sycasey 2.0

Well, I offered that as one of several paths the movie could have followed. I didn't say that trashy/satirical was the only way to handle this material.

Fair enough! I was just thrown by the way this little sub-thread started. If your intent is to try to divine what the movie was trying to accomplish (regardless of whether or not it succeeded) then they probably were trying for some kind of impartial rumination on morality.

I have a different thought on this (well, obviously since I'm the one who brought up Brokeback). I think that if you're trying to determine what makes a movie work and what doesn't then it's useful to have examples you can point to. If you want to make a stronger point, then it's usually better to bring up a movie that is widely viewed as being one that works. That's going to be a movie with enduring popularity that won awards or something. If people can't even agree on some core tenets for what makes a movie work then the discussion tends to be fruitless. So yeah, the example might be obvious, but that's kind of the point. Trying to set some common ground.

That's cool. I also appreciate the chance here to flesh out my own thoughts on why it doesn't work. I do think it presents characters who are assholes, but that's not strictly the problem. It's more the failure to contextualize or adequately comment upon said assholes that is the problem. The lack of perspective or consistent approach to theme leaves you with little more than the idea that we should be comfortable and accepting of these people and their behavior, because what is morality after all? I think that's . . . not a great message to take away from a movie.

That's true, they did say that. Okay, Mary is off the hook.

Are they actually fighting against it, though? I don't know that I see much fight except from the blonde son. And for him, he's also very quick to lash out at people who tell him he can't have something he wants. That's part of the problem with this movie's presentation: everything is shown through this kind of hazy gauze where the characters' motives seem to change left and right. To me it seems like Tom is very much attracted to Mary until the affair is revealed and then he isn't. You could say this is happening because we're seeing it from Mary's perspective, but if so then that's inconsistent with the idea that it's just presenting these people "without judgment." So the good version of this is Brokeback Mountain. The cowboys can't admit to the world that they are gay, so they wind up getting married to wives they aren't really attracted to, which eventually leads to those marriages falling apart. But the difference is that the filmmakers' perspective on this is clear: we see people in this world actively persecuted for being gay. We see that Jack and Ennis feel bad about lying to their wives (one of them states it very clearly that we shouldn't blame her for their predicament). We see at the end very clearly how this kind of life affects the surviving one, how he is left alone and barely in touch with his daughter. That's a way to do a morally conflicted movie about people battling against societal norms, but as opposed to Adore, that film has a clear viewpoint from the director/writer. There is perspective on how these people fit into their world and why they behave the way they do. Every time Adore comes close to providing this context, it pivots to something else. You can say all you want that the movie is just trying to present people "as they are" and that the judgment is really coming from the audience. Okay, fine. But you'd have to be living in a cave somewhere to not realize that the majority of the audience is going to immediately start judging these characters for having sex with each other's sons. It's not exactly normal. It's the filmmakers' job to account for the audience reaction they know is coming (or should know) and guide the audience on how to think/feel about it. That's what a good movie about taboo subject matter does. It's not what Adore does.

I do. Well, kind of. During the early parts of the movie I'm thinking these characters are doing weird things and don't seem to behave like actual humans, but whatever. But by the time they've had kids, brought them to see the grandmothers, and then it's revealed that the affair has still been going on and they all seem to very quickly accept that they'll never see those kids again . . . at that point, I flipped to thinking, "Oh no, these people are selfish assholes."

I think the fact that the sons wind up having wives and children of their own moves this into "bad" territory. Those kids don't deserve to be put through this.

Brunette wife at least seems to have something going on upstairs, and in fairness to her she did meet the son while he was away at college and away from sexy moms (though her being smart does raise the question of why she never seemed to realize anything was happening, even though her husband was apparently porking Naomi Watts regularly on family vacations). For the blonde wife I have no explanation of her character arc. It seems like she's just there to get knocked up and become an obstacle.

I think you're a bit focused on the idea that I think the plot of the movie needs to directly punish the asshole characters for it to have taken a moral stance on them. Not necessarily. For example, I liked The Wolf of Wall Street. That movie is most certainly about assholes. Are they punished within the movie? Probably not as much as they should have been. They certainly don't seem to realize how badly they screwed people over. But I can get from that movie's presentation that the filmmakers do realize it. Martin Scorsese ends the film with a very obvious shot that implicates the audience, showing the expectant students listening to the main character's speech about how to do well in business (after we've just watched him lie and cheat and bluff his way through it). He blows out and exaggerates the assholes' antics to make them seem clownish. To me that's an example of a movie that presents tough subject matter and is an effective challenge to the audience, asking us how we feel about what we saw. The lack of perspective in Adore, I would argue, ultimately serves to endorse the bad behavior depicted on screen. Granted, this is a fine line to walk. I think that virtually every time this movie has a chance to fall on the right side of that line it falls on the wrong side. It's actually pretty breathtaking how tone-deaf it is.

I feel like we might have covered this before . . .

A quick correction to the podcast: At some point someone asked what town the characters live in, and "New South Wales" was given as an answer. New South Wales is a state, not a city. Sydney is the largest city in NSW. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_South_Wales I'm not sure if it's ever stated what town they actually live in, though apparently it's far enough from Sydney for that to feel like a big move and reason to divorce your husband (well, along with the fact that you're sleeping with your best friend's son).

I think that moral relativism can be carried far enough to the point where it's no longer useful, and this might be that point. The argument that a narrative movie like this is just "showing them as they are" is a bit of a cop out. Why not just make a documentary then? (Even documentaries aren't perfectly objective, but you get my point here.) If you decide to tell a fictional story about certain people then you probably have something you want to say about those people. I don't think Adore gives you any grounding for how you are supposed to feel about this story, and if you start reading it closely then all you get is that these people care about their own desires and nothing more. Getting divorced, losing children, etc., seems to mean very little to them, which means they don't care about how their actions affected their spouses and children. In my book, a person who thinks that way is an asshole, regardless of whether or not they personally think they are assholes. So if you've got a movie about assholes you probably should push the audience to feel one way or another about them. It can be subtle and potentially achieved in a number of ways, but there should be some clarity to it. I don't see that in Adore. I see a kind of vague prettiness.

Soft no. It's a fun movie that I enjoy. I give tons of credit to Kathryn Bigelow for directing the living hell out of this movie. The action scenes are all great, and the atmosphere is engrossing and rich. She finds the most interesting aspects (the homoerotic tension between Reeves and Swayze) and plays them up as much as possible. This movie is so much better than it needs to be. But that said, the script is terrible. Johnny Utah is literally the worst FBI agent (by which I mean, "F . . . B . . . I AGENT"). I get that with Bigelow's eye and Keanu's presence he becomes someone more likable, but on a basic story level it's a failure to have him as the central character. He's literally the only reason there are so many unnecessary deaths. I don't think the script ever resolves this issue; Johnny never seems to face any actual consequences for his constant screw-ups, and the argument that this was all "purposeful" reads to me like "Bonsai bullshit." Sometimes a bad plot is just a bad plot. I get that this movie is iconic and influential in some ways (the original The Fast and the Furious is basically a remake), so there is an argument to be made for its Canonicity. For me it's a good but not great action movie, bad writing buoyed by great direction. Not great enough to get my vote.

This is the reason that I think it's a bad movie. These are horrid people. You can make a good movie about horrid people, but there needs to be some self-awareness of what they are. It needs to be satirical or over-the-top trashy, or there needs to be at least one character who recognizes their bullshit and calls it out, or the ending needs to make clear that their actions led to some kind of pathetic result. Adore doesn't do any of that. It's treated as a straightforward relationship drama and very prettily filmed, which makes it seem like the filmmakers are trying to get you to sympathize with with the plight of these selfish rich twats. No thanks.

Soon-Yi was not Woody Allen's adopted daughter. Her adoptive father is Andre Previn. (This should not be read as a way of "defending" Woody Allen, as I think there are plenty of legitimate reasons to dislike him or his work. But the pedant in me feels the need to correct people when they get the facts wrong -- which are, granted, pretty confusing here.)

I assume the movie is saying they don't actually know how to cook anything.

I've actually always liked Keanu too, especially since I'm a half-Asian dude who used to wear his hair long, so he was my celebrity doppelganger for a while there. That said, he does have some limitations.

Yes, I actually root for Guy to get with Madeleine more than Genevieve. Team Madeleine!

You can really note the difference here. Honestly, I think I like the versions in the movie better, which seem scaled down to better fit Madonna and Antonio Banderas' ranges. The original gets screechy unless you have Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin, but who the hell else can sing like that?

Nope, I think they're both great! (Umbrellas is greater.)

Classic.

I haven't seen this Adore movie yet, but the description sounds like Lonely Island's "Motherlover" song.

For me this is an easy slam-dunk YES. There was a lot of discussion about how much you buy into the "romance" between the leads, but for me the genius of Umbrellas of Cherbourg is that the movie works whether you buy it or not. If you really believe in the love between Guy and Genevieve then their separation is a tragedy and the ending is a reminder of their lost love and you sob (as Jen Yamato presumably did). If you don't, then the ending is confirmation of their improved maturity and a wistful reminder of the heightened emotions of your youth. Or maybe you're Amy and you get distracted by a yellow scarf (kidding!). There's no need to have a debate over which interpretation is right, because as presented in the film they are both right. It is a little bit of a tragedy to have lost that youthful yearning and romance. But it's also perfectly natural. Your life experiences will teach you that a lot of things are ephemeral. You can see this in Guy's characterization in the final sequence at the gas station. He clearly does still think of Genevieve, but on the other hand he doesn't seem unhappy with Madeleine or his family life (Madeleine seems like a pretty great wife, to be honest). We don't see as much of Genevieve's life with Roland, but again I don't think there's any indication that she's doing badly either. The same dichotomy, this fission between the romantic and the practical, plays out throughout the film: mundane dialogue sung with passion, candy colors that fade into a subdued winter palette, Genevieve's lovelorn yearning regularly undercut by her mother's pragmatism, etc. It's the whole point of the movie, that the one thing cannot exist without the other. Life requires you to balance what you want with what you need. I'm a fan of La La Land as well, but in that film it seems clearer that Damien Chazelle really believes in the romanticism and considers it a tragedy that young love was lost. This is evidenced by the fact that he replays the romance in a fantasy sequence right before his gut-punch ending. Jacques Demy has a more nuanced and interesting take on it. To me the final scene does not play as a gut punch, it plays as something that just always was going to be. It's the transition to adult life, in microcosm. It's sad and comforting at the same time. This week's rewatch made it plain for me: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is a masterpiece. It definitely belongs in the Canon.

I remember seeing this in theaters back in 1996 and thinking Banderas was clearly the standout performance. He's got the right over-the-top theatrical tone you need for this material. Madonna, maybe not so much.