Wish I Was Here

Wish I Was Here - Dir. Zach Braff (2014)

Zach Braff stirred up a little controversy when he launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund his second directorial effort, Wish I Was Here. Surely, Braff was living high on the hog off his big, fat Scrubs paychecks? Whether you agreed with Braff's methods for financing his film, the campaign successfully raised over $3 million.

It's been ten years since Braff made his directorial debut with Garden State, a movie that was critically praised by my peers and I. Looking back on it now; I find it cloying and overly precious though I can still admire Braff's visual whimsy. A decade later and it doesn't look like things have changed too much. Wish I Was Here is very much a spiritual sequel to Garden State. Braff's earlier picture was about an aimless twenty-something actor with a deceased mother and a disapproving father. Wish I Was Here is about an aimless thirty-something actor with a deceased mother and a disapproving father.

Wish I Was Here presents the notion that the angst and hipster melancholia of your 20's doesn't go away when you hit your 30's, despite getting married and raising a family in the suburbs.

Braff plays Aidan Bloom, an aspiring actor who hasn't had much luck since starring in a dandruff commercial a couple years ago. He has an icy relationship with his father Gabe (Mandy Patinkin), who pays for Aidan's children, Grace (Joey King) and Tucker (Pierce Gagnon), to attend an Orthodox Jewish school. Aidan's younger brother Noah (Josh Gad) has an even colder relationship with dad. They haven't seen each other in a long time while Noah lives in a trailer and spends his day writing nasty massages to celebrities on Twitter. Aidan's wife, Sarah (Kate Hudson), supports her husband's dream, but suffers silently at a menial job with the Water Department where she is regularly subjected to a co-worker's inappropriate comments.

Aidan is knocked for a loop when Gabe announces his cancer has aggressively returned. He has decided to spend whatever savings he has left on an experimental treatment, which means the kids can no longer afford to go to private school. Aidan decides that he'll home school Grace and Tucker until they can start public school next year. He finds the task much more daunting than anticipated.

Braff co-wrote the screenplay with his brother Adam and the results are a scattered mess. The narrative drifts into several detours along the way that include Noah's trip to Comic-Con to romance a cute cosplayer (Ashley Greene) and recurring fantasy sequences with Aidan as a sci-fi action hero. And did we really need to see the Bloom brood test drive an Aston Martin, aside from seeing Braff reunited with Scrubs co-star Donald Faison? Braff uses creative shorthand when it comes to spelling out his message by quoting T.S. Eliot or Robert Frost's "Mending Wall" while they repair a fence. Braff also slathers on the dreamy qualities of Wish I Was Here by lacing the soundtrack with classic folk rock (Paul Simon, Bob Dylan) and modern indie favorites (The Shins, Bon Iver). Still, Braff's playfulness is on display, such as staring at an empty display that reads, "This pamphlet will save your life."

At least, the acting is well done across the board with Mandy Patinkin as a standout. He brings stoicism and a dry sense of humor to the role. Kate Hudson is a delight and it's nice to see her in something of substance for a change. Both Joey King and Pierce Gagnon are great with a precociousness that feels authentic rather than forced. In particular, Gagnon seems to have a preternatural ability for the screen with his previous role being the ominous child in Looper. The late-James Avery makes a cameo appearance in an amusing scene where Aidan goes to an audition without realizing that the role is now for an African-American.

First world problems come to mind when discussing the drama of Wish I Was Here. It's hard to sympathize with an inert protagonist whose major issue is possibly getting a 9 to 5 job. Your enjoyment of Braff's sophomore film will depend on your love of Garden State and tolerance for schmaltz.

Rating: ** ½ (*****)

Nine

Nine - Dir. Rob Marshall (2009)


9 was the lucky number for movies in 2009. There were the stop-motion animated films $9.99 and 9 as well as the sci-fi flick District 9. Now to close out the year, there’s Nine, a star-studded musical from the director of Chicago, Rob Marshall. Nine is the movie version of the hit Broadway musical which itself was based on Federico Fellini’s self-reflexive and most personal film 8 ½. Marshall’s Nine lacks any and all of Fellini’s complexities and is simply an empty exercise in style.

Marcello Mastroianni essentially played Fellini in 8 ½, a renowned director who struggles to complete his next film. In the original 1982 Broadway production, Raul Julia took on the role which was inherited to Antonio Banderas in the revival. Javier Bardem was originally cast until he dropped out and was replaced by out of left field choice Daniel Day-Lewis. Critics have been polarized over the casting of the British Oscar winning, debating whether or not he makes a convincing Italian. I say he did fine and he has a damn good singing voice, but his talents are largely unutilized. Day-Lewis doesn’t do much more than look sullen as movie director Guido Contini.

Following a string of flops, Contini’s next film is ready to go into production, but the “maestro” hasn’t written a single page of the script. Along with his creative funk, Contini deals with a web of romantic entanglements. There’s his wife Luisa (Marion Cotillard looking like Audrey Hepburn), his sultry mistress Carla (Penelope Cruz), his leading lady Claudia Jenssen (Nicole Kidman in full Anita Ekberg mode), and an American reporter (Kate Hudson). The bevy of beauties also includes Sophia Loren as his mother, the Black Eyed Peas’ Fergie as an Earthy prostitute from Contini’s childhood, and Judi Dench as Lili, Contini’s costume designer and confidant.

As with Chicago, Marshall weaves the song and dance numbers into the narrative as fantasy sequences. These are big showy productions with the film’s lovely starlets bumping and grinding in skimpy outfits. There’s plenty of gorgeous scenery to be had, but the plot is aimless. Worst yet, the whole reason to see a musical, the music, is largely forgettable. Out of the many numbers in Nine, not a single one stuck in my mind or had me humming it as I left the theater. I will say that I didn’t expect Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson or Penelope Cruz to have such good singing voices. Marion Cotillard, who already showed off her pipes as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose, gives the strongest performance in the film, both acting and singing-wise. She has a soulfulness to her that’s sorely needed even when she’s belting bland tunes like, "My Husband Makes Movies."

As a red-blooded male, I can’t say as I didn’t enjoy seeing Kate Hudson shaking her hips or Penelope Cruz writhing around in lingerie.

Rating: **