I saw this movie a few nights ago.
Some things were special:
- The guy I went with hadn't slept much and was drifting in and out, which turned out to coincide with a theme of the movie (or "play");
- Oppenheimer was previewed, thematically connected;
- the slide deck of ads at The Laurelhurst, pre movie, featured a chocolate lab much like Sydney, my dog.
What I'm trying to say is: the atmosphere was one of fourth wall breakers. Very meta.
The movie's colorful kernel has a playhouse, movie set, sound studio look to it, with the movie trick of feeling infinite and outdoors, as the police chase flies by (more than once), diminishing to a speck. Very Bagdad Cafe in flavor, a favorite already.
A mushroom cloud in the distance. Strangers thrown together by the exigency of having brainiac kids. A military. A meteor crater. Soda fountain. A UFO with ET.... Very 1950s. So many of the stereotypes so well rendered. We've all been there in our dreams. Some of us never left. This place is perfect, like an animated Norman Rockwell painting.
We have the stoic National Geographic type mostly combat photographer. The school teacher. The handsome cowboy Montana man. Another principal is the tough but heart-of-gold 2nd tier actress, played by superstar Scarlett Johansson. She and the photographer each have offspring.
The photographer has four kids: three little girls and a brainiac son. The actress has her 15 year old daughter in tow.
A next layer out, the way I think of it, between the colorful kernel and we the audience, is a black and white apparatus having to do with the making of the play we're currently enjoying. There we have the writer, the director, the actors auditioning for a part. Some go on to become well known!
This is where the sleep scene comes in. The cast of auditioners sits in the bleachers facing the writer, who is explaining he wishes to insert a sleep scene wherein everyone in the play falls to sleep simultaneously, without exception. Then he's like "OK do it!" and everyone pretends to pass out, except for the one sleep walker guy (there's one in every crowd).
We're the outermost layer, the audience, made self-aware by the play-within-a-play aspect, also favored by Shakespeare.
This is a film I'd like to own or at least have easy access to, as I'm already looking forward to a next viewing, while still munching on all it gave me the first time. I got the above picture off Facebook, not from the movie. It helps suggest the atmosphere, which includes the diner, gas station, automats, motor court village...
