In THE WACKNESS, Ben Kingsley counsels young Josh Peck, "Don't trust anyone who doesn't listen to Dylan and who doesn't smoke weed."
I don't listen to Dylan. I don't smoke weed. I didn't trust Ben Kingsley, either.
This is a movie about people from a different universe, one in which the rules of society as I understand them don't exist. They ingest enormous amounts of drugs. They approach sex with damaging casualness. They speak in a foreign language and listen to music that's a mystery to me. In fact, there's not one single character in this film that I could relate to, one person who didn't feel like an example of a type, but rather a complete human being. I've seen movies about murderous, medieval Huns with whom I could relate more than I could anyone in THE WACKNESS.
This movie was an audience favorite at Sundance. CHUD's Devin Faraci loved it. I don't get the appeal, not at all. THE WACKNESS does part of what movies are supposed to do, in that it takes me to a different place and time, introduces me to different people, and puts me in their shoes. But the shoes didn't fit, and the film couldn't sell them to me.
Bummer.
4 comments:
Thanks for the heads up! I'll definitely be skipping this one. As always, well articulated review. Keep them coming!
Thanks, Karen!
If you can't relate to anyone in this movie it's because you didn't party in high school or you've never done drugs. I've met plenty of people like those in this film and I'm from the Midwest, not NEW YORK. Of course, I grew up in the 90's so maybe that's why I relate, and you don't.
I didn't grow up in the 90s and I've never done drugs, so maybe that's part of it. But I've also never ridden across the Mongolian steppe at the head of an army of Huns, lived a life of quiet desperation in postwar China, or ridden a magic carpet high over the spires of ancient Bagdad. And yet, good films have been good enough to put me in the shoes of people who have. THE WACKNESS isn't good enough to do that. Rather, it lazily hopes to create connections to people and situations familiar to some in the audience, counting on them to draw from their life experience to flesh out the unreal people it gives to us.
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