**1/2 (out of ****)
Starring Will Smith, Jaden Smith, and Thandie Newton
Directed by Gabriele Muccino & written by Steven Conrad
2006
117 min PG13
Not terrible, just kind of adequately assembled and forgettable. It’s mawkish, to be sure, but if you steel yourself against the sugar the way I did you’ll find it almost bearable. IMDb describes “Happyness” as the story of “Chris Gartner…a struggling salesman…in the face of this difficult life, Chris has the desperate inspiration to try for a stockbroker internship where one in twenty has a chance of a lucrative full time career. Even when his wife leaves him…Chris clings to this dream with his son even when the odds become more daunting by the day. Together, father and son struggle through homelessness, jail time, tax seizure and the overall punishing despair in a quest that would make Gartner a respected millionaire.”
What’s odd about “The Pursuit of Happyness” are all the assumptions it glides over. Gartner looks lustily at big houses and big cars but never learns a lesson about them – he really does seem to think of money, job, and stuff as being equivalent to happiness and good parenting. “Happyness” is not critical of a black guy virtually groveling at the feet of rich white men beneficent enough to grant him a job. Ruthless Reviews calls “Happyness” the “best movie of the year for conservatives” because of its portrayal as taxes as bad, Wall Street types as heroic, and hippies as dirty homeless thieves.
All these assumptions are ripe for discussion, yet is it really to the movie’s discredit that they remain unexamined? Would wondering about materialism or getting upset over inequality really help Chris Gartner get food on his table? More importantly, would someone like Gartner pause to wonder, or would he just keep moving forward? Still, Will Smith is, as always, almost supernaturally affable, and his son (played by his real-life son) takes after him.
STRANGERS WITH CANDY
**1/2 (out of ****)
Starring & written by Amy Sedaris, Stephen Colbert, and Paul Dinello
Directed by Paul Dinello
2006
97 min R
Not Oscar-nominated for anything, just here because I have to put it somewhere. The only TV shows I watch make fun of TV, and “Strangers with Candy” is one of them. A parody of 1980s “after school specials,” when it comes to tone, acting, music, and camera work, the “Strangers with Candy” TV show follows a 40-year-old ex-hooker (heavily made-up Amy Sedaris) who moves back in with her parents determined to finally graduate high school. That she’s a dirty-minded idiot and ex-junkie goes without saying, that she’s a latent lesbian is a plus, and that she has Stephen Colbert as a teacher is grand. (I also like his show.) Like all truly funny people, Colbert never lets on that he knows he’s funny, but rather plays the part of the booming jackass in complete deadpan. One of the best things about “The Colbert Report” is how he will willfully misunderstand very simple ideas.
But, like many sketch-style comedies drawn to feature-length, the movie’s technical credits are questionable and, more importantly, it doesn’t know what to do with a feature-length runtime or 16:9 framing. Jokes that would work in the quick, shallow world of 30-minute television are too slow and only smirk-worthy when dwarfed by the depth of 90 minutes of film. The movie retains much of the show’s spirit and has some good laughs, but you’d still be better off watching three episodes back-to-back. Funny cameos include Philip Seymour Hoffman and Justin Theroux.
Finished Sunday, February 25th, 2007
Copyright © 2007 Friday & Saturday Night
**1/2 (out of ****)
Starring Ryan Gosling, Shareeka, Epps, and Anthony Mackie
Directed by Ryan Fleck & written by Fleck and Anna Boden
2006
106 min R
It’s so handheld! It’s so Method! It’s so improvisational! It’s so – SUNDANCE! I generally like all that and I have great affection for “Half Nelson,” the Sundance-y film about the white heroin-addicted teacher’s tentative friendship with a black junior high girl who knows his secret. But maybe it’s because I found out it was based on a short film the day I watched it that it just never feels like it goes anywhere. Good films have been based on film school shorts – “Napoleon Dynamite” and “George Washington” come to mind – but any 15 minutes of “Half Nelson” work as well as any other 15 minutes.
Pull out a piece (except at the very beginning) and BAM, perfect, honest, atmospheric short film. Essentially the movie repeats situations over-and-over again with slight changes by degrees. The heroin-addicted schoolteacher’s lectures gradually get more disjointed. His friendship with the girl gradually scooches forward. The girl gradually gets pulled deeper into the orbit of her big brother’s drug dealer friend. “Half Nelson” even has a short film’s non-ending.
Still, “Half Nelson” is soulful, honest, and ambient, with a completely believable lead relationship – the actress playing the girl matches Gosling in chest-mumbling Method-iness at every step. (Gosling rubs his face, chews air, and stares contemplatively a lot in this movie.) Anthony Mackie’s drug dealer is also surprisingly genial – in the same way that the schoolteacher says he is not defined by his addiction, so the drug dealer is not defined by his job. Neither is a terrible person. In fact, “Half Nelson” makes a point of mirroring the two men: both berate a referee at a school basketball game, both look after the girl, and both, ultimately, warn her to stay away from the other. Oscar-nominated for Best Actor, at least it’s Indie chic, and not Oscar-clip acting.