Those of you who know me know that I’ve always been head over heels in love with the movies. I gave up the total security of a tenured professorship to come to Hollywood and ride the Tinseltown roller coaster. The dizzying up and downs did nothing to abate my passion for film. They simply fed my romantic obsession. But now, my friends, it is my sad duty to announce the end of the affair.
What killed my love of film?
My decision to watch a few of the Academy nominated movies.
I started with Anora.
It had virtually swept the awards, its lead actress knocking sure-thing Demi Moore right out of the ring.
For those of you who’ve not yet had the dubious privilege of watching the film, a quick overview. It’s the story of a lovely young “sex worker” who makes an exclusive, one-week contract with a boy man who turns out to be the son of a Russian oligarch.
The first half of the film is a highly explicit portrait of Anora hard at work at a sex club and then making a heroic effort to satisfy the insatiable sexual appetite of her baby oligarch.
If you were to stumble in after the movie had begun, you’d probably assume you’d wandered into the wrong theatre and were watching a triple X porno film, but you’d quickly realize you were not. Why? Because the sex is so boring, repetitious and unsexy.
The turning point comes when, on the spur of the moment, Anora and her client decide to get married in Vegas, inspiring her family to attempt to annul (obliterate) the marriage.
There you have it. The whole story.
Anora has it all.
Sex and violence.
Violence and sex.
What’s not to like?
It’s probably unreasonable on my part, but I have to ask one question: Why should we care?
Anora is a prostitute (excuse me, sex worker) who loves what she does. She actually wants to stay married to this spoiled, irresponsible, narcissistic child-man. I secretly suspect she’s more in love with his money, possessions and social status than with the little shit himself, but that’s probably just me.
As for the oligarchical offspring, he’s so reprehensible that when he disappears after his parents express their disapproval…Oops! I suppose I should have offered a spoiler alert, but trust me, it won’t matter that I’ve just given away one of the only plot points in this nearly plotless mess. As I was saying, when he disappeared, I felt nothing but relief.
It’s only in the last few frames of Anora that there is any human moment, and it’s simply not enough to save the film.
I finished wondering if the Academy members had lost their minds, but I decided to give them another chance and watched Emilia Perez. The story of a Mexican drug lord who decides to turn his back on his business and become a woman, it turned out to be interesting and unorthodox—with much of the dialogue sung a la Sondheim-like recitative, but in the end, I found myself asking the same question I’d asked of Anora: why should I care? This man turned woman is responsible for deaths of hundreds if not thousands of people, and his attempt at reformation ends in more violent deaths.
So…
…I decided to give the Academy (and the art of film) one more chance.
I considered The Brutalist, but at three and a half hours, it would have to be Lawrence of Arabia or The Godfather for me to make it through to the end, and all indications are that it’s not.
And then it hit me!
The Substance.
Demi Moore’s triumphant, celebrated return to superstardom!
It grabbed me from the outset with the totally silent presentation of an egg yolk injected with some mysterious fluid and dividing to produce a second egg. The direction? Dazzling in its imaginative use of extreme close-ups and corridor shots. The acting? The finest Moore has ever done and an unforgettable performance by Dennis Quaid. The character of the protagonist? Sympathetic. Who could not relate to a superstar falling victim to inevitable old age?
Wow!
And then…
…halfway through…
It fell to pieces.
Credibility?
Out the window.
Restraint?
Thrown to the wind.
The movie descends into a maelstrom of grotesque violence and disgusting imagery, transforming from masterpiece to mastermess in the quick poke of a needle.
And so I find myself asking, with Robert Frost in “The Oven Bird,” what to make of a diminished thing—the diminished thing that is today’s movies.
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