Justice for The Bling Ring, which I once called the pastel corollary to Harmony Korine's neon Spring Breakers. I'm not exactly sure it's all that pastel, but it is decidedly more chill than its counterpart.
It's also too easily dismissed, either as a poor evocation of a certain kind of celebrity acolyte culture, or as a judgment on the characters at the center of it all.
I find it quite fair to the characters, and having now watched a bunch…
I used to think the songs too softened the bite in Dahl’s original story, but now I have a hunch they just make Wilder’s turn as Wonka that much more ferocious. Few movies are better at speaking to kids by way of unsparingly calling out the adults.
If this film is bleak, it’s because adults made it so. If it’s hopeful, it’s because a child made it so.
“So shines a good deed in a weary world.”
This was just a nice way to start my day. Might need to institute Saturday morning cartoon regimen.
The reenactment stuff would be painfully annoying were it not for a) Charlie Day and b) the over-the-top nature of it being a perfect reflection of the documentary's subject, the hearty-laughing rapscallion Mike Veeck.
Veeck also happens to be a bit of a raconteur, turning every one of his on-camera interviews into a show of its own. In that sense, one might argue that nobody needed the Charlie Day stuff, or even the Jeff Daniels narration.
But all of that…
With keen direction from Ahn, endearingly understated performances from Hong Chau, Brian Dennehy and young Lucas Jaye, and a script confident enough to let the viewer fill in the blanks, this was my biggest SIFF 2019 surprise and is sure to be one of my favorites of the year—not just from the festival.
It gets in and out quickly (in under 90 minutes), but it the pacing never feels rushed nor the characters shortchanged. I hope Driveways finds an audience, despite its unmarketable title.
Elsie Fisher is incredible and Bo Burnham’s script is miraculously universal and so specifically of this moment. I had the great fortune to see them together in a post-movie Q&A—they make a great pair both onscreen and off.
