By Dan Cohen, Santa Monica Film Critic
“The Spectacular Now”
When we first meet Sutter Keely, a likeable 18 yr. old drifting through his final year of high school, he’s just come off a bad break up with one the prettiest girls in his class. After a night of drinking, he wakes up on the lawn of an attractive but withdrawn classmate he’s never met. The two slowly get to know one another, and ultimately form a compelling bond in “The Spectacular Now,” an indie charmer that boasts one of the most compelling relationships between two young adults in years.
Sutter, played by Miles Teller, is a problem drinker who hides behind a veneer of good will and skin deep friendships. He’s a familiar type; a good looking kid that everybody in school likes but nobody truly knows. His divorced mom, (Jennifer Jason Leigh,) struggles to keep the family solvent but hasn’t the time or resources to get through to him. Sutters’ considerable defense mechanism complicates matters by keeping her at a distance. The attempts of a well meaning teacher to wrestle him awake also prove futile.
At 18, Sutter Keely’s shiftless father has long since programmed him for failure. You knew this kid in high school and you maybe bore witness to how, in spite of wit and resources, the alcohol he used as a crutch eventually took its toll.
Aimee Finecky, who Sutter might never have noticed had he not passed out in her front yard, is smart and well grounded, although her aspirations have been held in check by her own downtrodden, single mother. Sutter, no stranger to family squalor, early on detects Aimee’s keen intelligence and inner strength, and tries to free her from the guilt that keeps her from pursuing a college education and a life beyond their dead-end town. As Miles begins to bolster Aimee’s sense of self-worth, it becomes apparent that at some point, Aimee will become the stronger of the two. Also that, if Miles is to break away from his glide path to failure, she’ll be the one who makes it happen.
This may sound like predictable melodrama, but it’s not played that way. Most of the movie, thanks to a tart and fleet script by Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber, (based on Tim Tharps’ novel,) is easygoing and funny. Even when Sutter finally makes contact with his dissolute father, in a sequence that might have turned hokey and maudlin, the writing and direction keep it genial.
Director James Ponsoldt, who has crafted two other articulate films about alcohol abuse, wisely elects to forgo familiar devices.
Two good examples will illustrate the point. While we never see Aimee’s mother, what we hear of her through the walls of their cramped little house, along with one, comic encounter with her younger brother, tells us everything we need to know about the family dynamic. When Sutter’s dad, ably played by Kyle Chandler, takes his son and Aimee to a bar, the body language of the other patrons speaks volumes about the man’s social status. No need for even the briefest introductions.
The setting is also quite specific, and developed with a knowing hand. The action remains confined to a community where most people have been pushed to the outermost fringes of the middle class. The characters have all they can do just to make ends meet, a struggle which is seen as inevitable. The few who have managed to rise above it, like Sutter’s sister, who married well, are portrayed without ill will or contempt—a nice touch.
But none of the attention to detail would have mattered without the two leads, Shaileen Woodley and Miles Teller. Woodley, who stood out in “The Descendants,” comes from an impressive television career; over 120 episodes of “The Secret Life of an American Teenager.” Here, she effortlessly submerges her natural beauty in the reticence called for by the character. Teller, with fewer credits, uses his snub nosed, blunt features to suggest the young Sean Penn, minus Penns’ undercurrent of hostility. After several teen comedies and short films, Teller has developed a persona that compels an audience to bear with him even as he descends into self-destruction.
Teller and Woodley have palpable chemistry. Interestingly they’ve been cast opposite one another in the upcoming “Divergent,” a much anticipated adaptation of a popular young adult novel, due in theaters early next year. But at the moment, the good news is that “The Spectacular Now,” has broken out of the relative anonymity of the Indie circuit. After success in a number of key cities, it’s poised for a national release. Along with “Mud,” “The Spectacular Now,” is first rate entertainment, and one of the best American movies of the year.
“You’re Next”
To its credit, this claustrophobic horror movie, that’s been sitting around since festival screenings in 2011, has been competently shot and edited. The smallish cast, of about a dozen speaking parts, includes actor-director Joe Swanberg, an early practitioner of the influential mumble core genre, which gave rise to Mark Duplass and Lena Dunhman. Ti West, the popular director of “House of the Devil,” appears briefly, as a documentary filmmaker, which gives the movie another level of indie credibility. It’s too bad that this talented bunch is wasted in this nonsense.
In spite of its deficits, or maybe because of them, “You’re Next” has been graced with a great ad campaign and surprisingly strong reviews, most of them from critics who should know better. I have no idea what they were drinking before or after the screenings, but it must have been potent. In any case, the movie will probably make a quick killing at the box office.
A middle aged man and his much younger girlfriend are slain in a pre-credit sequence that ends when the words “You’re Next,” appear on a window. Shortly thereafter, we meet the Davison family, who have gathered at a country house to celebrate the anniversary of the patriarch and his wife. They squabble a bit and fret about noise in the big house, which is a recent acquisition that’s in the midst of renovation. One of the brothers, an academic, is belittled for his inability to secure tenure. A daughter is humiliated for bringing home an unemployed filmmaker. There’s obvious tension among the four siblings. But they barely get through dinner before masked men armed with crossbows begin to cut them down, and the action shifts to who’s next and why. The rest is all too painfully obvious to recount. The motivating gimmick is tidy, but lacks anything that might give it the satisfaction of drama, even on the level of an average episode of “The Twilight Zone.”
There are a number of references, mainly in the movie’s opening sequences, to the world of low budget film-making. These knowing asides are tossed into the mix in what I guess is a backhanded stab at irony, although it’s the kind of irony that will be lost on most of the intended audience. That’s because “You’re Next,” is little more than a routine slasher, aimed to please the young crowd that revels in stylish carnage.
A couple of graphically brutal murders are played for laughs, but the feeble attempts at humor serve mainly to break up the monotony at the movies core. At bottom the script is little more than an excuse for spurting blood. I suppose we can be thankful that only one execution takes place during sex, and that most of the females are dispatched fully dressed.
The casual movie-goer, and even some of the more astute, instinctually shun this genre. And more often than not, their instincts are accurate. But as a lover of horror and thrillers, I’m always on the lookout for the new or different, hopeful that I’ll catch something genuinely provocative and scary too. Because horror films are unfailingly popular with young audiences, they’re a staple. I recently re-watched the original “Frankenstein” and “Dracula,” and both movies continue to fascinate.
Since horror films are generally cheap to make, producers are willing to take a chance with new talent and fresh visions. Think of Guillermo Del Toro, who started small in Mexico with “Cronos,” in 1993 and went on to win awards with “Pans Labyrinth,” in 2006, and who, along the way turned the comic books’ “Hellboy,” into inspired fantasies. Or the John Carpenter who made the very first “Halloween.”
“You’re Next” is the latest offspring of a breed that came into fashion about ten years ago, in 2003, with the French made, “High Tension.” It didn’t seem to matter that the gimmick of writer/director Alexander Aja’s mixture of sex and extreme violence turned out to be a sham: his movie was controversial and influential in the way that “Night of the Living Dead” was in the late 60s and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” was in the 70s .
“High Tension,” “Inside,” (2007) and to a lesser extent “Martyrs,” and “Frontiers,” (2008) represented a new wave in French horror, that found berths at some of the worlds’ most prestigious film festivals. After successful screenings at Toronto, “High Tension” was picked up by Lionsgate. “Martyrs” made waves at Cannes, while “Inside,” arguably one of the most audaciously brutal thrillers of all time, took an award at the prestigious Sitges festival of sci-fi and horror in Spain. Instead of the of anonymous casts typical of most extreme thrillers, French new wave horror featured respected actresses like Cecile de France, and Beatrice Dalles, enthusiastically carrying on with axes, razors and other implements of destruction.
Most of the new wave in French horror, and its imitators world-wide, follow a familiar pattern. A situation is briefly established, followed by a series of grisly and explicit killings, some that go on for minutes. Most of the story lines are so stripped down that they hold no appeal to mainstream audiences. As a result most go straight to dvd video.
For my taste, “Them,” is the best of the lot, a 74 minute exercise in terror from 2006 that’s almost devoid of gore. “Them” begins with the simplest of setups; a teacher and his wife alone in an old house in the suburbs, and builds from there to a suspenseful and shocking conclusion. You’ll probably find it on Netflix.
The creators of “You’re Next,” built their movie from a premise as old as Agatha Christie’s “Ten Little Indians.” True to its roots, it focuses on a resourceful female outsider, who creates mayhem with everything from scissors to kitchen appliances. But lacking anything new in the way of stimuli, it proves that a hatchet in the head, finally, is just a hatchet in the head. Nothing to get excited about, unless you’re on the receiving end.
