SPOILERS. SERIOUSLY, SPOILERS.
Kevin Smith is such a frustrating writer/filmmaker. He giveth, and he taketh away. His latest movie “Zach And Miri Make A Porno” is a classic example. I had a great time watching it, but there were also some serious drawbacks. Let me demonstrate
Giveth: Elizabeth Banks as Miri. Thank god for this role. Elizabeth Banks is so funny, and she deserves more than being the thankless girlfriend/wife or playing bit parts. There’s a serious problem in comedy, which is there are a lot more funny actresses than there are roles for them, and I suspect Banks will be a victim of that problem. Kevin Smith contributes to the problem in part, since he’s always got leading men but not so often leading women. But to Smith’s credit, he does break out of the trap on occasion of portraying women as oversensitive fun-killing harpies, a tendency that’s taking over Judd Apatow’s movies, for instance. Miri is a normal person, and it really blows your mind how few women in comedies are normal people. She sleeps in oversized shirts, wears granny panties (because she, you know, gets her period), wavers between being unabashed about being sexual and feeling sexist pressure not to be, and, like most people, has her boorish and awkward moments. Banks gets into the character, instead of keeping her distance like other actresses do when trying to do something awkward or silly in comedies, as if to reassure the wankers in the audience that THIS IS JUST A ROLE; I DON’T FART IN REAL LIFE. Please, Hollywood, write some good roles like this for Elizabeth Banks.
Taketh away: Tisha Campbell-Martin’s baffling turn as Delaney’s wife. To the actress’s credit, this sexist, racist role (basically the opposite of Banks’ multi-faceted character) was not written by her, and she seems to be doing the best she can with wretched material. Smith needs someone in his life to tell him no, I think. This entire character and all references to her and her harpy ways made by Delaney needed to be excised from the script. I realize Delaney needs problems at home to explain his reluctance to engage in production of the porno, but why not just make it more financial woes like the sort that Zach and Miri have? This woman is beyond a cartoon, because at least cartoons have explicable behavior. She’s just crazy and mean beyond all human understanding.
Giveth: Craig Robinson as Delaney. Again, Hollywood take note. Like Elizabeth Banks, Craig Robinson is a subtle but hilarious physical comedian. He got big laughs with rather small gestures, and his short bout of dancing onscreen is far funnier than it should have been considering how little he’s actually doing. Unfortunately, his character is mostly a broad stereotype, but he does a lot with a little. He needs someone to write him roles beyond being The Black Guy. He’s good on “The Office”, playing the biggest character whose work life is just a little out of the reach of Steve Carrell’s unintentional tyranny, and therefore bemused by it.
Taketh away: Seth Rogan as Zach. I mean, he’s fine, but he’s just such a big star now that it’s clear that he wasn’t subject to the directing he needed to be to be as funny as he could have been. There’s just too many moments where Rogan needed to be a tad more boorish or awkward, but wants to come across as a cool character. It’s okay to be a loser, Rogan. The point of the movie is that even losers like Zach and Miri can find love.
Giveth: Some stellar raunchy humor, and a great first 2/3 of the movie. When Smith’s at his best with raunchy humor, it works because it’s more about the real sources of humor—-our flawed human nature. This movie, at least for the first 2/3, strikes a perfect note of making crazy fun of stupid shit while not crossing into the zone of misanthropy. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s just not this movie.) Much of the raunch exploits the fertile ground that is the difference between real life and the fantasies portrayed in pornography. Smith is pretty comfortable with making fun of how goofy sex is, and it makes the whole thing pretty relaxed for a comedy about porn.
Taketh away: The plot falls apart in the final third. I’m completely on board from the beginning with the idea that a couple of good friends don’t realize that they love each other until forces conspire to get them to fuck each other and then it feels intimate and so they move into a romantic relationship. But Smith couldn’t figure out how to make it work, and ends up taking two characters who have a lifetime of blunt honesty with each other and making them do uncharacteristic things to inject some tension in the plot.
Marc put his finger on it as we were leaving—-Smith probably could have written something much more interesting if he’d had the courage of his convictions, but instead he finishes up with some sort of romantic ode to monogamy. We’re asked to believe that Zach and Miri have lived for years together, watching each other’s romantic ups and downs and probably hearing each other have sex (their shitty apartment is great, looks totally realistic), but only now that they’re starting to make a porn movie does it occur to them that they want only to fuck each other. I’m not buying it. Smith wrote a comedy that posits that the love lives of losers are fit for romantic comedies, that people who work in porn shouldn’t be stigmatized, and that women who take shits and make huge mistakes are loveable. But he couldn’t quite bring himself to tackle the other big myth, that monogamy just happens because it feels right. I don’t buy it. Far more interesting would be showing how Zach and Miri decide to become monogamous after an actual commitment—-how they fuck other people, how they muscle through it, whatever. But Smith contrives to find ways to tempt them to fuck others, but they reject it, even though there’s no fucking way. Far more interesting would be a comedy about how people aren’t naturally monogamous, even if they love each other, but instead that they choose it.
It doesn’t have to be boring or unfunny. The worst part about the way Smith plays it safe is that he made his best movie by tackling a hoary old romantic cliche—-when he brutalized the virgin/whore syndrome in “Chasing Amy”. I appreciate that movie because it showed that the whole “knight in shining armor” mythology is pathological, and that there’s nothing sweet or endearing about men who are controlling, possessive, or jealous. If only he’d brought that sensibility to this movie. I mean, Zach’s desire to control who Miri has sex with is portrayed as stupid to an extent, but then again, he’s never actually forced to deal directly with the fact that, outside of a formal commitment to him, she’s free to have sex with whoever she likes and his role is to suck it up and move past it if he wants a relationship with her. (And it goes both ways—-Miri is also never forced to deal with it, which is fair, at least, but still the boring route.) Introducing real conflict like that would have removed the need for bullshit fake conflict. And I bet we’d still get a chance to see Jason Mewes’ cock.
Still, it’s not a waste of money or anything. The jokes are great. Just don’t see it if you’re easily offended or you can’t cherry pick what you like out of movies.
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I haven’t seen Hairspray.
I’ve lived 26 years without seeing Jason Mewes’ cock, and I like it that way.
Does Mewes have like, another job? does he just kind of live on Smith’s couch?