REVIEW: The Night is Short, Walk On Girl

For as much as I like to say I enjoy anime, the irrefutable truth of the matter is that I'm basically just a novice; I've watched Fooli Cooli and Gurren Lagann  a couple of times and I'm currently enjoying My Hero Academia, but it's safe to say that there are vast parts of the medium that I still need to explore. I was, for example, completely unfamiliar with the work of Masaaki Yuasa; that is, until I decided to check out The Night is Short, Walk On Girl (loosely adapted from the Japanese novel of the same name). I saw the trailer on Facebook just by chance (or perhaps it was fate), but the fluid animation, whimsical art design, and catchy music told me that I just had to go check this one out (especially since it would be in US theaters for two nights only). 90 minutes later and I'm not only convinced that I need to seek out the rest of Yuasa's work, but that The Night is Short, Walk On Girl is my personal pick for the best movie of 2018 (even though it was technically released in 2017, though only in the UK and its native Japan).

The plot is, shall we say, difficult to describe. This is one of those situations where I feel as though I'd be walking a fine line between describing the premise and simply recounting every scene; it's very much like Alice in Wonderland or The Wizard of Oz, where our protagonists move from situation to situation, encountering a host of unique characters as they go on their journey. The film follows a nameless girl with black hair (typically just referred to as Otome, the Japanese word for "maiden", and voiced by Kana Hanazawa) on a night of heavy-drinking through Kyoto. Meanwhile, a similarly nameless classmate of Otome's (referred to as Senpai, voiced by Gen Hoshino) is determined to confess his feelings towards her on this fatefull night. As he explains, he's implemented a long-term plan of crossing paths with Otome as often as he can manage, under the guise of their encounters being sheer coincidence. When the time is right, he will reveal his true intentions and it will seem as if the two had always been intertwined by the red string of fate. What follows is a delightfully charming, psychadelic rom-com that utterly annihilated my expectations in the best sort of way. This is just one of those movies that feels like a vivid dream, boasting the kind of atmosphere I'd like to curl up inside of for the rest of my life.

While the movie is, aesthetically-speaking, undeniably gorgeous, the real draw for me was the thematic subtext underneath it all. This is one of those films that focuses in on that sort of "quarter-life crisis" that twenty-something college students tend to go through. We've seen so many coming-of-age stories, but what happens after the protagonists have already grown up before the plot truly began? We're told from high school onward that we're "young adults", but that feeling honestly didn't kick in for me until after I'd completed my undergrad, got a job, and moved into a place of my own. For those who go right from high school into college, the question of what comes after is something that really starts to weigh on you after you get acclimated. We act like the transition from high school senior to college freshman is a massive change, but it's really nothing compared to spending the first 22 years of one's life adhering to a more or less consistent system of schooling and socializing, only to finally cross the finish line into the stage of your life when you have to start thinking about taxes and rent and insurance. You get your degree, then what comes next? Graduate school? A career? Or just another job to pay the bills? Should you get married? Start a family? Buy a house? Do you even have the means to do any of those things? These are all the questions you start to mull over as you begin to fully and finally transition into the adult world, and said questions tend to weigh heavily on the minds of chronic over-thinkers like Senpai (or myself, for that matter).

The character of Senpai manages to transcend the usual "awkward nerd who's hopelessly smitten with the girl of his dreams" trappings by really delving into his mindset. He isn't just another gawky buffoon in pursuit of his manic pixie dreamgirl; he's insecure to the point that he outright questions if he even deserves to have his insane plan work out, or if it would be more fitting that he just shrivel up and die alone. He's become accustomed to failure, putting up walls to protect himself from the terrifying idea of what might happen if he actually gets what he wants for once, the only outcome he's completely unprepared for. Otome, meanwhile, is in the exact opposite situation; she's naturally talented at everything she tries, resolved to simply go with the flow and see where the night takes her. While she hardly has to put in any effort in order for things to go her way, she's left with a life that, compared to Senpai, lacks any semblance of drive, ambition, or purpose. The film establishes that her easy-breezy attitude towards life tends to leave those around her in the dust, leaving her with her own kind of loneliness to deal with. They're two sides of the same coin, yin and yang, but that doesn't mean they don't need to grow and change in their own ways before they're fit to be together.

The film hypothesizes that who we are is but an amalgamation of those we meet in life; whether we know them for the rest of our days or just for one drunken evening, the impact and influence they leave us with is what determines who we are and how we grow as people. The emotions these people inspire and the stories they leave us with are the things that life is made of. Feelings of isolation, loneliness, and disassociation are hardly rare for young people, especially those who find themselves in the midst of a great transitory period in their lives, and The Night is Short, Walk On Girl goes to great lengths to remind us that no man is an island. Whether you believe in fate or not, your existence is immutably intertwined with those around you (and even those you've yet to meet). We're all players in the funny, tragic, oddball play that is the human race; everyone matters, no one is truly alone, and happiness will always inevitably win out over nihilism.

Although it's obvious that the underlying motifs this movie set forth resonated with me on a deep emotional level, I want to make it clear how much I adored everything else in this movie. Like I said before, the animation is absolutely stunning (putting Masaaki Yuasa on my radar in a big way) and I really love the use of color and sound to establish a sensory experience that's at the same time fantastical and immersive. As the night goes on, an entire year seems to pass; we begin on a warm spring evening, transition into summer heat, and by the time the climax rolls around, all of Kyoto is stuck inside with the flu as unforgiving winds and snow rip through the empty city streets. I also found myself surprisingly invested in the stories of the various side-characters Otome and Senpai come across, absurd as they are. My personal favorite would have to be Don Underpants ( Ryûji Akiyama), a writer and hopeless romantic who has pledged to not change his underwear until he reconnects with a girl he had a fated encounter with some time ago. At first we assume he's just there for a one-off joke about his self-appointed nickname, but then he shows up again much later on, setting up guerrilla plays at the student festival as a means of attracting his mystery love's attention. These side-characters are all bit players compared to our two main leads, but their stories are told in such a way that it truly feels as though the plot thread doesn't end the moment they walk off-screen. We really get the feeling that this isn't just an extraordinary night for Senpai and Otome; everyone has their tale to tell, and that's really the entire message of this movie in a nutshell.

The Night is Short, Walk On Girl is really just a remarkable little movie. It's a surprisingly conventional, feel-good love story that's conveyed in the most unconventional of ways; pair that with sublime animation, supremely comfy atmosphere, a killer soundtrack, and loads of endearing and memorable characters, and you've got a winning recipe for my personal favorite movie of 2018 thus far. Yes, I know, it technically came out in 2017 everywhere but the USA, but I'd be outright lying if I said that, out of everything I've seen in theaters this year, The Night is Short, Walk On Girl wasn't my favorite. If it wasn't clear already, I absolutely adore this lovely, lovely film and would like nothing more than to just immerse myself in all the charm and good vibes it's constantly putting out. If you're a fan of anime or animation in general, you owe it to yourself to give this one a watch.

REVIEW: Eighth Grade

I'm honestly surprised it's taken this long for Bo Burnham to venture into feature films. He's a remarkably talented guy, so you can understand how excited I was for Eighth Grade, his first foray into the world of writing/directing for the big screen. Comparing the trailers for Eighth Grade to Burnham's stand-up specials, it struck me as not the sort of thing one would necessarily expect from his typical musical-comedy wheelhouse. Really, that only made me more excited to see it; I love watching comedians step outside of their comfort zones to make something that's not necessarily meant to be laugh-out-loud funny, first and foremost. The most successful comedians tend to have a knack for tapping into other base emotions aside from just laughter, and I'm happy to report that Eighth Grade does nothing to dispel that hypothesis.

The film follows eighth-grader Kayla Day (Elsie Fisher) through her final week of middle school, just before summer vacation (and the move to high school after that). It's worth noting that this isn't your typical "teen" movie; there's no big dance or talent show that Kayla needs to prepare for, and the popular girls don't go out of their way to make Kayla's life a living hell (rather, they hardly even acknowledge her existence). The plot foregoes every adolescent trope by being as purposefully mundane as possible, casting aside theatrical dramatization in favor of just being real. And not in the "omg that's literally me" kind of way, either; there are moments where Eighth Grade almost feels like a nature documentary on the middle school ecosystem, rather than an attempt to forcibly relate to a younger audience. I'm well beyond my middle school years, but this film still felt like a time-capsule based on its atmosphere alone. It takes us back to a time in our lives when pool parties and trips to the mall weren't just run-of-the-mill, everyday occurrences, but events where everything (especially image) mattered. There are small details that are sure to strike a chord with everyone for different reasons; for me, it was an unseen class clown shouting "are you my mom?" after the principal handed the mic off to a teacher during a school assembly. The film doesn't need to go out of its way to make these little moments feel important or theatrical, because they already are for Kayla; she's the focal point of the entire story. We care about her, and by extension everything she cares about (even if we're old enough to know better).

The film displays a remarkable knack for inspiring its audience to empathize with Kayla's adolescent struggles, thanks in part to the incredibly naturalistic writing and dialog. However, the factor that carries this entire film is the performances, Elsie Fisher's shining above all else. The character of Kayla is the rock on which the entire film is built; if she doesn't work, the entire thing falls apart. It's a tricky balance, given the premise of the movie, to write a protagonist who is both endearing and believably flawed. If Kayla was portrayed as overly self-aware and wise beyond her years, she'd cease to feel like an everygirl on the brink of young adulthood and start to feel more like every other stock "insecure tween" character in existence. On the flip-side, if she acted too childishly, older audiences would be alienated from her struggles with the pressures of social media and prepubescent peer interaction. It's thanks to Fisher's performance that this balance is kept intact; we'll shake our heads when Kayla makes a mistake, but we never stop rooting for her to succeed.

I honestly saw a surprising amount of myself in her, both now and looking back to my middle school years. I can remember being in middle school, making YouTube videos in my spare time (which I've naturally long since deleted, seeing as how you can watch my voice change a little bit with each upload). Middle school was a time of insecurity and immaturity, where we simultaneously don't care about anything but also care about literally everything. I remember the moments in my childhood, attending parties I wasn't sure I was wanted at, stressing out over nothing, and wanting to be treated like both an adult and a kid at the same time. The film hits a lot of easily-relatable beats without coming off as generic or clichéd, which isn't exactly an easy thing to do. I'm really looking forward to revisiting this as time goes on, maybe even after I've had kids of my own, to see how I respond to it then.

It's worth noting that the supporting cast is excellent as well; suffice to say, there are no bad performances in this entire film (a credit not only to the cast, but to Bo Burnham's skills as a first-time director, working primarily with relative unknowns and children). Jake Ryan is a delight as Gabe, the gawky cousin of one of Kayla's more popular classmates. I like to think I wasn't this much of a dweeb back in middle school, but the way I both smiled and cringed at his Rick and Morty impressions imply otherwise; his performance was yet another of the things in this movie that hit very close to home in a fun, endearing kind of way without feeling as thought it was trying too hard to make me relate. I also utterly adored Josh Hamilton as Kayla's dad; his chemistry with Elsie Fisher is fantastic, and I find that he carries a deceptively large amount of the emotional weight in this film; you get the sense that he's got his own story going on behind the scenes, as though he's the star of his own, unseen movie. I'll always cheer on the death of the idea that father figures in movies must be incompetent, pigheaded idiots, and Hamilton's performance is yet another nail in that proverbial coffin. Not to say that he's an ineffectual pushover either; he's just a man who desperately wants his daughter to be the happy person she was a few scant years ago. Arguably my favorite scene in the entire movie is what could loosely be called the climax (in a film as low-key and down-to-earth as this), and Hamilton's performance solidified it as one of the most heartfelt things I've ever seen.

Eighth Grade is the kind of movie I wish I had back in middle school (kudos to any theater that organizes all-age screenings of this film, incidentally). Heck, it's the kind of movie I wish I had in high school. Regardless, I'm glad I have it now; despite some odd pacing and unambitious cinematography, the film really has a talent for hitting you with moments that makes you realize just how emotionally invested you are in Kayla's journey into adolescence. One scene in particular had me clenching my fist so hard I'm surprised I didn't draw blood (incidentally, I'm also a little disappointed we didn't get any kind of closure regarding what happens therein, but I digress). It's definitely going to hit hard for people in my generation and younger, who found (or find) themselves growing up in an age of social media, where the forced social interaction doesn't necessarily end when school lets out. We've reached a point as a society where we're constantly bombarded with the absolute prettiest moments of everyone else's lives, and that kind of 24/7 connectivity has a unique way of making one feel completely and utterly alone. Eighth Grade is the kind of movie I intend to show my kids (if I ever have any) when they're old enough, and that's just about the highest praise I can give it. It'll make you laugh, it'll make you cry, and it'll make you look back on some of the worst years of your life with a twisted, nostalgic sort of fondness. If there's one movie this summer that deserves your hard-earned money, Eighth Grade is it. Go check it out.

REVIEW: Sorry To Bother You

One of my favorite things about film as a means of artistic expression is the way in which it allows filmmakers to present a sort of funhouse mirror version of our own reality. Where certain aspects of everyday life are tweaked and exaggerated in order to convey some sort of social commentary; it's the kind of style you find in films such as Robocop and Office Space, concealing a bittersweet truth about society behind a veneer of sardonicism and parody. After catching the trailer for Boots Riley's Sorry To Bother You before a showing of Deadpool 2 back in May, I knew it was the kind of slick-looking indie flick I just had to check out. Having finally seen it, I can definitely say that, as far as style goes, I got exactly what I was hoping for and then some. As far as everything else... well, let's just say there's a reason this particular Review took so long to post. This is the kind of movie I had to sleep on for a good long while, and I wouldn't be surprised if my opinion of it continues to change after I've hit publish. It's a very unique beast of a film, and while I'm not entirely sure that's 100% a compliment in this case, it definitely gives me a lot to talk about.

The film is set in an alternate-present version of Oakland; it's more or less the same as our world, just, shall we say, less subtle. Mega-corporations are essentially pushing exportable slave labor (seen as a fairly sweet deal by many members of the lower class), advertising has devolved to the point that brands are simply named after whatever product they're designed to move (such as "Soda Cola"), and America's number one television show is an assault on human dignity aptly titled "I Just Got the Sh*t Kicked Out of Me!"; it's a dystopia in the most mundane, everyday sense, where our collective doom is brought about by sterilized corporate overreach, rather than murderous robots or nuclear armageddon. It's here that we meet our protagonist, Cassius "Cash" Green (Lakeith Stanfield, who is way too good here to have also starred in Death Note). Low on funds and unable to find a job, Cash begins working at a telemarketing firm known as RegalView. Initially, he feels as though the job isn't cut out for him, struggling to close sales and climb the corporate ladder. That is, until one of his coworkers (Danny Glover) suggests that he use his "white voice" (a squeaky-clean overdub provided by David Cross); not so much an imitation of white people, per sey, but rather a means of code-meshing that gives off the impression that Cassius is living a worry-free life where things can only get better. With the power of his white voice, Cash becomes a superstar at RegalView, ascending to the almighty and mysterious position of "Power Caller"; however, this promotion just happens to coincide with his coworkers (along with his girlfriend, Detroit, played by Tessa Thompson) organizing a labor strike in search of better wages and benefits. I don't want to go any further into the plot, as this is definitely the kind of movie you want to go into blind, but suffice to say tensions rise between Cash and those around him after he earns his first taste of what could modestly be called success.

Like I said, I've got a lot to say about this movie, so I'd like to get everything I liked about it out of the way first. As far as visuals go, this is a strong contender for the most inventive film I've seen thus far in 2018; the cinematography gets insanely creative at times, whether it's to convey a subtextual message or to simply help sell a joke. When Cassius is on the phone with a client, he's violently transported to wherever they may be when their phone starts ringing, whether they're eating dinner or having sex on the couch. It's an inventive way to make something as milquetoast as telemarketing engaging and interesting, fully taking advantage of the visual medium they're working in. It's definitely a film with a very distinct look to it, especially when it comes to details like Tessa Thompson's various outfits and earrings (her character is an independent artist, and the film takes full advantage of this opportunity to play dress-up). This is a movie about income inequality and racially-coded language and corporate America, yet it finds a way to be fascinating from a visual standpoint, rather than just from a narrative standpoint, and that's definitely a feather Sorry To Bother You wears proudly in its cap.

I also loved the sense of humor and overall tone/atmosphere; like I said before, it exaggerates key elements of our reality, calling specific attention to details we're more or less used to seeing in our day to day lives. There's a joke later on in the film involving a rap song that made me both laugh and wince until it hurt; really, it's the film's ability to pull off moments like that that make it such an enjoyable watch. For as surface-level as some of the commentary can be, it's very smart in the way it doles it out for the first two acts. Despite how absurd things appeared, I found myself seriously invested in the moral dilemma at the heart of the plot. A lot of this is not only due to the smart dialog and writing, but also to Lakeith Stanfield; he's the perfect everyman for a movie like this, fitting right into this absurd, exaggerated universe while also staying totally down-to-earth and relatable. Just about every character aside from Cash ends up being a little hyperbolic in one way or another, so it was a smart move to cast someone so naturalistic as the focal point of the entire plot. 

SPOILER ALERT: While I don't spoil that twist (the one everyone is going nuts over), I do mention a few minor plot points. If you're looking to go in as blind as possible (which is really the only way to see this movie), be warned!

Now, if you've heard anything about this movie, you've probably heard people raving about the curveball it throws in later on in the plot; I'm going to respect the wishes of the filmmakers and not spoil it here, but I can't just pretend like I can discuss this movie without talking about it (albeit in the vaguest possible terms I can manage). While I can definitely see what Riley was going for with this plot point, I can't help but feel as though it was a punch-line to a joke nobody was telling. When the twist happened in the theater, I literally thought I was being pranked, that the entire conceit of the movie was to get people invested in an oddball but compelling dramedy about the price of success before completely going off the rails into straight-up monkey cheese territory. Now, all that said, I want to make it perfectly clear that, while it didn't really work for me, I still have to give Boots Riley and company some tremendous props for doing something so ballsy and out-there. It's really the kind of thing you have no way of predicting; if you sat 1,000 monkeys at 1,000 typewriters, they would eventually guess the plot twist to Sorry To Bother You. It's definitely a "your mileage may vary" type thing, something that no major studio would ever let a filmmaker get away with. We all act like the end of Infinity War was shocking, but it honestly has nothing on this.

While I greatly respect a filmmaker's decision to throw his audience for a loop, I still can't help but think that taking such a radical turn ended up damaging the overall narrative in the long run. In doing some research after leaving the cinema, I learned that apparently Riley had intended for the film to have a Communist message, which I found a bit concerning (for more reasons than the obvious); namely that, as far as I could tell, the film did a remarkable job of offering solid refutations to that mindset. The moral quandary that the first two acts are entirely based around involves Cash's desire to succeed, even if it means turning his back on his friends and coworkers. It's easy to see his decision as selfish at first, but we also see that he has people in his life (like his uncle, played by Terry Crews) whom he has to provide for. When Cash's friends (who aren't particularly good at their job) shame him for working hard and succeeding on his own merits, they come off as remarkably petty and hypocritical, as if Cash should allow his uncle to lose his house in order to add another body to the picket line. At one point in the movie, we learn that Detroit has a "white voice" of her own that she uses during her art installation (which is really just a more pretentious version of "I Just Got the Sh*t Kicked Out of Me!"), after she's spent the entire movie up to that point talking down to Cash for using his white voice outside of work. Steven Yeun's character (who organizes the strike in the first place) spends all of his time moralizing about unity and brotherhood and the shared struggle of the proletariat, only to act like a duplicitous, incompetent goober when no one important is watching. 

Make no mistake, Cash's hands aren't clean either (he consciously goes along with some pretty deplorable things in pursuit of a white-collar paycheck, after all), but it felt to me like the movie was doing everything in its power to avoid coming off as one-sided; all the players in the central conflict had moments where they were given realistic, human flaws, and that added a lot in terms of making this moral dilemma feel multi-faceted and real. It feels like you could make a reasonable case for either side of the argument, and it's that kind of conflict that makes for compelling drama. But then the twist happened and the film started beating us over the head with its message (which only took the form of playful and flirtatious love-taps before). When there's such a large gap between what I took away from Sorry to Bother You and what the filmmaker intended I take away from it, I seriously have to wonder where things started to get lost in translation. I certainly don't want to place this entirely on the shoulders of the film itself (Boots Riley is the one who wrote and directed it, I just paid for my ticket and interpreted what I saw from my own, lowly perspective), but I can't help but feel that something's amiss in terms of how the story is conveyed when the director's supposed intentions feel so divergent from what actually played out on screen.

For all my personal hang-ups with Sorry To Bother You, I can't really bring myself to not recommend it. There were major elements of it that just didn't land for me, but that still doesn't change the fact that this is one of the most unique films I've seen in a theater in a good long while. This doesn't feel like just another surrealist comedy, this feels like someone's unique, inspired artistic vision, and that's something I can always commend (even if, at the end of the day, it feels like it presents themes and ideas that I've seen done before and done better). The title, Sorry To Bother You, isn't only meant as a reference to the world of telemarketing, but also as something of a warning to the audience; as if to say, "sorry to bother you, but this film is gonna force you to wake up and see things as they are". I can't say for sure that Sorry To Bother You woke me up, but it sure as hell didn't put me to sleep. Avoid all spoilers, go in as blind as possible, and see what you take away from it.