definite “be yourself” vibe, and one that the movie maintains throughout, ultimately it’s done in such a conservative way that the message is worthless. Like so many other movies of its ilk, what Get a Job is really saying is be yourself for a while but only until regular society says it’s time to put that behind you, and be like everyone else. (American movies celebrate the individual with such persuasion.)

The movie also falls back on too many tried and trusted scenarios to be fresh enough to work (ironically). Will has a boss, Katherine (Harden), who proves to be a ballbuster, but a fortunate discovery redresses the balance; Jillian won’t smoke from a bong – until the script decides she has to; Charlie appears to have no clue about being a teacher but he turns out to be inspirational; and Will’s early encounter with a pimp (Pharaoh) proves to be the most important working connection he ever makes. The performances, with many of the cast treading water (and with Teller and Kendrick proving the main offenders), are adequate without being memorable, and many scenes fall flat as a result.

Overseeing everything, Kidd doesn’t seem able to add any panache to proceedings, leaving the movie to coast along in its own wake, or run aground when the script loses momentum. However, there is one moment where the movie makes a relevant observation: when Jillian tells Will she’s been let go she mentions that she’s ninety thousand dollars in debt, no doubt a reference to the student loans she took out in order to get through college and/or university. It’s a throwaway comment, but it’s a better angle for a movie than the one used here.

Rating: 5/10 – the kind of movie that looks as if it’s a contractual obligation for all concerned, Get a Job could be retitled Get a Grip, or Get a Move On, or even Get a Life, such are the various ways it approaches its basic storyline; formulaic and only mildly amusing, it’s a movie that doesn’t really try too hard, but when it does, the extra effort doesn’t add up to much.

Grandma (2015)

29 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Abortion, Bereavement, Comedy, Granddaughter, Grandmother, Judy Greer, Julia Garner, Lesbian, Lily Tomlin, Marcia Gay Harden, Paul Weitz, Relationships, Review, Sam Elliott

D: Paul Weitz / 78m

Cast: Lily Tomlin, Julia Garner, Marcia Gay Harden, Judy Greer, Sam Elliott, Laverne Cox, Elizabeth Peña, Nat Wolff, Lauren Tom

Elle Reid (Tomlin) is a once well-known poet. She’s also a lesbian whose long-term partner has recently passed away. She has a daughter, Judy (Harden), she isn’t on very good terms with. She’s grouchy, antagonistic and caustic as the mood takes her. She’s also just shown the door – horribly – to Olivia (Greer) whom she’s been in a relationship with for four months. And now she’s visited by her granddaughter Sage (Garner) who’s pregnant and needs $630 for an abortion by five forty-five that evening. No wonder she’s so unapologetically cranky.

Elle has another reason to be in a bad mood: thanks to an attack of principles she’s cut up her credit card and used it as a wind chime, so she can’t give Sage the money she needs. To make up for this selfish crime against modern day living, Elle agrees to help Sage find the money from other sources. First they visit Sage’s boyfriend, Cam (Wolff), where his aggressive and disrespectful attitude to Elle leads to some unexpected violence and the accrual of $50. From there they try to call in a loan from one of Elle’s friends, Deathy (Cox), but that only nets $65. When Elle next tries to sell some of her first edition books (even though they’re not in the best of condition), that plan backfires when Olivia appears on the scene and an argument ensues. With time running out, Elle decides she has to take a risk and visit an old flame, Karl (Elliott). At first Karl seems amenable to lending Elle the remaining $515 but their shared history ruins things and he refuses. This leaves Elle and Sage with only one remaining option: they have to see Judy and ask for her help, even though she and Elle are effectively estranged and she has no idea that Sage is pregnant (Elle also tells Sage that she’s afraid of Judy and has been since she was five).

It should take the viewer roughly two minutes of Grandma‘s running time to see why Lily Tomlin signed up to play Elle. In keeping with her literary background, and doing her best to end her relationship with Olivia as quickly as possible, Elle refers to her as “a footnote”. It’s an unnecessarily cruel remark, and Tomlin delivers it casually, as if it were of no more significance than if Elle had called Olivia a terrible lay, or a boring conversationalist. And from that nasty remark, and Elle’s adamant refusal to apologise, the viewer can see that spending time with Elle is going to be made all the more enjoyable thanks to Tomlin’s acid dry performance. Yes, she’s unconscionably horrid at times, and yes she does her best to belittle the people she despises (which seems to be everyone outside of Sage and Deathy), but it’s Elle’s acerbic, take-no-prisoners attitude that is so ironically appealing, and Tomlin knows this. And knowing this she grabs the role in both hands and has a high old time with it.

But Tomlin’s performance isn’t the whole movie, and thanks to Weitz’s command of his own script, Elle isn’t allowed to overwhelm the other characters, and she doesn’t get all the best moments. And it’s not just about one woman’s misanthropic attitude to the world around her, but the ruptured family dynamics that keep her alone following the death of her partner, and how her being needed leads to a reconciliation that everyone is a part of. This gives the movie the heart it needs to balance Elle’s angry behaviour, and leavens the nihilism she seems to revel in. Without it, Grandma would still be funny, absorbing even, but it wouldn’t be anywhere near as rewarding.

Weitz is back on form after a string of less than fully realised movies – Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant (2009) and Little Fockers (2010) to name but two – and he creates a sympathetic storyline to hang his characters from, as well as making each encounter on the road to Judy’s office as grounded and credible as possible while also indulging Elle’s astringent nature. The outcome of the trip to see Karl is a particular highlight, adding a layer of unexpected poignancy to a situation that some viewers might not see coming until it’s there. It also gives Elliott the chance to show just how good an actor he is, and if Grandma has no other impact than to open the doors for Elliott to give further, equally moving performances then his appearance here will have been entirely worth it.

By carefully balancing the inherent pathos and humour of Sage’s “situation”, Weitz also gets to poke fun at the American public’s antipathy to hearing the emotive word “abortion”. Elle and Sage are ejected from a coffee shop (that used to be a free clinic) thanks to Elle bemoaning out loud the clinic’s passing – “Where can you get a reasonably priced abortion in this town?” The word is used liberally throughout, and as an accurate description of the procedure Sage needs to have it’s entirely in context, but Weitz refuses to sugar coat the situation, and it’s to the movie’s credit that when Elle and Sage do encounter a pro-lifer (and her young daughter), their position isn’t criticised or lampooned, but instead is used to provide one of the movie’s best laughs.

With Weitz so assured in the handling of the material, his cast are free to provide fully rounded characters that you can empathise with and support (except for Cam, naturally). Tomlin, as mentioned before, is on superb form, and is ably supported by Garner who gives Sage a wistful nature that makes it seem as if she’s always working things out in her head, but is just a little bit too slow in doing so (“Screw you”). Harden pitches up in the final third and does sterling work as the mother who can’t quite work out why her daughter is afraid to tell her she’s pregnant when she has such a distant relationship with her own mother. Greer has a handful of scenes as the jilted Olivia and displays the character’s dismay and pain at being rejected with aplomb, her need to know the real reason for her dismissal a necessary challenge to Elle’s self-centred arrogance.

Grandma is a movie that it would be easy to overlook, sounding as it does like an indie chick-flick for the generationally unbiased. That it’s profoundly moving in places, riotously funny in others, and completely charming all the way through is more than enough to recommend it. It’s short, sweet, avoids a lot of the clichés associated with the subject of abortion, features a cast who are behind Weitz all the way, and is just plain terrific.

Rating: 9/10 – one of the smarter, funnier, more enjoyable comedies of 2015, Grandma is a small-scale joy that deserves to be seen by as wide an audience as possible; and let’s say it again, and louder this time: “Where can you get a reasonably priced abortion in this town?”