You Can Sit This One Out

by Thomas Willett

10:00pm PST, December 14, 2011

With movies like The Artist calling back to silent films, it only makes sense for director David Gordon Green to make a movie heavily reminiscent of the 80’s. However, after the box office failure of the medieval parody Your Highness, his latest movie, The Sitter, lands unfavorably. Is it deserved? Does Green really deserve disrespect for making perverse comedies based around versions of 80’s classics? What does he gain from not exploring uncharted concepts?

The story focuses around Noah (Jonah Hill) as he takes care of three kids: gossip obsessed Blithe (Landry Bender), heavily medicated Slater (Max Records), and the adopted troublemaker Rodrigo (Kevin Hernandez). Together they go on a journey to score cocaine for Noah’s girlfriend Marissa (Ari Graynor) from Karl (Sam Rockwell). Things go awry and it leads to various situations involving bat mitzvahs and stealing Noah’s father’s car. The premise alone is ridiculous enough to promise some worthy moments.

This would be the case if the story was organized. While the random events scattered throughout the night may have comedic touches, the jokes are not in the forefront of most of them. Most of the scenes are spent listening to Jonah Hill comment on how bizarre the situation is before having to stop one of the kids from doing something obnoxious. It’s a classic set-up that causes part of the appeal to die. However, these situations cause numerous vignettes where characters let loose. The times when the chaos has simmers down and Noah talks to the kids provide a few realistic moments of sincerity before it tosses itself back into the obnoxious world that becomes radically hit and miss as it progresses.

While the brisk 81 minute run time helps to reduce the problematic elements, it’s not enough to make any scene stand out. By rapidly running from sequence to sequence, the film never lets the moments sink in and instead just expects you to laugh as Noah is driving away. The movie lacks confidence in letting the audience decide what is funny by making scenes end with Noah pulling over the car with wide eyes. It’s distracting enough that when it succeeds at being ridiculous, the impact isn’t all there. There are also numerous holes in the narrative that cause the end to feel too convenient, though this only adds to how little the trusts its audience.

The Sitter does succeed in presenting minorities as important characters to the film. Besides the Hispanic Rodrigo, there are numerous African American characters (J.B. Smoove, Samira Wiley) that are presented as love interests and capable henchmen that help to add a unique perspective to an incompetent story. Along with touching on gay themes and adoption issues, this movie clearly shows an appreciation for race and sexuality in a way not common in mainstream movies. The themes and characters feel natural, and the result remains one of the few things about this movie that doesn’t feel mean spirited or inconsistent.

Along with a hip-hop soundtrack bookended by Slick Rick songs, this movie attempts to make babysitting sound like a gangster’s paradise. Rarely does the music feel tonally connected to the story, and instead it creates an unnecessary detriment, that, while complementing the first half of Noah’s “cool journey”, it contradicts the later half, where Jonah Hill somehow becomes undeservingly accepted. If this story had more of a watchful eye on every detail, then it could have worked.

The film’s cast actually provides for some interesting actors, but it is the star, Jonah Hill, who drags the movie down. While proven to be a comical sidekick, he has yet to prove himself as a lead, and this doesn’t help his case. He’s not a charismatic actor, and his brash, self-aware wit comes across as mean, and by the time the movie asks us to care about him, it’s hard to accept.

For the most part, The Sitter is a step up from Your Highness, though with mean characters that add nothing, it keeps it from really developing into an interesting story. There are plenty of clever ideas that leave me to wonder how much better it could have been with a simple cast change. Maybe it could have be the film Green needed to deserve respect as a comic director. Maybe his vision of parodying 80’s movies could make sense. Maybe this film could be remembered as more than another mindlessly dumb comedy meant for cable TV. It’s hard to totally write the director off, especially with the few moments of promise, but at the same time, it’s hard not to expect better.