Let’s check out some new trailers and see how these marketers are trying to win our moviegoing time and dollars…
If I had kids, I just might take them to see this for an afternoon’s entertainment. I’m surprised by what seems like a winning sense of humor and a skillful spoof of hero-story tropes and trailer conventions. And even though the character designs rely a little too heavily on Pixar people and The Iron Giant, I’m favorably disposed to it for getting through the whole trailer without a fart, poop, or vomit joke. Oh… wait. Dang. I spoke too soon. (Sigh.)
So? Hmmm. I don’t feel like persuading parents against it, but I probably won’t go see it.
Trailers are usually designed to make us desire more of what we’re seeing. The things this trailer assumes will hook us? A famously glamorous actress. The dramatic potential of guns. A lascivious revelation of sexual abuse happening behind closed doors. The lurid horror of a woman being beaten. An appeal to sentimentality because — awww, shucks, it’s her sister! How many movies open every year that use the endangerment of a family member as justification for hero to pick up a gun and try to fix things on their own? (It’s an appealing lie — that if we can just get guns into our hands, we’re equipped to defend our families and undo injustice. And yet tomorrow’s headlines will remind us of what the availability of guns makes possible. You’re unlikely to read about any gun owner’s heroism.)
So? Ick. No thank you.
The Searchers. Unforgiven. No Country for Old Men. This trailer is appealing to our admiration for some of the darkest and most unsettling Westerns. I’m intrigued by its cast, but put off by the trailer’s excess of gunshots. And that last shot is a cheap choice: Horrify them with a suggestion of rape and they’ll line up for tickets! If this turns out to be a character-driven story, it might be something substantial. But if it borrows from better movies to contrive new variations in onscreen violence, it’ll be a crime against moviegoers. The movie might turn out to be worthwhile. The trailer starts strong but eventually devolves.
So? I’ll read reviews on opening day, but so far I’m more concerned than impressed.
These people seem real. These characters — and their environments — feel complex, lived-in, full of mysteries and surprises. These scenes feel like they’re really happening. Watching them, I feel like a contemplative ghost, respectfully present for private experiences. But then the trailer starts piling on endorsements, flashing festival credits at us, and reminding us that these are accomplished actors. As it does, I fall out of the intrigue that the trailer was developing. Then, there’s a line from Rampling that sounds very much like a variation on a key line at the end of Eyes Wide Shut — which makes me wonder if that’s deliberate, if this is a sort of Kubrickian meditation on marriage played out by characters who have aged beyond the easy sex appeal of Cruise and Kidman. And then I ask myself: Wouldn’t that be a good thing?
So? We don’t have enough thoughtful films about what marriage is really about. This looks like a work of art, even if it’s a little too eager to announce that it is one. I’m going to plan on seeing it.