So this was super depressing to me, in a way I can't quite explain. I feel like I need to watch it again because I want to, and also I just want to continue watching Charlize BE Mavis, in all her psychotic glory. It feels to me the way that Angelina Jolie's performance felt in Girl, Interrupted. The character is horrifying and vile and kind of irresistible, all at the same time.
I've never been a big Charlize Theron fan (although I've also never seen Monster) but I think this movie has converted me. She just so fully inhabits a bitter, sad woman who can't even really begin to realistically fight against the horror of her own life, and so instead creates a house-of-cards like alternate story in which she is successful, happy, well-rounded, and everything else. The only commonality between what we see happening to her and what she sees happening to her is her actual physical beauty, which is in no way diminished here like it was purposefully in Monster (I'm not even going to address that movie where she prettily has cancer and plays mind games with Keanu Reeves nor the one where she's a pretty miner). And yet, even that is bifurcated between what we see when Mavis wake up, always disheveled, hungover, disgruntled, and the end result of a very complicated beautification process (presented several times for reinforcement by way of montage, thanks guys for really hitting that home! It takes time for her to look like this! Most of its fake!). And EVEN THEN, after all the effort is shown, she still always looks over the top, as though she understands perfectly well the appropriate attire for any given situation and then goes several steps beyond just because that's who she is.
I really appreciate that while this movie was clearly not Juno, tonally or character-wise it still feels like it could inhabit the same world as Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody's first effort together. It's a little bit bleaker, darker, angrier. But then Juno has a fair deal of darkness people sometimes forget about. But there are still some great (dark) funny moments that remind me of Juno.
Also, Patton Oswald is great in this. I thought he was great in Big Fan too. I thought he was great in Ratatouille. I thought he was great in The Informant! I think he is a legitimately really good actor.
Frowny face.
So much boozing.
Spackle.
This was maybe my favorite joke in the whole movie because who hasn't sat down at a table in a strange place where you didn't know anyone and could only look around so many times while you waited for whoever before you get out the ol' mobile and start pretending-texting away? Not anyone who's been a cell-phone dependent adult in the last decade, which is to say, almost no one.
I have been to this Macy's. On this kind of day. For this kind of purpose (sort of, I was there to find a dress for an event). It is an unspeakable horror.
Pom! Besides Charlize and Patton who were aweome, little Pom (Mavis names it Dolce but I refuse to acknowledge that beyond this parenthetical statement) deserves an award for being the best! Or at least a nomination! OH WAIT THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED BECAUSE LIFE IS GRAND!!!
Pom clearly planning his acceptance speech since this scene asked very little of him.
Spite donut! The very best kind of donut? Dicuss.
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