For context, I love absurdist/allegorical media in general and I have never read the book. Also spoilers ahead (although to be honest I think the movie gets WAY more enjoyable once the real...
For context, I love absurdist/allegorical media in general and I have never read the book. Also spoilers ahead (although to be honest I think the movie gets WAY more enjoyable once the real premise becomes clear).
I actually liked it a lot. I feel like it would make an excellent stage play, because the focus is definitely the dialogue as an exploration of - well, a lot of things. Loneliness, self-esteem, regret, bitterness, the tension between your emotions and your intellect and your desires. This complex dialogue was put in the hands of good actors as well. But I also think a lot of the cinematography choices were also effective.
Once I kind of figured out what was going on - that the Young Woman was an aspect of Jake, who was an old man engaging in maladaptive daydreaming - I resonated with aspects of it. I saw it as an intense internal discussion that was ultimately on the value of continuing an unsatisfying life. (EDIT: Especially as he watched his own parents decline, and knows that that is the likely future for him. Aging is terribly unkind!)
Like the scene where they go to Not Dairy Queen and order a Not Blizzard, where the woman is having a discussion with the teenager about pretty people - that is the way a lot of my internal discussions go. And the scene in the car where she starts quoting Pauline Kael - who hasn't imagined subsuming the words of someone whose words you admire or agreed with, imagining yourself smart enough to have coolly and swiftly presented their ideas yourself off the cuff? At the same time, doing so is kind of trite! It's kind of embarrassing to have such an indulgent fantasy, and there's some shame in basing your self-esteem on your ability to quote someone else rather than put forth your own ideas, I think the movie captures that a bit as well.
Another thing I liked a lot about it was the theme throughout of feeling like maybe you don't deserve the things you want (and sometimes feeling like you do, and like you have been slighted by the world). For instance, Jake obviously understands women's issues intellectually - if you consider the Young Woman's interjections about stuff like Baby It's Cold Outside and when he imagines her as being resentful of being "looked at" in the school as coming from his own thought processes. But this seems to cause tension with his emotional desires to have (or have had, I guess) a romantic partner - it's sort of at odds with his invented fantasy of a woman that he keeps reinventing to fill his emotional/social needs and his desire for an intellectual and creative outlet and partner.
I dunno. It's hard for me to organize my thoughts about it. Of course there are parts of it I didn't like as well, and I definitely had to turn off my worry about being seen as "pretentious" to really talk about it. But overall I enjoyed the experience and I think I would like to watch it again.
I very nearly did! But I ended up watching All Together Now because I was hoping it would feature more music. It turned out to be a melodrama in the same vein as Hallmark movies except with a...
I very nearly did! But I ended up watching All Together Now because I was hoping it would feature more music. It turned out to be a melodrama in the same vein as Hallmark movies except with a better budget.
For context, I love absurdist/allegorical media in general and I have never read the book. Also spoilers ahead (although to be honest I think the movie gets WAY more enjoyable once the real premise becomes clear).
I actually liked it a lot. I feel like it would make an excellent stage play, because the focus is definitely the dialogue as an exploration of - well, a lot of things. Loneliness, self-esteem, regret, bitterness, the tension between your emotions and your intellect and your desires. This complex dialogue was put in the hands of good actors as well. But I also think a lot of the cinematography choices were also effective.
Once I kind of figured out what was going on - that the Young Woman was an aspect of Jake, who was an old man engaging in maladaptive daydreaming - I resonated with aspects of it. I saw it as an intense internal discussion that was ultimately on the value of continuing an unsatisfying life. (EDIT: Especially as he watched his own parents decline, and knows that that is the likely future for him. Aging is terribly unkind!)
Like the scene where they go to Not Dairy Queen and order a Not Blizzard, where the woman is having a discussion with the teenager about pretty people - that is the way a lot of my internal discussions go. And the scene in the car where she starts quoting Pauline Kael - who hasn't imagined subsuming the words of someone whose words you admire or agreed with, imagining yourself smart enough to have coolly and swiftly presented their ideas yourself off the cuff? At the same time, doing so is kind of trite! It's kind of embarrassing to have such an indulgent fantasy, and there's some shame in basing your self-esteem on your ability to quote someone else rather than put forth your own ideas, I think the movie captures that a bit as well.
Another thing I liked a lot about it was the theme throughout of feeling like maybe you don't deserve the things you want (and sometimes feeling like you do, and like you have been slighted by the world). For instance, Jake obviously understands women's issues intellectually - if you consider the Young Woman's interjections about stuff like Baby It's Cold Outside and when he imagines her as being resentful of being "looked at" in the school as coming from his own thought processes. But this seems to cause tension with his emotional desires to have (or have had, I guess) a romantic partner - it's sort of at odds with his invented fantasy of a woman that he keeps reinventing to fill his emotional/social needs and his desire for an intellectual and creative outlet and partner.
I dunno. It's hard for me to organize my thoughts about it. Of course there are parts of it I didn't like as well, and I definitely had to turn off my worry about being seen as "pretentious" to really talk about it. But overall I enjoyed the experience and I think I would like to watch it again.
It also made me want to watch Oklahoma.
I very nearly did! But I ended up watching All Together Now because I was hoping it would feature more music. It turned out to be a melodrama in the same vein as Hallmark movies except with a better budget.