It used to be that Kristen Stewart was Jessie Eisenberg’s
girlfriend. They have appeared in possibly as many as four and no fewer than
three films together, despite no romantic entanglements off screen that I’m
aware of. Maybe they just have good chemistry. In another industry he might
have called her his “work wife.” (And let’s not be sexist; she might have
called him her “work husband.")
Well, that pairing hasn’t happened since Woody Allen’s Café Society in 2016, so maybe it’s
over. Or maybe they’re just seeing other people. In any case, Eisenberg seems
to be a “serial monogamist” (to quote Four
Weddings and a Funeral) as he has now taken up with Imogen Poots.
It seems to be only two movies together so far, but they are
both playing at this year’s MIFF, so you tend to notice it.
It was while waiting for Lorcan Finnegan’s Vivarium to start Sunday night at Hoyts
Melbourne Central that I made the connection. I knew Eisenberg and Poots were
the stars of Vivarium, but I didn’t
realize Poots was also in Eisenberg’s The
Art of Self-Defence from director Riley Stearns. A tweet changed that. MIFF
likes to post tweets of people who tagged MIFF with their thoughts on a movie they
saw, and by “post” I mean use as a screen saver before the film starts, such
that the tweets fill up the screen and occasionally change their relative
orientation, as new ones pop up and old ones expire. (It’s not real time – they
are curated for acceptable content.) In fact, I almost want to start tweeting
again just to see my own tweet up there, though the odds are against me
actually attending the session where they posted my tweet, if they posted it at
all. And if I can’t see it, did it really happen?
Anyway, one person tweeted the reasons she was sold on Art of Self-Defence, and one of them was
Imogen Poots.
That was a lot of time to spend on the fact that two actors
happened to appear together in two movies in the same year.
I should be spending my time on Vivarium, a film I was going to see, and then wasn’t going to see,
and then saw. Knowing it was some kind of post-apocalyptic film starring two
actors I liked (the aforementioned couple), I put it on my original shortlist
for its first screening on Friday night. However, my wife had to put the kibosh
on that when it was revealed it would probably interfere with her own schedule
that day, as she was attending meetings with sales agents for her own film that’s
in the festival. But she was also interested in Vivarium so she bought a ticket for herself for Sunday night.
(Which sounds underhanded, but believe me, it’s not – I make out far better on
the whole MIFF situation as I can only go to movies at night, leaving her with a
surplus of solo child caring, while she fits as many as she can into daytime
sessions.) But then staying out after a long day of meeting with sales agents
(and also squeezing in two daytime sessions) just did not seem very palatable
to her, so she handed over the ticket to me.
After getting out I texted her the following: “I cannot
thank you enough for getting tickets to that movie.”
Indeed, I am happy to say that Vivarium is now the top of the heap of the 50 or so films I’ve seen
this year. It’s not post-apocalyptic the way I was expecting it to be. I won’t
tell you too much about the story, because I didn’t know anything about the story
and that was great. What I will say is it involves Poots and Eisenberg as a
couple who go looking at a new home in a planned community – you know, one of
those places where all the houses look the same. The sales agent takes them for
this tour and then … well, that’s all I want to tell you. I’ll just tell you
that it isn’t the kind of “zombies walking the earth” post-apocalyptic movie you
might be thinking of, though “post-apocalyptic” is an apt enough description from
a certain point of view. It’s a mind bender, and it’s just … so … good. I am
currently debating whether to review it or not, but I’m not sure I could
without telling a lot more about it than I want to tell.
In fact, it was so good that I made an extremely difficult
decision not to stay for the Q&A with the director, who was present to
introduce it. I hope some people stayed because Lorcan Finnegan deserves to be
showered with adoration and intellectual inquisitiveness related to this film.
But the fact of the matter is, the MIFF sessions don’t give you a huge amount
of downtime between them, and I needed to get some dinner before my second
movie of the night, so I made the rough choice of peeling away. (I probably
didn’t need to get dumplings from my favorite dumpling place, but that’s what I
had my heart set on.)
Once Vivarium got
me out of the house I thought it made sense to kill two birds with one evening.
And given my wife’s large quantity of extra, unused tickets, I had her get me a
ticket for a film that hadn’t made my shortlist, but had made my longlist –
that original list consisting of about 40 titles. It was at the Plenary again,
the most remote MIFF location, but I’d brought my bike, so I ate my dumplings
and zig-zagged through the streets with only a minute or two to spare before it
started.
The film was the French language Matthias & Maxime, and it made it on to my longlist by virtue
of being directed by Canadian Xavier Dolan, though I’d also like to think I
support LBGTQ content. Dolan directed two films I like a lot, I Killed My Mother and Mommy, and yes, his mother fixation does
factor into a subplot here. The film is only dipping its toe into LGBTQ, I
suppose, as the two title characters are apparently heterosexual lifelong
friends, who realize they may feel something more toward each other when one of
them is on the verge of leaving Montreal for Australia for two years. (And if
I were a slightly more shameless mentioner of coincidences, I’d have probably
spent a whole post on how both of my two Sunday night movies had at least one
mention of Australia.)
The actual inciting incident, though, is that they agree to
substitute for two actors who flaked on a student film being shot by the
annoying younger sister of one of their friends. Actually, Maxime agrees, and
Matthias loses a bet. It’s part of a weekend at a lakehouse where their friends
are partying and she’s making the movie. The only thing is, not until they’ve
agreed to be in it does she explain the scene, which involves the two of them
kissing. Perhaps realizing they have unacknowledged feelings toward each other,
they’re quite resistant, but ultimately agree. And that’s when the problems
start. (Dolan plays Maxime, which allowed for the “clever” mirroring in the
title of this post.)
As with both of the other Dolan films I’ve seen, he’s true
to the complicated dynamics and emotions between human beings, and it’s an
interestingly explored subject. It didn’t hit for me emotionally, though, and I
hope that’s not because I have trouble relating to a same-sex sexual
attraction. Every time I see a movie featuring two men or two women in love
with each other, and it doesn’t hit for me as resoundingly as I think it might,
I wonder whether it’s just this particular story that didn’t land for me, or if
I have trouble becoming emotional or sentimental about romantic love that is a
different type of romantic love than the type I experience. Movies are complicated as they
are supposed to be an empathy machine for people different from you (to quote
Roger Ebert), but you are also supposed to see yourself in the characters, and
it’s somewhere in the murky gray middle where I struggle to reconcile it. Anyway,
that’s way too big of a matzo ball so let’s just leave it at “I thought this
movie was good but not great.” (God, did I just write a whole paragraph that
makes me sound homophobic? I hope not, because I’m not. I mean, I chose this
movie, didn’t I? Ugh, it’s getting worse. I better just stop writing now.)
I’ve got a little MIFF break now until … well, tonight. Ha. My
actual break was Monday, but I didn’t write this post until today, so … back at
it on Tuesday night!
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