DVD OF THE WEEK: Hall Pass
by Vadim Rizov 
In
Hall Pass, Rick (
Owen Wilson) and Fred (
Jason Sudeikis) love their respective wives Grace (
Christina Applegate) and Maggie (
Jenna Fischer) but hate their lives, ostensibly because the sex and passion are gone. Fred's taken to masturbating in the car, setting off understandable alarm bells when the cops catch him in the act, while Rick can't get laid: the kids take up too much of Grace's energy. Confounded by their husbands' socially embarrassing discontent, the wives take the advice of neighbor Dr. Lucy (
Joy Behar), their morning power-walking buddy: give the boys a week-long "hall pass" where they can sleep with anyone and see what happens. This is a corporate American comedy, so no spoilers here: the apparently intertwined values of monogamy and quietly dutiful suburban living will triumph in the end, the brief moment of transgression a reminder of how much safer and wiser it is to choose cautious stability over horndog impulsiveness. But the mildly eyebrow-raising premise is a red herring: the goal isn't getting laid, but Fred and Rick learning to live with their inevitably decaying bodies. Common sense and taking care of yourself trumps moral appeal.
Even during their '90s run as the Hollywood kings of the gross-out comedy,
Bobby and Peter Farrelly were as identified with compassion for the marginalized and underrepresented as their penchant for shock gags: the obese in
Shallow Hal, Siamese twins (!) in
Stuck on You, dumb-sounding hicks from flyover country in
The Heartbreak Kid (albeit as represented by
Danny McBride, who owns this territory). That compassion extends to celebrities normally considered pop-culture punchlines: their oddball guest appearances include Tony Robbins getting better lines than Meryl Streep in
Shallow Hal, so it's only natural that
The View fixture Joy Behar should be a neighbor whose advice should be trusted. The Farrellys sincerely believe that, as the late Senator Roman Hruska once said, "there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers" in America who are "entitled to a little representation." Ethos and fundamental decency are always preferable to being a brilliant smartass, but the Farrellys' defensiveness isn't the unpleasant, aggressive kind typical of well-off people who inexplicably consider themselves oppressed; it's just a plea for a little compassion for boring but kind people. Those (granted, thoroughly unradical) values have always been part of their work, but they've aged better than their gross-out moments, which seem increasingly obligatory;
Hall Pass is funny, but it's more effective when it's heartfelt.
No longer comedy kingpins, the Farrellys seem to be feeling a big marginalized themselves: the most compelling scene has Rick ripping into coffee shop employee Brent (
Derek Waters) when he rudely interrupts Rick's awkward flirting with barista Leigh (Nicky Whelan). Trying to chat her up, Rick asks what the cool music playing is. Snow Patrol, he's told. "Oh yeah," he says. "Good soundtrack. Pretty good movie." He's thinking of
Snow Dogs, Brent snidely informs him, prompting Rick to go off in a low, even and thoroughly ticked manner. "This whole kind of I'm on the inside, too cool for school, let's make fun of the dorky suburban guy because I'm safe on this side of the counter routine's gonna get you hurt," he tells Brent. "Another thing? After you've lost your parents' money on your avant-garde piece of crap short film, you're gonna need a job. Guess what? It's guys like me that hire."
Rick's effectively pissed because a coffee shop employee with a prototypically condescending attitude's giving him stick about not having heard of Snow Patrol, a group of maudlin balladeers associated with the
Grey's Anatomy second season finale; the Farrellys may or may not know this (keeping up with Pitchfork seems like the least of their concerns), but apparently they couldn't pass up the chance to make a
Snow Dogs joke. Rick's mind defaults to hours spent watching kiddie movie garbage with his offspring, a more important pursuit than making dazzlingly cool mixes for the store. The film's got sparky comic set-pieces, but nothing quite like this scene's unfiltered anger. The targets may be a little off?Snow Patrol? the avant-garde??but the message is hard to argue with: past post-collegiate drifting, options dwindle and gratuitous condescension becomes increasingly unappealing.
The female nudity quotient is met for the particular high-concept premise, but the most curious moments address Owen Wilson's decidedly less alluring middle-aged body and the ways it fails him: he overeats at Applebee's and gives up one night out of sloth, gets too drunk another night and has to spend the next day in recovery mode, passing out in a hot tub when he should be getting ready to meet the barista?who inexplicably finds Rick's advances appealing (
Hall Pass is laudable in many ways, but there's no use in pretending it's not a male fantasy). Wilson was never exactly
Taylor Lautner, and though he's aged well, it's fascinating to watch him ill-advisedly take off his shirt at a club and dance on the bar top, middle-age flab and all. Hardly the stuff of pin-ups, but it's candid: this is Rick's body and it only goes downhill from here. Owen Wilson is now 42, and
Hall Pass marks the first film in years where he doesn't seem to be sleep-walking and drawling his way to the next paycheck; his portrayal of a man coming to terms with increasingly diminishing returns on the self-gratification front feels heartfelt. The movie may not work up plausible empathy for the wives, but it successfully harnesses Wilson's own career travails and declining popularity to echo his character's over-the-hill resignation.
Posted by ahillis at June 14, 2011 11:49 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment