The Casanova of Gryffindor Tower

Emma Watson EdgeWalk-ing the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada in 2014 with David Thewlis, her make-up artist and Alejandro Amenábar.

In a recent interview, Patty Jenkins commented on the ending of Wonder Woman, how the finale was originally “smaller” but that “the studio made me change it”. This prompted me to watch it again. Would I detect what might've been? Instead, I was reminded of how much I love this movie. The conclusion is big and extravagant. This doesn’t make it bad and before then, there’s so much to love in its action, romance, and characters it sweeps you off your feet.

Raised on magically isolated Themyscira, Princess Diana (Gal Gadot) and the Amazons learn of World War I when American pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) crashes on the island’s shores. Convinced that this “war to end all wars” is orchestrated by Ares, the god of war, Diana leaves with Trevor as her guide. Armed with the Godkiller sword, she will fulfill her people's destiny to restore peace.

Origin stories tend to be bottom-heavy with a lot of exposition. That goes double when dealing with mythological adventures. Once the foundation’s established, this tale becomes uniquely empowering. Diana is not of our world. When she’s introduced to it, there’s much she doesn’t understand. At first, the fish-out-of-water scenario is effectively mined for comedy. It’s nice and light. Gadot and Pine have terrific chemistry. You’re excited to see what's next. As the story progresses, the gravity of the situation comes to the forefront. This war isn’t a game. Soldiers return home missing limbs, women and children are killed indiscriminately. Bombs and poisonous gasses kill in numbers an outsider could never imagine. Even when there was combat on Themyscira, the sandy beaches were bright. The glorious choreography of the women on horseback made you go “wow”! This? It’s like the world itself is dying and all color has bled out.

Diana’s unfamiliarity with London’s politics makes her speak out. She’s outraged by generals sitting comfortably in boardrooms talking about casualties in the thousands. Her protests are a wake-up call. The moment she gets fed up and steps into the line of fire is the film’s most powerful scene. It isn’t merely that Diana stops bullets with her bracelets and faces artillery head-on, or her physical strength; it’s that she's a hero by refusing to stand idly by. I found myself filled with unexpected emotions. I marveled at the stunts and choreography. Seeing her smash through pillars and punch through windows shows you what power is because it began as something small and human: her ability to see something wrong and to say “I’m going to do something about it”. Finally, we see Wonder Woman in her full attire. It makes you go “Woah” in ways no female-led superhero or action film has before - or since.

Though the film has several villains - Doctor Poison (Elena Anaya), German general Eric Ludendorff (Danny Huston), and Ares - none are the true antagonists, which is why the film’s conclusion is never as impactful as Diana entering No Man’s Land. The real struggle is internal. It may be naive of Diana to believe that Ares' death will end the war. In a world where magic lives - even if it’s only on a remote island - isn’t it possible? You want it to be, if only so she'll be ok. She experiences the worst we have to offer but the best too. Many superhero films feature romantic sub-plots. Here, it’s crucial to every aspect of the story from the comedy to the drama, all the way to the conclusion.

Wonder Woman is a joy to discover. The film is exciting, sensitive, and romantic. The heroine is beautiful and strong. She’s also human; capable of losing her faith, falling in love, or appreciating ice cream. (On Blu-ray, December 26, 2020)

Well spooky season is over which means it’s time for my favorite season: AWARDS! I’m catching up on new releases and starting with a fairly spooky one: Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things. If you absolutely adore movies that completely gaslight you, the musical Oklahoma!, off-brand DQ blizzards IN a blizzard, actors from every season of Fargo in once place and of course: Toni Collette’s bewigged bangs, this movie is for you! I guess this review includes spoilers but even if you have already seen this movie, this may not spoil things for you?? Regardless: let’s discuss the wigs (and much more!)

Straight up: I love a good roadtrip movie and this one stars a couple played by Jesse Plemons and Jessie Buckley! Buckley-ed up: this is 2x the Jess(i)es! Also buckle up: this movie is absolutely not a roadtrip movie and defies all genres, reason, and narrative logic. We are first meant to believe that Jessie is meeting Jesse’s parents, but actually none of that is true and also I hope you like listening to poems recited in a car because that is basically the first hour of this movie. 

Finally, we make it to Jesse’s parents’ secluded farmhouse where we are first given a tour of barn atrocities and then have to watch a wet dog shake itself for a about three hours and wonder what is happening in the creepy basement before finally meeting: DAVID THEWLIS AND TONI COLLETTE! Whew! Does anyone remember simpler times only 3 years ago when we were living in a total David Thewlinnaisance due to his involvement in both Wonder Woman and Fargo season 3? Well hold on to your old man wigs because we are in a Second Wave Thewlinnaisance!!!! Also between Thewlis, Buckley, and Plemons, Fargos season 2-4 are completely represented here like some sort of Fargo: End Game which honestly makes a lot of sense in the context of this movie (I THINK). Toni Collette: you need to be in Fargo season 5 now.

So let’s talk about Toni Collette’s wigs, as they are the main wigs in this movie. As Jesse’s off-kilter mom, these wigs are very perfect farmhouse non-chic. We first see her in this banged shag and it is pretty good! It is also very good at helping me understand just what the hell is going on in this movie because moments later...

Toni has no bangs!! This bang shift was the first substantial clue for me in realizing that the full time-space continuum was off in this movie (also this movie makes its own Robert Zemekis joke because it knows it is fully Back to the Futuring some real timetravel nonsense as well!)  Anyway, this wig is also good! Straggly and terrible, but good for the purpose it serves: to tell us that nothing is as it seems. Jessie’s non-wigged hair also shifts, as does her clothing, career, and name, as does Thewlis’s wig until we realize that this movie is totally gaslighting the hell out of us. 

Time becomes a flat circle and past and present all become one. Toni is young again, and so is this ‘50s ‘do! Ok? It is ok! Before you can say Leave It To Beaver, Toni is old again, about to die....and maybe so are we? How long is this movie? Also this is not even the scariest Toni has been at a parental dinner if you have seen Hereditary. 

It should be noted that throughout this gaslit nightmare of a parental dinner, we get flashes of a random high school janitor who ends up being the key to all of this. As does the musical Oklahoma! which he sees being rehearsed time and time again.

Later, when the Jess(i)es finally leave the terrible, time-shifting parental dinner full of scary laundry basements and shifting wigs, they drive some more and recite Pauline Kael’s dissertations on A Woman Under the Influence, and find themselves at an off-brand Dairy Queen to get some off-brand blizzards in the middle of a blizzard that the girls who work there...were also in that high school production of Oklahoma! and are treating Jesse like he’s a weird janitor....I think we’re getting to the point of all this.

But first: how well do you know the musical Oklahoma??? I played Gertie in a community theater production in 1999 so allow me to school you. It is the first true American musical and is essentially all about a girl named Laurie trying to decide who to take to a dance. Yes, really. Her choices are cowboy Curly and farmhand weirdo Jud. Curly tries to help Laurie decide by going to Jud’s weird shack and trying to convince him through song to “end things” because only through suicide will anyone like him (yes this is an actual song called “Poor Jud is Dead”). And though Laurie’s choice seems obvious (?) she first has to take some smelling salts and think on it, which leads to the psychedelic narrative convention of the dream ballet - in which other actors play Curly, Jud, and Laurie and dance it OUT. Also the dream ballet (and the musical) end in murder and this musical is dark as hell. OK? OK. 

Back to this movie, Jessie and Jesse make their way back to the high school where the janitor works, make out in a car, and then Jesse gets weirded out that the janitor is watching them and decides to give him “a piece of his mind”....he gives him much more in that we soon discover that the Jess(i)es have all been part of the janitors mind this entire time and this whole goddamned movie is an elaborate dream ballet...that is ending with some dancers playing the Jess(i)es in an actual dream ballet. That ends in murder. Also Jessie’s character is a messed up version of Laurie (from Oklahoma!) but never actually Laurie. Her name shifts from Lucy, Louise, Louisa, Lucia....never quite the Laurie this janitor Jud wanted her to be. 

But we’re not actually done yet!! The old janitor leaves the school, trips the hell out in his truck and reenters the school naked and with off-brand DQ and dead pig animation (yes, really). Then Jesse in old wig/makeup become the old janitor in a Nobel Prize award ceremony on the set of Oklahoma! the musical with Toni in Aunt Eller drag and most of the audience (including Thewlis and Buckley) in the kind of old age makeup they do in high school productions where you just draw a bunch of lines on your face. Jesse delivers the Nobel acceptance speech from A Beautiful Mind and then goes into the set for Jud’s shack and sings Jud’s (often cut) song from Oklahoma!, “A Lonely Room”...and scene! Now aren’t you glad I told you about Oklahoma!???? 

Ultimately, this is the movie for the theater nerd who demanded that Jud hisself got his own damn dream ballet and also imagines Jud to be a modern-day janitor who thinks he’s smart and cultured and deserves a cool girlfriend and dabbles in landscape painting. But wig-wise...

VERDICT: WURQS!