Fleabag (2016) s01e01

I’m going into “Fleabag” fairly cold; I know it’s supposed to be great, I know Phoebe Waller-Bridge is supposed to be great (and she was funny in Star Wars Han Solo in a voice performance and men hate her Carrie Fishering the new James Bond), and I know she talks to the camera. And I knew about the Obama thing. But I didn’t realize it was kind of like stand-up visualized….

And I also realize if I’d been watching it in 2016 when it first streamed, I’d probably have a “Louie”-related name for this comedy sub-genre.

But “Fleabag” also occupies a fairly filthy—by, let’s say, 1990s standards—comedy space. Waller-Bridge’s narrator delights in the being a degenerate, which leads to some really funny scenes but also potentially presses some sympathy boundaries. Is there going to be a point where “Fleabag” goes too far….

I mean, I’m sure for some viewers but whatever.

I also don’t want to suggest it’s limit-testing comedy or Waller-Bridge is toying with the idea of sympathetic or reliable narrators. The episode is very much this lyrical look at a day in the narrator’s life, through her perception of the events; a stand-up joke delivered like a sonnet reading in camera aside while physically rendered in, you know, expert twenty-first century comedy detail. We don’t appreciate how much better comedy film and television have gotten in the last fifteen years, just in terms of visual possibility.

Or I don’t appreciate it enough.

So with “Fleabag,” episode one, which introduces Waller-Bridge’s narrator, her sister (Sian Clifford), her father (Bill Paterson), wicked stepmother (Olivia Colman), and blokes of various importance—there’s little portent to Tim Kirkby’s direction. But it’s excellent—the way it showcases Waller-Bridge without spotlighting; the narrative distance is exquisite, as is the show’s sense of timing. It always waits just the right amount after the punchlines.

I’m also now vaguely aware the project started as a stage monologue performance from Waller-Bridge, which makes a lot of sense, but I’m probably remaining ignorant until after I watch the show. Probably.

Rogue One (2016, Gareth Edwards)

Sadly, the Writers Guild of America does not publish their arbitrations for writing credits, because the one on Rogue One has got to be a doozy; I desperately want to know how they go to this script. Did it actually start as a video game or did director Edwards really have no idea how to do action scenes not out of a video game? Was there ever a satisfying conclusion to the various characters or was it always going to be amid the biggest Star Wars action sequence featuring the toys—sorry, spaceships–from the Original Trilogy ever mounted.

Because you know how they do all the rest. They do it with CGI. They even bring Peter Cushing back in CGI and credit some guy named Guy Henry who… stood in? Got CGI’ed over? Cushing doesn’t look real, he doesn’t even look alien (though the alien designs in Rogue One are like sixty percent good and forty percent perplexingly odd). He kind of looks like a video game character but maybe a little better… whenever he’s on, I wish I was just watching CGI further adventures of the Original Trilogy cast. I mean, probably not anymore because I wouldn’t want to see what the do with Carrie Fisher but still. There’s a novelty in it.

There’s no novelty in CGI Cushing in Rogue One because they still haven’t gotten the acting down. The face makes expressions but pointlessly. Kind of like the James Earl Jones cameo. His inflections make no sense. Partially because the exposition-full dialogue plays worse onscreen than George Lucas’s. Again, that Writers Guild arbitration has got to be some great reading. Like who wrote the Darth Vader cameo, which I’m not going to consider a spoiler because you should be able to get a “Rogue One Darth Vader” playset, complete with the bigger looking, Darth Helmet homage perhaps helmet.

The reason the dialogue is so bad is because they’re targeting a younger audience. There’s this really silly “Rosebud” running throughout the movie and it gets repeated time and again before it finally comes into play and then they even explain it. Because they’ve got to hit the eight year-olds, which is nice, right? It makes an eight year-old feel smart… which is kind of Star Wars in a nutshell.

Anyway.

The big space and land battle plays with all the good toys. There are ships from various movie periods fighting each other and whatnot, there’s AT-ATs, there’s… a samurai. There’s everything you could want. And lots of callbacks to the original movies, both in shots and dialogue.

As bland as the action direction, Edwards does pretty well with the pseudo-main plot, involving the creation of the Death Star (the first one, so pre-Star Wars; the movie assumes you’re very familiar, because otherwise why would you be watching Rogue One). Empire scientist Mads Mikkelsen tries running away but gets brought back by bad guy Ben Mendelsohn (who’s great but has to play second-fiddle to CGI Cushing, which is a choice); Mikkelsen’s wife dies and their daughter is rescued by Forest Whitaker. Jump ahead fifteen years and now the daughter is Felicity Jones and Whitaker’s an old man (so they can make prequels to this prequel, which would still be sequel to the prequels), and they’re estranged. Blah blah blah, needlessly complicated plot to get Jones and Whitaker reunited, bringing in Rebellion spy and secretly soulful assassin Diego Luna, who, with his trusty reprogrammed attack droid (voiced by an over-enthusiastic given the writing Alan Tudyk), will reunite father and daughter and hopefully save the universe.

Along the way Luna and Jones team up with Jedi Temple protectors but not Jedi Donnie Yen and Jiang Wen. They’re like Jedi groupies. Yen gives what’s probably the best performance… and there are good performances. Not just Mendelsohn. Luna’s a strong lead until Jones takes over for… ten minutes or so. She’s good. It’s a silly part, but she’s good. Riz Ahmed’s really good as the Imperial spy. Forest Whitaker’s good. Until they get to the direct prequel to Star Wars stuff, it certainly seems like it might add up to something for its cast. But once Threepio and Artoo show up… it’s just a countdown to their suicide mission overtaking them and clearing the board for the actual heroes to show up.

The ginned up martyrs all get their big exits but they play trite, mostly because the script, some Edwards. Michael Giacchino’s score almost, almost, almost finally makes it work but then he doesn’t because he never makes it work. Giacchino’s score is middling when it’s not aping or anti-aping John Williams and much worse when it does.

Rogue One is a successfully executed Star Wars prequel slash midquel, which says nothing about it as a good use of $200 million or two hours and ten minutes…. In those terms, it’s an abject, even desperate fail and a complete waste of its (human) actors’ time.

I assume CGI Peter Cushing has nothing better to do.

Train to Busan (2016, Yeon Sang-ho)

The middle of Train to Busan is excellent. The first act is iffy, the ending is forced, but the middle is where the film excels. It’s where director Yeon just gets to do action, not getting slowed down with the humanity of it all (which he’s uneven on), and just executes these breathtaking action suspense sequences. Not just Yeon, editor Yang Jin-mo, photographer Lee Hyung-deok, composer Jang Young-gyu—and of course the actors. During the action suspense stuff, everyone does really well. Even lead Gong Yoo is good during these sequences and doesn’t have the overwhelmed look he gets the rest of the movie. Gong’s the only character with a real character arc—he goes from being a selfish hedge fund manager and bad dad to a hero in the fight against a zombie horde; he even becomes a better dad and reals everything he’s been missing in daughter Kim Su-an’s life. It’s ought to be emotionally devastating.

But Gong can’t do it. Being fair, it’s not like he gets any help from Yeon on it either, who doesn’t do a good job with directing the character stuff. Outside the action sequences, Yeon’s best directing is all on Ma Dong-seok and Jung Yu-mi, who play an expecting married couple caught up in the afore implied zombie apocalypse. Worse, Yeon’s adequate directing on Kim—as she experiences having this bad dad—falls apart as the film progresses. It’s like Yeon can’t pretend Busan’s about Gong and Kim patching things up thanks to a crisis situation and just sleepwalks the film through the series where they act like it’s working. Maybe it’s just a bad combination; the way Yeon directs the actors, the script, Gong’s flimsy performance. Because a lot of things do come together just right in other ways during Busan. Ma and Jung are wonderful. They’re both excellent—he’s a loving tough guy and she’s, well, okay, she’s just the loving tough guy’s pregnant wife, but she’s really good. And Ma’s able to carry the film when Gong can’t and the film acknowledges it, Gong acknowledges it. Yeon just doesn’t use it to further anything along. Top-billed Gong goes into the third act a better person but a thinner character; everyone else has more depth than him, with the possible exception of daughter Kim, just because she’s a plot device to keep him moving through the picture. Not in a craven way, just a very pragmatic one. Gong and Kim might be the A plot in the film, but all the other plots are more interesting, which becomes real obvious in the third act.

First there’s teen paramours Sohee and Choi Woo-sik, who barely get introduced during the film’s rapid-free introduction of the disaster movie cast—I mean, it’s zombies on a bullet train—have a little do at the beginning of the second act, but then get this layered C plot leading up to a heart-wrenching, loving conclusion. Very nice work from Choi and Sohee and from Yeon. He takes their C plot seriously. He also takes the out of nowhere and completely awesome conductor turns action hero subplot seriously. Jeong Seok-yong is fantastic in that part. Total surprise, but great pay-offs.

The supporting characters’ arcs always pay off (save businessman worm villain Kim Eui-sung’s arc, which goes on too long and gets too important) and always a with a little more enthusiasm than Gong and Kim get. Their family drama is basically red herring and not particularly tasty red herring because Gong’s so wanting at the dad stuff.

When Yeon makes it work—like with Gong, Ma, and Choi unintentionally becoming three musketeers and having to save people and get past zombies on the train and figure out how not to get bit doing it… great stuff. Great chemistry between the actors. It’s not just smooth, it’s easy. It feels like Yeon’s found the film’s vibe and he couldn’t possibility screw it up. He burns through all that newfound goodwill slow then fast; when he hits the third act, it’s a bunch of wide swings. They’d be fine, if they could just hit anything.

Train to Busan probably ends on its lowest point. It’s not bad, it’s got some strong performances, some great special effects—the “choreography” on the running, scary but silly zombies, is breathtaking—but Busan’s got problems pulling into the proverbial station. The third act’s just way too pat.

Superstore (2015) s01e06 – Secret Shopper

This episode very nicely balances the sitcom potential of corporate sending a secret shopper to spy on the cast as they work with some character development on leads America Ferrera and Ben Feldman. Feldman has just aced a store policy exam, which he can’t stop bragging about, aggravating supervisor Ferrera. It comes up in relation to the secret shopper (i.e. Feldman wanting to do things by the book, Ferrera wanting to do things customer-focused) but otherwise their eventual arc is separate from the episode’s shenanigans.

Because while manager Mark McKinney is freaking out about the secret shopper, at least he’s not doing anything absurd about it. Some of the staff are going overboard, well, mostly it’s Lauren Ash, who’s harassing every customer she suspects of being the secret shopper. But she’s also picking her targets based on various biases. Her whole subplot is discomforting and fantastic.

Nico Santos is also flipping out about the secret shopper, trying to climb over his coworkers to get the possible raise, which just gives Colton Dunn the chance to prank him. There’s also some stuff with McKinney (and Santos) getting the wrong idea about a coworker being a plant, which the show nicely resolves by the end.

Ferrera and Feldman get a lot of interplay, including a bickering match over the store’s intercoms—which also gives Dunn at least one of his excellent rejoinders—before ending up banished to the stock room. They argue some more, they wreck havoc, they bond. It works out rather well, with Feldman showing a little more grit than usual as he’s unaware of why he’s grating on Ferrera so much. Once they get it worked out, it leads to a rather nice resolution for them. Before the punchline to the secret shopper arc, which comes in two phases. A shock laugh, then a series of little shock laughs.

Really nice episode. It gives Ferrera and Feldman a great showcase while still keeping the laughs coming in.

Superstore (2015) s01e05 – Shoplifter

The cold open has Jonah (Ben Feldman) and Garrett (Colton Dunn) discovering a dead body in the store, which doesn’t turn out to be foreshadowing because neither Feldman or Dunn have anything to do with the resulting dead body in the store C plot. Dunn’s just around this episode, checking in for the occasional one or two-liner (though I guess he does have something to do with the C plot).

Feldman’s busy all episode babysitting America Ferrera’s daughter (Isabella Day) while Ferrera has to counsel boss Mark McKinney, who’s the only one freaked out about the guy dying in the store. The counseling bit falls on Ferrera because actual assistant manager Lauren Ash is busy trying to bust a shoplifter (Natasha Leggero). Ferrera’s going to end up in that plot too, because “Superstore” is really good about keeping its characters nimble as they bounce around the store.

Nico Santos and Nichole Bloom end up with the biggest parts in the C plot, as they both want to buy the couch the guy died on.

If the episode’s a showcase for anyone, it’s Ash, who doesn’t just get to go off on suspect Leggero, but there’s also some character development (ish) for Ash regarding Ferrera. Plus some of her weird flirting with Feldman. Feldman’s mostly doing physical comedy with props and he’s good at it. The episode’s not heavy on belly laughs; Jackie Clarke’s script more goes with constant situational amusement (getting a lot of mileage out of three basic events, the dead guy, the tween babysitting, the shoplifter) and Ruben Fleischer’s direction is focused on the cast’s performances.

McKinney’s really good this episode too. Figuring out he should be autonomous from his workers’ perceptions continues to succeed and he and Ash get into some rather amusing banter without interruption from the rest of the cast, but still some good reactions.

So not the uproarious heights the show’s recently hit but consistently amusing, leveraging the cast over the situations. “Superstore”’s developing nicely.

Superstore (2015) s01e04 – Mannequin

“Superstore” significantly ups its game this episode. The cold open has Jonah (Ben Feldman) trying to show off how well he’s bonded with his coworkers by unintentionally insulting most of them. The sequence ends in a great banter showdown between manager Mark McKinney and assistant manager Lauren Ash (foreshadowing their subplot this episode) but also does some exposition on Amy (America Ferrera), revealing not just a nine year-old daughter but also a husband, which was sort of hinted at the end of the first episode. No wonder they slowed down Feldman’s romantic interest in her.

Ferrera and Feldman get one of the plot lines, with Ferrera teasing Feldman with a mannequin, which resembles him, as the store becomes more and more chaotic with Ferrera not paying attention. Lots of funny mannequin scenes, even when it’s getting old, it’s still funny stuff. Especially after Feldman starts flipping out over it, after having promised Ferrera she won’t be able to bait him. The culmination… well, it’s too good to spoil. But it’s amazing.

Ash and McKinney, instead of noticing Ferrera and Feldman aren’t doing any work and Nico Santos has got all the people he doesn’t like (almost everyone) working punishment duty in the freezer, are trying to each convince pregnant teens Nichole Bloom and Johnny Pemberton to give their baby up for adoption. McKinney and his (offscreen) wife have had foster kids but would love one “without the dings” and Ash just wants a baby. Lots of funny stuff between McKinney and Ash together, but also lots of laughs with them and Bloom separately. And the show’s figured out what I said before—putting Bloom and Pemberton together and playing them off other people is the best use of the characters. So funny.

As usual, Colton Dunn gets a bunch of great lines.

It’s only the fourth episode and “Superstore” is much funnier than the pilot ever suggested, while making its cast a lot more likable. McKinney in particular. He started out the obnoxious boss laugh target but now he’s solidly funny on his own.

So funny.

Crystal Lake (2016, Jennifer Reeder)

Crystal Lake opens with lead Marcela Okeke packing a suitcase; based on some of what she packs–Aliens and Purple Rain on VHS, the LPs to Tea for the Tillerman and the Muppet Movie soundtrack—the short immediately establishes Okeke as one of the cooler people to ever exist. And then comes the final item—a broken skateboard. Okeke is going to live with relatives because, we soon find out, her father is dying. We also find out her mom died some years before—when Okeke’s character was seven (she’s a teenager now)—and Okeke’s married older sister booted her out. So not a great situation for Okeke.

And not a soft-landing spot either. Her older cousin, Sebastian Summers, is presented a little mysterious and does indeed seem to have some stuff going on but it’s just an insert. Same-ish aged, cool cousin Shea Vaughan-Gabor takes a while to size Okeke up and takes a tough (but real) love approach. But Vaughan-Gabor doesn’t get even the hint of a subplot. She’s got some personality (through wardrobe as well; both Okeke and Vaughan-Gabor wear hijab, but Vaughan-Gabor with a lot of bling). But no story. Other than the tough (but real) love personality trait. It’s not even clear why Vaughan-Gabor is living with Summers, who’s just another cousin.

Okeke’s got this insert subplot about intentional self-preservation, which is really cool but it’s just an insert. As a director, even with the inserts, Reeder has every good idea. Crystal Lake is phenomenally well-made. As a writer, Reeder’s got good intentions for her scenes, but they often sputter out once the exposition gets unnaturally heavy. It doesn’t help neither Okeke or Vaughan-Gabor can do the exposition. There are plenty of natural moments in Lake but zero hint of them—or even memory of them—when there’s exposition. And drama. Reeder, writing, has a problem with the dramatic turns. They’re peculiar disconnects because the filmmaking never wavers; it’s great during the exposition, it’s great during the drama, it’s great during the action, it’s great during the natural moments. Just the writing (and then the acting) go wobbly.

Vaughan-Gabor’s the most impressive performance in the film (she and Okeke are the only two contenders really; Summers’s insert doesn’t have him doing much acting), which is great—when it clicks, it clicks—but the short ends feeling lopsided. After the set up, Okeke becomes second (and even temporarily third) fiddle. It’s still her story, Reeder just doesn’t stick with her to tell it.

Even with wonky exposition dumps, lopsided pacing, and unexplored inserts, Crystal Lake is still more than worth a look. Reeder’s direction is outstanding, the plot is good, the cast is good (often better than good).

Lights Out (2016, Savannah Bloch)

Lights Out gets obvious way too fast given it’s a five minute short. The film opens with Alixzandra Dove in a mostly dark house, folding clothes while she talks to a friend on the phone. There’s a little exposition from the phone call—Dove’s kid has outgrown some clothes, Dove’s partner has been away two weeks but is coming home that night—while Dove tries to find something to do. She turns out the kid’s light, heads into the bedroom to read a book (while still on the phone call), only for the kid to turn the light back on. He’s goofing off instead of going to bed, which frustrates Dove.

The short’s a morose affair, with Dove alternating between yelling at the kid and being exasperated with the phone call. Writer Kelly Peters carefully puts some clues throughout the short as to the eventual twist, but they’re all painfully obvious because they’re the only time there’s anything interesting in the conversation. Peters is way too obvious when she’s trying to misdirect. Or maybe Dove’s performance is too flat. Or not flat enough.

Because Dove’s not bad. There’s only so far to take Lights Out and Dove gets about as much mileage out of the five minutes as she can, especially since the phone call conversation isn’t anything special. Bloch’s direction is okay. Technically, with some great photography by Cooper Ulrich, Bloch does an excellent job. Her composition, how she directs Dove, how she and Bret Allen cut the thing together… eh.

That technical excellence, particularly how well Ulrich can light the mostly dark house, it sets a high bar for Lights Out. And the short doesn’t even begin to reach it.

It all starts to fall apart at the end—which is concerning as they only had to keep the momentum going for five minutes—but it does end before it gets too bad.

Out is kind of a disappointment, kind of a shrug.

Sensitivity Training (2016, Melissa Finell)

Sensitivity Training is… an easy (but not in a pejorative way) comedy with winning (but not in a sarcastic way) lead performances. It’s never daring, but it has some good laughs. It’s better than middle of the road but it there’s not much exciting about it. Director Finell does a great job with a low budget as far as the filmmaking goes–Finell and cinematographer Paul Cannon have nice widescreen shots, Finell and editor David Egan keep a brisk pace (the film’s eighty-six minutes or so). And Paul Chihara’s music is a great. Very energetic and emotive. It’s impressively executed, given its scale.

Which makes some of the script choices annoying, actually. Like, Finell writes way too broadly even in scenes where she could afford precision. The script’s too conservative for what the film can do. But the script’s still perfectly fine and often really funny. It gives leads Anna Lise Phillips and Jill E. Alexander decent showcase material. Gives them great parts, not great roles. Like, there’s a whole “everyone is a caricature” thing going on even though it’s all about Phillips having to learn empathy after she maybe causes a tragedy at work due to her personality.

Phillips is a very abrasive scientist who appears to be the only scientist in the world aware of an imminent bacterial infection. Sensitivity Training’s sunny world–where Alexander’s daughter, Courtney Fansler, would never actually get teased for having two moms–also appears to have cured childhood leukemia or something. There’s a lot of science going on in Sensitivity Training and it ostensibly means a lot to Phillips, but it doesn’t mean anything to Finell’s script.

Meanwhile Alexander is a sexual harassment counselor who makes sexually harassing men sign apology statements. It’s not until she starts trying to make Phillips empathetic she realizes it’s a terrible job–the sexual harassment thing–and bad. Alexander doesn’t get much character stuff to herself. Finell usually uses it for a joke, which is funny about–say, kids’ birthday parties–but less funny when about sexual harassment.

So most of the movie is Alexander trying to get Phillips to treat people nicer, mostly her lab workers–quietly essential Quinn Marcus (who doesn’t get enough to do) and background filler Amy Vorpahl and Andy Gala–but also her younger half-brother, Finnegan Haid. The stuff with Haid makes no sense in the narrative, but it’s fine. They play well off each other. Everyone works well with each other in their scenes, no crowding.

Eventually, of course, there’s crisis and drama and big-time introspective character development for Phillips, who’s otherwise had zero self-awareness in the film (to an absurd degree but still fine given the film’s soft take on reality), and a somewhat perfunctory wrap-up where Finell reveals she wasted like six of the eighty-six minutes on a total MacGuffin just for a couple smiles not even laughs. So. When the film’s really funny, those laughs have a lot of weight on them. And they hold up.

Phillips and Alexander are both good. But they don’t get anything too tough. Quinn gets the internal subplot but almost no time for it and she’s real good. Amy Madigan’s great as Phillips and Haid’s mom. She should’ve been in it more, especially how she and Phillips play off each other. Charles Haid’s fine as the dad, though just fine. He executive produced the film so if it’s a stunt cameo, it’s not a good one.

Finell’s a good director. Sensitivity Training is a good comedy. It doesn’t try to do anything but amuse, even when it’s got potential to do more.

Hello Destroyer (2016, Kevan Funk)

With Hello Destroyer, writer and director Funk spares down a character study. He saps the action from it–and there’s a lot of potential action, as the character the film studies is a rookie pro hockey player (Jared Abrahamson). Abrahamson’s a quiet loner who fits in well enough with the team, but is rather passive. Outside the opening scene, where the team hazes the rookies, there’s very little action, even during the hockey games. Funk uses mostly close-ups, with his actors near center in a wide frame, with a sharp focus on the character. The first half of the film is exquisitely written, just seeing how Funk is able to do so much with so little exposition, so little setup, just scene and cast.

It’s a pro team but not pro enough Abrahamson and a teammate don’t have to bunk with a local family. Abrahamson’s not exactly one of the family, but he’s got a good rapport with his hosts, even babysitting for them.

Then there’s a bad game and, in response to coach Kurt Max Runte’s belittling screaming at he and his teammates, Abrahamson gets too rough on the ice and hospitalizes another player. Abrahamson’s naive and confused, especially when host mom Sara Canning starts acting scared of him and assistant coach Ian Tracey just blows smoke up his ass instead of telling him what’s going on. Pretty soon Runte has convinced Abrahamson to issue a statement taking the blame and, pretty soon, after Abrahamson’s headed back to his parents on the bus.

Once home, Funk starts revealing some of Abrahamson’s (still unverbalized) baggage. Dad Paul McGillion is constantly verbally abusive to Abrahamson as well as occasionally physically. The single exposition dump in the film reveals McGillion’s a bad dad because his dad was a bad military dad. Meanwhile mom Yvonne Vander Ploeg is barely present. She and Abrahamson have zero relationship, which isn’t a surprise as Abrahamson doesn’t have any relationships. There’s an implied relationship with probably sister Terri Mahon, but Funk does it all through Abrahamson looking at old pictures on his phone (in a single scene) and then holding his nephew. Probably nephew.

The film’s not exactly a waiting game to see if Abrahamson’s going to figure out what kind of trouble he’s actually in–it initially tracks his descent before he starts getting a little better after bonding with coworker Joe Buffalo. Funk doesn’t change the narrative distance until the very end, which is its own thing; otherwise, he keeps the same tone and pace throughout. Deliberate long shots of Abrahamson internalizing and processing what’s going on around him. There are some great moments from Abrahamson, even if the role itself ends up a little too thin. Turns out Funk is keeping that deliberate narrative distance so he can make some big moves in the third act.

There’s a certain cinéma vérité styling; Edo Van Breemen gets credited with the music but there’s barely any in the film. Ajla Odobasic’s editing is languorous, perfectly matching Benjamin Loeb’s sharp and deep photography. Funk goes almost two hours without ever picking up the pace, without ever going for melodrama, without ever letting a crack show in Abrahamson’s demeanor. When he does break under pressure–either just pressure or drunkenness–Funk shoots Abrahamson removed. We’re seeing him break, not watching him break. It’s a distinction in Hello Destroyer and one of the film’s greatest strengths. Funk knows how to present this story, knows how to position his actors, knows how to shoot it, knows how to cut it.

So when he gives up in the third act–after building the friendship with Buffalo for however long, it becomes just as disposable for the film as any of Abrahamson’s other relationships and the stuff with the family is kind of a MacGuffin–it’s a bit of a surprise. Funk seemingly could go on forever with the desolate slow pace, with each new reveal further revealing more about Abrahamson’s protagonist and informing the performance, only to chuck it all for an easy finish. Funk got to raise a bunch of questions and make a bunch of observations, but he doesn’t do anything with them in the end.

It’s a beautifully made film, with an exquisite performance from Abrahamson, but Funk’s ambitions are a tad more melodramatic than the film ever suggests they might be. For most of the film, Funk’s doing character revelation and development, only to switch it up entirely at the end and try to do character examination. It’s a big slip and too bad; a lot of Hello Destroyer is outstanding. Funk’s an excellent director and a capable writer. He just–artfully–uses a sledgehammer instead of a scalpel, like that artfulness can compensate for the force. And it can not.

★★

CREDITS

Written and directed by Kevan Funk; director of photography, Benjamin Loeb; edited by Ajla Odobasic; music by Edo Van Breemen; production designer, Robin Tilby; produced by Daniel Domachowski and Haydn Wazelle; released by Northern Banner Releasing.

Starring Jared Abrahamson (Tyson Burr), Paul McGillion (Ron Burr), Joe Buffalo (Eric), Ben Cotton (Bill Davis), Sara Canning (Wendy Davis), Ian Tracey (Coach Aaron Weller), Maxwell Haynes (Cody MacKenzie), Yvonne Vander Ploeg (Judy Burr), and Kurt Max Runte (Coach Dale Milbury).


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