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Hmm, where to start? I gather that this movie has been somewhat controversial, though happily I was completely oblivious to that before seeing it. My housemate and I went last night, having seen the trailer and anticipated a gently humorous film about relationships and two hours of gazing at Robert Pattinson. For the most part, that's what we got. There was more angst than expected as all the characters are [not] dealing with the loss of a murdered or suicided loved one, but they all felt real and the Pattinson character's little sister was a delight. On those terms the movie works pretty well.
Well, it worked for me, anyhow, for several reasons, some intrinsic to the film (the characters all felt real) and some more personal (I tend to find any film about early 20-something life especially poignant, as in my own life that was a time suffused with hope and freedom that I've rarely felt since).
I went into the movie with only two spoilers - Roger Ebert's review, and a vague conversation I overheard on a train that suggested that it was not going to end happily. I was half-way through the movie before I realised what was going to happen (in retrospect it seems obvious, but the year of that date isn't as etched into my mind as it might have been if I were American). So I'd opened myself up to the characters, without barricading myself against their impending fate, and that the last fifteen minutes leading up to said fate were some of the most intense I've spent in a cinema - heightened by knowing that my friend beside me was completely oblivious to what was about to happen.
So, it was certainly powerful. But it is exploitative? I spent a while last night reading various reviews, and it seems to me that whether people approve or not depends on where they think the focus of the film is. There are those who see it as a worthy memorial to 9/11, a celebration of the ordinary lives that were cut short, and a way of bringing 9/11 home for those of Pattinson's fans who are too young to really remember it. Then there are those who regard the movie as a romance that uses 9/11 to invest itself with more meaning than it would have on its own.
And then there's Roger Ebert, who appears to object to a plot whose 'resolution' is extraneous to what is gone before: "People meet, maybe they fall in love, maybe they don't, maybe they're happy, maybe they're sad. That's life. If, let us say, a refrigerator falls out of a window and squishes one of them, that's life, too, but it's not a story many people want to see."
I disagree with that last bit. In my late teens/early twenties, that is EXACTLY the movie I wanted to see. I remember being outraged at Pretty Woman because it made everything seem so easy. Dealing as I was with the aftermath of my first unrequited fall into love, a 'happily ever after' film had zero to say to me. 'Sometimes life doesn't work the way we hope because of things completely out of our control' seems like a reasonable movie to me. As JKR said, sometimes death is senseless.
So as far as I'm concerned, the sudden cutting off of hope just as it was about to blossom again works dramatically. Was it necessary to use 9/11 to do it, though? I'm not sure of the intent of the filmmakers: there was too much foreshadowing in the script and - especially - the music for the sudden death to really seem sudden. How much more powerful might it have been to have the music swelling for an emotional resolution between Tyler and his father instead of Presaging Doom, for it to give us the message that finally his life is back on track and that the future is bright, before the refrigerator fell out or nowhere? But then the suddenness would have risked seeming comedic - even as it was, a couple of people in our screening laughed. And if they hadn't foreshadowed, it would have felt more like the cheat ending some are accusing it of.
Alternatively they could have easily dealt the final blow in the form of, say, a car crash. But I think that would have lacked finality - the perpetrator would have been more in reach and given those grieving a focus for their anger. Coming up against something as huge as 9/11, all they can do is try to rebuild their lives as best they can, which is what they have been trying to do for the whole movie. So I think it works in terms of the narrative.
Is using 9/11 in this way disrespectful to those who died? I don't believe so, though I can see why people might take offense. In any case, I read that the scriptwriter was inspired by the accounts of the lives of real people who died that day, so I tend to believe that he didn't mean it disrespectfully or as a cynical way of trying to jerk more tears out of the audience. But that means that the whole film needs to be regarded in relation to its ending, which risks overshadowing what comes before to such an extent that it can't work in the way it worked for me.
As Ebert says: This isn't the plot for a love story, it's the plot for a Greek tragedy. It may be true, as King Lear tells us, that as flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods. But we don't want to think ourselves as flies, or see fly love stories. Bring on the eagles.
But we are flies, most of us, and the contradictory nature of the film makes the audience face that. It doesn't have to be a case of 'the love story serves as a worthy memorial' vs 'the love story tries to appropriate a tragedy to bolster its own importance'. The ending seems to overshadow the film because we want to believe that the lives we have immersed ourselves for two hours are significant, and then suddenly it seems that they are not. But all lives are significant to those who live them, whether or not they will be deemed 'important' in national or global affairs. The film presents a story of an ordinary life ended by an extraordinary event, and the very controversy it has generated serves to challenge our notion of what's 'important'.
ETA:
Interview with the screenwriter here.
Interesting essay on the movie and the reactions to it.
Well, it worked for me, anyhow, for several reasons, some intrinsic to the film (the characters all felt real) and some more personal (I tend to find any film about early 20-something life especially poignant, as in my own life that was a time suffused with hope and freedom that I've rarely felt since).
I went into the movie with only two spoilers - Roger Ebert's review, and a vague conversation I overheard on a train that suggested that it was not going to end happily. I was half-way through the movie before I realised what was going to happen (in retrospect it seems obvious, but the year of that date isn't as etched into my mind as it might have been if I were American). So I'd opened myself up to the characters, without barricading myself against their impending fate, and that the last fifteen minutes leading up to said fate were some of the most intense I've spent in a cinema - heightened by knowing that my friend beside me was completely oblivious to what was about to happen.
So, it was certainly powerful. But it is exploitative? I spent a while last night reading various reviews, and it seems to me that whether people approve or not depends on where they think the focus of the film is. There are those who see it as a worthy memorial to 9/11, a celebration of the ordinary lives that were cut short, and a way of bringing 9/11 home for those of Pattinson's fans who are too young to really remember it. Then there are those who regard the movie as a romance that uses 9/11 to invest itself with more meaning than it would have on its own.
And then there's Roger Ebert, who appears to object to a plot whose 'resolution' is extraneous to what is gone before: "People meet, maybe they fall in love, maybe they don't, maybe they're happy, maybe they're sad. That's life. If, let us say, a refrigerator falls out of a window and squishes one of them, that's life, too, but it's not a story many people want to see."
I disagree with that last bit. In my late teens/early twenties, that is EXACTLY the movie I wanted to see. I remember being outraged at Pretty Woman because it made everything seem so easy. Dealing as I was with the aftermath of my first unrequited fall into love, a 'happily ever after' film had zero to say to me. 'Sometimes life doesn't work the way we hope because of things completely out of our control' seems like a reasonable movie to me. As JKR said, sometimes death is senseless.
So as far as I'm concerned, the sudden cutting off of hope just as it was about to blossom again works dramatically. Was it necessary to use 9/11 to do it, though? I'm not sure of the intent of the filmmakers: there was too much foreshadowing in the script and - especially - the music for the sudden death to really seem sudden. How much more powerful might it have been to have the music swelling for an emotional resolution between Tyler and his father instead of Presaging Doom, for it to give us the message that finally his life is back on track and that the future is bright, before the refrigerator fell out or nowhere? But then the suddenness would have risked seeming comedic - even as it was, a couple of people in our screening laughed. And if they hadn't foreshadowed, it would have felt more like the cheat ending some are accusing it of.
Alternatively they could have easily dealt the final blow in the form of, say, a car crash. But I think that would have lacked finality - the perpetrator would have been more in reach and given those grieving a focus for their anger. Coming up against something as huge as 9/11, all they can do is try to rebuild their lives as best they can, which is what they have been trying to do for the whole movie. So I think it works in terms of the narrative.
Is using 9/11 in this way disrespectful to those who died? I don't believe so, though I can see why people might take offense. In any case, I read that the scriptwriter was inspired by the accounts of the lives of real people who died that day, so I tend to believe that he didn't mean it disrespectfully or as a cynical way of trying to jerk more tears out of the audience. But that means that the whole film needs to be regarded in relation to its ending, which risks overshadowing what comes before to such an extent that it can't work in the way it worked for me.
As Ebert says: This isn't the plot for a love story, it's the plot for a Greek tragedy. It may be true, as King Lear tells us, that as flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods. But we don't want to think ourselves as flies, or see fly love stories. Bring on the eagles.
But we are flies, most of us, and the contradictory nature of the film makes the audience face that. It doesn't have to be a case of 'the love story serves as a worthy memorial' vs 'the love story tries to appropriate a tragedy to bolster its own importance'. The ending seems to overshadow the film because we want to believe that the lives we have immersed ourselves for two hours are significant, and then suddenly it seems that they are not. But all lives are significant to those who live them, whether or not they will be deemed 'important' in national or global affairs. The film presents a story of an ordinary life ended by an extraordinary event, and the very controversy it has generated serves to challenge our notion of what's 'important'.
ETA:
Interview with the screenwriter here.
Interesting essay on the movie and the reactions to it.
