Film Review: You Again (2010)

"More Bad Writing, Again"

By: Jordan Overstreet
Published: November 4, 2010

In “Sunset Blvd” screenwriter Joe Gillis whores his linguistic services out to Norma Desmond because, “sometimes it’s interesting to see just how bad bad writing can be.” Like Norma’s reworking of “Salome,” Andy Flickman’s recent flick for Touchstone Pictures “promises to go the limit.”

“You Again” will make you realize how clever Mark Water’s “Mean Girls” is. Both movies (Note: they are not films) explore similar themes of high school bullying; however, while “Mean Girls,” written by funny lady Tina Fey, ushered in a new potential for the type of humor associated with high school flicks, “You Again” resorts back to every bad cliché that managed to find its way onto your 9th grade English teacher’s wall.

The script, penned by Moe Jelline, is littered with falsities like, “they say who you are in high school is who you will be in life” (and to think Vince Vaughn is getting heat from anti-gay bulling circles for saying “Ladies and Gentlemen, electric cars are gay” in the trailer for his recent film, “The Dilemma.”) What’s offensive isn’t Vaughn’s line, which is actually original; what is offensive, however, is the fact that the American movie-going population is being subjected to such poorly written movies due to Hollywood’s need to make a buck.

Directed by Flickman, who disappointed us with 2007’s “She’s the Man,” “You Again” is a sickeningly sweet Disney smoothie of “Mean Girls” and “My Best Friend’s Wedding.” The movie begins in 2002 with the pimply Marni (Kirsten Bell) as she is taunted by other students led by head cheerleader Joanna (Odette Yustman). Joanna and her minions break out into Queen’s “We Are the Champions” and their sassy expressions as they sing seem to isolate Marni as the total loser. Needless to say, I could feel Freddy Mercury do back handsprings in his grave.

Flash-forward six years (doesn’t feel long enough, right?), and Marni, now a vice president at an elite PR firm, returns home for her older brother Will’s (James Wolk) wedding, only to find that the bride is her high school nemesis. When an overly kind Joanna claims not to remember Marni, Bell channels Julia Roberts circa “My Best Friend’s Wedding” and tries to expose Joanna’s evil side by any means necessary. Seeing as all three of them attended the same small high school in California, it seems odd that Marni would be in the dark about who her brother is marrying; this is just the first of many continuity problems throughout the script.

With Jamie Lee Curtis, Sigourney Weaver, and fiscal powerhouse Betty White onboard, this cinematic voyage should be, at the very least, moderately humorous. However, Jelline, who makes her screenwriting debut in “You Again,” is merely a child and her lack of practice shows. She relies too heavily on over used pop culture references like Facebook, so when Betty White reveals that she is “on the Twitter,” and the few people in the theatre laughed, I almost choked on a Sour Patch kid. White deserves wittier dialogue and, while I do hate to say it, it may be the end of her rejuvenated career. There are only so many absurd things an old lady can say.

Kirsten Bell is forgettable in her role as Marni and lacks the spunk needed to evoke a connection from the audience. She is a weak actress who is constantly upstaged by her leading men, be it the very talented James Wolk in this film, Josh Duhamel in “When in Rome,” or Jason Bateman in “Couples Retreat.” It’s time she got the memo that she needs acting lessons. As for Sigourney Weaver, I was excited to see her return to the screen but was perplexed by her attachment to such a low quality film. Perhaps the alumnus of the Yale Drama School needs to eat.

With the rise in online subscriptions to iTunes, Netflix, and Video On-Demand, the way people watch movies is changing, and the amount of people actually seeing a movie in a theatre is diminishing. At the end of the day, the movie-making industry is a business and in order to function that way, theses studios have to make money from the films they release. And nothing spells box-office return like an all-star cast.

“You Again,” like so many Disney movies, is cleverly packaged by those sly Mickey Mouse bastards with an array of celebrities to ensure a hefty fiscal return. They target the American family: Grandma chuckles with Betty White; little Suzie shares an inside joke with Kristen Bell; Mom reconnects with her past heroines, Jamie Lee Curtis and Sigourney Weaver; and Dad gets to foot the bill.

While I commend Disney for getting people to the theatre, I’m appalled by the lack of entertainment they expect us to swallow. The jokes aren’t funny and “You Again” is so poorly written that not even Weaver can deliver these lines with dignity; I doubt any actress can. Earth to Disney, your audience isn’t stupid, so stop writing like we are.

“You Again.” Directed by Andy Flickman; written for the screen by Moe Jelline; produced by Touchstone Pictures. Starring Kirsten Bell, Jamie Lee Curtis, Sigourney Weaver, Odette Yustman, Victor Garber, James Wolk, and Betty White. Rated PG for some strong language. Run time: 1 hour and 45 minutes.

Film Review: Never Let Me Go (2010)

"Brother Could You Spare an Organ?"

By: Jordan Overstreet
Published: November 8, 2010

Human suffering is at its bleakest at the hands of novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, who is known for his tales of heartbreak and unrequited love affairs. His depressing depictions of human relationships have seen the silver screen twice before in 1993’s “Remains of the Day” and 1995’s “The White Countess,” and his highly regarded dystopian novel Never Let Me Go gets the Hollywood treatment by Mark Romanek in a film version of the same name. Amidst the dreary English countryside, this coming of age story follows the lives of three British students, groomed to serve as “donors” to the population of this Orwellian society. While many science fiction films focus primarily on the special effects and gore of the genre, “Never Let Me Go” is, at its core, a love story, and a tragic one at that matter.

The film begins in the 1990’s in a sterile operating room as Cathy H. (Carey Mulligan, “An Education”) watches her friend and girlhood crush, Tommy (Andrew Garfield) being prepped for an operation; as the doctors spread iodine across his youthful stomach, Cathy recalls her first encounter with Tommy during their schooling at the Hailsham school in the 1960’s. Cathy, Tommy, along with Ruth (Keira Knightly), appear to be normal boarding school students until your eye begins to pick up on their academic curriculum. Dispersed between their arithmetic lesson and geography class, we see the students take part in obscure exercises (role playing real world activities such as visiting a café, taking medicine tablets before bedtime, purchasing damaged toys, etc). While these activities raise suspicion, Romanek makes sure that we do not get ahead of Cathy and the other children by presenting information from a child’s perspective. As the threesome ages, so does our perspective, and we begin to understand the injustice that is forced upon those created to be “donors.” Yet, the three do not age physically; rather their age is illustrated in the change that occurs in their dynamic; thus when Ruth catches Tommy’s eye and the two move from friends to lovers, fate seems to roll in and create a series of “unseen tides.”

To go into any more detail in regards to the plot would be a disservice to a future spectator and would seriously undermine Romanek’s vision, which has so carefully translated Ishiguro’s descriptive passage into live action. I must stress that “Never Let Me Go” is not a fast-paced drama, layered with heavy dialogue. Speaking is only used when necessary as means to highlight the unspoken things--a wayward glance, a body of a “donor” left to rot after her final donation, a tree covered in plastic bags. It is in these silent moments where Romanek is at his most brilliant, allowing mise en scen to dominate.

The final chapter of the film returns to the early 1990’s and takes the story in an odd direction, in hopes of explaining the purpose of Hailsham. While the final revelation, or “twist,” is predictable, Mulligan and Garfield project raw emotions and their responses to the unveiling of one of the many lies told to them at Hailsham is genuine. They breathe an air of authenticity to the trite realization and save the scene from melodrama. While Mulligan and Garfield will never be Liz and Dick, they compliment each other on screen. Taking an uncharacteristically supporting role, Knightly makes, perhaps, her best performance onscreen since “Pirates of the Caribbean.” She has abandoned her wilting ingénue type and adopted a real, manipulative femme fatale persona. Knightly was a nice surprise to find roaming the halls of Hailsham.

If the dystopian novel is a cultivation of our fears about a particular aspect of society, then George Orwell’s 1984 is an allusion to the growing fear of the spread of communism in the 1940’s, for he forces us to explore what our world would be like under the Iron Curtain; similarly, Ira Levin’s The Stepford Wives capitalized on the growing Feminist movement of the 1970’s, leading women to ponder what would happen if the male sex did not go along with the new rights bestowed upon them. If this is the case, then “Never Let Me Go,” must be addressing the rising shortage for organ donors in the United States. While not as socially jarring as 1984 and The Stepford Wives, “Never Let Me Go” is an interesting exploration into our future and deserves to be more than just another film to add to the resumes of Mulligan, Garfield, and Knightly.

"Never Let Me Go." Directed by Mark Romanek; written for the screen by Alex Garland; produced by Fox Searchlight Pictures. Starring Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightly, Andrew Garfield, and Charlotte Rampling. Rated R for some sexuality and nudity; run time 1 hour and 43 minutes.