Salinger

My bullshit detector might need tuning. I admit to my shame that I let my desire for more information about the private life of one of my favorite authors overly influence my opinion of the film. It was only after a few hours of consideration, and reading other learned opinions of the documentary, that I realized what a shell game it really is.

The film does present information about Salinger's early years in a compelling light. The years before and during his service in WWII, when he was a struggling young author desperate to get a story into the New Yorker, make for a very interesting story, one that it would be nearly impossible for a film to screw up. However, since this information is readily available in many different places, that hardly justifies spending fourteen dollars plus popcorn on the documentary.

The film's depiction of Salinger unsurprisingly gets hazier in the years after the war, when Salinger moved out to the country and distanced himself from the media hype machine in New York. Nearly all of the acquaintances who are interviewed for the film predate his move to New Hampshire, and most of them had little to no contact with him from that point onward.

Even more problematic than the lack of first-hand accounts is the misplace of focus. The filmmakers and the interviewees (including famous actors, notable authors, and crazed fans)are preoccupied with the question of why anyone would avoid attention and value their privacy. Almost none of them seem to grasp the irony that they themselves are the answer to the question. Two interviewees, a fan who was trying to be an author and a journalist, describe their pilgrimages to Cornish in hushed, reverent tones, without admitting that they were being rude, selfish, obnoxious jerks, hounding a person who had made his desire to be left alone perfectly clear.

The more interesting question is not why Salinger avoided attention (which many other authors have done, from Philip Roth to Thomas Pynchon and more) but why he chose not even to publish. And then of course there is the really interesting question of why Salinger matters so much to so many people, which is only discussed in the most banal of platitudes. Amazingly, even people like Tom Wolfe and E.L. Doctorow are reduced to quickie soundbites about "the culture" and whatnot.

Perhaps because of copyright issues, little of Salinger's actual words make it onto the screen, and they are dearly missed. Too much of the film is spent trying to convince you that Salinger was Holden Caulfield, and not enough time is spent appreciating the wonder of the creation.

The only really exciting thing in the documentary is the assertion that at least five new works from Salinger are going to be published between 2015 and 2020. If that proves to be true it will be something on the order of a miracle, especially if the books are any good. The biggest reason to be excited for these new publications is that it will allow Salinger's fans to get back to what really mattered to him and matters to them, the words on the page.

In a World

In a world... where there aren't enough realistic leading roles for women, a criminally under-utilized actress will take matters into her own hands, writing, directing, and starring in a movie that features her many talents. While she may make the sort of mistakes you'd expect from any first-time filmmaker, the result will leave you with a warm feeling and a desire for more.

You get the idea. Lake Bell is the woman in question, an actress who hasn't managed to make the A-list despite being funny, talented, and very good-looking. (Ok, maybe we don't need to feel too bad for her, but still.) I didn't really know what Bell could do until I caught a few episodes of Adult Swim's Children's Hospital. Here, Bell plays Carol Solomon, a voice-actor and vocal coach who longs to follow in her father's footsteps and make it in the highly-competitive (and pretty much exclusively male) world of narrating movie trailers. Her father (Fred Melamed) a near-legendary voice-over artist nearing the end of his career, does not support his daughter's dream and goes so far as to groom a male heir to his throne, Gustav Warner (Ken Marino).

Carol rises up the ranks of the insular voice-over world with the help of Louis (Demetri Martin), a sound-man with a puppy-dog crush on her, and a rag-tag group of technicians including characters played by Nick Offerman and Tig Notaro. Carol is also forced to deal with a crisis in her sister's marriage and nasty rumors about how she's managed to rise in the ranks of her profession.

For such a short movie (93 minutes) there is a lot going on, and frankly there is a bit of a slapdash, scattershot feel to In a World. Carol's struggles in the voice-over world happen mostly off-screen, only referenced by allusion, while we get a lot about Michaela Watkins's Dani and Rob Corddry's Moe. Watkins and Corddry are both impressive in the parts, but when combined with the barely sketched-out love story between Carol and Louis there's just too much in too short a time frame. A lot of In a World's stars are obviously Bell's real-life friends, and it must be tempting when you're making your first comedy to try and get as many recognizable and funny people in it as you can, but sometimes it really is true that less is more. Offerman and Notaro are particularly wasting their time here. Notaro has one funny line and Offerman is basically just part of the scenery. That's a shame, but perhaps cutting them altogether would have tightened up the focus and allowed more room for the interesting, offbeat story to be told.

All in all, In a World feels a little under-cooked. A lot of the jokes feel like placeholders that got left in because better jokes weren't written in time. (The epic movie our main characters vie to narrate is a Hunger Games take-off named The Amazon Games. Seriously.) Bell is an appealing presence and an especially gifted physical comedian, but her screenwriting needs to improve if she wants to keep writing movies for herself. Hopefully she'll be more confident with her next one, and trust the audience a little more. (There's a scene with a tape recorder that is very clumsily shot because Bell is clearly afraid the audience won't notice the tape recorder's presence.)

Still, In a World is a very admirable effort. The central idea is a good one, and it was fun seeing Bell explore a community that's never been seen on-camera before. I'll be looking forward to her next effort.

14 Potential First-Time SNL Hosts for Season 39

Saturday night live returns one month from tomorrow, on September 28. This will be the comedy institution's 39th season on NBC. I know, I know. SNL? That show hasn’t been funny in years. Except…

There are always a few must see episodes of SNL a year, those few and far-between outings where a rock-solid, experienced host is at the helm, the writers know what they can handle, and the audience knows what to expect. No doubt we’ll see a few such episodes in SNL’s 39th season (Messrs. Baldwin, Hanks, Timberlake, and Hamm are standing by their phones) but which of Hollywood’s younger crowd will get their chance to surprise and amuse us on their first go-around at Studio 8H? Here are some possibilities:

Anna Kendrick

This seems like and obvious slam dunk pick, but unfortunately the suddenly everywhere Kendrick might not have much to promote, and her busy filming schedule might keep her out of New York on Saturdays at 11:30pm. That’d be a shame, because the Pitch Perfect star is quickly becoming one of the most engaging and charming celebrities around. If she can’t host can we at least get her as a musical guest?

Olivia Wilde

Kendrick’s Drinking Buddies co-star never seems to let her string of box-office disappointments get her down. In interviews this drop-dead gorgeous star is refreshingly down-to-earth and her quick wit and lively humor are perfect for SNL. If nothing else, her fiancé could put in a good word for her.

Ty Burrell

The closest thing to a lead on Modern Family, one of TV’s biggest hits. His co-star Sofia Vergara took her turn last year, and now it’s time for Burrel to get a shot.

Mindy Kaling

I thought this would happen last year, but Kaling’s buzzed about sitcom The Mindy Project was greeted by tepid reviews. The show took some time to grow into itself, but it’s getting better and attracting some big name guest stars. If the ratings improve, Kaling’s star might shine bright enough for Lorne Michaels to notice.

Andy Samberg

The annual ritual: the return of the prodigal son (or sometimes daughter, cf. Wiig, Kristen last year). There are plenty of candidates for the slot this year (and personally I’d prefer Bill Hader) but Samberg is the one with a new sitcom, albeit on the FOX network.

Aaron Paul

Breaking Bad is ending, and I’m sure the cast and crew at SNL are big fans. They’ve already had Cranston on, perhaps they’ll give his co-star a chance?

Chloe Grace Moretz

This preternaturally talented young actress is starring in the Carrie remake and displayed her comedic talents in an impressive guest stint on 30 Rock.

Peter Dinklage

I can’t confirm this, but I’m pretty sure the Emmy-winning Game of Thrones star would be the shortest guest host in SNL history. He'd also probably be pretty great at it.

Sandra Bullock

I couldn’t believe she hadn’t hosted already, but it’s true. The Oscar winner could take the plunge in order to promote Gravity, the sci-fi action-adventure movie she’s starring in with George Clooney. Of course, it's extremely doubtful that she hasn't been asked, since she's been a box-office draw for 20 years already. Maybe she's shy?

Jake Johnson

New Girl's Nick Miller is officially the third of Drinking Buddies' star quartet that I've tapped as a potential host. (Sorry Ron Livingston.) New Girl started as a star vehicle for Zooey Deschanel (who hosted last year) but is not a true ensemble thanks to the talents of Johnson and Max Greenfield (who would also be a fine host.)

Kerry Washington

Scandal is a hit, apparently, and Ms. Washington is the first African-American woman to star as the lead of a prime-time drama in a period of time long enough to cause even network executives embarrassment. I have no idea if she can be funny, but it's probably worth finding out.

Just About Anyone From Parks & Rec (Besides Amy Poehler and Rob Lowe)

Poehler and Lowe get excluded merely because they have already hosted. But just about anyone else in the cast would make a great choice. (Except Jerry, of course.) Aubrey Plaza’s weirdness might make for a disastrous show, but it would be fascinating television. Chris Pratt’s manic hijinks would be lots of fun. Rashida Jones is smart, lovely, and would probably welcome the chance to play something besides Poehler’s straight-woman. Nick Offerman might not be a household name, but Ron Swanson should be. Retta probably isn’t going to get an invite, so we’ll have to settle for reading her live-tweeting of whichever co-star gets the gig.

Just About Anyone from Community

Donald Glover is leaving, but he'd be a phenomenal host, even if he'd want to quit halfway through and be the musical guest instead. Joel McHale would probably deliver a very good monologue at least, and who wouldn't want more Gillian Jacobs or Alison Brie on their television? Danny Pudi and Yvette Nicole Brown seem unlikely, but they can stop by for a walk-on during the monologue.

Tatiana Maslany

But only if they figure out a way for all six of her to appear live simultaneously. Honestly, Maslany is a long shot, but after being wowed by her performance in BBC America's Orphan Black, I'm curious to see more from her. Her Parks & Rec guest spot will go a long way to determining whether she can be funny.

So those are my wishes for SNL Season 39. What are yours?

Drinking Buddies

Recently, I watched and quite thoroughly enjoyed Drinking Buddies, a 90-minute indie feature from director Joe Swanberg and featuring an improbably high-quality cast for such a low budget movie. Jake Johnson and Olivia Wilde play co-workers at an independent brewery whose strong friendship has been obscuring a powerful attraction for a long time. Anna Kendrick and Ron Livingston play their respective significant others, who discover a shared attraction of their own during a weekend trip to a remote cabin.

Working largely without a script, this talented foursome is able to create a believably lived-in feel to their characters and their circumstances as they all try to seek out their own happiness without hurting the people they care about too badly. It's a quintessential example of the human drama that can arise between any two people anytime, anywhere.

Which is why it's so disappointing to read criticisms of the movie that basically boil down to the tired old "white people problems" canard. This pernicious idea that certain types of people don't have stories worth telling is surprisingly persistent, even in otherwise intelligent and perceptive people. The false idea it supposes, that money and privilege can render someone's life free of conflict, pain, and humanity is wrongheaded, harmful, and downright depressing in its prevalence.

Never mind for a moment that the characters in Drinking Buddies are not exactly upper-class (Johnson's job is the epitome of blue-collar, Wilde works in sales, and Kendrick is a teacher.) Even if they were spoiled rich kids, whose to say they wouldn't be interesting anyway? Shakespeare wrote largely about kings and nobleman and I don't see too many complaints about his subject matter.

The film itself nicely anticipates and addresses this criticism. In one of their many heartfelt, drunken conversations, Wilde's Kate tells Johnson's Luke, "That's the problem with heartbreak, to you it's like an atomic bomb and to the world it's just really cliche, because in the end we all have the same experience."

It's that kind of universal relevance, rendered particular by the story-telling and the acting, that I look for in movies, wherever they may come from.

The Place Beyond the Pines

Kurt Vonnegut had this rule about writing that I always think about whenever I make one of my abortive attempts at creativity: Start as close to the end as possible. I found myself thinking about that a lot in the hours after seeing Derek Cianfrance's The Place Beyond the Pines, which starts about as far from its ending as possible and suffers for it.

Though The Place Beyond the Pines is not one of those movies that is overly reliant on a plot twist, it is still sort of impossible to get at a real conversation about the film's strengths and flaws without spoiling the plot. For now, let it suffice to say that the film is not really what you would expect from the advertising campaign, and that it is really more like three films stitched together, running consecutively, than one flowing narrative.

When we begin our journey through the lives of these characters, Luke Glanton (Ryan Gosling) is back in Schenectady with his traveling carnival after a year or so one the road. An encounter with his old fling Romina (Eva Mendes) leads to the revelation that he has a kid he knew nothing about. Romina has moved on and has a new man in his life, but Luke decides he needs to step up and take care of his family, even if that's not what they want. A chance encounter with a low-life auto mechanic (Ben Mendelsohn)leads to a lucrative but dangerous side-job as a bank robber. Eventually, Luke's crime spree will force him into a confrontation with local cop Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper), a law-school grad alienating his wife and his father with his dedication to his job on the force.

That's the movie that you're familiar with from the commercials, but's really only the first part of Cianfrance's look at fathers and sons and how the decisions made by the former impact the latter. Among other problems with this focus is that it gives remarkably short-shrift to the female characters in this world. Eva Mendes and Rose Byrne are completely wasted in poorly-conceived and thankless roles. It's clear Cianfrance gave little thought to their characters' motivations, thoughts, and feelings. Byrne especially is just a functionary, wholly designed to inject conflict into her husband's life. This is especially surprising given Cianfrance's last film was Blue Valentine, which excellently explored both halves of a failing marriage.

The movie's third act is a mess, disjointed and abruptly inserted into the narrative. It also shifts the focus onto two new performers, one of whom (Smash's Emory Cohen) is either an incredibly convincing meathead, or an actual meathead, I can't determine. Either way Cohen's character is so off-putting and unrecognizably human as to render the whole enterprise absurd. It's impossible to care what happens to him. Dane Dehaan is much better, and fits right in with the expert performances given by Cooper, Gosling, Mendelsohn, and Ray Liotta as a corrupt cop, but not even all these great performers can save a messy script without nearly as much to say as it thinks it does.

I brought up Vonnegut's rule at the beginning of this piece for a reason. If anyone here watches The Place Beyond the Pines, I'd like you to consider how it would impact the movie if it were to start with the third act, with perhaps a few flashbacks to the other two acts to fill in background as needed. I submit that it would make for a much more interesting viewing experience.

42

There's an easy criticism to make of 42, the new biopic of MLB and civil-rights pioneer Jackie Robinson. It might be said that even in this version of the story, so much better as a film than the 1950 "The Jackie Robinson Story" which starred the man himself, Robinson comes off as something less than a fully-realized character. He is an uncomplicated hero, tested to be sure, but ultimately too good and too much on the right side of history too fail. Thus, writer-director Brian Helgeland might be accused of draining the life-blood from the man and presenting the myth, unexamined and unexplored.

But really, if anyone deserves a hagiography, it might be Robinson, who took unfathomable abuse from opposing players and fans on his way to proving that the black man could make it in white baseball. Indeed, the film's spirit seems designed to match the purpose of Branch Rickey's great experiment in bringing Robinson to Brooklyn. Rickey, played with a gruff, gravely nature by Harrison Ford, knew that the first player to break the color barrier had to be such a good player and such a perfect gentleman that he could eventually win admiration from supporters and begrudging respect from detractors and bigots. Whatever Robinson was really like, and he was certainly a great man, he was convincing enough as a hero that he lead the charge of black players that finally democratized America's pastime.

So if we can forgive any movie its orchestral swells, its Christ-like hero, and its sentimentalism, this is the movie to forgive.

Not to mention that there are other charms to 42 that make it a good if not great baseball movie, sure to be well-regarded by fans of the sport and non-fans alike. Newcomer Chadwick Boseman does a fine impersonation of the ballplayer's rhythms and movements. He also has some genuinely tender moments with Nicole Beharie's Rachel Robinson. It takes a little while to get used to Harrison Ford's voice, but once you do you realize what a fine performance he's giving as a businessman trying to forge a legacy for himself and repair some of his past wrongs.

Quite often sports movies are made by people without much connection or interest in the game, and their sloppy mistakes can alienate the serious fan. But 42 is relatively clean on this account, and excellently captures the joy of seeing a master base-runner such as Robinson create havoc on the basepaths. I also appreciated the way Helgeland would often film a pitch coming at Robinson, showing you the lethal force that a fastball can possess.

42 is largely about 1947, Robinson's first season with the Dodgers, a season of conflict and tension which is portrayed most effectively in the Dodger lockerroom and dugout, where Robinson's white teammates struggle to accept him. Whether it's the southerners who circulate a petition threatening to strike if Robinson is not released, or the other white Dodgers who just want to play baseball and not deal with the complicated problems of race-relations, 42 does an excellent job showing a team winning despite a near-crisis on its hands. In particular, Hamish Linklater as Ralph Branca, Jesse Luken as Eddie Stanky, and Lucas Black as Pee Wee Reese were standouts.

The film's best scene is also its most disturbing, as Phillies' manager Ben Chapman (Alan Tudyk) delights in shouting horrid epithets while Robinson is at the plate, and Robinson struggles to maintain his focus and keep his promise not to fight back. Boseman's portrayal of near-defeat and heartbreak in the clubhouse after this at-bat is riveting and heart-rending.

Everyone knows the story of Jackie Robinson, but that's because everyone should. If 42 helps ensure that people will hear his story in the future, it will have done something well worth doing.

Mad Men: "The Collaborators"

The Collaborators is basically an hour-long reminder that Don is still better than Pete at everything. Especially at conducting an affair. If I had to lead a seminar in the Draper method of giving your wife the run-around, the syllabus might look a little like this:

1. Don't have an affair with a crazy woman: Pete is so eager to cheat on Trudy that he doesn't notice that Brenda, his partner in this affair (played by Collette Wolfe, who was Travis's college girlfriend on Cougar Town) is more than a little disturbed. You could argue you'd have to be a little touched to be so into Pete, but I'll refrain. Compare Brenda to Sylvia Rosen, who even when she's petulant at her and Don's awkward, unplanned dinner for two, is still a smart, reasonable woman.

2. Confidence is Key: When Collette is at Pete's pied a terre in Manhattan, Pete goes overboard trying to make her comfortable, offering her food and drink and even trying to get the music just right for her. If she wasn't so determined to step out on her husband, it's probable she'd have been turned off by Pete's neediness. Compare that to Don, who is so confident in his ability to seduce a woman he essentially wins an argument with Sylvia by merely informing her that he's going to tear her dress off at the end of the night.

3. Don't Overthink Things: Pete conducts his affair in an entirely separate residence miles away from his wife and he gets caught. Don is literally one floor below his wife and he gets away with everything, even though he has a history of adultery.

To emphasize just how much better Don is at these things, the episode gives us scenes where both Don and Pete are confronted by situations where there wives and mistresses are together. Don is worried when he catches Sylvia and Megan commiserating, but he passes an assured glance to Sylvia and manages to act as though nothing is wrong. From the moment a beaten Collette pounds on his door Pete is a nervous mess, too afraid to leave his wife and mistress alone to get her a first-aid kit. He's also just an asshole to her, and his suggestion that she take a taxi to the hotel must be a final tipping point for Trudy.

Thus we get two more parallel scenes. In the first, a righteously pissed-off Trudy delivers an all-time ultimatum to her philandering husband, in which she orders him to not come home unless she orders him to in order to keep up appearances. He can go stay in Manhattan and sleep with the world for all she cares, but if he so much as opens his fly to urinate in town, she makes it clear there'll be hell to pay. Meanwhile, in the Draper residence, Don is the protective, caring husband when Megan finally tells him about the miscarriage she suffered from after accidentally getting pregnant in Hawaii. He even gets to act a little condescendingly disappointed in her for not telling him sooner. Don is the one in command of the situation, where Pete can't even pretend to have a say.

The Collaborators pretty evenly splits into two halves, adultery and advertising, and in the advertising section some intriguing developments take place. Don, despite having no way of knowing that Pete's marriage has collapsed, seems to be driving the final nail in the coffin when he expertly derails Herb's (Jaguar's sleazy head of the dealerships) efforts to prioritize radio ads for the luxury car. It was a nice way to bring back Herb, in that we get to see Joan re-assert herself in the aftermath of her corrupt bargain, and we get to see Don's barely-veiled contempt for him (contextualized by a new peek into his background as a child raised in a whorehouse, where his mother slept with his uncle to pay for their stay.) This is a professional contrast between Don and Pete, as Pete had been willing to give Herb exactly what he wanted even as he knew it was a bad idea and potentially bad for business. Pete is eager to please, while Don is better at getting what he wants.

We also get a look at Cutler, Gleason and Chaough, where Peggy's high standards are leading to fairly open revolt on the part of her subordinates. (Peggy's dismissive: "When you need them to be funny..." is a candidate for line of the night.) Peggy also has a little trouble going along with Chaough's cutthroat business practices, when an overheard phone call between her and Stan leads to her firm pursuing Heinz Ketchup (The Coca-Cola of condiments, according to Ken Cosgrove) from out under SCDP's shadow. It will be great to see Peggy competing against her old firm and trying to reconcile her notions of being a good friend, a good person, and a good boss.

Other thoughts:

-Alison Brie did a tremendous acting job in her tell-off scene

-Bob Benson is in both big meetings at SCDP, and he also buys Pete toilet paper. He was a little more bearable this week, but I want to see what he's up to soon. It's probably just becuase he played Max's boyfriend on Happy Endings, but I did feel a gay subtext to his interaction with Pete. I'm sure I'm just reading too much into his eager-to-please demeanor.

-Precious little Roger this week, but he does awesomely attribute a Churchill quote to his recently deceased mother.

-I don't buy Pete not understanding the Munich reference. Especially since he's so up on the news. This is probably the impetus for the episode's title, however. Pete is behaving like the collaborators in Don's Munich analogy, giving in too much and not realizing this only inspires more want.

-Pete watches a Tonight Show where Johnny Carson's guest is Jim Garrison, the New Orleans ADA whose investigation into the Kennedy Assassination was the subject of Oliver Stone's film JFK.

-The North Korea references this week were very well-timed.

-Don and Dr. Rosen's conversation at the restaurant places this episode in the area of February 1968, in the wake of the Tet Offiensive. We're coming up on the assassination of Martin Luther King, and LBJ's withdrawal from the presidential campaign.

-The always cryptic "next week on" clips do seem to portend bad things for Stan, which would make sense considering he let the cat out of the bag.

-NO BETTY!

Mad Men: "The Doorway"

I find myself without much to say about last night's Season 6 premiere, which of course makes writing a full review of it rather difficult. If it is possible for something to be both heavy-handed and cryptic simultaneously, "The Doorway" is that. For two hours and change we were pummeled with images of death, of heaven and hell, hot and cold, and always doors, doors, doors. And yet it is still possible to feel that so much of the episode was indecipherable. Clearly seasons of Mad Men are best judged retrospectively, and I have no doubt that this new season will include many wonderful surprises and great character moments. It's not like the entire staff could forget how to make good tv.

The thing that gives me the most pause though is that decidedly unsubtle hair. The creatives, who used to all wear suits and ties like Don, are just a paycheck removed from those Greenwich Village bohemian hobos. Harry Crane looks even more ridiculous than usual, and even Pete and Roger are sporting sideburns. The "Sixties", at least the time of our imagining, have finally arrived at SCDP.

Also tremendously unsubtle? James Wolk's new character Bob Benson, the least apologetic brown-noser in history. This guy is a more caffeinated Pete Campbell, ironic since its Benson who supplies both Pete and Don with the good coffee from next door. It wasn't the smoothest character introduction, but Benson's motivations might make for an interesting new dynamic, especially if it continues to ruffle the feathers of Ken. Cosgrove. Accounts.

Also new to the repertoire are Dr. Rosen and his wife Sylvia. The doctor's face is actually the first we see in the episode, saving the life of his and the Draper's doorman Jonesy, whose near-death experience is lingering uncomfortably in Don's memory. Don and the doctor seem quite close, with Rosen stopping by to pick up a Leica camera from the SCDP offices. (If there is supposed to be some awkwardness around giving a Jewish doctor a German camera, it is not apparent on screen.)

The big "surprise" in "The Doorway" is not that Don is unfaithful to Megan, it's who he's sleeping with: Sylvia Rosen, played by a hard-to-recognize Linda Cardellini. Sleeping with a friend's wife, in the same building you live in, seems too brazen, even for Don, so part of me wonders if this isn't some kind of arrangement between all parties. (I doubt Megan and Dr. Rosen are sleeping together, but she might be letting Don sow his wild oats for other reasons.)

And this is where I realize I haven't mentioned Peggy at all, or Roger's therapy and his mom dying, or Don causing a scene at the memorial, or the pitch to Sheraton, or the lighter, or Sally, or her wayward friend. There's just way too much going on in "The Doorway", and I'm not sure it all hangs together or belongs in the same episode, even a double like this one. Let's wrap this up with some quick thoughts:

-Sally's wayard friend seems largely intended to show us how much worse things could really be for Sally. Stuff seems so rough in this fictional world because she's the youngest person who can understand some of what's happening, but really, she's not even that rebellious. Shutting the door on her mother, and calling her "Betty" are nothing compared to forsaking the violin for an unpromising life as a drifter. I don't like that girl's odds of reaching California

-Are we meant to be cheering Peggy on, or fearing thats she's too much like Don? Maybe a little of both, but it was great to see her succeed at salvaging a possible disaster, while Don was potentially turning a sure thing campaign into a disaster by sticking to his guns on his Freudian-ly suicidal Sheraton pitch.

-Twice in this episode Don is photographed without his consent. By Megan at the wedding on the beach, and by the promotional photographer in a moment of confusion after noticing that he has the wrong lighter.

-Roger Sterling's therapy monologue about how life is a straight line masquerading as a series of doorways is one of the more insightful expressions of depression I've ever heard. Slattery did a great job of playing the character in that office, and I hope we see more of him in therapy.

-All Bobby Draper got to do was moon over his sister's friend and tell his mother he hated her hair, but it was still probably the most he's done in several seasons.

-I'd really like to know what comedian it was that did the ear bit. I'm assuming it's a real life thing because they were so specific about Phyllis Diller being the guest host on The Tonight Show. In any case, it was fun to see Peggy's subordinate try and fail to recreate the routine in the office.

-You never know which bits are going to come back and which won't, but I'd be interested to see more of Roger's daughter and her ambitious husband. That was a great moment when she left without the jar of water from the Jordan River.

-Betty's "let's rape the 15-year-old in the next room" routine was the oddest, most disturbing thing I've heard on TV in a while. And yet Henry Francis continues to treat her spectacularly well, complimenting her new hair color and insisting she's still beautiful. He even puts up with that horrendous nightgown. I guess any woman would look good compared with that harridan of a mother he's got. Still I'm wondering if there's a dark secret he's hiding.

-Hopefully the body count doesn't keep going at this rate, otherwise there will be no one left by the end of the season. Boardwalk Empire this isn't.

I have a feeling this will wind up as one of the weaker episodes of Season 6, which considering how entertaining it was despite some obvious flaws mean we are in for some real excitement. Stay tuned.

Thunderstruck

Erik Larson is most famous for his book Devil in the White City, but that wasn't the one sitting on the free books table at my office. Thunderstruck tells two stories, which don't seem particularly intertwined until the very end of the book, when what had theretofore been a somewhat tedious examination becomes a gripping potboiler.

Thunderstruck forms around two men, Guglielmo Marconi, the man who invented wireless telegraphy, and Hawley Harvey Crippen, an American expatriate who committed one of the most infamous British murders this side of Jack the Ripper.

One of the problems with the book's construction is that Marconi's story takes more time to develop, as his technology experiences many setbacks in its infancy, as well as serious challenges from the world's scientific community. Crippen is really only notable for one act, but in the name of trying to parallel the stories his sections can seem rather padded. After going through Crippen's background, Larson pores over a few years of his life in excruciating detail. It is much more interesting to read about the doubt surrounding Marconi and his wireless, though even that tale could often get bogged down and repetitive.

Thunderstruck gives the distinct impression that it would be much better as a long-ish magazine article than as a full-fledged book. Larson over-reaches in trying to maintain the reader's attention through constant use of foreshadowing via phrases like "more on that later" or "that would have sever consequences, as we shall see." Overall, the book may be worth reading almost solely for the thrilling last section, which ties together the two threads and tells a story that actually is quite fascinating, how wireless communication helped catch a notorious criminal while the world watched on in suspense.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette?

When you read a lot of fiction it can be easy to get jaded and bored, and forget why you even read so much of it in the first place. The reason is because occasionally, no matter how rarely, you come across a work of magic such as Maria Semple’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette?

The novel, a contemporary example of the epistolary form, composed mainly of emails and other primary documents, is a wonder. Set mostly in Seattle, the story contains multitudes. At its heart, it is about the relationship a person has with their own mind and the struggle to communicate with other people. But that makes it sound pretentious. Where’d You Go, Bernadette? is an exuberant, gripping, book that grabs you and makes you care for the characters and worry about them. It’s been a while since I found myself so invested in the futures of fictional characters.

Our main character, and the compiler of the documents which form the text, is Bee Branch, fifteen-year-old prodigy and daughter of Elgin Branch, a bigshot at Microsoft, and Bernadette Fox, a former architect losing her grip on sanity. Bee shares with us the story of her mother’s plight as a disaffected person struggling with even the most basic social interactions. Bernadette’s loathing of Seattle, of the other parents at Bee’s private school, and the pointlessness of everyday life have led her to live mostly as a recluse, conducting most of her affairs with the help of an online personal assistant.

As the novel gets underway, Bee is leveraging her perfect grades to guilt trip her parents into taking her on a trip to Antarctica. The dread of taking a long sea voyage on rough waters, in close confinement with other people, is the tipping point for Bernadette, who begins behaving more and more erratically, provoking pernicious gossip among the parents at Bee’s school. Two of these parents, Audrey Griffin and Soo-Lin Lee-Segal, trade jokes at Bernadette’s expense while they serve as queen bees of the private school’s parent set. Semple’s narrative eventually envelops both of them as well, in ways that are sympathetic and understanding.

There’s a lot going on in Where’d You Go, Bernadette? but Semple handles it all so gracefully that the whole thing seems quite natural. Semple is an agile mimic and deftly paces the revelations that make her novel so gripping. The truths about Bernadette’s past failures and of Bee’s birth are moving and real.

This is a remarkable novel that will delight and devastate all but the most heartless of readers.

The Crying of Lot 49

The Crying of Lot 49 is the work of a petulant genius, someone for whom the run-of-the-mill literary formats are too simplistic. Pynchon reacts violently against convention and ordinariness, inviting the reader to look inside his overly-active mind and staggering talents as he name drops obscure historical incidents, abstruse scientific concepts, and bewildering philosophical arguments. He also composes plausible pop songs about pedophilia and an intricately plotted Jacobean drama.

All of that sounds like it might be a lot of fun, but Pynchon's genius is, in this outing, too much of the smug, superior kind that doesn't particularly care if your having nearly as much fun as he is. Plot and character may seem like proletarian concerns to a mind like Pynchon's, but their absence from this narrative makes the whole thing jarringly pointless and rather juvenile when you come right down to it.

The Crying of Lot 49 is the story of Oedipa Maas, a bored housewife who is named co-executor of the estate of her ex-boyfriend Pierce Inverarity. (If these names strike you as too implausible, I implore you to stay away from Pynchon.) As Oedipa strives to sort out Pierce's holdings, she becomes ensnared in a historical conspiracy with the goal of subverting governmental postal services, with roots stretching to the fifteenth century.

The conspiracy is known as the Tristero, and it's symbol of a muted horn (the image on the cover above) begins to haunt Oedipa, following her all over California. The mysterious nature of the Tristero has all the makings of an intriguing tale, but Pynchon doesn't really care about the mystery, or about Oedipa, or about you. The Tristero is just a convenient vehicle for him to flaunt his extensive knowledge.

Lest you think I'm being too hard on the book, you should know that the famously reclusive Pynchon has disavowed the novel as well, saying that to him it feels like a diminished effort, as though he had unlearned the lessons of his earlier novels. Why the author's own view has not been enough to keep literary critics from overpraising this off-putting novel is a mystery much more sinister than the Tristero.

Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh

Evelyn Waugh's debut novel is a remarkably assured, deftly plotted, incredibly funny look at the inanity of the ingrained class system in Britain. It is compulsively readable and charged with frenetic energy thanks to the manic absurdity of the plot.

Waugh's protagonist, the mild-mannered, unassuming Paul Pennyfeather, is a scholarship student kicked out of Oxford and disinherited under false pretenses. Over the course of the novel he bounces around Great Britain and Wales, falling into one predicament after another as he just tries to mind his own business without success.

Waugh delights in tweaking the unearned pretentiousness of the upper-crust and their unshakable, unproven convictions. The Lords and Ladies of the novel are certain their wealth and privilege are the right and proper nature of things, and no amount of evidence to the contrary can penetrate their thick skulls.

The humor is especially wicked while Paul is employed as a schoolmaster at a private boys' school in Wales. The school and its founder aspire to the highest ideals, but in reality serves as a shelter for the lazy, incurious sons of nobility. Waugh's boldness is especially evident in his use of a a boy's unfortunate accident and subsequent declining health as a recurring joke. Waugh is lampooning the unshakable reserve of the elites, and though the joke is rather shocking, it is also shockingly funny.

Waugh is perhaps best known for his serious, Catholic novel Brideshead Revisited, but he was equally proficient at satire, as this fine novel amply proves.

Les Miserables

The problem with reviewing a movie like Tom Hooper's Les Miserables is that it is not really one movie. This is a problem inherit to the structure of the stage show. A large number of the songs are solos, separating one of the characters apart from the others and letting them have the spotlight all to themselves. Here the flaw is exacerbated by the unequal distribution of singing talent among the cast, making it easy for the viewer to veer back and forth across the entire range of emotions. Certain songs create a well-spring of genuine feeling. There are songs of anguish, heartbreak, and loss which in the right hands are otherworldly effective. There are songs with rousing choruses which stir the blood quite capably. Unfortunately, there are also songs that provoke a response quite opposite to that which is intended. The film is ultimately too inconsistent to be as truly as great as its occasional moments of greatness, though luckily it is nowhere near as bad as its worst moments either.

Even at 158 minutes, the plot of Les Miserables often feels hurried. There isn't a lot of time for quiet contemplation as the viewer is bandied about between different characters singing their hearts out. Succinctly, Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) is released from prison after serving 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread, after being warned by the steadfast Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe) that his past will follow him wherever he goes. Jackman is adept at portraying Valjean's bitterness and hate for the world which he feels now owes him retribution. After being shown the error of his ways by the Bishop of Digne (Colm Wilkinson, who originated the role of Valjean in London and on Broadway), Valjean resolves to begin life anew. However, to do so he must escape from his past, breaking his parole and assuming a new identity.

Years later we catch up with Valjean and find him running a factory and serving as the mayor of a little town. By the type of coincidence only allowed in 19th century novels, Javert is transferred to the same town, arriving at a unfortunate moment which causes Valjean to ignore the plight of Fantine (Anne Hathaway). When her fellow workers discover that Fantine has a child out of wedlock that she has left in the care of some Parisian innkeepers, they spread ugly rumors about her and cost her the job.

The rest of the plot revolves around the consequences of Fantine's plight, and Valjean's remorse over being responsible, plus it would take too long to explain, so let's get back to the review.

Given the multitudinous nature of the film, it's probably more informative to talk in terms of performances. As I mentioned before, they were quite varied. Jackman is very good as Valjean, both before and after his spiritual awakening. His singing is also quite good. Even when I disagreed with his singing choices (he had a tendency to downplay some notes which I thought could stand to be bellowed) I respected them for dramatic reasons. He really did inhabit the character.

Unfortunately, his counterpart Inspector Javert was not portrayed nearly as successfully. Russell Crowe was perhaps not as bad as the universally negative reviews had prepared me to expect, but his lapses can not be ignored. Crowe actually did a fair job capturing the intensity and commitment of Javert, although he was surprisingly unmenacing. Musically, Crowe was obviously far more comfortable playing off his fellow actors. He was much stronger in The Confrontation, in which he trades verses with Jackman, than he was in solo songs such as Stars, a song he butchered and rushed through so badly it can not be forgiven. At times he just looked plain nervous. His casting has to be considered a mistake.

The most buzzed-about performance is Anne Hathaway's, which is being talked about as an Oscar certainty. In truth, it took me a while to warm up to her acting, which at points seemed a little too technically precise, even during her big solo, I Dreamed a Dream. During this very evocative song, I was mostly observing her performance instead of being moved by it. However, I was completely won over by Hathaway's version of Come to Me, which was very moving and for which I'll agree she is awards-worthy.

The love triangle of Cosette (Amanda Seyfried), Marius (Eddie Redmayne), and Eponine (Samantha Barks) is mostly successful. Seyfried has a rather lovely voice but at the high end of the register she has an unfortunate tendency to warble. Redmayne looks a little too much like a Muppet for me to really take him seriously, but he was mostly fine in a thankless role. Samantha Barks has played Eponine on stage, so her belting of On My Own is one of the more impressive vocal achievements in the film, however, her character seems to be a victim of the films hurried pace. The pain of her unrequited love for Marius doesn't get enough time to really connect with the audience.

The film's most disruptive, damaging performances are actually turned in by Sasha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter as the Thenardiers, the innkeepers who adopted Cosette and commit thefts to supplement their meager income. In the stage show they are meant for comic relief, which means they are exaggerated eccentrics. This works alright on stage, but on film their grotesque over-the-top appearance is distracting and breaks the rhythm of the film entirely. Though both are game for anything, they have been miscast and poorly applied to the story.

Hooper, who won an undeserved Oscar for directing The King's Speech, does a mixed job on this film as well. His extreme close-ups aren't so much distracting as they are unnecessary. It's as though Hooper sought to give fans of the theater a closer view than they could get of the stage version, forgetting that movie screens are big enough to see human faces clearly in the wide-shot.

Les Miserables is a messy, brassy, sentimental show, and that makes for an uneven application to the film. Maybe no one could have made a completely satisfying movie out of the show, but it still stings that this isn't as great as it so clearly could have been. As it is, it still has moments of fantastic power and soaring strength. It will probably be one of my 5-10 favorite movies of the year. But its flaws are so visible that there will be others, less predisposed in the movie's favor, who will be far less forgiving. And they won't be wrong.

Killer Joe

Desperate people acting on the most primal motivations: money, power, and sex. That's the basis for all great noir films, and that dynamic is heavily represented in William Friedkin's excellent Killer Joe, a Texas-fried update on the classic style of noir masters like James M. Cain.

Killer Joe centers on the twisted murder-for-insurance money scheme cooked up by the Smith family, whose four IQs added together would struggle to crack 300. Chris (Emile Hirsch, in a role unlike anything I've ever seen him in) is a low-level drug dealer who finds himself in debt to his bosses after his good-for-nothing mother steals some of his cocaine before he can sell it. Informed of his mother's $50,000 life-insurance policy, with his younger sister Dottie (Juno Temple) as sole beneficiary, Chris hatches a plan to kill his mother.

Chris is frighteningly stupid, but even he knows he can't get away with murder, so he lures in his father Ansel (Thomas Haden Church) and the two of them hire Killer Joe (Matthew McConaughey), a police detective who moonlights as a hitman. (Joe's day-job, he explains to Dottie, is often a "convenience", especially when he is assigned to investigate his own crimes.)

This set-up is fairly boilerplate for noir, though McConaughey's eerie energy elevates the film's initial scenes. What kicks the film into high gear, however, is when McConaughey, who initially refuses to do the job on the promise of being paid when the insurance comes through, changes his mind as long as he is paid a retainer. That retainer isn't cash, but the entirely innocent Dottie, whom Joe has taken a liking too.

Every scene between McConaughey and Temple crackles with anticipation. McConaughey's single-minded coolness gives way to an inner demon more perverse than seemingly possible, while Temple's Dottie is naive and dim-witted but also curious about sex and willing to learn from the one of the worst teachers imaginable.

It wouldn't be a noir if the whole thing didn't come crashing down in a frenzy of violence and death, and Killer Joe is most certainly noir. The downward action contains a number of twists which are perhaps predictable but Friedkin and screenwriter Tracy Letts layer the plot with nearly unbearable perversion and creepiness, as a scorned Killer Joe confronts the Smiths in an epically disturbing conclusion, with one more twist that I certainly didn't see coming.

My Favorite Christmas Movie

The discussion of favorite Christmas X,Y, or Z comes up every year, and because there haven't really been a lot of great examples of the genre in recent decades, and because too many people tend to casually dismiss works of art from time periods before their own cultural awareness dawned, lately the annual round of blog posts celebrating Christmas movies have taken on a distressing similarity. Many film or pop-culture bloggers, typically male, have taken to christening "Die Hard" the 1988 Bruce Willis cop thriller, as the best Christmas movie of all time. I see this all the time, and my default reaction at this point is just scream "No! No! NO!" and pound my fists on the table. Clearly, I'm an emotionally mature adult.

I should hope I don't have to point out the faulty reasoning inherent in naming Die Hard the greatest Christmas movie, but I will because this is exactly the kind of things blogs were made for. First, Die Hard isn't the greatest anything, not even the best Die Hard. Die Hard with a Vengeance is basically the same movie with a lot more trivia, logic puzzles and Samuel L. Jackson (who plays a character named Zeus solely for the benefit of one single "Hey, Zeus!" joke.)

Secondly, Die Hard is not a Christmas movie. The fact that the events of the film take place at Christmas time are not particularly necessary to the story the movie is trying to tell. It's a coincidence, or more accurately a choice made out of convenience. Die Hard is not about Christmas is any meaningful way.

As for my own favorite Christmas movie, it was for many years the Jimmy Stewart classic It's a Wonderful Life, which is still the only movie guaranteed to make me cry at every viewing. (Multiple scenes can set off the waterworks, but I always lose it when Harry Bailey toasts, "To my big brother George, the richest man in town!")

However, a few years ago I watched the black and white version of Miracle on 47th Street, which NBC used to always air after the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, for the first time since I was a kid. Really paying attention to the movie reveals to be a remarkably well-constructed examination of the holiday itself, our collective need to imbue the end of the year celebration with a sense of magic and goodness, at the possible expense of our collective sanity. It is the quintessential Christmas movie.

When a sweet old grandfatherly man calling himself Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) fills in for a drunken Santa at the Macy's parade, he becomes an instant hit and is hired to play the role for the season at the department store by put-upon single mother Doris Walker (Maureen O'Hara). Doris has raised her daughter Susan (Natalie Wood) to be a practical little girl and not believe in fairy tales or other such nonsense. The Walker's neighbor Fred is an idealistic young lawyer who doesn't see the harm in believing in things.

Everything goes great at first, as Kringle's big-hearted disposition fills even capatalistic Mr. Macy with the spirit of giving. But then an interfering psychologist provokes Kringle into an outburst, leading to his commitment and trial. Represented at the trial by Fred, Kringle's fate hinges on the young lawyer's ability to prove to the court of law that his client is the real Santa Claus.

The courtroom scenes are really thrilling, but when I was younger I didn't see what was really going on. It's easy to watch and think of Miracle on 34th Street as just another one of those movies with a feel-good ending where everyone decides to believe again, a la Tim Allen's Santa Clause movies.

But really, Fred's brilliance is less legal than psychological and political. He slowly destroys the prosecution's case by relying on the shared cultural construct of the Santa Claus myth. He gets the prosecutor to admit that there really is a Santa Claus by confronting him with his own son's belief in the man. He gets a respected man like Mr. Macy to admit to his belief in Kris Kringle because Macy is worried about loss of sales. The judge in the case, acting upon the advice of his political bosses, is unwilling to rule against Santa Claus lest a lot of angry parents toss him out of office. The finishing touch of the Post Office delivering Santa's mail is really just a convenient out for the judge. The real cause for Kringle's win is our collective need for Christmas to have a meaning beyond presents.

The movie plays it a little coy too, for the children. Susan gets the house she wanted for Christmas, with Kringle's cane in the corner indicating that he had something to do with them finding it. But the movie makes it pretty clear this isn't actually a gift. Fred's closing line, "Maybe I didn't do such a great thing, after all." could be seen as him admitting it wasn't too hard to prove Kris Kringle was really Santa, but really, he's also quite likely realized that Kringle isn't quite as all there as he appears.

Miracle on 34th Street is such a winning, affirmative movie, that it's easy to miss how perceptive it is about the reasons for the season. It's so easy to miss, that the people who remade the movie in the '90s managed to excise all the wit and intelligence out of the screenplay, somehow managing to turn the best Christmas movie of all time into just another holiday film. But the original is so good it can not be tarnished.

How I Met Your Mother: "The Final Page"

It's been an up-and-mostly-down season of How I Met Your Mother, and "The Final Page" had it's fair share of both. These last few seasons have seen the show constantly struggle to produce genuine laughs while usually having much less trouble provoking genuine emotion. At this point the show could essentially pass as a romantic drama with a penchant for indulging in cringe-worthy silliness.

So it was that in "The Final Page" the comedic bits largely fell flat, with the notable exception of Neil Patrick Harris's expert physical comedy in the first half-hour. The episode was nearly derailed by the shoe-horned appearance of Seth Green's character, a creepy hanger-on that Marshall and Lily lack the ability to tell off. Green's character was far too over-the-top to be credible, and his presence was an unwelcome distraction. Peter Gallagher was not much better as Ted's old college professor, but at least Ted's yearning for approval felt realistic and relatable.

The second half-hour largely bypassed humor and went straight about the business of wrapping up the loose ends the show has to get through before the end of the year. I think most fans of the show saw the Barney-Patrice relationship for exactly what it was, so it was more of a relief than a surprise to see Barney's proposal and Robin's acceptance of same. Had we not known well ahead of time that these two would be heading down the aisle, this scene might have packed more of a punch, but it also might have opened the character's behavior up to more scrutiny. As is, there's still something icky to me about the way the show treats Patrice as something less than a full-fledged human being. I hope that at some point the show will address this, even if it's just one of Ted's narrative asides: "Oh by the way, Patrice met a nice guy who liked her for her and is very happy." Something like that.

Much more poignant than the proposal was the scene leading up to it, which was an unforgettable display of dramatic acting prowess by both Josh Radnor and Cobie Smulders. Their argument in the limo, over whether Robin should go after Barney one last time, was overlaid with the long history between the two characters, all of which was imparted through implication and gesture instead of outright exposition. It was a masterful scene.

When the show comes back in the new year, with it's fate for a possible ninth season hanging in the balance, here's hoping we get more character moments like that limo scene, and maybe a few more laughs as well. After all, this is still supposed to be a comedy.

Ted

Though it's 112-minute run time breezes by, Ted eventually reveals itself as an artless take on the romantic comedy bolstered only by the flashy high-concept premise of it's title character, a brash, foul-mouthed, talking Teddy Bear. You get the sense that writer-director Seth MacFarlane and the rest of the creative people involved put in very little effort past the initial idea. Literally everything outside of the talking teddy bear is a repeat of the same lazy cliches and character tropes you find in every romantic comedy.

Mark Wahlberg's John Bennett is an overgrown man-child with a do-nothing job at a car rental agency. He likes getting high and watching DVDs with his buddies, just like a typical Type B male lead, except in this case his only buddy is his childhood teddy bear, turned real by the magic of his Christmas wish.

Somehow, John has found himself in a four-year relationship with Lori, a public relations agent played by Mila Kunis. Because this is a movie decidedly written by and for the male audience, Lori is a ball-buster who is largely framed as an antagonist for wanting John to behave more responsibly and make more of an effort. She also wants Ted to move out.

The rest of the film follows John as he constantly chooses fun and adventure, much of it drug-induced and dangerous, with Ted over spending time with his long-suffering, much younger, way more successful, and more attractive girlfriend. A well-paced and constructed action sequence leading to the movie's climax brushes past the part of the movie where Lori forgives John and accepts him for who he is for no discernible reason.

It should not be surprising that the creator of Family Guy relies on pop-cultural references and politically-incorrect statements for humor, but for some reason it was still disappointing to see it in feature-length. All of the jokes in Ted are disposable, and less than 24 hours later I'm having a tough time remembering any of them in detail.

Ted is the kind of movie that thinks it's hilarious just to bring up the 1980 movie Flash Gordon, and that bringing its star Sam J. Jones in for a cameo just ratchets up the laughs exponentially. It's cheap, one-note, and hacky comedy. Of course it made a killing at the box office and for the next decade or so people will keep telling you it's one of their favorite movies.

Save the Date

The characters in Michael Mohan's feature Save The Date may be going through what so many Twitter users derisively call "white people problems" (or #whitepeopleproblems, as it were) but the emotionally honest performances by the talented cast enable the movie to rise above such complaints. Though the script takes a few unfortunate shortcuts and doesn't do enough to establish its central character, Save the Date is still a satisfying, low-key indie movie.

Lizzy Caplan and Alison Brie plays sisters who are both facing questions about their relationships as they near the time when everyone expects them to settle down and start their own families. Brie's Beth is engaged and planning her wedding to Martin Starr's Andrew, a drummer in a band who can't be bothered to have an opinion about place settings or organic catering. Caplan's Sarah is about to reluctantly move in with her boyfriend Kevin (Geoffrey Arend), Andrew's band-mate.

The opening scenes, featuring Caplan packing up all her belongings, including the still-dirty dishes in her sink, are indicative of quirky comedy, a type of film Save the Date never actually becomes, unless you find heartbreak and emotional honesty just gut-bustingly hilarious.

The turn toward the dramatic occurs when Kevin, despite prudent advice from Andrew and Beth, proposes to Sarah after a gig. Arend's performance as Caplan walks away in silent anger is agonizingly good. His crushing despair is shockingly credible.

From there the film navigates the fallout of the breakup through its impact on Beth's and Andrew's engagement and Sarah's new relationship with Mark Webber's Jonathan, a marine biologist (yes, really) who patronizes her bookstore just to get a look at her. Because you see, when you do it in a movie, it's not creepy.

This is a film that is really little more than a showpiece for some talented actors who otherwise don't get anything but supporting roles in studio comedies. It's nice to see them get a chance to show off their full range, even if they had to settle for a less-than-great script to get that chance. Caplan's character in particular is underdeveloped on the page, as her fear of commitment and need to preserve her independence are never explored or explained. The lack of proximate cause makes her seem not worth all the trouble she puts Kevin and Jonathan through, but they keep insisting on how special she is. Other than looking like Lizzy Caplan, what does she bring to the table?

The film is also soured a little by its not quite a cop-out but still frustrating ending, which seems to be trying to satisfy a larger audience while still paying lip service to its indie base. It's wholly unsatisfying as a story resolution, but by that point you've likely realized you're watching to see Caplan, not to find out what happens to her character.

The Marriage Plot

There are two main elements to writing a great novel. The first is to come up with a compelling, original story featuring memorable, realistic characters going through humongous life events, responding to challenges, and reaching some sort of climactic, cathartic conclusion. The second element is the nuts-and-bolts of the writing; clear and concise sentences, arresting images, interesting and unusual word choices, fluidity and dexterity.

There are lots of novelists who excel at one or the other of these elements, but not both. A novelist with great stories and clunky, unappealing prose can still find success with readers who appreciate a rollicking good story more than elegant language. While someone with an immense command of the language can find favor with readers looking for new ways to use words and metaphors they would not have thought of themselves. Both groups of writers (and their readers) tend to look on the other group with condescension or disdain, but I’ve always felt that to be truly great, a novel must have a great story as well as impeccable prose.

The Marriage Plot is the second novel I have read by Jeffrey Eugenides, after his Pulitzer Prize-winning Middlesex. In both novels, I have been struck by the amazing ability Eugenides has with words. He is remarkably self-confident and assured in his usage and his construction, and justifiably so. The man writes a good sentence. But in Middlesex I thought his plotting, while buoyed by an interesting and unusual premise and strong knowledge and research of the setting and place, left a lot to be desired. The story eventually caved in under the pressure of all the unnecessary weirdness and outré sexuality Eugenides laid on top of his fractured novel of growing-up.

Now, Eugenides has followed up that effort with a story that is surprisingly toothless and inconsequential. The Marriage Plot is a misconceived overlaying of the comedy of manners style of the Regency and Victorian eras onto the modern age. Featuring three characters who are realistically drawn yet at times alarmingly stupid or unsympathetic, The Marriage Plot stumbles to an uninteresting conclusion featuring no real tension or resolution. But hey, some of the sentences are nice.

Madeleine Hanna, Leonard Bankhead, and Mitchell Grammaticus are three members of the Brown University Class of 1982. Their intertwining romantic lives on campus lead each to struggle in their immediately post-graduate lives. Madeleine is a rich-girl a bit spoiled by her exposure to the finer things and a bit unreflective when it comes to the privileges that allow her to fritter away her time reading musty old novels while her classmates fret about the recession. Mitchell is a religious studies major captivated by life’s greatest questions, but equally entranced by Madeleine’s tantalizing figure. However, Madeleine is with the brilliant but troubled Leonard Bankhead, a dual major in Biology and Philosophy who turns out to be too smart for his own good when he is diagnosed with manic-depression on Graduation Day.

The novel is at its best in flashbacks to the characters’ time at Brown, delving into the background of the main trio’s relationships. Unfortunately for the reader, more of the novel follows their quixotic post-grad wanderings. Anyone who ever had a friend who claimed to be changed by studying abroad will recognize the feeling of boredom that overcomes them while reading long passages of this novel.

Mitchell joins a friend on a globe-trotting adventure, eventually coming to a crisis moment in India when he tries to put his religious beliefs into practice volunteering with Mother Teresa to help the poor and sick. Leonard tries to keep his illness in control and keep it a secret from the esteemed scientists he is working and competing with. Madeleine devotes her life to Leonard, while trying to squeeze in grad-school applications when she can.

Surprisingly, the novel collapses on its low-stakes plot. It’s perhaps too prejudicial to say that the lives of spoiled rich-kids can’t make for great literature, but it’s definitely true that it doesn’t work for The Marriage Plot. Mitchell’s and Madeleine’s self-created problems are nothing in comparison to Leonard’s very real trauma, and yet Eugenides explores Mitchell and Madeleine in far greater detail, entirely out of proportion with the interest they possess to the reader.

The Marriage Plot is a compulsively readable, comparatively short novel, but it could stand to put on some weight. The narrative shortcuts and shying away from real consequences makes it ultimately a frustrating experience for the reader hoping for greatness.

Bachelorette

Writer-director Leslye Headland’s Bachelorette is so darkly and crudely funny it makes Bridesmaids look like a family film. And while the sharp edges may puncture holes through its characters’ believability, ultimately the film is saved by an inspired madcap energy that suffuses the climactic scenes and brushes aside all the minor quibbles and nitpicks through sheer force of laughter.

When Becky (Rebel Wilson) tells her best friend Regan (Kirsten Dunst) that she’s engaged, the news is greeted with simulated enthusiasm and barely-disguised disgust. Regan and Becky’s two other best friends, Gena (Lizzy Caplan), and Katie (Isla Fisher) react to the news so poorly they seem almost like misogynistic characters, the back-biting fake friends of every woman-hater’s fears. Their ambivalence toward Becky’s happiness is made more disturbing because of how rooted it is in their own shallowness. The three friends, all skinny and conventionally attractive, can’t stand that the plus-sized Becky is marrying a stable, normal guy while their romantic and personal lives lie in tatters. They’re not exactly sympathetic figures, which is of course largely the point.

After some inexcusable, and frankly too mean to be funny, actions at the rehearsal dinner, Katie, Regan, and Gena decide to drown their troubles in booze and drugs. When that combination proves harmful to the bride’s dress, resulting in a large tear down the middle, the trio go into overdrive trying to solve their problems.

Along the way, they are helped/hindered by a similar trio of groomsmen including best man Trevor (James Marsden), the groom’s brother Joe (Kyle Bornheimer), and Gena’s ex Clyde (Adam Scott). If you’re dreading the conventional pairing up of trios, well, you’re not entirely wrong, but the film still manages to surprise you.

Bachelorette is remarkable for how well it wrings laughs out of its characters’ personal failings and fundamental flaws. It also pushes the boundaries of comedy without exactly relying on gross-out humor (when one character vomits, it’s actually one of the more serious moments of the film.)

Dunst, Caplan, and Fisher all give spot-on performances as unhappy, troubled women. Their various freak-outs and implosions are fascinating to watch. By the end, though they’ve only taken small steps toward redemption, their humanity has become so apparent that you can’t help but be happy they all made it to the church on time.