Tag: Comedy

‘Friends with Kids’: Witty & Touching…But Is It a Feminist Extravaganza?

Adam Scott and Jennifer Westfeldt in ‘Friends with Kids’

I was deliriously drunk with excitement to see Friends with Kids. I mean, a film starring Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Jon Hamm AND written and directed by a woman?? And not just any woman but writer Jennifer Westfeldt?! Yes, please!  And yes, it’s funny. Really funny. I laughed so hard my face hurt. Literally. Oh, and of course I cried. It’s not a complete movie-going experience unless I’ve devolved into a sobbing hot mess. But did it live up to my feminist expectations?
Westfeldt plays cheery, talkative and self-deprecating Julie who’s best friends with Jason (Adam Scott) a fantastic loyal friend who happens to be an objectifying womanizer in his dating life. Julie and Jason are the kind of besties who live in the same apartment building, have known each other forever, can finish each other’s sentences and continually debate hypothetical situations such as which is the best way to die.
After their circle of friends (Maya Rudoph, Chris O’Dowd, Kristen Wiig, Jon Hamm) get married and have babies, Julie and Jason witness the decline of spontaneity, romance and apparent happiness in the couples’ lives. Both Julie and Jason want a baby but they don’t want to lose romance. What if they could have a child but skip that part? Why must you have a baby with the same person you’re romantically involved with? And so they decide to have a baby together while remaining platonic friends.
Not only did she star in the film, Westfeldt also wrote, directed and produced Friends with Kids, which also happens to be the first film from Westfeldt and partner Jon Hamm’s production company. The writing (Westfeldt drew upon her own personal experiences with friends) is sharp, intelligent and witty. The two leads banter with ease. Westfeldt is super likeable and if you adore Scott as Leslie Knope’s adorbs BF Ben Wyatt (um, yes, yes I do!!), you’re going to loooove him here. He’s fricking hilarious. Westfeldt wanted the dinner scenes where all 6 of the friends sit around and talk to echo those in Hannah and Her Sisters. And those feel effortlessly authentic. But don’t let the posters and trailer fool you. If you’re going to see this supposedly ensemble film because of Wiig, Rudolph and Hamm, you might be disappointed. There’s just not enough of them in the movie. But maybe I’m greedy.
As the film unfolds, it encompasses shades of light and dark as it explores the characters’ lives. It’s funny yet brutally honest, never pulling any punches about life including babies with explosive diarrhea, stinging (sometimes cruel) spousal arguments and juggling romantic relationships while being a parent. It felt like a raunchier When Harry Met Sally… had a baby with a more mature Sex and the City.
I loved that Friends with Kids showcases different women and mothers at different stages of their lives. We see Leslie (Maya Rudolph) and Alex (Chris O’Dowd) bicker but in a joking and loving union. Leslie’s a loving and supportive friend to Julie, comforting her when she’s down and forever trying to set her up with a man, whether it’s a criminal or a hunky dad (Ed Burns). Sidebar, Julie’s singledom isn’t a death knell, people. There’s nothing wrong with being single! We see a different marriage in Missy (Kristen Wiig) and Ben (Jon Hamm). When they’re newlyweds, they can’t keep their hands off each other. After kids, they’re exasperated and miserable. It’s sad but realistic watching their marriage unravel. Whether she’s uttering a witty quip or evoking her character’s inner turmoil and pain (her scene standing in the window…dagger in the heart), Wiig makes every moment count.
Beyond the three female friends, we also see MJ (Megan Fox), a self-described “gypsy” free spirit dancer openly states she never wants kids. Yet she’s refreshingly never demonized for her choice. We also see Julie’s and Jason’s mothers: one who adores her child and dotes on her grandchild, the other swoops in at the baby’s birth leaving a check and then swoops out again.
Westfeldt’s 3 films that she’s written all tackle relationships from a unique angle differing from the societal norm. The unconventional exploration of parenthood is an intriguing premise. As Westfeldt told Melissa Silverstein at Women and Hollywood:
“…I’ve never understood why things always have to be just one way when I’ve seen so many people in my life struggle tremendously to fit into those boxes or to live up to those expectations or pressures put upon them by whatever society’s concept of ‘normal’ is…I’m frustrated by things that are exclusive to one particular life choice…I think that, in all three of my films, I’ve been trying to explore these different milestones, and the idea that there are a lot of valid ways to live your life and make decisions to find happiness on your own terms.”

I love that Westfeldt questions and explores individual paths to happiness. It’s refreshing to witness Julie and Jason as single parents yet parenting as an egalitarian team. While the friends all outwardly support Julie and Jason, only Alex (the adorbs Chris O’Dowd) actually thinks it’s a great idea. In fact, Julie and Jason’s parenting decision offends Leslie (Rudolph). She believes it’s “insulting” to their “way of life,” “to all normal people who struggle and make sacrifices and make commitments to make a relationship work.” Her teddy bear husband Alex responds with the humorous line, “We’re not Mormons or old-timey people. We don’t exactly have a way of life, babe.” While she pokes fun at everyone, Westfeldt never vilifies married parents or single people. Her film evokes the message that you never know where your choices in life will take you.
As someone in their 30s who isn’t married, doesn’t have kids and doesn’t want kids, I’m always glad to see alternative lifestyles. Although to be honest, the more radical choice would’ve been to depict a childless woman who wants to be childless rather than succumbs to the stereotypical ticking biological clock. But hey, at least we’re seeing a single mother in a favorable light…that’s a huge step. It also would have been great to see greater diversity, such as gay or lesbian parents or more people of color (I mean this is NYC, c’mon!), although I’m glad to see a woman of color (Rudolph) in the film.
While Westfeldt depicts complex female characters, I wish she had delved deeper into the female relationships. Instead, she chooses to focus on the romantic aspect of the comedy. Which is fine of course, in fact that component is quite compelling although at times conventional. And I’m delighted Julie doesn’t wait around for a man or the perfect scenario to lead her life. But as awesome as Friends with Kids is, there’s just not enough lady interaction. No real sisterhood or female bonding.
Considering that Kissing Jessica Stein, Westfeldt’s first screenplay and her breakout role, a wonderful romantic comedy of a straight and bisexual woman who enter a relationship together, passes the Bechdel test repeatedly, I assumed Friends with Kids would too. But it just barely does. The only times we see two women talking together are when Julie cries to Leslie about Jason dating, when Julie’s mom tells her that she’d love to babysit more, and when Jason introduces MJ to Julie and Julie tells her that she feels like she knows her cause she’s washed her thongs (ha!). In two of those three scenes, women might be talking to women but they’re talking about men. Even one of the most pivotal scenes, a verbal showdown at dinner on a ski trip, happens between Jason and Ben…two dudes.
Why must almost every film, even awesome movies starring and created by amazingly strong and talented women, perpetually revolve around men?
When a film is written and directed by a woman who launched her career on a pretty feminist film, my expectations for her directorial debut are high. Friends with Kids is a touching and hilarious film. And Westfeldt is an incredibly talented writer and director with a knack for capturing nuanced dialogue and raising thought-provoking questions. For a movie created by a woman who believes we should support female filmmakers and women’s voices, I just wish it had been the feminist extravaganza I had hoped and envisioned.

‘Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23:’ The Upcoming TV Show and the B Word

ABC’s upcoming show (premieres April), ‘Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23’
Written by scATX. Originally published at scATX: Speakers Corner in the ATX. Cross-posted with permission.
Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23 – That would be the title of ABC’s newest sitcom. According to Entertainment Weekly:
“The story is about a naive young woman who comes to New York City and ends up with a trouble-making party-girl roommate.”
This sounds so fun.  I love when American pop culture makes fun of the ladies! As one of the commenters at Entertainment Weekly said: “How about “Don’t Trust the M–F–ing C– Wh-re in Apartment 23″?” Or as another put it: “What’s wrong with Don’t Trust the Girl in Apartment 23. That would have gotten my attention too, either way it’s an unusual title.” I don’t think they meant “unusual”, though. I think they meant “offensive.”
There are, of course, plenty of supporters for this. As some dude there argued: “The ABC sitcom DTTBIA23 doesn’t offend me. I’m a male with a sense of humor though. If the title is a female’s perspective of another female, the show could have catty, campy potential.” And then there’s this gem of an observation: “Watch shows like The Office or 30 Rock or Arrested Development and you will understand why it’s sometimes okay to be racist or sexist for comedy. When you do it right, it’s more funny than it is offensive. This title is risque, yes, but funny at the same time.”
I mean, after reading these comments about people’s reaction to the TITLE of this show, I can’t possibly see why anyone would be offended that ABC would back such a project. I mean, dudes with senses of humor get it. And it is okay to be racist and sexist in comedy. Sheesh.
______________
In case you are wondering what is wrong with using the word “bitch” in this way, check out Shakesville’s take on using the word “bitch” (and the word “cunt”) as an insult. But, you know, it is encapsulated by this:
“…demeaning and marginalizing sexist language has the capacity to make women feel demeaned and marginalized.”

The title is making fun of a woman for her lifestyle of “partying”. It is an insult. It is a particularly gendered insult, one that can only be lobbied at a woman. Because if you call a man a “bitch”, it’s an effective insult in that you are calling him a slur that is used to cut down women, so he’s not only a mean person but a feminine one, too. And we all know being like a woman is insulting. [On a side not: Is there a truly insulting cuss word/insult for a white hetero dude that doesn’t also demean a woman or a minority OR can’t also be used on a woman or a minority? I don’t think such a thing exists. If you think of one, let me know. I think this is yet another instance of white hetero male privilege.]
Here is a GREAT article in The Washington Post from the Andi Zeisler, a cofounder of Bitch magazine (go read it), from 2008 that Melissa McEwan at Shakesville refers to in the above link. And here is the part that matters for me right now:

“Bitch is a word we use culturally to describe any woman who is strong, angry, uncompromising and, often, uninterested in pleasing men. We use the term for a woman on the street who doesn’t respond to men’s catcalls or smile when they say, “Cheer up, baby, it can’t be that bad.” We use it for the woman who has a better job than a man and doesn’t apologize for it. We use it for the woman who doesn’t back down from a confrontation.

“So let’s not be disingenuous. Is it a bad word? Of course it is. As a culture, we’ve done everything possible to make sure of that, starting with a constantly perpetuated mindset that deems powerful women to be scary, angry and, of course, unfeminine — and sees uncompromising speech by women as anathema to a tidy, well-run world.“

It’s not within a cultural vacuum that this show chose its title. The creators and ABC all know it demeans women. But they obviously don’t give a shit. What’s new?
______________
Also, according to TV Week (in a post about this show): “And for your own edification, some stats about the word bitch. According to the Parents Television Council, “The use of the word, “bitch,” for example, tripled in the last decade alone, growing to 1,277 uses on 685 shows in 2007 from 431 uses on 103 prime-time episodes in 1998,” it has been reported by The New York Times.
And Entertainment Weekly wrote just this past fall that “Oprah bans the word ‘bitch’ from her network.”
I’m sure this statistic is totally and completely unrelated to this tripling of the word “bitch” on TV (post from Entertainment Weekly by the fabulous Jennifer Armstrong, first posted on Oct. 30, 2009):
“Women are being beaten, tortured, and brutally murdered more than ever on network TV: A new study by the Parents Television Council shows violence against women on television is up a stunning 120 percent in the past five years. Violence overall in the same period increased only 2 percent, which seems to indicate there’s very little guy-on-guy combat happening, relatively speaking.”

There’s no connection between demeaning language against women on TV increasing and violence against women on TV increasing. It’s not like all of these shows are created by the same people in the same cultural atmosphere selling to the same American public, right?
scATX is a liberal Texan, historian, mother, and twitterphile. She is a pro-choice advocate who runs the reproductive rights blog, Keep Your Boehner Out of My Uterus. You can find her personal blog at scATX.com.

Guest Writer Wednesday: Guilty Pleasures: Practical Magic (1998)

This cross-post by Didion originally appeared at Feminéma.
Okay, you know me: I have the whole snarky thing down. I’ve never even seen Forrest Gump or Titanic. I can barely bring myself to watch a trailer for a film starring poor Katherine Heigl. I’d rather re-watch that 2-hour, grueling, and explicit film about illegal abortion in Romania — it was excellent – than submit myself to 30 minutes of the Julia Roberts feature, My Best Friend’s Wedding. So what’s the deal with my weakness for Practical Magic, which gets only a 20% approval rate on RottenTomatoes.com?
Confession: I’ve probably seen it 10 times.
Sandra Bullock as Sally Owens in Practical Magic
I’ll grant you the obvious: this is not quality filmmaking or screenwriting. The list of goofs and continuity errors is long. The background music is annoyingly cheery and sentimental, even during scenes when it shouldn’t be. It claims to be set in a Salem, Massachusetts-type place but is obviously filmed using the dramatic coast and sunsets of the Pacific Northwest. The film keeps cycling back to themes of love and loss and longing, like any Katherine Heigl film. The resolution to the characters’ problems — an ancient curse on this family of witches — is completely inexplicable. I know. But it always gets past my radar, and I seem to keep coming back. 
My latest viewing of it prompted me to wonder about guilty pleasure films.
Why should I feel so embarrassed and apologetic about liking this film? What is it about liking this unabashed chick flick that makes me feel sheepish to confess it? Why does liking this film make me wonder whether I might have some kind of tumor growing smack on my frontal lobe?
(Spoiler alert: at some point below I’m going to talk about That Great House. Also: if you’re eager to know my two favorite insights, get down to the last half of this post.)
Now, there are lots of reasons to like this film. First: the cast. Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest as the kooky old witch-aunts who raise the orphaned sisters Sally (Sandra Bullock) and Gilly (Nicole Kidman). Oh, to have aunts like Channing and Wiest!
Stockard Channing as Aunt Frances and Dianne Wiest as Aunt Bridget
Moving on, the men-folk are all superbly gorgeous and desirable: Aidan Quinn, Goran Visnjic (slurp!) as the bad boy, and the total mensch Mark Feuerstein as Sally’s short-lived husband. Even Sally’s little daughters (Evan Rachel Wood and Alexandra Artrip) manage to be believably appealing. 
Goran Visnjic as Jimmy Angelov (really) and Nicole Kidman as Gillian Owens
Also, no one should underestimate Sandra Bullock’s appeal. The critic David Thomson jokes that she’s been inducted into the Hall of Eternal Likeability. This induction occurred in 2009, Thomson quips, when Bullock won an Oscar for Best Actress (for The Blind Side) and a Golden Raspberry (aka “Razzie”) for Worst Actress (in All About Steve) — and she appeared at both ceremonies “with the same easygoing attitude that guesses she didn’t quite deserve either award but that knows her life has always been something of a gamble.”
I’ve always liked Bullock, and have a particular weakness for her skills in slight rom-coms (While You Were Sleeping; Miss Congeniality), again in spite of myself. How does someone possessed of such exceptional beauty seem to be someone I’d be friends with? How does she manage to seem convincingly the ugly duckling for even one second? How does she nevertheless seem to be at ease in her own skin?
Two things I always notice in Practical Magic: she goes bra-less in most of the scenes. And although she’s thin as a rail (of course), her body looks real — especially her big, strong legs. Who wouldn’t like a beautiful woman with healthy-looking thighs who skips the bra most of the time?
Okay, now that I say that out loud, I’m starting to see where some of my sheepishness comes from.
Bullock and Aidan Quinn
Just because I like all the actors is no guarantee I’ll like a film, however. Lots of good actors have appeared in terrible films. Remember my refusal to see Titanic despite the fact that it stars Kate Winslet, who’s in my Top 5 current favorite actors?
*****
In thinking about my perverse attachment to an ostensibly weak film led me to scour The Land of Blogs for insight, and here’s what I found: us ladies love that house. Love it.
This very fact makes me embarrassed … because I’ll admit I love that house too. Shouldn’t I feel like I’ve been manipulated?

That House!
Now, just because a girl confesses a propensity for nest-building and a weakness for a good kitchen should not make you presume she wants nothing but housework and a hubby who brings home the bacon. Virtually everyone I know has found themselves susceptible to the house porn shown to us on those real estate, cooking, and bedroom re-design shows on cable TV. And when I call this porn I fully admit to have had unholy desires for that one hunky handyman who seems to know his way around every power tool known to man. So yeah, I love this house — and I’m not the only one.
That kitchen!
Entire websites appear to be dedicated to screen capture shots of the kitchen and/or attached greenhouse. I get it. Who wouldn’t want all that great tile, lots of cupboards, big central kitchen table, and that awesome stove? 
There’s so much room here for those kinds of decorations you could never be bothered with because you’re a Busy And Important. Big wooden bowls of pears or round loaves of bread. Cunning little bottles of herbs and witches’ potions. Scattered potted plants that need to be kept alive somehow. This is not the kind of house I could manage (or clean) in real life.
But I think the reason why this kitchen/ greenhouse/ dining area has hit some kind of world-wide Lady G-Spot is because these rooms are the location for so much of the film’s drama. Just like in real life, except these settings are a lot more attractive than our cramped kitchens. Gilly and the little girls whip up a Go Away spell to put into the maple syrup; Gilly and Sally try to bring the terrifying Visnjic back to life (with a spray-can of whipped cream, I say as I shake my head woefully); Sally and the hunky Arizona investigator Aidan Quinn have a special moment in the sunroom/ greenhouse.

The greenhouse!
(Mental note: must procure sunroom/ greenhouse so I, too, can have special moments with Aidan Quinn.)
I’m joking, of course. Although some bloggers seem eager to transform their own homes into Practical Magic-style palaces, I say that sounds like too much work. In fact, this leads to my most important insight: no matter how appealing, that house doesn’t fill me with consumer desire — I like the idea of the house, and I like it for reasons other than the fact that it looks good. Another film might have used the same house and sunroom and still failed to capture people’s imaginations (i.e., mine).
*****
So here’s my big realization: this film gets me every time because it portrays such rich and important relationships among women, even when they’re flawed. The warmth of the house matters when Sally and Gilly lie under the covers together, healing one another’s wounds, or when they go to the kitchen to exorcise demons. Ultimately the reason I like the house is the fact that I am so impressed that the film takes for granted the intense connections amongst this group of women.
Sisters Sally (Bullock) and Gilly (Kidman)
The house feels so warm and comfortable because that’s where the film portrays the most important plot points, bringing together the warmest of relations between the characters. It’s those moments in the film that get me every time. Scenes that convey the close communal and familial relations that encompass a kind of closeness that isn’t reducible to something as simplistic as “love.”
There’s a hard edge to some of this as well. Women who are very close to one another also piss each other off, or they say things that hit nerves even if they have no intention of hurting anyone. One of my favorite random scenes in the film, in which they all blend up some Midnight Margaritas and dance around the house (who hasn’t been there?) is immediately followed by a scary scene at the dinner table, when no matter how good their mood, none of them can keep from spewing bile at one another — and it takes a while for them to realize the ugliness of this weird moment.
Ah, the scene of female bonding and mutual support … and pissing each other off. Was there ever a time when I didn’t imagine growing old, living in a big house (or neighborhood) with my sister and a bunch of my best old-lady friends, all cooking and gardening and exercising together? I remember being stunned to learn that every single one of my friends has the same fantasy. It’s not that we don’t like men — some of us are partnered up with them, after all. It just seems so natural to have tight, mutually-constitutive relationships with women, especially as you grow older.
The Aunts (Wiest and Channing)
All the more eerie to find that this film explicitly imagines that scenario for its characters, too. “We’re gonna grow old together!” Gilly says to Sally when they’re teenagers, on the night when Gilly is about to run off with some guy, and the unglamorous Sally stands there in her awful bathrobe, stringy hair, and gigantic glasses. “It’s gonna be you and me, living in a big old house, these two old biddies with all these cats! I mean, I bet we even die on the same day!” Tell me, isn’t that your secret dream, too?

For Sally it is. “Do you swear?” she asks her sister.

Sally

In the end I think it is that female closeness that gets me about this film and which makes me slightly embarrassed to admit it — because I suspect that by using some kind of dark magic, the filmmakers cooked up a heady brew of fine men-folk, house porn, and scenes like Midnight Margaritas explicitly to fly under my critical radar and keep bringing me back. I fear my uncritical affection for this film because it feels manipulative to me, not a genuine dedication to women’s relationships and good houses above & beyond women’s relationship to men. I feel embarrassed that what I had long believed was an unrealistic and slightly embarrassing fantasy — that my friends and I would all grow old together — has been packaged into a very pretty filmic production for me to watch. Shouldn’t I feel all the more guilty about this pleasure?

*****
But there’s one other reading that works even better for me, and I lift this directly from the great documentary The Celluloid Closet. This insight goes something like this: I watch and appreciate Practical Magic not for what it is but for all that I read into it, all that speaks to me beyond the surface. I don’t see Midnight Margaritas as a throwaway scene or as instrumental for forcing Sally and Gilly to deal with their mistakes. I read into it a world of intense female closeness that I rarely get to see onscreen. What gives me pleasure in this film is what I imagine in between the lines of its essential mediocrity.

Sally and her daughters
I remember so vividly Susie Bright, one of the commentators in The Celluloid Closet, describing how she spent her youth combing through old movies just to get to a single scene that seems a little bit queer. For LGBTQ persons who saw virtually no one who looked like them onscreen, “It’s amazing how, if you’re a gay audience and you’re accustomed to crumbs how you will watch an entire movie just to see a certain outfit that you think means that they’re a homosexual. The whole movie can be a dud, but you’re just sitting there waiting for Joan Crawford [in Johnny Guitar] to put on her black cowboy shirt again.”
Joan Crawford in Johnny Guitar
This is ultimately the reading that allows me to feel pleasure in watching this film without much guilt. It’s discouraging to realize that on some level, what I get from Practical Magic is what I don’t get very often onscreen: happy, complex, and intense relationships among women that aren’t just about appearing sexy and finding a man. I very seldom get to see onscreen relationships that look like the ones I enjoy with my friends and family. Sure, the movie concludes with a happy kiss between Sandra Bullock and Aidan Quinn — not that there’s anything wrong with that — but I’m arguing that the whole package sparks a happy endorphin rush for far different reasons.
Yes, there is a romantic happy ending.
And finally, let’s also not forget that this movie is about a family of witches. Witch being such a stand-in for bitch, as well as conveying all manner of notions about women’s powers, both dark and light. This film probably flies under my radar in part because it’s about women who possess powers that they can choose to use (or not). The false cheeriness of the music and the generally lame spells might well downplay as much as possible any sense of real danger — and probably seek to undermine objections from crazed evangelicals who might see this film as the work of the devil. Nevertheless, I’d argue that the subject matter can’t help but speak about power.

I see it as metaphorical. This is about women’s power — and their power in numbers. I may be trying very hard here to stop feeling so guilty about my appreciation for this film, but this works for me:

  • terrific cast
  • eminently likeable lead
  • great range of attractive men-folk
  • fantastic house
  • rich portrayals of women’s relationships
  • the movie facilitates queer readings against and/or alongside its mainstream messages
  • it’s about women’s power, and their power in numbers

I welcome your thoughts, quibbles, and good-natured derision for my poor taste in film!


Feminéma is a blog about feminism, cinéma, and popular culture kept by Didion, a university professor in Texas, who celebrates those rare moments when movies display unstereotyped characters and feature female directors and screenwriters behind the scenes. Most of all she just loves film. Take a look at feminema.wordpress.com.

‘Friends with Kids’ Preview: Leading a Stellar Cast, Writer/Director Jennifer Westfeldt Depicts an Unconventional Path to Parenthood

I’ve been excited to see Friends with Kids since last year when I heard it would reunite Bridesmaids castmates Kristen Wiig (omg do I love, love, LOVE her in Bridesmaids and on SNL!), Maya Rudolph (adore her in Away We Go and Up All Night), Chris O’Dowd (adorbs in Bridesmaids) and Jon Hamm (of course I swoon for Don Draper). When I discovered a woman wrote AND directed it, Jennifer Westfeldt in her directorial debut, my elation skyrocketed! No joke.

Written, directed, produced and starring actor Jennifer Westfeldt, Friends with Kids tells the story of two best friends Julie (Westfeldt) and Jason (Adam Scott), who decide to have a baby together while remaining platonic friends “so they can avoid the toll kids can take on romantic relationships.” It looks like a hilarious, awkward yet sweet ensemble comedy about friends navigating friendships, relationships and parenting.

A Tony and Indie Spirit Award nominated actor, Westfeldt is probably best known for her role as actor, co-writer and co-producer of the critically-acclaimed lesbian romantic comedy Kissing Jessica Stein. She also wrote and starred in Ira and Abby, a story of two strangers who get married. In an interview with Marie Claire, Westfeldt shared her inspiration for Friends with Kids, which stemmed from being out of sync with where your friends are in life:

“Four years ago, Jon’s and my friends started having babies, and everything became so kid-centric. You miss one-on-one time with your friend. When you’re childless and close friends become new parents, you suddenly feel left out, and that’s where the kernel of this idea came from.”

Adam Scott (who I crush on hardcore in his role as Ben Wyatt on Parks & Rec) and his wife Naomi Sablan have been friends for years with Westfeldt and her long-time partner Hamm. After reading the script, Scott realized he and his wife were those friends who pull away after they have a baby. As someone with friends who have kids, yep, this definitely happens but understandably so. Now, I don’t have babies and I don’t want them. Seeing my friends have babies doesn’t trigger any biological clock in me. But I really like Westfeldt’s idea of looking at parenthood in a non-traditional way from the perspective of two single people.

Being single doesn’t sound a death knell. Yet Hollywood would have you believe otherwise, especially if you’re a woman. The media also often shows only the glamorous, fairy-tale side of weddings, babies and relationships. I’m hoping Friends with Kids will tell a more authentic story. Too many people wait for their life to start, thinking events must progress in a certain order: college, career, marriage, home, baby. But why can’t you do things differently? Who’s to say you can’t have a baby without a relationship?  Each of the 3 films Westfeldt has written share a theme of taking relationships and life choices and “turning the norm on its head,” choosing a different path than what convention dictates.

Earlier today, Melissa Silverstein wrote about the “depressing reality of women directed film in 2012” and how we need to generate more anticipation and buzz for upcoming films directed by women. With female writers comprising 24% of all writers in Hollywood, 17% in film and only 5% of women as directors, down from 7% in 2010 and 2009 (god that’s horrifying depressing and makes me cringe), it’s exciting to see a film written and directed by a woman that could potentially do well with both female and male audiences.

Now, I’m not saying films written, directed or starring women are automatically good. Some suck (although I always hate saying that since there aren’t nearly enough movies created by women). And I don’t know if Friends with Kids will be amazeballs, a feminist extravaganza! But I’m optimistically hopeful considering it co-stars two talented and hilarious female comedians (Rudolph and Wiig) and Westfeldt, the woman behind and in front of the camera, not only writes interesting female characters but also speaks openly that “there aren’t that many interesting roles for women in TV and film.”

We need to support women filmmakers if we ever hope for Hollywood to become more gender equitable. When Bridesmaids came out, Salon writer Rebecca Traister argued it was people’s “social responsibility” to go see it:

“Yes we can … buy tickets to a Kristen Wiig movie in an effort to persuade Hollywood that multidimensional women exist, spend money and deserve to be represented on film…we now inhabit an entertainment universe in which everything male-centered is standard, and everything female-centered is female…What that means in practical terms is that women will plonk down dollars to see a male-dominated action movie, a girl-gobbling horror flick, or a dude-centric comedy just as easily as they’ll pay for the kind of female-fueled movie that is literally made for them. Men, meanwhile, have apparently been so conditioned to find anything female emasculating (notwithstanding the expectation that their girlfriends find anything male, including “Thor,” scintillating) that they cannot be moved to sit through any movie with a fully developed woman at its center.”

With a film written and directed by a woman, with a stellar cast of talent, the same applies here: we need to vote with our dollars.

Westfeldt wasn’t initially going to direct but she stepped into the role of director in order to remain on the tight filming schedule. But that doesn’t mean Westfeldt doesn’t recognize the importance and power of female filmmakers:

“It’s really been a year of sisters doing it for themselves. At Sundance there were, like, five movies where women were writing roles for themselves. And the success of women like Lena Dunham and Miranda July and Tina Fey and now Kristen [Wiig], among others; it’s a pretty cool time to see how much has evolved in that regard…I’m happy to be part of that wave, and I’m inspired by how much of that is going on. It feels like there’s a wave happening of women taking a little more control of their own creative fates.”

Amen, sister! So in honor of all the “sisters doing it for themselves,” I will be seeing Friends with Kids this Friday (March 9th)…and I hope you all will too.

The Descendants: Review in Conversation

The Descendants (2011)

Amber’s Take:

 

I went into The Descendants knowing only: George Clooney, land inheritance, and Hawaii. Had I even taken the time to visit IMDb and read the one-line synopsis (“A land baron tries to re-connect with his two daughters after his wife suffers a boating accident.”), I would have known a major plot element, and I might’ve been better prepared for it — and not as successfully manipulated.
The Descendants is a tricky film. You know the kind: you’re completely engrossed while watching (and I confess to being near tears for most of the film, blindsided by the emotional devastation of the situation), but once the spell of the theatre is broken, you wonder how the movie you watched is getting such astonishing praise.
The King family and their land.
That’s not to say The Descendants doesn’t have admirable elements. The film is visually stunning and offers viewers a pleasant surprise: a portrait of Hawaii (two islands specifically: Kaua’i and O’ahu) — a state of beauty and contradictions, extreme wealth and poverty, and a complicated history. Usually the Hawaiian Islands appear in film only as a vacation destination. Here, it’s something else. Not only is the setting the site of plenty of human drama, but it’s also a character in itself–similar to the role played by California’s Santa Ynez Valley in director Alexander Payne’s previous film, Sideways.
The film is also full of excellent performances, including George Clooney as Matt King, Shaliene Woodley as 17-year-old Alexandra, and newcomer Amara Miller as Scottie. I was shocked that Clooney didn’t win the Oscar for his performance, especially considering he’d already won eight awards for the role–including the Golden Globe–and is nominated for at least thirteen more (the film has been nominated for a whopping 65 awards). The relationships between the characters are easy and believable, even if Matt’s character suffers from the “unable to look past Actor George Clooney” problem. Alexandra is rare and refreshing teenage girl, and Woodley does a tremendous job with the role and with her character’s uneasy relationship with her parents. 
The film’s biggest problem, a fundamental mistake that I can only see as entirely unacceptable, and possibly rendering the film an utter failure (are my thoughts on the mistake clear?) is this: the character of Elizabeth King. Other than a flash of actor Patricia Hastie joyously water skiing at the beginning of the film, Elizabeth spends the rest of the film in a hospital bed, wasting away until her death. That in and of itself is not the problem; Elizabeth’s physical presence is deeply unsettling, and the details of her medical condition (the clenched hands, the life-support equipment, and the gaunt face really got to me) are rendered with disturbing realism.
But Elizabeth’s presence and all this detail comes at a price to the story: with continual reminders of the tragedy, Matt King is basically forgiven all of his transgressions and unlikable characteristics. He’s unbelievably wealthy (not particularly sympathetic in the midst of a recession) and yet a penny pincher, he’s been a terrible father and husband, and the biggest dilemma in his life is how to divide up the massive wealth his family inherited amongst his not-as-attractive cousins.
Further, Elizabeth is an example of the sexist “Women in Refrigerators” trope. Anita Sarkeesian explains how this trope plays out in comics, television, and films:

Writers are using the Women in Refrigerators trope to literally trade a female character’s life for the benefit of a male character’s story arc.

Elizabeth’s tragic accident is the catalyst for Matt’s existential crisis…and nothing more.
Megan’s Take:
For me, I left the theatre thinking it was kind of meh. Yes, it was visually beautiful, I mean it’s Hawai’i, of course it’ll be gorgeous! And I loved the use of Hawai’ian music. But I didn’t really see what all the hype was about…except for the two daughters’ performances, especially Shailene Woodley as Matt’s rebellious (although what 17-year-old isn’t?) daughter Alex.
Shailene Woodley as Alexandra King
Absolutely outstanding, Alex stole every scene. The underwater scene blew me away. After Matt tells Alex that her mother isn’t just sick but dying, she sinks below the surface of the pool, weeping underwater…simply brilliant. Alex evoked so much pain and agony through her facial expressions and her body language, without ever uttering a word. She collapsed onto herself as her world began to crumble. Then she pushes against the pain and rage. For me, that heart-wrenching scene is hands down the best in the film.
I also found it really interesting that Alex realizes that she fights with her mother so vehemently yet she’s exactly like her mother. She rebels against authority and constraints, just like her mother. But Alex also resents her mother for cheating on her father. Mother-daughter relationships are so rarely depicted accurately on-screen. It would have been great if we could have seen more of their relationship in flashbacks. Alex appears to be the moral compass of the film. She has a zero bullshit meter and nothing gets past her. Even at such a young age, she’s like a parent to her father, telling him about the infidelity and advising him on how to handle her little sister Scottie (Amara Miller).
My favorite parts were the ones with Alex or Scottie or the two together. I loved when Scottie tosses the lawn chairs in the pool as Matt talks on the phone. There were a couple other humorous, and at times bittersweet, moments, like when Matt says, “Paradise? Paradise can go fuck itself,” Matt running in flip flops, and when Scottie calls Alex a “motherless whore” (not a huge fan of using the word “whore” but her delivery was flawless) and she accusingly points to Alex after Matt asks her where she learned to talk like that. But the film squanders these rare moments.
I would have preferred if the movie focused on the two sisters and their perspectives. Supposedly (as I haven’t read the book), Payne drastically reduced Scottie’s role from the book as he said he wasn’t interested in her character, wanting to explore Alex’s story. Sadly, the film isn’t really about either sister.
I felt like that was The Descendants’ problem. It never focused on what I wanted it to focus on (as if I’m the only audience that matters…ha!). The film glosses over issues of wealth/class and race/ethnicity, never really exploring these crucial societal themes. Additionally, a massive gender problem plagues the film.
Amber, it’s so interesting you mention Elizabeth and the “women in refrigerators” trope. I hadn’t even really thought about it while watching. But you’re totally right. It disturbed me how the film tried to dismantle her perfection. Elizabeth’s father tells Matt she was a perfect wife to him, not knowing about Elizabeth’s infidelity as the audience does. Her friends talk about her with such reverence as being fun and fearless. And of course no one is perfect. But I kept getting the feeling that the whole point of Elizabeth’s infidelity was to somehow excuse Matt’s bad behavior as an absentee husband and father (“I’m the backup parent, the understudy.”) Like well, see…he wasn’t that bad. At least he didn’t cheat on her like she did to him.
That’s what pissed me off about the film: its perspective and commentary on women. Matt bemoans, “What is it about me that makes women in my life want to destroy themselves?” As if the women in his life aren’t struggling with their own demons…it’s all how it affects him.
George Clooney as Matt King
Taking the “women in refrigerators” trope one step further, Jill Dolan at The Feminist Spectator talked about how dead or dying women facilitate men’s “self knowledge and redemption” as in the recent films The Ides of March and The Descendants. Even in her death, it isn’t really about Elizabeth. Or her grieving daughters, or friends, or family. It only matters how it impacts her husband, another role in which Clooney plays a man facing an emotional mid-life crisis.
It’s clear director Alexander Payne didn’t want to focus on the women in the film. I know it’s Clooney, and I love him. But it still irritated me that the movie ultimately revolves around him. I know, I know…big surprise. Another movie, an Oscar contender no less, revolving around an upper class white dude.
I think The Descendants would have been so much more interesting if told from Alex’s or Scottie’s perspective. But heaven forbid Hollywood focuses on the female characters.
So, Amber…what are your thoughts on the film’s gender roles and the interactions between the female characters? What do you think about the film’s statement on fatherhood and the relationship between fathers and daughters?
Amber’s Take:
I think Stephanie Brown does an excellent job discussing fatherhood in her Oscar review for this site. The movie’s two fathers (three if you count Brian Speer) are, in some ways, mirror images of each other: neither is particularly involved in family life, and neither seems to know his spouse or children well. Though I haven’t quite figured out what to make of Elizabeth’s mother’s absence-by-Alzheimer’s, the fact that one adult woman was fridged and another imprisoned by dementia shows at best real disinterest in women’s relationships (and hostility at worst). Perhaps the relationship between the two daughters was sidelined for similar ideological purposes.
Regardless of what we might want the movie to be about, or focus more heavily on, we’re stuck with the hero coming to terms with being a father and making what are perhaps the first serious decisions in his life: embracing his family and role as father, and keeping the land inheritance in the family (you could just say he kicks the can down the road, avoiding a decision, too). However, I think you’re spot on when you say the film couldn’t figure out what it was about (it’s not just you!).
Judy Greer as Julie Speer
I think that it’s a film that wants to be about many serious things, all while not bumming us out too much with its weight and seriousness. In this turn toward comedy–perhaps to avoid Terms of Endearment qualities, a comparison I never considered before reading Brown’s analysis–we see the subjects of inheritance, the accidental nature of being born into certain families, and ethnicity diminished, and we also see the women diminished. Not just in Elizabeth, or her mother, or the relationship between the two girls, but also in a minor character: Julie Speer (played by Judy Greer). There are two moments with this character that have stuck with me in the weeks since I saw the film. The first was the strange and unsettling forced kiss from Matt, a message from him about her husband’s infidelity and an outlet for his anger, the latter of which felt all about violation and…property. The second is the moment in the hospital when Julie first encountered the woman who had fallen in love with her husband. The film didn’t allow her an earnest confrontation; the moment was turned comedic by Matt interrupting–essentially denying her the kind of catharsis she might’ve needed. What makes this moment particularly egregious is that Matt, immediately after, was permitted a sincere, emotional, cathartic moment with her.
At almost every turn in the film, a woman was not permitted full autonomy. Except for Alex, who was permitted to be a full, complex character. What does it mean for a teenage girl to be the moral center of a story–of this specific story? I haven’t figured it out yet, but it surely doesn’t make up for the indifference and hostility toward the other women.
Megan’s Take:
I completely agree with you that having a female as the moral compass or center of the story definitely doesn’t negate the message of hostility to women. It’s a common theme as films often bestow strength and autonomy to teen female characters, as if they’re not comfortable with adult women possessing strength and wielding power.
I also agree with you about Julie Speer. I too was annoyed and I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was surrounded by men using her: her unfaithful husband Brian and Matt King and his invasive kiss. While it was incredibly uncomfortable to watch her scream at the woman who caused her pain, ripping away that opportunity felt equally cruel.
Alex is the only female character allowed autonomy. But all of the women in the film must control their emotions and behavior. Alex possesses the most freedom as she speaks her mind freely. But she must rein in her drinking/partying and hide her pain and anger, crying underwater. Scottie must stop taking pictures and saying inappropriate things to people. Matt forces her to talk to her mother to grieve. Julie must control her emotions. Elizabeth is not only chastised but vilified in absentia for her reckless actions of drinking and infidelity.
The patriarch, Matt King
While the women have their actions and emotions policed, none of the men do. Elizabeth’s father punches Alex’s friend Sid. Sid makes ridiculous comments and is ultimately rewarded by Matt coming to him for advice on his daughters. Brian Speer is fearful when he meets Matt, but it doesn’t seem like he faces any real consequences for his actions. Matt King does have to “grow up” and finally act like a father. But he’s free to behave however he chooses, following the man who had an affair with his wife, grieve however he chooses, choosing whether or not to retain his family’s land. Matt tells his daughters, even Julie how to grieve.
What message does it send that women, both as children and as adults, must stifle their emotions and urges?
Tying all the pieces of the film together – the women denied their autonomy, erasure of discussions on race and class, revolving around a male protagonist – it reinforces white patriarchy. Not patriarchy in the sense of fatherhood but rather male privilege and female oppression. Yes, Matt King evolves into a more loving and attentive father, a bittersweet transformation. Yet I can’t help but feel the underlying theme implies men can do whatever they want, be whomever they choose, while women should not only listen to the needs and heeding of men, they are punished if they don’t.
 
Amber Leab is a Co-Founder and Contributing Editor to Bitch Flicks. 
 
Megan Kearns is a Bitch Flicks Contributor and Founder of Opinioness of the World.
 

The Descendants: Oscar Best Picture and Indie Spirit Best Feature Nominee

The Good Patriarch: The Descendants, directed by Alexander Payne

This is a guest post from Stephanie Brown. 
The Descendants is a movie about patriarchy, about husbandry and fatherhood as verb and action rather than noun and abstraction, about stewardship and responsibility. It implies that being a responsible and engaged and aware man is the key to being a responsible citizen and human being. It’s an important film that is very much of the current zeitgeist, but its ease and perfection and touches of comedy (very much like the persona of George Clooney himself) may mean that its depth is missed amid the excellent casting and the light touch of director Alexander Payne. The film is based on the book of the same name by Kaui Hart Hemmings, who was raised in Hawaii by her mother and step-father. 
In The Descendants, Clooney’s character, Matt King, is the key decision maker for his family’s trust. Their family has lived in Hawaii for generations, part native Hawaiian and part white. They own a large undeveloped tract of land on Kauai. As the movie begins the family is in the process of selling the land to a developer and the group is poised to profit handsomely. His many cousins, also heirs, are portrayed as decent people, “good guys” who like to drink and hang out: contemporary landed gentry, enjoying their wealth and comfort in paradise. As decision maker for the fate of the fortune for a whole slew of cousins/subjects scattered around the islands and mainland, Matt is aptly named “king,” and he is affable, fair and aims to please. At the same time his wife, Elizabeth, has been in a water skiing accident and is now in a coma. Like many fathers and husbands, he is not very involved in his children’s lives and doesn’t know them very well, and is not really that knowledgeable of his wife’s life either. Soon after he retrieves his older daughter from her private boarding school (she is drunk when he finds her) to return home with him, he discovers from her that his wife has been having an affair. The movie is about the slow unfolding of this secret that has been kept from him by friends and family, and the slow strengthening of his bond with his daughters, especially his oldest daughter, Alex, played by Shailene Woodley. It’s a great performance by Woodley, who is utterly believably as an intelligent and strong but betrayed and angry teenager. She alone knows the exact nature of both her parents’ flaws but is powerless to make them change. Instead she causes problems as school and acts bratty and disagreeable. She is also shown schooling her younger sister in teenage survival skills, and while her methods and language are crude, one knows that this is likely the only practical advice the younger daughter has gotten from anyone. The movie is taken up with a road trip of sorts, actually jaunts between islands and neighborhoods therein, with Alex, the younger daughter Scottie (Amara Miller), and Alex’s friend Sid (Nick Krause) providing the comic relief. Matt and Alex search for and find the man with whom Elizabeth has had an affair and end up awkwardly befriending him and his wife (Matthew Lillard and Judy Green) as they move toward the conclusion—to finalize the sale of the land, and to see if Elizabeth will live or die. 
Recent radio ads for The Descendants are comparing it to Terms of Endearment. I’m not sure Alexander Payne’s subtly crafted movies, Election, About Schmidt, and Sideways, while critical favorites, have become all-time-favorite-movie blockbusters in the way that Terms of Endearment has. I’m betting that the strategy of this comparison is to try to push it into the blockbuster box office realm. Will it ‘play in Peoria,” though? The Descendants does have an emotional death scene, where George Clooney says what is in his heart to his comatose and dying wife, but, like Payne’s other films, scenes such as this are restrained and Clooney’s soliloquy never veers into melodrama. By this point in the film, I didn’t like the wife and I was not sorry to see her die. I did not feel that the scene’s intention was to make me cry in an emotionally cathartic way. I don’t think the comparison between films works, and I think viewers who are expecting a Terms of Endearment will be disappointed. They may, however, see the powerful film that it is and come away awakened by its point of view. Think of the difference between Jack Nicholson in Terms of Endearment and Jack Nicholson in Payne’s About Schmidt. Schmidt’s character’s sad, reticent and somewhat baffled personality is naked and embarrassing to his daughter, and it’s a fine and restrained performance from Nicholson, who, like Clooney, is a masterful comedic actor. Both have elastic faces and trademark voices, and Payne’s direction keeps them true and honest in these depictions that move from comedic turns to profoundly honest portrayals of wounded American men. 
The Descendants has many facets, touching on wealth and its effects on people and the history of the islands of Hawaii themselves, among other things, but to my mind, the most interesting theme in the film is the examination of fatherhood and manhood that is revealed via the relationship of Elizabeth to her father, Scott Thorson, played with frank ferocity by Robert Forster. Like a God, like Thor, Mr. Thorson has thunderous opinions and never wavers in them. We also know that he is wrong and pigheaded and the kind of person who is impossible to live with. He is certain that his daughter was a perfect wife and mother and that her accident could have been prevented if only Matt had bought her a safer boat to use rather than have her rely on her friends’ boats. Like his daughter, Mr. Thorson’s wife is shown as non compos mentis. She is in the throes of dementia and unaware of her surroundings. I do not think this is a coincidence. The only way to endure a man like this is to retreat into silence and passivity symbolized here as states of dementia and coma. His wife never speaks but she smiles. Mr. Thorson is an archetype of a Korean War-era father, all manliness, certainty and uncomplicated self-assurance. He has indulged his daughter and rejected his son—and he is not fond of his son-in-law. It is also clear that Mr. Thorson does not even know his daughter beyond superficial platitudes that he can shout about her being a good wife, mother and athlete (that she might be too much of a risk taker is ignored). He extols that she was a faithful wife when she was not. His fulsome praise has probably inflated his daughter’s ego and created a monster. Mr. Thorson is the figure of a crippled manhood that can exist only by rejecting deep feelings and hard truths about people, a style of fathering that may extol specialness, but rejects complexity and imperfection. Matt resembles him, unfortunately, in his own benign neglect of his children. Matt, whose style is more graceful and contemporary than Thorson’s, is of the generation that seeks to be seen as a “good guy” like his cousins—happy to take a profit and enjoy life, happy to live as a detached “back- up” parent (as he calls himself) who can easily just not pay much attention and not see any pain and suffering his children are feeling. They live in paradise and are quite wealthy, after all. It would never occur to the cousins or Matt to preserve the land for future generations; it is seen as inevitable that it must be sold and profit shared today. Benign neglect. 
In the end, Matt decides not to sell the land but to preserve it. It is not a popular decision with the cousins. It is, however, the right decision. Matt uses his power for the first time and he risks not being popular, affable, or liked, and he is not. That is what it means to be a father and a steward and a patriarch, however. It means thinking about the future beyond current gain and comfort. It means thinking of future generations, accepting responsibility and using it reasonably and well. It means choosing not to be part of the rather dissolute landed gentry and not encouraging your children in this direction either. As I watched the film and saw him choose to preserve the land for future generations, it occurred to me that this decision would not have been believable if the film were released ten or twenty years ago. I don’t think I myself would have agreed with the decision. I would have thought, development is inevitable so why not let these decent people profit from it? But it has been released in a very different economic and social climate, where we are questioning the realities of profit and gain run amok. What is the result of all the wealth that we acquired and lost in the last twenty years? The culture tried to live like landed gentry. We exported our jobs and we exported our pollution in order to create our crap without regulations, and we sought to live like the cousins, expecting a good deal to come our way and to continue to come our way. The Descendants got me considering these truths. If one is a patriarch, one should accept it and be a responsible one. One should father and husband as a verb. And that goes the same for matriarchs and mothers and wives. If Mr. Thorson was our father, we need to wake up and pay attention and change the traits that resemble his. We need to be stewards of our families and of the earth for our descendants. 
I was talking to friends one night and I mentioned that I had seen this movie and Lars Von Trier’s movie Melancholia during the same weekend, and that I liked both of them. Von Trier gets at the gnawing dread that I think we all feel about the world being destroyed. I felt grateful that an artist had made this film, because it forced me to think about my own hopelessness in the face of that destruction. But I added that I felt that The Descendants was just as powerful of a film and just as profound, even if the tone is lighter. In the last scene, Matt and his two daughters are shown sitting on a couch together, eating ice cream and watching TV. We can hear the movie’s narrator, Morgan Freeman, and after a while one realizes that they’re watching March of the Penguins. As my husband pointed out to me as we walked out of the theater, the male penguin is the one who cradles the egg, who protects it and keeps it safe from danger until it hatches. Like the father who has learned to father in film.
Stephanie Brown is the author of two collections of poetry, Domestic Interior and Allegory of the Supermarket. She’s published work in American Poetry Review, Ploughshares and The Best American Poetry series. She was awarded an NEA Fellowship in 2001 and a Breadloaf Fellowship in 2009. She has taught at UC Irvine and the University of Redlands and is a regional branch manager for OC Public Libraries in southern California.

Oscar Best Supporting Actress Nominee: Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids

Oscar nominee Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids

This is a guest post from Janyce Denise Glasper.

“I swear to God, that dolphin looked not at me, but into my soul, into my goddamn soul, Annie, and said, ‘I’m saving you, Megan.’”

Is that not charmingly poetic?
Does that not make one want to jump into the rivers of the deep to find unlikely redemption into the eyes of a playful circus mammal?
Bridesmaids, a hysterically entertaining R-rated anti-chick flick that has women front and center and men taking the backseat is just one teeny tiny pivotal step in right direction, has received two Academy Award nominations- Best Original Screenplay and a Best Supporting Actress nod for Melissa McCarthy.
For a comedian to be nominated in a comedic role is rare in Academy Award history and, if anything, McCarthy’s performance is extraordinarily insightful and altogether wonderful because she expresses an impressively varied range. From downright funny, to adorably charming, to unapologetically unladylike and to fearless poignancy.
Now the story is that Lillian is getting married to her “Dougie” and what better than to have a pack of rambunctious ladies up for a most diverse bridal party–Annie, the poor, creative-minded maid of honor/best friend; Helen, the skinny rich bitch who often steals Annie’s thunder; Becca, the chipper, saccharinely-sweet newlywed; Rita, the pissed off housewife cousin of Lillian; and at last Megan, Doug’s sister, a wisecracking badass-guts-no-glory kind of woman.
Melissa McCarthy as bridesmaid Megan
Introduced to Annie by a very busy Lillian, Megan is demurely dressed in a starched blouse, black slacks, unkempt pulled-back hair, and au naturale complexion. Pacing and somewhat twirling around the dance floor, Megan is an isolated figure, fruity beverage in hand, and seems a bit out of place in room of glamorously dressed people, but the pearl necklace and matching earrings give her that upper crust belonging.
A survivor of a cruise ship fall with pins in her legs, Megan speaks of being miraculously rescued by a heroic, telepathic dolphin, every bit of her words strongly emphasized in devout conviction.
Certainly not delusions derived from nearly drowned unconsciousness, McCarthy’s vividly animated performance makes the viewers simultaneously find humor and pity from an otherwise dangerous plight without using the over-played sarcastic or classic “dumb girl” approach. Resonating such brilliance and infectious wit, one cannot help but adore the spitfire the actress makes Megan to be.
Megan knows he’s really an air marshall
Short, stout, and proud of her sexual dominance, she has traits that others would find downright masculine.
For example, while boasting about Lillian’s potentially insufferable life with her brother, she also throws in an odd curveball idea of having a shower theme of “Fight Club,” thinking ganging up and beating up the bride an unexpected twist, which shocks and stuns the bridal band.
However, the part that electrifies to the core is the scene towards the end where McCarthy expels a reality about the negative connotations of bullying that cannot be ignored, expressing where such bravado and strength materialized, and a courage that is downright fascinating to watch.
It’s this speech that triggers the emotions:

No, this was not easy going up and down the halls. Okay? They used to try to blow me up. They threw firecrackers at my head. Fire crackers. I mean literally. I’m not saying that figuratively. I got firecrackers thrown at my head. They called me a freak. Do you think I let that break me? Think I went home to my mommy crying; ‘Oh, I don’t have any friends. Oh, Megan doesn’t have any friends.’ No, I did not. You know what I did? I pulled myself up. I studied really hard. I read every book in the library and now I work for the government. I have the highest possible security clearance.

She is not the best friend or closest pal to Annie, but is the one person who comes to visit the blond basket case, albeit with nine puppies in tow. Warm and rife with valiant wisdom, Megan’s thoughtful encouragement and lighthearted advice get Annie out of a depressing, self-inflicted funk.
Anti-rainbows, pink bows, and fluffy chatter, Megan, an imperfectly flawed champion female, is such a viable role of which McCarthy deserves praise and many accolades for she is a richly funny, captivating and beautiful scene stealer.

Janyce Denise Glasper is a writer/artist running two silly blogs of creative adventures called Sugarygingersnap and AfroVeganChick. She enjoys good female centric film, cute rubber duckies, chocolate covered everything (except bugs!), Days of Our Lives, and slaying nightly demons Buffy style in Dayton, Ohio.

Indie Spirit Best Feature Nominee: ’50/50′

When I look at the sloppy homemade label on my screener of 50/50, it looks like it says, “so-so.” Despite solid reviews and the year-end awards nominations, that pretty much sums up how I feel about the movie.

“‘Oppression’ Is in the Bathroom”: 50/50’s Condemnation of Women as Mothers, Artists, and Professionals
 
“Liberation”
 
This is a guest review by Josh Ralske.
———-
When I look at the sloppy homemade label on my screener of 50/50, it looks like it says, “so-so.” Despite solid reviews and the year-end awards nominations, that pretty much sums up how I feel about the movie.
I’m not one of those people who thinks Judd Apatow is some kind of woman-hating comedy anti-Christ. I mean, the guy is partly responsible for the existence of Lindsay Weir (Linda Cardellini on Freaks and Geeks), one of the richest, most beautifully written and played female characters I’ve ever seen on television. So the presence of massive-erection-concealer Seth Rogen, or the fact that the film was billed as a kind of amalgam of an Apatow-style dude comedy with a serious, realistic drama about facing cancer didn’t put me off the film.
And yet, something did. Even before I saw 50/50, I had this irritated feeling about it. There was something self-congratulatory in the way the film was being promoted, as though the idea of mixing comedy—sometimes bawdy comedy!—with a drama about cancer was something completely new and original, and anyone who doesn’t realize that having cancer can be funny is kind of a square, right? I mean, almost every movie about every disease, except maybe Love Story, has some humor in it. This is a very traditional human coping mechanism. I guess what separates 50/50 is simply a matter of degree.
Well, that, and the fact that screenwriter Will Reiser was writing from personal experience, and that co-star Seth Rogen plays what I hope is a very fictionalized version of himself in the movie. The film is presented as an honest and realistic depiction of how a serious, likeable young man deals with a potentially terminal illness. Disappointingly, despite its efforts at hip, low-key credibility, 50/50 lapses too frequently into cliché and worse.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as Adam, who works for Seattle public radio, and finds out he has a rare form of spinal cancer that he has a 50% chance of surviving. Adam is the type of guy who takes care of himself and is almost pathologically averse to risk. This is illustrated by his refusal to cross a deserted street against the light, and by his lack of a driver’s license, which he attributes to a high risk of accidental death. Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think etc. The film depicts Adam’s efforts to cope with his illness, and the effects of treatment, as his personal life also undergoes an upheaval.
The film’s honesty doesn’t extend to the knotty issue of the American health care system. Adam doesn’t seem to be especially wealthy, but he lives in a rich person’s fantasy world where no one worries about how they are going to pay for cancer treatments, let alone where the treatment one chooses might be circumscribed by an insurance company’s bureaucracy. I guess I can accept the argument that the film is supposed to be about Adam’s emotional journey, but I assume that the thought of how Adam’s treatment is being paid for will cross other peoples’ minds, as it did mine.
Adam doesn’t seem to have much of a social life. His only good friend is the loutish, abrasive Kyle (Rogen), his mother is a stereotypical overbearing worrywart (Anjelica Huston), and his girlfriend is played by Bryce Dallas Howard, which means we already know she is essentially a monster.
50/50’s treatment of its women characters is more problematic. His mother is apparently well-meaning, but she narcissistically draws Adam’s attention back to herself. While he deals with his potentially terminal disease and the severely debilitating chemotherapy, she makes him feel guilty for not letting her “help” enough. There’s also a key scene where she insults a hospital worker because the waiting room temperature is too cold. She puts her own needs first, instead of focusing on Adam. It’s understandable that he does not want to involve her any more than he has to. This characterization isn’t especially hateful or unrealistic; it’s just a bit hackneyed, and in the context of the film, considered among its other depictions of women, it fits in with a disturbing pattern.
Anjelica Huston as Diane in 50/50
Shortly after Adam is diagnosed, he visits with the hospital therapist, Katherine, played by Anna Kendrick. I have been a fan since I saw her in Camp. Kendrick is a terrific actor, with a great, naturalistic sense of comic timing, and her scenes with Gordon-Levitt have an energy and charm that elevate the film. Boyish, wounded Adam and sincere, fumbling Katherine are an adorable couple, but the issue is that if Katherine was any good at all at her job, they wouldn’t ever be a couple. Years of education and, presumably, some professional training have left the amiable Katherine, the world’s worst therapist.
I suppose it’s understandable that she’s a bit unsure of herself, and Kendrick plays that uncertainty realistically and appealingly. But again, in the context of the film, the message that comes across is that she is a terrible therapist in part because she is a young woman. One of the stereotypes about young women perpetuated by mass media from its beginnings is that they are excessively emotional. Katherine cannot put her emotions aside in her dealings with Adam. She doesn’t appear to understand basic concepts of transference. If she were a competent therapist, perhaps she would not be put in the position of having to serve as Adam’s only reliable emotional support when he finally does break down. Katherine is a likeable character, largely due to Kendrick’s charm, but we can’t respect her.
Anna Kendrick as Katherine in 50/50
The movie’s biggest prolonged sour note is its conception of the character of Rachael, Adam’s girlfriend. Woody Allen has taken a lot of flack for the characterization of women in his films, and as The Opinioness points out here, the horrifically two-dimensional, shrewish Inez (Rachel McAdams) from Midnight in Paris is no exception. The makers of 50/50 seem to have pretty much gotten a pass from critics, however, for the misogynistic creation of Rachael.
This is such a problematic character that I barely know where to begin. She’s a straw man. There’s no compelling reason that we see for Adam to be with her, other than her physical beauty, but Adam is not presented as a shallow man who comes to appreciate a woman’s inner beauty through this traumatic experience. He’s essentially presented as a perfect boyfriend, making all the right moves toward a committed domestic relationship.
But then, Rachael is an abstract painter, and while Adam pretends to be interested in and supportive of her work, it’s pretty clear that he doesn’t actually give a crap. He shows the painting in their living room to his mother, mistakenly calling it “Oppression.” Rachael points out that the actual title is “Liberation,” and Adam remembers that “Oppression” is the painting in their bathroom. Rachael’s high-minded artistic aspirations are essentially treated as a joke, even before we understand what an awful person she is. She’s just a pretty, solipsistic, talentless airhead. Again, this brings up the question (as with Owen Wilson’s Gil in Midnight in Paris) as to what the poor, sensitive protagonist sees in her.
Bryce Dallas Howard as Rachael in 50/50
Naturally, after gamely taking on the responsibility of being Adam’s caretaker, Rachael fails him in every way, at one point leaving him waiting for hours before picking him up after a chemo session, and betraying him with another man. She’s a hateful character. Adam even says to her at one point after they split, as Rachael, now vulnerable due to career troubles, is trying to apologize and reconcile with him, “I’m sorry I didn’t come to your opening. It’s just ’cause I hate you so much.” This, and a subsequent scene in which Kyle and Adam destroy Rachael’s painting, “Liberation,” are clearly meant to be cathartic moments for the audience. We’re not meant to have any sympathy for Rachael.
Seth Rogen as Kyle and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Adam in 50/50
Kyle also fails Adam, manipulatively and opportunistically taking advantage of Adam’s condition to aid his own pursuit of impossibly credulous young women. Kyle is essentially an asshole. He treats women condescendingly (and this is always presented as humorous and without negative consequences for him), and he’s often insensitive to Adam’s needs. But as with Rogen’s character in Knocked Up, Ben Stone, the presence of a few appropriate self-help books in Kyle’s apartment serve to indicate that, well, at least he’s trying. Like Rachael, Kyle tries and fails to be what Adam needs him to be, but, in the filmmakers’ view, Kyle is redeemable, and Rachael is not.
50/50 has its low-key charms, and moments of grace, many provided by Kendrick, but the question that continues to nag at me is: Why is it necessary for a purportedly realistic film about a young man dealing with cancer to have a cartoonishly evil villain?
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Josh Ralske is a freelance film critic based in New York. He has written for All Movie Guide and Critical Mob.

Oscar and Indie Spirit Best Picture Nominee: The Artist: "Peppy Miller, Wonder Woman"

This is a guest review by Candice Frederick.
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You know what they say—behind every man is a great woman.
And that’s made evident in the 1920s nostalgia-soaked silent film, The Artist. Although the movie beautifully captures the difficult fall of silent film star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) from Hollywoodland heavyweight to Hollywoodland has-been, the movie’s heart lies with his heroine, Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo).
We first meet Peppy as a face in the crowd, scrambling to catch a glimpse of the one, the only George Valentin on the red carpet. Amid the glitz and glamour of the paparazzi swarming Hollywoodland’s biggest star, we see a “regular” girl. In fact, it’s Peppy’s ambiguity that sets her apart from said crowd. While all the other female fans are elbowing each other to get a chance to see their idol strike a pose on the red carpet, Peppy works her way to the front of the pack and just watches George, studying him. It’s like she sees the man behind the star, a man hidden from everyone else. A man she knocks off his feet.
That’s the thing about Peppy—it’s her authenticity that charms audiences. Unlike George’s man-made celebrity, which seduces his loveliest fans, Peppy’s unflinching compassion for those around her downright enchants the audience.
In that way, Peppy becomes George’s guardian angel. When his career begins to slide downhill, and his once marqueed name can’t even fill up a full row of seats at a theater, Peppy is the only one by his side, his number one fan when he has no one left. She picks him up when he hits rock bottom, when his pride stunts his career from forging ahead. As their careers see-saw one another, it is Peppy who remains the emotional compass throughout the entire film, the one who gets what George refuses to get.
This natural clairvoyance propels her own film ambitions. Peppy’s career skyrockets into superstardom, but, with the exception of one significant scene where she tries to play up her career by essentially downplaying those who came before her (like George), she remains unaffected by the Hollywood allure. It’s fascinating to watch a charismatic leading lady remain grounded even after her career takes off.

And it’s even more interesting to see her come to the rescue of her masculine counterpart, even if he did become a washed up star by the time of his rescuing. That’s something that would have never happened during the era the film is set in. In fact, Peppy would have more than likely have been drawn as a mere shallow competitor to George’s steadfast—however delusional—career. Since she was not written that way, it gives this wistful film the modern boost it needs to stand out.
But The Artist doesn’t just paint Peppy as George Valentin’s superhero. Peppy is also a trailblazing woman on her own. Much like many George before her, she knows how to play to a crowd and to the hungry paparazzi. She became such a power player in Hollywood that she was able to negotiate George’s reacceptance into Tinseltown after threatening to drop out of a project herself. That’s major move for a film actress, a bold one her part (that ended up paying off).
Peppy is that person you want in your corner—a bubbly (but not annoyingly so), impossibly adorable, smart, caring person with a good head on her shoulders. She never gets involved in any overblown scandal in order to get her name up in lights. She doesn’t sleep her way to the top of the Hollywood food chain. She never had to. All she was interested in was being a good friend, becoming an actor like her idol George, and spreading happiness to everyone along her path.
This all plays to the deep complexities of her character, which go far beyond uplifting the lead male character. Peppy is a strong character by herself, without even relating to George. They are both equally rounded characters who supply the substance in a movie that’s heightened by their stories and the actors who play them. Their relationship helps stack every layer of this film, therefore elevating it past its seemingly cursory exterior.
While we never really learn much information about Peppy’s background (she remains mostly anonymous on that front throughout the entire film), somehow we still feel as though she gives us a window to her soul. You relate to her, you empathize with her, and you cheer for her each time she steps in front of the camera. In short, Peppy has that likability factor that fans crave. How can they not? She practically waltzes from scene to scene and, before we know it, we’re smitten by her magic.
Although this season’s awards race may have you under the impression that Peppy is indeed a supporting character, Bejo’s performance of her will have you believing differently. Bejo brings out all the key qualities of Peppy in a performance that’s not emotionally powerful, but emotionally resounding nonetheless.
Even in silence, you hear the tapping of her shoes, the pep in her step, and her infectious laugh. How can a film with no words emit such a roaring character? Put Bejo front and center and she becomes one with the music. Every sympathetic look, impossibly happy reaction and playful gesture becomes a full fledged sympathy with Bejo. She doesn’t need any words, because the audience just knows. And, you know what, she and us are right here.
Too often people equate a good performance to one that’s grandiose, a powerhouse portrayal. Though some of those performances are in fact riveting, Bejo’s performance isn’t less so. She sparkles as Peppy, bringing out her magnetism as the gargantuan starlet she becomes, while also humanizing her and keeping her grounded. In other words, you take Peppy out of the City of Angels and she’d still be the same Peppy, girl wonder. Superhero to George Valentin, fallen star.

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Candice Frederick is an NABJ award-winning print journalist, film critic, and blogger for Reel Talk. She is also the co-host of Blog Talk Radio’s “Cinema in Noir.”


Indie Spirit Best Supporting Female Nominee: Shailene Woodley in ‘The Descendants’

Shailene Woodley as Alexandra King in The Descendants

This is a guest post from Martyna Przybysz.

WARNING: SPOILERS!
It’s almost disappointing to hear people discuss Payne’s new film The Descendants and not have them mention the absolute raw talent that Shailene Woodley is until much later in the conversation, almost in an ‘Oh yeah, she was great too!’ kind of manner. Because to me, she pretty much steals the show.
When we first meet her character, Alexandra King, the daughter of Matt (Clooney) and Elizabeth King (recently injured in a tragic boating accident), it ain’t a pretty picture. Shipped away to a boarding school for her misbehavior, Alex seems to be enjoying herself a bit too much. “Dad? My fucking dad is here!” she shouts drunkenly to a friend, and then turns to Matt with an almost condescending “What’s up dad? What’s happening?” However intrigued we may be, we get off on the wrong foot with her, and – to the horror of her father who’s now convinced that “all women in his life want to destroy themselves” – she initially falls into a cliché of a rebellious teenage girl.
But one would think that after three seasons of being Amy on The Secret Life of The American Teenager, playing a troubled adolescent was not a new territory for Shailene. And this is where one couldn’t be more wrong. I caught a few snippets of the show on YouTube, and despite wooden ensemble acting, and the whole thing being rather cringe-worthy, Shailene definitely demonstrates some charisma and talent already.
The comparison between Amy and Alex, however, doesn’t extend beyond both characters being teenagers. Alexandra King is nothing like a silly teenage girl – she’s feisty, uncompromising, and wise beyond her years, a young woman. As the film progresses she slowly but surely transforms into her dad’s biggest ally.

Alexandra (Woodley) with her father, Matt (Clooney)

The father-daughter relationship in The Descendants is far from simple. When setting off to get Alex home, Matt compares a family to an archipelago – “all part of the same whole, but still separate, and alone, and always drifting slowly apart.” This couldn’t be more accurate. The morning after the alcohol incident at the boarding school, resentment and disregard towards Matt emanate through Alex’s body language. She blames him for always being busy with work, and not paying enough attention to her. Later in the day, that accusation begins to have different connotations. It is Alex who breaks the news about her mother’s affair to her dad. She’s angry and upset with both of her parents. But the fact that she sides with Matt in her uncompromising approach to her mum’s betrayal is the first sign of her becoming a moral compass for the entire situation.

In the film’s opening monologue Clooney’s character claims that “he’s ready to be a real father now.” Shortly after Alex’s return it becomes apparent that he’s not only in need of her help with his younger tomboyish daughter Scottie, but he could also use some moral support himself. After a rocky start, Matt, Alex, Scottie, and Alex’s friend Sid set off on a journey, both literally and metaphorically. They go to Kaua’i in search of Elizabeth’s lover.
In one of my favorite scenes, before their trip, Alex, Sid and Matt are in the car, just having looked for Brian Speer’s house. Sid – however his presence is meant to be keeping Alex ‘in check’  –  is being goofy and annoying, and Matt cannot take it anymore, but is too resigned to do anything about it. This is when Alex leans towards the front seat, and says “Don’t forget that I know where he lives” – that moment very subtly starts a new dynamic in their father-daughter relationship.
From the beginning Alex is supportive of Matt wanting to find the guy, and not suggestive of what he should do, but she jumps at the opportunity of going to another island, “getting out of town,” to look for him. It is during that trip that Alex’s role in the family begins to shape. Walking beside Clooney’s character, Woodley is his feisty and mouthy voice of reason – she voices all that Matt cannot or is afraid to say. And she does that effortlessly, in an ‘I don’t give a fuck’ manner.

And then, the peak moment of the film – the encounter with her mother’s lover  –  puts Alex in the spotlight. It is now clear how much of a strong, independent woman she’s become. She is the one who has the last word on whether they will confront the guy, and orders Matt to “not be a pussy.” He welcomes that advice, as well as he does the other times when she comes to his rescue, with a quiet relief. It isn’t until the last moment before the confrontation when Matt feels guilty about involving his underage daughter in the whole situation. But Alex is already two steps ahead of him. After all, she is the one “who sucked him in, the one who knew.”

Apart from trying to patch up a relationship with her dad, Alex has to look out for her younger sister, Scottie. It initially appears that she might not be setting the best example for her by teaching her swear words. But with her advice  –  however inappropriate it may be  –  Alex gets it right the first time. Like when she “advises” Scottie to keep away from a particular friend by saying that (the friend) “is a fucked-up hoe bag, and you need to stay away from her!” Vulgar? Maybe. But in Alex’s eyes it sends the message across, and puts Scottie in her place. And isn’t that what Matt needed when he sought Alex’s help with his younger daughter?
“Don’t spoil it for her” says Matt to Alex, when she’s pouring all of her accusations and blame out on Elizabeth. They now both need to protect Scottie, and Alex in an instant understands that she has to become more of a motherly figure. The only time that she allows herself to be really vulnerable is under the water, in the pool – releasing a silent cry at the news of her mother’s condition.

The final shape that Matt’s and Alex’s slowly maturing and re-developing bond takes is mostly visible towards the end of the film. During the goodbyes with Elizabeth, and then spreading her ashes in the Hawaiian waters, they come to a new level of understanding. They have now become equals, fully accepting of each other.

What intrigues me about Woodley’s character is her friendship with Sid. At the beginning of the film, Matt makes us aware of the fact that in her quest to self-destruction, Alex has a tendency to date older guys. And there comes Sid – a friend from school, slightly goofy, initially involved in the situation in order to ensure Alex stays “more civil.” He’s a nice addition to the ensemble, and brings much needed goofy-humor, but still, Alex whizzes through the entire situation solely on her two feet.
Apart from being a good looking long-legged siren, Alexandra King is a complex and multilayered character. She’s a feisty but intelligent and opinionated teenager, a self-assured and independent young woman, and last but not least – a compassionate and devoted adolescent daughter.
I have no clue how Shailene Woodley managed to stay in the shadows until now (because let’s face it, The Secret Life can hardly be counted), but it’s been said that she’d given “one of the toughest, smartest, most credible adolescent performances in recent memory” as Alexandra. Rawness and realness of her talent are visible throughout the film, and she definitely sets the bar high, both for herself, and other young actresses. If Alex King could say something to this, it would probably be ‘Fuck, yeah!’.

Martyna Przybysz is a Pole who resides in London, UK. She works in film production. This is her blog: http://martynaprzybysz.tumblr.com.

Oscar Best Picture Nominee: ‘Midnight in Paris’ and Its Woman Problem

Marion Cotillard and Owen Wilson in ‘Midnight in Paris’
I’ve never understood why people adore Woody Allen and lavish him with accolades. I’ve never liked his films. Nope, not even the adored Annie Hall, aside from the FABulous fashions donned by Diane Keaton. I know, I know…I’ve braced myself for the verbal lashings that will undoubtedly ensue. Besides his creepy penchant for dating and then marrying his daughter, I loathe the way Allen generally depicts women in his films. Yes, his movies make some interesting gender commentaries and contain phenomenal female actors (Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep, Patricia Clarkson, Penelope Cruz). But it irritates me that the myriad interesting and intelligent female characters in his movies seem to be punished for their strength or continually fall for the neurotic chump’s charm bullshit.

In Allen’s latest Oscar-nominated endeavor, Midnight in Paris, Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) is a successful Hollywood screenwriter struggling to write his first novel. He visits Paris with his constantly complaining fiancé Inez (Rachel McAdams), as he yearns to live amongst his literary idols in the Roaring Twenties. Gil discovers that at midnight, he is able to transport to 1920s Paris and hobnob with writers, musicians and painters. A love letter to Paris and artists, Midnight in Paris explores the dichotomy between illusions of nostalgia and pragmatically embracing the present.

Allen has a knack for evoking the visceral beauty of a city: NYC in Annie Hall and Manhattan, Barcelona in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Paris in Midnight in Paris. With lush cinematography, Allen capturesthe seductive allure and breathtaking romance of Paris. He also infuses the film with myriad authors and artists from the 1920s, a bibliophile’s dream. These delightful distractions almost made me forget (almost) that while an okay film, it’s certainly not a great one.

Now, I didn’t hate Midnight in Paris like my kick-ass colleague Stephanie. But I totally understand why she did because it royally pissed me off too. The portrayal of women in this film is fucking problematic.

Kathy Bates is fantastic as writer and art collector Gertrude Stein. Yet she’s highly underutilized, striving to make the most of her small role. Incredibly influential, we witness Stein’s Parisian salon which attracted talented writers, like Ernest Hemingway and Ezra Pound, whom she advised and mentored. After reviewing his manuscript, Gertrude bestows Gil with her wisdom: “We all fear death and question our place in the word. The artist’s job is not to succumb to despair but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence.” Aside from Gertrude, none of the female characters are either truly likeable, interesting or complex individuals.

Audacious Zelda Fitzgerald (Alison Pill, who tries her best to imbue her with charm), F. Scott Fitzgerald (Tom Hiddleston)’s wife and a writer in her own right, diminishes her artistic talent by saying, “…and I realize I’ll never write a great lyric and my talent really lies in drinking.”

An “art groupie” muse, Adriana (Marion Cotillard) designs couture fashion and becomes the object of Gil’s affection, despite his fiancé. When Gertrude reads the first line of Gil’s book aloud, Adriana praises it saying she’s “hooked” and later calls his musings on the “City of Light” poetic. Enamored with her, they begin to spend their evenings talking and walking around Paris. Cotillard is a divine actor. But her character is beige and boring. Although I must admit I’m glad Adriana ultimately chooses her own path.

In addition to seeking Stein’s advice on his book, Gil turns to another woman, an art museum guide (Carla Bruni), for advice on being in love with two women at the same time. Oh, and he also flirts with 25-year-old Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) (cause you know, that’s what middle-aged dudes do) who sells old records from the Jazz Age and shares his love of Paris in the rain.

Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams in ‘Midnight in Paris’

But the worst female depiction – yeah, if you’ve seen the film, you know who I’m talking about – was Inez (Rachel McAdams). Inez complains about Paris’ charming bistros, getting wet in the rain, living outside the U.S. and Gil not purchasing $20,000 chairs. She undermines Gil’s talent in front of him to her friends saying, “He’s not sure he can write a novel.” Inez criticizes everything Gil says and does all while gushing over her crush, academic Paul (Michael Sheen), going so far as to shush Gil when he speaks in order to hear Paul’s pretentious diatribes. When Gil talks about Inez to others, he highlights her beauty (of course) and adds that she possesses a “sharp sense of humor.” Watching their relationship, it’s painfully obvious that there’s absolutely nothing keeping them together as the only thing they share is a mutual like of Indian food.

Now, I don’t automatically have a problem with a villainous or unlikeable female character, especially since there are so many female roles in the film. In fact, I often lament how unlike men, women are not allowed to play unlikeable or unsympathetic characters. But I have a huge problem with the “nag” role. The cliché of women as “nags” permeates pop culture.

I also have a huge problem that the seemingly sole reason Inez was made so horribly despicable was to “allow” Gil to cheat on his fiancé. The audience would sympathize with Gil for kissing another woman, buying her trinkets, baring his soul to her and planning to sleep with her even though he was engaged because his fiancé was such a shrew. Oh that’s right, I forgot! It’s okay to cheat on someone as long as they’re an asshole.

Allen told Rachel McAdams that she should play this role as she should “want to play some bitchy parts” as they’re more interesting. Maybe. But not this part. I didn’t find her character interesting at all. Yes, McAdams tries her best with the material she’s given. But the character is one-dimensional and annoying, lacking any depth or complexity.

Midnight in Paris, like pretty much all of Allen’s films, lacks diversity. They’re a sea of white with no people of color anywhere in sight. Oh I take that back. There’s a black woman in a car that Gil gets in on his “way” to the 1920s, one shot of Josephine Baker (Sonia Rolland) dancing that lasts all of 30 seconds and a few black people watching her dance.

Along with race, sexual identities are also omitted. The film contains three famous lesbians: Gertrude Stein, Stein’s life partner Alice B. Toklas (Thérèse Bourou-Rubinsztein) and writer Djuna Barnes (Emmanuelle Uzan). Of all three, Gil only alludes to Djuna’s sexuality when he says she led when they danced together. So lesbianism is almost completely erased, paving the way for good ole’ heteronormativity.

The only overt gender commentary occurs when Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll) says, “Pablo Picasso thinks women are only to sleep with or to paint,” but he believes “a woman is equal to a man in courage.” Which is interesting since Allen is a person who in his personal life doesn’t always believe equality in relationships is desirable: “Sometimes equality in a relationship is great, sometimes inequality makes it work.” (???) Yeah, this explains a lot. He also has a penchant for younger women, in his movies and in reality, because younger women are more innocent, “before they get spoiled by the world.” Gag. 

This attitude that older women are less desirable as romantic partners seems to echo throughout the film, particularly in its ending. Don’t stay with the older (relatively speaking) jaded woman. Get with the young, innocent girl! While numerous women abound, everything in the film revolves around Gil, a stand-in for Woody Allen. Women are merely a buffet to be sampled – if one doesn’t work out, oh well, try another!
I’ll admit; the book lover in me was almost seduced. It felt like a light-hearted, whimsical, bibliophile remake of Purple Rose of Cairo. Instead of film characters leaping off-screen, novelists from the past reside in alongside the present. But there is no way in hell this should ever be nominated for a Best Picture or Director Oscar. It’s nothing more than an esthetically pleasing diversion.

I swear people nominated Midnight in Paris for so many awards because Hollywood is lazy. Rather than nominating ground-breaking, intelligent films like Pariah, The Whistleblower or Young Adult, this gets nominated because Allen is a famous, old, white male director. Good job, Hollywood. Way to keep perpetuating the dude machine.

The film suffers from a major woman problem. The women in the film are just as intelligent and talented as their male contemporaries. Gil turns to women for advice and guidance. Yet Allen reduces almost all of them to love interests and arm candy, nothing more than satellites to a dude.

Indie Spirit Best Feature Nominee: Beginners

Beginners (2010)
This is a guest post from Megan Ryland.
(Does contain minor, vague spoilers)
Beginners introduces us to Oliver (Ewan McGregor), who is struggling to cope with the life and death of his father, while also attempting to fall in love. Told in memories that collide with the present day, the narrative moves forward and backward in time to reveal who and what has shaped Oliver’s life. 
After Oliver’s mother dies, his 75-year-old father Hal (Christopher Plummer) reveals that he is gay and proceeds to embrace an identity that he has been forced to conceal. Unfortunately, four years later Hal is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Oliver cares for his father until Hal’s death, after which Oliver can only mourn and care for his father’s dog, Arthur, who shares his grief. Three months after the funeral, Oliver meets Anna (Mélanie Laurent), a beautiful French actress. Despite their shared tendency to push others away, they enter a complicated relationship and try to determine if either one of them knows how to make it work.
The movie is written and directed by Mike Mills, who reportedly based the movie on his experiences with his own father. While dealing with heavy topics, the overall tone and trajectory of the movie is arguably optimistic. The narrative is at times whimsical or quirky, but it maintains a strong connection to real emotion that I found compelling. Ewan McGregor is fantastic as the centerpiece of this intelligent romantic comedy, but the entire cast sells the story. Mélanie Laurent, Christopher Plummer and Mary Page Keller create a rich world as supporting characters with their own stories.
From where I stand, Beginners is yet another movie about men and their lives, but I have a hard time faulting it for that. If it were not another drop in the enormous bucket of Stories About Men, I could find little to complain about. I would actually like to go over what I felt Beginners got right about its characterization of women and men.
First, I appreciated the fact that men took on caretaking as a main feature in the film. Oliver spends months trying to care for his father, and then months trying to grieve his passing, and that emotional journey is not often documented in popular media. We also see men gathered around a sick friend’s bed and men as hospice workers, all without special comment or congratulations. In the movie, nurturing and care are not determined to be the domain of women. In fact, women appeared in a wide variety of positions that aren’t necessarily limited by stereotypical expectations. There are women clients, artists, upper management, friends, doctors, and nurses. Essentially, women are a normal presence within the world created by the film and they display a variety of characteristics. That’s refreshing to see in a movie focused on a man’s story.
Mélanie Laurent as Anna
For example, Beginners could have put Anna (Mélanie Laurent) in the role of the girlfriend-as-therapist, but her position in the story is not dependent on her ability to be the caretaker for Oliver. In my opinion, Anna’s sympathy and understanding does not transform her into a tool to cope with Oliver’s grief over his father. She escapes being the empty vessel for Oliver’s emotions to pour into, thank goodness! She has her own issues to sort out and their interactions move far beyond simply dealing with Hal’s death. In fact, in coping with her own issues, Anna is not morally required by the narrative to be a caretaker for her depressed father either. She’s arguably not forced to lean on men to define her character’s role or trajectory, despite playing the romantic lead.
The relationship between Anna and Oliver was of great interest to me. Anna is rather unique in the depiction of her sexuality and sensuality. Although both Oliver and Anna pursue the relationship at different moments, Anna is initially often the sexual ‘aggressor’ with no feigned coy expressions. She is not ashamed when she invites a stranger to her hotel room, or when they do introductions the following morning. Importantly, this behaviour is not set up by the film to be seen as deviant or ‘troubled.’ The audience isn’t expected to see anything wrong with her establishing a relationship in this manner. Although the lack of judgment or slut shaming could be attributed to the relatively mature age of both Anna and Oliver, I still appreciate the normalization of Anna taking the lead in her own sexual and emotional satisfaction.
Arguably, Anna is also beautiful and sexy without being objectified by the camera. Shots linger on her face, not her bust, waist or behind. Maybe my standards are horribly low from watching mainstream television and movies, but this treatment impressed me. Even her brief, partial nudity is natural and the director avoids allowing the audience to leer at her as she changes clothes. For as much time as the couple spends in the bedroom, I am hard pressed to describe Anna’s figure in any detail. The relationship between Oliver and Anna is depicted as involving a great deal of sex, but her character is never simplified to her value in bed. In my opinion, her defining characteristics are her playfulness, her caring insight and her struggle with keeping people in her life – not her sexuality or hotness rating.
Although it could have easily been a Garden State for grown ups, Beginners refuses easy answers or simple characters. It also deftly avoids the pitfall of the Manic Pixy Dream Girl, as Anna is legitimately flawed, not just quirky (as seen in Elizabethtown and Garden State). Anna doesn’t know how to make the relationship work anymore than Oliver does. Their only saving grace is in trying at all. Unlike the typical Manic Pixy Dream Girl, Anna does not guide Oliver on an adventure where he finds himself; they are both in an adventure of a relationship, while Oliver is separately dealing with his grief. It’s not her responsibility to open his eyes to the beauty of life.
Mary Page Keller as Georgia
Oliver’s mother, Georgia, is the other woman in his life. Georgia is a striking figure who we see only in distant memories and who is played beautifully by Mary Page Keller. In a very limited number of scenes, Georgia leaves a lasting impression. For example, when Oliver remembers his father briefly kissing his mother before going to work, Georgia’s expression as Hal leaves her is profoundly moving. Oliver’s father is entirely absent in these memories, even when he kisses Georgia. The audience understands in that moment what their entire relationship was like, and what Oliver watched on a daily basis. Every time the kissing goodbye clip repeated, I was glued to Keller’s face. In barely a few minutes on screen, the nuance and complexity that we see from Georgia (Keller) is astounding. She married a gay man knowing he was gay, and yet hungers for the kind of emotion, connection and attention that she needs. He will never deliver it, but she never leaves him; they are together until her death. Even from her brief screen time, the audience understands Georgia as a complexly motivated character who adds depth to the story.
Fortunately, Georgia is not entirely defined by the roles of wife and mother, despite only being shown in the memories of her son. She is a woman who gave up a great deal and who existed outside the lives of her son and husband. For example, Georgia is described as having “handed in her Jewish badge” when Hal married her. While she is not as present as other characters, I believe that she is given dignity and complexity. She is not a Maternal Figure placeholder and she is not used as the scapegoat for Oliver’s intimacy issues, but she is not perfect either. Keller delivers an utterly human performance of a woman who wants to give happiness to her son, while barely maintaining the façade of happiness in her own life. This is a story that has been lived by many women in many ways.
Christopher Plummer as Hal
I would be remiss if I didn’t also discuss Hal. Christopher Plummer has been collecting Best Supporting Actor awards for the role (as of this writing, Wikipedia lists 5 received), and in my humble opinion, they are definitely earned. Plummer plays a loving and optimistic gay senior, which departs from typical depictions of young, promiscuous gay men in the media. Although not an entirely radical character, Hal is certainly a fresh representation of sexuality for two demographics, one often considered ‘non-sexual’ (seniors) and other considered ‘hyper sexual’ (gay men). Hal is often joyful, even while dying, and doesn’t express shame or regret for the compromises he has made. He does not simplify his life for his son or the audience, and he does not apologize for it. Both Oliver and the viewer are left to determine what it means to live and achieve happiness as Hal has. Again, Beginners provides complex characterization and depth of feeling.
What I really love about Beginners is that everyone is trying to find love and happiness, and everyone is having a hard go of it. Men, women, everyone is imperfect and trying so hard. The sincere efforts and genuine flaws make this a story about three-dimensional women and men who aren’t reduced to stereotypes or roles. No one attempts to save someone else (everyone is too busy with saving themselves) and the story doesn’t even become about Oliver using someone else to save himself. The only hope for finding happiness is trying to do it despite everything else.

Megan Ryland is currently completing her BA, focusing on politics, women and gender. She writes about feminism, body image, and media analysis on her blog, http://beautyvsbeast.wordpress.com. Starting in March 2012, she will also be helping to release the Hello City! Culture Cast, a Vancouver-based podcast that reviews movies, theatre, concerts and more.