Scan and Pan
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Be Kind Rewind
Video store owner Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) has to go away for a few days and leaves his store in the hands of his only employee, Mike (Mos Def). Mike's best friend Jerry (Jack Black) gets magnetized in an incident involving a transformer and accidentally erases all of the tapes. When the store's most loyal customer, Miss Falewicz (Mia Farrow), demands to rent Ghostbusters and threatens to tell Mr. Fletcher if she doesn't get it, Mike and Jerry hatch a crazy plan to use a video camera to re-create the films using themselves as the actors and crew.
Writer/director Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep) applies absurdist humor to the task of exploring the social nature of the creation and ownership of art. If that sounds too highbrow, its philosophical structure is wrapped in a shiny package of goofy charm that makes its points in an entertaining fashion. Gondry's films can be inconsistent, particularly when he also writes them, because he is seemingly compelled to explore every artistic impulse that comes along, but this is also what makes them so fascinating to watch. The swing and a miss here is the story's relatively shallow emotional resonance. That flaw doesn't keep it from being good, it just keeps it from being better. The hilarity of Mike and Jerry's shabby remakes of films is what makes Be Kind Rewind work.
Unlike Gondry's previous films, which were stylized and verging on surrealist at times, here cinematographer Ellen Kuras (Summer of Sam, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) uses a more grounded visual approach that nicely complements the story along with the sets of production designer Dan Leigh (Basquiat, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), which transform a rundown section of Passaic, New Jersey into a wonderland of possibilities.
Black brings just the right note of well-meaning insanity to the character of Jerry, and his earnest attempts to re-create famous film characters just get funnier and funnier. Mos Def's Mike is more of a straight man to Black's Jerry, but his low-key approach to humor works just as well. Veteran actors Glover and Farrow are very effective in their roles. Melonie Diaz sparkles as Alma, a woman who becomes part of the films when Mike and Jerry need an actress for Jerry to kiss instead of mechanic Wilson (a hilariously deadpan Irv Gooch) in drag. Also funny in smaller roles are Sigourney Weaver as an attorney who goes after the video store for copyright infringement and Kid Creole as the manager of a rival video store.
Be Kind Rewind is a film for adults that has the sensibility of a children's tale about how magic is made, a combination that Michel Gondry is well-suited to creating on the screen. For the most part, he succeeds.
[4 out of 5 stars]
What is it about having a story told to us that we enjoy so much? Is storytelling something that someone else must do for us or is it something that we can participate in? While attempting to answer both questions, this delightful comedy serves up a lot of laughs.
Video store owner Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) has to go away for a few days and leaves his store in the hands of his only employee, Mike (Mos Def). Mike's best friend Jerry (Jack Black) gets magnetized in an incident involving a transformer and accidentally erases all of the tapes. When the store's most loyal customer, Miss Falewicz (Mia Farrow), demands to rent Ghostbusters and threatens to tell Mr. Fletcher if she doesn't get it, Mike and Jerry hatch a crazy plan to use a video camera to re-create the films using themselves as the actors and crew.
Writer/director Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep) applies absurdist humor to the task of exploring the social nature of the creation and ownership of art. If that sounds too highbrow, its philosophical structure is wrapped in a shiny package of goofy charm that makes its points in an entertaining fashion. Gondry's films can be inconsistent, particularly when he also writes them, because he is seemingly compelled to explore every artistic impulse that comes along, but this is also what makes them so fascinating to watch. The swing and a miss here is the story's relatively shallow emotional resonance. That flaw doesn't keep it from being good, it just keeps it from being better. The hilarity of Mike and Jerry's shabby remakes of films is what makes Be Kind Rewind work.
Unlike Gondry's previous films, which were stylized and verging on surrealist at times, here cinematographer Ellen Kuras (Summer of Sam, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) uses a more grounded visual approach that nicely complements the story along with the sets of production designer Dan Leigh (Basquiat, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), which transform a rundown section of Passaic, New Jersey into a wonderland of possibilities.
Black brings just the right note of well-meaning insanity to the character of Jerry, and his earnest attempts to re-create famous film characters just get funnier and funnier. Mos Def's Mike is more of a straight man to Black's Jerry, but his low-key approach to humor works just as well. Veteran actors Glover and Farrow are very effective in their roles. Melonie Diaz sparkles as Alma, a woman who becomes part of the films when Mike and Jerry need an actress for Jerry to kiss instead of mechanic Wilson (a hilariously deadpan Irv Gooch) in drag. Also funny in smaller roles are Sigourney Weaver as an attorney who goes after the video store for copyright infringement and Kid Creole as the manager of a rival video store.
Be Kind Rewind is a film for adults that has the sensibility of a children's tale about how magic is made, a combination that Michel Gondry is well-suited to creating on the screen. For the most part, he succeeds.
[4 out of 5 stars]
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