* *
While investigating something really important, other equally important things happen to a journalist during the course of her important investigation.
Starring Anne Hathaway, Ben Affleck, Rosie Perez, Toby Jones, Willem Dafoe
Written by Marco Villalobos, Dee Rees
Produced by Cassian Elwes, Dee Rees
Duration 115 minutes
OK, so we’ve all been there. You’re watching a movie, and realise you don’t know what’s going on. If it’s within the first 10-15 minutes, then that’s fine: things are being set up, questions are being asked, you’re settling into its rhythm.
By the end of the first third, you can expect to know what those questions are, and won’t be surprised that they are developed further into act two. You’ll want to be surprised as to the exact ways that they develop, but what the things that are developing are should come logically from what was set up in act one – and which will be resolved in act three (again, hopefully hitting that magic balance of surprising yet inevitable.)
OK, but what if you’re halfway through the movie – deep into act two – and you still don’t have a handle on things? And at this point, this far in, you’re getting the sinking feeling that it’s unlikely comprehension will ever arrive?
There are times when this is acceptable. For instance. You’re on a date and the date is going well, extremely well. You may glance up at the screen every now and then and have no idea what’s going on – and not care in the slightest. Similarly, if you’ve gone to the movies in the early throes of an exciting new relationship, where the two of you feel contentedly cocooned in your own world where nothing outside matters, then you may intentionally lose track of what’s going on. Not following the plot becomes another of your hilarious in-jokes, since it's just another part of an outside world that's irrelevant to your loved-up interactions.
Other examples. Where the convolutedness is kind of the point, and the pleasure comes from watching the characters untangle the mess they’re in. Private eye stories come to mind, particularly the Howard Hawks/Bogart THE BIG SLEEP (1946) and, more recently, John McNaughton's trashterpiece WILD THINGS (1998).
Also. Movies where the plot doesn’t matter or isn’t the priority, where the regular conventions of narrative are not necessarily adhered to. These could be purely allegorical, or follow a dream logic, or be artistic experiments in the form. See examples from the output of Andre Tarkovsky, Michael Haneke, Lars Von Trier, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch, etc.
So fine, it can happen and not matter. Other causes can be the viewer’s fault: keeping half an eye on their phone; falling asleep mid-movie.
But then there are films that have a lot of plot, and want you to follow it, and really try to get you to follow it, but which fail and leave you baffled and frustrated.
Films like THE LAST THING HE WANTED.
I wrote in my review of THE LAST SUMMER that not recognising anyone at all from the cast or crew can be a bad sign – not always, but it rarely bodes well. With this film, it's a case of recognising people (A-listers Anne Hathaway and Ben Affleck! Character acting legend Willem Dafoe! Dee Rees, director of critical darling MUDBOUND!), but never having heard of the movie. And it only came out three years ago!
OK, so you’ve got Anne Hathaway. She’s a journalist of some kind, being led into a jungle by an armed escort, here to presumably report on something. There are dead and burned bodies – alright, so she’s not here to study the local fauna for Botanical Monthly. She wears no makeup (or at least not much), another sign that this is a ‘serious’ role. And she smokes – that never happens anymore! She must be serious.
Cue Hathaway’s reflective voiceover, saying things like ‘I wanted to know why’ and ‘I see now that the clock was ticking’ and ‘weightlessness seemed like the mode where we could be both time and the effect itself’ – all over shots of classified papers. Then she’s grilling some politician type in a press conference, something to do with trade disputes, I think? Is this film a remake of STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE?
Then Ben Affleck turns up, looking a bit chunky, playing some kind of political aide who's getting told off by his boss, the same man who Hathaway just pissed off. Hathaway, meanwhile, is on the phone to ‘kiddo’ – so her job makes her an absent parent, too. Of course it does. And then she argues with her boss (editor?) who tells her to drop the story, for whatever reason, whatever the story actually is.
But then Willem Dafoe, playing her Dad, calls and they meet for a drink, him wearing sunglasses indoors and a maroon suit, and spouting homophobic barbs at unassuming bar patrons while munching handfuls of almonds. He delivers a lot of backstory, and possibly present-story, too; it’s hard to tell. It becomes apparent that the director has instructed the actors to speak extra fast, too, which just makes it even harder to keep up. It feels like about 40 minutes of story is hurtled at us in the space of 5 minutes.
THE LAST THING HE WANTED is a bit like when you’re on holiday and skipping through the channels in your hotel room, and you start watching a movie in another language. You can follow what’s going on (it’s a thriller, she’s in danger, there’s a cover-up) but the details remain elusive.
It’s the kind of film that would benefit from turning the subtitles on – but I hate doing that, it’s distracting and shouldn’t be necessary if the filmmakers have done their job properly.
It’s the kind of film where you get so much information that none of it sticks, and at the end you don’t really remember anything. It’s a tactic politicians use: instead of giving straight answers to complicated or thorny questions, they resort to obfuscation.
I tend to hold my movies in higher esteem and expect more from them than that.
Two stars out of five.
Valid use of the
word ‘last’? I don’t really know who ‘he’ is supposed to
refer to, let alone what it is he wants and whether or not he went on to want
any other things or not.
What would a movie called THE FIRST THING HE WANTED be about?
Watching this movie, a stiff drink comes to mind.
Previously: THE LAST STARFIGHTER
Next time: THE LAST HORROR MOVIE
Check out my books: Jonathanlastauthor.com
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