Sunday, May 22, 2011

Movie List 2011: 20.) The Beaver

The Beaver
A lot of the talk about The Beaver revolved around the question of whether art was imitating life here.  Mel Gibson plays a horribly depressed, rapidly failing man who is hitting rock bottom when a discarded beaver puppet starts him on his path to recovery.  Mel Gibson is- it would seem- an alcoholic, maybe depressed man who happens to be rapidly flailing while his once stellar career is hitting rock bottom.  Yeah, I can see parallels.  The only question is: will Mel- puppet or not- save his own ass in real life?  Who knows.  But the parallels make it hard to divorce Mel Gibson, the actor, from... and you know what?...I have to look up the name of the character he played on screen.  Not good.  Walter Black.  Gibson's character was Walter Black/The Beaver (a fine Michael Caine impression if I ever 'eard one- though I wish they would have just gotten Michael Caine to voice the beaver...but that would have caused difficulties for the story).

I wanted to say that the difficulty separating the actor from the character he portrays wasn't that big of a distraction.  Clearly, I'm wrong...or hopeful.  It was.  Or perhaps, I, and a number of others like me, didn't.  So, Mel Gibson has moved in with good friend (and the movie's director and lead actress) Jodie Foster, and they've adopted Anton Yelchin (who was pretty damn solid here) and some no-name moppet direct from the Hollywood Moppet Stock Drawer.  His job was to be cute, and so far as kids go, he succeeded, I suppose. So Mel needs help and the Beaver puppet is the answer.  And then complications ensue.  Will Mel recover enough to right his career?  Will somebody just get this guy into a padded cell?  What the hell is going on out there?  The problem here is both the story and the folks who bring it to life.  Foster really is a friend of Gibson's and has said she supports him and just wants him to get his life back together.  Yelchin really was Gibson's son for like 6 months in the early 1990s... no just kidding.  Yelchin and his on-screen love interest played by Jennifer Lawrence, were the best things about the movie.  I actually would have liked to have just seen a movie revolving more around their storyline.  Guess I'll just have to go rent Charlie Bartlett.  At any rate, all I'm saying is that I just kept thinking: what do you suppose Gibson is thinking this whole time?  Does he see the parallels? (Not that they are really that great- Walter Black is depressed.  Mel Gibson is fucked up.  Is he an alcoholic?  I suppose.  But he's bringing a lot of this on himself).  Does he see he needs to get better?  Will he?  And so on and so forth.  So, yes, it was distracting.  But that doesn't mean that everyone isn't giving it their all.  They do.  It's just that Foster and Gibson never really fade into their characters.  And that's tough to ignore.

Gibson, for his part, can still be magnetic on screen.  He draws you in and holds your attention.  Maybe thats because there is also something equally magnetic about an inevitable car wreck unfolding before your eyes, I don't know.  But he was engaging.  As Mel Gibson.  I don't know.  The guys said and done some shitty things, but he has talent.  Talent shouldn't equal forgiveness- automatic forgiveness.  But people need a shot to make amends.  So, I hope for his sake he does.  In the meantime, he probably shouldn't jump at too many more crazy-dude roles.  Too close to home.

But enough dwelling on the one aspect of the film that everyone-naturally-dwells on.  The story itself wasn't so great.  It was akin to a less homier version of Lars and the Real Girl (a movie a liked a lot).  You know, the Ryan Gosling-starring flick about a guy and the sex doll that snaps him out of his mental issues.  The Beaver may display something darker about mental illness, but it still doesn't do any kind of justice to the issue of depression and mental illness.  I think Foster was going for a vibe of laugh til you think... then cringe, but to me, it just all seemed wrong.  Can't all these people see that this guy is seriously fucked up?  He needs professional help.  The movie hinted that Foster's character (looking up the name again) Meredith had done everything she could to help him out, and that Walter had tried all the pills and docs he could handle.  So he starts talking to himself through a hand puppet... which he claims a doctor wrote off on (the doc didn't).  And so he jabbers on to himself (and the movie never makes it seem imaginary- you are meant to think Walter is talking to himself and the folks in the movie are meant to see Walter is talking to himself in a funky accent) and things seem to get better... on the surface.  Which is what I don't get.  People were allowing things to get better.  If Mel Gibson- in real life- started talking to himself through a puppet... and went on TV shows and everything doing so, he gets committed.  Plain and simple.  Walter Black in Foster's world?  He goes on the Today show and becomes a phenomenon.  Hmmm.  A world of enablers.  It just didn't add up for me.  But maybe I'm over thinking it.  Foster does try to bring some reality to it at the end, but she never really ties it together in any way.  Well she tries, but I don't think it's done so well.  Add to all that some issues with story development (there's really not much back story- Walter just turned into a sad sack of crap and tried everything), pacing, and overt/unnecessary/frustrating messages (everyone is fucked up somehow- Yelchin has daddy issues and Lawrence has her family issues- but it'll all be ok if we have someone to leeeeeaaaaannnn onnnnnnnnnnnnn.  Way to rev up the platitude machine, Jodie).  The whole movie is aiming for something... some kind of significant meaning... but it just doesn't get there.  Or maybe, by the end, I just didn't care.  Or it was off the mark.  Well, clearly the movie was off the mark.  But I wonder how different it'd  have been if Mel wasn't so intent on career suicide.  Who knows.   As it was, I just couldn't get beyond the life versus art bit... and it's never a good sign when you have to check out imdb to remember the names of the lead characters from a movie you just finished watching about an hour ago... is it?

Grade: C-

1 comment:

  1. For the record: I actually believe that when things get really screwed up, you WILL be ok so long as you do have an awesome support system of family and friends. Can't say enough about it. It's more the WAY Foster comes right out and spouts it that gets me. It came off as so... trite. And she can do better than that...well, I'd like to think so anyway.

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