Filmonic » Eric Bana

REVIEW: The Time Traveler’s Wife

Dave — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 21:55:44 +0000

There are so many alternate things you could call The Time Traveler’s Wife: the third Eric Bana movie of the summer, Rachel McAdam’s mature Notebook, director Robert Schwentke’s first film that doesn’t rely heavily on being a thriller, writer Bruce Joel Rubin’s return to fantastical romance after winning an Oscar for Ghost, the movie that has the misfortune of opening against District 9 or just the adaptation of the best-selling book by first-time novelist Audrey Niffenegger.

The question is, which one is the most accurate to the experience of the film? And it might be none of them.

The Time Traveler’s Wife tells the story of Henry (Bana) who was born with a genetic disorder that has him dissolving through time at seemingly random intervals he cannot control. I say “seemingly random” because Henry can’t control when he leaves, but does return to times and places of significance. Along the way, he meets Claire (McAdams), who claims to have known him from her childhood. This strikes Henry as odd, because he doesn’t remember Claire at all. The two fall in love and time-traveling drama ensues.

The Time Traveler’s Wife opened last Friday in the US, one week after another movie aimed at the female audience; Julie & Julia. Does this adaptation have what it takes to lure audiences into its saccharine sweet clutches?

As a guy, romances don’t always work for me. Since Ghost was also written by Bruce Joel Rubin and featured a love story set with supernatural elements, I initially approached it in a similar fashion: there’s gonna be some kissin’ and cryin’, but also some other stuff that I should be able to latch on to. And time travel is another pet-subject of mine, so I was hoping that the film would do something cool with it.

It was my focus on trying to find something to latch onto that kept me engaged with The Time Traveler’s Wife. There’s nothing wrong with the movie, but there isn’t a great deal for the non-romantics among us to latch on to. For instance, the film sets up very early on that you cannot change the past, then abandons changing the future at the same time without explicitly mentioning it. Hence, we have fate. This movie is about two people fated to be with each other, it’s just what is a linear relationship for one is a non-linear relationship for the other.

Claire meets Henry for the first time when she is around 10 years old and he is somewhere around 30. Henry can’t travel with his clothes so a naked man steps out of the bushes, tells her that they are going to be friends and that he’s a time traveler. Little Claire is a bit of a spark plug, neglected by her wealthy parents and soon bonds with this naked guy who – seemingly at random – shows up in the meadow near her house. Henry explains that he’s drawn to certain places and moments in time frequently, as if there was some sort of metaphysical gravity pulling him there. The meadow is significant for several reasons, so he returns there more than anywhere else. Claire, meanwhile, keeps a journal and when Claire grows older and finds Henry working at a library (Henry is unaware of who she is), he sneaks a peek at her journal so he can have vague ideas about when he’ll get to see younger Claire.
Things become more complicated after Claire has a series of miscarriages and Henry gets a vasectomy only to realize that for a time traveler, this procedure is useless.

The film manages to add a new layer to the romance or the time traveling whenever I started to get bored: kids in time, a single event that propels Henry forward in time (which rarely happens), questions about why no one has seen an old version of Henry: does he get cured or something more sinister?

Time Traveler’s Wife is a romance first and a movie about time travel second, and that’s about where it lost me. The questions about how much choice either party had when falling in love were ultimately less interesting than questions about the nature of time, and that’s not the way this movie needed to go to make me want to see it again or to recommend it to anyone.

At my screening, I sat next to a woman who had read the book and she was excited that it kept the parts she liked and stayed mostly faithful to the story. If you happen to be one of the many that enjoyed the novel, I’m guessing this won’t be disappointing to you.

For the rest of us, the movie doesn’t know how to balance its momentum well enough to satisfy. For men, especially, the film is like a magician; tricking you into engaging only to reveal it was slight-of-hand masked by glitz and showmanship. It suffers from novel-adaptation syndrome where certain relationships and characters that feel like they should be important go through sudden changes in their core value, though we never see what causes it. Much ado is made about Henry and Gomez (Ron Livingston) being friends, but when Henry finally has to say goodbye, the moment is hollow.

Bana and McAdams have some pretty good chemistry all things considered, but they don’t get many huge romantic moments where both of them know the reality of the situation, which added a level of frustration for me that I usually associate with horror films and television. Because Henry experiences the relationship differently, he sometimes lets his emotions get the best of him. However, because this is fate anyway, almost all the bumpy moments in the relationship have their drama stripped from them. Like any time travel movie, secrets are kept, but in this one they are kept for unapparent reasons, most likely to keep the plot taught enough for the audience to engage with it.

Maybe I would deal with time traveling a different way, like always being completely honest with my spouse about what I saw and knew. But here’s the thing: I shouldn’t be thinking about that sort of stuff while I’m watching a romance, and here I was, which isn’t praise for the film.

Something about The Time Traveler’s Wife is flat, and I think it’s the fatalist aspect, at least for me. As soon as the plot becomes about romance, I resigned myself to waiting for the next sequence that deepened the mystery or the next time-travel effect, and that’s not what should happen in a romance.

There is one sequence where the film worked exactly like it was supposed to: It’s Claire and Henry’s wedding day and right before Henry is supposed to take his place at the alter, he gets sucked through time. A few minutes later, an older, salt-n-pepper haired Henry shows up to replace the young one. McAdams marries an older version of her husband, only for the younger one to return for the first dance of the married couple. Broken Social Scene plays the band in the film and the happy husband-and-wife dance in each other’s arms. We cut to the honeymoon sweet where both Claire and Henry decide to jump on the bed, and right as the happiness is about to turn sexual, Henry disappears, leaving even his ring behind.

The balance between fated love and the sadness of being left behind is encapsulated in this sequence with the right balance of emotion, humor and the supernatural, but – sadly – the film doesn’t reach that balance again.

Review: What The Hell, Funny People?

Dave — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 17:54:07 +0000

Alright, folks! I was told by Liam, my fierce English Editor that Funny People, Judd Apatow’s third directorial effort, doesn’t hit the UK until much later even though it opened here last weekend. What does that mean for you Europeans? It means I still have time to save you the price of a ticket by reviewing Funny People.

Funny People is a long film, about 150 minutes long, and commits the cardinal sin of a movie with such a length: it feels that long.

I see a lot of movies, some in the theater, some on TV pay channels and some streamed to my computer through the magic of the internet. In the month of July, I somehow avoided seeing horrible movies, which had started to concern me. “What if I’ve lost all critical perspective and lowered my bar by actually enjoying Transformers 2, never again to be trustworthy or insightful?,” I selfishly thought to myself. Good news: I didn’t like Funny People, which means I have re-calibrated my critical barometer.

Then again, just trashing the movie for no apparent reason doesn’t make any sense, so I suppose I should back up my claim that Funny People isn’t worth your 150 minutes.

Funny People is the story of fictional comedian George Simmons, played by Adam Sandler because Simmons essentially IS Adam Sandler. George used to be a comedian until he became a studio whore making movies like Re-Do where he’s trapped in the body of an infant or Merman where he is a MerMan. The film even starts off with home videos of Sandler shot by Apatow when the two used to live together. It’s an odd thing to mix real Sandler with fictional Simmons they way Apatow does, because Funny People is a big studio movie directed by hot-shit-Apatow with Apatow-golden-boy Seth Rogen in it featuring cameos by real-life comedians. At some point in the film, you’ll notice that people talk about George Simmons and your brain hears “Adam Sandler.” The guy was everywhere in the late 90s and early 00s, mostly making the kind of crap he’s now apologizing for with this thin “character.”

Simmons gets Acute Myeloid Leukemia, a rare cancerous blood disease I wrote an after-school special about once. Safe to say it’s horrible and can kill you fast. When Sandler decides to go back-to-basics and do more stand up, he hires Ira Wright (Rogen) oblivious when Ira screws his roommate (Jonah Hill as Leo) out of a co-writing gig. Sandler asks for both Ira and Leo, but Ira never makes the offer to his friend, coveting the job for himself because he is a lesser comedian and hasn’t been able to pay rent at the apartment he shares with Leo and Jason Schwartzman’s Mark.

Sandler tells Ira that he’s dying but asks the young comedian to keep it to himself and write some jokes for him.

That is the first movie in Funny People, a film that is actually two movies squished into one premise. The first half of the film is a portrait of the lives of famous comedians juxtaposed against the lives of up-and-coming comedians struggling to get work so they don’t have to serve cold cuts at the local deli.

The second movie in Funny People starts when Sandler tries to re-connect with the love of his life Laura (played by Leslie Mann) who left Sandler when he cheated on her and ran off to marry an Australian businessman Clarke (played by Eric Bana). When Laura thinks Sandler is dying, they re-connect, then Sandler is cured but Laura still thinks she’s in love with him. When Clarke returns from a business trip early, Ira and Sandler are stuck in Laura’s house with Laura’s family as Sandler attempts to steal Clarke’s wife out from under him and his daughters (the Apatow girls, a pleasure as always).

Yes, it’s a very unexpected and abrupt change in plot and tone, but this is Judd Apatow’s “death” movie. His first directorial effort, The 40 Year Old Virgin, dealt with love and sexual innocence. Steve Carrell played that part with enough aw-shucks and childish glee that it worked and played well to a young audience. Knocked Up was Apatow’s way of bringing his Freaks & Geeks mentality into adulthood by having Rogen’s stoner slacker learn responsibility the old fashioned way: by putting his baby up in someone. This film advances Apatow’s themes a bit further. All the characters are trying to make something of themselves (something Virgin and Knocked Up’s leads weren’t doing) and get cut short by questions of mortality.

I can see the appeal in doing a story about death with comedians at the center, but the film doesn’t really work that way. On the outside it seems great: would you rather talk death with a comedian or Al Pacino (with his needless yelling of late)? But the truth of the matter is much more sinister, because anyone who knows comedians will tell you that they are the most profoundly unhappy people you will ever meet. Sandler’s character sums it up best in one of his monologues where he says that he’s been trying to make his Dad laugh all his life and he had to be funny because you have to bring the jokes right before the old man beats the shit out of you. Funny people, REAL funny people not these Funny People, are the product of tragedy. A sense of humor is a survival technique for overweight children and social outcasts. As far as my opinion goes, that’s what kills the movie:

None of these characters are likable.

I can’t feel sorry that someone who was given everything through the trappings of fame is going to die, and I certainly don’t want to listen to 150 minutes of complaining if I think that person is a waste of space. And by the time the movie does decide to end, no one has really changed. They are all the same sad assholes we started the movie with.

I will now tell you why each character is a dick that doesn’t deserve to have a movie based around them.

George Simmons (Adam Sandler): The guy knowingly tricks star-fuckers into having sex with him, lives in a huge house with a large and faceless staff, treats Ira like crap, can’t actually emote to anyone and is SO selfish that he tries to break-apart Laura’s family without any thought of her kids and life. Worst of all, he ends that snafu by blaming Ira. Maybe it’s that Sandler has profoundly annoyed me with everything after “Piece Of Shit Car,” but if Adam Sandler were to really be diagnosed with cancer, I think we’d all agree that his great contributions to comedy are behind him.

Ira Wright (Seth Rogen): Not only does the guy refuse to share his job with his much funnier roommate, but his love story with female comedian Daisy (Aubrey Plaza) consists of two scenes of arguing and one scene of a SINGLE kiss. I understand this guy wants to be a comedian real bad and doesn’t want to work at the deli to make ends meet, but HEY that’s life, Ira. Suck it up. There’s also a part that barely gets referenced where Ira takes credit for one of Leo’s jokes. Joke thief as well? Usually Rogen’s characters have some degree of nerdy likeability to them, but Ira is a doormat until the last 10 minutes of the film. I wanted to slap him around several times in this movie (and even more so in the second movie squeezed into this movie).

Laura (Leslie Mann): Not only is Laura a bitch the first time we see her on screen, but she glows red like she just got a chemical peel when we see her again. Outside of this being Leslie Mann’s worst role in one of her husband’s movies, Laura is a miserable portrait of a woman. She’s the pivotal character in the film’s tonal switch, because when she shows up the film stops being a mediocre comedy and begins being something resembling a mid-life crisis drama. She’s ready to kick her husband out of the house and move her kids to LA so she can re-start her acting career and somehow never manages to see through George’s exterior to notice that he’s not a family person.

Clarke (Eric Bana): Bana works his ass off in this role. At first we’re supposed to hate him, then we’re supposed to sympathize with him, then he’s supposed to make us feel better about his home life just in time for the movie to end. He tries, he tries so hard. But – again – his character ends up right back where he was at the beginning of the movie when the credits roll thanks to some sudden “karma” lines that are supposed to make everyone forget they’re all traumatizing his kids.

There’s one good character in the film, and that’s Eminem as himself. He tells Sandler that death was George’s way out of the lifestyle his stardom has brought about. Hearing those words come out of Eminem’s stoic mug rung true. If the film’s overall message had a face, it’s that of Marshall Mathers: You may be successful, but no one is ever actually happy and no one can change.

What happened, Judd? This movie is populated with characters I couldn’t root for. The title promised comedy, but only delivered for the first 30 minutes. Everyone was the same at the end of the film (you might say Sandler had changed, but we never saw him cancer-free, so how will we know that?). It’s just a mess that has been assembled into a movie thanks to Apatow’s talent. The guy knows how to shoot a film and whatnot, but Jesus, this movie made me sad.

Judd Apatow films are usually comedies with a very real heart to them, but in Funny People that heart has been replaced by cameos and meta-humor. Then, about half-way through the heart dies and we’re challenged to root for either the selfish asshole trying to break apart a family or the cheating, borderline neglectful husband who is still an asshole, but a different kind.

What the hell?

What. The. Hell.

Apatow’s Funny People Debuts Red Band Trailer

Dave — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:52:13 +0000

It’s been four years since The 40 Year Old Virgin had everyone talking about the return of the R-rated comedy. Two years ago, I accidentally took a date to Knocked Up, not expecting to actually have a conversation about my personal habits that didn’t make me “father material.” Judd Apatow has since spawned comedies from Seth Rogan and Jason Segel, bringing the term “bromance” to the forefront the modern adult comedy cinema vernacular.

And all it took was Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox story for people to start doubting, those doubters and their doubting doubts.

Well, doubt no more, because Apatow is back and in a decision that threw me at first, he’s brought Adam Sandler back with him. Yes, Adam Sandler, who I swore off after I Pronounce You Chuck And Larry turned out to be the most offensive and pointless thing I’ve seen in theaters in all my years of film-going. Don’t Mess With The Zohan wasn’t my cup of tea, but it was the first Sandler project that Apatow’s name popped up on (Judd got a writing credit).

Now, we have Funny People, Apatow’s directorial follow up to Knocked Up. It’s described thusly: When seasoned comedian George Simmons (Sandler) learns of his terminal, inoperable health condition, his desire to form a genuine friendship cause him to take a relatively green performer (Rogen) under his wing as his opening act.

That doesn’t even mention that Jonah Hill, Leslie Mann, Eric Bana, RZA, Aziz Ansari, Jason Schwartzman, and some comedians appearing as themselves (Sarah Silverman, Andy Dick) will be appearing to bring their funny.

To me, the Red Band trailer manages to be funny while keeping the subtle undertones of the mortality drama this flick could have become. Did it work for you as well?

Star Trek Comic Con Posters

Liam — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:50:41 +0000

In their Comic Con Preview edition, Entertainment Weekly has a sneak peek at some posters that are going to be given way at Comic Con next week…and for the first time we have images of actual cast members from JJ Abrams Star Trek.

Old Hulk Can’t Wait For New Hulk!

Liam — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 23:46:47 +0000

So your the star of a new comic book movie coming onto the big screen, its a well known character and everything looks good. You could get a franchise out of this and could buy 5 houses with the wage. However, it turns out the movie wasn’t as good as it could have been, and a couple of years later the studio decide to forget your movie ever happened and redo the character with a different actor and direction. Know who I’m talking about? Well if the image doesn’t give it away, its Eric Bana. The Munich and Hulk actor recently spoke to MTV Movies Blog about the upcoming, The Incredible Hulk.

“I can’t wait to see it,” Bana said of the new “Incredible Hulk” film, a total reboot that wipes away the Bana/ Ang Lee version and starts over. “I think it will be amazing.”
In particular (and somewhat weirdly perhaps), Bana’s especially excited about Norton, the actor they got to replace him, he enthused.
“I’m a big fan of Ed’s. I was really thrilled that someone of Ed’s caliber stepped up to play [Hulk] in the sequel,” he said. “It’s great. I’m sure his version will be incredible.”

I don’t know what Bana’s seen but all we’ve seen is a couple of stills. Has he seen the upcoming teaser expected soon? Anyway, its good that he’s alright with it. I’m sure he was contacted regarding the role when they were talking about the future of the Hulk movies, and he decided it wasn’t for him. I’m sure he had more fun playing Natalie Portman and Scarlet Johansen against each other.