Veronica Mars

Kristen Bell as Veronica Mars

Rob Thomas' Veronica Mars registers as more of a coda to the television series starring Kristen Bell than a stand alone product. Fans of the series will find it a playful sop, but outliers will probably be baffled. Thomas doesn't really seem to have the directing chops to expand the mise en scene of the series, but his trenchant view of the SoCal lifestyle and the charm of the players remains intact. 

I remember how in the 1960s various successful TV series spun off into movies that offered minimal viewing rewards: McHale's Navy, Batman: The Movie, Munster, Go Home!; all truly feeble films. There are only a handful of films spun off from television shows that stand alone as worthy films: Don Siegel's The Lineup, Blake Edwards' Gunn, and Joss Whedon's Serenity are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head. Like the Sex and the City films and Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, Veronica Mars seems to exist as more of a chance for fans to enjoy beloved characters again rather than to reinterpret them cinematically.

I do want to go on record as being very much a Veronica Mars fan, Indeed, I would rate the series higher than such touted ones as The Sopranos and Mad Men. Despite its high school detective premise, Veronica Mars offers a more incisive and less cartoonish point of view than either of those series. It was ahead of its time in addressing issues that have not evaporated: racial strife, economic equality, police corruption, misogyny, to name just a few.

Part of the reason I have striven to restrict my writing to film is that if I attempted to address television shows I would feel obligated to write lengthy treatises on shows I've enjoyed such as Mr. Robot and Legion, but I don't have the time or the bandwidth. Similarly, there is enough to chew on concerning Veronica Mars to inspire innumerable doctoral theses from now till doomsday.

One spring I will pull is the show's take on Hollywood. The setting of the show is the fictional town of Neptune, supposedly a northern suburb of San Diego. There, the elite high schoolers are referred to as 09ers, a riff, I suppose, on Beverly Hills 90210. The premier bad boy of the elite set, Logan Echolls, is the son of a major movie star, Arron Echolls. He is played by Harry Hamlin and Aaron Echolls wife is played by Hamlin's wife, the bizarre visual effect known as Lisa Rinna.

This provides ample opportunity to lampoon Hollywood materialism and narcissism and the show delivers. Hamlin and his wife portray exaggerated facsimiles of themselves. Hamlin even watches his younger self perform in Clash of the Titans at one point. Since Hamlin and Rinna are themselves rather overblown and monstrous Hollywood creatures, their presence amounts to a self-parody and auto-critique. I would call their performances tongue in cheek, if either were skillful enough thespians to project that they were in on the joke. (Actually, Hamlin is always reliable, if a little wooden. Rinna is dire) Nevertheless, Thomas is concocting these broad characterizations in a rather fanciful series and the effect works dramatically. The cartoonish stereotypes of Italian gangsters in The Sopranos detract from what is ostensibly a work of realism.

Jason Dohring as Logan Echolls

Thomas does have a point to his satire of SoCal elites because he shows the damage wrought on their children by their hollow and capricious lifestyles. Logan Echolls is alternately ignored and spoiled by his father, who not only beats Logan, drives his mother to suicide due to his philandering and mistreatment, but also beds and then murders Logan's girlfriend. Whew! Logan tries to suppress his rage, but it intermittently explodes into violence. Thomas is greatly helped in making this melodramatic stew palatable by having the deftest actor of his ensemble, Jason Dohring, play Logan. Dohring consistently underplays his role, softly speaking his lines whether he is coming onto a coed or threatening a rival. This makes Logan Echolls paroxysms of fury all the more disturbing and disjunctive when they are unleashed,

Veronica Mars, the series, is rewarding viewing that has many layers of signifiers and themes to explore. Besides its updating of noir (much like Rian Johnson's Brick), its portrayal of tabloid culture and a host of other hot button topics previously mentioned, it unspools a plethora of cultural references in a self-knowing, post-modern style. Not to the level of Gilmore Girls, but it is hip enough to tip its cap to the feminist heroines of Stars Hollow. Veronica Mars, the movie, is not the best entry into this saga, but it is a nice capstone to a worthy series. (8/22/17)