Dude, what?
This did not do it for me at all, and if this wasn’t a PTA movie with his name attached, this would not be getting near the amount of recognition that it’s receiving.
SYNOPSIS: Alana Kane and Gary Valentine grow up, run around, and fall in love in California's San Fernando Valley in the 1970s.
This is the first Paul Thomas Anderson movie I’ve ever seen. I KNOW. I know, sorry. I started Punch Drunk Love once upon a time and dropped it after the first five minutes, granted, I was like 12 years old and it wasn’t really my cup of tea at the time.
Yes, this movie is well directed, I felt as though everything was very intentional (well, most things) and I felt as if everything was being executed under one artistic vision. The cinematography was spectacular, and I was consistently impressed with the choices being made with the camera work here. PTA uses a lot of mirrors and reflection shots in this movie, and the long unbroken takes really suck you into the world he’s creating. The production design and costume design was very faithful to the period-piece nature of this movie, and it all helped with the overall hot-70s-summer atmosphere that this movie creates.
The soundtrack was surprisingly pleasant to listen to, a lot of the times with movies like this, studios will push the “classic” songs that everyone knows from that era, but I respected all of the song choices and how they were used in the movie, and for the sheer amount of music that is in this movie, it never felt overbearing.
The acting in this movie is fantastic. Alana Haim is pretty much a natural born star, and I thought it was peculiar that her ENTIRE family plays her family in this movie, a strange choice- but a welcome one. Cooper Hoffman is great as well, he has a natural charismatic charm, and his onscreen chemistry with Haim is undeniable. Bradley Cooper, Benny Safdie, and Sean Penn were all welcome additions as well, even though I felt as all of their inclusion’s were a bit high-profile for the prominence of their roles.
And uh… yeah, now let's get into the bad stuff.
So… having your male interest be fifteen, and your female interest be TWENTY-FIVE!!? WHY!? I would love to sit down with PTA, and just ask him why? There is no reason, absolutely no reason it should be this way whatsoever, and I honestly don’t think I could be convinced otherwise. All it does for me is make me think PTA is a fucking creep, and it certainly doesn’t make me want to watch more of his stuff. I just don’t understand, and I honestly feel like I’m missing some crucial detail in all of this, but nonetheless, it’s just bothersome.
I get the whole “slice of life” storytelling technique, but it just does not work with the story being told here at all. The story felt so aimless, and filled with these little scenes that were trying to be vignettes, but those attempts just made everything feel so much more confusing to me. It felt like there was no discernible plot thread tying any of this together, and because I didn’t really give a shit about these characters, the story unfolding wasn’t interesting. There’s a minor subplot with Benny Safdie and Alana Haim, and I actually thought that part of the movie was really engaging; I saw a whole other movie inside of the one I was watching, I saw potential. But it was short-lived, and sidetracked.
The ending felt extremely rushed and anticlimactic, it just did not work for me whatsoever. I did see what PTA was trying to do with it (I think?) but it made the entire movie, as aimless as it was, feel even more so. Maybe I’m stupid? I don’t know, I just feel like I really missed something with this, and maybe that’s on me.
I’m still torn on how I feel about this movie, because it’s so well acted and SO well made, but the story, and the characters didn’t click with me at all. The absurd racial stereotypes, the AGE-GAP! So many choices left me wondering why, and for that I just couldn’t get into this the way I wanted to.
6/10
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