Watched some more movies on a plane in August, so here are some thoughts...
Sleepless in Seattle
I'm not sure how common or uncommon this is, but I actually saw this film after seeing You've Got Mail. Highly lauded as an early 90's romantic comedy, it certainly has its charm in the ways that writer-director Nora Ephron is so highly capable. As expected, there's lots of great scenework and fun dialogue, particularly the scene with Meg Ryan and Rosie O'Donnell watching a movie. As well, the acting is top-notch, considering the relatively ridiculous central conceit of the show (falling in love over listening to the radio), which is hard to overlook.
However, the film is so effective at being a cute throwback to older Hollywood romance movies it sucked me in enough to suspend my disbelief about basically everything plot-wise after the first 30-minutes of the movie (that kid has god-like powers).
Between the two films, I prefer You've Got Mail, but Sleepless in Seattle is still RECOMMENDED.
The Devil Wears Prada
As another movie I'd heard so much about over the years, I was looking forward to finally watching The Devil Wears Prada. As expected, Meryl Streep created an almost instantly iconic, nuanced, understated and yet larger-than-life character in Miranda Priestly, though based on a real-life counterpart. Anne Hathaway does a largely fine job of holding her own against both Streep and Priestly, but...
Can we talk about how awkwardly this movie is structured / paced, particularly for Hathaway's character Andy Sachs? Don't worry, it's a rhetorical question.
Prada starts simple enough with the disinterested Sachs getting the highly sought-after position, with a natural arc of heading towards the "dark side" as a potential ally / partner to Priestly, but it does so in such an odd path. Basically, Sachs keeps trajecting upwardly, even when screwing up or when things go wrong. For her, it's just up and up and up; though maybe her arc is more like a staircase.
While yes, it makes sense from a story perspective for her to see Priestly's perspective and tease being on the dark side, the film avoids almost any opportunity to really explore the depths and pathos of the consequences of these actions. It misses out two-fold:
1) Exploring Andy's perspective as she goes on this journey. It's just constantly moving onto the next thing, onward and upward. No living in the past, just moving forward. Which makes for an interesting character choice, but also very odd and rather cold; which may be the point, but makes for an odd anchor for the audience, or at least me.
2) Exploring Miranda's perspective, particularly in her one key scene, which serves as the preview of the end of Andy's path if she continues on it.
Neither character really pauses to question what's going on - the plot keeps running forward. And while yes, that's not what this movie is, it would have made for a great opportunity. Instead, the comedy of the film removes any great dramatic beats. Unfortunately, I didn't find the comedy strong enough as a comedy movie.
As such, Prada is only MILDLY RECOMMENDED. The acting, particularly from both Streep and Stanley Tucci, are great, but the plot and general character of Andy Sachs left much to be desired. Note: I haven't read the book, and that the story is apparently based on real life does have some impact on things, I'm sure. I suppose if I viewed this more as a character study than standard story, I'd appreciate it more.
No comments:
Post a Comment