When I was a kid and first decided to start writing, I was told to choose my medium wisely. What is the purpose behind your words? I was asked. Is it a broad concept that can be stated with a few poetic words, or is it a more complex issue, that needs facts and research to back it up? Or, is it a concept that is best explored using images and allegories? Choose the right medium, and your idea could take off: people will connect to it, relate to it, be able to play with it... you will reach an understanding with your audience. Choose the wrong medium, and your idea could fall flat: it will be brushed aside, a mediocre contribution to the thousands of other ideas that, though well meant, meld together and fade into the background.
Unfortunately, some people don't choose the right medium. Additionally, some people take an idea that was using the right medium, and force it into another medium because it's the medium they're most comfortable with. Take Jason Reitman, for example, with his latest film, MEN, WOMEN & CHILDREN. Reitman has a few great films under his belt, some of which he wrote and some of which he simply directed (THANK YOU FOR SMOKING and JUNO immediately come to mind). But MEN, WOMEN & CHILDREN, originally a novel written by Chad Kultgen, falls short of his previous successes. The idea does not lend itself to an image-driven medium, and therefore feels heavy-handed and pretentious.
The first image in the film is of the Voyager spacecraft floating around in space. And what a clever way to start a film that revolves around social media and the Internet... after all, everything that goes through Facebook or Twitter has to transmit to a far off, distant place before popping up on our neighbor's feed. Might as well show how we are connected to our surroundings by something out of reach, right? How very representative of the way technology has permeated our lives.
Almost immediately you can see where this film is headed: it is a reminder that we lose a sense of closeness and detach from others when we immerse ourselves in technology, leading to dissatisfaction. It is a reminder that we are being dangerously shaped by technology and conditioned into reliance on it, especially when it comes to love and sex. Unfortunately, Reitman decides to add about two hours of plot to this reminder. Perhaps the novel is less blunt, but on film, the effect of the message is crippled by its redundancy.
There are many interweaving storylines, which will make your head spin: Don and Helen Truby (Adam Sandler and Rosemarie DeWitt) have a lackluster sex life, and both turn to the Internet (read: strangers) to meet their needs. Meanwhile, their son, Chris (Travis Trope) is pursuing Hannah Clint (Olivia Crocicchia), who is pursuing a career as an actress and has her own website, covered with photos -- often inappropriate photos -- that her mother, Donna (Judy Greer) took to help boost her modeling resume. Donna begins dating Kent Mooney (Dean Morris), whose wife left him for another man a year ago, and only keeps in touch via Facebook... Kent's son, Tim, still glum about his mom leaving, has quit the football team and immersed himself into an online video game, only surfacing to spend time with Brandy Beltmeyer (Kaitlyn Denver), whose frighteningly protective mother, Patricia (Jennifer Garner) monitors her every movement by tracking her social media accounts and her phone. Then there's Brooke (Katherine C. Hughes), who suffers from anorexia and is part of an online group of people who encourage each other not to eat.
All of these storylines point in the right direction, and I have no doubt that there are good intentions behind the overarching plot... but those good intentions could have been portrayed in a ten minute short. I grasped the concept in the first few minutes of the film, and quickly got bored with it as it kept forcing itself on me in the following two hours. Perhaps if the characters had been given room to breathe, those two hours would have felt worth it, but not one of them ever surpassed the generic stereotypes that have been ingrained into that "technology = bad" mantra. The way that the film spoon-feeds you these countless one-dimensional characters, instead of allowing you to explore an idea through one or two fleshed out characters, is frankly patronizing. The ensemble cast just seemed to weigh down the plot, spreading thin the audience's ability to relate.
Needless to say, this isn't one of Reitman's best films. Hopefully it's not a reflection of what's to come... For now, I'll chalk it up to a momentary lapse, and will cross my fingers that he'll return to his old style and focus. But maybe you disagree... MEN, WOMEN & CHILDREN is now playing at the Midtown Cinema. Check it out and let me know what you think.
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