It Turns Out, Watching Movies is a Little Bit Different in 2020... (Movie Monday)

Maybe it was because the last movie I streamed was so very, very grim—which, under normal circumstances, I don’t find to be a bad thing, but… oh hey, 2020, you’re still here?!?—or perhaps it was just a mood, but I can’t deny getting loads more pleasure from the fluffy YA piece I watched last night, than from the much-lauded, layered work (from a brilliant writer, no less!) a couple nights before.

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After being wowed by Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things a couple of weeks ago, I was really looking forward to his first directorial piece (which somehow flew under my radar back when), 2008’s Synecdoche, New York. 

It seemed like a safe bet: Kaufman always writes these thought-provoking, mind-bending scripts that are unquestionably his; he’d gathered an impressive cast (including the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, along with Catherine Keener, Samantha Morton, Emily Watson, Michelle Williams, Hope Davis, Tom Noonan, and Dianne Wiest); and the premise of a going-nowhere small-theater director making a mid-life sea change by moving to New York City to live out his brainchild—creating a sort of cinéma vérité play—was intriguing. 

Billed as a comedy-drama, I had a hard time sifting any humor from Synecdoche, though, and most of the time it just felt like a slog, as one bad thing after another happened to Hoffman’s character. A failed career. Having his wife and daughter leave him. Another failed relationship. A less-than-therapeutic therapist. Mystery ailments. And all within the confines of the production which was his later-life’s work/obsession: actors living out their lives (along with his, since he also hired actors to portray him and his family), in a huge mock-up set of NYC, itself. 

Not that his “big production” went any better than the rest of his life, because after (untold) decades, they had yet to show it to an audience; his play remained—like his life—something that just dragged on and on… dismally, depressingly, with only more bumps in the road, never any successes.

Me? I just needed to see an inkling of light at the end of his very, very dark tunnel… but alas, there was none to be had. (I mean, my big takeaway was, “Life is shit, and then you die”, so… for whether it’s down to my being influenced by the godawful-life-suck that is 2020 or some deeper message just not hitting me, this was not a win.)

Doing a sharp 180 from that a couple of days later, I went with the considerably-cheerier Enola Holmes.

Will Enola (based on a Young Adult book series, which I haven’t read) win any prizes or great critical acclaim (aside from Millie Bobby Brown’s delightfully-cheeky/smart turn as the young Miss Homes)? Doubtful. Is it predictable, once you understand what’s going on? Absolutely. (Enola, raised by her mother to be a strong, independent young woman with a mind of her own [after her brothers have gone off to live their lives], suddenly finds herself alone… her mother apparently having run off to somewhere, leaving Enola with a mystery worthy of her now-famous elder brother, to solve. Clearly, she will do so… with numerous adventures and scrapes along the way!) 

But, with its timely topics (equality for females, the fact that no one should be bound by “traditional” roles, etc), neat spin on the whole Sherlock Holmes story (Enola being his MUCH-younger sister, and the obvious focus of this flick), and cleverly breaking the fourth wall (Enola looks at/talks to the camera A LOT, to great effect), it’s a fun little romp in Merry Olde England, that left me, at least, happily satisfied.

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Bottom line: how you feel about a movie—like any piece of art—is a purely subjective matter, dependent on your current mood and mindset. Viewed now, during so much uncertainty, though, I’m giving a nod to Enola Holmes for providing some pleasant escapist fare… and recommending Synecdoche, New York be put off until the world, in general, gets better.

~GlamKitty