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Charlize Theron was both hilarious and deeply moving
geplaatst door rooprectSTAFFMOD op 3 november 2023 om 7:59 AM
Wow, what a great performance. Charlize Theron turned an otherwise goofy comedy into a powerful statement, and her ability to flip between comedy and depth was what made this movie.
Plot in a sentence: emotionally stunted, 37-year-old city girl returns to her stagnant hometown full of her emotionally-stunted middle aged classmates, with the goal of snaring her ex boyfriend from 20 years ago.
It's basically a 'Mean Girls' for grownups with Charlize being all the mean girls wrapped into 1. Could've been a purely silly comedy with 2-dimensional characters, but Charlize really fleshes out the role and gives the entire film pause for thought. We slowly unravel why she's such a witch, in subtle lines and passing expressions she conveys that she's a tangle of internalized issues (alcoholism, ptsd, depression, self harm, anhedonia), and by the end we're sympathizing with her as she seems to head for a catastrophic nervous breakdown of Catcher-in-the-Rye proportions.
One of my fave moments happens when she has a chat with her parents and says "I think I'm an alcoholic" which they think is a joke. They laugh and move on to other topics while we see, just for an instant, the disappointment & isolation in Charlize's face. That scene says a lot about her character, and I bet if you watch the movie a 2nd time (which I plan to do) you'll notice a lot of other subtle moments where she drops her mean girl facade and exposes the vulnerability behind it all.
All of this happens while we're laughing at her bizarre antics (the bookstore scene was PRICELESS). I gotta hand it to Charlize & the writing team (Reitman/Cody) for putting together a great comedy with emotional depth. I wasn't a big fan of Reitman/Cody's breakout hit Juno but I really enjoyed this movie and will probably check out their follow-up Theron/Reitman/Cody collaboration Tully.
Reactie van tmdb91967014
op 4 november 2023 om 4:46 AM
Well, that meant a lot to you!
Theron really does carry the movie, I agree with that. I'd also argue that Reitman's found a niche for himself of sorts, exploring young women as with Juno and so on....
Reactie van rooprect
op 4 november 2023 om 5:17 AM
Totally, this movie & her performance really resonates with me! Agreed about Reitman’s niche, I’ve sometimes heard the phrase “women’s director” referring to men who excel at directing films with female leads, exploring the female perspective (examples: Hitchcock, Antonioni, Mizoguchi). Reitman definitely seems like he’s in his element here.
Reactie van tmdb91967014
op 4 november 2023 om 8:43 AM
Cool. By the way, which Mizoguchi were you referring to? He's the only one I didn't figure out from your roll call.
Reactie van rooprect
op 4 november 2023 om 6:26 PM
Wow I didn't know there was another until just now. I was talking about Kenji Mizoguchi (Life of Oharu, Ugetzu, Story from Chikamatsu, Sansho the Bailiff). I read that he was raised by his mother & sister, so a lot of his films (all?) are about independent women who struggle to survive.
Reactie van tmdb91967014
op 5 november 2023 om 2:56 AM
IMO, Ugetzu is one of the most heartwrenchingly beautiful films of modern times............ I like the guy's work, yeah.