Welcome to the weekly column Trailing Off in which I take a look at a trailer from the past week and analyze its potential. This will be done using an obnoxious amount of analyzing and personal thoughts on the cast and crew as well as expectations. Coming every Sunday (it's called Trailing Off for a reason), I will attempt to highlight films ranging from new blockbusters to lesser known indies and give them their due. Partially to spread awareness, I do believe that there is an art to the sell and will do my best to highlight why these trailers matter or don't with approval (trove) or disapproval (trash). So please stop by, recommend some trailers, and I will see you next time.
Trailer in Discussion
Directed By: Noah Baumbach
Written By: Noah Baumbach
Starring: Amanda Seyfried, Naomi Watts, Adam Driver
- Preamble -
To start off this entry, I would like to make a statement: Frances Ha is a perfect movie. Unlike anything else that came out in 2013, it was the one film that I felt managed to embody its character study while using conventions tropes in a subversive form. It took its love of French culture and applied it to loneliness and looking for the person you love. Most of all, it feels both contemporary and nostalgic often within seconds of each other. It could also be that Greta Gerwig is one of the most endearing performers currently working. There's not enough positive comments to be made about the film at this moment.
However, I am very cold on most of Noah Baumbach's other films. While The Squid and the Whale is a film with a lot of great moments, it doesn't resonate with me. It has a lot of good performances and the symbolism is there, but the divorce factor doesn't grab me in quite the most compelling of ways. What's worse is Greenberg, which feels like a middling film about getting older. I really don't like the film and it definitely doesn't bode well for my thoughts on Ben Stiller. Basically, beyond Frances Ha, I am not sure if Baumbach is somebody that I should like more.
Even then, I feel like I have just been watching his films wrong. It took a few times for me to get into Frances Ha. I loved how he managed to explore unique relationships that fall a little outside of the norm. Maybe he is a filmmaker that I was too young to appreciate when I first saw many of his films. There's a lot of timidness that I have about completely making fun of him now. Of course, the benefit of Frances Ha was Gerwig, who isn't present in his latest film. However, it looks like a slightly better version of Greenberg, though I am not sure.
- Dissection -
For starters, the Greenberg comparisons feel a little hard not to make. Both involve Ben Stiller playing the old coot who wants to be hip. He seems kind of miserable and not all that interesting. He is thrust into a situation that requires him to try and be cool, which causes all sorts of problems. The only difference is that he befriends hipsters and the story focuses on how different they truly are. I am not entirely sure what else is to be taken away from the general story other than this feels like a more active version of the same story.
However, there's the use of aspects to tell the story. For starters, there's the creative title cards, which I don't feel like I have seen in a trailer in quite some time. It may play a little twee, but with them giving quotes about not liking young people, it presents the information in a new and engaging way that makes it pop. Then it cuts into a Paul McCartney song and the transition makes sense.
I admired Frances Ha for its use of music, which was more subversive when considering the genre tropes. In the trailer, it starts off old fashioned and slowly evolves into something more contemporary. Of course, the trailer is also about finding clarity in old age towards the end, which makes the humble sound of McCartney all the more soothing. I like how it transitions to focus on Stiller's personal relationship with people his own age.
Still, there's an interesting thing to be dissected from the moments prior to this in which the hipster culture is explored. It doesn't make sense to Stiller, yet he manages to acknowledge it with an awkward glee. It is endearing and adds a particularly interesting aspect to the story. Adam Driver is in this and he looks to be embracing the weirdo card very well. Still, I think that this perfectly gets the point across of it being about getting old and not connecting to the younger kids. I think that this film does an excellent job doing so.
- One Sentence Sell -
Noah Baumbach looks at aging by having Ben Stiller hang out with hipsters.
- Trove or Trash -
TROVE
It may be because I am on a high with Baumbach following Frances Ha, but there's a lot that I enjoy about this trailer. He has brought the generation comparisons into a new and humorous format while creatively using the structures to something endearing. Most of all, I cannot wait to see it.
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