'Life Itself' (2018) Review

As a young New York couple goes from college romance to marriage and the birth of their first child, the unexpected twists of their journey create reverberations that echo over continents and through lifetimes. 

Written and directed by This Is Us series creator Dan Fogelman, Life Itself is a film told in five distinct chapters from the perspective of five different protagonists. Before I continue any further, I'd like to preface my thoughts by informing you that I began watching This Is Us this past summer and instantly adored the acclaimed series. Believe it or not, but I had some reservations about This Is Us. I was reluctant to begin watching the series because I thought it looked like an emotionally-manipulative melodramatic soap opera and didn't feel that it would be up my alley. Nevertheless, I binged the first two seasons in a matter of days and am eagerly awaiting the season three premiere next Tuesday. I say this because I want to communicate that I'm now a fan of Fogelman's work and was rooting for Life Itself to be a smashing success. I sought out the film in spite of its scathing reviews and held out hope I might at least be able to enjoy the motion-picture. However, my faith was tragically misplaced as Life Itself is one of the year's biggest disappointments.

Marketed as a feature-length version of This Is Us, Life Itself proves to be the crude, condensed and confused version. Imagine if you took the thematic material, non-chronological storytelling, and sentimentality of the series, dialed it up to an eleven, shoved it in a blender, and then forcibly pieced everything back together afterward. That concoction is the best possible description of Life Itself. It strangely tries to be Tarantino-esque with tons of vulgarity and hyper-violence while striving to emulate This Is Us' emotional sincerity as well. The amalgamation doesn't work whatsoever because there are jarring tonal inconsistencies between the presentation and the subject matter. Fogelman oddly seeks to portray toxic behavior like unhealthy obsession and abandonment as though they're endearing when they're not. He plays some of this darker material for laughs, and it just leaves you feeling extremely uncomfortable. 

Spread throughout the film are several abrupt tonal shifts which act as shock value for the sake of shock value. I do not particularly appreciate using the term "emotionally manipulative" in my criticism because I think it's well within reason for a filmmaker to try and draw an emotional response from their audience, provided the narrative earn its emotional beats. Ultimately, the filmmaker's goal is to connect with the audience and convince them that they should care or feel something when all is said-and-done. Life Itself fails spectacularly in that regard because it never earns its emotional beats. The situations the characters find themselves in feel needlessly contrived for the sake of cheap sentimentality. Their lives are riddled with tragedy to such an exaggerated extent that it's honestly unbelievable and unrealistic. 

Not to mention the characters are woefully underdeveloped. Where This Is Us is a prime example of a series that earns emotion by fleshing out its characters and crafting genuine drama, Life Itself hardly devotes enough time for the viewer to form a meaningful attachment with any characters. Each chapter lasts anywhere from 15-to-30 minutes, mostly composed of ineffective voiceover narration spoken over romantic montages. Of course, This Is Us has the benefit of being told as a long-form episodic series, but Life Itself backed itself into a corner from the start thanks to its structural approach. Many of these characters lack personality beyond being one-note human sketches. The five chapters follow a depressed man, an angsty young woman, a careful Spanish olive plantation worker, a traumatized college student, and the narrator herself who possesses no worthwhile character traits. A narrative thread connects this multi-generational, cross-continental web of stories, but the chapters are at odds with one another as initially presented. 

Built around the profound thesis that "life is the ultimate unreliable narrator," Life Itself never dives any deeper into its superficial message. I heard those words at least twenty times, but have yet to understand the grand significance of them. Like what the heck does that REALLY mean? I don't know, and I'm sure Fogelman doesn't either. 

If Life Itself has any saving grace, it would undoubtedly be the performances. If it's any consolation, Oscar Isaac, Olivia Wilde, Mandy Patnkin, Olivia Cooke, Sergio Peris-Mancheta, Laia Costa, Àlex Monner, Annette Bening, and Antonio Banderas are all excellent and remain committed to the material in spite of its messiness. Sparks were flying between Isaac and Wilde and Peris-Mancheta and Costa in particular. The tonal disconnect is what tanks this film.

I'm sure fellow viewers of This Is Us are surprised by my incessant rambling (I'd like to think of it as a therapeutic writing exercise), but Life Itself fails in every regard which This Is Us succeeds. Life Itself is so unfathomably absurd that it genuinely needs to be seen to be believed. Amazon Studios is distributing so you can probably expect to see it on Prime Video in a matter of months. If you REALLY want to see it, I'd wait till then. At least it's covered by your Prime membership at that point. Otherwise, Life Itself is indicative of life itself- it's messy, confusing, and very bizarre.

Film Assessment: D

'Thoroughbreds' Review

Thoroughbreds trails two upper-class teenage girls in suburban Connecticut as they rekindle their unlikely friendship after years of growing apart. Together, they hatch a plan to solve both of their problems - no mater what the cost.

Thoroughbreds was written and directed by Cory Finley as his feature film debut and was one of smaller films that I missed out on from earlier in the year. There was enough buzz surrounding Thoroughbreds that it caught my attention, but it had already left theaters by the time I was eager to see it. Fast forward to now, and I'm currently trying to catch up on releases that have been recommended to me for the purposes of my best & worst films of 2018 (so far) list. All things considered, I'm glad I was able to watch Thoroughbreds the way I did because I knew very little about its plot which made for a fascinating, unpredictable viewing experience. I think it would be best for you to do the same, should you choose to watch, so I'm going to steer clear of plot and character details that might sour the sense of discovery. 

In a year crowded with franchise fare, I found Thoroughbreds to be a refreshing change of pace because it constantly kept me guessing. It's not even an elaborate narrative, but you'll be left wondering what certain characters are really thinking on account of a few surprising twists and turns. With nearly no knowledge about the film's story, I found myself quite intrigued as I tried to piece together precisely what direction Thoroughbreds was headed towards. It's subversive enough to keep you on your toes, but simple enough for you to follow the story fairly easily. 

One of Thoroughbreds' most admirable qualities is how the film's settings were able to communicate an unsettling atmosphere so effectively. This ambiance is only further expressed and amplified by Lyle Vincent's captivating camerawork and Erik Friedlander's percussive score. Like its lead characters, something seems off underneath the pleasant, pristine surface. Slowly, but surely, the truth is unraveled in this twisted thriller though. 

Stars Anya Taylor-Joy and Olivia Cooke are equally excellent in their respective roles, and their dive into the perturbed mindsets of these young girls was quite interesting to watch. Taylor-Joy thinly veils Lily's contempt with just the right amount of nuance and subtlety so the angst is internalized enough to inform her actions, but also communicated clearly enough for the viewer to discern that something's wrong. On the flip-side, Cooke plays Amanda as being completely devoid of emotion (a deliberate, defining character trait). Cooke's vacant stares and awkward social interactions raise plenty of red flags, and also allow the character to be perceived as infinitely more unpredictable in the long run. 

Rounding out the trifecta of actors billed on the poster is Anton Yelchin in one of his last onscreen roles. Yelchin had finished filming his scenes for Thoroughbreds mere days before his tragic accident, and it certainly ranks among the higher end of the actor's work that I've seen thus far. In the end, Yelchin plays the drug-dealer Tim as the most human character amongst the nihilistic ensemble, and winds up being one of the most surprisingly sympathetic as well. 

For a directorial debut, Thoroughbreds is a sensational start to what I will presume will be a fascinating filmography from playwright Cory Finley. There's a few things I know for sure though. It's a disturbing character-driven thriller through and through, and I'll never hear a rowing machine the same way again...

Film Assessment: A

'Ready Player One' Review

Nominated For: Best Visual Effects. 

Set in the dystopian future of 2045, people escape the harsh realities of life by spending a majority of their time in the OASIS, a vast virtual reality invented by the brilliant and eccentric entrepreneur James Halliday. Inside the OASIS, anything is possible. Users are able to endlessly customize their avatars and unlock unique items to help them in their quests. The only limit is your imagination. However, once Halliday dies, it's revealed to the world that he's hidden an Easter egg inside the OASIS that will grant the finder full ownership of the game in addition to Halliday's massive fortune. Ready Player One accompanies the unlikely young hero Wade Watts as he races against time and other users of the OASIS to locate all three keys left behind by Halliday so he can unlock the highly sought-after Easter egg. 

Functioning as Steven Spielberg's triumphant return to the big budget blockbuster, Ready Player One is helmed by the beloved director and features a screenplay co-penned by Zak Penn and Ernest Cline which adapts Cline's best selling novel. It's hard not to be ecstatic for a new Spielberg movie so, of course, I was overly enthusiastic going into Ready Player One. We don't get too many flicks from Spielberg these days, and I know there will inevitably be a tragic time where we never see another, so I relish in whatever he has to offer, whether it be The Post or The BFG. Where Steven Spielberg's career of-late has mostly pertained to dramas, Ready Player One presented itself as an opportunity for the genius filmmaker to get in touch with his blockbuster roots, and that idea alone excited me very much. 

I haven't read Cline's novel, but I was well aware there would be a heavy emphasis on '80s pop-culture due to the film's marketing material. On the surface, Ready Player One may look like a candy-coated nostalgia fest, but I can assure you the references are incorporated tastefully and there's an in-universe reason for it all. It's actually quite fitting that a film about a hidden Easter egg would be crammed full of them and also be released on Easter weekend. I can assure you that's no coincidence. Geeks are sure to be giddy whenever they spot references to a character, weapon, location, or vehicle they recognize from their favorite video games or movies, but that's not the sole source of the film's whimsy. While many homages had me smiling ear-to-ear, I was ultimately engaged by the characters, the focal mystery, the breathtaking, fully-realized OASIS, an exceptional score from Alan Silvestri, and the sheer spectacle of it all. 

It's no secret that Spielberg knows how to handle an action sequence, so it then comes at no surprise that Ready Player One would be littered with instances invigorating activity. As a child of the late '90s, I missed out on seeing Spielberg's more noteworthy motion pictures in theaters. Therefore, I saw them at home plopped in front of the television screen and missed out on the complete cinematic experience one desires from a Spielberg production. For the last decade or so, Spielberg has made many well-crafted films that I've had the pleasure of seeing in the theater, but none of them really carried that trademark "Spielberg magic." Wednesday night, I watched Ready Player One in IMAX and felt the Spielbergian sense of awe and wonder for the first time in awhile. It was glorious, and well worth the price of admission. So much that I intend to see Ready Player One at least once more this weekend.

However, my enthusiasm going into Ready Player One was paired with a couple caveats. The first of which being that it would be an indulgent nostalgia parade. I've already touched on that, but another one of my concerns was that the overall design of the OASIS and the avatars looked very video game-ish and the shift from the OASIS-to-reality might be jarring. Fortunately, this proved not to be the case. While the aesthetic of the OASIS does certainly resemble the graphics found in a modern high-end video game, that's kind of the point. It's a virtual reality after all. With that being said, the visual effects are absolutely outstanding. The environment and avatars of the OASIS are richly rendered and exhibit a wide array of vibrant colors that are truly a treat for the eyes. Editors Sarah Broshar and Michael Kahn also ensured the transitions between worlds were smooth and managed to keep the flow of the movie at a lively pace. 

Where the film doesn't fully deliver is fleshing out the nuts and bolts of the real world. By design, the OASIS is infinitely more interesting than reality, so it's not a stretch to say humanity would become obsessed with this form of escapism. Just look around you for goodness sakes. Everyone's already addicted to the internet. The commentary on that addiction is Ready Player One's poignant truth and part of the reason Ready Player One should be seen aside from the aforementioned attributes. Anyways, it's easy to imagine something like the OASIS taking off in our own world so the futuristic dystopian society depicted doesn't require significant suspension of disbelief.

What becomes questionable under further scrutiny is how the evil IOI even operates. You vaguely understand the inner workings, but the legality remained fuzzy. This becomes most problematic at the end when the audience is shown something that suggests their activities weren't legal. This probably won't bother you if you can set logic aside, but it may drive others insane. I simply viewed it as an unclear area of this universe. Otherwise, strap in for an exciting ride!

Leading said ride is Tye Sheridan as Wade Watts/Parzival (the second name being his OASIS username). Sheridan imbues Watts with traits one would expect from an unsure hero who's also a huge nerd, and he hit the sweet spot as an ideally awkward audience entry point. He's a likable lead, but never charming enough to upend his geek cred.

Opposite Sheridan, Olivia Cooke is the sure standout in the role of Samantha (also known as Art3mis in the OASIS). Cooke plays Art3mis as a stoic badass with some underlying insecurities, and seeing her eventually come to embrace those will undoubtedly inspire others as well. Sheridan and Cooke carry a captivating chemistry between them so their on-screen pairing was undoubtedly one of the film's highlights. Rounding out their friend group are Lena Waithe, Phillip Zhao, and Win Morisaki who were all equally endearing characters as Aech, Sho, and Daito respectively. 

Surrounding the young cast, veteran actors Mark Rylance, Simon Pegg, and Ben Mendelsohn leave substantial impressions in their varying roles of Halliday, Ogden Morrow, and Sorrento. Mark Rylance's good natured temperament and subdued personality lent itself well to Halliday and it's always a delight to see Simon Pegg in something! I'd rather not spoil his role for anyone, so I've decided to just skim right over it... Meanwhile, Mendelsohn made for an excellent antagonist and elevated what could have been a cliché corporate baddie to an intimidating force of evil.

Now let's be honest folks... Some of you are considering seeing Black Panther again this weekend, aren't you? Haven't you seen that enough by now? All jokes aside, Ready Player One currently isn't tracking very well for its opening weekend considering it's a Spielberg film (currently in the range of $52-55 M for the four day Easter weekend) and that saddens me. While that number's fairly high in comparison to everything Spielberg's made since Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Ready Player One honestly deserves better. If for nothing else, you should really be see Ready Player One on the biggest screen possible for the cinematic Spielberg experience. It's a celebration of pop-culture like no other and will be the most exhilarating Easter egg hunt you'll witness all weekend. 

Film Assessment: A-