The last three movies I’ve seen are quite different from each other. One is an epic 3-hour capper to an even more epic 22-film saga with a near $400-million budget. One is a Netflix joint put together by some of our finest comedic actresses. The third is a $40 million mid-major romantic comedy Hollywood rarely makes anymore.
And I deeply enjoyed them all.
But a funny thing happened in talking about all three of these movies with my friends: I immediately felt like I needed to express my awareness of their possible shortcomings. I robbed myself of some of the joy in the event my recommendation would boomerang back to me in the appearance of a giant, blaring “How did you not see this?” question.
It took me a while to realize just how much I was doing this until I ran into this Twitter thread from Kate Leth this morning:
With Avengers: Endgame, I greatly enjoyed it. Did some of the jokes fall flat for me? Sure. Did I find the time-traveling confusing, even as they were trying to preemptively convince the audience every other time-traveling movie was full of shit? Absolutely. Did I find myself exhausted at the idea of a massive 40-minute CGI-filled battle with big bad? You bet I did. And did I feel like they may have tripped at the finish line a bit with Captain America’s final moment by making the audience burn too many time travel logic brain calories when they should have been letting their own heart do all the work? Most definitely.
But I also loved so much about this movie. The ballsiness in chopping of Thanos’ head so soon in the movie (don’t worry; he still is in the rest of the flick). The glimpse into an MCU/Leftovers crossover. Smart Hulk with his hipster glasses and sweater. The truly clever, truly inspired time travel mission that allowed the characters to peek into their old movies and fight their older selves. The admirable way the screenwriters were able to structure this gargantuan movie and still find the time and intention to let Tony Stark have a conversation with his father that beautifully laid out the one true and necessary choice Stark would have to make himself.
So yes, I very much enjoyed Endgame.
I wondered before seeing Wine Country if it would be Amy Poehler’s response to Adam Sandler’s Grown Ups movies. Where they gather a group of comedian friends together at a nice location and make a barely-there movie fully of silly humor, quality be damned. Sure enough, Maya Rudolph at one point called Amy from the set of Grown Ups and basically said, “Girl, why can’t we make one of these hangout movies ourselves?”.
Did I find Poehler partaking in some of those typical first-time director moments of crazy shots that don’t flow with the rest of the cinematic language? Sure. Did some of the jokes fall flat for me? Totally. Did I squint for a good chunk of the last third of the movie at the screen, wondering if they were actually acting against greenscreen while my brain kept telling me they were shooting on location? Definitely.
Still, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie.
There is so much to celebrate. Everything about the Brene Brown cameo: the way they equated her as a Big Deal comparable to any other major film star; the specific questions they all asked related to her work; the way they all took the hint and quickly backed off when Brown mentioned ‘boundaries’. The way the few male characters are barely peripheral characters with no real impact on the plot (which we’ve seen done with women in so many male-driven comedies). The emotional punches the characters land throughout, and how they legit are grappling with real questions and struggles anyone can relate to. Paula Pell, who needs to be in a lot more stuff. And even if some jokes don’t quite hit, there’s an awful lot that do; it’s a very smart, hilarious group of women that make up the center of this film.
The first ten minutes of Long Shot play out aggressively, with a reality-breaking pratfall that just did NOT work for me. Beyond that, some jokes fell flat. Some story decisions felt kinda weird. I wasn’t sure I really needed to see molly used in ANOTHER movie (although the way it ends with Theron’s phone call is fantastic comedic acting on her part).
But guess what? I really, really liked this movie. It felt like a slightly-less elegant but nearly as charming American President for 2019. So much of it just totally worked for me: the chemistry between Theron and Seth Rogen. The soundtrack. Some truly inspired lines that I will remember for quite some time. A rather astonishing and hilarious turn by a barely-recognizable Andy Serkis. Bob Odenkirk giving us an American President torn straight from a Mr. Show sketch. O’Shea Jackson Jr’s revealing monologue reprimanding Rogen for being so damn assuming and judgmental.
Some of the knee-jerk defensiveness feels like having opening too many windows. Like our thoughts and feelings about things are an office high above the noise of the city, papers stacked upon an ever-expanding table. Each window that opens comes with the possibility of refreshing air – that feeling we get when we’re high on view-shifting conversation – but also with the possibility of a strong gust of wind that’s gonna blow all those papers into a confetti party. Sometimes we want the confetti, sometimes we want to keep things a little more under control. Sometimes we just wanna keep the windows closed and admire the view.
I suspect, once I log off of Twitter a little bit more and the dust dies down, these three movies are going to be talked about for a while. Not because of Endgame’s crazy box office haul. Not because Netflix won’t release viewing numbers on Wine Country. And not because Long Shot predicts anything of our 2020 election.
It will be because all three movies recognize the relationships at the heart of them and give them a great deal of attention.
Recently, through an episode of the (excellent) Scriptnotes podcast with screenwriters John August and Craig Mazin, I stumbled into an article about script doctor/producer Lindsay Dorin. To make a long story short, Dorin wondered for years why formula storytelling was formula storytelling, why certain movies connected with and satisfied audiences and others didn’t. After reading a book, Flourish, she stumbled into some clear-headed understandings about just how important relationships are in movies.
For example, Doran found that men and women processed the end goal differently. That the male view focused more on the specific goal/accomplishment (Endgame) whereas female relationship movies end with the characters realizing the relationships are more important than any accomplishment (Wine Country). Long Shot represents something that goes straight down the middle: the characters accomplish something together after recognizing the importance of and making sacrifices for their relationship.
What Doran also found is:
“…the accomplishment the audience values most is not when the heroine saves the day or the hero defeats his opponent.” Instead, she said, “the accomplishment the audience values most is resilience.”
Endgame is all about our heroes dealing with failure that left half the world missing and finding a way to get back up to bat. Wine Country doesn’t even pretend these women have it all figured out; just that they’re gonna try with a new focus. And Long Shot nearly wrecks the story (and movie) with quite a long shot of a story beat towards the end, which leads to our main, broken relationship bouncing back to life.
I can forgive a lot of time-travel bullshittery with Endgame because it truly understands how much it needs to land those emotional beats. And even if the dismount is not entirely a Perfect 10, it’s just close enough that we won’t even really see the feet moving or the slight buckle of the knees.
I can forgive nearly all of what doesn’t work with Wine Country because I so love all of these women and their relationships with each other. It’s pretty obvious the pizza place they all used to work at in the movie is a stand-in for the comedy world the actresses and writers all came up in. It’s clear these women have been close friends for a long time, and it’s beautiful how they recognize just how much they are hurting each other and themselves with what they’re not willing to confront. When they’re all in the hospital, making sure Maya Rudolph’s character makes a really important phone call she’s been avoiding the whole movie? That made the movie for me. I wanted to see them resolve – or at least confront – their personal and group issues. I wanted them to use their Brene Brown research and be vulnerable – to go together into the darker corners of life where the outcome isn’t known. And they did. And it was awesome.
Your mileage may vary with the relationship Theron and Rogen strike up in Long Shot, but I was in it all the way. I loved the way they challenged each other. The way they genuinely wanted to push each other to a better self they truly believed existed. I loved the way they honored the insecurities that such a situation would create and the messy way they navigate it. And by the end, when Theron is in Rogen’s apartment, tear-stricken and wanting them to repair what had been broken, I BELIEVED IT. I rooted for them. And the movie followed that up with the really smart thing of allowing us to see them share a very cool accomplishment together.
It’s more than okay to say you thoroughly enjoy a movie and not feel like defending it or pulling it apart. Just like it’s more than okay to say you love your family or your friends even if they drive you crazy in a bunch of different ways that you’d rather not get into. Living in an outrage culture of “I enjoy this, BUT” statements is exhausting and diminishes the joy and satisfaction we could feel. We can enjoy things despite their shortcomings. We can even enjoy these things because of their shortcomings. The love is still there, whether we feel like talking about it or not.
