Ricochet Reviews: Rubber

Rubber

Director: Quentin Dupieux (debut film)

Starring: A Tire, Stephen Spinella, Jack Plotnick, Wings Hauser

On Blu-Ray + DVD: June 7, 2011

Rubber is one of the weirdest movies you'll ever see. Not only is the central story about a sentient tire that rolls around blowing people's heads up, but there's a meta-film aspect in which a group of spectators watch the tire doing all of this as if it was a movie. There's also a guy within the tire storyline who knows that it's just a movie. All this makes for a pretty jumbled mess of a film, but one I won't soon forget.

Rubber opens with a five minute monologue by Lieutenant Chad (Spinella) about how "having no reason" is an integral part of every great film. ("In E.T., why is the alien brown? No reason.") It's a great way to open the film and got me way more interested than it should have. That probably has to do with unexpected humor being one of my favorite types of comedy.

Following this introduction, Rubber opens on a group of spectators with binoculars who make comments on a variety of things happening within the film. These characters are supposed to be watching a film, just like us, but they play a part in the movie as the people within the "real" movie are trying to poison them so they can stop acting. It's a very weird idea, and, for the most part, it works. A lot of their commentary did get annoying after a while, because I really just wanted to see the tire do its thing. However, I can respect a film that tries to do something as ballsy as a movie within a movie. I feel like if they had focused more on the spectator aspect of the film they could have really taken it somewhere great, but since they had to balance it with the actual story, it comes off a little silly and unnecessary.

That statement also applies to the tire's story. Rubber actually follows the tire from its first moments of sentience. We see the tire learn to stand up and roll, learn to crush things, and eventually learn to use its telekinetic powers to blow things up, like beer bottles and rabbits. This section was probably my favorite part of the film because it is so completely original. After this, the tire finds a road and begins tormenting and exploding humans. I honestly laughed out loud every single time that someone exploded in this film. It just looked so silly, which I think was the point. I mean, it's a movie about a tire that explodes people; you're supposed to laugh. And yet, I wanted so much more of the tire's story. For example, the film showed comical instances of the tire's emotional side that I would've liked to see played out further. Also, of course, I wanted more exploding heads.

As it is, though, Rubber ends up being only moderately successful. Had the film been longer (it's not even 90 minutes long), the filmmakers might have been able to explore both the tire's story and the spectators' story. With its running time, though, they only have time to rush through both parts. The end result is a flawed but unforgettable film that will keep you entertained throughout.

Ricochet Reviews: Bad Teacher

Bad Teacher

Director: Jake Kasdan (Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Orange County)

Starring: Cameron Diaz, Lucy Punch, Justin Timberlake, Jason Segel

Currently In Theaters

Bad Teacher isn't really a bad movie. It's just not good, either. The film tries far too hard to be something that it isn't, and when it finally figures that out, the movie ends.

Bad Teacher is the story of Elizabeth Halsey (Diaz), a gold-digging teacher who quits her job and then gets immediately dumped by her rich fiancee. Halsey decides that getting a boob job will give her a better chance of meeting another millionaire. The problem is that she's now broke. Halsey decides to start teaching again so she can raise enough money for the surgery. Along the way she meets Amy (Punch), a teacher obsessed with being the best; Russell (Segel), a gym teacher who likes Halsey; and Scott (Timberlake), a substitute teacher whose family is wealthy. That's pretty much the entire story. I'm not complaining about it, it's just a simple story that was obviously chosen to lay jokes on top of.

It becomes very obvious very fast that the people who made Bad Teacher really want this movie to be Bad Santa, and I don't just say that because of the name. The main characters are completely unsympathetic and a douche to everyone. The problem is that Elizabeth Halsey has zero character arc in the entire film. In Bad Santa, Thornton's character was a dick, but somewhere around the one hour mark, they give you reasons to think he could be a good person (helping out the kid, the love interest), and they pay this off with the ending which manages to be terrible and altruistic at the same time. In Bad Teacher, Halsey just runs around the entire time being mean to everybody. Russell tries numerous times to break through to her, and it never works until the very last scene. I guess this is as good of a place as any to mention that the ending of Bad Teacher was terribly rushed.

And then there's Amy. She's obviously supposed to be the "bad guy" of the movie, as she snoops around and constantly tries to get Halsey in trouble. The problem is, Amy isn't a bad guy. Everything she does is justified in the context of the film because of what Halsey does. When Amy asks Halsey about showing movies every day in class, she's right. When she is suspicious that Halsey helped her students cheat on exams, she's right. When she accuses Halsey of doing drugs, she's right. And for all of her legitimate snooping, the film lets Amy lose her boyfriend to Halsey and take the blame for Halsey's drugs. It's supposed to be funny, but it just comes off as annoying.

There are some good parts to this movie, but I don't feel like writing very much more, so I'll just mention one. Jason Segel is hilarious here. Granted, I love him in most of the things I've seen him in, but almost every scene in the film that is actually funny involves him. His line delivery and body humor is so good. There's a scene in the gym where he's trying to impress Halsey with his strength, and his delivery gets you to believe it just enough that when he fails miserably at it, it's perfect. There are very few scenes in this film that are worth mentioning, but almost every single one of them involve Jason Segel. Having said that, this scene from the trailer where he's yelling at a kid about Lebron James is idiotic and didn't make any sense within the context of the film.

Well, I've gone way over how long a review of Bad Teacher deserves to be, so I'll wrap it up now. Bad Teacher is not a good movie, and overall it just comes off as a Bad Santa ripoff. However, if you check it out, you should at the least be entertained by Jason Segel's antics throughout the film as well as Cameron Diaz running around in Daisy Dukes.

The 2011 Mid-Year Ricochets

Welp, 2011 is over halfway over and I've officially seen twenty films released this year. That means that it's time for the first annual Mid-Ricochets. These aren't actually awards; this is more of a list of the noteworthy achievements of the first half of this year. A few categories will be missing because I haven't seen at least three films or performances worthy of mentioning in that category yet, and all of the movie genre categories will be missing because I haven't decided on any of those yet. You'll also see a couple new categories that I've added this year. I don't expect most of the films listed here to make it onto my finalized lists at the end of the year, but that's kind of the point of the Mid-Ricochets: to recognize these early-year films that will likely get lost in the awards season scramble at the end of the year. And finally, all of these are listed in alphabetical order and no winner is explicitly chosen, since this isn't the actual awards. Anyways, let's get on with this.

Actually, I've decided to just stick with the overall film, director, and acting awards instead of delving into the more technical things. I'll reserve those for the real Ricochets.

Films of the (Half) Year

Biutiful, directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.

Rango, directed by Gore Verbinski.

Source Code, directed by Duncan Jones.

Super 8, directed by J.J. Abrams.

The Tree of Life, directed by Terrence Malick.

Best Director

J.J. Abrams for Super 8.

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for Biutiful.

Duncan Jones for Source Code.

Terrence Malick for The Tree of Life.

Gore Verbinski for Rango.

Best Actor

Javier Bardem as Uxbal in Biutiful.

Michael Fassbender as Magneto in X-Men: First Class.

Paul Giamatti as Barney Panofsky in Barney's Version.

Jake Gyllenhaal as Colter Stevens in Source Code.

Best Supporting Actor

Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw in X-Men: First Class.
Choi Min-sik as Kyung-chul in I Saw The Devil.
Dustin Hoffman as Israel Panofsky in Barney's Version.

Brad Pitt as Mr. O'Brien in The Tree of Life.

Best Supporting Actress

Elle Fanning as Alice Dainard in Super 8.

Melissa McCarthy as Megan in Bridesmaids.

Michelle Monaghan as Christina Warren in Source Code.

Best Comedic Performance

Johnny Depp as Rango in Rango.

Seth Rogen as Britt Reid in The Green Hornet.

Kristen Wiig as Annie Walker in Bridesmaids.

Best Supporting Comedic Performance

Jon Hamm as Ted in Bridesmaids.
Melissa McCarthy as Megan in Bridesmaids.
John C. Reilly as Dean Ziegler in Cedar Rapids.
Jason Segel as Russell Gettis in Bad Teacher.

Best Young Actor

Joel Courtney as Joe Lamb in Super 8.

Elle Fanning as Alice Dainard in Super 8.

Riley Griffiths as Charles Kaznyk in Super 8.

Hunter McCracken as Young Jack in The Tree of Life.

Best Cameo

The Black Pearl in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

James Franco in The Green Hornet.

Hugh Jackman in X-Men: First Class.

The Man With No Name in Rango.

Sexiest

Emily Blunt as Elise Sellas in The Adjustment Bureau.

Kat Dennings as Darcy Lewis in Thor.

Cameron Diaz as Casey Case in The Green Hornet.

Minnie Driver as 2nd Mrs. P. in Barney's Version.

Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique in X-Men: First Class.

Best Cast

Barney's Version: Paul Giamatti, Dustin Hoffman, Rosamund Pike, Minnie Driver, Scott Speedman.

Biutiful: Javier Bardem, Maricel Alvarez, Hanaa Bouchaib, Guillermo Estrella.

Super 8: Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, Riley Griffiths, Kyle Chandler, Ron Eldard, Noah Emmerich.

The Tree of Life: Hunter McCracken, Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Jessica Chastain, Laramie Eppler.

Best Back-to-Back Films

J.J. Abrams, for following Star Trek with Super 8.

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, for following Babel with Biutiful.

Duncan Jones, for following Moon with Source Code.

Best Poster

Bridesmaids.

Hobo With A Shotgun.

I Saw The Devil.

The Mechanic.

Midnight in Paris.

The Tree of Life.

Best Credits

The Green Hornet.

Rango.

X-Men: First Class.

Worst Film of the (Half) Year

The Dilemma, directed by Ron Howard.

happythankyoumoreplease, directed by Josh Radnor.

Sucker Punch, directed by Zack Snyder.

30 Day Movie Challenge Part I

I actually decided to do the 30 day movie challenge on my Facebook instead of my blog, but I thought I could use this blog to give some more elaborated thoughts on the entries. I'll break it down into three posts, each containing 10 entries. Obviously, Part 1 will be covering numbers 1 through 10.

The 30 Day Movie Challenge is a picture-based project, so all of these will be accompanied by the same pictures I've posted on Facebook. And... here we go.

Day 1: The best movie you saw in the last year.

My Choice: Adaptation (2002)

I was surprised by how few options I had to choose from for day 1. To find my favorite, I went to Rotten Tomatoes and sifted through all of my 10/10 ratings, looking for any I'd rated within the past 365 days. I only found five or six, including United 93, Black Swan, and Children of Men. In the end, I went with Adaptation because of how wonderfully original it was. It's a story based on writer Charlie Kaufman's attempt to adapt a novel written about flowers of all things into a film. The meta-film elements are mindblowing and Nic Cage's performance as a pair of twins is amazing. And don't forget that great "how did I get here" scene. It's just an objectively amazing film.

Day 2: Your favorite foreign film.

My Choice: Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

This was the easiest of my choices so far. Pan's Labyrinth is one of my favorite films of all time. I love the story, about a girl who creates a fantastical escape from her life during the Spanish Civil War. I love the effects, from the faun to the fairies to the Pale Man. I even love that it is in Spanish, because I think it is one of the most beautiful languages. It is, in short, a flawless movie, and one that I'll never tire of rewatching.

Day 3: Your favorite horror movie.

My Choice: The Thing (1982)

I'm not big on horror films in general, and I'm definitely not big on 1980s cinema, but I absolutely love The Thing. It evokes feelings of isolation and claustrophobia that has been imitated by many horror films that followed it. Kurt Russell plays himself like he always did, but this is one of those times that it worked. And don't even get me started on the effects. Sure, they're dated if you try to scale them based on our 2011 CGI-based standards, but even if you think they are dated, they are still very creepy. Just watching that dog's face peel back like a banana is almost enough for me to have put The Thing here.

Day 4: A movie that makes you sad.

My Choice: Toy Story 3 (2010)

I'm not sure if any movie has ever made me more sad than those two heartbreaking scenes at the end of Toy Story 3. You know the ones I mean: the one from my screenshot and the final scene. I got teary-eyed multiple times during both of these scenes and anyone who didn't is a robot. It wasn't just the halfhearted feeling that the toys might not get out alive for once, either. Toy Story 3 captured the essence of people like me who grew up with Woody and Buzz and are now at that age where toys aren't for us anymore. It's hard to capture that feeling of reminiscence, especially in a cartoon about toys, but Toy Story 3 did it.

Day 5: Your favorite love story in a movie.

My Choice: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Eternal Sunshine plays to us romantics who want to believe that true love is this deep psychological bond between two people that you can't deny just because you had a bad day. After the couple in Sunshine erase their memories, they end up falling back in love again. It's very sweet to me. This isn't even mentioning the fun ride through Barish's memories, from childhood to when he first meets Clementine. This is another of my favorite films of all time, and no matter how many times I see it, I always get emotional during that final memory they share.

Day 6: Your favorite made-for-TV movie.

My Choice: The Langoliers (1995)

I can't say that I'm well-versed in made-for-TV movies, but I'd say that 90% of those I've seen were Stephen King adaptations. There's It, Rose Red, and of course The Stand, but for my money I'll always prefer The Langoliers. It's not a better film than the others I've mentioned; if anything, it's the worst of the four. It just reminds me of my childhood, because me and my brother would watch this movie every time it came on TV. The actual langoliers themselves were pretty scary to me as a child, even though they look very silly in retrospect. Honestly, I wouldn't even really recommend this movie to anybody (it's 3 hours long, for one thing), but I'll always love it for my own reasons.

Day 7: Your favorite plot twist or ending in a movie.

My Choice: Mulholland Drive (2001)

Yeah, I kind of cheated on this one. Technically, the ending of Mulholland Drive is a twist, but then again, the entire movie is a twist. It's one of the weirdest, most disjointed films I've ever seen, and trying to put everything together in your mind is half of the entertainment of the film. What makes this ending so great to me is that right before it happened, I thought I had finally figured out the story and was getting comfortable just watching it unfold. But then the twist happened, and everything I thought I had figured out suddenly made no sense again. It sounds a bit frustrating, but I loved it.

Day 8: A movie that you've seen countless times.

My Choice: A Christmas Story (1983)

Anyone my age who grew up in the United States has probably seen A Christmas Story at least once. Most people, including me, see it multiple times every year on Christmas. The TV channel TBS is to blame for this, as they host a 24 hour marathon of the movie. My family is also to blame, because they think since it is a Christmas movie, we need to watch it every Christmas. Don't get me wrong: I do enjoy A Christmas Story and watching it every once in a while would be fine, but seeing it everywhere I go during Christmas is a little draining.

Day 9: A movie that reminds you of someone.

My Choice: 500 Days of Summer (2009)

I originally saw 500 Days of Summer during a tough stretch of my life, and I felt an immediately strong connection to the story. It seemed to be a mirror image of my entire relationship with my only long-term girlfriend, from the great beginnings to the retrospectively bad endings. Every time I watch this movie, I am reminded of that ex-girlfriend, which makes it a little hard to watch. 500 Days of Summer is a great movie regardless of my emotional connection to it, though, which is why it's my favorite movie of the entire year of 2009.

Day 10: A movie that makes you happy.

My Choice: Elf (2003)

The only reason I've ever even seen Elf is because I was on a date with this girl and she really wanted to see it. To me it looked pretty childish; I was also in that teen angst stage of life where anything cute (like Christmas) was lame. Whatever the excuse was, I should get in touch with that girl and thank her for dragging me to such an amazing and hilarious movie. Elf works not only as a Christmas movie, but as a comedy in general. During that tough phase of my life I talked about earlier, I would watch this movie daily to cheer myself up, and it usually worked. Few movies can make me smile like Elf can.

Parts II and III coming soon!

Ricochet Reviews: Barney's Version

And now I'm tentatively caught up on reviewing all the films I've seen this year! It's taken almost two weeks, but I've done it, and it feels damn good.

Barney's Version

Director: Richard J. Lewis (debut film)

Starring: Paul Giamatti, Dustin Hoffman, Rosamund Pike, Minnie Driver

On Blu-Ray + DVD: June 28, 2011

Barney's Version suffers from a film malady called "expedited biopic syndrome", a term I made up as I typed this sentence. What I mean by that ridiculous phrase is that the separate parts of Barney's Version are superb, with great humor, great acting, and some interesting ideas. The problem is that when the film is looked at as a whole, the story goes by very fast in favor of one or two key scenes, and this expedited storytelling hinders the overall effectiveness of the film. Mainly because of this, Barney's Version is a film that, although they may like it, many people will have a problem connecting with.

"Expedited biopic syndrome" isn't a problem exclusive to Barney's Version. Many biopics suffer mightily because of the same lack of cohesion and emotion that should make those more focal scenes feel so important. A few that come to mind are The World According to Garp, Bird, and Born on the Fourth of July. It is logically a more salient problem with fictional biopics like Barney. In biopics based on real people, we can fill in the details ourselves sometimes with what we already know, but in fictional biopics, we know nothing about these people, meaning that the filmmakers must delve even deeper into their characters to make us care about them. This is probably why this expedition of plot occurs so often in biopics: they are already, on average, the longest films of any genre (Barney's Version, even with its lack of development, clocks in at 2 hours, 12 minutes), and filmmakers are probably afraid of losing some moviegoers because of this length.

All that is only loosely related to the main subject of this film review, but I felt like I needed to define my new term if I was going to use it. In terms of Barney's Version, many of the smaller details and plot points that would make Barney's story believable are simply missing. For example, Barney's second wife (played by Minnie Driver) is shown from the onset of their relationship until their divorce in the span of perhaps 15 minutes. In that time span, we are supposed to understand how little Barney cares for her, how he has pushed her away, how this has affected her, and how she would react (by having sex with Barney's best friend, Boogie). Linked to this is the entire character of Boogie, who is characterized as a womanizer but only mentions one sexual encounter before having sex with Barney's wife. None of these significant pieces of the story are explained enough, and they come off as only silly instead of poignant or distressing. This is only one example, but the movie is riddled with instances like these.

I am getting ahead of myself, though. The overall story of Barney's Version is definitely interesting and fun. Barney is a TV director who has a tendency to marry women he doesn't love. This is true until he meets Miriam (Pike) at his wedding to another woman. The rest of the film follows Barney's pursuit of Miriam, their partnership, and their dissolution. Interwoven in this story are two subplots: a detective who is convinced that Barney murdered someone, and Barney's relationship with his father (Hoffman). This last subplot was definitely the most interesting portion of the entire film for me. Then again, I have a tendency to relate strongly with father-sibling stories in general. Regardless, the plot kept me engaged throughout, even if I was wanting more (but we won't get into that again).

The acting in Barney's Version is unequivocally great from everyone involved, though. Paul Giamatti's Barney is one of the best performances I've seen recently and he was one of the few winners at last year's Golden Globes who actually deserved their award. Giamatti is almost completely responsible for the emotionally rich and complex character of Barney since, as previously stated, much of the plot that should establish this is missing. His performance during the last, most interesting 30 minutes of the film is devastating. Dustin Hoffman also gives the best performance I've seen from him in over a decade. I've just recently started seeing most of Hoffman's great films (I've seen The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, Lenny, Kramer vs. Kramer, and Rain Man all in the last year), and although Barney's Version doesn't compare overall to any of these, Hoffman's performance was reminiscent in all the right ways of his early amazing filmography. Minnie Driver and Rosamund Pike also give good performances, though their characters are really just sieves for us to see different sides of Barney.

Barney's Version is an interesting, funny, and incomplete film. As a biopic, it doesn't work too well, as most of Barney's thoughts and motivations are left unexplained. It works just fine, though, if you try not to assign it a label and just let the film be what it is: a story about a man's love life, held together by a few strong scenes and even stronger performances from the cast. You'll probably like Barney's Version; just don't expect to love it.

Ricochet Reviews: The Tree of Life

The Tree of Life

Director: Terrence Malick (The Thin Red Line, The New World, Days of Heaven)

Starring: Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Hunter McCracken, Jessica Chastain

Currently In Theaters

Where do I start in a review of The Tree of Life? For that matter, what could a review of The Tree of Life even describe? The film is basically plotless and abstract, and the underlying meaning of the film may very well be different for everyone who sees it. The only sure things I can say about The Tree of Life are this: it is an amazing film, it is the most unique film I've ever seen, and it may be the most personal film of all time, though in a remarkably odd way. I'll explain all three of these statements, but I'm not really sure how much of it will make sense, so bear with me.

Let's start with the negatives, because this is going to be the most poorly structured review I've written so far, so why not. The Tree of Life is very confusing, and even after coming to the conclusion that I adored it, I still don't understand large sections of the film. Markedly unrelated scenes are snapped together throughout the film and, at times, it is almost impossible to follow what's happened. This is more of a byproduct of abstraction that makes this film so beautiful than an actual negative, but many people will be turned off by how confusing it is. Another small critique is the role of the third brother. The relationship between two of the brothers in this film is extremely fleshed out while a third brother is seen wandering around in the background with almost no dialogue throughout the movie. I am almost certain that this was Malick's intent, and it's more of a question than a critique, but I feel like any review needs to mention negatives, so there you go.

Having stated my poor excuse for negatives, I have to say that the vast majority of the moviegoing crowd need to stay far away from The Tree of Life. When I say that the film has no plot, that isn't a hyperbole: the film is plotless. The Tree of Life's goal is to bring out our emotions and memories, not tell us a story, and the things happening on the screen are just a foundation to evoke those emotions. Because of its plotless nature, a large number of people will absolutely hate it. During my showing, at least fifteen people walked out; at the showing one of my friends attended, five or six people left. I've personally never seen someone actually walk out of a movie before this one, but I can definitely understand why they did. Like I've said: The Tree of Life isn't for everyone.

To me, though, The Tree of Life is a stunning piece of film, not only for its uniqueness but also for its technical aspects. Just like the only other Malick film I've seen so far (The Thin Red Line), The Tree of Life is gorgeous to watch. Every single shot in this movie is beautiful, from the closeups of raging waterfalls to the scenes of childhood memories. These childhood scenes are shot from a child's perspective, with the camera held at around knee's height. This created a very odd nostalgic effect in me as my mind began to recall those early years when I was around that height and how much different the world looked then. And don't even get me started on the evolution scenes. The combination of the singing choir with shots of galaxies and nebulae makes for perhaps the most intense images I've ever seen on film. The acting is also amazing. All of the child actors perform their roles wonderfully, as does Jessica Chastain in an almost completely mute role. Brad Pitt also churns out his best performance to date in a role that strongly reminded me of my own father.

But now we're veering into why The Tree of Life is the most personal film I've ever seen: within all of this confusing imagery and beautiful technique, the film was able to make me recall thoughts and memories that have not entered my mind in years. Most of these were centered around either my father or my brother. When I was growing up, my father raised us in nearly an identical way as the father in this film. He had very strict rules and, at least during my early childhood, my brother and I were afraid of him. The Tree of Life reminded me throughout of this relationship with my father. However, most of the catharsis that I experienced during this film was reserved for the scenes focusing on the two brothers. I was constantly remembering things that we did as children and the way I treated him as a child. There's a specific montage-like sequence that shows the very early years of the two brothers, and that one actually brought out some tears in me. It's very hard to explain such a subjective experience to someone who hasn't lived my life, but I am confident that anyone who approaches this film with a similar open and emotional mindset will be moved in some way by this movie. I also have to quickly mention that the evolution scenes brought out certain emotions in me that I honestly still don't understand, but I had to wipe my eyes during them as well.

Like I stated earlier, I have no idea if that mass of text calling itself a review that precedes this paragraph is even readable, but everything I've written here is what I felt after seeing The Tree of Life. This film is utterly unique and very hard to describe to someone who hasn't seen it. It's a beautiful film both visually and emotionally, and it's a film that will have you thinking about it for a very long time. The Tree of Life is probably the best film I've seen since There Will Be Blood, and it will very likely be my favorite movie of 2011.

Ricochet Reviews: happythankyoumoreplease

happythankyoumoreplease

Director: Josh Radnor (debut film)

Starring: Josh Radnor, Malin Akerman, Zoe Kazan

On Blu-Ray + DVD: June 21, 2011


happythankyoumoreplease is pretentious in all the wrong ways. It thinks it is clever, but it's really not. It thinks that it has an insightful and heartfelt story to tell us, but it doesn't really. It thinks that it puts off a cool, atmospheric vibe, but the only feelings I had after watching the movie were about how emotionally distant the entire movie felt.

happythankyou is a story divided into three fairly separate, interspliced pieces. One part of the film focuses on the relationship between a writer, Sam (Radnor), and a young orphan that gets lost on a subway. It is obvious that the boy hates his foster home, so Sam just lets him live with him for a while. Later on, Sam meets a girl named Mississippi (Kate Mara) who he forms a contract with to have what they call a "three night stand" in which Mississippi agrees to live with Sam for a three day period immediately after they meet. The second part of the film is about Annie (Akerman), a girl with alopecia (complete hairlessness) who has serious body issues. Annie goes through a generic romance story in which she hooks up with an ex-boyfriend while she ignores the guy right in front of her who really loves her. The third part of the film is about Mary Catherine (Kazan) and her long-term boyfriend as they go through an amalgam of relationship problems, including relocation issues, boredom, and pregnancy.

The main problem with that storyline, other than logic (really? you're not going to report this missing child to the police), is something I will unfairly refer to as Crash syndrome. Crash is a much better film, but it suffered from having so many different, loosely related stories going on at the same time. happythankyou does this too, and this decision means that none of the characters Radnor introduces us to really get fleshed out. If he had decided to focus his script on any one of these storylines (especially the first one), the film could have told us so much more about these characters and subsequently been much better overall. As it is, though, happythankyou suffers deeply from a lack of development.

My other problem with this film is how hard it tries to be cool. This problem starts with the title. It is explained within the film and that does help a bit, but there's still no need for these words to be jammed together and, at least to me, it is annoying, especially when I keep seeing these red squiggly lines under happythankyou. There are also about 15 musical interludes in this 90 minute film. If anything even remotely emotional happens on screen, I can almost guarantee you that the next three minutes will be shots of people staring into space while some indie song plays its entire verse. Don't get me wrong; I enjoy a meaningful interlude, even when there are lots of them. Away We Go, one of my favorite films of 2009, uses the interlude concept heavily, too, but they followed honestly emotional scenes and were usually contained to scenes where the characters were going places. happythankyou just doesn't do it right.

Not that everything in the film is bad. Despite a lot of dialogue that suffers from this same "coolness" problem, these characters do have a good amount of interesting things to say, too. This specifically refers to the two Sams, Sam and Sam 2 (Tony Hale, and yes, he is called Sam 2). Sam provides the little amount of story backbone there is in happythankyou, and because of this, a lot of his lines are actually pertinent to the overall movie. Sam 2, on the other hand, is probably the only character in the entire movie who felt like they could actually exist in reality. Hale plays the role of a goofball well, and that's exactly what Sam 2 is. He's also what makes the date scene with Annie the best scene in the entire movie. The acting overall is actually pretty good, and if this cast had been working with a better script, I have a feeling they could've made a great film.

One last thing I have to mention is the closing lip syncing scene. This is more of a critique of films in general that do this, but happythankyou falls victim to it, too. This scene was easily the worst of the film and may have affected my retrospective opinion of the film overall, and it's all because of the terrible lip syncing. This is supposed to be a very important scene to establish a real connection between two of the characters, but it completely failed because I was too busy being annoyed by this lip syncing. Why do films do this? Is it really that hard to find a good actor who can also sing? Or a good actor who can also lip sync well? I know this is a small thing, but it really bothered me in this movie and I needed to vent on this point.

happythankyoumoreplease thinks that it is a touching, meaningful film. The musical interludes and scenes of people staring might give you the impression that it really is a touching, meaningful film. The problem is that it isn't touching or meaningful. The three-pronged storyline undercuts any emotion the film could've evoked by leaving the characters flat, and this vacuity of emotion eliminates any meaning the film was going for. The people involved give it their best, but in the end, happythankyoumoreplease is just not a very good movie.