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| From http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/images/2012/02/Jack-and-Jill-2011.jpg |
Dir. Dennis Dugan
USA
Film #6 of The ‘Worst’ of Cinema
During the next two months I am
trying to catch up with films released in 2012 in my country as well as work on
this project. Ironically, my first film in this plan, my first Whit Stillman film Damsels In Distress, has a scene within it that throws over this
review a fitting metaphor for the issues surrounding what is another Adam Sandler film, the first I have seen
since I was an adolescent but a film that has ended up with a cloud around it
of some significance. Even though the issues of both are radically different,
the structure and central concern of Stillman’s
scene are suitable for the conundrum. In the scene in that film, the editor of
a student newspaper on a university campus Rick DeWolfe (Zach Woods) is decrying the fraternity houses in front of a group
of people as the worst of culture; he is the stereotypical liberal, as I should
aspire to be as one myself, believing his words are the only truth. Put in his
place the (usually) liberal, (usually) middle class or geek culture film critic
– especially those who write for online sites and have podcasts – who decries Jack & Jill not only a cinematic
abortion, but goes as far as saying Sandler
is a conman and a bully. In Damsels
In Distress, a main character Violet (Greta
Gerwig) criticises DeWolfe’s cruelty, only for him to show himself as an
obnoxious egotist who merely dismisses her with insults rather than a judged
argument. This opposition, the Violets, can be in danger of being contrarians
and behaving in the same ways, but they have also shown themselves to be the
more level headed individuals regardless of whether they praise or criticise Jack & Jill. Some of the criticisms
are worth bringing up against the film, but most of it, to borrow a term used
in a negative video review by Red Letter
Media, is the words of ‘snarky nitpicking assholes’, words full of cheap
metaphors, hyperbole and belligerent swearing that drowns out a judged
critique.
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| From http://www.filmofilia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/jack_and_jill.jpg |
The film is not a great one, just
an entertaining ninety or so minutes and nothing more, but I have to wonder if
some critics are using this as a distraction from daring to write a similar
critique of films allowed to escape scrutiny, with critical praised flowered on
them, without actually considering their content. About a family man (Adam Sandler) with a divided
relationship with his twin sister (Adam
Sandler), as well trying to convince Al
Pacino (Al Pacino) to do a Dunkin’ Doughnuts advert for his failing
company, the film is as plot-by-numbers as you expect with fart jokes, physical
injury jokes and such things seen in a lot of American comedy now. But, to
immediately go into the criticisms levelled at the film, it amazes me how critically
destroyed this film was when I have encountered far worse in cinema. The repetition of the plot is one such
criticism but bear in mind that the repetition of story narratives in all
genres of cinema has been an issue for a long time now – even in arthouse
dramas – and that it depends on how you gage with everything around the
repeated narrative like the humour. For the most part here, the film is
charming and amusing. The only real problem is the saccharine tone of the
ending. It is not the dialogue however, or the tone, which could still work and
has a funny gag involving Al Pacino
and a ceiling fan, but a problem of the music, music that creeps into many
Hollywood films and ruins the sweet moments, the over precious songs and string
scores that forcibly try to wrench emotions out of you but feels bullying and
irritating. That single music style is more aborrant than any repetition of
wacky scenario or joke within Jack &
Jill and should probably be blamed more on the practices of certain film
composers than someone like Sandler.
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| From http://www.filmofilia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/jack_and_jill_c06.jpg |
The humour is that which gets
rabidly criticised as well. It is strange however that the criticisms are about
the type of humour – of bodily functions and people being hit in the head or
genitals – rather than the quality of the writing and performances which it
should be. We are a species that spends a great deal of our lives in the
bathroom, and our relationship with our bodily fluids like faeces and vomit is
usually messy and embarrassing, so why ostracise a type of humour that can
allow us to laugh at our flawed bodies and feel more better about it, even if
it ends in a diarrhoea joke? Pratfalls can be argued for in the same way too,
and to dismiss this kind of humour as ‘below’ you, rather than argue that it
doesn’t work and is not well done when it could have been better and funny, is
elitist in attitude and shows a unwillingness to face one’s physical being in
such a bluntly honest way. I also cannot help but think of the fact that Yasujirô Ozu, one of the most critically
acclaimed film directors in existence, had farting as a running joke in his
1959 film Good Morning; it is done
very well and is hilarious each time, but it is still a reoccurring fart
joke in an Ozu film that I have
yet to hear be dismissed as ‘low’ from the director, a fact that makes the
dismissals of such humour in films like Jack
& Jill even more questionable.
The humour in general in Jack & Jill is very absurdist and
intentionally random at times. Some of it doesn’t work at all, a problem with
the style itself if not strict in the construction and timing of a comedic line
or act, but when it works, as with the adopted son’s obsession with tapping
random objects and animals to his person, it is hilarious and even more so
because it is so purposely abrupt and random. The jokes about race however is a
more divisive area, made worse to discuss as, when one attempts to correlate
one’s ideas on the subject, people have a terrible tendency to jump to words
like ‘racist’ without stepping back for a brief moment to carefully dissect the
issue at hand. Some of these jokes are cringe worthy, but it feels less like
cruel, debasing humour, but a film that wants to poke at the viewer’s ideas on
the subject, especially white politically correct audience members, but botches
at times miserably in the writing and playing out of the jokes. Others,
especially with the case of the gardener played by Eugenio Derbez, are purposely uncomfortable and succeed more
because his character’s clear delight in making the white people around him
feel that way is as much part of the joke; that can be seen as a cop-out, but Derbez, and the other Hispanic actors could have refused to make the film if they
found the material offensive. There are few cases where someone is forced to
make certain films that offend them to be able to feed themselves. Also this is
a film with a reoccurring joke of Al
Pacino’s attempting to communicate with his French staff in their tongue
only to speak complete and utter gibberish, making the film as much a swipe at
English speaking, white men and women as well. That this film has been called
racist, to the point of Red Letter Media
(again) calling it the most racist film since The Birth of a Nation (1915) is idiotic, completely hyperbolic and
trivialising a serious issue where truly ‘racist’ attitudes are far more
horrifying and insidious than the accusations levelled at this film.
It feels as if attacking Jack & Jill, unless I encounter a
review which breaks down the author’s criticisms of the film with meditated
thought and without irony, was just an excuse by some critics to be lazy, or
far more seriously, to be cowards to avoid tackling far more controversial
viewpoints on films that get a lot of critical praise. If any readers of this
review hate Jack & Jill, I will
understand completely, but the bile that has been used on it is totally
worthless and time wasting. Some of the criticisms are justifiable, but many
can be levelled at other films. The anger at the product placement is
understandable, but so many American films now are as much commercial capital
as well as cinema, such as with The
Avengers (2012), and I find the idea of there being children’s costumes of Heath Ledger’s version of the Joker and
Burger King tie-ins for a nihilistic, and intentionally dark and violent, film
like The Dark Knight (2008) far more
horrifying than Adam Sandler holding
a bottle of Pepto-Bismol up in front
of the camera. (Call me naive as well, but I hope my fellow man is intelligent
enough to ignore such product
placement in films too, only taking interest in one because the pre-existing desire
within them was pushed forward by sight of a Coca-cola or something onscreen). The
film is innocuous, not a one-movie plague on intelligent society that some
critics seen to have viewed it as, a generally enjoyable film which, with
documentary footage of real life twins talking about themselves at the
beginning and end of the film, has a heart in its centre despite the attempts
of the saccharine music to spoil it. To destroy a film like this when worse
does indeed exist, as I am going to force myself through for this season, is
lazy, and disappointing for someone like myself who, posting these amateur
reviews online, desires to look up to professional film critics only to find
that most of the writing is learning from, and is a waste of material and time.
Like DeWolfe’s attitude in Damsels In
Distress, I read the reviews of certain critics and find them narcissistically
in love with their voice, something I fear a lot will happen to me with my
writing, without anything of actual depth and meaning in the elaborate words
used. If I see more Adam Sandler films in the future, I hope that they attempt to be a
little better; I would like his production company Happy Madison Productions to iron out some of the problems with the
types of jokes they use and do something about the music, but Jack & Jill was good despite what
it suffers from in terms of flaws. What is the point of throwing cheap punches
at a film that merely desires to be funny and charming like this, and for the
most part succeeds, when far more deserving failures in cinema are given a free
pass?
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| From http://movieboozer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Jack-and-Jill-Main-Review.jpg |
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