Editorial
Front Page - Friday, October 2, 2009
The Critic's Corner
David Laprad
The message in “Jennifer’s Body” is simple: women are scary. I’ve known this since first grade, when Amy Mortimer ran her fingers up the back of my neck and said, “I’m gonna sugar you up!” But it’s good to be reminded
from time to time.
“Jennifer’s Body” is so close to being good, it disappoints more than it would were it outright bad. The movie essentially tells the story of how Needy, a shy, nerdy high school student, and Jennifer, a gorgeous, conceited cheerleader, cease to be friends.
Although the two have little in common, they start out as “BFFs,” perhaps because Needy confirms Jennifer’s superiority and Jennifer gives Needy access to a world in which she would otherwise have no part. The two have even less in common when Jennifer gains an appetite for human blood after a fire during a concert at a local bar. Once Jennifer starts looking at Needy’s boyfriend like he’s the main dish for an all-you-can-eat buffet in Hell, Needy sets out to learn what happened to her friend and stop her from killing again.
There’s a lot to like about “Jennifer’s Body.” For one, Amanda Seyfried and Megan Fox (“Transformers”) deliver good performances as Needy and Jennifer, respectively. There’s not a trace of camp in Seyfried’s acting, which goes a long way toward selling an outlandish idea. Conversely, there’s just the right amount of camp in Fox’s
performance.
“Jennifer’s Body” also has some great lines, like when Needy is trying to convince her boyfriend to stay away from Jennifer and says, “She’s evil — and not just high school evil.”
Finally, the movie’s writer, Diablo Cody, refuses to rely on stereotypes. When Jennifer decides to snack on the captain of the football team, for example, he turns out to be a regular guy, not an arrogant jock. This makes his fate more tragic.
But in the end, “Jennifer’s Body” lacks punch. The uninspired kills will disappoint gorehounds, the predictable nature of the storyline will bore seasoned fans of horror movies and the lack of scares will surprise everyone else (although director Karyn Kusama admirably resists the urge to use false shocks).
Worse, “Jennifer’s Body” only touches on the ideas that would’ve made it more interesting. Just beneath the surface of all the supernatural goings-on, there’s an engaging notion at play about the longing in women for desirability and their fear of achieving the same. Unlike Jennifer, though, the filmmakers don’t dig deep.
•••
In the ‘70s, films were often used as a magnifying lens to provide a closer look at major events and comment on their significance. “All the President’s Men,” for example, showed how two enterprising reporters uncovered Watergate and changed American politics forever. Today, corporate greed and white-collar crime are under close scrutiny, especially with people looking for someone to blame for the economic downturn. That makes “The Informant” not only timely but a welcome throwback to an era characterized by politically and socially conscious
filmmaking.
Based on a true story, “The Informant” follows Mark Whitacre, a high-ranking executive at Archer Daniels Midland, as he embezzles millions of dollars while blowing the whistle on his employer for price fixing.
The movie begins in the early ‘90s with Whitacre voluntarily confessing to an FBI agent that he and his company had met with competitors to fix the price of a food additive. Whitacre then goes undercover to collect evidence for the Bureau, secretly taping and filming meetings and conversations with those involved.
Despite having watched “The Informant,” I don’t understand why Whitacre confessed to the price fixing. Was it to keep AMD occupied while he stole millions of dollars from its coffers? Did he want to stop the company and its competitors from falsely inflating the prices of consumer goods? Did he suffer from bipolar disease? Or was he an idiot? Director Steven Soderberg wants you to make up your own mind.
The most entertaining scenes in “The Informant” are those in which Whitacre bungles his way through the undercover tapings. The laughs are big in these brief segments. I also like how Soderberg hints at Whitacre’s alleged bipolarism by having him ramble on about random topics in voiceovers. But the thing that kept me glued me to the screen was watching Whitacre get lost in the labyrinth of lies he constructs to avoid being caught embezzling money.
As Whitacre, actor Matt Damon is largely responsible for how good “The Informant” turned out to be. Not only is he fun to watch, he makes an unbelievable character believable. Working from a book by Kurt Eichenwald, Soderberg and writer Scott Burns also deliver the goods, treating an incident that should inspire outrage seriously while making the audience laugh at the same time.
After being convicted of his crimes, Whitacre spent eight years behind bars, which was more time than the people he
fingered for price fixing served. Today, he’s the CEO of a biotechnology company. Life truly is stranger than fiction.
E-mail David Laprad at dlaprad@hamiltoncountyherald.
com.
|
|