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Be
Kind Rewind
(2008)
What is it about having a story told to us that we enjoy so much? Is
storytelling something that someone else must do for us or is it
something that we can participate in? While attempting to answer both
questions, this delightful comedy serves up a lot of laughs.
Video store owner Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) has to go away for a
few days and leaves his store in the hands of his only employee, Mike
(Mos Def). Mike's best friend Jerry (Jack Black) gets magnetized in
an incident involving a transformer and accidentally erases all of the
tapes. When the store's most loyal customer, Miss Falewicz (Mia
Farrow), demands to rent Ghostbusters and threatens to tell Mr.
Fletcher if she doesn't get it, Mike and Jerry hatch a crazy plan to
use a video camera to re-create the films using themselves as the
actors and crew.
Writer/director Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless
Mind, The Science of Sleep) applies absurdist humor to the task of
exploring the social nature of the creation and ownership of art. If
that sounds too highbrow, its philosophical structure is wrapped in a
shiny package of goofy charm that makes its points in an entertaining
fashion. Gondry's films can be inconsistent, particularly when he
also writes them, because he is seemingly compelled to explore every
artistic impulse that comes along, but this is also what makes them so
fascinating to watch. The swing and a miss here is the story's
relatively shallow emotional resonance. That flaw doesn't keep it
from being good, it just keeps it from being better. The hilarity of
Mike and Jerry's shabby remakes of films is what makes Be Kind
Rewind work.
Unlike Gondry's previous films, which were stylized and verging on
surrealist at times, here cinematographer Ellen Kuras (Summer of
Sam, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) uses a more grounded
visual approach that nicely complements the story along with the sets
of production designer Dan Leigh (Basquiat, Eternal Sunshine of the
Spotless Mind), which transform a rundown section of Passaic, New
Jersey into a wonderland of possibilities.
Black brings just the right note of well-meaning insanity to the
character of Jerry, and his earnest attempts to re-create famous film
characters just get funnier and funnier. Mos Def's Mike is more of a
straight man to Black's Jerry, but his low-key approach to humor works
just as well. Veteran actors Glover and Farrow are very effective in
their roles. Melonie Diaz sparkles as Alma, a woman who becomes part
of the films when Mike and Jerry need an actress for Jerry to kiss
instead of mechanic Wilson (a hilariously deadpan Irv Gooch) in drag.
Also funny in smaller roles are Sigourney Weaver as an attorney who
goes after the video store for copyright infringement and Kid Creole
as the manager of a rival video store.
Be Kind Rewind is a film for adults that has the sensibility of a
children's tale about how magic is made, a combination that Michel
Gondry is well-suited to creating on the screen. For the most part,
he succeeds.
-Danielle
Ní Dhighe
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All contents ©
2004-2009 Thoughtsonfilm.com |
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Director:
Michel
Gondry
Writer: Michel
Gondry
Starring: Jack
Black, Mos Def, Danny Glover, Mia Farrow, Sigourney Weaver, Melonie
Diaz, Irv Gooch, Paul Dinello
Distributor: New
Line Cinema
Runtime: 101
min
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: February
22, 2008
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