What a treat this is: a genuinely funny, sweet and touching comedy-drama about a non-traditional family and the unique creature who shakes up their lives. But it arrived before most people cared about such things, and doesn’t fit neatly into the Disney canon, so is unfairly overlooked (even by me, hence why it’s taken me so long to see it).
Less a documentary than a visual poem; less a thesis than a random meander through the consequences of the information superhighway. Take it as one man’s field notes from a series of encounters with people whose lives have been irrevocably changed, for better and for worse, by the internet age. But also bear in mind that that one man is Werner Herzog, so it’s always worth the 90 minutes in his company. Even when he’s wrong.
Yes, it’s 2017 and I just willingly sat through a new Adam Sandler movie. He’s only got himself to blame for his poor reputation, and even this one — a parodic tribute to his own manager — checks most of the wrong boxes, like roles for all his mates, and that one voice he does. But here’s the thing: Sandy Wexler is actually not terrible? I know, it can barely believe it either. But by steering away from the humour-bypass schtick he’s wallowed in since the mid-90s, Sandler’s almost reconnected with the same person who made Billy Madison, and flashed briefly in The Wedding Singer and Punch Drunk Love. Almost, not quite: it could tell the same story much better in two-thirds of the time; he hasn’t earned such indulgence. But if we’re grading on a curve here, Sandler gets a pass.
John Boorman’s deconstructed noir, a tapestry of crash-bang action, chiaroscuro composition and dream logic plotting, bridges the gap between classic Hitchcockian suspense and the 1970s paranoia zeitgeist. It’s also deliberately obtuse and hard to follow, and not immediately rewarding. A film to appreciate more than love at first sight, but it’s one you won’t forget in a hurry.
Elle:
Some people really do deal with shit in their own way, don’t they?