Reviews Of Two Films Starring Charlize Theron: "Young Adult" and "Snow White And The Huntsman"
Charlize Theron has had a pretty busy year. She managed to knock my socks off in her role as a kind of sister-figure to Michael Fassbender in "Prometheus". Below are two other films released this year starring Charlize Theron: "Young Adult" and "Snow White And The Huntsman".
Young Adult (2011)
To say I was unsure about this one is putting it mildly. This is a film directed by Jason Reitman, whose first film "Thank You For Smoking" I enjoyed very much, but his most recent film "Up In the Air" somehow irritated the hell out of me. "Up In The Air" felt so calculated to play on emotions, but seemed to spend more time pushing the 'isn't marriage wonderful' angle rather than the 'economic downturn is destroying peoples lives' angle. The way the film focussed more on the former rather than the latter was particularly confusing seeing as the filmmakers brought in REAL people who'd lost their jobs for particular scenes. "Young Adult" is also written by Diablo Cody. The last film I saw that she wrote was "Juno" which was also directed by Jason Reitman, and once again I hated it.
So here's Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman re-united, so what convinced me to give it a try?
Well, the main push was possibly Fabfunk (or Gabe Toro as he is known in most other places online, with his livejournal account looking rather empty this year), who assured me that this is a much better film from these two figures. I don't always agree with Gabe, but I do appreciate his opinion and I was intrigued. Another push was that Diablo Cody is writing the new "Evil Dead" reboot and it'd be really nice to see some evidence that Diablo Cody can write something that I enjoy before I check that out.
Needless to say, Charlize Theron is brilliant in this film. I also like that she's not playing a wholly sympathetic character. After watching "Julia" starring Tilda Swinton, one of the best films released in 2008, I checked out the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. I was surprised to see that many of the negative reviews criticised the film for having such a horrible central character. Yes, the character of Julia was utterly selfish and intentionally deluded herself about the harm she caused to others, or even to herself, yet she was compellingly watchable and very strongly written character. Finding out what awful thing she would do next was part of the fun and with so many male anti-heroes out there already it strikes me as surprising that a female anti-hero should cause a problem for critics. In "Young Adult", Chalize Theron's protagonist never does anything as awful as kidnap a small child or run over their carer with a car, but she is still a pretty mean person. Having already enjoyed "Julia" so much, I had absolutely no trouble empathising either Charlize Theron or sometimes even cheering her character on, in spite of how awful the things she said and did might be.
The premise is that Charlize Theron's character is a writer of Young Adult fiction. She writes about a popular self-obsessed girl in high school. Meanwhile, she herself has as yet to learn to grow up. As the film opens she's decided to try to get back together with her, now-married, ex-boyfriend from high school. On returning to her home town, where her ex-boyfriend still lives, she comes across Patton Oswalt who plays someone who also used to go to her high school, but who she has completely forgotten. While our protagonist plots to end her ex-boyfriend's marriage, Patton Oswalt becomes her regular drinking buddy. The differences between the two characters somehow draw them together and become a good source of comedy.
As much as I've criticised a number of films over the past year for being annoying combinations of drama and comedy with very little of either, this actually had a pretty good balance of the two. Plus, with the protagonist's nefarious scheme and Patton Oswalt's character's not-entirely-cheerful past, this is often rather black humour which appeals to me all the more.
I don't really think there's much more to say. The characters are interesting, the protagonist is compelling, the film is funny (often in a somewhat dark way, though not "Julia" dark), and even though this has some elements of the indie style that has irritated me in so many other films, I have to admit to being completely won over by this film. Diablo Cody's next film is "Evil Dead"? Great!
A+
Snow White And The Huntsman (2012)
I'd heard somewhat mixed views on this film. Actually make that VERY mixed views. Some seemed to dimiss it as awful while others said it was really good fun. Everyone seemed united in praising Charlize Theron for her role as the villain and yes, she is brilliant. And despite a rather lame script, the parts involving her character were very interesting indeed. She's a woman who has learnt that being accepted requires that she remain beautiful and beauty has become the most important thing in the world to her. This premise makes the central storyline surrounding her jealousy of Snow White's beauty a lot clearer. No, Kristen Stewart doesn't look like more beautiful than Charlize Theron, but then again there's the suggestion that Snow White is growing in beauty and threatens to surpass her in the future, rather than being someone who has been more beautiful for many years. (In any case, this would be a rather petty issue on which to condemn the movie.)
Where I found my view veered sharply from much of the views I had heard was in regards to Kristen Stewart's acting. Some said that she ruined the movie. I say this is the best performance she has ever given. Sure, there's one point where she's trying to do a "Henry V" style rousing speech and all her attempts at shouting in an inspiring way fall rather flat, but she does a fair bit of emoting without once biting her lip and probably deserves some credit for that. What I was rather less impressed by was Chris Hemsworth's performance. Now admittedly a sub-par Christopher Hemsworth performance is still not all that bad, but what made this worse was Chris Hemsworth's embarassing attempt at a Scottish accent. To make matters worse, his voice is even used in narration early in the film. I'd heard a few short clips of his accent before watching the film and I had to admit that it was not obvious whether it was supposed to be Scottish or Northern English, but within the film itself it was extremely distracting and annoying. By contrast, Kristen Stewart's English accent in the film is actually pretty good.
Where "Snow White And The Huntsman" shines is the effects. Any effects shots look brilliant and the styles are highly creative. We have the evil queen taking the form of a flock of ravens (or possibly a murder of crows), we have the heroes of the film being attacked by assailants in humanoid form made out of shards of glass, we have the evil forest which draws on the fear of those who walk within it and we have the pure heart of the forest populated with fairies. Any effects shot is absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately any other shot looks very plain, particularly by comparison to the effects shots. The "Prince Charming" figure in the film is particularly bland, though no actor is helped by the script.
I was pleased to have seen the effects work in this film since it was absolutely gorgeous. I was also pleased by the take on the evil queen's character, since she made a very compelling villain. Unfortunately the film as a whole was fairly paint-by-numbers and I found it all rather slow and boring. The arrival of the dwarves meant that the film picked up a bit since all the dwarf actors were rather awesome British acting talent such as Nick Frost, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Toby Jones and Eddie Marsan. As much as I could appreciate the whole "connection between the rightful Queen and the land" theme which was also found in the movie "Excalibur", it seemed to rather undermine the empathy gained with the evil queen. Similarly, asides from Bob Hoskins' blind dwarf recognising the healing power of Snow White, the dwarves had very little connection to the plot. (And seriously? A blind character that sees better than anyone? Sure, I'm happy to have that trope used, but it was extremely unsubtle here.)
Asides from the dwarves there were a lack of standout performances, the dialogue was generally pretty bad, the plot was very simple and outside of the effects sequences the film looked remarkably bland. The effects were gorgeous and inventive and the film lit right up whenever Charlize Theron was on screen (not least because she seemed to have been given all the best lines), but unfortunately Theron alone was not enough to save these films. Chris Hemsworth's appalling accent was enough to make me never want to see this film ever again, but then again perhaps a few of the effects shots could just about tempt me back? In any case, I would not recommend this film to anyone. I would merely accept that it is bearable (whenever Chris Hemsworth's huntsman character isn't speaking).
D+