Beau Is Afraid is a chore of a film. There's a lot going on and we are definitely not spoon-fed. It's abstraction makes it opaque. With that in mind, I saw a few themes throughout the film, and I think I may understand it enough to provide a fairly succinct theory on what's going on in this delusional series of events. Obviously spoilers. But first, we need to go on a long tangent: narration style.
The concept of a film's…
Not sure if the source material is to blame, but Grease feels like it's full of a whole lot of theme with not a whole lot of content. Its music is great, though, making it worth seeing for that alone.
It wants to be a coming-of-age story, but can't because both Danny and Sandy act unrealistically (and not in a high school angst way). It wants to be a self-realization story, but its climax ends with the goody-two-shoes becoming a…
Knives Out is one of those indubitably rare blockbusters that not only fulfills casual viewing expectations, but also makes deeply introspective and relevant social commentary.
First, the plot is (from what I can tell) nearly airtight. Rian Johnson’s storytelling is top notch, and he doesn’t take any shortcuts with his story or his characters. This is primarily evidenced with Ransom, a seemingly shallow and lazy character — the type of character left undeveloped in most films. But as more comes…
