Demolition

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Jean-Marc Vallee/Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Naomi Watts, Chris Cooper, Judah Lewis and Heather Lind

Jake Gyllenhaal has become adept at playing dark, oddball characters who contend with bizarre situations or are thrust into them involuntarily. His character in director Jean-Marc Vallee's new film; Demolition is no less fascinating or strange as he plays a man who slowly becomes unhinged after he loses his wife in a violent car collision. Vallee's film keeps us emotionally involved in the protagonist's quest to establish an emotional connection to a deceased wife to whom he denied love and attention and if his arc seems a little too pat, it is nevertheless unpredictable and often full of jarring surprises.

Gyllenhaal plays Davis, who we see riding with his wife Julia (Heather Lind) down a New York street. She chides him for not listening to her and his general inattentiveness; drawing on his inability to deal with their leaky refrigerator as an example. As if to confirm his wife's assessment, he barely listens to his wife's querulous patter. A second later, another car strikes their car violently on his wife's side. Moments later, we see a series of images in Davis' head of his wife flash before our eyes, which serve as a visual segue to a shot of Julia's father Phil (the superb Chris Cooper) walking toward him in a hospital; nearly collapsing from the knowledge that his daughter has just passed. What is particularly unusual is Davis' reaction, which is decidedly impassive. Even more bewildering is what he does shortly thereafter. After trying to buy peanut M&Ms' from a vending machine, the candy becomes stuck; prompting Davis to complain to a hospital staff member. The worker deflects Davis' complaint by informing him that a vending machine company is responsible for malfunctions. Davis approaches the machine to snap a iPhone shot of the vending machine's address. The scene is astonishing for several reasons. Almost incomprehensible is his glaring indifference to the news of his wife's death but even more so is his craving for candy and his displeasure at being cheated. Is Davis numb; too shocked to grasp his loss? Or was his wife right about his aloofness?

The story takes a stranger turn when Davis writes a letter of complaint to the vending machine company at the funeral reception; detailing not only the candy incident at the hospital but the loss of his wife. The letter we hear Davis read in voice-over gives us background information on his life and his wife, including his employment at his father-in-law's investment firm. While at the reception, we also see Davis practicing a grieved expression in the mirror.

Davis surprises his father-in-law and his colleagues when he shows up for work shortly after the funeral. Not giving an explanation for his presence, Davis proceeds with business.

Something Phil says to Davis inspires more peculiar behavior when he tells his son-in-law that sometimes it is necessary to dismantle and take something apart to understand its insides. In scenes that follow, we see Davis dismantle his refrigerator as he tries to ascertain the cause of the leak and a creaky bathroom stall door at his office; separating the discrete parts neatly on the floor. And most confounding of all; he strips his office computer; leaving the wreck in myriad parts on the office floor. Phil's dismay prompts Davis' compulsory leave of absence.

Davis' letters to the vending machine company become frequent, which elicit a response from a customer service representative named Karen, who begins following him surreptitiously. When Karen agrees to meet Davis at a diner, she watches him from the parking lot and calls him on his cellphone to tell him she can't join him. But in the days following, she continues to follow him and read his letters. Davis tries to find her at work then at her house. To his surprise, he encounters her boss at the door, who is more than just a little angry and puzzled to see a customer on his doorstep at 11pm. Karen (Naomi Watts) is naturally flabbergasted at the sight of Davis but accepts his latest letter before discouraging him to return.

But Karen's boyfriend leaves on a trip, allowing Davis to visit her at home. One might expect the friendship to quickly morph into something sexual but instead we the makings of a quirky friendship. Soon Davis becomes acquainted with Karen's son Chris (Judah Lewis, in a performance that is sure to make Hollywood notice), who offers him a gruff greeting sprinkled with four-letter words. Davis learns Karen's relationship with her teenage son is troubled by a lack of connection in a way that echoes Davis' problems with his wife.

As Davis' friendship with Karen burgeons, he becomes friendly with Chris; discovering a troubled teen in need of an ear and and fatherly companionship. Davis learns Chris has been suspended from school for giving a too-honest and too-graphic account of an incident in the Afghan War. With time on his hands, Chris joins Davis in his efforts to demolish his home.

It is fairly clear at this point in the film that Davis' obsession with dismantling objects and demolishing his own home is a metaphor for his attempt to break down his life and as his father-in-law said; "to understand what is in the inside." It also serves as a symbolic means to understanding his failed relationship with his wife, who haunts his waking life as a specter.

The more time Davis spends with Karen and Chris, the more he becomes estranged from his job and his in-laws, particularly Phil, who is angered by his son-in-law apparent apathy to a scholarship fund he has formed in honor of his daughter's memory.

Strangeness abounds in Davis' behavior as he and Chris test a bullet-proof vest in the woods with Karen's boyfriend's gun. Chris shoots Davis in the side and just as he recovers from the bullet's ferocious impact, Chris shoots him again. The scene, though harrowing in its own way, shows the growing trust between Davis and Chris. When Chris becomes more comfortable with Davis, he confides in him one day about his sexual confusion. The issue is made more poignant when Davis catches Chris dressing up in the bathroom.

In spite of Davis' behavior, which continues on its destructive course (he buys a bulldozer on e-bay to facilitate his home's collapse, only to be thwarted by the defective vehicle), he comes closer to dealing with his wife's death on emotional terms. But shocking developments are never in short supply in Vallee's film. While demolishing dresser drawers in his home, he discovers his wife's ultra-sound photo. Davis' judgement being unsound, he chooses to confront his in-laws about it during the scholarship-fund awards ceremony. As he heads to the door, his mother-in-law reveals another shocker about the baby.

As the story winds down, a few threads are tied-up though not neatly. Davis' issues with his wife are resolved in a semi-satisfying manner and the film's final scene reveals a rapprochement that is significant for its happy resolution.

So much is happening in Vallee's film, it is amazing how the various characters and scenes manage to cohere. The tone shifts at times, from dark drama to dark comedy to blithely surreal to upbeat conclusion. I'm still not sure if the film works as a whole but so much of it is too wonderfully eccentric to dismiss. One of my favorite shots in the film is of Davis walking toward the camera on a crowded city sidewalk. As he moves forward, one notices that the crowd is effectively moving backward--a nice, subtle, visual touch.

As much as I enjoyed the film, there is something about the end that seems incongruent to everything that came before. Or maybe I've become suspicious of films that insist on buoyant endings. One could pose a counterargument that the ending is well-earned. And does the demolition metaphor work? Is it too heavy-handed?

Vallee's soundtrack is quite delightful. I like music that is directly incorporated into the story. Heart's Crazy on You is not only part of the soundtrack but the song itself becomes part of a question Davis poses to a gathering of his office colleagues during a meeting.

I like Vallee's film. I found its flaws to be minor or negligible. I don't think it's the great film it had the potential to be but it worked well enough. Its limited release will work against it but it will find its way to those who will appreciate its oddities.

Mistress America

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Noah Baumbach/Greta Gerwig, Lola Kirke, Matthew Shear and Michael Chernus

If you were feeling cheated that director Noah Baumbach had only one film to dislike in 2015, then let me mollify your disappointment. His new release of the insufferable and grating Mistress America quickly follows on the heels of While We're Young; which failed to dazzle audiences back in the early spring. His earlier film, though hardly great, wasn't gag-inducing. His new film, which he co-wrote with his muse and girlfriend Greta Gerwig, pulls out all the stops to be irritating and hellishly unfunny.

The problems with this film could roll out endlessly on an assembly line conveyor belt. Aside from unfunny characters and dialogue, its major flaws are its two female leads: Greta Gerwig and Lola Kirke, who quickly become ear-sores. Gerwig has fast become one of the more annoying actresses in cinema and that's saying a lot. You have to be ferociously industrious to be more of an irritant than Keira Knightley and Cameron Diaz. The last Baumbach/Gerwig character creation: Frances Ha was commensurately annoying.

Baumbach and Gerwig, in conceiving Brooke, were aiming for complexity in creating a character who is supposed to be infuriating, narcissistic, egotistical, ambitious, petty, manic but also redeemably charming. That approach to character design is sound but Baumbach and Gerwig fall well short of their ambition. Gerwig's Brooke not only makes one wish she would shut up for one second and not express all her ridiculous ideas and thoughts, but suffer exile; preferably somewhere in war-torn Syria.

When the film begins, we see a lonely, socially-awkward and romantically-challenged young Barnard student named Tracy (Lola Kirke). It doesn't help that her writing ambitions, which involve having a story accepted by the snootily exclusive school literary journal are temporarily dashed when they refuse one of her submissions. A fellow student, writer and potential boyfriend; Tony (Matthew Shear), recognizes her talent and is quick to deem it superior to his own. Tracy's hopes for a romantic union with Tony are squelched when she discovers he has taken up with a needy, jealous drag named Nicolette (Jasmine Cephas Jones).

Not long after, Tracy receives a phone call from a woman named Brooke, who is to become her step-sister. The two agree to meet in Times Square.

When Tracy first sees her step-sister-to-be, Brooke is making her way down brilliantly red bleachers set up in the Square. The striking red is a visual cue that Brooke is someone colorful and exciting, which she seems to be when she exuberantly descends the steps to meet Tracy.

Tracy learns quickly (as does the audience) that Brooke is an ambitious woman with many irons-in-the-fire. She hopes to open a restaurant with the help of her Greek boyfriend and investor; the sole source of seed money.

Brooke is the kind of person who dominates every conversation with her favorite topic: herself, and never waits for an answer to any question she directs rhetorically to anyone around her. Her mind and mouth motor along at a breakneck pace, which are supposed to be amusing quirks. She tells Tracy; "I'm an autodidact. It means I'm self-taught; it's a word I self-taught myself." This is Baumbachian wit, which means it might elicit a grin from a viewer but hardly a chuckle.

Brooke bears a long-standing grudge against her former friend Mamie-Claire (Heather Lind) who once stole a t-shirt idea of hers before profiting from it. Feeding the grudge is Brooke's former relationship with Mamie-Claire's husband, Dylan (Michael Chernus).

When funding for Brooke's restaurant falls through; she desperately seeks out the help of Dylan, which means driving out to his and Heather's lush home in Connecticut. In tow are Tracy, Tony and Nicolette.

When the group arrives at Dylan's home, they are greeted by Mamie-Claire, who is less than enthused to see Brooke. When Mamie-Claire tells the group Dylan isn't home, Brooke insists they wait. Walking through the swank surroundings, Brooke and company encounter Mamie-Claire's book-group of expectant mother's, who are deep into a discussion of Faulkner.

Before long, Brooke and Mamie-Claire begin airing out their past grievances while the Nicolette-Tony-Tracy triangle reaches some kind of boiling point. This scene seemed quite ear-splitting to me. The constant, inane chatter--mostly generated by Brooke, whose voice becomes unbearably strident, and the glaring absence of witty repartee almost caused me to yell at the screen "will you all just shut the f*** up?" The sequence is hardly improved by the arrival of Dylan, who, to Mamie-Claire's dismay, is not only sympathetic to Brooke's restaurant idea, but titillated by her presence.

Brooke manages to finally make a formal business proposal to Dylan in the form of a monologue she presents to the entire group on a stage-like platform in the living room. Her proposal is supposed to be inspiring, which earns her not only applause but a few tears from the listeners. What the speech actually is is just more of Brooke's asinine verbalizing, which is anything but inspiring.

Dylan, concerned with Brooke's inability to follow through on anything, discourages the restaurant idea but offers to give her money in compensation for Mamie-Claire's t-shirt idea theft. Brooke sadly rejects his offer.

The Connecticut house scene is also supposed to be significant for Tracy, who incurs Brooke's wrath when it comes to light that her current story is entirely based on Brooke. A kind of anti-Tracy tribunal forms in the living room, led by Brooke, who denigrate her for her supposed treachery. The scene is ridiculous. I can't imagine any group of people would care so much about Tracy's ethical breach. It seemed like one more excuse for Baumbach's characters to spew drivel.

Back in New York City, Tracy manages to be accepted by the literary journal but quits them to form her own, in which she enlists Tony, who has also suffered the slings and arrows of the journal staff's snobby exclusiveness.

And of course the unfinished business between Brooke and Tracy is dealt with in a somewhat predictable manner. A final meeting between the two commences just as Brooke is about to leave for L.A.

There have been many movies this year, like summer blockbusters, that I've disliked but otherwise felt indifferent to. Baumbach's film is the only one in recent memory that I've actually DESPISED. If you can stand the company of a loathsome group of people who can't even be troubled to be endearingly loathsome, this is the flick for you.

Director Whit Stillman (Metropolitan, Last Days of Disco) made characters like those found in Baumbach's Mistress America fun to watch and to listen to. They were no less self-absorbed and highly-educated but Stillman's characters were also witty and charming in their own idiosyncratic ways. You might want to strangle them, but they might also make you laugh and if you couldn't always identify with their hyper-educated arrogance, they were nevertheless intriguing and fun company (oddly enough, Gerwig is in Stillman's Damsels in Distress). Baumbach and Gerwig's characters are just plain dull though they behave as if they're fascinating.

Greta Gerwig seems to play the same character in every film, which wouldn't be so bad if the characters were worth our attention. I saw one silly, critical comparison of her character to Holly Golightly. Being that I can't stand Holly Golightly either, this doesn't ring as a compliment. But I can tolerate Holly; Brooke I cannot.

Lola Kirke bears some of the blame for this dreariness with her barely-above-monotone line readings. It's hard to believe a person who seems so intellectually lifeless would be able to write something a school literary journal would consider readable. Kirke's performance could hardly be called acting. I've heard waitresses read off evening specials with more verve and conviction than Kirke expresses her lines. Her character is a drip only Baumbach could love.

I hope Baumbach doesn't take the initiative to release another film before the year's end; that would be horrifying. I've had my fill of his world of self-absorbed jerks, who seem to populate every one of his movies. If Gerwig and Baumbach continue on this track, look out; you may just have a series of one-note characters and excruciatingly unfunny situations and dialogue flooding your local theaters. If I see another of their collaborations, I'll be sure to wear ear-plugs. Maybe their movies play better that way?