On the simplest level, it's been directed with a lively but coherent look that's appealing enough, embracing the fractured (but piece-togetherable) narrative that we've grown to handle in the DVR age. And the two lead performances are fresh and appealing enough to stand out over the typical Hollywood romantic comedy casts and emphasis on outfits, make-up, hair. I've heard a number of women tell me how much they liked watching Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and I found myself most interested in Zooey Deschanel's choices. She's a quirky actress for the studio machine, but intelligent and credible for an indie like this, which needs to appeal to the same borderline-yuppie twentysomethings and their wannabes that they are portraying.
On the story level, I think some critics who compare it unfavorably against the film referenced as a character favorite in the movie, The Graduate.
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This movie isn't trying to replicate The Graduate, it's trying to reverse it, in the sense that the scene that's shown is the very end of the earlier movie, when director Mike Nichols kept the camera rolling on Dustin Hoffman and Katherine Ross during that last shot escaping on the bus. Hoffman has rescued Ross from her wedding to a man she doesn't love, she's still in her bridal dress, and as the shot rolls long, Hoffman and Ross separate into their own post-acting worlds, the shot reading that the gravity of their sudden decision is sinking in, and maybe they aren't really suited for each other.
As Deschanel watches the movie with Gordon-Levitt she is crying, and after the movie he misinterprets her tears. That's when (in the mentally reconstructed narrative) she questions their relationship and essentially breaks up with him, or he storms out of the restaurant on her.
So here's the core interesting aspect of the story, the thing that hasn't been done quite this way before, or effectively in a long time: it's a coming-of-age story (Gordon-Levitt's) disguised as a romantic comedy. It's ultimately the story of a guy playing over his head, out of his league.
During the relationship, he's working at a greeting card job, not manning up to fight the good fight and get the architecture job he should. He's only driven to act when he discovers her engaged to another man, and in both the distant glance we get of him and the not-inexpensive look of her engagement ring, it appears that Mr. Right is maybe a little older, more mature, more successful than our protagonist.
For urban twentysomethings it's hard to make a movie about Mr. and Mrs. Right finding each other -- they get married later than their hometown peers. But it's also hard making a movie about a failed relationship pay off. This one's about the girl who got away, but she's also the girl who starts the guy on a long road to worthiness.
Maybe he's there at the end, or on the cusp. But the final ingredient that makes this movie a box office winner in its category is the final line, a witty send-off, if more clever than deep. It's wry enough to send the audience out happy but thinking they're pretty clever for getting it, too.
I'll be interested to see how much the movie resonates over time for the core audience. It'll be hard for it to define a generation like The Graduate did, but will it even be remembers for bits and pieces of connection like Reality Bites?
Now get off your couch and go see The Hurt Locker while it's still playing in movie theaters.
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