Tag: Romance

Movie Review: Duplicity

Duplicity (2009). Written and directed by Tony Gilroy. Starring Julia Roberts and Clive Owen. Excellent supporting roles by Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti.

Duplicity has dropped out of the top box-office earners since its March 20th release; though it has earned a total of over $40 million domestically, that’s not enough to cover its budget of $60 million.

I saw Duplicity in the theaters last month in part because of the positive reviews paired with skeptical press and questions about whether Julia Roberts could still open a movie. (Questions that angered me enough to express my opinion with my wallet, an action I believe is important.) A recent story clip on MSN compelled me to revisit the movie. The headline “Moneymakers” beside a picture of Julia Roberts, with the byline “Hollywood’s most bankable actresses” links to an article that discusses which actresses can currently be counted on to bring in the bucks. “Moneymaker”, of course, is a term most commonly associated with pornography, prostitution, and the objectification of the female ass, in particular.

The actress-as-commodity isn’t anything unusual in the sexist institution of mainstream filmmaking, but describing a popular actress as a “moneymaker” creates a serious problem. While box office numbers (and particularly opening weekend numbers) determine a film’s success and influence executives in terms of which movies are greenlighted, I have to wonder if it’s the actress’ ass alone bringing people into theaters.

Anyhow, on to the movie.

Duplicity expects level of sophistication and intelligence from its audience, which includes the ability to follow a story that jerks viewers from location to location, and from time to time. It’s a romantic comedy, but it makes you think. Maybe this is a problem for box-office bucks, but a little mental effort makes a movie much more enjoyable–for adults, at least.

Thinking about Ripley’s Rule as a litmus test, this movie actually barely passes–if at all. This fact ordinarily is a big problem for me, but in Duplicity it feels like an afterthought. It’s a romantic comedy, but not the kind we’ve become accustomed to. As a number of reviewers have previously mentioned, this film hearkens back to the screwball comedies of the 1940s, when wit was king, and the women generally matched the men in smarts (that’s not to say that the gender politics were a mess in those movies). What makes the movie good–and so different from other romantic comedies–is that the man and woman are on an even keel. Domination of one or the other sex isn’t the issue. These characters have bigger fish to fry–namely, their bosses in the world of corporate espionage. It’s as if Michael Clayton were remade into a romantic comedy.

If you aren’t convinced that the movie is worth seeing, the opening credits present the strangest and most hilarious fight scene in recent memory.

Here’s the trailer:

Movies We Won’t Review: Miss March and I Love You, Man

It’s not that we have anything against male-centered movies, it’s just that we have better things to do. These two, in particular, inspire staying home and saving our money. Check out what other female critics have to say.

I Love You, Man

MaryAnn Johanson of FlickFilosopher: Conform, Man, Conform

Renee Scolaro Mora of PopMatters: Man dating.

Betsy Sharkey of L.A. Times: Paul Rudd and Jason Segel star in a bromantic comedy that leaves behind any hope for some heart.

Miss March

Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com: The comedians behind “The Whitest Kids U’ Know” cram their film debut with boobs and poo jokes — but end up with a serious stinker.

MaryAnn Johanson of FlickFilosopher (again): Virgin/Whore: The Movie

Rachel Saltz of The New York Times: Centerfold Sentiments

Movie Review: Two Lovers

Two Lovers. Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow, Vinessa Shaw, Moni Moshonov, Isabella Rossellini, John Ortiz, Bob Ari, Julie Budd, and Elias Koteas. Written and directed by James Gray.

I’ve always respected Joaquin Phoenix’s acting ability, and I respect it even now, while he’s pretending to be mid-crazy, launching a fake rap career for Casey Affleck’s fake documentary—about Phoenix’s fake retirement from acting—and while he’s a full-bearded, drug-taking (that part’s real), mumbling, late night talk show phenom turned YouTube sensation. His documented fake freak-out definitely piqued my curiosity about his last film role, prior to his fake retirement from acting, Two Lovers. As it turned out, Phoenix’s brilliant performance, and the Brighton Beach, Brooklyn setting, were the only real reasons to keep watching this piece.

Leonard (Phoenix) is a medicated, suicidal mess of a person, who moved back in with his Jewish parents after his fiancé dumped him when it became apparent that they both carried a recessive gene that would prevent them from having children together. He helps his parents with their dry-cleaning business while also pursuing a half-hearted interest in photography. As his parents solidify a deal to sell the business, they set up their son with the daughter of their buyers. Enter Sandra (Vinessa Shaw), a pretty, sweet brunette who’s secretly liked Leonard ever since seeing him dance with his mother at the dry cleaner’s.

Around the time Leonard meets Sandra, he also coincidentally meets a gorgeous, glamorous blonde, Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow), who just moved into his apartment building. Already as a viewer, I’m wondering how I’m supposed to believe that this guy, who just attempted suicide (again) at the beginning of the film, and who keeps a picture of his former fiancé on his nightstand, falls into a situation where he’s swimming in new vagina. Regardless, he’s most taken with the hot, fun blonde (shocking) who inhales drugs on her way to club-it-up in Manhattan and who lives the rest of her life in a codependent daze. Turns out, she’s a lawyer’s assistant, and—guess what—she’s fucking the lawyer!

Much to the dismay of Leonard (and me), Michelle lives in an apartment paid for by her married lawyer boyfriend, who’s planning to leave his wife for her, and who takes her to the opera an awful lot and other whatever. Michelle sees Leonard as “just a friend” and constantly asks him to do things for her, like, oh you know, tend to her after her miscarriage and etc, just like people who’ve been friends for two weeks often do. (That scene particularly bothered me, as it paints Michelle as not just codependent but completely manipulative and codependent exclusively on men. Where are her women friends?)

The worst part about all this is that the movie pretends these female characters have some complexity, by at least giving Paltrow some decent dialogue to work with, but the reality is that the characters are mired in clichés. It’s hard to overlook the fact that Leonard’s two relationship choices include a sensible, sweet brunette and a wild, drug-addicted, smokin’ hot blonde, which is so completely the opposite of subversive or interesting, and actually brings to mind the Madonna/Whore dichotomy. Also, we’re meant to believe that Sandra goes along with Leonard’s wishy-washiness because she just loves him that much, and, as she blatantly says to him, she understands him and just wants to take care of him. (Gag.)

Michelle, on the other hand, a character based entirely on the boss-screwing-his-hot-assistant cliché, goes from dumping her married boyfriend because he won’t leave his wife, to screwing Leonard on the roof of their apartment building, all in the span of a few hours. She is a sad character, and it’s never more evident than in this moment—her need to feel desired by men, to depend on them, to be taken care of by them, always overpowers anything else she may be feeling—it’s obvious she doesn’t care for Leonard as more than a friend, and yet she makes the decision to run away with him to San Francisco. (But don’t worry; he’s taking care of the tickets and any other necessary accommodations.)

I understand this film wants to give Leonard a choice and that Sandra represents a stable life, near his family, in partnership with her family, where he’ll enjoy a financially secure future, while also pleasing his parents, especially his very concerned mother. Conversely, Michelle represents his freedom from that life, and the literal escapes he makes with her—leaving grimy, unglamorous Brighton Beach to hang out with her in the big city—further illustrate his unwillingness to remain static. That’s the part of the film I love. Phoenix does the man-child bit in a way that isn’t a cliché taken straight from an Apatow film; he somehow makes you sympathize with Leonard and his dilemma.

Leonard’s obvious internal conflict with embracing his Jewish heritage—the choice Sandra represents (she’s almost a replacement mother for him)—and his desire to abandon his working-class neighborhood and subsequently the dry cleaning business—the choice Michelle represents—certainly save the film from replicating many recent comedy-dramas, where the slacker man-child lives out his slacker existence until falling in love with a gorgeous woman, way out of his league, who finally domesticates him, curing him of his adolescent slacker ways.

The family dynamic in particular plays out in Leonard’s choice between Sandra and Michelle. Sandra, a Jewish woman, has an obvious connection with her family. When Leonard asks her what her favorite movie is, she tells him it’s The Sound of Music, not because she thinks it’s a great movie, but because it reminds her of watching it with her family as a child. We see scenes with her and her family at her brother’s bar mitzvah, with Leonard there too, almost lurking in the background.

Michelle, however, is the opposite of Sandra, a blonde WASP, who only mentions her father once, when we hear him yelling off-screen at the beginning of the film. We never see any member of her family, and that certainly appeals to Leonard. If he chooses Michelle, he can avoid living a life his parents and Sandra’s parents seem to have already planned out for him, and Phoenix, a master at playing this type of emotionally wounded character, truly makes the audience sympathize with his struggle to get his life together.

But as much as I loved watching Joaquin work the screen, I absolutely despised the pseudo-complexity of Paltrow’s character. (They don’t even try to make Shaw’s character into anything more than Future Doting Wife.) Michelle’s codependence isn’t interesting— no matter how effortlessly Paltrow performs it—the blonde wild-child thing is tired at this point, and the over-the-top female insecurity just completely and unapologetically lacks inventiveness. (Women can demonstrate insecurity in ways other than becoming drug addicts, passing out in bar bathrooms, screwing their married bosses, and manipulating men, I promise.)

So what the hell? Ultimately, I’m left with this question: why does a film about a man’s attempt to pull himself out of a very real darkness have to rely so heavily on traditional clichés regarding women’s experiences, while simultaneously creating an actual interesting life for the male hero?

Rachel Getting Married: A Response

Last October, Stephanie reviewed Rachel Getting Married after seeing it in the theater. After rereading her post, I’d like to offer my response.


First, the poster is a poor representation of the film. While you could argue that Kym (Hathaway) is the main character, the movie is really about her and her sister, Rachel (DeWitt). The background of the movie is much more in the foreground, unlike the poster. All the characters in the film are complicated, conflicted, and ultimately complicit in the family tragedy. What Stephanie said about the anger and guilt rings true, as well as the unsentimental nature of the story. Each character behaves in cruel, selfish ways; Kym’s narcissistic, inappropriate speeches counter Rachel’s bratty outbursts of jealousy. Yet there are some weak points in an otherwise very, very good movie.

The mother, Abby (Winger), always stays on the periphery of the story, with both sisters desiring her comfort and love. Her inability to give her daughters what they want is realistic, but in a film where the two main characters change over the course of a weekend, and grow to accept each other in subtle ways, an unchanging, hard mother stands out and takes on the role of the ‘responsible party’ in the family’s tragedy. Her coldness and distance, compared to the father’s overbearing nurturing of his daughters (he’s constantly stroking faces and fixing food), makes her an easy target for blame. The reversal of stereotypical gender-based reactions to tragedy is particularly interesting, but I wonder if the flip is too complete, too easy. In other words, does the mother simply become the father? What kind of love are the sisters looking for from their mother? Do they need something from their father? If so, what?

Aside from what I see as the incomplete characterization of the mother, something that really bothered me is something I simultaneously love: the lack of back story. While it makes us more present in the film, it endlessly thwarts attempts at a reading. The documentary-style filming, too, frustrates viewers by hiding as much as it reveals. The family trauma is made abundantly clear, maybe too much so. In the first scene, we learn from a fellow rehab patient that Kym killed someone with a car. Once she gets home and stands for a moment in an empty child’s room, we can guess what has happened. We get several additional scenes that explain every detail of the accident. Yet, that’s not the source of her addiction. Kym was some sort of teen model, gracing the cover of Seventeen magazine while blasted on horse tranquilizers, and her family had the kind of money (whether it was hers or not) to send her to the premium rehab facilities.

Also, it’s impossible to ignore the multicultural cast of friends and family. We don’t know how a Connecticut WASP family came to be part of such a rockin’ crew, or how the bride and groom’s families all became so comfortable with each other on their very first meeting. While I admire the post-racial aspirations of the film, and thoroughly enjoyed the music, the actors seem more like Jonathan Demme’s crew than two families joining for the first time. The mixing of cultures (Caribbean and Hindu, specifically, with those intimate with “Connecticut’s complicated tax structure”) plays naturally in the movie, and never feels like a co-optation, but compared with the stark realism of the primary relationships, leaves viewers asking questions, testing our willing suspension of disbelief. I’d love to read the screenplay (written by Jenny Lumet), and see how my issues with the film manifest in the (original) script, and how much is Demme’s indulgence.

While this may seem like a negative review, the preceding are really my only complaints. I watched the movie twice, and liked it even better the second time around. I haven’t seen such a realistic family drama, with women who break common decency while ultimately remaining sympathetic characters. Further, I’m fascinated by stories that deal with the aftermath of the worst kinds of traumas, and that explore how we come to deal with the unfathomable, the unforgivable, and the unforgettable.

Ripley’s Rebuke: Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Welcome to the first installment of Ripley’s Rebuke, a series of reviews of films that pass Ripley’s Rule while remaining essentially misogynistic.
Written and directed by Woody Allen; starring Rebecca Hall, Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem, and Penelope Cruz.

I like Woody Allen, while admitting that his best work is (long) behind him. With all the accolades Vicky Cristina Barcelona has received, I decided to give it a shot.

Vicky (Hall) and Cristina (Johansson) are privileged college students spending two months of their summer in Barcelona; Vicky plans to study for her thesis on Catalan identity (despite not speaking a lick of Spanish), and Cristina tags along, hoping to find something about herself and art, after she devoted six months to making a 12-minute film she now hates (a humorous and revealing detail). Both young women fall for the same Spanish artist/lothario (Bardem), and a contemplation on the nature of love follows.

Vicky and Cristina represent the stereotypical blonde/brunette duo in film: the brunette is repressed, practical to a fault, cautious, and afraid; the blonde is adventurous, sexual, open, and fun. It’s almost as if these characters represent two halves of the same person. Vicky has a responsible businessman fiance back home in New York, while Cristina jumps into bed with the first Spanish man she meets–not knowing, of course, that Vicky is also hot for him. The three of them spend a weekend together, and a convenient little plot device ensures that Vicky will actually sleep with the artist first, but is soon left behind for the more sexually attractive (and less neurotic) Cristina.

Soon, Cristina moves in with Juan Antonio, and his ex-wife unexpectedly comes into the picture, providing the film some much-needed energy, and also its low point. Penelope Cruz as the seriously unstable Maria Elana barrels, shrieks, and smokes her way into a menage-a-trois relationship with Cristina and Juan Antonio. While the scenario sparks precious few laughs (in a film almost devoid of humor), a question haunts Cruz’s every scene: why did she win so much praise for this role? (For the record, Cruz won a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award, a Best Supporting Actress BAFTA Film Award, a Best Supporting Female Independent Spirit Award, Best Supporting Actress SAG Award, among others. The film also won Allen a Best Screenplay Independent Spirit Award and a Best Picture Golden Globe Award, along with numerous other nominations and wins.) Maria Elana’s hysteria is epic, almost nineteenth-century in its intensity, as she tries to commit suicide and murder during her limited screen time. We’re told she’s a better artist than her ex-husband (it’s worth noting that she accuses Juan Antonio of stealing her style, and he is the one who lives in the house they shared and who has artistic success), but also that she falls apart without him–and with him, until Cristina creates the triangularity that allows the relationship to work. And, yes boys, you get to see a brief scene of Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz getting it on.

While all of Cristina’s sexy artistic madness happens, Vicky studies and regrets her choice of lifemate, Doug, who, despite his romantic gesture of flying to Barcelona for an impromptu marriage (with the promise of a lavish wedding back home, as previously planned), turns out to be a closed-minded dork. Vicky pines for Juan Antonio, endeared by his poet father and her surprise at perhaps (perhaps!) judging him too harshly. (Certainly there are no other sexy artists in Barcelona she could use to convince herself not to marry the man who planted that rock on her finger.)

In contrast to Penelope Cruz’s entire presence in the film, the high point, for me, comes at the end, when Cristina and Vicky head home, both resuming the lives they left behind, having come to no epiphany about the nature of love, having experienced no real growth or change of character. It’s bleak, it’s not funny, but it’s perhaps the most real and true moment of the entire film.

As for the need for a rebuke of this film, it (barely) passes the Bechdel Test, but does more to exploit its women than allow them to be full human beings. There are more than two named female characters, and they talk to each other, though almost every conversation is about men. There may be a brief line or two between Cristina and Maria Elana about photography, but soon after the conversation they kiss. And there’s nothing at all offensive about the kiss; it’s that there’s no believable passion–it seems like an act strictly performed for a male (ahem, Woody Allen) gaze. Further, Maria Elana objectifies herself for Cristina’s photography, posing as a prostitute in what passes for a rough part of town, mirroring the actual prostitutes that Cristina photographs while out with Juan Antonio.

Penelope Cruz deserved the Oscar for her role in Volver, not for her turn as a sexy shrieking cartoon character. The film deserves a rebuke for its pseudo-intellectualism about the meaning of love, and for the trite way it uses art and place. It deserves a rebuke for the flightiness and uncertainty of all of its female characters (including a weak turn from Patricia Clarkson, playing the ghost of Vicky’s future), while creating only confident, bold, male characters. Juan Antonio never seems to long for answers about love; he simply takes his conquests in stride, collecting lovers without thought. Women here don’t know what they want, and seem pathologically incapable of enjoying what they have or going after what they want.

Heigl’s in a RomCom?

Check out Shakesville for a discussion of the increasing number of embarrassing romantic comedies that continue to rehash the same stereotypical anti-woman crap Hollywood’s been dishing out for … ever?

This film would have us believe “the ugly truth” is that women love with their crazy little emotional centers and men love with their rascally cocks. But the real ugly truth is that there are people who treat that shit as actual fact—and the even uglier truth is that there are people who will pay good money to see this film because they find it “so true!”

Elizabeth Banks on a Porno

The number two movie at the box office this past weekend was Kevin Smith’s comedy Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Classically-trained actress, Elizabeth Banks, calls the role the best she’s ever played, and enthuses that director Kevin Smith “actually put a woman’s name in the title of a movie.”

Yeah, but he also put the word “porno” as the title’s direct object.

Read the LA Times interview with Banks, titled “Actress Elizabeth Banks is as versatile as they’ll let her be.”

About Banks, Smith says “She’s got that ‘guy’s girl’ thing going for her, so she can roll with dudes and be funny, but scrape that away and you realize this chick is way better than an R-rated comedy.”

I’ve heard the movie is funny and sweet, but I can’t help but to be skeptical of a celebration of this role, particularly with the bizarre and sexist statements that pop up in the very positive article.

Banks, like many actors in Hollywood, struggles with her desire to be taken seriously and do important work, but to be successful, too.

“You can go be in a female-driven indie and make two cents and maybe get an Independent Spirit Award, but then you can’t pay your car lease,” she says. “So Vince Vaughn makes movies, he needs a girl to be in it with him, it might be me.”

Ripley’s Pick: Rachel Getting Married

Welcome to our new feature, “Ripley’s Pick of the Week.” Each week, we’ll showcase a film that passes Ripley’s Rule, aka The Bechdel Rule.

Ripley’s Pick of the Week

Rachel Getting Married. Starring Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Bill Irwin, Tunde Adebimpe, and Debra Winger. Written by Jenny Lumet. Directed by Jonathan Demme.


Rachel Getting Married isn’t your typical wedding movie. The film takes place over the course of a weekend, where the audience watches Rachel’s wedding unfold, complete with uncomfortable wedding speeches, recovering addicts, and live music playing in the background at all times. But the film isn’t about Rachel’s wedding—it’s about the awkward and often heartbreaking family dynamics at play, particularly among Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt), her perpetually-rehabbed-since-adolescence sister Kym (Anne Hathaway), and their absent mother Abby, played (amazingly) by Debra Winger.
The film centers around Kym, fresh out of rehab in time for her sister’s wedding. (Interestingly, it isn’t clear whether she’s let out of rehab only to attend the wedding, or if she’s out for good, which lends an uncomfortable urgency to the weekend.) When she shows up at home, in the typical heavy black eyeliner and choppy haircut reserved especially for onscreen female addicts, it’s immediately obvious that her family views her as out of control and unpredictable—for good reason. She demands to be the maid of honor. She references her twelve-step program during her rehearsal-dinner speech. She seduces the best man (who she initially meets in a Narcotics Anonymous meeting) in the first fifteen minutes of the movie.
If Kym encapsulates the bad-girl cliché, Rachel embodies the opposite. She’s sweet, in love, studying Psychiatry, and even her future in-laws describe her as an angel. Rachel’s earnestness, particularly in the scenes with her fiancé and her mother (it’s clear she craves her mother’s love and approval), works well juxtaposed with Kym’s constant biting sarcasm. While Kym seems to steal the attention of her parents by playing up her wildness and forcing them to acknowledge her, Rachel seeks it more sincerely, for instance by subtly letting her mother know she’d like her to contribute more than just the flower arrangements to her wedding ceremony.
What’s great about the film though, is that the characters prove to be much more complicated than this. The audience recognizes from the beginning that something isn’t quite right with this family—why is Kym in and out of rehab? Why do their divorced parents feel so awkward around each other? And why does Abby seem so obviously uncomfortable around her daughters, especially Kym? It’s not long before Kym, in her NA meeting, reveals the family tragedy haunting their family. The scene works well, and Hathaway is brilliant here, because, in Kym’s telling of the tragedy, we begin to see her vulnerability, and the audience gains a broader understanding of the guilt, sadness, even the self-loathing that each family member struggles with.

Rachel’s and Kym’s father Paul (Bill Irwin) shouldn’t be left out of the discussion, as he has an integral role, obsessing over Kym’s whereabouts, her safety, her health. Because of this, he’s often the catalyst for arguments between Rachel and Kym—Rachel despises that Kym has always taken up his attention, and Kym can’t stand Rachel’s over-analysis. Ultimately though, the film fascinated me because of its treatment of the female characters and how they interact with one another. There’s no sentimentality here; in fact, the realness of their interactions makes for seriously uncomfortable viewing. But it’s the kind of uncomfortable viewing I couldn’t recommend more highly.

Watch the trailer here.

Movie Review: Baby Mama

Just to put it out there, I love Tina Fey. Who doesn’t right now, with her Emmy-winning TV series 30 Rock returning soon, and her riotously funny return to Saturday Night Live as Sarah Palin? If you haven’t yet seen Baby Mama, starring (but not written by) Fey and Amy Poehler, rent it. It’s funny, it’s smart, and–as a bonus–it’s one of the few movies that passes the Bechdel Test.

Baby Mama opens with a monologue from Kate (Tina Fey) that states a central problem for women who value both work and family, and it’s worth quoting here at length:

I did everything that I was supposed to do. I didn’t cry in meetings, I didn’t wear short skirts, I put up with the weird upper-management guys that kiss you on the mouth at Christmas. Is it fair that to be the youngest VP in my company I will be the oldest mom at preschool? Not really, but that’s part of the deal. I made a choice. Some women got pregnant; I got promotions. And I still aspire to meet someone, and fall in love, and get married, but that is a very high risk scenario. And I want a baby now. I’m 37.

Everything that Kate was supposed to do is a negation—she actually did nothing she wasn’t supposed to do: she didn’t get emotional, she didn’t inappropriately use her sexuality, she didn’t reprimand her superiors for inappropriate behavior. In other words, she put up with sexism and accepted the lies about women in the workplace, like “choice,” and “fairness.” She didn’t argue and she didn’t speak up for herself. She was a Yes Woman.

The beginning of the movie sets a high standard—and high hopes—for what follows. The initial joke here is that her monologue doesn’t address us—the audience—but a date. A first date. At the same time as give us our first laugh, she establishes her character as smart and ambitious, and still a woman who wants a child.

The plot of the movie is rather traditional, with a few twists, but it isn’t the plot that makes the movie so good. It’s the inherent critiques of male-dominated institutions that are subtle enough to avoid sounding topical or preachy, but strong and effective enough to reach the film’s smart viewers.

Real Life and Business

First is a critique—that runs throughout the movie—of the corporate business model. Kate’s sister, Caroline (Maura Tierney) first introduces the divide between “business” and “real life” when she chides Kate that “having a baby isn’t like opening one of your stores.” Caroline, who represents the perfect “mommy” in the movie, thinks that Kate’s approach to having a baby is too business-like.

Further, Chaffee Bicknell (Sigourney Weaver), who runs the surrogacy institute, refers to surrogacy as “outsourcing” and a “growth market,” and takes serious note of Kate’s joke about women in third-world countries carrying babies for wealthy women. Bicknell equates a nanny with a surrogate; a nanny takes care of your baby after it’s born, a surrogate takes care of your baby before it’s born. The ironic twist is that Bicknell is fertile to the point of absurdity, and didn’t start the business out of empathy, but simply for capitalist reasons.

This divide between “real life” and “business” is affirmed further by a conversation between Angie (Poehler) and her common law husband, Carl (Dax Shepard). In a scene where Carl refers to Kate as “Katie,” Angie defends her relationship with Kate (a plot twist, which I won’t reveal here, initiates the conversation). Carl tells Angie “You think you guys would be friends in real life? She’s a business lady. It’s just business.”

So what does this all add up to? Kate is, in fact, an unapologetic business lady. When love interest Rob (Greg Kinnear) warns her against “the man,” Kate thinks he means the cops when, in fact, he’s talking about rival smoothie makers Jamba Juice. “Jamba Juice is the man?” she asks. Kate, VP of operations for a corporate organic grocery, is also “the man.” It’s not clear, however, whether she’s aware of this fact, or how important the fact really is—to Kate and to the movie. The movie certainly critiques (and parodies) her corporate culture, but it still celebrates her success within it.

Hip Hop Culture

Critique of the hip hop industry comes from two subtle moments in the movie. In the first, we meet Kate’s doorman, Oscar (Romany Malco), singing along with his iPod to a song objectifying women. Oscar, for me, is probably the most troubling issue with the movie. Not only is he perpetually popping up in scenes, but his characterization reeks of stereotype and is a little cringe-worthy at times. He delivers some smart, funny lines, but doesn’t become a fully-realized character. Yet, viewers recognize a silly divide between the man he is and the music he consumes.

Not long after, Carl rummages through Kate’s media drawer and, dissatisfied, asks “Don’t you get down with rap?” Kate replies “Boy, somewhere in there I have an old Salt-N-Pepa CD.” While Kate name-checks some 90s hip hop that’s certainly more female-friendly than most of today’s fare, the implication is that she wouldn’t listen to music that she could, in no way, relate to. Or, it may simply show how out-of-touch she is with popular culture. The latter could certainly be the case, as an evening out with Angie shows how rarely Kate lets loose for a good time.

Men and Women, Talking

The movie’s men are all boyfriends, bosses, sidekicks—the standard roles for women in mainstream movies. While Kate’s boss, new-ager Barry, Carl, and Oscar are stereotypes, her love interest is a bit more round, even addressing gender during their first date. After Kate places a very specific Philly steak order, she says “I’m sorry. I’m a little overly thorough. Some people would say that I am bossy and controlling.” Rob replies “No, that’s just prejudice. They call you bossy and controlling ‘cause you’re a woman. But if you were a man doing the same stuff, you’d just be a dick.” The joke here is that he doesn’t say she’d be called “assertive” or the like; he actually insults her. While some enjoy this method of flirtation more than others, the recognition of a gender power dynamic is a cue for sympathetic viewers that he’s a smart match for Kate.

The real story of the movie isn’t the baby, of course, but the women. I love that about the movie. Kate and Angie fight, and are allowed real conflicts—in their own lives and with each other. There’s a nasty exchange of words between the two, where Kate reveals her classism, which had previously just shown up in comedic moments. A real friendship develops between them, and the movie is no less funny for it.

Movie Review: Juno

It took me a long time to see the film Juno. I was thrilled when Diablo Cody won the Oscar for Best Screenplay, but at the same time suspicious about her little movie being so lauded. To win an Oscar, the film must be saying the “right” things to the “right” people, a dynamic that rarely favors progressive thinking (see the movie Crash as a recent example). In other words, when too many people love a movie, there’s probably something wrong.

Aside from critical praise and popularity, the topic of teen pregnancy is rarely done without a hefty dose of morality. While we are in a peculiar cultural gray area on the subject—consider the cover of OK Magazine, featuring smiling teen mom Jamie Lynn Spears, or the Republican VP nominee’s pregnant teenage daughter—there seems to be an anti-choice undercurrent running through pregnancy plots, not to mention the culture at large.

The expectations I had going in were also based on reading commentary about the ultra-hip dialogue and soundtrack of the film. While certainly not negative in themselves, coupled with a controversial topic, these features could be enough to couch a conservative, anti-woman message in a hip, fresh film.

It turns out, however, that after an initial adjustment period to the dialogue (and a question about whether the film is set in the early ‘90s), Juno turns out to be planted in a feminist worldview, and is a film that teenagers, especially, ought to see. It was thoroughly enjoyable, funny and touching. I liked it so much that I watched it again, but when I started to write about it, what I liked about the movie became all the more confusing. I loved the music, although Juno MacGuff is way hipper than I was (or am), and I saw a representation that reminded me of myself at that age. I saw a paternal relationship that I never had and a familial openness that I’ve also never had. I saw characters who I wanted as my childhood friends and family.

And while in Juno we have a strong, unconventional female character—and a lead character, at that—the film itself was very, very safe. And I worry whether that’s a good thing. It’s certainly understandable for a first film. A Hollywood outsider would have a much more difficult time making an overtly progressive movie about teen pregnancy, but if she plays the politics safe, and if her own personality is enough of a draw, she just might make it.

I was worried when Juno visited the dumpy abortion clinic and met her pro-life classmate protesting in the parking lot, and I was worried by the very dumpiness of the clinic. I was struck by the notion that a clinic like that would look and feel much more sterile—even in the lobby, as far as Juno went. The thought of fingernails sent her running out of the building. A detail like “fingernails” made the abortion too real for Juno, a teenager, I suppose. Is this a good or bad thing? I don’t know.

Juno, in a rather nonchalant way, seeks permission of the baby’s father, her good friend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera), for the abortion. Or, rather, she seeks his opinion; she seems to want him to resist her plans. But his lack of resistance causes her to make the following decisions on her own. This straddles the line somewhat. She wants to be told what to do, and rather than seeking out someone smarter and more experienced than she is, she asks the boy whose approval she’s still seeking.

Juno wants her baby to have the perfect family; one unlike her own, which her mother abandoned. Her family now consists of her father, her stepmother Bren (Allison Janney), and her half-sister Liberty Bell. Juno doesn’t have a bad deal going. Her folks are markedly working class (they’re both members of the labor class, a group that doesn’t see much Hollywood recognition; he’s an HVAC repairman, she’s a nail technician). Yet Juno imagines a perfect life to consist of two loving parents and a McMansion.Why would she seek out people of this particular class? Is this a case of Juno’s lack of class awareness or the film’s?

The film’s real progressive moment comes when Juno realizes that her idea of perfection isn’t perfect. She realizes that a father who doesn’t want to be there would be as bad as a mother who hadn’t wanted to be there. She sees that a father isn’t a necessity–or perhaps simply that two parents aren’t a necessity. Yet what does this all add up to mean? There’s certainly a moment of female solidarity (and this isn’t the only one, certainly, in the film), and a difficult decision that she makes independently. But, as with other conclusions I’ve made, I’m left with the question of “So what?”

The film does love all of its characters, which is a refreshing change for a high school flick. Juno’s best friend, Leah, is a cheerleader who exhibits some flaky, teenage qualities (her crush on the chubby, bearded, middle-aged math teacher takes a cliché and gives it a twist), but the film loves her nonetheless. Vanessa Loring (Jennifer Garner) is an obsessional, middle-class mommy blogger type, but we see that she would be a good mother, and the film cares for her. We even have sympathy for Mark (Jason Bateman) who, through his relationship with Juno, realizes that he and his wife no longer want the same thing (if they ever did). There are cringe-worthy moments with Mark and Juno, but none that damn him completely. It’s a rare film that gives us no bad guys, which is a large part of its charm.

It’s easy to want to live in a world like this, where a pregnant sixteen-year-old seems to get by pretty well, with her parents’ support and a relationship with her baby’s adoptive family. She has a sweet teenage love affair and doesn’t seem to struggle much. While teen angst is the stuff of Hollywood cliché, things just seemed too easy for Juno. I wish my teenage years could’ve been a bit more like Juno’s. Hell, I wish my life now could be.

The final question remains, though, about whether we should criticize a movie like Juno. Representations of role models for American girls tend to inhabit the poles; either young girls are encouraged to be the beautiful bimbo or the chaste Christian. This film has a strong personality (that masquerades as strong values—even an ethic) without being preachy or moralistic. That can’t inherently be a bad thing. Yet I find myself asking for more, wanting more–something that steps outside of the realm of safety. Perhaps Juno isn’t the film to give me more.

In all, I fear Juno suffers from the same postmodern condition afflicting so many films today. It strives for a non-message in order not to offend anyone, thus allowing anti-choice advocates to cheer the film as loudly as pro-choice feminists. There’s a problem here. If a film that almost universally passes as hip and progressive is so murky in its values and allegiance that we’re not really sure what to think of it, how can a truly hip and progressive film make it today?