In\u00a0The Irishman<\/em>, Robert DeNiro\u2019s Frank Sheeran commits a bunch of mindless crimes and then maybe feels bad about it. The front half of the movie \u2014 all slick and short tempered \u2014 is so of another time that it borders on Scorsese fan-fic until everyone\u2019s gumming at bread, and the viewer finds themselves rethinking the point of the whole project. Alone at the end of a long and not very meaningful life, Frank is a man still developmentally stunted in early adulthood. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Conversely, most of\u00a0Once Upon a Time in Hollywood\u00a0<\/em>is marinated in an original and complex flavor of middle-aged white guy ennui, then its too-clever ending lets Leonardo DiCaprio\u2019s Rick Dalton off the emotional hook. The best scene comes near the halfway mark when Dalton cracks open the brittle leading man veneer in the presence of his much more self-possessed grade school costar, to both hilarious and devastating effect.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even Noah Baumbach\u2019s excellent Marriage Story <\/em>is mostly about male ego, and the film\u2019s ending is fairly unambiguous in telling us so. At the close, Scarlett Johansson\u2019s Nicole is happy. We\u2019re in her city, in her driveway, with her nice new boyfriend on the periphery as she gets home from a job she enjoys. Adam Driver\u2019s Charlie is the one stranded and left to wonder. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The brilliance of Driver\u2019s performance is that we see the growing dread as he confronts the fact that his version of reality might not be the objective one. The slow reveal works a little better here because Charlie is supposed to be a genius; Frank and Rick were more brawn than brains from the start. But all three are men of stature facing the most existentially terrifying thought: what if I\u2019m bad and wrong?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The swing and miss is Todd Phillip’s Joker. <\/em>It’s telling that the movie many worried would inspire incels to action will instead be remembered for the wannabe influencers who take dancing selfies on a now-famous set of stairs. There are compelling stories to be told about people who don’t fit neatly into society, but Joker’<\/em>s thesis seems to be: better awful than pathetic. Which is a shame. Phillips made a good movie about the fragile male ego back in 2009 with The Hangover. <\/em>It’s by no means a feminist masterpiece, but with its beta-male heavy roster of characters and its baby-carrying antics, The Hangover <\/em>draws its humor from the ridiculousness of performative masculinity. It laughs with us. Joker sneers at us for laughing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Awkward laughter is essential to my favorite movie of the year, Taika Watiti\u2019s\u00a0Jojo Rabbit<\/em>, a movie that is literally about the fragile psyche of a preteen boy. With a tone that plays like a toy xylophone looped over a cassette of Bach, maybe it\u2019s not for everyone. But\u00a0Jojo\u00a0<\/em>isn\u2019t to Nazis what\u00a0Green Book\u00a0<\/em>was to racism. It\u2019s also less provocative and more instructive, about how to change the mind but retain the self.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n If a bunch of Marvel fans leave\u00a0Jojo Rabbit\u00a0<\/em>having subconsciously reckoned with their own fallibility and vulnerability, the world will be better for it. Because, as we see in\u00a0The Irishman, Hollywood, Marriage Story,\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Joker,\u00a0<\/em>even if they have that epiphany, they often don\u2019t know what to do with it.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only\u00a0Jojo Rabbit\u00a0<\/em>provides a clear resolution of the ailment of fragile male ego. The final shot is so satisfying because as the little boy dances in the street, we have hope that he\u2019s been set on an alternate path than the ones taken by Frank, Rick, Charlie, or certainly the Joker. JoJo has learned the vital lesson early: that admitting to one\u2019s mistakes or wrongheaded ideas does not require the sacrifice of one\u2019s identity or power. He was awful\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0pathetic as he set off for Hitler youth camp; by the end, he is neither. If only so many men on the other side of the screen \u2014 and in our seats of power \u2014 could absorb that wisdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s a tragic algebra at work in all but one of these movies, though. For every self-righteous but morally corrupt leading man, there\u2019s a too-hesitant but actually-in-the-right supporting woman. In\u00a0Marriage Story<\/em>, Nicole uses the word “gaslighting” to describe her predicament. Margot Robbie\u2019s Sharon Tate has imposter syndrome about her stardom and Stockholm syndrome about her relationship. And a generous interpretation of Anna Paquin\u2019s appearance in\u00a0The Irishman\u00a0<\/em>is that someone needed to realize and reflect on what trash Frank was, since he wasn\u2019t capable of introspection himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the most successful parts of\u00a0Jojo\u00a0<\/em>is that the girl in the attic (who could have easily been a real wet blanket of a symbol) is a fully developed person\u2026one who owns and displays the full range of her teenage emotions. But still, it\u2019s Jojo\u2019s movie, even as it\u2019s her task to see him through his character arc. At least\u00a0Frozen 2 \u2014\u00a0<\/em>which revolves around our heroines discovering and correcting the sins of a toxic male ancestor \u2014 puts the female journey front and center. So, while it\u2019s healthy that we\u2019re addressing the psychological growth of defensive white men, it\u2019d be even better if we championed more stories about women\u2019s experiences \u2014 as Elsa puts it \u2014 stepping into their power. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Movies win you over for one of two reasons. Either they\u2019re about people who are different than you, plopped into a curious fishbowl. Or they\u2019re about you so much that it hurts. I suspect that how a lot of men will respond to any of these mostly very good, awards-worthy movies depends on whether they see themselves as inside or outside of the fishbowl. But as they say, admitting you have a problem is the first step. One need only turn on CNN, check Twitter, or look to this year’s Golden Globes nominations to see that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":581,"featured_media":13066,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1399,1381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-looking-back","category-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/581"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/crookedc.png\")
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nJoin our \u00a0<\/em>mailing list<\/a>! Follow us on \u00a0<\/em>Twitter<\/a>! <\/em>Write<\/a>\u00a0for us!<\/em><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"