Happiness: Seeking happiness in social awkwardness

Human beings are known as social animals. In the animal kingdom, humans are the only known animal which has a need to form and live in a society with the fellowship of other humans. Humans, as they are, are not meant to live alone and find it extremely difficult to be isolated from their own kind. The whole notion of living in a society is human in origin and cannot be seen to be perfectly replicated by any other form of animal.

Joy is a hapless 30 something spinster who has a hopeless love life and no stable career. She is flanked by two sisters who are successful in their own life in different ways; Trish is a happily married mother of two children while Helen is an established author. Both her sisters serve as constant reminders of what her life could be and what it currently lacks at a time when she breaks off ties with one of her dates and decides to move into a new profession. Joy and her sisters are unaware of small problems in their family which suddenly start to rise as they realise they do not have a perfect world. Bill, Trish’s psychiatrist husband, has a secret paedophilic obsession for teenage boys. He has his eye on his elder son’s best friend and his unnatural passion leads to problems in his family. Allen is Helen’s obese and unattractive neighbour who has perverted tendencies; one of which is to violently lay a sexual assault on Helen. As he faces up to facts and feelings, he finds himself in between tracks in his life. Joy’s father has a late midlife crisis during which he decides to separate from his wife without divorcing her. All these small problems leave Joy’s family stranded as they try to keep up appearances and remain the ideal happy family.

The film is an absolutely brilliant work of art. It shows human relations in a raw and unnatural manner as it portrays individual characters working towards attaining their own idea of happiness. The main focus of the film is to show how people go astray in their pursuit of happiness and their own pleasures which may not be on the same plane as those around them. The film has several undertones of social standings as it portrays the relationships between its different characters. It especially puts forth the awkwardness in social situations.

There is some or the other meaning to be found in each scene of the film. Whether it is down to playing the awkward silences during a breakup in a public setting or the dialogue delivery in the weird conversations between a father and son as they discuss masturbation, there is a keen focus on showing the clumsiness that is experienced in everyday social situations. The film proves its quality in certain scenes as it is able to construct the emotion and feeling for the audience without the gross overuse of a background score. The film is able to draw its audience in and make them feel sympathetic for the characters in spite of the fact that the characters are in horrible positions which are mostly of their own doing.

Writer and director Todd Solondz managed to pull off a brilliant job with this film with the aid of a minimal budget and a star cast. The film really makes the audience think as they put their feet into the shoes of the characters in each awkward situation. It is a must watch film which has a mild shock value but ends up being quite a good watch.

United: A depiction of disaster, passion and brotherhood

A famous personality in the world of football, Bill Shankly, once stated that “Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that”. This single quote is able to capture the emotion of any true football fan. It shows the passion and drive that goes into the sport which crosses any barriers, especially when it comes to a time of disaster that the sport happens to witness. One such huge instance is depicted in the 2011 TV drama film United.

In the late 1950’s, the football club Manchester United was managed by a man named Matt Busby, a revolutionary in the world of football who propagated training youngsters from within the ranks of the club to build a youthful team that was bound together by a love for the club and a sense of comradeship. This led to his team consisting of young adults who were affectionately nicknamed ‘Busby Babes’. Bobby Charlton was a 20 year old footballer who was just breaking into the team. He was coached by Jimmy Murphy who had a special spot of affection for him and supported him as he started making a name for himself. In 1958, the entire team flew to Belgrade, Yugoslavia, for a match, except for Jimmy who was attending to other duties. On the return flight to Manchester, England, the plane stopped off at Munich, West Germany, to refuel. In several attempts to take off amid the torrid weather, the plane had a horrendous crash which led to the deaths of 23 of its 44 passengers, including 7 members of the Manchester United football team. The story is told from the perspective of the surviving Bobby Charlton as he and Jimmy Murphy attempt to reconstruct the football team with support coming from around the world of football and local community.

The story is an emotional perspective for anyone that loves the sport of football and all that it stands for. Even those who have no affiliation to the sport can understand the impact of the disaster on the lives of the players, the families, the community and others. Even actor David Tennant, who plays the role of Jimmy Murphy, claimed to have no particular soft spot towards the sport but was moved by the story and put in a rousing performance in the film. The story showed how the footballing community came together in a time of distress. It is a chronicle of an important event which claimed the lives of a few, wrecked the emotion of the survivors and shook the lives of many.

Whether a supporter of the sport or not, the film is a must watch. It does not particularly depict the sport itself but is more about the occurrences in the lives of the people the sport affects. It is possible for anyone to connect with the story and put themselves in the shoes of the people on screen.

The Informant!: A whistleblower turns defendant

There are many instances where films made on true life events are captivating and made splendidly. However, there are even more instances where such films based on true stories do not quite work out and end up being just average efforts on the part of the filmmaker. Quite often, this can depend on the story which forms the base of the script and how interesting the true events were, and the way in which the director chooses to make the film in the end. Such is a case with director Steven Soderbergh’s 2009 film The Informant!, the story for which is derived from a book based on true events.

Mark Whitacre was a Corporate Vice President with lysine developing company Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) in 1992. When he informs his superiors of a case of corporate espionage involving his own company, they decide to approach the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to smoke out the mole and arrest the culprits who are blackmailing the company. Things turn hilariously unprecedented when Mark himself confesses to the FBI agents of his company’s involvement in international price fixing scandals and agrees to be an informant to the FBI thereby making himself a mole in the company. Mark informs the agents that his company’s top executives, as well as himself, would meet with competitors to fix the price and volume of the products being manufactured. The FBI agents now ask Mark to collect evidence against his bosses which requires him to go through inconvenient situations like wearing a wire, tapping phone conversations and video recording meetings involving international executives. Mark struggles to deal with his desire to help the FBI, show loyalty to his company, manage his family and sort out his personal hidden agenda as the story goes on.

The film has several twists and turns which come about through revelations made by the characters. The protagonist in the form of Mark Whitacre is an exceptionally neurotic character which is revealed in due course of the film. The film has a first-person narration during its entire course which is provided by the protagonist. Although narration is considered a faux-pas in filmmaking, the format used in this film does not aid the storytelling process but is mostly random musings on the part of the character. As the film goes on, it is evident that the character cannot be trusted because of the situations in the story and the increasing randomness and patchy intervals at which the narration occurs. As such, the narration helps with the comedic effect of the film and helps establish the confused identity of the protagonist. The narration eventually makes the audience lose its previous apathy for the protagonist which is later replaced with bemusement at his chosen course of action.

The Informant! isn’t a particularly splendid film. It is an average turn out from Steven Soderbergh from a twisting case that started with a whistleblower.

Dumbo: When you see an elephant fly

No matter what age you may reach, you are never truly too old to enjoy cartoons. One of the reasons for this is that most cartoons are made as family movies which appeal to people of all age groups. Another reason is that animation helps portray certain scenes and ideas which would otherwise be inconvenient to perform in a normal live-action format. This is also the case with the 1941 animated classic Dumbo from Walt Disney.

As storks fly high above a circus and deliver babies to animals in their cages, an elephant by the name of Mrs Jumbo is displeased to not receive her little bundle of joy. As the circus packs up to move to another location, Mrs Jumbo is despondent but goes along nevertheless. En route the train journey, a stork finally comes along and delivers a little baby elephant to the expectant mother. Mrs Jumbo decides to name her newborn Jumbo Jr and showers her affection upon him. But what she is slow to realise is that Jumbo Jr has exceptionally large ears which form the base of ridicule that is cast upon him by other animals in the circus. The glares and lewd mocks are not spared even from the visitors to the circus, the other performers or the ringmaster. This leads to him being nicknamed Dumbo as a degrading remark about his large flapping ears and his clumsy nature. Dumbo is demoted to working as an extra in the routine performed by the clowns as his mother is locked up in solitary confinement in her bid to protect him. He must now prove his worth with the aid of his one and only friend, a mouse.

Dumbo is one of the many Walt Disney feature films which go down as classics in the genre of animation. In hindsight, the film shows plenty of angles of society in the time frame which it was made. The film shows the negative aspects of stereotyping and prejudice which is witnessed by Dumbo during the course of the film. It also shows how members of an elite society try to separate themselves from people they wouldn’t consider to fit the bill of their standards and how they wash their hands off issues that do not concern them which can be seen in the scorn shown by the other elephants towards Dumbo.

One of the few negative aspects of the film can be seen in a racial stereotyping which can be witnessed in a scene where the two main characters meet the crows. There is also a scene involving intoxication and hallucinations which does not seem to fit into the film especially considering the startling style in which the scene has been made and the fact that the film is primarily meant for family audiences.

The animation, the dialogues and the song performances in the film are stellar. There is good reason the film can be hailed as a classic for the ages. It ranks well in the must-watch category.

Celeste & Jesse Forever: A modern anti-love romance film

It is normal human tendency to get bored with what we are always experiencing and want a change from the ordinary. It is for this same reason that we hate clichés and things that we have already gone through. One of the most clichéd plots in film is that of romance. The usual plot of a romance film can be summed up as a cliché of boy meets girl, they fall in love, go through a strenuous circumstance that takes a toll on their relationship and eventually they end up together. So it would be a refreshing change when a film like Celeste & Jesse Forever comes along.

Celeste is a hard-working trend predictor in the world of pop culture. She is married to Jesse, a slacker with no job who depends entirely on Celeste including living in with her after having separated for 6 months. All the same, Celeste and Jesse are best friends and continue to have a healthy but confused relationship in their separated marriage. It finally reaches a point where their friends burst open about how weird their relationship is and forces them to move on and finalise their divorce. During this time, one of Jesse’s past flings comes back into the picture and Celeste is forced to get over him, find someone new to fall in love with and bring her fading career back on track.

While the title reads Celeste & Jesse Forever, it may not necessarily refer to their relationship as a couple but in effect is an emphasis on the two of them as friends who are inseparable. The film is much less of a romantic film and more of drama with elements of comedy thrown into it; in fact, it isn’t a romantic film at all. The protagonist, Celeste, finds it difficult to move on with her life while dealing with the divorce as she compares herself to her partner who is a flop in the beginning and slowly begins to have a stable career and love life as hers begins to diminish.

Celeste & Jesse Forever isn’t actually a love story; far from it. It is a modern tale of two people who are in love with each other, and best friends, who find themselves at a crossroad as their romantic relationship fails but their friendship stays intact. It is a story that can apply to many odd couples, and individuals, who find themselves in a similar situation. It is nothing special but maybe something relevant and different from run of the mill commercial Hollywood.

It's A Wonderful Life: A true embodiment of the spirit of Christmas

Everyone witnesses a time when they feel absolutely helpless and dejected because of some or the other situation. Quite often, at times such as these, we imagine how easy it would have been if we were incredibly rich, or if we just fell off the face of the Earth and had no troubles. In absolutely dire situations you also here of people wishing they had never been born so as to have not come across any trouble at all. A similar premise forms the beginning of the story of It’s A Wonderful Life, the 1946 classic Christmas themed film directed by Frank Capra.

A consortium of angels in Heaven is discussing a situation on Earth which needs their attention. They decide to send a second-class angel down to Earth to deal with the problem. Before they send him down, they brief him on the person in question who is George Bailey. George was a good man throughout his life. He sacrificed many of his personal hopes and dreams for the happiness of others. At a young age he showed great courage when he saved his brother from drowning and lost partial hearing in one ear. He also helped a man he worked for when he stopped him from carelessly mixing poison into his packaged bottles. Later on, he had plans of travelling around Europe. But these were cut short when the passing away of his father required him to take over the family business to stop it from falling in the hands of a snobbish old man who wanted nothing but profits for himself. As a young man he helped out many people by sanctioning loans which would help them build houses and start new businesses. He even handed money to his brother that was saved up for his own education in lieu of his brother getting a good education. When his brother completed his studies, George allowed him to follow his dreams and continued taking care of the business in the same old town instead of forcing his brother to do so. George eventually settled down to marry and have children with his childhood sweetheart. On Christmas Eve, when a tax examination is eminent, George realises that his uncle misplaced 8,000 dollars of the business funds. Realising that this will mean certain imprisonment, George decides to take the blame on himself and feels downtrodden. He finds himself standing on a bridge and contemplating suicide so his family can receive the money from his insurance policy when his guardian angel Clarence Odbody is sent down to help him.

The film is a classic inspirational tale. The final outcome and how George finds his way out of his troubles is what makes the entire film come together perfectly. The beauty in the film is the course which it takes from a boy being ready to sacrifice life and limb who grows into a young man ready to give up on his dreams, eventually maturing into an adult who looks out for people around him and is somehow afflicted by financial troubles and is helped out in the most miraculous way by the people who love him.

Although the style of dramatised acting and melodramatic situations does seem to be out on a limb, it works perfectly well for the film since the sordid sweetness in the end becomes the highlight of the film. The dialogues are of an archaic and colloquial form of English which employs slang at times but fits well into the nature of the film. The background scoring also does seem to dramatise but isn’t overtly misused.

The film and its story are a perfect sample of living a simple but honest life. The film is also an embodiment of the spirit of Christmas which is why the film is synonymous with the holiday season. As a film, it has its flaws and may not appeal to those who are slow to forgive the overly dramatic but it is still quite an extraordinary film nevertheless.

Babel: Four stories that spiral from one rifle

A film with a non-linear storyline is always intriguing to review, especially if it has been made well. Babel, the 2006 release of Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu, has a non-linear plot which actually ties together four different storyline across four different countries in three continents. The effort of making four different stories, with individual protagonists, must be hard enough, but to see them have relevance to each other in a way that has them connected is quite a remarkable feat.

In the remote mountains of Morocco lives a poor goat herder with his family. In order to keep the jackals away from his flock, he has purchased a gun from a friend which he hands over to his sons as they take the goats out to graze on the mountains. The rifle is meant to be for the protection of the goats, but the kids have their own pissing contest as they aim a tourist bus traveling through the mountain pass. Richard Jones and his wife Susan are on a vacation in Morocco when tragedy strikes the couple. Susan is struck in the shoulder by a stray bullet and struggles to hang on to life as Richard fights his way to get her proper medical attention. Meanwhile in the United States of America, Amelia is tending to Richard’s children as he and his wife are away. Amelia is unable to find a babysitter for the children and is forced to take them along with her to Mexico to attend the wedding of her son where she has a run in with the law. In Japan, the deaf and mute girl Chieko is fed up of being ignored by boys her age because of her disability. She reaches the end of her wits as she tries to engage anyone who will be willing to sleep with her, just about the same time that police officers visit her home to interrogate her father.

Babel brings together tragedy in more forms than one. With themes of death, rejection, legality, police brutality, and more, it shocks the viewer out of a comfortable shell. It puts forward a drastic situation which leads to a ripple effect across different nations for individuals who are connected but entirely unaware of the fact. The film has both the drastic, as it deals with a hard-hitting issue as death, and the subtle, as it shows that rejection can be a big part of someone’s psychological changes.

The film has a plot-line which moves back and forth between the four stories. At some points in a particular story, it peaks before switching to the next story so as to leave a minor cliffhanger; at other times it solves the problem in a situation before cutting to the next story. It brilliantly portrays each protagonist in detail so the audience has an idea of what goes on in the head and heart of the character. Richard Jones, the American tourist and overall protagonist of the film, is a caring father who has to face a test to prove his love to his wife when tragedy strikes and their already rocky relationship meets a challenge. Yussef is just a poor boy living with his family in the mountains who faces turmoil as his family is ripped apart because of a single mistake made by him. Amelia is a loving old woman who takes care of the Jones children as if they were her own but is put in an unfortunate circumstance which she can’t manipulate and eventually leads to trouble for her and the people she cares about the most. Chieko is a deaf and mute teenager who wants to be treated as a normal girl despite her disability, but unfortunately finds that she has to do something drastic in order to enjoy her first sexual experience.

The fact that director Alejandro González Iñárritu has made all four stories revolve around and kick off from a single rifle is what holds the film together quite interestingly. There is a certain sense of anticipation with every new fact revealed in the film and every time the story cuts off and starts at another place. The non-linear format helps the script quite a bit since it builds up a level of anticipation. Even the performances put in by the actors are quite special.

Babel is an example of a butterfly effect, or ripple effect, where the plot takes off from one focal point to change multiple destinies. It is quite a special film which can be easily appreciated.