The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

MPAA (R) CNS/USCCB (O) Roger Ebert (3 1/2 Stars) Fr. Dennis (3 Stars with STRONG PARENTAL WARNING)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1568346/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/11mv155.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111219/REVIEWS/111219982

What parents should know about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (directed by David Fincher, screenplay by Steven Zaillan based on the best selling book by the same name by Steig Larsson) is that this movie is a "hard R;" that is, it would make for truly inappropriate viewing for the vast majority of teens.

I can't think of any conceivable reason why a parent would want to take even a 15 year-old to see this movie, and unless there were particular circumstances in an older teen's life (for example an already present history of abuse in the teen's history) I don't see why a parent would want to take even an older minor to this movie at all.  I encourage parents to read the CNS/USCCB's review of this movie as well.

I write this because I know that the book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has been an international young adult sensation and the 2009 Swedish version of the movie has had enjoyed a "cult" following among many young people as well.  Yet, the reader here (and parents especially) should note that what can perhaps be "glossed over" when described in words (or not carry as much impact) can become a different experience entirely when portrayed in a film: The protagonist of this story, Lisbeth Salander (played by Rooney Mara), who is "the girl with the dragon tattoo" in the story is shown in the movie being brutally sexually abused by her parole officer Bjurman (played by Yorick van Wageningen), and this abuse is shown as graphically as the censors would allow.

So parents, one last time -- unless you want to be asked by your teen "What did he make her do, when he ...?", "What did he mean, when he said ...?" -- don't take your kid/teen to this movie. 

This said, I do see value in the book and movie to both young adults in general and abuse victims in particular.  The over-riding theme of the book / movie is about hypocrisy and then on a staggering number of levels:

Remember here the book comes from Sweden: Sweden was nominally neutral during World War II.  Yet, as the book/movie point out many Swedes sympathized with the Nazis, and Sweden never had to confront collaboration with the Nazi regime.  The rich Swedish family, that journalist Mikael Blomkvist (played by Daniel Craig) was asked by the family's aging patriarch Hinrik Vanger (played by Christopher Plummer) to investigate had been riddled by Nazi-sympathizers, some of whom fought on the Nazi side in the war.

Even Hinrik appeared to appreciate some kind of link between this never confronted Nazi past and other ghosts in the family's closet.  Specifically, Mikael Blomkvist was hired by Hinrik Vanger to finally give him closure regarding a mystery that had haunted him for 40 years -- the abrupt and never explained disappearance of his 16 year-old grand-daughter Harriet (played by Moa Garpendal).  He always suspected that someone in his family was responsible for her disappearance (and presumed murder) but neither he nor the police were able to prove it.  Since Mikael Blomkvist had been a crusading journalist (and one who had run afoul with one of the Vanger family's financial rivals), after making a thorough background check of Blomkvist's own past (interesting, since the Vangers appeared to hold so many secrets) Hinrik hires Mikael to investigate his own family.

The movie is then largely about Mikael's investigation of the Vanger family, which eventually leads him to ask for further help.  And it is then that Lisbeth is brought into the mix: It was Lisbeth who had done the leg work for the Vanger family when they conducted the background check on Mikael.  Why?  Because a "ward of the state," nominally "insane" as far the State was concerned, she was completely under the radar.

When the Vangers suggest she work with Mikael on the case, after Mikael does a check on her, he comes back saying: "Who is this person?  I can't find a single thing about her.  And I'm _usually_ very good about finding these things."  He gets the reply: "You can't find anything on her, because her entire file is sealed as she's a technically ward of the state."

However, not only does she work "under the radar," her previous experience of having been abused, makes her remarkably good at "connecting the dots" that no one else, including Mikael had been able to do.  So yes, by the end of the film, the case gets solved.

The mystery, however, becomes almost beside the point.  The character of Lisbeth comes to the fore, and she is, indeed, a compelling one.  She's a victim, but she becomes also "an avenger," even if still a fundamentally wounded one.  She is a character, therefor, not unlike some of the brooding superheroes of American comic books -- a poor (and female) Bruce Wayne (Batman).

There are elements of her that are self-destructive.  Let's begin with the extensive tattoos and all the piercings.  But it doesn't end there.  She is portrayed as being on the aggressive side sexually at one point seducing, indeed, all but simply "taking" her coworker/Boss Mikael.  (Mikael is portrayed as having a daughter only a few years younger than Lisbeth...).  But despite her learned assertiveness bordering on agressiveness, to the "Dragan Tattoo's" series' credit, it's clear that she still doesn't really get what she wants.  She's tough, she wins, but ... she remains fundamentally alone.

Very, very interesting.  Much perhaps for a young adult to contemplate.  However, I reiterate the warning to parents.  This film is rated "R" with just reason.  So with very few exceptions (and then only honestly if abuse has somehow already been part of your child's life) I can't see any value for teens to see this movie before they could see it on their own as adults.


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Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy [2011]

MPAA (R)  Roger Ebert (3 Stars) Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1340800/
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111214/REVIEWS/111219994

Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy (directed by Tomas Alfredson, screenplay by Brigit O'Conner and Peter Straughan) is a slow-moving, cerebral "chess game" style spy thriller faithful to the novel and book series created by John Le Carre involving his fictional hero George Smiley who Le Carre envisioned as a very different kind of spy to Ian Flemming's action oriented James Bond.  As such, while this movie will definitely have its enthusiasts who like true mysteries and who-done-its, I don't believe Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy will be for everybody.

The closest recent cinematic equivalent to this film that I can think of would be The Good Shepherd [2006] (directed by Robert De Niro and staring Matt Damon).  Indeed, just as The Good Shepherd centered around a specific (U.S.) intelligence fiasco (the doomed Bay of Pigs invasion), Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy is based on a of a true disaster in British Intelligence involving "the Cambridge Five."  These five were discovered to be moles spying for the Soviet Union from within the highest echelons of British Intelligence.  The disaster which played out in the 1950-1960s and threatened the integrity of the entire British intelligence establishment and arguably the security of the entire free world. (It was also a disaster referred to in The Good Shepherd).

So then how does one hunt for a mole in one's intelligence establishment?  How does one even begin to suspect that there is a mole present within one's ranks?  Well that's what this movie is about.  Set in the early 1970s, the members of "The Circus" (the nickname given to the top echelon of MI6 of British Intelligdnce) begin to really suspect that there is mole present among them after a mission to recruit a general in (Communist) Hungary went terribly wrong.  Not only did the Hungarian general make his meeting, but to the shock of everyone, his would-be British handler was actually shot, presumably killed and certainly taken away from that cafe' by the Hungarian/Russian agents who broke-up the planned meeting.  What happened?  How were the Hungarians/Russians tipped off?  Since this was going to be such a coup to get that Hungarian general to "flip" only a few people near the top of MI6 knew of the operation.  So who tipped them off?

So the head of "The Circus", nicknamed "Control" (played by John Hurt) assigns recently retired George Smiley (played by Gary Oldman) to investigate the question.  There are only a few people who could be the mole -- Percy Alleline (played by Toby Jones) codenamed by "Control" as "Tinker," Bill Hayden (played by Colin Firth)  codenamed "Taylor," Roy Bland (played by Cieran Hinds) codenamed "Soldier" and Toby Esterhase (played by Toby Dencik) codenamed "Poor Man" and presumably Smiley.  But "Control" gave him the assignment to find the mole.

Now each of these are powerful people (who could use their power to generally cover their tracks) and they've been associates/friends for years.  In this season of office Holiday/Christmas parties, I found some of the most poignant/interesting scenes in the movie to be precisely _those_ gatherings when normally reserved spies/bureaucrats "let their hair down" just a little bit (yes, slightly buzzed spy-masters can sing pop songs/show tunes just as bad as the rest of us ... ;-), and the tragedy of it all, as one realizes among these people, who all present thought they knew, was a traitor.

So the movie plays as a chess game but one with a definite human / tragic element.  No this movie is not for everybody.  I think that the "R" rating is appropriate, not only for the occasional (and largely unnecessary) scene involving sex or nudity, but mostly because the average teenager (to say nothing of preteen) would probably find the film deathly boring.  As a "date movie," I would imagine that it would be a "date killer" in 9/10 cases.  Still, someone (or couple) that likes a well-crafted if slow-moving "who done it" would probably really enjoy it.


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Sherlock Holmes - A Game of Shadows

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  Roger Ebert (3 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing -
www.imdb.com/title/tt1515091/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/11mv150.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111214/REVIEWS/111219992

The action driven Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (directed by Guy Richie, cowritten by the husband and wife team Kieran and Michele Mulroney based on the Sherlock Holmes series of Arthur Conan Doyle) will certainly continue to annoy purists who with reason wonder why a Sherlock Holmes story told today would need explosions and fireworks and death defying leaps.

Be this complaint legitimate as it may, the current incarnation of Sherlock Holmes [IMDb] (played by Robert Downey, Jr) does bear characteristics of the old.  Like in the original, Sherlock Holmes is something of a "bohemian" / "renaissance man."  He's not afraid of trying things that are new, including, like in the original series, the occasional drug (like opium in the original series, or coca in the current -- Parents do take note), which today we know would be dangerous but in Sherlock's time (in Victorian England of the 1800s) would have been seen as exotic and potentially useful.  Holmes also retains his legendary powers of deduction.  However in the current series, this faculty is used by Holmes not only to use seemingly insignificant strands of information (evidence) to deduce what happened ("who done it?") but what is about to happen.  This ability to rapidly deduce what's about to happen, not only gets Holmes and often annoyed/incredulous partner Dr Watson [IMDb] (played by Jude Law) out of traps about to be sprung on them, it also gives this series set in the Victorian Era a post-Matrix feel.  Finally, Holmes' famous pipe makes an unmistakable comeback in this episode.  So as irritated as some of us "older fogeys" may be that the cerebral Sherlock Holmes has been given an "action-hero" make-over, it's not a total break and it's not totally without value.

So what is the movie about?  Set in 1895, the movie's about nothing less than saving European civilization from a war being instigated by Sherlock Holmes' archfiend, the brilliant Professor James Moriarty [IMDb] (played by Jared Harris).  Sure Europe's presented as a powder keg of nationalist tensions.  France and Germany are at each other's throats.  Additionally, there are anarchists in all countries seeking to bring the whole system down.  But below it all is (according to this story) James Moriarty who's quietly buying both armaments factories and medical supply firms all over Europe even as he bankrolls anarchists setting-off destabilizing but seemingly unrelated explosions in both France and Germany pushing them (and with them, the rest of Europe) to war.  Only someone like Sherlock Holmes, who notices details and relationships between details that no one else seems to notice, can prevent World War ... ;-)

In previous entries on this blog, I've written much about an annoying but apparent trend of politicizing children's stories this year.  Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is a film set in another time, but also with more-or-less obvious political implications.  Yet, I do believe that it is fair to seek to teach young people (teens and above) to think critically and to understand that "things are not necessarily always as they seem" that it ought not to be impossible to imagine that even a terrorist group (the contemporary equivalent of the anarchists of the late 1800s and early 1900s) could be bankrolled and directed by one or another arms merchant who could profit from war.  What was SPECTRE in the original James Bond series but a group of "industrialists" meeting in chalets in exotic locations like Switzerland plotting to destabilize the world for profit?

Now just because conspiracies are possible does not necessarily make them real.  Still, I do believe that it is useful/important for young people to realize that things are not always as they seem.  And even Jesus did spend a lot of time talking about and condemning "hypocrites."

So, while all kinds of people could have all kinds of objections (from literary to thematic) to the current Sherlock Holmes films, I do think that they are enjoyable and may help today's youth to think critically about the world around them.


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Arthur Christmas

MPAA (PG) CNS/USCCB (A-II) Fr. Dennis (2 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1430607/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/11mv144.htm

Arthur Christmas (directed and co-written by Sarah Smith along with Peter Bayhman) follows a fairly dismal trend of politicizing children's films.

And folks I'm not making this up.  When the rather dunce-sounding Mr. Santa of the movie (voiced by Jim Broadbent) comes home to the North Pole at the end of Christmas Eve and declares to his assembled elves "Christmas Accomplished" under a giant banner proclaiming the same (when later it is found that a child did not get her present, that indeed "a child was left behind...") what parent in the entire western world would not immediately know who the joke is on -- former U.S. President George W. Bush?

This film _is_ otherwise very imaginative and witty.  Since Santa's workshop "can't be seen on Google Earth," it's imagined to exist in a "secret base" under the Arctic Ocean where the North Pole is.  Further, since Santa would be quite old if he were delivering presents since the time of St. Nicholas (who lived in the late 200s-early 300s), it is imagined that a Santa family has been delivering presents to children for all those hundreds of years.  And once one is talking about a family, conflicts can be expected:

Grandpa Santa (voiced by Bill Nighy) resents the innovations brought in by his son, the current Malcolm Santa, and especially by the Santa in waiting, Malcolm's eldest son Steve (voiced by Hugh Laurie).  Steve had turned the delivery of presents into a virtual military operation complete with a new "stealth" virtual spaceship, rather than the old reindeer driven sleigh ... One _could_ wonder why with modern radar, we can't detect Santa's sleigh ... Well, it's thanks to Steve's "stealth technology." ... But Grandpa keeps talkin' about how it was "back in the day..." And he has a hoot when "With all that technology, you too still missed a child!  Why, back in 1942, during the height of World War II, I was being shot at by everybody... lost three reindeer that day ... but EVERY KID got a present that day."

Steve, for his part, can't understand why his dad just won't retire.  After all, he's been at it for 70 years and aside from driving the new 'stealth sleigh' (actually, it seems to be guided from Steve's 'mission control' at the North Pole anyway) dad Santa doesn't do anything except _be_ Santa, while Steve actually organizes everything.

Finally, there's younger son Arthur, who nobody really respects, but who's happy working in the "letter responding department" at Santa's workshop at the North Pole.  He's the one who brings it to the attention of Santa and Steve that a little girl named Gwen living in Cornwall, England didn't get the bike she had requested.

From this failure, the rest of the story unspools.  And here, I totally agree with the film's message: "If one kid doesn't matter, how can we be sure that _anybody_ matters?"  The elves ("the little people...") also get it immediately ... It just takes the rest of the Santa family a bit longer to figure it out.

Of course, it all works out well (ends happily ...).  I do think that the story was, on the whole, very, very nice.  I just wish the film makers had kept G.W. Bush out of it...

Finally, what's with the Santa family speaking with British accents?  For better or worse, the modern "Santa" tradition is a distinctly American one, born of the 1820s poem Twas the Night Before Christmas and if it had any European roots at all, those roots would have come from the old Dutch settlers of New York back when New York was called New Amsterdam.  

ADDENDUM -

Though more or less generally secular, the film did take an interesting spin in this regard: throughout the movie, members of Santa's family made repeated references to traditional, Christian Christmas carols.  I counted three such references: Silent Night, Angels We Have Heard On High (In Excelsis Deo), and Good King Wenceslas.  They were all made in passing, and in the case of Silent Night, not altogether respectfully.  Nevertheless, the references were there.


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The Skin I Live in (orig. La Piel Que Habito)

MPAA (R)  Roger Ebert (3 1/2 Stars) Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars, w. parental warning)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1189073/
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111019/REVIEWS/111019982

The Skin I Live In (orig: La Piel Que Habito), directed and cowritten by Pedro Almodóvar along with Agustín Almodóvar based on the novel Tarantula by Thierry Jonquet, is one strange if _supremely elegant_ horror movie that's certainly one of the best films of the year and ought to earn Pedro Almodóvar as well as Antonio Banderas, the film's "mad scientist" star, nominations for the Oscars.

I'm heaping all this praise on a film that is subtitled (from Castillian Spanish to English) and I know that we Americans generally despise subtitled films.  Yet, adults if you like horror films at all, leave the kids at home or put them to bed -- there's way too much nudity (if with a point) for a teen to rightfully see -- and go see / rent this film. 

So what's the film about?  Set in contemporary Spain, Dr. Robert Ledgard (played by Antonio Banderas) is a renowned cosmetic surgeon living in a palatial estate outside of Toledo (a scientist who has gone mad simply has to live in a castle ...).  As much fame and fortune as his work has given him, his life has been marked by terrible tragedies.  These accumulating tragedies apparently provide the trigger that finally make him snap and exact truly unspeakable revenge, specifically on the (date?) rapist of his sweet but already troubled daughter Norma (played by Blanca Suarez), the rapist's name being Vicente (played by Juan Cornet).

To say any more about the picture would reduce its shock value.   Again, there is _a lot_ of elegant "high art" nudity in this film.  So it's a movie intended for adults and _not_ "for the little ones."  Still, between this movie and Lars von Trier's Melancholia, 2011 has been a really good year for European cinema.


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New Year's Eve [2011]

MPAA (PG-13) CNS/USCCB (A-III) Roger Ebert (1 Star) Fr. Dennis (1/2 Star)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB review
Roger Ebert’s review
   
New Year’s Eve (directed by Garry Marshall, written by Katherine Fugate) is a highly commercial celebration of a highly commercial holiday, New Year’s Eve, which follows the formula used last year by the two film-makers to celebrate another highly commercial holiday, Valentine’s Day [2010].  Need one really say more?

As in the case of the previous Valentine’s Day, there is an ensemble cast and various separate and occasionally intertwining stories.  Hence the film was probably relatively easy to shoot, allowing the actors to “come into the studio” to shoot their scenes as their schedule permitted.  The script itself was certainly no Hamlet or Citizen Kane [1941] (nor was it intended to be).

I found the movie both intentionally and unintentionally propagandistic.

First, it was obvious to me that the film-makers wished to make an intentionally secular movie.  The only reference to the other major holiday around New Year’s came near the end when the nurse played by Halle Berry (African American) put on a gown and had a skype-conference with her African Americn soldier husband who was apparently stationed in Afghanistan.  Behind her in the scene and visible to her husband talking to her over the interent was a GIANT SIGN wishing him also a “Merry Christmas.”  That was the ONLY reference to Christmas in the entire movie, and I did find it significant that this reference took place in the context of two African American characters wishing each other a Happy New Year.  African Americans make-up the most church going community in the United States and it _may have been impossible_ to imagine that scene taking place without the Halle Berry character wishing her husband a Merry Christmas as well.

Further, the celebration of New Years with virtually no mention of Christmas (except for the scene above) comes across to me (a descendant of East European immigrants) as something remarkably similar to how these holidays were officially celebrated in the Soviet Bloc during the Communist era.  Indeed, in the Soviet Union, the Christmas Tree was renamed a “New Years’ Tree.”

Now this movie is far too much a celebration of contemporary New York commercialism to be accused of “communist tendencies.”  However, I’ve long seen little difference between Godless Communism and Godless Capitalist Consumerism.  In both cases, all meaning in life ends here.  In Communism, one perhaps seeks meaning in “the building up of man.”  In Capitalist Consumerism, meaning is offered in "assembling the largest collection of baseball cards..."  In any case, we religionists remind everyone that “you can’t take it you...”

Finally, while I suspect that the film-makers did not intend to do this, my many years of serving as a priest in multi-ethnic parishes makes me sensitive to this: It is clear-as-day to me that there is an obvious if perhaps unintentional racial bias that runs through the whole film. The whiter, waspier, blonder, more blue-eyed the character was in this movie (Hillary Swank, Katherine Weigl, Sarah Jessica Parker, Bon Jovi), the more likely the character was in a position of authority / celebrity.  All the more “service oriented” jobs (nurse, police officer, assistant cook, backup singer, repairman, it goes on ... and on ... ) were given to the browner and more “ethnic” people with longer last names, often speaking with very thick accents. 

I found this to be very surprising because it’s 2011 after all not the era of Gone With the Wind [1939] and  Casablanca [1942].  But such it is... and my sense is that 50 years from now, if anyone dug this movie up, our descendants would be embarrassed for our generation's media’s still more or less obvious racist assumptions.

So would I recommend this movie?  As an utterly soulless puff-piece perhaps.  But even then I think that most young people would find the implicit racism of this movie (blond white people in charge, the darker more accented people doing the actual work) rather appalling.


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Young Adult

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (L)  Roger Ebert (3 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing -
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1625346/
CNS/USCCB review -
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/movies/11mv152.htm
Roger Ebert's review -
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111207/REVIEWS/111209991

The first thing that viewers should know about Young Adult (directed by Jason Reitman and written by Diablo Cody) is that though, IMHO, the film is excellent, it follows a trend of young adult oriented "comedies" that are both funny and "not really that funny" / "more than just funny." (One thinks of recent "comedies" / "rom/coms" like Love and Other Drugs [2010], The Dilemma [2011], Tyler Perry's Big Happy Family [2011], Something Borrowed [2011], One Day [2011], or 50/50 [2011]).  Sure there's plenty of humor in the film, but the humor's there to keep the audience engaged (and arguably not crying) as some fairly tough stuff is presented in the midst of the laughs.

Both Reitman (Thank You for Not Smoking [2005], Juno [2007], Up in the Air [2009]) and Cody (Juno [2007], Jennifer's Body [2009]) have made careers of humor that is often both funny and pointed.  And there has been a long tradition extending from medieval courts to the films of present day actor Robin Williams (of whom I've been a lifelong fan) where it was left to the "court jester" to bring-up matters (always indirectly and with a smile) which would have been difficult to impossible to talk about otherwise.

So Young Adult falls in this tradition of being both funny and "hey, wait a minute, wasn't this film supposed to be funny?"  And it is perhaps because of the serious aspects of the film that an often serious actress, Charlize Theron (Cider House Rules [1999], Monster [2003]), decided to take it on.

But let's get to the movie ... Young Adult is about late-30 something (no longer so young) former popular girl / high school beauty queen Mavis Gary (played by Charlize Theron) who had long ago left the small town (Mercury, Minnesota) of her youth for the glamour of the "big city" (Minneapolis).

Life in the big city hasn't altogether so glamorous.  True she's "made it" (sort of) as a writer and lives in a high rise condo.  But she lives alone, divorced; her condo's strewn with garbage as it's clear that she's working (as a ghost writer for a "past its prime" young adult romance series) under a great deal of pressure; and when she's not staring at her laptop or listening in on conversations (and picking-up new jargon) among teens/young adults of today (at fast food joints and malls) she's drinking, heavily.  But at least she's not living back home in Mercury, and she (by-and-large rightly) assumes that most of her former kinfolk and classmates remain jealous of her.

So what makes her want to return home?  Well, she gets a seemingly innocuous e-mail from her old high school flame Buddy Slade (played by Patrick Wilson) informing her and the rest of "the gang" that he and his wife, Beth (played by Elizabeth Reaser) just had a baby girl.  After years of not thinking much of her small town past, she decides to go back to Mercury, Minnesota to take back Buddy (even though he is clearly married and with a child) to "save" him from his "awful fate."  Is she nuts?

Much of the movie plays along with the thesis that she is radically self-absorbed and, yes, crazy.

The first person she meets, when she returns home is Matt Freehauf (played by Patton Oswalt) who she does not remember even though they had lockers next to each other through all four years of high school, and he certainly remembers her.  After much prodding she finally remembers, sort of: "Wait, aren't you the hate crime guy?"  He shakes his head somewhat in agreement and reminds her of the story.  During his junior year, he was savagely beaten up by "the jocks" (among them, her friends) because they thought he was gay.  It turned out that he wasn't even gay ("so it wasn't even a hate crime...") but the beating left him half-crippled and all but sexually impotent ever since (yes parents, though this is largely only discussed, the movie is rated appropriately R).

After this embarrassing and painful introduction after years of not having to think much about each other, Matt asks Mavis the obvious question: "What the heck are you doing back in town, now?"  She tells him of her plan.  Matt tells her the obvious: Buddy by all accounts seems happily married and now has a kid.  Matt and his mousy sister Sandra (played by College Wolfe) appear then repeatedly as the story progresses, playing the role of a traditional "Greek Chorus," repeatedly telling Mavis what we, the audience would like to tell her, mostly: "You're nuts, leave Buddy alone."  Of course she does not / can not ...

Near the end of the movie, we find out why Mavis can not let it go.  And it does make one want to cry and _may_ offer parents a teachable moment with their teens.  TO EXPLAIN, I HAVE TO REVEAL A KEY SPOILER but parents certainly should know and it actually enhances the value of the picture:  It turns out that "back in the day" (I don't remember now whether it was in late High School or College) Buddy had gotten Mavis pregnant.  Yet, three months into her pregnancy, she lost the child to a miscarriage.

Sex is often covered so superficially in the movies and on television, while "Mother Church" has always counseled caution with regard to premature (pre-marital) sexual activity (basically don't do it before marriage).  Here perhaps continuing where they left-off with Juno [2007] (another movie about teenage pregnancy) Reitman and Cody present another scenario that's both easily believable and heartrending: If miscarriage is difficult enough to deal with in the context of a happily married couple, how much more awful, difficult, confused this experience could be for a young woman, or couple, that had entered into the pregnancy outside the context of marriage and/or the maturity generally required to bring a child to term and then to raise him/her?  From my experience as a Catholic Priest in a parish, I can certainly attest to the fact that miscarriage can be a very difficult experience for even a married couple to deal with.

Thus a film that for the first 80% of it follows a "hah, hah, isn't she stupid, self-centered, etc?" trajectory becomes very different at the end. 

So congratulations Reitman and Cody (and Charlize Theron)!  On the other hand, if you were thinking of going to this movie for a "light evening" or "date"  think again.  There really isn't much that is "light" about it by the end.


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