The trouble with being bored

The following is a pretty rare sequence of events for me:

1) See a movie poster for the first time on a trip to the movie theater.

2) See a trailer for that movie for the first time before the movie I'm seeing on that trip to the theater.

3) That's the next movie I see in the theater -- only three days later, which was its opening night.

Yet that was the sequence of events with The Trouble With Being Born, which I saw on Thursday night after first learning of its existence on Monday night when I went to see Possessor.

A couple things clinched it. One was that it was a foreign film (German), and though I've seen enough others this year to compensate, that's the type of film that tends to go by the wayside in a year when theaters spent most of their time closed. Then there was its promise of addressing artificial intelligence, always a bountiful cinematic theme, through an arthouse lens.

But I think the thing that sealed the deal was one of the raves from critics shown in the trailer, which was along the lines of "You will ask yourself: 'What did I just watch'?"

I always want my mind to be blown, so even the promise of it is enough to get me in the door, even when there are other movies steadily hitting theaters that I probably need to watch before I close my list just six weeks from now.

This viewing was also important as the first post-Possessor viewing. You will recall from a previous post that I had a mouth full of novocaine for that viewing, which prevented me from eating any of the candy I'd brought with me as a sugary stimulant. I did okay that time so I wondered if this was a change I could make permanently. So to The Trouble With Being Born, I brought only No Sugar Coke -- two of them, just to be sure.

Unfortunately, boredom is a strong, strong tranquilizer, which tends to nullify stimulants.

If I asked myself what I just watched, it's because The Trouble With Being Born was a wasted opportunity.

Since you may not have heard of it -- it has played only festivals so far, and I can't tell when it's going to open in North America, or if North American prudishness may play a role in that -- I can tell you that the film at least heavily suggests an improper relationship between a man and a young girl. Now, the young girl is a robot. But she still looks like a young girl, which means he is still a creep. More than that; a criminal.

I have a strong stomach for objectionable content, so this was not a problem for me, though I did question its overall value in a film that plays basically like an arthouse version of A.I. Artificial Intelligence. (I won't repeat my whole review, which I have already written, but it won't post until Monday so I can't link to it yet.) 

The problem for me, though, was how boring the movie was.

I do appreciate a movie's narrative being told in fragments. I do appreciate long, thoughtful moment of ennui. (Yep, repeating my review.)

I don't appreciate something that can't develop any momentum, and causes my eyelids to droop even after I've stuck into my second soda.

Would sugary sweets have helped me in this situation? Probably not. I do think, though, that there is a certainly Pavlovian instinct when I'm sitting in a darkened movie theater, that prompts me to need something to chew on. I got so desperate at one point that I went digging in my backpack to see if there had been anything squirreled away from another time that I'd forgotten about. There was: a granola bar so old that it actually tasted dusty and stale. I ate it gladly.

In the credits for The Trouble With Being Born, I noticed that the various individual pieces of the score had names that mirrored the name of the movie: "The Trouble With Getting Over," "The Trouble With Remains," "The Trouble With Eternal Love," etc. 

"The Trouble With Being Bored" was not in there, but it should have been.