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#763 - Aloha
Cameron Crowe, 2015
A defence contractor returns to his home state of Hawaii for work reasons and ends up connecting and re-connecting with various locals.
I already kind of knew what to expect from Cameron Crowe and his particular brand of milquetoast dramedy, which had already left very little in the way of favourable impressions with either Jerry Maguire or Almost Famous (not quite counting Say Anything because I never watched that from start to finish). Even my existing preconceptions couldn't have prepared me for Aloha, a film that starts off in cruise control and goes nowhere fast over the course of a hundred minutes. After beginning with a montage of home movies including footage of growing up in Hawaii mixed in with footage of the space program, the movie proper picks up with a defence contractor (Bradley Cooper) returning to his home state of Hawaii to conduct some business on behalf of a wealthy industrialist (Bill Murray), who is looking to launch a satellite into space with the assistance of the U.S. military. To this end, Cooper is assigned a military escort in the form of a fighter pilot (Emma Stone) who instantly forms a challenging foil for him as they are made to work together. There are also some extra complications, such as him meeting up with an old ex-girlfriend (Rachel McAdams) who has since gotten married to another military man (John Krasinski) and is currently raising a family.
The main crime that Aloha commits above all others is that it's aggressively uninteresting. Sure, it's a little patronising in its treatment of the native population, with the notorious example of this being the fact that the female lead character is a quarter-Hawaiian and quarter-Chinese yet is played by the pale-skinned, blonde-haired, and blue-eyed Stone; while this is arguably justified by the character being proud of her native Hawaiian heritage regardless of her white-passing appearance, this isn't especially obvious until after the fact and just feels like another fundamentally distracting instance of Hollywood whitewashing. The sad thing about Aloha is that this controversy really is the most interesting thing about the movie as Crowe treads familiar ground in his attempt to weave a compelling romantic plot into a greater tale about privatisation, corporate greed, and military accountability. There are some decent performers in the mix, but they struggle to rise above some simplistic characters whose arcs are clearly set out before them and any surprising revelations on either a personal or professional level land with dull thuds.
It's a shame, then, because there are moments that threaten to redeem Aloha. This being a Crowe film, there are naturally some choice tracks on the soundtrack even though the whole thing does threaten to tip too far into bland indie/classic rock for its own good. There's also a halfway-interesting visual aesthetic to the proceedings that infuses otherwise drab scenes with a vague sense of vitality through naturalistic camerawork, adeptly capturing either the lush Hawaiian scenery or intense interpersonal confrontations as necessary. In the context of a fundamentally alienating narrative, there is the odd moment that comes across as interesting, such as one confrontation between Cooper and Krasinski late in the film where both men speak volumes to one another without ever actually saying anything out loud. However, there isn't nearly enough to make the film as a whole work and the result is a fundamentally limp and uninteresting mess that is best avoided.
Cameron Crowe, 2015
A defence contractor returns to his home state of Hawaii for work reasons and ends up connecting and re-connecting with various locals.
I already kind of knew what to expect from Cameron Crowe and his particular brand of milquetoast dramedy, which had already left very little in the way of favourable impressions with either Jerry Maguire or Almost Famous (not quite counting Say Anything because I never watched that from start to finish). Even my existing preconceptions couldn't have prepared me for Aloha, a film that starts off in cruise control and goes nowhere fast over the course of a hundred minutes. After beginning with a montage of home movies including footage of growing up in Hawaii mixed in with footage of the space program, the movie proper picks up with a defence contractor (Bradley Cooper) returning to his home state of Hawaii to conduct some business on behalf of a wealthy industrialist (Bill Murray), who is looking to launch a satellite into space with the assistance of the U.S. military. To this end, Cooper is assigned a military escort in the form of a fighter pilot (Emma Stone) who instantly forms a challenging foil for him as they are made to work together. There are also some extra complications, such as him meeting up with an old ex-girlfriend (Rachel McAdams) who has since gotten married to another military man (John Krasinski) and is currently raising a family.
The main crime that Aloha commits above all others is that it's aggressively uninteresting. Sure, it's a little patronising in its treatment of the native population, with the notorious example of this being the fact that the female lead character is a quarter-Hawaiian and quarter-Chinese yet is played by the pale-skinned, blonde-haired, and blue-eyed Stone; while this is arguably justified by the character being proud of her native Hawaiian heritage regardless of her white-passing appearance, this isn't especially obvious until after the fact and just feels like another fundamentally distracting instance of Hollywood whitewashing. The sad thing about Aloha is that this controversy really is the most interesting thing about the movie as Crowe treads familiar ground in his attempt to weave a compelling romantic plot into a greater tale about privatisation, corporate greed, and military accountability. There are some decent performers in the mix, but they struggle to rise above some simplistic characters whose arcs are clearly set out before them and any surprising revelations on either a personal or professional level land with dull thuds.
It's a shame, then, because there are moments that threaten to redeem Aloha. This being a Crowe film, there are naturally some choice tracks on the soundtrack even though the whole thing does threaten to tip too far into bland indie/classic rock for its own good. There's also a halfway-interesting visual aesthetic to the proceedings that infuses otherwise drab scenes with a vague sense of vitality through naturalistic camerawork, adeptly capturing either the lush Hawaiian scenery or intense interpersonal confrontations as necessary. In the context of a fundamentally alienating narrative, there is the odd moment that comes across as interesting, such as one confrontation between Cooper and Krasinski late in the film where both men speak volumes to one another without ever actually saying anything out loud. However, there isn't nearly enough to make the film as a whole work and the result is a fundamentally limp and uninteresting mess that is best avoided.