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Erfangholiz
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Fourth of July (2022)
Great performances and dialogue.
I'm absolutely biased here because not only am I a huge Louis fan but I happened to watch this movie in a particular time in my life where it hit very close to home.
Some of the best performances of the year in my opinion, I've seen these characters in real life, I've heard these lines of dialogue with the same exact delivery in real life, every glance every change in tone every pause every hesitation every little touch had a purpose behind it.
There's also a lot of not-so-subtle visual cues like how the American flag is integrated in the sets and costumes and literally the poster and the name of the movie but I liked what it had to say about America and how Jeff is a liberal New York guy and his family is old fashioned (other than Kevin who's straight up a bigot) and how they need to reconcile.
The movie feels very authentic which comes with no surprise, because Louis, just like Jeff, is a New Yorker from Boston whose a performing artist.
The comedy could definitely have been stronger considering it was written by Louis C. K. but it didn't really bother me that he decided to take itself a little more seriously and the lack of comedy was totally justified.
X (2022)
My favorite slasher!
I love the commentary on generational trauma and how every generation that has a gap with its next one won't shut up about how they know how life will turn out and can't help but resent the youth because of having the fun they couldn't have when they were young.
That's not even the case sometimes, sometimes they just hate the youth because they're having fun that they can't have because they're just too old.
I thought the ending was cleverly anticlimactic, both the old man's heart problems and the old woman's hip were previously established and at the end it was their own age and fragility that was their downfall, truly a satisfying and deserving death.
I watched this during the 2022 protests in Iran and given how the previous Iranian generation revolted against its government and how this generation is doing the same I hear a lot of people saying that they know how this story will end and say we shouldn't do it and make no mistake, I agree with them but still, it hit pretty close to home with me.
The twist at the end was also pretty clever and well set up, how the girl was that Christian speaker's daughter. They really took Chekhov's gun and jacked it up to eleven!
All in all, probably my favorite slasher movie ever, though I probably have seen maybe 4 or 5 of them in total.
Rang song (2021)
Could have been much much better.
It had potential to be another Na Hong-jin horror classic like The Wailing (2016) but it often overstays its welcome.
There are too many scenes where a character has their back to the camera and slowly turns around doing creepy stuff.
There are too many scenes where Mink is moving around on all fours.
There are too many POV scenes where the cameramen get jumped on towards the end of the film.
All of these things were effective the first couple of times they happened but by the end they just didn't faze me anymore.
They failed to make it feel like a genuine documentary, I think they should have totally leaned into that Blair Witch Project aspect.
The ending doesn't pack any punches like the ending of The Wailing, there's way too much time towards the end where the audience knows full well what's going to happen.
As soon as Pang opens the door we know all is lost, from that point forward they should have summed up the rest into just a couple of minutes of everything going wrong at the ritual (Also a little suspense wouldn't hurt, I'm pretty sure my 9/10 score of The Wailing would have gone down 2 numbers if the ending didn't have me at the edge of my seat), instead we spend a ludicrous amount of time doing just that because the movie insists of hammering the point home.
It's like a poorly timed joke, the punchline just isn't funny anymore if you miss the mark, it wastes just enough time to lose all the momentum and THEN it ends.
Turning Red (2022)
Didn't quite make sense to me
The message of embracing that weird and loud side of yourself is good but this film does a terrible job of conveying it.
From the first scene it appears the panda is established as an inconvenience, Mei-Mei can't experience strong emotions without turning into a giant smelly creature, she can't get angry and she can't acknowledge how cute kittens are.
The red panda isn't the thing that's ALLOWING her to have these emotions, she could have them just fine, it's just an additional thing that makes her seem dangerous to strangers and because of that her choice of keeping it doesn't make sense to me.
It's not something that allows her to express herself as she was extremely expressive already.
It's not something that allows her to explore the world more freely and find more things that she loves as none of her interests really change after the panda's appearance.
So what is it? What is the panda supposed to be and why does she want to keep it?
I can't think of anything other than the writer's need to have yet another thing that's red and Chinese in the film.
Not to suggest it's existence is unnecessary, just that the writers didn't integrate it well enough with the story.
Licorice Pizza (2021)
Fine, but the weakest Paul Thomas Anderson film I've ever seen.
Licorice Pizza has more or less the same concept as The Worst Person in the World but with bad execution, it's about the contrast between growing up and staying young and the uncertainty people face in their late 20s.
28 year old Alana agrees to go out with 15 year old Gary because he sounds like new, youthful adventures and that's not something she has a lot of in her own life, everything Gary introduces her to is chaotic, Jack Holden (Sean Penn) and Jon Peters (Bradley Cooper) for instance, she meets the former because of an acting gig she only got because Gary signed her up with an agency, and she meets the latter because of the waterbeds Gary was selling at the time.
When Jack's motorcycle accelerates Alana gets left behind, implying she's perhaps too old for this, and when Gary smashes Jon's car she does not find it funny at all she's disappointed with the decisions that lead her there, she sits and looks at them from afar, reflecting on what she's doing with her life while Gary and his friends pretend to blow each other.
The movie addresses her age and the fact that she can't go back in time and that's why the ending is undermined by the beginning 2 hours of the movie.
When she starts working for Wachs she feels like she's finally doing something with her life, like she has a purpose, she even thinks Wachs is into her, but then at dinner when Wachs and his boyfriend break up, she sees the ugly side of the grown up world and what she might have to do in order to be one, she might have to do something like Wachs did to the love of her own life, so she just runs away and seeks refuge in Gary's carelessness, even though we saw time and again that that doesn't work.
I would have been fine if the film was only about being young and stupid and going on adventures, I would have been fine with a fantastical movie that makes you say "goddamn, I wish the real world was like this, it was a pleasure to live such a beautiful lie for 133 minutes" but it clearly was taking reality into account, in the end it was a movie that couldn't make up its mind and the weakest Paul Thomas Anderson film I've seen so far.
Bukimi na mono no hada ni sawaru (2013)
My analysis of this movie.
This world is a river, there is garbage, and there are Polypterus, and the way it's decided who's who, is by the dance they do in the movie.
Every relationship or friendship has a dynamic, one person is the water and the other the fish, for example between Togo (the older brother) and Satomi (his girlfriend) the former is the fish and the latter the water, it is said that without the water the fish cannot move, in one scene we see Satomi noticing and tying Togo's shoelaces, therefore allowing him to move freely.
Togo's coworker found a Polypterus at the same time Togo brought his brother Chihiro around, this suggests a connection between these two, Chihiro is like a Polypterus.
Traits of the Polypterus:
Having a hard thing at the back of their skulls.
Being savage. We see Togo's coworker has a wound from a Polypterus bite and later Chihiro bites his own hand.
Having things their own way and being dominant. Chihiro and Naoya (his friend) discuss what their teacher's been teaching them, the teacher says "don't move, let your partner move you" and this doesn't make sense to Naoya which is understandable because if you consider the partners to be equals, which Naoya does, then neither of them would move, because they would both await their partner to move them, Chihiro however, doesn't think that way, he categorizes people as fishes and waters, and he can't decide if he's a fish or a water.
Being lonely. At one point during the movie Chihiro seems to be sympathetic, he asks Satomi if it would be better if he moved away, so she could marry Togo, it's like Chihiro realizes what kind of creature he is, he was staring at Togo and Satomi kissing on a bridge and he felt jealous but now he understands what's for the best, he knows that he's savage and selfish and can't be tamed and he doesn't want to deprive others of finding their fish/water.
There's a subtle hint at Satomi being a Polypterus, towards the beginning there's a scene where Satomi and Togo are talking about the Polypterus and they start feeling each other's skulls, Togo doesn't have a hard part and Satomi does, Togo looks at himself in the mirror with a distressed look on his face, like he's reminded what this relationship could lead to, the reason I say "reminded" is because I think he deliberately mispronounces Polypterus and refuses to acknowledge them, but later on he gives in, he then sees her tie his shoelaces which gives him reassurance, so he immediately kisses her.
Also, when she's talking to Chihiro alone, she reacts to the suggestion of him going away by saying "going with a new teacher?", very casually, like she was totally aware that there were teachers who taught people this, perhaps the dance Chihiro and Naoya do is common among everyone in this world.
However, Azusa and Chihiro's story is entirely different, Azusa notices something special about Chihiro, she takes pictures of him, breaks up with his boyfriend for him (she even bumps into Chihiro and stays in his arms when she's running from her boyfriend), and prepares herself for him by biting her hand, as if to say "I'm ready to be bitten by you and am not scared", right after Chihiro leaves home to be alone with himself for a while, his delicate dance is interrupted by Azusa who tries to force herself on him, he tells her to go back to his boyfriend and after she refuses and starts biting her own hand things spiral out of control and lead to him killing her, she could not tame the Polypterus.
The garbage in this story are people like Azusa and Naoya, people who don't know of the intricate ways of the dance and aren't marked by the hard thing at the back of their skulls.
In the end Chihiro and Naoya have one last dance that will decide their fate, Naoya loses, so he gives himself up for the Polypterus.
When the river has too much garbage in it, it floods, and when there are too many garbage people in the world I'm guessing the apocalypse happens, and that's why the movie ends with "To be continued to.... FLOODS".
Hilda and the Mountain King (2021)
I could not have asked for a better conclusion.
Definitely my animated film of the year, it paid off everything the show had set up and showed me that the writer knew exactly what they were doing from the very start.
I'm more than happy if this is the conclusion of this series.
Kaze ni nureta onna (2016)
A pretty simple story told with artistic excellence and a LOT of nudity.
Kosuke used to be a womanizer and that's why he moved away and started living alone in the woods, to have some time to himself and contemplate.
The film uses tiger and dog as opposite symbols, the dog being represented by Shiori as a person who has sex anyone they want and is open and free, the tiger isn't represented by any particular person but by the environment Kosuke lives in, he used to be a dog but now he's in search of his inner tiger, "The lord of the forest. It's not a wild dog, it's from a greater realm.", he says as he gazes upon the woods with wonder in his eyes.
Tigers are solitary animals but dogs are in packs, that's why at the end we hear multiple dog howls and one tiger roar. It makes sense from a storytelling point of view, there has to be more than one person for the sex to start! Shiori, the wild dog goes around and turns other people into dogs, after that fateful night we see all the involved characters go nuts and keep having sex.
At first Kosuke looks down on her and disrespects her by calling her a stray dog, a name she will later put on display as if she's proud of it. Maybe she wanted to help him get out of his shell or maybe she was just doing everything based on her dog instincts, either way she ended up helping.
The author views sex as a therapeutic method, it helped that girl get over her past trauma and find the love of her life, at the end Kosuke's hut in the woods is in ruins and his time there is over, he can now go back a new person, a dog. She even leaves a note for him, playfully asking him "Who's the dog?". The girl was the hero of the story all along, forcefully healing people one by one, going even as far as rejecting Kosuke at first just so they could wait and have a wild long sex during which his hut breaks down.
At last, the tiger is captured and confined, and the dogs can prevail, Shiori is elsewhere probably saving others. The dogs start howling and the tiger gets in one last disapproving roar in vain.
Verdens verste menneske (2021)
The purgatory of late 20s.
It is 6:39 AM and these are my mindless ramblings about my one and only 10/10 2021 film so far:
The purgatory of late 20s, not quite young, not quite old, too young to be with someone who has his life figured out and too old to be with someone who eats magic mushrooms.
Julie says that she feels like she can be herself with Eivind but as soon as she says that, she turns away, doubtful, she clings to her young self and refuses to be old even though she's not young, it doesn't mean she's old, she's just not young.
Then she sees Aksel on TV, an accomplished comic artist, debate a serious matter and it hits her, her relationship with Eivind is going nowhere, she questions herself and pushes him away.
She seeks shelter from one to the other, it's only the pressure of pregnancy and the confrontation with the inevitability of death that pushes her over the edge and into the old section.
At the end we see her having a period, she wasn't pregnant, it was a false positive, but it doesn't matter anymore, she rose to the occasion, she passed the real test.
Eivind had a kid too, I feel like every day I come to realize the inevitability of wanting kids, as young people we might say we don't want them and we might have all kinds of reasonings behind it, like climate change, but that's not going to last, at least that's what I think, all these boring old farts used to be young and foolish too, right? Eventually most people come to change their minds.
Julie is not sure if she wants kids, she feels claustrophobic when she's with Aksel because she wants adventure and doesn't want her entire life planned out and she feels stupid and immature when she's with Eivind because she wants stability and a plan and a future, she's in a purgatory, she's the worst person in the world to be, she's the worst person in the world to be in a relationship with.
The Power of the Dog (2021)
You gotta watch this twice.
After the first time I gave it a 7, I was aware it told its story in its subtle details but it was only after watching it for the second time that I appreciated it in all its glory.
The acting, the score and the goddamn cinematography ties together so well with the script, if you're a fan of movies like Burning (2018), There Will Be Blood (2007), Roma (2018) or No Country for Old Men (2007) you'll love this one.
Annette (2021)
My new all-time favorite musical
Henry is a master comedian, he's cocky but people still like him, people think he doesn't deserve Ann because she's perfect and he's not, so he's kind of insecure about their relationship.
He spends his show subverting expectations and proving he can be as good as Ann and he resents the audience for thinking that he's not.
The dark side of fame and relationships among celebrities, one person is bound to end up as "the reacher" and the other as "the settler", in this case Henry is the former and Ann the latter.
They love each other nonetheless, in their own words they defy logic and are "counter-intuitive".
This inferiority complex seems to be common among people around Ann, her accompanist seems to feel overshadowed by her as well.
In her play Ann says "I was love and now I'm dying dying dying dying dying dy......ing" and Henry can't help but take it personally, maybe it is and maybe it's not, but given the nature of their relationship and the way people view them Henry just can't help but have these humiliating interpretations that she's saying "I could be shining much brighter but you're grounding me".
Henry is worried restless about his daughter, he is afraid to get her tangled in their own problems, he's afraid she would be a laughing stock (hence seeing her as a clown in his dream).
The childbirth is beautiful, Henry is there every step of the way and he's helping Ann the only way he knows how, by making her laugh, we see Annette as a wooden doll, an object, an object for both Henry and Ann to use to get back at each other, what Henry feared happened, Annette got entangled in their problems but she didn't become a laughing stock, something much worse happened, she became a means of punishment.
Henry is stuck at home baby-sitting, "something's about to break, is it something we should cheer? Is it something we should fear?" the movie is hinting at the couple's fall out.
Ann has a dream about Henry being abusive and violent, we can see the resentment pool inside her as well.
Ann is dying in every play she's in, it's true that she doesn't write these plays but the fact that she only accepts parts where her character dies tell Henry all he needs to know, she is sending the massage I mentioned earlier.
He returns to comedy after a long absence, he does a show in a casino in Vegas, casinos are the places washed up comedians end up, those shows are for people who don't have enough money left to gamble and they're often free, the comedian gets paid by the casino, Henry went from a hall that had Richard Pryor and George Carlin on its walls to this.
He bombs.
He's no longer the master comedian he used to be, the story he tells is perhaps the most honest one, it comes from both his resentment toward his wife and his desperate need to make people laugh, he says he's sick of being in love, he is slowly reaching his breaking point.
None of his "jokes" land and the people boo him off stage, he then comes back for one last "screw you" and then leaves the stage for good.
Ann tells the story about her past and what her art means to her, she cannot stop doing it, she sees herself as an independent queen and can't let herself be grounded by Henry, "I adore this man but something's wrong", she's torn, but she's also a mother, she sees Annette and finds out her love for her surpasses everything else, Henry suddenly walks in and speaks his mind, "my star's in decline", it cannot go on like this.
In an attempt to save their marriage, they go traveling on their yacht, perhaps to bond. Ann says "all of the danger that I feel, I will dispel it with some magic", she is willing to suppress her own feelings, she is willing to stay in this marriage no matter how messy it is for Annette's sake. Though Henry has other plans, he grabs Ann by the arms and yells "dying dying dying" confirming that his resentment was at least partially because of Ann dying in every play, he throws her overboard and as she drowns he repeats to himself "there's so little I can do", something he also repeats when he's drowning the accompanist.
Henry and Annette find themselves on an unknown island, and there, Ann's ghost tells him that she will haunt him through Annette's voice, the love she had for Annette has been replaced with her hatred for Henry, "I am no longer love, I am revenge", this is the first instance where Annette is being used as a tool for one of them to get back at the other.
The accompanist dealt with her inferiority complex differently, he has now become an accomplished conductor and he suspects Henry had something to do with Ann's death, He was having an affair with Ann and cares about Annette, he even thinks she might be his daughter.
Henry has lost his career, and his wife is haunting him, using their daughter as a tool, he pulls a complete uno reverse move and uses Annette's voice to make money, this is the second time we see Annette being used as a means of getting back at a spouse, she is completely caught up in their spat, Henry asks the accompanist to conduct her shows, and even though the accompanist knows it's exploitation, he accepts because he knows Henry will go through with that plan regardless, at least this way he gets to keep a close eye on Annette.
The accompanist is the only person who selflessly cares about Annette, he even looks after her when Henry is out partying and sleeping with women.
The accompanist teaches Annette the song he once taught Ann, the same song that represented Ann and Henry's love, "we love each other so much", even the only good era of this couple's relationship was accompanied by the accompanist's melody, it's like every bit of love that exists in this story stems from him, he was the hero of the story all along, he taught Ann how to love, and he accepted her choice of marrying Henry and even though he thinks Henry killed the love of his life he tolerates him for Annette's sake.
Of course after finding out about the affair and the fact that Annette might not be his, Henry can no longer stand it, a cocktail of jealousy and humiliation pools inside him and he kills the only beam of light in Annette's life, The accompanist.
Annette refuses to sing, and he exposes her dad.
In his stand-up show in the beginning of the movie Henry mentioned an Abyss, the audience asked him if his reason for becoming a comedian was fear of death and he answered "I have sympathy for the abyss. That's why I must never cast my eyes towards the abyss", which basically boils down to him being suicidal.
In the end he mentions that abyss again, but this time to his daughter, for the first time in the movie we see Annette as an actual human girl, this is the first time she is not an object, but a person, and Henry sees her that way too, in fact I believe we've been seeing the story through this couple's lenses all along. For the first time in the movie, he's being sincere, he's being honest, she tells him that she will never sing again, that she's swearing off the one talent she had, and for the first time we see genuine concern from Henry, he tries his best to change her mind but she has been damaged by this man for far too long.
"Can I forgive what you have done? And will I ever forgive mom? Her deadly poison I became, merely a child to exploit."
She sings the same melody as "we love each other so much", but the words are changed, there's no love in that song anymore, the words are changed to "now you have nothing to love". She is too far gone, even though his melody is so strong and feels kind of inspirational Henry falls short in changing her mind.
She leaves.
He walks back, looks into the camera and says "stop watching me" as the camera moves like a security camera. He's aware of our presence. And what are we? The public? The people who spectated his life? The audience? Is he saying "screw you" to us too? Does he want to live in peace from now on or does he want to die in peace? The ending is ambiguous and it's probably my favorite ending in 2021.
The last shot is of the doll Annette laying still on the ground, maybe this is the film telling us about the horrible future awaiting celebrities' children, it's kind of like seeing pictures of the actual people at the end of biography films.
The Green Knight (2021)
One of the best films of the year.
This is an analysis and not a review and everything I write here is merely my own interpretation.
A great tale about how much humans can learn from nature, sir Gawain's mother wants to heal humankind, she tells her son to go have fun, she encourages him to find new adventures, she can kind of guess that Gawain will take the challenge, what she can't predict is how Gawain will choose to strike the green knight.
Gawain decapitates him and the shocked mother immediately collapses, because she's aware of the tragic destiny her son will have to face. She knew of man's desire for honor and she sought to exploit for a good cause but now that she's about to lose her son she tries to guarantee his safety with a spell put inside his belt, a spell that will protect him and ensure his safe way home.
On his way he faces many challenges, first a group of people whose lives have been ruined by war steal some of his belongings, his horse and his axe, in this movie horses and foxes are used as symbols to represent humanity and nature (we even see a painting of some horses chasing off a fox in the mansion towards the end of the film), in his first challenge he leaves his sword and shield behind, and the axe, the only nature-related belonging (it was previously owned by the green knight) is returned to him, but not his horse, whatever force is giving his things back is nudging him in nature's direction, maybe it's nature itself, anyway, it's never really explained.
He then encounters a woman when he's sleeping in a cabin he stumbled upon, the woman tells him that she was decapitated by a lord and she is looking for her head in a spring. She asks him to find it for her and when he asks for something in return, she gets offended, in Gawain's previous encounter the boy insists that Gawain give him something in return for the information he gave him, so now Gawain expects that of someone else, but after he was declined he goes ahead and helps her anyway, I guess that's not the kind of person Gawain is.
She suggests that maybe the lord who decapitated her was Gawain, this means Gawain must give off the same vibe as the man who killed her, and well, Gawain IS destined to be a lord someday, maybe this is the film hinting at the endless cycle of lords who ravage lands and women and do not choose peace, maybe that's the curse of mankind.
Right after finding her head Gawain sees the fox, he has righted the wrong of a previous lord (well, I mean, kinda, she's still dead) and has given that woman's head back, he is now one step closer to owning up to his mistake (decapitating the green knight). She tells him "I see thee, and I will strike thee down with every care I have for thee. The green knight is someone you know", and I don't really know what to make of that.
The next shelter he finds on his journey is a cave, not a cabin or a house, and in that cave, he befriends the fox. He meets giant women travelling and he asks them to carry him on their shoulders, but when the giant reaches out to him, he gets scared, he doesn't go with the giants and instead he finds a mansion to spend the night in, perhaps he was overwhelmed by nature and wanted to crawl back to his fellow humans.
The people in that mansion try their best to change Gawain's mind about the game, the man tells him it's okay for him to rest and the chapel is very near, he hunts food for Gawain's journey back home, it's like he's telling him there's going to be a journey home, like he's paving the road for him to turn his back on the consequences he is to face, it's like he's telling him "it's okay not to go through with this, nobody expects you to, I even prepared food for you to go back home with ease". The young lady of that mansion seduces him and gives a speech about how bad the color green and nature are, she even introduces new human technologies to him, she takes his picture. She goes to his chamber and brings him to orgasm, I'm not entirely sure how, but she uses the belt his mom gave him, the belt that was supposed to prevent him from facing his destiny is doing just that, working as a chain to prevent him from doing the right thing, maybe she took it from him knowing she would eventually give it back, I'm not too sure about that.
There's an older lady in that mansion who is always wearing a blindfold, perhaps to symbolize what's happening to Gawain, or maybe to symbolize what kind of future is awaiting that young lady, the only person who seems aware of the blind lady's existence is Gawain, maybe she doesn't exist at all.
Cruelty against women is a major motif in this story, one was decapitated, one was blindfolded (maybe even blinded) and one (Gawain's lover at the end of the movie) was separated from her child. Cruelty towards women is a product of man, a product that will perhaps cease to exist after man learns his lesson from nature, maybe that's why the person who summoned the green knight (Gawain's mom) was a woman and there were giant women in nature so overwhelmingly big that nothing could hurt them.
Gawain heads out of the mansion and the man brings him his latest hunt, he has trapped the fox in a bag, but he lets go of it after seeing Gawain headed for the chapel earlier than he was supposed to, I think if he had killed that fox Gawain would be too far gone to go through with the game, but the man didn't know how important the fox was nor what it symbolized.
He arrives at the green chapel and waits a day for the green knight to awaken, the green knight goes to severe his head and every time Gawain crawls away, that's not just him cowering in fear, it's also the power of the belt.
He sees his future if he doesn't go through with the decapitation, and the results aren't satisfying, he will have to always wear that belt around his waist for protection (when he took the belt off, I thought "and now his head will fall down" AND IT DID, it just felt so damn good to "get" something), and he will have to be in a constant state of fear, he will have to mistreat women and go to war, he will be cursed with the curse of mankind, after that realization, he takes the belt off and embraces his fate.
The ending is ambiguous, throughout the film we see how much Gawain cares about honor, greatness, and being a knight.
Maybe the green knight did take his head, or maybe he sent back a more decent and honorable man, perhaps that's why he says "my brave KNIGHT".
Belfast (2021)
My biggest dissapointment of 2021, please read the whole review before judging it.
Cinematography-wise it's the Cold War/Roma of 2021, I absolutely love the visuals.
Script-wise it absolutely sucks, the mom's behavior doesn't make any sense, she makes this giant speech about how she absolutely doesn't want to leave Belfast and at the end of it she seems so cold and distant from her husband, you can feel the unspoken tension between them just by the way they look at each other, and then, SECONDS later they're looking at each other all romantically as he's leaving on the bus, like that conversation never happened like they're not growing apart from each other, like she didn't break the plates in her kitchen over their argument. And a couple of minutes later when pa gets back she's completely on board with the whole "moving to England" plan that she was so fiercely against.
The movie seems to forget everything it introduces.
The "fork in the road" speech given by the priest was supposed to work as an arc for Buddy but it was pretty much never brought up again except for one scene and Buddy didn't really develop during the entire film. I never felt any actual connection between Catherine and Buddy, we never get to know Catherine who is supposed to be the main character's GODDAMN LOVE INTEREST.
Buddy has a brother that sits there.
There's a bad guy named Billy Clanton that wants Pa to submit to him at minute 20 of the movie, first I thought, why doesn't Pa just tell the guards about him?, but then I saw Billy punching a man in broad daylight in front of the whole town without facing any repercussions like he owns the place and I thought, okay maybe he actually does have some power, at minute 46 Billy tells Pa "The clock's ticking", between minutes 20 and 46 Pa has gone to England and come back from it twice, the first time for 2 weeks and the second time is unclear, we hear him tell his wife "I can't come home every weekend" while he's away so the second time was also 2 weeks at minimum, this means Billy waited for at least 4 weeks before telling him "The clock's ticking", it doesn't even end there, Billy gets arrested at 01:18:56, between minute 46 and then Pa has gone to England and come back from it 4 more times which at minimum means another 4 weeks, which means Billy went at least 8 weeks without hearing a response from Pa and didn't go over to threaten him or his family, for a man who can punch citizens and have them be so intimidated by him they don't even report it, he's surprisingly patient.
And the confrontation between Pa and Billy is just hilarious, these guys haven't even seen each other that much for the past 8 weeks, when they face each other during the riot there's no weight behind their encounter whatsoever, they have no history that we have a clear idea of, and they haven't had a decent exchange, AND Billy isn't even REMOTELY intimidating, this scene is basically just two neighbors who hate each other looking each other dead in the eyes.
Sometimes the movie turns into Jojo Rabbit ("It's biological") and sometimes it turns into American History X (Right before "It's biological"), all in a matter of seconds.
And don't even get me started on the music, they just found a "relaxing 60's music" on Spotify and randomly played any song over any scene and almost none of them fit well, the most out of place ones are at 00:59:35 and 01:24:45.
Towards the end, right after Pop dies and the movie finally gets real, all the characters break into song and start dancing and the background musicians play with them in perfect harmony even though Pa let go of the microphone halfway through, when did this turn into a musical? What am I even watching at this point?
I went into this expecting a masterpiece like Roma and instead I got "The new movie by the director of Thor (2012)".
I cannot in good conscience give this film a score higher than a 2/10, it's down there with Venom Let There Be Carnage and Jungle Cruise, an utter disgrace.
Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020)
It is realistic... until you look at the whole picture!
First of all, this movie strives to be realistic and truly put you in the shoes of a 17 year old pregnant girl. The characters are never entirely bad or entirely good which is exactly the right move for these types of movies,because if they were exaggerated in any way the film would end up feeling irrelevant and distant and it would defeat the entire purpose of it.
The mistake the writer makes is the distribution of good and evil !
When you look at the characters individually they're actually very well written they're never exaggeratedly good or evil and all feel like they could exist in the world we know, but when you zoom out and look at the whole picture you notice how every single male character with more than one line of dialogue was kind of a douche (to different degrees of course, as I said the writer never exaggerates) and every single woman with more than one line of dialogue was a nurturing angel (again to different degrees)?
The movie should be realistic and it is, until it isn't, until you realize you didn't see ONE decent man or ONE mean woman for an hour and forty minutes.