I was supposed to be a Valentine’s Day baby. Instead, I arrived a couple
of days early, which suits me fine, since I tend to have more
enthusiasm for Abraham Lincoln,
whose birthday I share, than for the holiday that hasn’t been too
eventful for me since the end of the elementary school cardboard
Valentine mailboxes. Still, I’ve never resented the holiday. I enjoy
exchanging Valentines with my parents and a couple of friends, and at
some point during the week, I usually make it out to the video store or
the theater to catch a sappy movie. Last year, it was Valentine’s Day,
a romantic comedy with an expansive cast of characters whose lives
intersect on February 14 in, or on the way to, Los Angeles.
Two years ago saw the release of He’s Just Not That Into You, which had a similarly high number of characters to keep track of. Structurally, the two are fairly similar, but Valentine’s Day,
directed by Garry Marshall, feels a lot less cynical, celebrating love
both young and old and not restricting it to romance, either. While that
is a major focus of the movie, it also lauds family relationships,
mentorships and general kindness to friend and stranger alike. I found
it refreshingly positive.
As with He’s Just Not That Into You,
I found myself zeroing in on certain characters and zoning out on
others, simply because there were so many. The main character is Reed
Bennett, a puppy dog of a florist who absolutely loves Valentine’s Day
and who is in an especially exuberant mood this year because his
girlfriend has just accepted his marriage proposal. Ashton Kutcher
plays Reed, and he surprised me in the role because usually, the mere
presence of Kutcher in a movie might be enough to dissuade me from
watching. I generally find him obnoxious, but here, he is thoroughly
lovable, as is Jennifer Garner, who plays his childhood chum, elementary
school teacher Julia Fitzpatrick – though that didn’t surprise me much,
as she’s been one of my favorite actresses since her thoroughly
endearing turn in 13 Going on 30.
Reed’s
idyllic day is about to take a troubling turn. What everyone in the
audience realizes long before he does is that his girlfriend is just not
that into him – and furthermore, sweet-natured Julia is. But she
has a romantic partner of her own, and he has a secret that could wreak
havoc on her happiness. Aside from Reed and Julia, I was most
interested in Hector Elizondo,
always an actor I enjoy, as Edgar, a hopeless romantic still very much
in love with his wife after decades of marriage and now ready to pass
some wisdom on to his young grandson Edison (Bryce Robinson), who is
determined to show the object of his affections just how much he cares.
These four characters give us a strong sense of the differences between
puppy love, adult romance and mature love that reflects a lifetime
together.
Lots of other characters experience love in a variety
of ways, too, and it’s fun to see how the different characters
interconnect. At the same time, there’s little opportunity to really get
to know most of the characters. The movie boasts a dizzying cast list
full of familiar names: Jessica Alba, Kathy Bates, Jessica Biel, Bradley
Cooper, Eric Dane, Patrick Dempsey, Jamie Foxx, Topher Grace, Anne
Hathaway, Queen Latifah, Taylor Lautner, George Lopez, Taylor Swift,
Shirley MacLaine, Julia Roberts, Larry Miller, Kristen Schaal… There’s
scarcely time to pick them out before we’re on to a new scene with new
characters to keep track of, and it’s a constant guessing game to figure
out what one storyline has to do with the others beyond the general
theme.
Some of the situations in the movie are a bit on the
risqué side, but the focus here is more often on love than lust, which I
appreciated. The film’s biggest flaw is probably that it’s trying to do
too much at once. Still, I was more touched than confused by the end of
the movie, and while I wouldn't rank it among the best romantic
comedies out there, Valentine’s Day makes for pretty enjoyable viewing and may just leave you with a better appreciation of the holiday that inspired it.
Showing posts with label Anne Hathaway. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anne Hathaway. Show all posts
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Monday, March 15, 2010
Prepare to get LOST in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland
As LOST winds to a close, I have found myself seeking comparisons
with my favorite show in every movie that I watch. When it comes to Tim
Burton’s vision of Alice in Wonderland, I hardly need to look.
Indeed, it’s one of the reasons I was so interested in the movie, though
I’ve always found various incarnations to be trippy to the point of
being rather terrifying. Lewis Carroll’s classic story is indisputably
one of LOST‘s key texts, having been referenced explicitly in two episode titles (White Rabbit and Through the Looking Glass) and multiple times within the show.
The very first image in the series is of heroic doctor Jack Shephard opening his eyes in the middle of the jungle. There exists the possibility that the series could end this way, with the implication that all six seasons have been a dream. While I will feel extremely cheated if this is the case, the heavy influence of Alice in Wonderland makes me nervous, especially when coupled with another key text, The Wizard of Oz, which happens to be the next movie Tim Burton is thinking of helming. While in the books, Oz is a real place, the iconic 1939 film implies that it’s just as much a dream as Wonderland is in the book.
In Burton’s film, it’s never entirely clear whether Wonderland is, in fact, a dream. We never see Alice fall asleep or wake up. But as in The Wizard of Oz, connections are drawn between several people from her everyday life and various characters she meets in Wonderland. Moreover, throughout her adventure, she repeatedly insists that she is in a dream. At one point, she and the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), who in this version is her most cherished Wonderland companion, share a conversation about the subject. She informs him that he is a figment of her imagination, and that only someone half-mad like her could have dreamed him up, which is strikingly similar to what Hurley tells Libby in Dave, the season two episode that either debunks an unpalatable theory or explains the series. “In real life,” Hurley says, “no girl like you would ever like me. Remember when I said I knew you from somewhere? Well, maybe it's because I made you up.”
Hurley is the character most associated with childlike innocence but also with mental instability. In season four, he theorizes that only he, Ben and John are able to see the elusive cabin in the jungle because they are the craziest. Could all of the bizarre happenings on the Island be the product of a deranged mind? The same question applies to Wonderland. Mia Wasikowska is luminous as Alice, a confused young woman who is overwhelmed by the world around her and the responsibilities being forced upon her. Easily distracted by her daydreams, she possesses an independent spirit unwelcome in her stuffy society.
Burton does his best to make the Wonderland to which she escapes look and sound as disorienting as possible. Depp, who is so adept at portraying vividly eccentric characters, embodies the insanity of this world as a man prone to lapsing into strings of incoherent psychobabble. And even when his tongue doesn’t run away with his mind, everything he says is as off-kilter as his voice, which is sometimes a guttural Scottish growl, sometimes a lisping whisper. Meanwhile, he repeatedly poses the query, “Have you any idea why a raven is like a writing desk?”, a riddle which, like many of the mysteries on LOST, seems to have no solution.
On LOST, the first explicit reference to Alice in Wonderland comes when Jack pursues his deceased father through the jungle and John compares the specter to the White Rabbit (Michael Sheen). Alice, too, has lost her father, the one person in her life who understood her and regarded her “madness” as a mark of a superior mind. As she chases this strange creature, one might say that she, too, is seeking her father, or at least a connection with their shared sense of the fantastic.
Alice finds herself in a world ruled over by two queens of opposing dispositions. The Red Queen (Helena Bonham-Carter, one of four Harry Potter alums in the film) is an unstable tyrant prone to doling out violent punishments. Meanwhile the White Queen (Anne Hathaway), all grace and benevolence, resides in a kingdom reminiscent of Tolkien’s Elven haven Rivendell. She strives against her sister but is incapable of harming another, nor will she force anyone else to do so, although her desires are usually fairly evident. These white and red monarchs are much like the white and black figures controlling so many of the events on the Island, and when Alice explodes in frustration that ever since her arrival in Wonderland she has been told what to do and who to be, it sounds an awful lot like LOST‘s driving Fate vs Free Will debate.
Another recurring theme on the show has to do with characters on the Island crossing paths back in the everyday world. There’s a sense that even if there is a multiplicity of worlds, these particular people are destined to always be a part of one another’s lives. The first character to state this explicitly is conflicted torturer Sayid’s star-crossed love Nadia, but starting with the second season, the sentiment becomes the catchphrase of unanchored Scotsman Desmond. “See you in another life,” he says, time and again. In the movie, Absolem the Caterpillar (Alan Rickman), a creature inextricably linked with the notion of transformation, repeats this very phrase after explaining to Alice that she arrived as the “wrong Alice” but is now her proper self. Another driving theme in LOST involves flawed characters embracing the best of themselves as a result of many trials.
Of course, though I recommend it particularly to fans of the show, you don’t have to watch LOST to appreciate this movie. It offers a new twist on an old tale and does so with plenty of eye-popping spectacle. Though the 3-D elements seem less organic than in Avatar, they add to the fun, particularly whenever the March Hare (Paul Whitehouse) takes it into his head to lob a piece of dinnerware in the audience’s direction. The film often feels freakish, but as I remarked to my parents, any worthwhile adaptation of Alice in Wonderland is going to wind up looking a lot like an acid trip. It’s a strange, strange journey, but it’s one worth making, especially if you, like Alice and her father, have ever had the inclination to believe six impossible things before breakfast.
The very first image in the series is of heroic doctor Jack Shephard opening his eyes in the middle of the jungle. There exists the possibility that the series could end this way, with the implication that all six seasons have been a dream. While I will feel extremely cheated if this is the case, the heavy influence of Alice in Wonderland makes me nervous, especially when coupled with another key text, The Wizard of Oz, which happens to be the next movie Tim Burton is thinking of helming. While in the books, Oz is a real place, the iconic 1939 film implies that it’s just as much a dream as Wonderland is in the book.
In Burton’s film, it’s never entirely clear whether Wonderland is, in fact, a dream. We never see Alice fall asleep or wake up. But as in The Wizard of Oz, connections are drawn between several people from her everyday life and various characters she meets in Wonderland. Moreover, throughout her adventure, she repeatedly insists that she is in a dream. At one point, she and the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), who in this version is her most cherished Wonderland companion, share a conversation about the subject. She informs him that he is a figment of her imagination, and that only someone half-mad like her could have dreamed him up, which is strikingly similar to what Hurley tells Libby in Dave, the season two episode that either debunks an unpalatable theory or explains the series. “In real life,” Hurley says, “no girl like you would ever like me. Remember when I said I knew you from somewhere? Well, maybe it's because I made you up.”
Hurley is the character most associated with childlike innocence but also with mental instability. In season four, he theorizes that only he, Ben and John are able to see the elusive cabin in the jungle because they are the craziest. Could all of the bizarre happenings on the Island be the product of a deranged mind? The same question applies to Wonderland. Mia Wasikowska is luminous as Alice, a confused young woman who is overwhelmed by the world around her and the responsibilities being forced upon her. Easily distracted by her daydreams, she possesses an independent spirit unwelcome in her stuffy society.
Burton does his best to make the Wonderland to which she escapes look and sound as disorienting as possible. Depp, who is so adept at portraying vividly eccentric characters, embodies the insanity of this world as a man prone to lapsing into strings of incoherent psychobabble. And even when his tongue doesn’t run away with his mind, everything he says is as off-kilter as his voice, which is sometimes a guttural Scottish growl, sometimes a lisping whisper. Meanwhile, he repeatedly poses the query, “Have you any idea why a raven is like a writing desk?”, a riddle which, like many of the mysteries on LOST, seems to have no solution.
On LOST, the first explicit reference to Alice in Wonderland comes when Jack pursues his deceased father through the jungle and John compares the specter to the White Rabbit (Michael Sheen). Alice, too, has lost her father, the one person in her life who understood her and regarded her “madness” as a mark of a superior mind. As she chases this strange creature, one might say that she, too, is seeking her father, or at least a connection with their shared sense of the fantastic.
Alice finds herself in a world ruled over by two queens of opposing dispositions. The Red Queen (Helena Bonham-Carter, one of four Harry Potter alums in the film) is an unstable tyrant prone to doling out violent punishments. Meanwhile the White Queen (Anne Hathaway), all grace and benevolence, resides in a kingdom reminiscent of Tolkien’s Elven haven Rivendell. She strives against her sister but is incapable of harming another, nor will she force anyone else to do so, although her desires are usually fairly evident. These white and red monarchs are much like the white and black figures controlling so many of the events on the Island, and when Alice explodes in frustration that ever since her arrival in Wonderland she has been told what to do and who to be, it sounds an awful lot like LOST‘s driving Fate vs Free Will debate.
Another recurring theme on the show has to do with characters on the Island crossing paths back in the everyday world. There’s a sense that even if there is a multiplicity of worlds, these particular people are destined to always be a part of one another’s lives. The first character to state this explicitly is conflicted torturer Sayid’s star-crossed love Nadia, but starting with the second season, the sentiment becomes the catchphrase of unanchored Scotsman Desmond. “See you in another life,” he says, time and again. In the movie, Absolem the Caterpillar (Alan Rickman), a creature inextricably linked with the notion of transformation, repeats this very phrase after explaining to Alice that she arrived as the “wrong Alice” but is now her proper self. Another driving theme in LOST involves flawed characters embracing the best of themselves as a result of many trials.
Of course, though I recommend it particularly to fans of the show, you don’t have to watch LOST to appreciate this movie. It offers a new twist on an old tale and does so with plenty of eye-popping spectacle. Though the 3-D elements seem less organic than in Avatar, they add to the fun, particularly whenever the March Hare (Paul Whitehouse) takes it into his head to lob a piece of dinnerware in the audience’s direction. The film often feels freakish, but as I remarked to my parents, any worthwhile adaptation of Alice in Wonderland is going to wind up looking a lot like an acid trip. It’s a strange, strange journey, but it’s one worth making, especially if you, like Alice and her father, have ever had the inclination to believe six impossible things before breakfast.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
The de Vil Wears Prada...
When I started watching Ugly Betty last year, it reminded me of The Devil Wears Prada,
a movie I'd heard a lot about but hadn't seen. I finally amended that
this weekend, and as I watched, nearly every scene reminded me of Ugly Betty.
The two explore very similar territory: smart but frumpy girl gets a
job as an assistant at a fashion magazine and overcomes obstacles to
distinguish herself. Plucky Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) is like Betty,
while catty Emily (Emily Blunt) and sycophantic Nigel (Stanley Tucci)
are somewhat similar to Amanda and Marc and devilish editor Miranda
Priestly (Meryl Streep) recalls the scheming Wilhemina. Ultimately, I
like Ugly Betty better, but the movie, adapted from Lauren Weisberger's popular novel, is still very enjoyable.
When Andy seeks a job with Runway, a premiere fashion magazine, she doesn't even know the name of the editor-in-chief, but she doesn't let her ignorance stop her from trying to make a strong impression. Though Miranda, a cool professional with Cruella De Vil looks and a deadly calm demeanor, initially rejects Andy with a curt "That's all," a line she repeats frequently as an assertion that her authority leaves no room for debate, Andy's impassioned plea wins her a shot at the job she's told a million girls would kill for. It's not long, however, before she begins to see it as the job that would kill a million girls...
Just attempting to fit in with this ultra-fashion-conscious group is hard enough, as Ugly Betty demonstrates. But when your boss is completely unreasonable, making demands at a mile a minute, many of them ludicrous tasks like getting a flight out of a city in a hurricane and tracking down copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows a year before its publication, one can't help but wonder whether the job is really worth all the trouble, even with the promise that it will open doors to valuable opportunities.
Streep is just as sensational as all the buzz led me to believe, and she's really what makes this movie so much fun. But Hathaway is winning, and Blunt does a great job as the demeaning but hard-working assistant who, unlike Andy, aspires to work in the fashion industry. Probably my favorite character is Nigel, who showers Andy with snark but also becomes her ticket to the inner track, using his expertise to perform an extreme makeover on her which, while not as dramatic as Hathaway's transformation in The Princess Diaries, is still pretty striking. I always enjoy Tucci, and he makes Nigel both entertaining and sympathetic.
The movie is a coming-of-age story about Andy finding her way in the fashion industry and trying not to lose herself in the process. As such, the romantic subplot feels like a side trip, especially since neither of her love interests - live-in boyfriend Nate (Adrian Grenier) and famous writer Christian Thompson (Simon Baker) - is very exciting. Christian comes across as too cocky and looks about twice Andy's age, while Nate just seems completely bland and disengaged.
But people don't watch The Devil Wears Prada because they want to see a touching love story. They watch it so they can see Streep pushing Hathaway around, and there's plenty of that, though Miranda does eventually display a modicum of humanity. Is the title really a fair assessment? I'll let you be the judge!
When Andy seeks a job with Runway, a premiere fashion magazine, she doesn't even know the name of the editor-in-chief, but she doesn't let her ignorance stop her from trying to make a strong impression. Though Miranda, a cool professional with Cruella De Vil looks and a deadly calm demeanor, initially rejects Andy with a curt "That's all," a line she repeats frequently as an assertion that her authority leaves no room for debate, Andy's impassioned plea wins her a shot at the job she's told a million girls would kill for. It's not long, however, before she begins to see it as the job that would kill a million girls...
Just attempting to fit in with this ultra-fashion-conscious group is hard enough, as Ugly Betty demonstrates. But when your boss is completely unreasonable, making demands at a mile a minute, many of them ludicrous tasks like getting a flight out of a city in a hurricane and tracking down copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows a year before its publication, one can't help but wonder whether the job is really worth all the trouble, even with the promise that it will open doors to valuable opportunities.
Streep is just as sensational as all the buzz led me to believe, and she's really what makes this movie so much fun. But Hathaway is winning, and Blunt does a great job as the demeaning but hard-working assistant who, unlike Andy, aspires to work in the fashion industry. Probably my favorite character is Nigel, who showers Andy with snark but also becomes her ticket to the inner track, using his expertise to perform an extreme makeover on her which, while not as dramatic as Hathaway's transformation in The Princess Diaries, is still pretty striking. I always enjoy Tucci, and he makes Nigel both entertaining and sympathetic.
The movie is a coming-of-age story about Andy finding her way in the fashion industry and trying not to lose herself in the process. As such, the romantic subplot feels like a side trip, especially since neither of her love interests - live-in boyfriend Nate (Adrian Grenier) and famous writer Christian Thompson (Simon Baker) - is very exciting. Christian comes across as too cocky and looks about twice Andy's age, while Nate just seems completely bland and disengaged.
But people don't watch The Devil Wears Prada because they want to see a touching love story. They watch it so they can see Streep pushing Hathaway around, and there's plenty of that, though Miranda does eventually display a modicum of humanity. Is the title really a fair assessment? I'll let you be the judge!
Sunday, October 28, 2007
I'm Not Under Ella Enchanted's Spell
I love a good fairy tale, and I was charmed by Anne Hathaway in The Princess Diaries, so I figured Ella Enchanted
was right up my alley. The 2004 movie stars Hathaway as Ella of Frell, a
girl who, like Sleeping Beauty before her, has been given a most
inconvenient present by an unhinged fairy. Unlike Maleficent, Lucinda
(Vivica Fox) doesn't mean for her gift to be a curse, but blessing the
infant Ella with "obedience" means that throughout her life, she must do
exactly what she is told, no matter what the task. Before her untimely
death, her mother (Donna Dent) forbids Ella to tell anyone about her
gift, lest that knowledge be used against her. But can such an unusual
attribute be kept secret forever?
While there are bits of other fairy tales tossed in here and there, along with references to Monty Python (Eric Idle serves as the rhyming narrator), Ella is mostly a new twist on the story of Cinderella. After some background on Ella's infancy and childhod, the tale resumes with the marriage of Ella's father to the obnoxious and cosseted Dame Olga (Joanna Lumley), who has two daughters: the cruel, scheming Hattie (Lucy Punch) and ditzy, elastic-faced Olive (Jennifer Higham). Olive doesn't come into the story much, but her facial expressions are so bizarre that when she is on-screen, it's hard to focus on anyone else. Hattie is the one who most actively undercuts Ella, especially once she begins to notice a pattern behind the strange things her new step-sister does.
Ella does have allies: her aunt Mandy (Minnie Driver), a fairy of only moderate talent, and her best friend Areida (Parminder Nagra). And she finds more friends as she embarks on her journey to find Lucinda and beg her to allow her to live a life free from the demands of others. Chief among these are Slannen (Aiden McArdle), a rebellious elf who desperately wants to be a lawyer, and Prince Char (Hugh Dancy), the gorgeous prince who inspires Beatles-like furor among all the young maidens of the kingdom - except Ella.
Her own peculiar form of enslavement has made her extremely sympathetic to the plight of the kingdom's mistreated beings - namely, the elves, who are only allowed to work in the entertainment profession; the giants, who have been forced into slave labor; and the ogres, who would be wiped out entirely if the prince's diabolical uncle Edgar (Cary Elwes) had his way. She can't understand why someone with Prince Char's influence isn't doing more to help his kingdom, while the naive prince is just having his eyes opened to the evils around him.
The film's premise is promising, and I have a hunch that it is executed with rather more sophistication in the Gail Carson Levine book on which the movie is based. The trouble is that Ella is very clearly aimed at a tween audience and as such is an extension of the sort of corny, noisy fare shown on Nickelodeon and Disney nowadays. In trying to be hip by inserting contemporary elements such as rock music, which really doesn't gel with the fantasy setting, and references to current pop culture, it turns into a modern mish-mash. This technique worked pretty well for Shrek, but partly because Ella is live action, it just seems silly here.
One of the strangest parts of the movie is Heston (Steve Coogan), a sinister snake who acts as Edgar's henchman. I can buy cartoon villains having talking animal henchmen, such as Iago in Aladdin and Bartok in Anastasia. I can handle Lord Voldemort having a right-hand snake to whom he spouts instructions in Parseltongue. But to have a snake in a live action film just sitting there chatting away on the villain's shoulder is a little too much for me. It immediately makes Edgar less intimidating, since he just looks so ridiculous gabbing with that goofy snake. It's not that I can't accept The Princess Bride's dashing farm boy as a bad guy; he was chilling in The Jungle Book. Here, however, he's just campy.
Hathaway is sweet and engaging, and she's a good sport for doing all the crazy stuff the script calls for. There are a lot of cheesy special effects and groan-worthy puns that come flying at the audience, and there's likely to be some rolling of the eyes among anyone older than 15 or so, particularly with moments involving such gems of wit as the flatulence of giants. I wish that the music didn't seem so out of place, because Hathaway does have a very pleasant voice. I don't so much mind her big karaoke number, though, because it shows us how Ella's obedience actually can be a gift, since it forces her to use skills she might not ordinarily have. This also comes to light in a scene in which she rescues Slannen from distress with some impressive martial arts moves.
Dancy is my favorite cast member and nearly the only one who doesn't seem over-the-top. Not just a pretty face, the prince is kind and considerate, though he's so intimidated by the idea of being king that it seems he won't be much good for the kingdom. Meeting Ella changes his perspective, awakening his activism. I also liked Areida, but Ella's best friend is extremely underused after a nasty trick by Hattie knocks her out of the picture. I was hoping that she would play some sort of significant role later in Ella's adventures, coming to her aid in a tight spot as a testament to her unconditional friendship, but she only showed up for a moment at the end, just long enough to show us that Hattie's damage had been undone.
I like the clever reworking of the Cinderella story and the way Ella finally manages to free herself from the bonds of obedience that Lucinda imposed upon her, but of the several film versions of the classic fairy tale that I have seen, this would be near the bottom of my list of recommendations. It's nice that they seem to be encouraging social consciousness with this fable, but the same point was achieved much more skillfully with Ever After, whereas the fantasy elements are most beautifully preserved in the Rodgers and Hammerstein version with Leslie Ann Warren. Tweens might get a kick out of this spunky retelling, but this 26-year-old was not especially enchanted.
While there are bits of other fairy tales tossed in here and there, along with references to Monty Python (Eric Idle serves as the rhyming narrator), Ella is mostly a new twist on the story of Cinderella. After some background on Ella's infancy and childhod, the tale resumes with the marriage of Ella's father to the obnoxious and cosseted Dame Olga (Joanna Lumley), who has two daughters: the cruel, scheming Hattie (Lucy Punch) and ditzy, elastic-faced Olive (Jennifer Higham). Olive doesn't come into the story much, but her facial expressions are so bizarre that when she is on-screen, it's hard to focus on anyone else. Hattie is the one who most actively undercuts Ella, especially once she begins to notice a pattern behind the strange things her new step-sister does.
Ella does have allies: her aunt Mandy (Minnie Driver), a fairy of only moderate talent, and her best friend Areida (Parminder Nagra). And she finds more friends as she embarks on her journey to find Lucinda and beg her to allow her to live a life free from the demands of others. Chief among these are Slannen (Aiden McArdle), a rebellious elf who desperately wants to be a lawyer, and Prince Char (Hugh Dancy), the gorgeous prince who inspires Beatles-like furor among all the young maidens of the kingdom - except Ella.
Her own peculiar form of enslavement has made her extremely sympathetic to the plight of the kingdom's mistreated beings - namely, the elves, who are only allowed to work in the entertainment profession; the giants, who have been forced into slave labor; and the ogres, who would be wiped out entirely if the prince's diabolical uncle Edgar (Cary Elwes) had his way. She can't understand why someone with Prince Char's influence isn't doing more to help his kingdom, while the naive prince is just having his eyes opened to the evils around him.
The film's premise is promising, and I have a hunch that it is executed with rather more sophistication in the Gail Carson Levine book on which the movie is based. The trouble is that Ella is very clearly aimed at a tween audience and as such is an extension of the sort of corny, noisy fare shown on Nickelodeon and Disney nowadays. In trying to be hip by inserting contemporary elements such as rock music, which really doesn't gel with the fantasy setting, and references to current pop culture, it turns into a modern mish-mash. This technique worked pretty well for Shrek, but partly because Ella is live action, it just seems silly here.
One of the strangest parts of the movie is Heston (Steve Coogan), a sinister snake who acts as Edgar's henchman. I can buy cartoon villains having talking animal henchmen, such as Iago in Aladdin and Bartok in Anastasia. I can handle Lord Voldemort having a right-hand snake to whom he spouts instructions in Parseltongue. But to have a snake in a live action film just sitting there chatting away on the villain's shoulder is a little too much for me. It immediately makes Edgar less intimidating, since he just looks so ridiculous gabbing with that goofy snake. It's not that I can't accept The Princess Bride's dashing farm boy as a bad guy; he was chilling in The Jungle Book. Here, however, he's just campy.
Hathaway is sweet and engaging, and she's a good sport for doing all the crazy stuff the script calls for. There are a lot of cheesy special effects and groan-worthy puns that come flying at the audience, and there's likely to be some rolling of the eyes among anyone older than 15 or so, particularly with moments involving such gems of wit as the flatulence of giants. I wish that the music didn't seem so out of place, because Hathaway does have a very pleasant voice. I don't so much mind her big karaoke number, though, because it shows us how Ella's obedience actually can be a gift, since it forces her to use skills she might not ordinarily have. This also comes to light in a scene in which she rescues Slannen from distress with some impressive martial arts moves.
Dancy is my favorite cast member and nearly the only one who doesn't seem over-the-top. Not just a pretty face, the prince is kind and considerate, though he's so intimidated by the idea of being king that it seems he won't be much good for the kingdom. Meeting Ella changes his perspective, awakening his activism. I also liked Areida, but Ella's best friend is extremely underused after a nasty trick by Hattie knocks her out of the picture. I was hoping that she would play some sort of significant role later in Ella's adventures, coming to her aid in a tight spot as a testament to her unconditional friendship, but she only showed up for a moment at the end, just long enough to show us that Hattie's damage had been undone.
I like the clever reworking of the Cinderella story and the way Ella finally manages to free herself from the bonds of obedience that Lucinda imposed upon her, but of the several film versions of the classic fairy tale that I have seen, this would be near the bottom of my list of recommendations. It's nice that they seem to be encouraging social consciousness with this fable, but the same point was achieved much more skillfully with Ever After, whereas the fantasy elements are most beautifully preserved in the Rodgers and Hammerstein version with Leslie Ann Warren. Tweens might get a kick out of this spunky retelling, but this 26-year-old was not especially enchanted.
Monday, February 11, 2002
"You Saw Me When I Was Invisible."
Last Saturday, I went to the dollar theater and saw Joe Somebody,
a less-than-mediocre movie about an average guy who nobody noticed
suddenly becoming a somebody in the eyes of his colleagues. That
evening, I watched The Princess Diaries, which we had rented a
couple days earlier. This movie followed the same basic plot: nobody
becomes somebody. However, I thoroughly enjoyed this film while I had
little good to say about Joe Somebody.
The Princess Diaries centers around 15-year-old Mia Thermopolis (Anne Hathaway), a young woman completely devoid of grace and glamour. She hides behind a thick bush of frizz and a pair of glasses and is a first-class klutz. The popular kids only take note of her occasionally in order to make fun of her. Her life revolves around her best friend, the defiantly nerdy Lilly Moscovitz (Heather Matarazzo), and her cat Fat Louie, who lives like a king in her bedroom above her mom?s art studio in an abandoned firehouse in San Francisco. She is perhaps the least likely candidate for queendom imaginable, so when her grandmother Queen Clarice Renaldi (Julie Andrews), who is basically a stranger to her, shows up unexpectedly to tell her of her claim to the Genovian throne, Mia is flabbergasted. Her appalled reaction is not exactly what the stately queen had been hoping for.
Clarice explains that Mia's long-absent father was the prince of Genovia. Because of his untimely death, Mia is obligated to accept the role of princess or pass the rule on to a pair of stuffy aristocrats who are next in line. (These two are delightfully despicable and bear a strong resemblance in my mind to the Sackville-Bagginses, the couple in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings determined to inherit Bag End.) After much coercing, Mia agrees to consider the proposal, and she begins her training in courtly manners at the Genovian embassy. She also gets a personal chauffeur, the delightful Joseph (Hector Elizondo), the queen's head of security. Joseph's dry wit provides many laughs, and his empathy keeps Clarice from allowing her role as queen to overshadow her role as grandmother.
The scenes in which Mia attempts to transform herself into a princess are among the most amusing in the movie. I can certainly identify with her awkwardness, and I can only imagine what a disaster I would be as an aristocrat. One thing I can't identify with is the cruelty of Mia's classmates. Characters like Lana (Mandy Moore), the vicious cheerleader who makes Mia's school life miserable, are a teen movie staple, but I can't help but wonder if that sort of behavior really happens. I mean, I'm the biggest nerd around and it never happened to me, at least not to that degree and not in high school. At any rate, the distinction between popular and unpopular is very important in this movie and plays heavily into Mia's ultimate decision concerning her future.
Mia, just like Joe in the aforementioned Joe Somebody, finds herself suddenly surrounded by people who seem to be dying to associate with her. Her sudden popularity thrusts her into confusion, and her eagerness to be one of the cool kids causes her to slight her true friends, including Lilly's adorable brother, Michael (Robert Schwartzman), who is obviously hopelessly smitten with her. With the date fast approaching when she must formally announce whether she will accept the Genovian crown, Mia faces a difficult decision that will drastically affect her entire future.
I wanted to see The Princess Diaries when it was in the theater. I'm a sucker for Disney, and although I have found some of their recent live action films to be a bit lacking, this looked like a winner. For one thing, how often do you see a live action G-rated movie these days? It?s an extreme rarity, which is a shame for someone who almost always prefers G and PG films to PG-13 and R films. So the rating in itself intrigued me. And of course, there is Julie Andrews. The Sound of Music and Mary Poppins are both high on my list of favorite movies, so Julie Andrews is certainly likely to lure me into seeing a movie. Finally, I saw a lot of myself in Mia, and what girl doesn't want to imagine that someone like herself could become a princess?
The movie won me over completely. The plot might not be very original. I already compared it to Joe Somebody, and more specifically in follows in a long line of teen movies about awkward girls coming into their own, risking the loss of their true friends along the way. In this movie, however, we didn't have to deal with the crudeness and foul language that populates most teen flicks. Instead, what we got was a fairy tale film complete with charming characters and a touch of foot-popping romance. I have not read the book, so I cannot comment on the differences. Perhaps my opinion of the movie would be altered had I read the book first. But I find it hard to believe that knowledge of the book would lessen my enjoyment of the film. This is first-rate Disney fare, and I give The Princess Diaries my hearty recommendation.
The Princess Diaries centers around 15-year-old Mia Thermopolis (Anne Hathaway), a young woman completely devoid of grace and glamour. She hides behind a thick bush of frizz and a pair of glasses and is a first-class klutz. The popular kids only take note of her occasionally in order to make fun of her. Her life revolves around her best friend, the defiantly nerdy Lilly Moscovitz (Heather Matarazzo), and her cat Fat Louie, who lives like a king in her bedroom above her mom?s art studio in an abandoned firehouse in San Francisco. She is perhaps the least likely candidate for queendom imaginable, so when her grandmother Queen Clarice Renaldi (Julie Andrews), who is basically a stranger to her, shows up unexpectedly to tell her of her claim to the Genovian throne, Mia is flabbergasted. Her appalled reaction is not exactly what the stately queen had been hoping for.
Clarice explains that Mia's long-absent father was the prince of Genovia. Because of his untimely death, Mia is obligated to accept the role of princess or pass the rule on to a pair of stuffy aristocrats who are next in line. (These two are delightfully despicable and bear a strong resemblance in my mind to the Sackville-Bagginses, the couple in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings determined to inherit Bag End.) After much coercing, Mia agrees to consider the proposal, and she begins her training in courtly manners at the Genovian embassy. She also gets a personal chauffeur, the delightful Joseph (Hector Elizondo), the queen's head of security. Joseph's dry wit provides many laughs, and his empathy keeps Clarice from allowing her role as queen to overshadow her role as grandmother.
The scenes in which Mia attempts to transform herself into a princess are among the most amusing in the movie. I can certainly identify with her awkwardness, and I can only imagine what a disaster I would be as an aristocrat. One thing I can't identify with is the cruelty of Mia's classmates. Characters like Lana (Mandy Moore), the vicious cheerleader who makes Mia's school life miserable, are a teen movie staple, but I can't help but wonder if that sort of behavior really happens. I mean, I'm the biggest nerd around and it never happened to me, at least not to that degree and not in high school. At any rate, the distinction between popular and unpopular is very important in this movie and plays heavily into Mia's ultimate decision concerning her future.
Mia, just like Joe in the aforementioned Joe Somebody, finds herself suddenly surrounded by people who seem to be dying to associate with her. Her sudden popularity thrusts her into confusion, and her eagerness to be one of the cool kids causes her to slight her true friends, including Lilly's adorable brother, Michael (Robert Schwartzman), who is obviously hopelessly smitten with her. With the date fast approaching when she must formally announce whether she will accept the Genovian crown, Mia faces a difficult decision that will drastically affect her entire future.
I wanted to see The Princess Diaries when it was in the theater. I'm a sucker for Disney, and although I have found some of their recent live action films to be a bit lacking, this looked like a winner. For one thing, how often do you see a live action G-rated movie these days? It?s an extreme rarity, which is a shame for someone who almost always prefers G and PG films to PG-13 and R films. So the rating in itself intrigued me. And of course, there is Julie Andrews. The Sound of Music and Mary Poppins are both high on my list of favorite movies, so Julie Andrews is certainly likely to lure me into seeing a movie. Finally, I saw a lot of myself in Mia, and what girl doesn't want to imagine that someone like herself could become a princess?
The movie won me over completely. The plot might not be very original. I already compared it to Joe Somebody, and more specifically in follows in a long line of teen movies about awkward girls coming into their own, risking the loss of their true friends along the way. In this movie, however, we didn't have to deal with the crudeness and foul language that populates most teen flicks. Instead, what we got was a fairy tale film complete with charming characters and a touch of foot-popping romance. I have not read the book, so I cannot comment on the differences. Perhaps my opinion of the movie would be altered had I read the book first. But I find it hard to believe that knowledge of the book would lessen my enjoyment of the film. This is first-rate Disney fare, and I give The Princess Diaries my hearty recommendation.
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