Tag Archives: Adam Driver

BlacKkKlansman Entertains and Educates

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Part of the reason that I touched on Charlottesville last week was because of the end of BlacKkKlansman. Before the final credits, the film cuts to a recap of the Unite the Right protests and counter-protests, ultimately coming to rest on a dedication to Heather Hayer and an upside down American flag. Spike Lee’s award-winning social commentary is a stark reminder that racism and white supremacy are still alive and well in our country, and you never have to go back very far to find the proof.

That ending had a profound impact on me. Aside from the fact that it was a classy gesture on Lee’s part to pay his respects to Hayer, he made it clear that we’re too quick to forget what happens in front of our very eyes. Upset as I was upon learning the horror that unfolded in Charlottesville, I admittedly moved on with my normal life and gave it very little thought until I saw BlacKkKlansman. Lee knows this about our society and isn’t going to let us off the hook just because we found his movie entertaining.

And that really doesn’t even do justice to the film. BlacKkKlansman is a riveting, surprisingly humorous account of Ron Stallworth’s infiltration of the Ku Klux Klan. He can’t do this on his own, since the Klan isn’t big on recruiting black guys, so he enlists the help of his white co-worker Flip Zimmerman to pose as Stallworth in person. What follows is a series of tense encounters between fake Stallworth and the Klan, and the real Stallworth and his fellow officers. Not surprisingly, racism emerges in both situations and the reluctant partners are forced to rely on each other more than they would like.

John David Washington, the son of Denzel, commands the screen like his father while simultaneously setting himself apart. His Stallworth is a determined, tenacious officer, forced to juggle multiple responsibilities in a town where some of his peers want to see him fail. He makes a connection with the president of a local Black Student Union, and she openly expresses her disdain for cops (with good reason based on how a certain racist officer treats her). It’s a literal no-win situation, but Stallworth remains steadfast through it all, The man turned in a remarkably impressive performance and I look forward to seeing the prodigal son in Christopher Nolan’s Tenet next month.

And what a relief it was to see Adam Driver with a script that matches his talent, considering they completely wasted him in Rise of Skywalker. To Zimmerman, this whole operation is just another assignment. He grumbles at Stallworth’s directions not because he’s a black man, but because Zimmerman doesn’t like a rookie telling him how to do his job. And yet, he sticks with it and stands in solidarity with Stallworth. At a certain point, you can see it slowly dawning on the Jewish Zimmerman that he should probably have personal motives for bringing down the KKK. Driver is a Rubik’s Cube of emotions, bringing a complexity to the role that resonates all the more in this day and age.

There are scenes in BlacKkKlansman that strongly evoke recent events. That’s because instances of racism in America are never that far removed from present day, if at all. The question isn’t what we’ll do to finally address this issue as a country, but when.

When will America finally own its racist ways and implement some meaningful change?

While We’re Young: Nihilism in Aging

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Noah Baumbach’s While We’re Young is a film that stars Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts as Josh and Cornelia, a married couple of a certain age (mid-40s) finding new friends in Jamie and Darby (Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried) a hipster couple of a jealous-inducing age (mid-20s).

While seemingly Baumbach’s version of This Is 40, full of his trademark witty dialogue and focus on relationships, this film is less about the relate-able theme of aging and more a nihilistic observation of the phonies of New York City and their inevitable successes.

The movie mostly focuses on Josh who is a documentary filmmaker stuck on a decade long project, either due to a lack of ambition or due to an abundance of morality depending on who you ask. Jamie, on the other hand, wants to be a documentary filmmaker and lacks neither the ambition nor the moral code of honesty.

Of course Jamie’s lack of ethics does not immediately come across to Josh who enjoys the energy and the praise that Jamie brings into his life. In fact Jamie revitalizes Josh and he returns the favor by agreeing to share his resources for a documentary that Jamie is filming.

It’s only much later than Josh realizes Jamie was using him to advance his career and get closer to his successful filmmaker father-in-law. He starts seeing Jaime for what he really is, he quips to his wife that “It’s like… he once saw a sincere person and he’s been imitating him ever since”.

As Josh follows the breadcrumbs to reveal that Jamie has been lying about the documentary he filmed he also discovers that nobody cares. Jamie’s lying and scheming is chalked up to his youth and his ambition and his sins forgiven for the same reasons.

As the themes of old versus young and honesty versus deception bubble up it’s easy to assume the film is suggesting that youth, for all its ambitions  and energy, is used to deceive people. Or that young people can do whatever they want as long as they are following their dreams. But there’s more to it than that. The film has an additional narrative that focuses on Josh and Cornelia’s older friends Marina and Fletcher who just had a baby and have been openly celebrating their exuberance for parenthood. As the film progresses their lives are used as another example of a couple that is living a fulfilling life in contrast to Josh and Cornelia. They’re accepting age with grace and they revel in the mundane parenting experience. This puts Josh and Cornelia in between two drastically different lifestyles that appear fulfilling for the parties involved while they struggle to find fulfillment in their lives.

Of course much like the reveal of Jamie’s dishonesty and Darby’s reveal of their unstable relationship, we find out that Fletcher and Marina are struggling too, “Before you have a kid, everyone tells you, ‘It’s the best thing you’ll ever do.’ And as soon as you get the baby back from the hospital, those same people are like, ‘Don’t worry, it gets better.’”

Both of their couple friends seemingly had it all together. One was hip, well-spoken, and ambitious, the other was mature, calm, and at peace but by the end the veil was lifted and it was clear that both were just playing their parts.

In the end Josh appears destined to be a cynic. No one cares that Jamie is a liar or that Darby seeks out other men or that Fletcher and Marina are dissatisfied with parenting. In fact, Josh appears to be the crazy one, “Josh, you know the world isn’t a giant conspiracy against you” states his wife.

Eventually Josh learns to let go of everything. He lets go of the jealousy, the hypocrisy, the disappointment and moves on in his life. And for Josh it’s less about beckoning Dylan Thomas as he doesn’t “rage against the dying of the light” and, in fact, he goes into the night gently. By the end Josh fittingly emits more of a modern poet in Childish Gambino, “I mean nobody out here’s got it figured out so therefore, I’ve lost all hope of a happy ending”.

While We’re Young is a film about aging but it’s also about learning to let go of things you can’t control. The movie doesn’t tell you to live your life to the fullest or to settle down and have children, it’s urging you to live the life that means something to you and don’t worry about what others are doing because it turns out those seemingly happy people you see everywhere, yeah, well they are just full of shit and probably as miserable as you.

What If: A Feel Good Hidden Gem

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“Love is dirty, baby, sometimes it’s downright filthy.”

Maybe it’s because wedding bells are drawing near for Jesse and because I’m currently living 461 miles away from my love but, whatever the reason, romantic comedies are getting featured here on Flimsy Film Critics this month. Actually the real answer is we are smooth, handsome, hopeless romantics who express their love with big romantic gestures on a daily basis but we don’t talk about it here because we don’t want our audience feeling bad about themselves. Yeah that’s it…

Either way, I was in the mood for a feel good movie about love and all its complications. I found just that in the hidden gem that is 2013’s What If (not to be confused with Netflix’s recent What/If series nor the comics-soon-to-be-Disney-show What If that asks daring questions like, “What if Spider-Man joined the Fantastic Four”, the answer is, the Fantastic Four would finally get a good movie as long as Sony wasn’t producing it).

What If has a classic romantic comedy set up, a dude meets a girl at a party, there’s instant chemistry but the girl reveals she has a boyfriend, in the most ham-fisted, awkward manner possible of course.

What makes this movie stand out is the cast led by Daniel Radcliffe and his best friend Adam Driver (Harry Potter and Kylo Ren fanfics goin’ wild right now) alongside the so-hot-right-now Zoe Kazan with a great supporting performance from Mackenzie Davis (that girl from your favorite Black Mirror episode).

Daniel and Zoe, portraying Wallace and Chantry, have palpable chemistry, and as they settle into their friendship you feel like they’ve known each other forever with their quick banter and comfort to be their whole selves. Wallace, coming off a bad break up, and Chantry, living with her boyfriend, decide, over a handshake, they are going to give the ‘men and women can be friends’ thing a shot.

The other stand out in this movie is the dialogue, it is crisp, quick, and funny. Each word feels intentional and has meaning. Especially the scenes with Allan (Driver) and Nicole (Davis) as the head-over-heels couple that falls madly, and quickly, in love. The performances by Driver and Davis had me cackling with laughter bringing a much needed energy to Wallace’s downtrodden world view. Allan and Nicole, who meet the same night as Wallace and Chantry, in fact in front of the same fridge, are the foil to Wallace and Chantry. They fall for each other fast and they don’t stop to think or ask questions. They serve as opposition to Wallace’s nihilistic views on love as well as the comic relief. They drop nuggets of wisdom along the way and truly might be the #relationshipgoals couple of the movie.

Of course no relationship is perfect. As Allan pontificates after his first fight with Nicole, “All this love shit is complicated. And that’s good. Because if it’s too simple you’ve got no reason to try and if you’ve got no reason to try, you don’t”. It’s one of the seemingly cliché lines that is so well delivered by Driver that it sticks with you. It provides a sense of relief that a lot of romantic comedies don’t, life is messy and that’s okay.

Love and life is complicated. People fall in love with the wrong people at the right time and the right people at the wrong time. As much as we can focus on ourselves, our careers, our hobbies, we can’t control who or when we fall in love and we shouldn’t have to feel guilty about our feelings. This movie gives a sense of relief that life is nuanced and messy. No one knows what they’re doing, especially when feelings are involved. This film reminds you that love happens in unlikely ways but if something is good, hold onto it for as long as it stays that way.