The Secret Life of Bees

THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES is one of those movies that doesn't feel like a movie. It feels like an adaptation of a play or a book or a limerick, not something that stands on its own with its own, vibrant life.

Don't get me wrong: this movie has a lot going for it. Though it stars Dakota Fanning, the only human resident of the Uncanny Valley, it also features fine turns from the wonderful Queen Latifah, the brilliant Sophie Okonedo, the remarkably talented Jennifer Hudson, and "Wire" vet Tristan Wilds. The normally likeable Paul Bettany clearly enjoys himself as the violent, trashy peach farmer who can barely take care of himself, much less raise a daughter, and the whole film drips with the kind of love and compassion that one normally finds only in young adult fiction.

But it creaks. We hear the gears grind and clash. We can't lose ourselves in the moment because we never sense that the moment is cinematically authentic. Rather, it feels like a retelling of a telling, one given with love but without spark. I wanted to care about Girlbot, but I never believed she was real. I wanted to find comfort in a home clearly designed for it, but I couldn't lose myself. I wanted to root for the bright young people who'd have to work hard to overcome a world that could be capricious and cruel, but I never once doubted that they would succeed.
I'm sure there are people who love THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES. It was, after all, made for loving. I'd like to be one them, but I can't fall in love with a xerox.

The Haunted Mansion

So I'm working on my sci fi spec script, the one I can't get anybody interested in, and I think I've figured out why. My script, a searing greed allegory about a transvestite interstellar conqueror who preys upon civilizations that don't have flags, is missing the critical element that says "Green Light!" If only I can figure out how to turn my transvestite interstellar conqueror into a transvestite workaholic dad who needs to learn to spend more time with his family, I'm sure I'll have a winner.

How do I know this will work? Why, it's the only reason I can imagine why horrible, horrible scripts such as the one for THE HAUNTED MANSION get made. See, the workaholic dad is the screenwriter's target audience. In the brutally Darwinian world of film production, there's only one way to get oneself into the position to greenlight a movie: one must be a workaholic. Since we're talking about an industry dominated by men, it follows that many of these workaholics are, in fact, workaholic dads. So when one of these workaholic dads reads THE HAUNTED MANSION or JACK FROST or any of a hundred films of their ilk, he thinks, "Hey, there's something about this script that's real. It speaks to me."

In THE HAUNTED MANSION, Eddie Murphy plays a workaholic dad who happens to be a realtor. Since he knows that realty is a boom or bust business, he's making money while there's money to be made. Meanwhile, the guy's getting zero support at home. His wife's all, "I don't want a nice home in a nice neighborhood. Take some time off and let's go live in a van down by the river." His kids are all, "We don't like having our own rooms and health care. Let's go live in a van down by the river." So, fine. He packs the family into the 700-series BMW so he can drive them to the cabin by the lake that he earned through all his hard work, but he's gotta make a detour, do a little business, because you never know when it's gonna be 2008 and you're gonna be Lehman Brothers.

The work involves meeting a potential client in a huge, creepy Louisiana mansion. Even though the mansion has, supposedly, been in the client's family for centuries, everyone there has an English (vice Cajun, or even upper class Cajun) accent. Creepy. And there's this whole backstory about forbidden love between the poncy master of the house and his Creole paramour, who happens to be the spitting image of the unsupportive wife. Naturally, poncy rich guy is planning to seduce unsupportive wife so he can finally be reunited with his lost love because, hey, everyone knows that reincarnation works by making you look exactly like whomever you were in your most pertinent past life (Hey, come to think of it, maybe it's not so bad that I'm aging into Edward Everett Horton!). I say, count your blessings, poncy English-Cajun ghostly rich guy: this chick has no idea how hard a man's gotta work to keep up a creepy mansion like yours. You're gonna be all, "Sweetheart, I must go over the numbers. Something's not right on the plantation," and she'll be all, "Screw that. Let's go live in a van down by the the river," and you'll be all, "What's a van?"
So before you know it, there are zombies and ghosts and a green gypsy woman in a crystal ball and Eddie's mugging like there's no tomorrow and his cowardly kid overcomes his fears and the poncy ghost sees the error of his ways and the good ghosts go to heaven and the bad ghost goes to hell. And, More Importantly, Eddie Murphy Learns an Important Lesson about the Evils of Workaholism and the Importance of Spending More Time with his Family.

I watched this one with my 9-yr-old after we'd put the younger kids to bed. He loved it. It was just scary enough, just funny enough, to press all his buttons. The zombies looked enough like the zombies from the Thriller video to remove any peril they may have represented, and the bad guy had such silly hair that he was clearly not a serious threat to anyone. There were jokes and sight gags and I think he found the damsel attractive in a "Jimmy Neutron's mom" kind of way. But in my inner monologue, I was hanging in Gracie Mansion's belltower, thinking that if Wallace Shawn and Terence Stamp can't save a movie, noone can save a movie.

But hey, at least I've worked out the problems with my script. Now, it's going to be a movie about an executive transvestite workaholic dad. Beware the competing firm that does not have a flag.