From the director of Your Name, the only body-swap romance film I can think of that’s actually worth watching, the latest from animator Makoto Shinkai makes that film’s high concept look downright pedestrian. I mean, most films look normal compared to the story of a Japanese schoolgirl who falls in love with a chair cursed by a cat-god, but my point still stands.
While it didn’t really hold a candle to Barry Sonnenfeld’s live-action films, I liked the first animated Addams Family movie. It made proper use of its new 3D environment, the voice acting was fun, and it even managed to find a way to make the family’s Goth outsider aesthetic resonate in the modern day, when their entire way of life has been wholly embraced in popular culture. I won’t begrudge that film for being popular enough in its own right to warrant a sequel. But looking at what we finally got, I can’t help but think the filmmakers have walked back every step they took with the original.
Is it unfair to keep comparing this to The Father? I mean, they’re both films predominantly about the personal and familial effects of dementia, they both made it to Aussie cinemas this year, and they have diametrically opposite methodologies and tones when it comes to the subject matter. With just how highly I rate The Father, it seems like this film can’t help but underperform next to that level of efficacy. But no, I’m going to keep that contained in this paragraph, because while this isn’t as effective as The Father, it has more than enough of its own engagement value to make its mark.
Wanting to just say “Fuck it”, pack into a van, and go anywhere other than here is a rather common thought nowadays. Even as a functional introvert, I feel as if recent events have been testing my willingness to spend most of my waking hours indoors. So with indie filmmaker and soon-to-be MCU inductee Chloé Zhao’s latest feature, there’s definite timeliness to be gotten out of watching Fern (Frances McDormand) roam America in her RV, and wishing one could do the same in these days of lockdown. Only what’s being tapped into is at once removed from the here and now (taking place in the wake of the global financial crisis), but also informed by events that have been steadily growing worse in the interim.
I’m in the mood for something fun today. And we’re already off to a good start since, with all the release schedule shuffling, I’m surprised this even made it over here this year. But man, am I glad it did because this is Spongebob doing what Spongebob does best.
Escapism is a peculiar thing: By its very nature, it is
meant to help us escape from the real world through fiction, yet it seems to
affect us more the closer to reality it is. Maybe it’s because it helps give a
better view of our own lives through an outside observer, or maybe it’s just
because we like the idea of familiarity in an unfamiliar place, but for
whatever the reason this seems to be the case. Personally, I use escapist
fiction as therapy: A means for me to cathartically let free whatever pent-up
feelings and emotions I have, be they anger, melancholy, giddiness, thirst for
knowledge or what have you, in a way that doesn’t interfere with those around
me. With this idea of therapeutic escapism in mind, let’s look at today’s film.
