I've been a fan of director Bong Joon-Ho for over 10 years, ever since the one-two punch of seeing his first film, the hilarious Barking Dogs Never Bite (about a man driven to consider killing his neighbour's incessantly barking dog), and then shortly after seeing his then-newest film, Mother (about a woman trying to prove her son's innocence of murder). I didn't immediately realise that these films were from the same director, but as soon as I put that information together, I became a committed fan. He's one of the most fascinating, unexpected filmmakers working today, and when I saw his newest film had won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, that set very high expectations, and I was excited to see whether could live up to them. I've seen it twice now, and as great as his other films are, it's pretty clear that Parasite is his greatest film, at least to date, and it's a perfect display of his skill and his quirks as a film-maker, and his particular thematic obsessions.
[Thoughts on all nine Best Picture nominees – Parasite, 1917, Once Upon A Time In… Hollywood, The Irishman, Marriage Story, Joker, Little Women, Jojo Rabbit, and Ford v Ferrari – after the jump.]
In an ideal world, Parasite would win the Best Picture Oscar. I don’t think it will because, as happened last year with Roma, they can just give it the award for Best International Film (formerly the Best Foreign Language Film award) and then they can save the Best Picture Award for a film where they actually speak English. (And if that sounds like an exaggeration, see one of the Hollywood Reporter’s “brutally honest awards ballot” articles, where an actual person voting for the Oscars says that they “don't think foreign films should be nominated with the regular films.”) And it's galling, because while there are some really good, strong films that have been nominated (and many more that haven’t been), there's nothing that comes close to being as fantastic as Parasite is.
The thing I'd love about Bong Joon-Ho is the admirable control that he has over the tone of a film - which is impressive given the wild variation that runs through his output. Throughout all of his films, he gives us work where we're never quite certain what the tone of the film will actually be. He'll set up a situation of incredible suspense, or perhaps give us a moment of unexpected violence, and then he'll punctuate it with some unexpected comedy. It's particularly marked in Parasite, because the film makes such a dramatic change. The first half of the film seems like it will be a fairly light comedy - there's an unmistakable biting satirical edge, but at the same time it has the fun breeziness of a small-scale low-stakes con film. (Just look at the masterfully executed scene where the family use a peach and a sachet of hot sauce to secure a job - it could almost be a scene from Ocean's 11.) But then the film reaches a point where it goes dark, and it goes dark fast. (A friend of mine even commented that he found the film worked better on second viewing, because on first viewing he was slightly thrown by that dramatic shift from light fun laughs into bloody black comedy.) But the film never feels like it's out of director Bong's control - he uses that initial lightness of tone to lull the audience into a sense of comfort, much as the Kims allow themselves to feel comfortable and that they have everything under control, and so the sudden change from silly fun to shocking blackness throws us as much as them. At that point, the film becomes positively Hitchcockian, achieving a sustained level of intense suspense throughout its second half. But throughout that shift, the film remains consistently funny, often at the same time as it shocks us. Witness, for instance, a particular moment where one person falls down a set of stairs - it's a brutal physical moment, but it's also a perfectly timed, staged, and performed piece of slapstick comedy that also leaves the audience both laughing out loud and wincing in genuine sympathetic pain. And that ability to perfectly balance the tone, to lighten some rather tough moments with comedy without lessening the impact of the drama, is the reason why the film is so incredibly entertaining.
Watching the film a second time, one of the other things that I found myself noting was the design of the house. It's not really something that I took too much notice of first time, because I’d just assumed they rented someone's house for filming, probably supplemented by a few extra rooms built as sets on a soundstage – that’s what they usually do. But it seems that Bong Joon-Ho had an incredible detailed understanding about exactly what the house needed to be, what every shot inside that house needed to look like, and so they had to construct the actual entire house from scratch. Once I learned this, I was in awe at the house, with all its alcoves and subtle corners where people could hide, or all the random steps throughout the house that felt treacherous, as though they could easily trip people up (all elements that would prove essential to the film). Suddenly the brilliant visual of the stairway into the basement, a gaping black hole in the middle of a richly golden wall, isn't just a convenient visual they found on location, but a piece of design inherent to his vision for the film. I love the wide open window looking out onto the backyard, which left me constantly on the edge in suspense, always anxious that there would be someone in the garden to witness the schemes of the Kims. There's a fantastic extended shot where the film descends into the depths of the basement, and I found myself impressed, both at the shot and at the marvellous construction of this location. So much of the film depends on having a clear understanding of the structure of the house and where different characters physically are in relation to each other, and I was impressed with how clearly Bong communicated the physical geography of the location.
Bong Joon-Ho's work has also been defined by a strong social sense, with works like Snowpiercer, The Host, or Okja being particularly angry at the way the world is. But as much as I enjoy his work, at times his message can come across as too obvious - I love Snowpiercer as an action film, but it is not subtle in its metaphors. Parasite continues this passion, while approaching its themes with a delicacy that I really appreciated. Just consider the title, which is never explained in the film - it's a title that works as pure metaphor. If a parasite is a being that finds a host, takes hold of it, and feeds off it to keep itself alive, then the Kims are obviously the parasites, driven out of desperation to feed off the wealthy Park family. Or perhaps it's the Park family that are the parasites, having built a life that requires them to feed off those around them to survive; certainly the inability of Mrs Park to function without the assistance of those around her points to a person who is unable to control her life, as though she is being led through her life by her host. And then we're also presented an argument about the desperation of people disadvantaged by modern economic structures, as we see people at the bottom of the ladder needing to fight to secure any position, all the while the wealthy sit comfortably, completely unaware of the impact that they have on those below. But what's smart about this film is that, while all this messaging is unmistakably in the film, the film never becomes didactic or preachy. It's a beautifully constructed satire of the way our economic system works, while at the same time always retaining a light touch in the way it presents its arguments and never losing track of the need to be first and foremost a fantastic piece of entertainment.
In short, I love Parasite, and would love nothing more than for it to win. I don’t think it will happen, but there is a small sliver of hope for a Parasite win. The votes for Best Picture aren’t cast based on a first-past-the-post outcome, but based on a preferential ballot. I’m holding on to the fact that Parasite is the one film that everyone universally seems to love; hopefully that means enough people give it their #2 or #3 ranking to push it over the line, ahead of films with more divided support.
I had the opportunity to see 1917 at the IMAX cinema, which really is the way to see the film because it is first and foremost a piece of cinematic spectacle. The entire film is presented to the audience as though it is one single continuous shot (although in actuality it is digitally stitched together from dozens of takes, with the longest take apparently only 3 1/2 minutes long). Here's the thing: it's an impressive achievement, and for the most part it does work, with the gliding camera just following our main characters, never separating from them, never giving us any warning of impending threats, following them through this relentless progression towards the front line. It does act as a constraint and a challenge for the filmmaker, removing one of the main cinematic tools - you can't cut away to the ominous figure of a sniper to build suspense, and so you have to find other ways to do so, using things like framing to put opposing characters on screen together – so we see a German wander into frame, and suddenly the audience are on edge waiting for the characters to be discovered. And I did feel that was reasonably effective.
But the problem I have it is that it does feel gimmicky, and I don't know that I have a good grasp on what exactly they were trying to achieve. Sam Mendes directed the last James Bond film, Spectre, which opens with a long supposedly single shot following Bond from the streets of Mexico to the rooftops where he conducts surveillance and attempts an assassination. It didn't really work for me in Spectre, but this film really feels like Sam Mendes and cinematographer Roger Deakins had so much fun with the challenge of shooting that scene that they decided to try to do it for an entire film. And yet it never really feels to me like it is one shot, because there are multiple moments in the film where you can see or feel them trying to cheat the shot and piece together two takes into one. (There are points where the joins between the takes are really noticeable.) The thing is, people talk about how for an audience watching a film, a cut is like a release. Part of the effect of a long shot is that, consciously or unconsciously, we are aware that the film hasn't cut, and as time goes on we increasingly need the film to cut to a new shot just to give us that release of tension, because otherwise we're just trapped with the characters. (Look at the film Victoria, which did genuinely film as one single take without a single cut; much of that film's effectiveness came from feeling completely caught up with the main character without any way to escape.) But if you're going to fake your long shot, the audience can still feel your shot cutting, even if they're not aware of it, so rather than the tension slowly building up, it still has the effect of giving the audience the release they want, without any of the advantages of actually being able to edit your film.
And my other problem with the approach comes down to timing. This isn't a surprise - I'm the person who was annoyed by 127 Hours because I couldn't work out what the 127 hours actually referred to. In this case, because we're there with the soldiers every step they take, you feel like you've actually been on this full trip with them. I've even seen people refer to this film as taking place in real-time, which is demonstrably incorrect, but also an understandable mistake. By taking this approach, we've seen every step the characters took between their two destinations, so of course it must be in real time, and so it bothers me when I realise that there's no way they could possibly have travelled the nine miles to reach the front line. But had they done something differently, say, taking an approach that used a lot of long takes for major sequences, while allowing for cuts in less intense scenes to allow the characters to get a breath, it would have created enough space in the story for us to assume that they must have also travelled a number of miles in the cuts between shots. But that's just me being stupid and focused on petty concerns.
The thing is, the film winds up feeling very much like something to be experienced rather than being a piece of art to engage with. Last year, there was a massive controversy when Martin Scorsese compared the Marvel movies to theme park rides, but I honestly felt that's a comparison that can also easily be made with 1917. I didn't really walk away from the film feeling that I knew either of the main characters terribly well, other than the fact that one of them had a brother who he didn't want to die. And while there are plenty of appearances by much loved actors like Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Andrew Scott, or Benedict Cumberbatch, they’re only ever cameos and establish no real characters. Meanwhile there's barely ever a moment for the film to pause or reflect, it's always moving, moving, moving on to the next moment, the next set piece. And many of the set pieces are fantastic, with the suspenseful walk through abandoned German trenches, a shocking plane crash, a beautiful night-time firefight in a demolished city illuminated by flares, and, in the film's most emotional and beautiful scene, a moment watching a group of soldiers waiting for the order to attack, passing time by singing traditional folk songs. But there is also theme-park-style silliness, particularly in the climactic scene where one character unnecessarily runs in the middle of a battle seemingly solely for the spectacle of having a shot of him in the middle of a field with explosions all around.
And then there are the irritating moments where you can feel the presence of the screenwriter controlling the events. This is most egregious in the moment where the soldiers come across an abandoned farm, and find a full pail of milk. We don't know how long ago the farm was abandoned, but somehow the milk is clearly still fresh despite sitting in the sun for however long. (Presumably the farmer was in the middle of milking the cow when they had to flee, and in the middle of that chaos the pail was miraculously never knocked over by either the farmer or the cow, and that all presumably happened earlier that day.) One of the soldiers decides to fill his canteen with the still-good milk, which proves extremely helpful an hour later when he finds himself in a situation where he desperately needs milk and the only source available is the milk he saved in his canteen. All that just felt like so much artifice constructed in reverse in order to get us to that later scene. And it annoyed me how transparent that writing was. And above all, I was bothered because the story never felt to me like a genuine experience that occurred. It's so important that this message be delivered that the characters almost have plot armour, simply because someone has to survive to deliver the message, and so no matter how overwhelming the challenges they encounter may be, you never really feel like they’re in any real danger. Again, you can see the writing keeping the characters safe, and that irritates me.
Still, while it really is an empty spectacle, it does generally work as a tribute to the heroism of soldiers at war, choosing to put their own lives aside in order to save others. And as a portrait of those men with that mindset, I did like it.
As is to be expected with a Tarantino film, a significant emotional part of the film is driven by nostalgia, in this case nostalgia for the Hollywood that he grew up in. There's a sense running through the film that 1969 marks a real turning point in Hollywood - while the New Hollywood wave had already started, with films like Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, or Easy Rider having already come out, it was really in the 70s that the movement took hold. Tarantino seems to see Tate-LaBianca as a dividing line that broke the Hollywood of his youth, a trauma that led to the rise of New Hollywood. Rick Dalton, the Leonardo DiCaprio character, is not the type of person that will survive the transition into New Hollywood; he's a talented actor but an aging actor, and one who never had his talents stretched or tested, so when Hollywood changes he will be left behind. As presented here, Dalton is very much the type of actor that Tarantino likes; I can see him being very much like Robert Forster but one generation earlier, and I can’t help wondering if we’re supposed to see the director of Lancer as a somewhat absurd 1960s version of Tarantino, trying to revive Dalton’s career the same way he revived Forster’s.
One of the most debated elements of the film revolves around Cliff Booth's backstory, and in particular the unresolved question about whether he murdered his wife. The film never lets us into the character's mind on that issue, and when a flashback shows us what happened, the killing could genuinely be interpreted as accidental or deliberate. And I find that choice intriguing, especially as Clint Booth is supposed to be one of our heroes, and because Brad Pitt is so likeable and charming in the film, it seems odd to go out of your way to establish him as a potential wife murderer. (It inevitably calls to mind Robert Wagner, who has had a long and successful career despite rumours about his involvement in the mysterious drowning of his wife Natalie Wood while on a yacht.) But there's the interesting fact that people still seem to be willing to work with him - we only hear about one person who doesn't want to work with Cliff, and in that case it's because the guy is worried about his wife's response to him working with a murderer. In other words, Cliff may have committed a horrific crime against a woman, but all the men seemingly turn a blind eye, while it's the women who have to demand justice. Which inevitably leads me to think about Harvey Weinstein. So much of Tarantino's career is tied up with Harvey Weinstein, and vice versa, that it's impossible to talk about the one without the other. And Tarantino has spoken about his knowledge about the accusations - Uma Thurman and his former girlfriend Mira Sorvino both told him about their experiences with Weinstein, but Tarantino has admitted marginalising those incidents, finding ways to justify believing that they weren't as bad as he was hearing, saying that he wishes he had taken a stronger stand, and stating that he had known enough to do more then he did. But it was convenient for Tarantino to turn a blind eye, because Weinstein was so good for his career. So now I find myself wondering whether Tarantino made a film in which Brad Pitt plays Harvey Weinstein as a hero. No, of course he didn't do that - but he did make a film in which we are invited to turn a blind eye to a horrific crime against a woman because it's more convenient for us to do so, because we want to like Brad Pitt. And so many people will compartmentalise, will argue "No, he didn't do it deliberately, it was an accident", or even "Sure, he probably did it, but it was understandable in the moment", because we need to do that in order to justify continuing to hang out with this guy and enjoy spending time with him. I find that a fascinating idea to include in the film, as though Tarantino is exploring how difficult it is to make the right choice when it seems more advantageous to us to make a different decision. And if it seems like I'm making too strong a connection from too little evidence, don't forget that one character that appears briefly in the film is Sharon Tate's husband Roman Polanski, who everyone knows and accepts committed statutory rape of a 13 year old girl and who has continued to have a successful career, even winning an Oscar, while evading justice. In short, I definitely believe that Tarantino is using Cliff Booth as a way of speaking about the abuses in the Hollywood system.
My only real disappointment with the film comes with the ending - and it's not really disappointment with the actual ending of the film. As soon as they announced the film and said who Margot Robbie was playing, you immediately know what is the end of the film was going to be - the only mystery was how Tarantino was going to present that ending on screen. That's possibly a slight flaw on Tarantino's part, because we know the way that he has his fictional characters engage with history, and so while that interaction with history is still exciting, it possibly lacks some of the impact that it previously had.
Which is why I'm really curious how people would respond to this film if they don't know the true story that underpins it. The name of Charles Manson is never mentioned, and while the character does briefly appear on screen, he's never associated with the "Charlie" that the hippies speak about. The only real solid indication about where this film is going comes from the presence of Sharon Tate as a main character, albeit a main character whose story for much of the film seems distinctly separated from the rest of the film. But if you don't recognise the name of Sharon Tate, does the ending work, does it make sense, or does it just seem like something that comes out of the blue? I genuinely don't know. What I can say is that, as someone who deliberately went to the effort to familiarise myself with the Manson story, I found it an extraordinary and moving piece of cinema. (And if you're not familiar with the Manson story, I strongly recommend the Charles Manson's Hollywood series of the excellent You Must Remember This podcast.)
What makes the rise of 1917 particularly disappointing is that it means that Tarantino might very well never get the Oscar that he deserves. He's been very open about the fact that he only wants to direct 10 films and then retire, not wanting to become an old-man director making bad films that take away from the greatness of his career. And while such announced retirements often don't stick - Miyazaki is currently making a new film, while Steven Soderbergh has directed four movies and three whole seasons of two TV shows since he retired - when you hear Tarantino talking about retiring, I actually believe it. In fact, Tarantino has even suggested that he might retire now, happy to go out on the success of OUATIH rather than risking making a bad 10th film. So we're looking at a director very possibly coming to the end of his career, still making vital and vibrant films, but while he's been awarded twice for his writing, he's never once won the Oscar for directing, nor have his films won Best Picture. And while there is a long list of great directors who have never been recognised by the Academy - Hitchcock, Kubrick, Welles, Fincher, P T Anderson, Lynch, Kurosawa, Altman for a start - it would also be nice if one of the most vibrant and important filmmaking figures of the last 30 years received that recognition.
The Irishman is a fascinating film, bringing together Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and (in a brief role) Harvey Keitel, all working once again with Martin Scorsese, and also bringing in Al Pacino, who has somehow never worked with Scorsese before. Based on a book that captures the reminiscences of Frank Sheeran, an apparent mob hitman, the film follows Frank as he slowly rises through the ranks of the teamsters until he eventually meets and becomes friends with the legendary teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa. And we follow their friendship through many years, through Jimmy Hoffa's rise and fall and rise and eventual fate.
The film is obviously supposed to call to mind many of the crime movies that the younger Scorsese made with these actors - films like Mean Streets, Goodfellas, or Casino. And so in the lead up to the film, there was a lot of commentary about how it seemed that Scorsese was basically just returning to his old bag of tricks. But frankly that's a very shallow analysis. Those films were made by a man 25, 30, 40 years younger then Scorsese is now. He's not the same man that he was then, and his focus and interests are not going to be the same. There's a mournful quality to the film that simply isn't in those earlier films. Those films are filled with excitement and delight; the stories are presented from the perspective of the main characters who on the whole are excited and enjoy the life they lead, despite any ultimate negative consequences. But in The Irishman, the story is presented to us from the perspective of someone who looks back at his life and is saddened by it. As everyone he knows dies, he finds himself at an old age living alone, burdened with guilt, with little or no connection to anyone, and the film reflects that tone in the way tells its story. It's not high energy, there's not the constant sense of danger or of things about to collapse; it's slower, more conversational, more relational, sadder. Superficially, this may look like "another mob movie from Scorsese, like all the others", but it's infused with a level of reflectiveness that comes with old age that really isn't in his other crime films. It's not a film that worships these characters, but one that actively warns against that.
You can particularly tell the difference by comparing the climactic sequences in Goodfellas and The Irishman. In both sequences, a film that have been spanning years or decades suddenly slows down to spend an extended amount of time focused on the events of one single day. In Goodfellas, that sequence starts with Henry snorting a line of coke, which influences the way the rest of the day's events are presented, giving the entire sequence a nervous energy and hyperactive jumpiness. But in The Irishman, there's nothing like that; the filmmaking is exactly is sober as the characters, and there's an incredible sadness that runs through the sequence, as almost everyone knows what's about to happened, is resigned to it happening and to their role in ensuring it happens, all the while wishing that things could end in some other way. It's a sequence that could easily be cut down, especially as what little dialogue is in the scene is largely irrelevant - there's an extended dialogue about whether a fish will smell out the car - but those moments feel like a relief, because the thing we know will happen hasn't happened yet, even though at the same time we're one minute closer to this thing happening. It's a fantastic, agonising sequence, and I love that Scorsese decided to spend as much time on it as he does.
One of the other things that's wonderful about the movie is the fact that it feels like the actors care. Robert De Niro and Al Pacino are some of the greatest actors we've ever had, but it's been a long time since I felt they were engaged by the work that they were doing. Not here; they feel excited and invigorated by the material and by the sense that they are working on something that is important, something that will be remembered. But the person I really found myself thinking about was Joe Pesci, who's been more or less retired for 20 years, and how compelling he was. It's a very different performance from him: much of his work, particularly with Scorsese, has been defined by characters who feel dangerously out-of-control - the "Funny how?" scene in Goodfellas only works because you believe he's someone who might realistically kill someone because they laughed at a funny story. But here he gives us a character who's much more managed, controlled, and yet has incredible authority and power, rather than relying on any fear that he might personally create. And so he's able to get people to do things that they don't want to do, not by threats of violence, but simply by saying that it has to be done. It's a wonderful performance, and I was glad that he decided to return just to remind us how great he can be.
My one real problem with the film is with the choice to tell this story. The film engages with a particularly famous crime, and you know that the film is going to deal with that crime from the second a particular character appears on screen, because these days that character's name is primarily remembered in connection with that crime. But I was puzzled when the film eventually reached that scene, because that particular crime is famously surrounded by mystery and rumour, and yet this film is so definitive about what happened. Looking online after the film, I found that the general opinion seems to be that the book on which the movie was based was unreliable, that Frank Sheeran was certainly around the people he discusses, but it is no reason to think that he was the kind of major figure, involved in multiple high-profile unsolved cases, that he's presented as in that book or in this movie. You almost get the sense that Sheeran is probably a bit of a fantasist, claiming involvement in crimes he had nothing to do with, to ensure he's remembered after he dies. And I do think that people are walking away from this film believing that what is shown is what happened, because I have spoken to people who believe the film is true. And I don't blame them; I probably would have accepted the story presented here as being more or less true; the only reason I didn’t is because I knew enough to know that the film was inconsistent with my own understanding about what happened, which prompted me to look into it. But it makes me uncomfortable to think about the film seemingly misleading the audience about its truth, especially if it potentially means building up the reputation of someone who potentially was more interested in being famous than being honest.
But it’s still a brilliant film, and a fantastic culmination for Scorsese's career. Which is not to say that his career is over or ending – I hope he continues to produce films for many years, especially as his recent films (The Wolf of Wall Street, Silence, and now The Irishman) have been every bit as vital and exciting as anything he’s made. But we are closer to the end of his career than the beginning, and if anything happens and he never gives us another film, then at least he gave us this one.
I've enjoyed a lot of Noah Baumbach's work in the past, but I don't know that very much of it has really stayed with me. But Marriage Story changed that, because right from the start it establishes itself as a great piece of filmmaking. That opening scene is one of the best I've seen in a long time, with the two main characters talking about what it is that they love about the other. There's nothing big and grand; it's real and it's intimate, with the characters talking about the little things that over time they've come to see and love about each other just because they've been together so long. It's a beautiful sequence that completely sells us on this couple and on their love - so much so that I can imagine someone watching the film, not knowing in advance what it was about, and being shocked to realise that this was an exercise a couple was working through with their counsellor as they prepare to end the marriage. But it's a smart and effective choice, because it manages to sell us on the reality of this relationship, and also succeeds in allowing us to fall in love with each character remarkably quickly, so that when they start talking about ending the marriage, it's just as meaningful and upsetting to us as it is to them.
Here's the thing: when a movie features a divorced or divorcing couple, I often feel that the movie seem to have forgotten to make them seem like they work as a couple. They get so focused on making clear that these people aren't together that they forget that they must have been something that made them get together in the first place. And that's what I liked about Marriage Story: I understood why they were together, I understood why they worked so well as a couple, and I also understood why they shouldn't be together. And it's not just that the opening 10 minutes establishes them as a couple, it's all the way through the film - it's in the shared jokes, in the way they know what the other is thinking. Even when things get rough, there are moments when one person will do something, and the other will get a look on their face that seems to say "that's the person that I fell in love with". Because unexpectedly, the film winds up being a love story between two people who couldn't be together and so had to learn to love each other apart.
Because of the nature of the story, you need pretty much the best actors you can get. You need people who can navigate the balance of love and hate without ever tipping too far into one direction or the other. I never fail to be amazed by the work that Adam Driver does; here he's unthinkingly selfish but also good-hearted and charming. Meanwhile Scarlett Johansson feels like someone who has been genuinely broken and desperate to make something of her life that is hers, but also regrets that things are where they are. It's generally accepted that Laura Dern will win the Supporting Actress Oscar, and deservedly so; she is incredible as a lawyer who weaponises her ability to connect with women at the low point in their lives to slowly draw them into a process that for her is really more about winning the game then helping her clients. And the rest of the cast is equally great - everyone loves Alan Alda, and the film uses that to great effect by introducing him as the kindly divorce lawyer we all would want but don't need; Ray Liotta is perfect casting as the tough divorce lawyer we would need but don't want; and the actors playing Scarlett Johansson's family are also fantastic, whether it's Julie Hagerty being delightful as the mother who's disappointed to lose her son-in-law, or Merritt Wever as the sister, a sadly small role but that does get involved in a wonderfully funny piece of business involving the serving of divorce papers.
Speaking of which, as much as this film is emotionally raw and devastating and frequently hard to watch, it's also extremely entertaining. And that's because the film is genuinely laugh-out-loud funny. I had the opportunity to see the film in cinema, and it saddens me that most people won't get to have that opportunity, because it was so wonderful to be there with other people discovering together that this was a film that it was okay to laugh at. Sure, Noah Baumbach's films have a definite comedic element to them, but I don't think I've ever laughed at anything he's ever made quite as much as I laughed at this film. Even in the most emotionally raw scene in the film, the notorious fight scene, part of what makes it so shocking to us is the fact that just a minute earlier, in that very scene, we were laughing with the characters, and so that sense of escalation feels quite shocking. And that's part of why I think the film is so effective: the comedy lightens the tone of the film, and makes it something that is not just bearable but actually entertaining to watch, but it also disarms us, making the unpleasant moments more awful because we're simply not prepared for them.
I've done a lot of reading about the film over the last few months, and the one question that people always wind up coming back to is whether or not the film is even-handed in the way it deals with its two main characters, or whether it takes one person's side. For me, I think there's no question: the film is about as even-handed in its approach to its characters as it could possibly be. Coming out of the film, I was surprised and impressed with how fairly it presented both characters, and everything I've read since then has solidified that position. I've read many arguments about how the film was on Adam Driver's side and how Scarlett Johansson was presented as a bitch; I've read many arguments about how the film was on Scarlett Johansson's side and how Adam Driver was presented as a bastard; and I always find both arguments completely convincing, until the next time I hear the opposing argument. And that to me tells me that the film is fair in the way it deals with these characters. And that was a real relief to me. I recently watched Kramer vs Kramer (which until this film was probably still the most significant film about the divorce process) for the first time, and what surprised me about that film was how totally that film was on Dustin Hoffman's side, and how blatantly it treated Meryl Streep as someone who was flighty and indecisive and really rather terrible. And so I like that we now have a film like Marriage Story, which is able to honestly explore the realities of divorce, something that is an extremely common life experience, without coming across as bitter or vengeful.
The one area where the film is not even-handed is in the way it feels about the divorce industry. I found its portrayal of the legal system around divorce engaging and frustrating, particularly in the way the system almost seemed to trap people. The film reminds us at the start that there are alternative ways to deal with the conflicts that arise in the course of a divorce, but the second one person brings in a lawyer, everything starts to escalate, the other person needs to bring in a lawyer, and everything accelerates out of your control. There's an unmistakable distaste for the divorce lawyer community, particularly in the way they deal with people going through the worst experience in their lives and treat it as a kind of sport for themselves - a point that's made in particular in one of the final scenes, where one of the lawyers mentions that they managed to push for more than their client wanted, just so that they could say that they had won. It’s awful and terrible, and what makes it worse is that as an audience member you feel just as beaten down, just as destroyed by the process as they do.
I have a few qualms about some late-film developments - particularly a scene where one character seems to come perilously close to dying (I do not know what Baumbach was going for there), and another scene involving the son reading something personal that I just found unbelievable. But, with those mild qualms excepted, the film is pretty fantastic, and I loved it.
The only reason why it's worth watching this supposed origin story for the Batman archvillain Joker is for the performance by Joaquin Phoenix, playing the sad-sack clown and aspiring stand-up Arthur Fleck. Troubled by a mental illness that compels unprompted laughter, pushed down by a world that is threatening and dismissive of him, burdened by having to take care of a mother who is seemingly delusional, lifted by a dream that he might be able to inspire laughter but lacking the talent to do so, Joaquin Phoenix uses his emaciated frame to create a compelling character. Arthur Fleck is almost the definitive pathetic character, and it is an unexpectedly sympathetic performance. Even as we know where the character is headed, we do remain on his side, desperately hoping that he'll take a turn and move in a different direction. And when he does make the decision to become the Joker, there's a genuine transformation in the performance - he still feels like the same man, but there's a joyousness and excitement in the character that was never previously there, almost as though he feels liberated by having found his purpose for being.
But here's the thing. This is supposed to be an origin story of the Joker, and I don't buy this character as being the Joker. The Joker is supposed to be the criminal mastermind, the greatest foil to the World's Greatest Detective. He's a man who's always plotting, always planning, always has schemes and schemes within schemes. Even when he tries to deny his planning (like when Heath Ledger's Joker claims to just do things, and describes himself as a dog chasing cars), he still has multiple plans in play. What makes the Joker so dangerous is not that he's insane; what makes him dangerous is that he's insane and smart. But that's not this Joker. The Joker of this film is impulsive, out-of-control. He commits multiple murders during the course of the film, but there's never any sense that he has a reason for doing so - they all just happen to him. Even at the climax of the story, when you would think that the Joker would finally be fully formed, his plans don't come together - just look at that final killing that he commits, and remember that he went into that situation with no intention of killing that person; that was a last minute impulsive action that he took. Heath Ledger's Joker planned to reveal the darkness in the hearts of the Gotham population by tempting them to blow up a ferry containing a bunch of prisoners, because he wanted to make a point; Joaquin Phoenix also reveals the darkness in the hearts of the Gotham population, inspiring a massive riot and chaos in the streets, but that was purely accidental, a bizarre overreaction to a shooting in self-defence without any broader purpose. One makes plans; one does not. Despite everything they want to tell you, this is not the origin of the Joker; this is the origin of a mentally ill man who wears clown make-up and laughs uncontrollably. They may appear superficially similar, but they are very, very different.
Part of the reason why I was so baffled by the film's popularity was because the film says nothing. Oh sure, at a superficial level, it might seem like has something to say, but I really do think that's mostly because it apes the work of Martin Scorsese, particularly Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, so, so much, and because those films did have insight about people who have been pushed aside by society, then therefore this must also. But the film really is a piece of pseudo-profundity that is at its core extraordinarily empty. The clearest message of the film seems to be that we should fund mental health services adequately, or else people with mental illnesses will... go insane and murder a lot of people? Is that what the film saying? I can't help feeling that, if I was someone who struggled with mental illness, I would look at this story, where the character is not just generic comic book "insane" but is suffering from a very specific diagnosed and named condition, and find the film really rather offensive. If this is what it's like when Todd Phillips tries to get a message out in support of a disadvantaged population, then I really feel that I wouldn't want his support on anything that I was struggling with. The film does also have another message, an "eat the rich" narrative in which the awful wealthy people abuse those underneath until the people rise up against them, but it’s presented in a way that is just absurd (I simply do not believe the uprising would happen in the way it’s presented) and the message is simply half hearted - and it's hard to take seriously when the director of this film made $150 million giving us the Hangover trilogy (so, thanks for all your work on making the world a better place).
The film’s homage/borrowing/theft of Martin Scorsese’s work also leads to the film’s worst element, the presence of Robert De Niro as the local late night talk show host Murray Franklin. When I mentioned earlier that it had been a long time since I felt he was engaged by the work that he was doing, this is exactly the type of role that I was thinking about. De Niro is woefully miscast. Think about any long-running talk show host: they’re charming, they have charisma, perhaps a bit cheeky, whenever they deliver a hacky joke they work hard to sell it, they’re fun to watch. And they need to be, because they need you to want to sit up until midnight or later to watch the show, so they want you to engage with the show, have fun, walk away feeling good as you go to bed, because otherwise you’re simply not going to stay up late watching them. Murray Franklin has none of that. When he delivers his hacky jokes he gives them no energy; he just seems bored by the entire exercise. The notion of people sitting up night after night to watch this guy is baffling. The problem is that De Niro was never cast to play Murray Franklin, for which he’s completely wrong; instead, 35 years ago, he was cast to play Rupert Pupkin, a guy with little talent but who dreamed of being famous and was obsessed with Jerry Lewis’s talk show host. In other words, someone at some point realised “We’re taking a lot from The King of Comedy here; let’s see if we can get De Niro to take on the Jerry Lewis role.” But just because someone, even a great actor, was cast in one film doesn’t mean he’s right for all the characters in that film. Jerry Lewis was a comedy icon, and was the right person to play a comedy icon. De Niro was right for playing Pupkin because he really didn’t have the ability to do what Jerry Lewis was doing. So to now push De Niro into playing the Jerry role is just patently doomed to failure. It’s a baffling choice, and illustrative of just how poorly considered so much of h film really is.
The other thing I found frustrating about the film was how little it thought of its audience. There's a moment where there's a revelation of something that reconfigures our understanding of what the film is actually doing. And that's fine - that particular revelation isn't particularly new or original, but it is effectively done, and does make sense of something that I was to that point dubious of. But here's the thing: it's a revelation that only takes a couple of sentences to communicate. Once the character says those words, it's instantly clear what has been happening. This isn't our first film, we've all seen films that have done very similar things, and we have the ability to fill in the blanks. But the problem is that the film doesn't trust us to do that, so they stop the film to give us a variety of flashbacks, showing us moments from the film again so that we can reconsider what was happening in those moments given the new information. Now admittedly, in terms of total running time, there probably wasn't too much time taken up with this material - maybe 30 seconds or a minute. But it felt like an interminably long time, because it wasn't necessary. We get it, we don't need all this explanation. It made me feel like the film thought that I was stupid and wouldn't understand what was going on without this clarification. And I really hate it when films talk down to me. But the film has been made to appeal to idiots who may need that kind of explanation, and that is depressing.
And now, having said all that, I have to defend the film. (Sigh.) The other big criticism that was levied against the film expressed a fear that, by giving a considerate and sensitive portrayal to its central character, the film might somehow be dangerous, that incel types might look to its central character and find inspiration in his actions. Frankly, I find that notion to be absurd. Here, I'd like to go to back 20 years, to the release of Fight Club. In that film, you have a muscled, tough, charming Brad Pitt playing Tyler Durden, a man who espouses genuinely dangerous ideas about the need to tear down our society. We didn't have a pre-existing association with the name of Tyler Durden, and that film never tells us that he is wrong, instead entirely relying on our personal moralities to understand that we need to reject his worldview. And yet people are fine with Fight Club, as they should be; it's a fantastic film. But compare that to this film. Okay, we may not have any particular association to the name of Arthur Fleck, but the name of the Joker certainly holds meaning to us. He probably rivals Darth Vader as pop culture's most iconic villain. We don't need the film to tell us that what he's doing is wrong, because we have 80 years of history telling us that what he's doing is wrong. But suddenly people are worried that certain people will look at the sympathetic portrayal of its central character, feel a connection to him, and be inspired to act in a similar way? You would hope that someone who felt sympatico with the Joker would question some things about their lives, but even if they don't, that's on them. This whole criticism really is just this year's version of "movies make people killers", and it's extremely annoying - particularly because it forces me into the position of having to defend a film I do not like.
You can tell almost immediately, even as someone without any familiarity with the source material, just how much Gerwig is bringing a modern (but not anachronistic) approach to the film. She starts the film halfway through the story, with the sisters all separated and building their lives separately as adults. And then having established the women that the sisters become, the film takes us back in time to meet them as young women, cutting back and forth between the time periods. It's not the way we're used to stories from that era being told, but it's remarkably effective. It almost frees you from the sense of narrative, where a series of events happen to almost imperceptibly cause the characters to grow and change over time. Instead, by introducing us to the characters as grown woman, we have in mind the people they become, and we carry that as we go back and see their flaws and immaturities. We become more aware of the journey because we know from the start what the destination will be. The effect of this is apparently most notable in the character of Amy, the youngest of the sisters – although, to be honest, this was something I wasn't aware of watching the film because I didn't have the experience of reading the book; instead, this was an observation made on several podcasts that I listened to after seeing the movie. There's a point in the story where the young Amy, angry and jealous at her older sisters, does something that is truly hurtful and emotionally devastating, so terrible that in the moment you wonder whether the person she does this to will never be able to forgive her. My understanding is that in the book that moment comes so early in the story that it colours the way you see Amy for the rest of the book, and that many people genuinely hate the character of Amy because of this action. But by reframing the story, we get to see Amy as an adult first, with her passions and talents, and so when we go back and witness this terrible action, while it still horrifies us, we've already grown enough affection for the character that we are able to view her actions in that moment as the impulsive actions of someone who was still incredibly immature, and we understand that she will grow out of being that person, because we’ve already seen her having grown out of being that person. It's a storytelling approach that gives the character redemption in the eyes of the audience that apparently isn't really offered in many of the other versions. Now, with every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and if the film's restructuring helps the character of Amy, I think it disadvantages the character of Beth - and that's probably something that's more noticeable to me because I don't have any pre-existing feelings about the character. Beth seems to be a less prominent character in the second half of the story then she is in the first, and by restructuring the film in this way, we never get to spend the initial concentrated amount of time with Beth necessary to connect with her in the way that we connect with the other three. And I do think that diminishes the impact of her story. Still, for the most part, I think it's an extremely effective storytelling device.
This approach to telling the story brings to the forefront Jo's love of writing, and also offers an unexpected opportunity to be more true to the novel of Little Women than the novel of Little Women is. Louisa May Alcott was apparently not happy with the eventual ending of her novel, a semi-autobiographical novel that ended with her main character in a very different place from where she found herself. Her original ending was more in tune with her own life, but the publishers pressured her into revising the story and giving it the ending that we now have. I know this because after the movie, I felt the need to look up to specifically see whether that had happened with the novel. In telling this story, Gerwig uses the opportunity provided by her approach to the story to elegantly point toward a different way that the story could have ended. If you're expecting what is evidently the familiar ending to Little Women, with the train station and the umbrella, that's presented here, and it's absolutely shown as the canonical ending to this story. But it doesn't quite feel real - in some subtle ways it's almost more like a romantic comedy ending than the more grounded tone of the rest of the film - and it's framed in a way that makes clear that there is a different way the story could have gone, and that that other ending might be more true to who this central character really is. It's a fantastic and smart piece of writing, managing to be faithful enough to the story to apparently not alienate book fans, but also being clear enough in establishing its deviation from the accepted story that even a non-book reader like myself could see and understand how and why it was moving away from the novel.
One of Greta Gerwig's strengths as a writer is her ability to convincingly capture the voices of young women and the way they relate to those around. I think about Lady Bird, and about how convincingly that film portrayed the problems between a teenage girl and a mother who struggles to connect with her, and also the love and constant tension between the two teenage friends, or a film like Mistress America with the two soon-to-be-stepsisters trying to find their relationship. And Gerwig brings that clarity of understanding to her portrayal of the sisters. One of the things I was aware of from the culture at large is how distinctive each of the four characters are - Meg the romantic, Jo the strong-willed, Beth the sweet and shy, and Amy the proud. And that's definitely who these characters are, but it would have been easy to define these people primarily by their characteristics. Instead Gerwig gives them a real sense of family - these are women who have their own personalities, sure, but they're also women who grew up together and developed a common way of speaking and communicating between themselves. When you watch them interact, they genuinely do feel like sisters who have a lifetime of experience with each other. So we see a bit of each of the girls in all of them, and the characters are defined less by one major characteristic than by one aspect that's slightly stronger in one then the others.
My only real problem with the film is a problem that I imagine must be encountered with every adaptation of the story - the story spans 7 years, during which the characters grow and change a lot. But at the same time, you can't really recast the roles between the teenaged and the adult women. So we are forced into a position where we just have to accept these adult women playing much younger girls. And it mostly works - it helps that Hollywood's tendency to cast older actors to play teens means that I tend to have difficulty telling if someone is 15 or 25 - but it doesn't really work when it gets to the younger sisters, particularly Amy. I was shocked when I discovered that Amy is supposed to be 12 years old - Florence Pugh is great in the role, but she is 24 and she never, never reads as being that young. But I can live with that, because Florence Pugh is amazing.
Indeed, the performances in the film in general are wonderful, especially by the two actresses that have been nominated. I’ve admired Florence Pugh since she was so great a few years ago in Lady Macbeth, and this year she’s given us three fantastic performances – as real-life professional wrestler Paige in Fighting With My Family, as a grieving woman caught in a toxic relationship in Midsommar (one of my favourite films of the year), and now as Amy. I was impressed with the way she presented the transformation of her character, from immature and bratty youth to the thoughtful and artistic figure she becomes, all the while feeling absolutely the same character. I also unsurprisingly loved Saoirse Ronan as Jo, exhibiting a kind of frustrated passion, at time so urgently overflowing that she can barely get her words out. But it’s also an unexpectedly sad performance, as Jo is forced to consider the tension between her desire for a career and a creative outlet as a writer, and the pressures of society to marry and settle down, because she feels she can't have both; if she could only have one she would absolutely choose to pursue her career, but she feels doomed to loneliness if she ever follows that desire, and that heartbreak lies at the core of her performance. It’s beautiful work.
I adored Little Women. It’s genuinely baffling that Gerwig wasn’t nominated as Best Director, because it is such a beautifully achieved work of cinema. It was the first film I watched this year, and it was a perfect movie to start the year. And, while I doubt I’ll ever read the book (at least I'm honest), I’m definitely excited to look into some of the other movie versions.
I really did enjoy a lot about the film. It's an engaging and entertaining piece which sets its tone right from the start with the anachronistic sound of the Beatles singing “Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand”. It’s an unexpected opening, but it sets an energetic and irreverent tone that lasts all the way to the end credits and David Bowie singing “Helden”. Most of the core performances are fantastic. It’s genuinely surprising that Roman Griffin Davis had never acted before; he’s natural and sweet, and manages to come across as someone who is genuinely good-hearted, and who has hooked onto his Nazi beliefs because he needs something to hold onto after the loss of his father. There are points where his character does some really rather terrible things, emotionally abusive things that could easily have turned the audience away from the character, but because at his core he comes across as a fundamentally good kid whose actions are driven more by lack of understanding than ill will, I still really liked him. His scenes with Thomasin McKenzie, so fantastic in Leave No Trace, were the emotional core of the film, and the weird connection that built between the two, a pseudo-brother-sister relationship that is simultaneously playful while strained by the constant threat of discovery, were instantly memorable. Archie Yates, playing Jojo’s best friend, was a real discovery; his constant optimism and excitement even when all signs pointed to utter defeat (soldier uniforms made of paper!) was utterly charming. Scarlett Johansson does beautiful subtle work here, communicating genuine pain as she realises her son is espousing the hateful ideas she is fighting, and struggling to know how to respond. And as imaginary Adolf Hitler, Taika Waititi is a genuine highlight, always showing that he’s the creation of a 10-year-old boy, which allows him to be playful and silly as you like, while also communicating this idea that he’s been created as a father figure for someone in desperate need of a father.
I also think that Waititi is becoming an excellent visual filmmaker. There's a particular moment that impressed me where we see a pair of shoes, and just the sight of these shoes has an instant emotional impact. The thing is, I'm not a shoe person, I never pay attention to what people wear on their feet, and yet somehow Waititi managed to teach me to recognise those shoes, so that when we see them, even separated from the context of the person wearing them, they're transformed into a symbol of the person themselves. It's a nice piece of filmmaking that did impress me.
So there’s a lot to like about the film. But to understand the core problem with the film, all you need to do is look at the film poster. The poster proclaims itself to be "An anti-hate satire" - note that word: satire. And before you think that's just promotion-speak, I remember hearing Taika Waititi from very early on also describing the film as a satire. So I have no doubt that when he made the film, Waititi had the intent of making a satirical film. And on that measure, I do think he falls short, because I see precious little satire here. I don't think there is any doubt that the reason why this film was made now was because we live in a world where certain parts of the population that hold a neo-Nazi worldview have seemingly been emboldened in recent years, and I think the motivation to point out the ridiculousness of those ideas and the dangers they present is a good one. Unfortunately, it gets lost in the film. The only point where the film seems to actually be saying anything about hatred of others come in the moments where Jojo is surprised that Elsa doesn't have horns, or something similarly absurd that he's picked up from Nazi propaganda. Instead, the film seems to want to make jokes about how annoying it must have been to be a Nazi and have to "Heil Hitler" every person in the room. Now, that's a funny joke, I love that scene, but if you're wanting to make a point about the rising Nazi sympathies in the modern world, then that's a scene that's not going to say anything of substance about the film's message.
And then there's the choice to undercut the threat of the Nazis by turning pretty much every single Nazi character into a figure of fun. I honestly don't know if there are any genuinely bad Nazis in the film. There are people like Sam Rockwell, Alfie Allen, and Rebel Wilson, who play the local officers in command of the Hitler Youth. They might have been threatening, if at every moment they weren't played for broad silliness in a way that undercuts any danger posed. The Gestapo officers might present a threat, but at the same time, their appearance in the story is played for such laughs that it is difficult to take them seriously - and when they do do something that is genuinely horrifying, it all happens offscreen, so we never actually witness to them doing anything that would undercut the fun memories we have of them saying "Heil Hitler" 30 times each. I know that this is supposed to be a comedy, but they really needed some characters that they could take seriously. They already had the reliable comedy of Taika Waititi's very funny version Hitler; they needed to almost bank that comedy and say that, because we've got those laughs built up, we can therefore treat a few of the other characters seriously. As it is, the film undercuts itself much too much, and I just don't know that it works.
Now, when I say that this is the most surprising Best Picture nomination, I am in no way criticising the film. James Mangold is a skilled and solid film-maker, who has made a lot of films that I genuinely enjoy, and this is another strong entry in his career. But the notion that this is one of the best films to be made in 2019 just makes no sense. It's not the worst of the nominees (it's much better than Joker for a start), but whereas with Joker I could at least understand why that film was nominated (it was a massive hit with pretensions of quality, and these days a strong box office can certainly help secure a nomination), I simply can't see what it is about Ford v Ferrari that would have had such appeal that it could secure nomination.
It does have a lot of good qualities. The performances are, on the whole, very strong. Most attention has really been focused on Christian Bale, and it is a very good performance, but it is a performance we've seen Christian Bale give many times before - the frustrated, temperamental talent who expects the world to shape around him. More interesting was Matt Damon's work as the man trying to achieve his vision for a great race car while working within the demands of the company that employs him - there's a pinched tension, particularly in his scenes with the Ford executives, that feels like he's always exhausted and frustrated with whatever demands have been put on him. It's not an original comment to say that the film is really about filmmaking - most films about creative people, of any type, are - and it's clear that Damon here is the stand-in for director James Mangold, frustratedly trying to preserve his vision and his artistry in the face of a massive company that is pouring millions of dollars into a project but demanding very specific results while also expecting the creatives to compromise their vision to meet corporate expectations. It's always a nice surprise to see Tracy Letts on-screen, here playing the new generation of Ford CEO, trying to live up to his grandfather's vision and reputation, but allowing personal slights to overcome reason. The film is also beautifully shot, with scene after scene of striking and rich images. I loved the relationship between Miles and his hero-worshipping son, including one of the best scenes where we learn about the challenges of the Le Mans race by having the son draw a diagram of the racetrack so that Miles could talk his way through bend by bend. And the actual race, once we get to it, lives up to the hype, thrilling and exhilarating and suspenseful, but also lasting a good half an hour, so that we get a sense of the exhaustion that comes with a 24-hour race.
And yet the film also seems to have little interest in the realities of the race. It wasn't until I watched the film and went online for information about Le Mans that I understood that it's not a race to be the first to complete a set number of laps, but rather that's about being the car that drives the longest distance in the time available - a strange omission given how pivotal that information is in the race outcome. You also might come away from this film thinking that Ken Miles was the only driver in that car for all 24 hours - the film comes close to erasing the co-driver that shared driving time. The film also seems tempted often to take the easy approach to tell the story, resulting in scenes that frequently play as unconvincing. There's the absurd scene where Shelby locks his boss, Ford executive Leo Beebe, in a room while Miles takes Ford for an extremely fast ride in the car. Indeed, the entire way the film treats Beebe is frustrating, with the man presented as a two-dimensional villain obstructing our heroes for "reasons". Or there's Ken Miles' stereotypical put-upon wife, frustrated by the fact that her racecar-driving husband wants to race cars, and who only distinguishes herself by the daft scene where she drives at stupidly fast speeds, overtaking on blind corners, all the while hectoring her husband to tell her the truth - the character is otherwise so bland and uninteresting that you get the sense she's only in the film because they wanted to have the relationship between Miles and his son, and so they needed to include the mother. None of these problems make this a bad film, but they do take away from the film, cause it to feel more ordinary, and make it seem odd that it's had the recognition it has.
I will admit to being dubious about the film ever since I first heard its title. Ford v Ferrari is such a blunt nothing of a title, completely lacking in any kind of poetry or mystery, just declaring "this is what you're going to get". But having seen the film, I was surprised by how effective and evocative, how thematically rich, the title actually is. The film is not actually about the competition between these two carmakers - after all, while Henry Ford II is a significant character in the film, I'm not sure if we ever even hear Enzo Ferrari speak, and all we ever learn about the Ferrari racing team is their main driver's name. This is a film that's absolutely about Ford being driven to prove himself and his company by beating Ferrari and winning the Le Mans 24-hour race, and as presented here, that determination to win is absolutely petty and wholly driven by wounded pride after Ferrari said mean things about Ford to the media. But our main characters are far away from that fight - their lives are being dictated to because of that competition between the two companies, but they don't care about defeating Ferrari - except to the degree that they want to win the race, which means they have to beat everyone. This means that the title of the film, by framing it around a competition that the company heads care about but that our core characters are barely aware of, presents the film as a fight between the pettiness of the corporate overlords and the determination of our main characters to come out the other end intact. It's still not a great title in the abstract, but I do like what it says about the film.
And so that’s it. All nine films. I’m resigned to a 1917 win, but please, please, please let there be a Parasite upset. That’s all I want.
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