Seven Pounds: Hold the Jellyfish, Please
Will Smith begins his Oscar Bid this year with Seven Pounds. Even though this is probably is one of the most thoughtful and underplayed performances of his career I think he may be doomed. Rosario Dawson and Will Smith are both excellent. I still can’t quite figure out though if this movie is any good.
Director Gabriele Muccino must have had so little faith in American audiences that he beats the audience mercilessly about the head and chest area throughout the film with the morally ambiguous theme of the movie.
Muccino is trying to accomplish something with the way he tells this story, but I can’t really tell if he succeeds or not. In one respect, he spells out the entire to story’s end in the first 15 minutes or less. It’s all layed out on the table for you like this morning’s laundry. Here’s what’s going to happen and no matter what happens in the next 2 hours, this is it.
And so we have the big problem with Seven Pounds. It’s presented so early in the film what’s supposed to be happening, that the director completely confuses you by structuring the entire 2nd act like one of those “mystery” films where you try to put together the pieces and figure it all out. However, there’s not really much to it. Other than specifics and motivations, there’s not much mystery here. Some gaps are filled in, some aren’t. Somethings that seem to be layed out like symbols turn out to be literal. In fact, the entire thing is played out in this “figure out what’s going on” method so intensely that you’ll spend time thinking “Ahhhh…obviously there’s something much deeper going on here than the beginning of the movie would lead me to believe.” There isn’t.
I think it’s basically piss poor story structure. While I’m no huge believer in the intelligence of large groups of people gathered into dark rooms, the director grossly underestimates the intelligence of the audience. Maybe I’m being too optimistic about intelligence here, as serious as the subject matter is, the intermittent references to jellyfish in the film did have me inappropriately recalling my favorite episodes of Spongebob.
Admittedly, first hour of the flick is a bit intriguing and mysterious, but it just all seems to unravel minute after minute in the last half. The film is pulled in so many interesting directions that it seems like multiple excercises in futility to put the pieces in place in this little play about moral judment and responsibility.
I felt betrayed by the movie in a way. For long stretches, I was really buying pound for pound into it, so to speak. It almost seemed for a while that this could turn out to be really something special, but the balloon just suffered from a slow leak and it kind of deflated by the end. There is a development in the relationship between Smith and Dawson’s character in the 3rd act that threatens to change the face of the story and how it’s supposed to unfold, but it was kind of like premature ejaculation while masturbating…unless you accidently get interrupted by your grandma, you know know you’re just going to end up with some used tissues and a guilty feeling.
Now there is some misdirection and rather pedestrian “flashbacks” here and there to try to preserve “the mystery” of what’s going on, but it all just seems silly when exactly what you thought was going to happen ends up happening in the end. I had no emotional impact from it whatsoever, and this is from a guy that cried at the end of Armageddon. Granted, that may have be because of what they did to scientific inquiry in that film.
I would have to put a “conditional” recommendation on Seven Pounds. If you like to be emotionally put through the wringer, this is the film for you. You might actually really enjoy this thing. But overall all, if your expecting anything much deeper, there’s not much here. The moral dilemma at the film’s heart is never really given much examination as a dilemma but rather simply a situation that’s layed on the table without sufficient argument for or against it’s implications. Maybe that’s for the better. All I know is that I really bought into the film for a significant stretch before the final act completely changed my mood on the piece.
Again though, Smith and Dawson really do excellent work here. Perhaps her best effort ever, and definitely a great role for Smith. Perhaps the best thing I can say about the performance by a lead actor is that it just sits there and allows itself to be judged for what it is. It never stands out, it never drags the material down. He’s one of our generation’s great actors.
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Tags: Movie Reviews
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3 Responses to “Seven Pounds: Hold the Jellyfish, Please”
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December 22nd, 2008 at 8:24 am
I will end up watching it because of Smith being in it. I think he’s an entertaining actor though I really don’t like the idea of knowing the entire plot or story in 15 minutes. Flashbacks seem like they are hard to do and most movies suffer from poor ones. I think after reading this I will wait for a rental.
December 22nd, 2008 at 9:44 am
Well, it’s an odd one. I hate to recommend a film like this, but Smith’s performance is pretty good. It reminded me a lot SIGNS. And suffers from many of the same ailments that people criticized that for. However, I loved SIGNS. You might dig this.
December 31st, 2008 at 11:04 pm
I thought it was a good movie. Made you think. Will Smith is great.