(In other words, this is the first post I've written since we left -- correct me if I'm wrong -- that has nothing to do with being in Europe.)
We use the term "half-baked" to describe an idea that we think is good but has not been fully fleshed out, or has been fleshed out in incomplete/ problematic ways. I suppose using the terms "baking" and "fleshing out" in the same sentence is kind of a mixing of metaphors, but I think you're following me.
A quarter baked? That's something where you can see there is an idea there, but it is really very far away from being anything remotely rigorous that would stand up to scrutiny.
Jake Johnson's 2023 film Self Reliance, which I watched Monday night in Venice, is a quarter baked.
(I did say this didn't have anything to do with Europe, and I still contend that's true even though I've told you I watched it in an adorable little apartment that overlooks a Venice canal.)
I wasn't actually planning to watch anything on Monday night, but we got back to the house before nine, and I wasn't going to go to sleep within the next hour even though I'm a bit sick and had a terrible sleep two nights ago. I also didn't have the appetite to try to watch something new so I could review it, having actually posted four new reviews (between myself and another writer) within the past week.
So Self Reliance was what I found on Netflix -- and because it was a Hulu original, I think being in Italy was the only reason I found it on Netflix, as in Australia this would probably be on Disney+. (Meaning I also could have found it.) I think you'll agree that its premise helps us enter the realm of baking metaphors.
Johnson plays a man who was recently dumped by his girlfriend of 23 years (!), who is approached to appear in a dark web reality show where he has to survive people hunting him for 30 days in order to win $1 million. It's not actually as difficult as that sounds. He can survive as long as he is with someone else, in other words, in arm's length of them. So he has to do that for the entire 30 days.
The movie has an obvious interest in exploring the difficulties of accomplishing this, both physically and mentally. While it's tricky to logistically find yourself always next to someone else -- the best realization of the film's themes comes when Johnson's character rushes to the toilet in the middle of the night so he can be next to his brother-in-law while his brother-in-law is taking a shit -- it's also mentally and emotionally challenging to constantly be in the presence of another person.
The film does next to nothing with either of these ideas, and is strangely lacking in rigor when seeing through its high concept, to the extent that it does see it through at all.
I guess I have to SPOIL Self Reliance from here on out, so be forewarned.
Johnson is of course aware of the constraints involved in this challenge, and has brushes with what might happen if he doesn't follow them, but is strangely unworried amount momentarily straying from his satefy of numbers. (By the way, the character has a name, but I'm just going to call him Johnson, even though only Andy Samberg, and belatedly Wayne Brady, appear in this movie playing themselves. That would prepare you for a lot more funny than this Lonely Planet movie actually is.) One example comes when Johnson is going out to a night club and waiting for the homeless man he's hired to shadow him, another funny idea that isn't used very interestingly. He takes a phone call and wanders halfway down an alley to take it, for no apparent reason, and in blatant disregard of any need to adhere to the rules of the game, especially when a failure to adhere to them could result in his own demise. And indeed, he gets attacked in this alley, but only by someone who tries to strangle him to death. Why this person wouldn't just have a gun, if they are specifically hunting him in order to try to kill him, is never explained by the movie.
I suppose there are romcom undercurrents to this movie in terms of the fact that Johnson is eager to learn why his girlfriend of 23 years (!!!), played by Natalie Morales, broke up with him. The scene where he finally confronts Morales to learn this information is absurd, because anyone who had been with someone else for more than two decades, without getting married, would have good reason to break up with the other person. It also highlights how many actors this film has who were called in to do just a single day, maybe just a single hour, of work. But the reason I'm mentioning the film's romcom angle is because it involves Anna Kendrick, the other major name (other than Johnson) working on the project for multiple days, and one of my main draws in wanting to see the movie.
So Kendrick plays a woman who is also involved in the reality show, targeted for termination if she is not with someone, who contacts Johnson so they can team up. This also seems like a good idea and pushes the idea of a romcom meet cute turned into something else, which also explores the perils of a fast exposure to another person and the physical expectations this scenario might entail for them. However, we eventually learn that Kendrick is not actually involved in the game -- which explains some of her own failures to adhere to the rules for her own safety -- and just answered an ad from Johnson because she was bored. You'd think that, from her perspective as a potential romcom heroine, this is the romcom character who is hiding a big secret that the two have to overcome to find their bliss, one of the most standard tropes in romcoms. Instead, after this reveal she just drops out of the story. Huh?
The days keep ticking forward toward Day 30 as the movie continues to lose interest in seeing through the ideas it set in motion, revealing itself more and more as a limp entity hanging atop solid bones. As we get to Day 30, we think there's going to be some big twist that explains both the movie's lame attempts at storytelling and Johnson's apparent success at winning $1 million despite being a very pedestrian competitor who repeatedly fails in small ways to safeguard himself and keep his quest going. The movie introduces ideas that this is a hoax, that his life was never in danger, and that we should question everything we've been seeing.
However, again, it does nothing with those ideas. When we get to the end, indeed the two strange European men who initially pitched him the competition are there, along with all sorts of other people we've met along the way, ready to reward him his million. The only "twist" is that they're paying him in some foreign currency and can only pay him $4,000 per month for 12 years, which is still an outcome most of us would be incredibly happy with, though the film makes it appear as a bit of joke. You wonder how often they throw this competition if it is this easy to survive it by doing so little in the way of contestant ingenuity.
Throughout this wobbly affair, there's the persistent bit of flimsiness that we have to just trust that none of the people hunting him will fail in their mandate not to kill him if he is with someone else. Johnson doesn't actually know anything about this game and has nothing but the word of these two eccentric European men that people willing to commit murder actually have not only the moral rectitude to follow the rules set out, but also the fine motor skills to prevent an accidental killing. Are we meant to believe that these people are constantly pulling out their mental tape measures to determine if the person accompanying Johnson is sufficiently close to him to ensure his safety?
A quarter baked? I think Self Reliance may actually only be one-eighth baked.
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