August 2024 Watch Part 2

Sunday, 1 September 2024

This month was unspeakably busy as I prepared everything to move abroad, and these reviews really got me through it. The ability to sit down every night and watch something new or old, alone or not, was a lovely way to cap my evenings. Each time I’d finish something, I’d spend a few days writing my review and revising as I did further research about the piece’s reception. I was able to watch a lot of thought-provoking things this month, though there were just as many shows or movies I started and could not manage to force myself through. This was upsetting, as a few of those had been on my list for a while, but oh well!

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Poor Things (2023, dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)

The number one reason for putting this on my watchlist was the number of essays and articles I saw written about it—I just had to see what they were about. Poor Things follows Bella Baxter and her journey across several countries. It absolutely has a Gothic novel’s structure to it, at times feeling more like a travelogue-movie, evoking the structure of a grand tour, than a traditional narrative. If this film succeeds at nothing else, then it sparks a number of questions in its viewers I can respect.

The nature of these questions was of particular interest to me, as I absolutely adore a Frankenstein story. I cannot get enough of them—frame narratives, creation and the use of science, belonging and identity, violence, and (if I’m feeling generous) reanimation. I love the use of well-known stories in this way in general, but Frankenstein stories are easily my favorite. The use of these familiar story beats to construct meaningful narratives that can vary so much in content and theming is such a fun case study in the art of adaptation. The long history of visual canon thanks to so many movies over the years means that filmmakers can use the same process to create exciting new visuals that evoke motifs we’re already familiar with. In this way, it did everything I want out of a Frankenstein story.

I went into this movie knowing nothing about it except for the prospect of exciting visuals (and the costumes and cinematography absolutely exceeded my expectations), which was… an interesting experience. Surprising, definitely, and initially uncomfortable (though much assuaged if you don’t look at it literally, which seems to be the intention). In many ways, I think this sort of discomfort is important for a Frankenstein story; this movie definitely uses it in a very different way, but the foundational elements are all there. Still, I found myself wanting for certain beats to pop up that never did, responses to Mary Shelley’s novel that would’ve been poignant departures from the original, shifts to support a new theme, that were almost hinted at, but never came. The film chose to go in a different direction, and while I recognize those decisions, I can’t help but wonder about all the ways it could’ve gone differently.

Upon reading reviews, one of the things that really stuck out to me was the dissenting opinions over the lack of (the novel’s) frame narrative. It made me curious to read the book and compare it as both an adaptation of a specific work and a type of story. While I completely understand where people are coming from regarding the lack of the specific frame narrative used in the novel, I disagree there was not one at all. The film begins with focus on the perspective of Godwin Baxter and Max McCandles, the men who play part in Bella Baxter’s creation, but it relatively quickly pivots to instead focus on Bella herself and her grand tour, with only intermittent flashes back to her hometown of London. There are a number of ways to read the shift from black and white to color, to varying degrees of quality in my opinion, but this one captivates my attention the most. Perhaps it lends a little too much credence to the idea of this as a Frankenstein story than is deserved, but I think it’s really interesting to view it from that angle. Whether or not the original frame is ever returned to, or if the frame used is even a meaningful one (especially compared to the one in the novel), is up for debate, but at least with the transition into color, the film becomes Bella’s story, full stop.

I’ve mentioned the grand tour elements of the plot, and I found these very compelling. At times, I wanted to view it as a bildungsroman, and I would like to consider that viewing now. More specifically, I want to touch on the ways this film uses those elements and whether or not it is successful at doing so in a poignant way. The opening frame places the men at the center of the story, and for a moment the audience wonders if the film is meant to critique a view of women, either practically or in media, that is represented by Bella’s nature as an infant in a woman’s body. However, the narrative does not take this route and instead places us on a path to view Bella’s self-discovery and development. In many ways, this is different but still a solid concept—Bella grows increasingly intelligent and learned in various ways, gathering new experiences, companions, and beliefs. Once again though, this doesn’t quite meet expectations as it, as Ganymedia puts it in “Poor Things: feminist or degrading,” “conflat[es] sexual awakening with emotional maturity” (This video essay discusses this topic in greater detail and I would strongly suggest it). This is a valid criticism of the film—we see this element from even the beginning of Bella’s story, when the visuals change from black and white to color. This comes at a pivotal moment, when Bella leaves her home for her international journey. The specific scene, it must be noted, involves her having sex with the man who will fund some of that journey, Duncan Wedderburn. On that journey is when her development occurs, and it cannot be divorced from that fact that it is indicated specifically by her first sexual experiences with someone else. That these moments (sex with Duncan and her leaving home) are one and the same, cannot be ignored. If we read this as a bildungsroman, then we must acknowledge her education and learning comes as a result of her sexuality.

I struggled with this a lot after watching the film, because by the end, I really like the character that Bella grew to be. I was glad about the time we spent with her, and to see her grow in so many ways made the movie for me. She became such a strong, intelligent character who was simply fun to watch. Still, though, I was left with feelings of discomfort over how we got there, and I think it can be summarized like this: I’m not convinced that if Bella was a man that these two things, sexual and emotional maturity, would be conflated to such an extent. To compare it to the story that it borrows much of its plot from, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has its creature follow a similar path of growing in knowledge, though he lacks personal experience and his proximity to relationships between people is lacking at best. The switch from a man composed of decomposing human parts to create an entirely unique entity, to a woman created of a mother’s body and infant’s brain, should be a rich place for story and meaning, but in Poor Things, it is at times underwhelming. That is, we have seen this story done before, and the changes must be read in tandem. Eventually, this film did get to a point where Bella’s philosophical and intellectual development were divorced from her sexual development. As Khadija Mbowe in their video essay “Y’all don’t like Poor Things either huh?” phrases it, “She is lit up [by her conversations with Martha von Kurtzroc and Harry Astley] in the same way she was lit up by physical arousal.” While this is true and does significantly improve the rest of the film, the moments discussed in my criticisms here remain the access point from where these things began. While I find the film eventually wraps up in a satisfactory manner, this specific element introducing her story feels familiar and underwhelming, though not to an extent I’d argue it ruins the themes or anything like that. Actually, in the comments of Mbowe’s video, user @IvellScarlett suggests viewing the film as a Freudian journey, which is an interesting twist on the same angle of bildungsroman.

Overall, this movie is very beautiful aesthetically and thought-provoking. It really lends itself to discussion, and to be quite frank, that is the most I can ask out of any piece of art. I think, despite its imperfections, I enjoyed it as both a topic of study and a film to watch.

Severance (2022, dir. Ben Stiller and Aoife McArdle)

I have only ever heard amazing things about this show, but for the longest time I had it confused with Succession, a show that has a rare several personal recommendations but I’ve never gotten around to watching more than five minutes of. As I recently learned they were different things, I decided to give it a watch and I was hooked fast. Severance follows a man who has undergone a surgical procedure to separate himself between his work and personal lives, and the people around him in both personas. The genre is sort of hard to define; I’ve seen it branded as a sci-fi/psychological thriller, but I think it ends up being a lot more understated than either of those imply. It’s very drama-forward in a way I love, and interested in its premise to an extent I really respect.

I’ve seen a lot of comparison of this show to Black Mirror, and while I think some of its episodes are successful, this comparison does Severance a disservice. I was a bit disappointed to discover that it fell prey to similarly strange twists, ones really just there to be a shock and had little thematic significance, but they have space in season two to give these more development and meaning. Toward the end of the season is when these semi-twists started to present themselves, and it honestly got a bit muddled by the penultimate episode of the season. For example, a love triangle that had been clearly building but that I didn’t really feel very strongly about came up here, and it felt out of place. On the one hand, I appreciate that the characters were full creations on their own, but on the other, it made the romance angle feel forced. It would go long stretches (as long as they can get with nine episodes) without bringing it up, and when it did, it never felt worthwhile or meaningful. Compare this to Irving and Burt’s relationship, which was given time to develop and not at the expense of Irving’s character. These issues did seem to wrap up by the finale, which returned to the clarity of the earlier episodes.

My favorite part of the show was watching the departmental drama on the severed floor. The lore of the company and the dynamic between departments served for such an interesting angle. It manages to stand for so many things while never feeling muddled; commentary on religious and corporate groups, and work culture in general, made the whole underground world feel fresh and exciting. There’s been a trend in the last few years of representing office life/bureaucracy in surprising settings, but especially in sci-fi. I think this started out as an interesting concept but quickly became overdone without much of a deeper meaning in many cases, but this show really explores that concept with an exciting perspective—even if that just means treating the idea as compelling and wanting to explore it. I adored the myth-making and folklore of the departments and consistently found myself looking forward to it.

I have some gripes about the episodic element and how a few things just failed to pan out. It felt like the mystery jumped around and refused to look back a lot, which made the early episodes feel disconnected from the later ones. However, this feature only stood out as I thought about it after, but I didn’t find myself wondering throughout as I was compelled by the overarching plot. With that said, I did appreciate how we did not harp on little details and the creators trusted the audience to understand everything based on detailed production elements, attention to that detail, and reasonable inferences. A few reviews I saw and the people I watched it with mentioned they found it difficult to follow and figure out, but I strongly disagree. Things were clear, but not overly-telegraphed, and I really appreciated how the relationship to the audience was treated. It felt like a show really engaged with its own premise every step of the way, and like they really wanted their audience to feel engaged as well.

I really enjoyed my time with this show and I can’t wait for season two to be released.

Mona Lisa Smile (2003, dir. Mike Newell)

I did not realize when I selected this movie this month, but this was actually a rewatch. I watched it a very long time ago, and apparently it did not stick out as particularly memorable, which is unusual for me. Mona Lisa Smile follows Katherine Watson as she comes to the conservative all-girls Wellesley College in 1953 to teach art history. In this time, she develops relationships with her students and colleagues, and makes an impression on the school with her bold teaching style. This movie was represented to me as a feminist masterpiece, and while it touched on some issues and seemed like an intriguing capsule into a particular social class and moment in time, it left a lot to be desired.

It seems most of the praise for this movie is based on its demonstration of the choice to be a housewife as a valid choice within the framework of feminism and I think that’s… a disservice to the movie. It’s not the most earth-shattering in terms of subversive feminist movies, but the actual strength of this movie is the large cast of women who, for the most part, get to be complex, interesting, and varied characters. It is, naturally, limited by being about upper class White women, but also that’s very much a significant point of the movie (as opposed to a blindspot), so it’s a comment and not a criticism. This film is about a specific set of characters in a specific environment, which allows for an in-depth look at their options in life and how they respond to those limits based on their desires and apprehensions. Within that framework, I don’t think it’s a particularly revolutionary movie, and in fact is potentially less feminist than it wants to be. That is, it very clearly gets across its message, and the message itself is what I take issue with. This, however, seems to be a spot of praise for the movie in all of the reception I’ve seen, which is disappointing. I saw one positive review that asserted, “…feminism is less about challenging societal expectations and more about giving women choice.” But I decline the idea that feminism is not about challenging societal expectations, and I think that the choice feminism this essayist discusses has a number of issues I won’t unpack fully here but are surveyed in this journal article.

This video essayist spoke about “being a feminist and being feminine [not being] exclusionary” in relation to this film and what it taught her about feminism, which is a topic I actually think about often. This is by no means unique to this creator, but it is a perspective that feels so ubiquitous in some feminist circles, and I’m not sure it’s necessarily warranted. The idea of, “You don’t have to [be feminine]” and the chorus that follows, “But it’s okay if you are!” is just tiresome to me; I’m not confident on the relevance of this in feminist spaces when it is something so clearly accepted in society at large. It’s perhaps not a harmful idea on its own, but I’ve only ever seen it equipped against women who are not traditionally feminine or don’t have access to that type of femininity (White femininity or White womanhood), which feels counterproductive in a space that does, indeed, include a subversion of traditional gender roles in many ways.

I bring all this up because I think to some extent the film echoes these beliefs. We’re supposed to believe Joan’s choice to become a housewife instead of going to law school is a feminist one, but I can’t help but look past the way even the film that touts the equality of these women’s decisions, represents this way of life with a critical eye, albeit a very forgiving one (For example, there is acknowledgement of the relationship of these nuclear family-patriarchal ideas as they specifically existed in the 1950s with consumerism, although it’s only mentioned and not truly addressed beyond that). If we compare Joan’s story to Betty’s, we find even in the same film one way that Joan’s choice can limit her options in the future and it’s disheartening to have that represented but unacknowledged. I don’t want to set up the falsity that the film significantly addressed the societal pressures through Betty’s story, though, because hers was presented more as a conflict with specific people in her life (her mother and husband) who were not making this lifestyle worthwhile, rather than the structural elements of such a family dynamic that would allow this type of unhappiness and lack of flexibility in her life. On a similar note, I think the lack of men in this movie does two things—it both gives room to see how even the ideology of patriarchy permeates women’s spaces and lives, but it also undermines (not entirely or independently) the very real pressures of patriarchy that would undoubtedly affect these women’s choices. To some extent, this is examined through the female characters, but again, the narrative frames it as a quality of these specific women and not the structure of society as a whole.

The film asserts a need to respect all of a woman’s choices, and we know this because it’s told to us by the characters several times and it is the lesson our main character learns over the course of the film. But it does not address the elephant in the room that not every choice a woman makes is a feminist one, nor that the choices being made are occurring within a specific and demanding social environment. That is not to say every choice a woman makes has to be feminist in spirit for her to be a feminist, but creating this illusion where choice is inherently equivalent to feminism seems like a reductive view (and/or misunderstanding) of the truth that feminists fight for women’s ability to make choices for their own lives. It is critical to acknowledge that these choices (any choices) do not exist in a vacuum, and they both stem from and generate societal expectations and our responses to them. I suppose I just don’t think “a woman can make any choice about her life that she wants, and no discussion of societal pressures or criticisms can be made about it,” is a particularly poignant feminist statement. The film does not take such a harsh angle as the one I am purporting here (in terms of gentleness, though not intensity), but it does seem to agree with these statements, and I just can’t get behind a thesis that upholds choice feminism as ideal.

The movie was well-made and had an engaging cast of characters I enjoyed watching the lives of, although its feminist statements left much to be desired. Its limited perspective foreshadowed the shortcomings the movie would have, and I just wound up disappointed. I keep wanting to suggest an alternate way the movie could’ve ended, a different lesson the characters could’ve learned, but that would not be true to the spirit of the movie, which is my main point of criticism.

The Umbrella Academy, Season 4 (2024, created for television by Steve Blackman)

I debated for a while over whether or not I should include my thoughts on the most recent season of The Umbrella Academy in this month’s recap. The first season of this show was genuinely one of my favorite seasons of television when it first came out. At the time it felt unique and refreshing, but the seasons that followed grew increasingly different and disappointing as they were released. I hadn’t planned on watching the fourth season, but I recently rewatched the show with someone and we agreed to view it together. I was… disappointed. Season three marked a huge drop in quality I’d hoped was a fluke, but wasn’t. It saddens me that a show with such a captivating start ended like this, and I didn’t want to write a review just harping on all the ways it went wrong. With that said, a lot of the reception I experienced chatting to people in person or seeing online, was either shockingly positive or negative in a way I just do not agree with. I don’t like either of these perspectives—I thought that the season was bad, but not for the same reasons as a lot of people were listing. This season of The Umbrella Academy really dropped the ball when it came to ending the whole show; it was both an underwhelming follow-up to several seasons and a confusing, boring story on its own. I want to spend this time expressing the biggest issues that stood out to me while watching, because I think they speak to why I was so disappointed by the final season of this show.

The Umbrella Academy, put very briefly, follows the Hargreeves family after the death of their father and just before the end of the world. The fourth season marks the fourth impending apocalypse of the show, before which the Hargreeves siblings have lived for six years in an alternate timeline without their powers. This time around, their brother Ben is part of the cause of the apocalypse they are trying to stop.

While most elements of production were pretty solid across the board, a combination of bad plot writing and bad character writing really brought these episodes down. If I had to choose a word to describe this season, I would choose “nonsensical”—and not in a fun, absurd way, but a confusing and impressively boring way. Characters’ choices were present, but difficult to follow at best, either feeling out-of-character or not given enough personality to explain them. I’ll use a specific comparison to highlight my issue: the strength of the antagonists in season one. These characters (the Handler, Hazel, and Cha Cha) got various amounts of focus and development between them, but even for those who got little attention, we had a very clear understanding of their motivations because they informed their every action. These were small, personal goals that could realistically be achieved, and even the most ambitious ones felt natural. I can’t even earnestly compare them to the antagonists in season four, who are poor imitations of other seasons’ quirky foes, dressed and conceptualized to be unique and memorable but giving such blandness I found myself wanting to fast forward through their scenes. (I can’t even blame the actors, really, because I couldn’t even figure out personality traits for any of them based on their dialogue or actions). We were introduced to so many characters in season four and I can’t confidently tell you anything about even one of them; it made things so much less impactful to have things happening I just couldn’t connect to, that it seemed like the show did not want me to connect to. It misses what made those season one characters so beloved, or even when they weren’t—so compelling. And, worse, these side characters in season one were given more thought and care than our main cast in season four. The Hargreeves’ actions (and at times, dialogue) felt entirely random and baseless, and we can’t even attribute it to the time skip because this show has done it before much better than this and none of that was communicated to the audience.

This is not an issue inherent to the show at all, though it is present this season. Character writing lacks consistency and depth here, and both individual storylines and interactions were left severely wanting this season. At least for its first season and part of its second, this show was doing something really fun and fresh. It was a superhero story minus the superheroics (a welcome relief for a superhero-hater, me). The action was exciting and different, but it also was only one part of a strong show that prioritized character and drama over action and plot. These things were there, naturally, but they were driven by its characters—their motivations, their fears, their goals. These strengths drew me to the show, and helped me hold out hope when the third season became particularly rocky. This season, though, leaned into the superhero aspect more than any other season, and not for the better. At the time I was annoyed by it, but at least the more philosophical musings on what it means to be tasked with heroism in season three tried to say something emotionally complex. Season four felt uninspired in comparison, with big monsters and time travel hijinks vastly underwhelming compared to their predecessors replacing character-focused drama. For people like me, who came to the show despite the superhero aspects (admittedly miniscule in the first and even second season), this was the worst thing that could happen. Season four’s conflict is fully structured like a superhero show, with an unfortunate focus on the main plot and useful lore coming up as needed to help their mission. Rather than spend time going to the factory that produced a mysterious glass eye to find out who it belongs to while everyone else sulks around arguing, we’re fortuitously handed a jar of a mysterious substance that got a very convoluted explanation one season ago and solves the first problem of the season within the first episode, the lack of powers. This season really just lacks any grounding in story and character, which is such a marked difference from the start of the show.

It’s not even that the elements needed are not present, but that they are underutilized, perhaps due to time restraints, perhaps due to underlying themes being forgotten or discarded, or, as I think is most likely, due to a combination of the two. I will take a particularly egregious example for this: Five’s relationship with Lila. I found a lot of the criticisms raised about this couple were unfair or at least unsympathetic to me, but that’s not to say I appreciated the decision. Five starts the series away from his family for decades after being stranded in an apocalypse in the future; for these decades, it is his primary goal to get back home to his family. The first three seasons (debatably for the third) focus on Five’s efforts to get his family to a moment where there is not the imminent threat of another apocalypse. Season four has Five trapped in time with his sister-in-law, beginning a relationship with her, lying to her and keeping her from her family for months, and abandoning his own family when she tells him it’s over. I could absolutely see a world in which this could work for Five (I have… mixed feelings over how this worked for Lila’s story). It has interesting elements, certainly—being trapped in time again, forging a connection with another person for really the first time in his life, keeping a person he loves isolated as he was and in deliberate separation from something he strongly values for himself, changing those values based on changes in himself and the world. Except none of that is explored; it’s focused on the conflict that arises in his sister-in-law’s marriage, but there isn’t enough time to explore how they might feel about the situation and in the end, it’s left entirely unresolved in favor of the resolution to the big-monster-apocalypse conflict. To be honest, I probably wouldn’t have liked it even if it did include these elements—just because I don’t think the characters work together romantically and I don’t appreciate what that would say about their values and characters (i.e., not that I’d take issue with it being a cheating subplot, but that suddenly they’re both more focused on romance than their families, which feels out of character, thematically inappropriate for the show, and thematically inappropriate for the characters’ individual storylines)—but the show did not even seem to make an earnest effort anyway.

Overall, characters’ choices did not have the impact they previously did, and the plot felt thrust forward by itself, the Hargreeves family just sort of trailing along behind it. This served to make the story boring and underwhelming, when I was engaged enough to keep track of it. Too many elements were introduced too late or poorly to feel anything but shoehorned in. Most of the time I was watching, my mind was a constant stream of, “Okay, I guess this is happening now.” Everything felt tired and overdone, as if I’d seen every beat before, either in this show or elsewhere—Lila and Five going on time travel adventures, Klaus being kidnapped, new powers everyone has to get the hang of and miraculous, unearned shows of will when needed, Diego and Luther sidelined for comedic relief adventures. The list goes on. There is a way this could set up interesting parallels to see new ways characters react to similar moments in their past, but there is not really any meaningful or sensical change. I think it’s a pity that a show that started out so strong ended up like this. I cannot recommend the ending to this show in good faith, and I have to admit my disappointment over where it ended up.