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Rudderless (2014) -
Initially, I was really impressed with this film. I found its story deeply compelling and I really liked the final act, in particular. While I still think it's a good movie, the more I thought about it, the less impressed I was with the whole affair.
Before I get into my issues with the film though, I'll talk about what I liked, which was mainly the emotional core involving Sam. It's hard to discuss this aspect without spoiling it, but I really loved the way it developed throughout the film. Though you may dislike Sam, I did understand why he did what he was doing and I found the idea of him performing his son's music to help him cope with his death really compelling. Also, without spoiling anything, what you learn in the third act complicates your feelings on Sam even more. The significance of the film's title is that, just as a boat without a rudder drifts aimlessly without no clear purpose, the same could be said for Sam. After the opening, he has an unstable position of living in a boat and he plans to perform only one of Josh's songs, but after meeting Quentin, he spirals off from there, with his band obtaining more popularity around the city he lives in as the film goes on. Yet, in spite of all this, he still shows a lack of interest in expanding the band's popularity at times.
There were also a couple minor things I enjoyed about this film. The first one was its portrayal of how Rudderless grew in popularity as the film went on. I generally like seeing artists grow in popularity and recognition in films and I think this movie gave a fine depiction of this. I also liked that Billy Crudup and Anton Yelchin were legitimately good singers as, nowadays, this can be hard to come by in Hollywood. Finally, I enjoyed some of the film's humor. Like, not all the humor worked (more on that in a bit), but I did appreciate the occasional humorous line or gag.
With that being said, I think the main problem with this film was that there was too much going on in it. While I found the emotional core compelling, I wasn't so hot on the conflict between Sam and Alaird, the agent of the boat harbor. Within this sub-plot lied a few scenes where Sam urinated into the lake in public (sometimes to the view of children) and another scene where he endangered the lives of multiple people on the lake. These actions culminated with Alaird asking for him to stop and threatening to kick him off the lake. Though this sub-plot would've still been unnecessary, these scenes could've worked decently enough if the film had remained firmly on Alaird's side, but instead, these scenes came off as humorous and if the movie was trying to get us to sympathize with Sam. This sub-plot clashed poorly against the main conflict, which didn't ask for us to sympathize with Sam. As a result, this kind of muddled the film's message, in my opinion. I was also left confused by the conflict with Kate, Josh's ex-girlfriend. While I'm not sure the story would've been improved if she was in the film more, I did find it weird that Selena Gomez, the most well-known celebrity in the film, was cast in the role. Given how little she was in the film, her scenes felt like cameos.
I was also surprised that Josh's music got as popular as it did. Like, don't get me wrong. I did like the music Rudderless performed, but Quentin and everybody else who listened to it reacted to the music as if it was one of the best things they ever listened to. I found this aspect kind of cheesy. To be honest though, I think it's really hard to get the "character is a great artist" premise to work. In Amadeus, for instance, this premise obviously worked given the source material. In World's Greatest Dad though, I had difficulties with believing that Lance's mediocre writing got as popular as it did. Really, if a film wants me to believe that a character is excellent at creating something (music, poetry, etc.) to the point that everybody appears to be blown away by it, their work better be that great for this premise to work. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case with this film.
Overall, even though I have more bad than good to say about this film, I did enjoy it quite a bit. I think the emotional core of the film is strong enough to shine through the narrative issues (which are admittedly a lot) and, in the end, I came away satisfied with the film. I'm not sure if it's something I'll revisit, but I definitely enjoyed my time with it.
Next up: The Secret in Their Eyes
Initially, I was really impressed with this film. I found its story deeply compelling and I really liked the final act, in particular. While I still think it's a good movie, the more I thought about it, the less impressed I was with the whole affair.
Before I get into my issues with the film though, I'll talk about what I liked, which was mainly the emotional core involving Sam. It's hard to discuss this aspect without spoiling it, but I really loved the way it developed throughout the film. Though you may dislike Sam, I did understand why he did what he was doing and I found the idea of him performing his son's music to help him cope with his death really compelling. Also, without spoiling anything, what you learn in the third act complicates your feelings on Sam even more. The significance of the film's title is that, just as a boat without a rudder drifts aimlessly without no clear purpose, the same could be said for Sam. After the opening, he has an unstable position of living in a boat and he plans to perform only one of Josh's songs, but after meeting Quentin, he spirals off from there, with his band obtaining more popularity around the city he lives in as the film goes on. Yet, in spite of all this, he still shows a lack of interest in expanding the band's popularity at times.
There were also a couple minor things I enjoyed about this film. The first one was its portrayal of how Rudderless grew in popularity as the film went on. I generally like seeing artists grow in popularity and recognition in films and I think this movie gave a fine depiction of this. I also liked that Billy Crudup and Anton Yelchin were legitimately good singers as, nowadays, this can be hard to come by in Hollywood. Finally, I enjoyed some of the film's humor. Like, not all the humor worked (more on that in a bit), but I did appreciate the occasional humorous line or gag.
With that being said, I think the main problem with this film was that there was too much going on in it. While I found the emotional core compelling, I wasn't so hot on the conflict between Sam and Alaird, the agent of the boat harbor. Within this sub-plot lied a few scenes where Sam urinated into the lake in public (sometimes to the view of children) and another scene where he endangered the lives of multiple people on the lake. These actions culminated with Alaird asking for him to stop and threatening to kick him off the lake. Though this sub-plot would've still been unnecessary, these scenes could've worked decently enough if the film had remained firmly on Alaird's side, but instead, these scenes came off as humorous and if the movie was trying to get us to sympathize with Sam. This sub-plot clashed poorly against the main conflict, which didn't ask for us to sympathize with Sam. As a result, this kind of muddled the film's message, in my opinion. I was also left confused by the conflict with Kate, Josh's ex-girlfriend. While I'm not sure the story would've been improved if she was in the film more, I did find it weird that Selena Gomez, the most well-known celebrity in the film, was cast in the role. Given how little she was in the film, her scenes felt like cameos.
I was also surprised that Josh's music got as popular as it did. Like, don't get me wrong. I did like the music Rudderless performed, but Quentin and everybody else who listened to it reacted to the music as if it was one of the best things they ever listened to. I found this aspect kind of cheesy. To be honest though, I think it's really hard to get the "character is a great artist" premise to work. In Amadeus, for instance, this premise obviously worked given the source material. In World's Greatest Dad though, I had difficulties with believing that Lance's mediocre writing got as popular as it did. Really, if a film wants me to believe that a character is excellent at creating something (music, poetry, etc.) to the point that everybody appears to be blown away by it, their work better be that great for this premise to work. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case with this film.
Overall, even though I have more bad than good to say about this film, I did enjoy it quite a bit. I think the emotional core of the film is strong enough to shine through the narrative issues (which are admittedly a lot) and, in the end, I came away satisfied with the film. I'm not sure if it's something I'll revisit, but I definitely enjoyed my time with it.
Next up: The Secret in Their Eyes
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