The Invite

Olivia Wilde

Olivia Wilde's The Invite is a good comedy, a deserved popular hit, that both benefits and suffers from its formulaic approach. The film is based on a Spanish flick I haven't seen, known in the US as The People Upstairs and in its native country as Sentimental. Cesc Gay adapted his own play for that film which takes place entirely in one apartment. Screenwriters Will McCormack and Rashida Jones have wisely opted not to open up the material. The Invite is both a sex comedy and an awkward comedy of manners that works well because the four characters are cooped up together. There is a brief opening section showing Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogan on their separate routes back to their apartment, Alcatraz looms in the background as Rogen prepares to enter his marital cell, but the remainder of the film takes place in their nowhere to hide San Francisco apartment.

Wilde and Rogan are shown bickering before they welcome their upstairs neighbors, played by Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton, over for an impromptu get together. There is underlying tension because the sexual antics of the upstairs neighbors have kept those downstairs awake at night; especially Mr. Rogen's character. The upstairs duo soon confess that they are unrepentant swingers who host orgies at their pad and, of course, they eventually come onto their hosts. Secrets are revealed and flirting commences. This has been the basis for sex comedies since the silent era: monogamy and its discontents. Trouble in paradise. The hosts are ripe for temptation. Both are frustrated artists, blessed and saddled with an unseen daughter away at a sleepover. The premise is that they have not had sex for a year, which I found far-fetched, and so they are both desperate for a little action. The sexual tension is broken by a pratfall and the hosts are left with each other. Bringing the film full circle, they make beautiful music together. Indeed the film is musical in its alternating duos with quartets.

Penelope Cruz and Olivia Wilde do a double take

Wilde ping pongs the camera between the combatants in this sexual battle royale as they change partners and spar. The rhythm is fleet and so is the film's editing. Double takes abound. At its best, The Invite reminded me of the fast talking sex farces of Howard Hawks with their frantic rhythms, though I don't recall a Hawks film mentioning pegging. Unfortunately, the ending is too tidily wrapped up by Cruz's character, who being a psychotherapist and a sexologist, naturally can deduce the host's hangups. Still, a formulaic feature like this one needs an expert cast to transcend its predictability and The Invite boasts one. Cruz is elegantly sultry and Norton entertainingly slippery. Seth Rogen is perfectly cast as a pot smoking academic schlub. Wilde is somewhat miscast as a buttoned up people pleaser, but is, as always, a superb comic trouper. Whether a stripper who bursts out of a cake at a children's party in a Portlandia or a slovenly hausfrau here, the woman is game. The Invite is a minor triumph for Ms. Wilde after the debacle of Don't Worry Darling. It is telling that The Invite is a more effective feminist statement than the pretentious patriarchy bashing of her previous feature. Both The Invite and Booksmart demonstrate that Wilde's gifts lie in crafting the comic interplay of her players. 

Angel, Angel, Down We Go

Wigs galore: Jennifer Jones and Holly Near

Robert Thom's Angel, Angel, Down We Go is such a piece of unbridled kitsch that it's pretentious awfulness is mesmerizing. This 1969 AIP rockploitation flick was unsuccessful in its initial released and was recycled a year later as the double billed Cult of the Damned; a desperate attempt to cash in on the publicity generated by the Manson murders. AIP wanted a follow up to Wild in the Streets which had been a good revenue generator for the schlockmeisters in 1968. Cynthia Weill and Barry Mann were again commissioned to create songs and they responded with another yeoman's effort that mimics the stylings of the current fave rave bands. As with Wild in the Streets, the soundtrack is a better value than the film itself.

The film's genesis lies in an unproduced play that Thom had written. He was able to graft the facsimile of a hip and dangerous rock act onto the existing material, but seems to have had little sense of youth culture of the era. His pop references (Mama Cass, Nancy Sinatra, The Lennon Sisters) are a little behind the times. The play and film focus on a dysfunctional and ultra rich family. Dad (Charles Aidman) is a closeted homosexual, at odds with his vain and needy missus (Jennifer Jones). Daughter Tara (Holly Near) has just returned from finishing school and feels fat and unloved. Luckily, Mom and Dad throw her a wingding and she meets the film's raging id, uninhibited singer and swinger Bogart Peter Stuyvesant (Jordan Christopher). They meet cute in screwball fashion and Bogart proceeds to deflower Tara in a setting that harkens to Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe. The sex scenes have zero romance. Bogart's idea of pillow talk is "You've got bad breath. I dig it." Tara meets the rest of band and they go skydiving as a bonding ritual in a scene that presages Point Break. All of this clutter is intercut with allegedly arty pop collages made expressly for the film. It starts out antically kooky, but is soon dispiritingly repetitive.      

Jordan Christopher

Angel, Angel We Go Down unspools as a Dr. Frankenstein's monster on which you can discern the stitches. The dysfunctional family plot hearkens back to the expressionism of Tennessee Williams with Bogart the film's Stanley Kowalski. Needless to say, I think Thoms' play is third rate Williams, on a level with Lillian Hellmann's Toys in the Attic. The film is staged like a revue of variety skits with the usual penny ante production qualities favored by B Westerns and the youth tripe of the era, such as The Monkees, Good Times, and The Magic Christian. Ms Jones' costumes, including a sheer mu-mu, are quite heinous. The film features a parade of atrocious and ostentatious wigs. There is a queer and camp element, again like Williams, with more male nudity than female. Other films pilfered include The Graduate, Valley of the Dolls,  and Teorema. The latter dictates the remainder of the picture's alleged plot as Bogart seduces Tara's Mom and Pop.

The film's best musical number is the title track which Christoper belts while aping Jim Morrison's bare chest and leather pants look. He was a handsome dude and has a pleasant voice, but can't dance and doesn't project sexual energy. Other numbers mimic Donovan, The Byrds, and Eric Burden. The most insipid number is the post-coital ballad Christopher sings to Ms. Jones, a pallid Lady Jane rip off. Why no one got the bright idea to let Lou Rawls or Holly Near sing a song instead of Christopher is beyond me. Rawls, a stylish crooner, is the film's token Negro, akin to Richard Pryor in Wild in the Streets. For those not familiar with her musical career, Near, after taking off her Hollywood warpaint, became the most successful lesbian singer-songwriter of her era. Way better than Robin Flower, if no Ferron, as I recall. Angel, Angel, We Go Down's few promising moments center on Tara's unhappiness with her zaftig figure, but the film soon loses any semblance of focus. I can't recall another Hollywood feature that centered on a plus-sized gal until John Waters' Hairspray released in 1988. Ms. Jones retains her dignity, Mr Aidman does not. Roddy McDowell is bare-assed for those keeping score and also ill-used. He plays a variation on his gay sprite in Lord Love a Duck without any good lines. 

I know now that if I fall into the hands of a foreign or domestic terrorist, I could withstand any torture knowing that I was able to giggle my way through Angel, Angel, Down We Go without going mad. I will admit it is not a dull film and is memorable, but for all the wrong reasons. My jaw was on the floor as I was watching it, but I will never forget, try as I might, Angel, Angel, Down We Go.

       

Max Manus

Aksel Hennie

Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg's Max Manus is a World War 2 film that was released outside of Norway as Max Manus: Man of War, presumably to draw in the action audience. The  2008 film revolves around Manus, Norway's most famous Resistance saboteur when it was under Nazi occupation. The film's structure is trifold. We witness Manus' exploits during the war, mostly scuttling German shipping. We also get a recurrent flashbacks of Manus' volunteer days with Finnish forces fighting off a Soviet incusion. These experiences left him deeply traumatized. Thirdly, we witness the pursuit of Manus by a slick and unrepentantly evil SS officer named Siegfried Fehmer who is well played by Ken Duken. The script by Thomas Nordseth-Tiller does a good job of delineating the doomed band of comrades that joined Manus to fight his country's occupiers. Even actors who only appear briefly, like Petter Næss and Ron Donachie as sensitive superiors, make an impression despite their brief screen time.

Though superior in its characterization than most wartime sagas, the film is better at delineating the nuts and bolts of the saboteurs' operations than fleshing out the film's parallel and ambivalent love stories. The two romantic tales have too many ellipses in their relationship arcs. The film limps to a conclusion with Manus an alcoholic suffering from PTSD. There are two scenes with Manus having visions of his dead comrades, one too many. Aksel Hennie is excellent at portraying Manus as hollowed out by his service to his country. Hennie has had continued success appearing in such international hits as The Martian and Sisu. The directors' acute sense of craft is best displayed in the action sequences which smoothly combine CGI with practical effects. Their skill gained them entrée into Hollywood, but their output has been polished but anonymous. This makes me think that what makes Max Manus a good, if not outstanding, genre flick, is the screenplay. Unfortunately, Max Manus must stand as Mr. Nordseth-Tiller's sole testament. He died of cancer in 2009. He was 28 years old.