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Reviews

Goat Movie Review

My review of Goat for the Eagle

Lord of The Flies meets Stanford Prison Experiment may be an apt characterization of Goat, an exposé on fraternity hazing. Based on Brad Land’s memoir of the same name, Goat gets elbow-deep into the heady, terrifying mix of masculinity and violence. The movie asks why the two are in such close fraternity, especially in the context of the Greek system.

The film is unsettling and visceral, perhaps all the more because it is based on actual events. Brett (Nick Jonas) and Brad (Ben Schnetzer) are two brothers from Ohio. Brett, the slightly older of the two, is already a member of Phi Sigma Mu. After one of Mu’s parties, Brad is carjacked, robbed, and brutally beaten by two “townies” (as the film calls them). The attack becomes the unstated epicenter around which the rest of the film revolves. When the police ask Brad why he didn’t fight back if the attackers had no guns, Brad finds himself wondering if he was a “pussy” by not fighting back. The audience gets a poignant glimpse into the dangerous assumptions about the use of violence to establish masculinity.

Masculinity, or should we say hyper masculinity, erupts and seethes in every moment of the film. Shirts are in great dearth; so is talking at normal volume or abstaining from drinking, rather drinking to the point of poisoning oneself. More noteworthy, however, are the humiliations that are part of Hell Week, which involve the threat of having to copulate with a goat (hence, the name), being urinated on, touching feces, threats of forced fellatio, mud wrestling etc. Ironically enough, this is terribly homoerotic fodder, yet calling the pledges “faggots” is still meant to underline that this is something they are most definitely not. There is little reprieve from the onslaught of masculinity on the screen—the only female characters are women who (willingly, at least in the film) participate in one-night stands with the fraternity members. They are peripheral in every sense.

There is an ever present and palpable threatening thrum throughout everything the fraternity does—when they party, the excess is so overwhelming that the only thing that comes to mind is what one does when one laughs to keep from crying. It’s the kind of partying you do when you try to convince everyone just how great of a time you are having, truth be damned. Dubstep booms; people are sprayed with alcohol—it is so much fun! In a rather memorable cameo, James Franco is the frat alum who can’t seem to leave behind the good ol’ college days. He is like the much angrier version of Matthew McConaughey from Dazed and Confused.

Brohood abounds; brotherhood—not so much. One is hard-pressed to see the lauded brotherhood in Phi Sigma Mu’s members; instead the atmosphere is one of dominance and submission. Goat, however, asks some rather probing questions. Why would a nerdy, nice guy type like Will Fitch, Brad’s roommate, endure being pelted with rotten fruit to the point of getting a concussion to be a part of a group of meatheads? Much like a gang, leaving a fraternity is not like dropping a class. The fraternity confers a certain social cache that is really important in a small school, like the one in the movie. Fitch points out, quite correctly, that “they” are everywhere. And the bullying that comes along with “them” is omnipresent as well.

Peer pressure, as portrayed in Goat, is intensely animalistic and overwhelming. This pressure is a far cry from “Bro, have another beer.” The intensity is almost military-like, which is quite eloquently portrayed in a scene where one of the pledge masters takes a picture referencing the infamous one from Abu Ghraib prison of himself stepping on the naked backs of all the pledges.

Director Andrew Neel superbly allows us behind the curtain of something we have heard and read about but have likely never seen. To watch the rituals is harrowing. Yet, there is a multi-dimensionality to the characters, especially of the two brothers. Brad and Brett’s love for each other belies cartoonish characterizations. For all the talk of brotherhood, the realest example of it is not to be found in an “Animal House.” The film also steers clear of judging the Greek system, instead focusing on just one aspect of it—initiation.

Goat succeeds in portraying something plucked straight from the headlines authentically, so it doesn’t stay all Greek to us.

Reviews

True Story Film Review

My review of the film True Story

True Story, the debut of director Rupert Goold, is based on Michael Finkel’s 2005 memoir of the same name. Finkel was a star reporter for the New York Times, who quickly fell from grace and when it was discovered that a Sunday cover story he wrote on modern-day slavery was a little too loose with its details. Finkel (Jonah Hill) retreats to his hometown in Montana to regroup and attempt to rebuild his reputation and career, a feat that proves to be rather difficult. The proverbial “journalistic equivalent of a lottery ticket” falls into his lap: Christian Longo (James Franco), a fugitive accused of murdering his wife and three children, is apprehended in Mexico, where has been calling himself Mike Finkel of the New York Times. Fortuitous and strange, could Mike’s literary redemption come at such a sordid price?

That’s the question True Story attempts to thresh out. This is not a courtroom procedural, a cat-and-mouse game, or a CSI-episode-turned-film. If you are looking for a whodunit, this is not it. In fact, while in some ways, Edward Norton and Richard Gere’s cinematic relationship in Primal Fear is reminiscent of Finkel and Longo’s, this is not an exploration of “look how clever and deceitful sociopaths are.”

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Maybe True Story *is* about “the truth” and how elusive that actually is. As a character study, the film is incredibly compelling. James Franco’s acting is especially superb: in his tete-a-tetes with Mike, Franco is the very embodiment of the word “mercurial.” Forget two-faced–he’s three faced.  Polar opposite emotions literally flitter across his face every second. He’s chilling, sincere, introspective, alluring, repulsive, calculating, heartless… it is all there. In their push-and-pull relationship, it seems that both men are learning more about themselves, actually. We get the sense that the excuses Finkel offers to himself for why he lied in the story are as much of a sham as Longo’s. The film suggests that though the gravity of their transgressions is nowhere near the same caliber, both of them know a thing or two about being a pariah.

True Story explores the idea of culpability in a really interesting way. There is no doubt that Finkel, to a much lesser degree, has a bit of a narcissist in him, but the film really wants us to denounce his ambition and point to it as the proverbial cause of his downfall in a Shakespearean sense (e.g. his fatal character flaw). Yet, Finkel’s actions make a good bit of sense: faced with the prospect of never writing again, he latches on to the one story that someone Longo picks *him* to tell. There is the rub: both men are using each other and need each other. Longo needs to sow the seed of doubt about his guilt and Finkel needs a sensationalistic take on a story literally plugged from the headlines. He needs this “scoop” no less than Longo does.

The portrayal of the journalist in True Story suffers from the same wide-eyed aggrandizing that is ubiquitous in just about every film and TV show on the subject (heck, House of Cards, anyone?). We are supposed to sympathize with Finkel because he only fibbed a little on the details to make the story trenchant enough to make a difference in the lives of the children’s lives he covers. In other words, he does this out of noble motivations. Yet, it would have been no less impacting had it stuck to the truth. In a particularly ironic exchange between Longo and Finkel, Finkel asks Longo why he picked his name to use on the run. “Because he wanted to see what it was like to be Finkel,” he responds. Why not use any other more anonymous name? Well, because Finkel’s name is just that. What a jab to Finkel’s ego and a wry nod to the viewers! What’s in a name? Clearly, one is famous only when one is infamous. Nobody but the most die-hard acolyte would have recognized Finkel’s name.

The push-and-pull relationship between Finkel and Longo is incredibly compelling to watch. If one goes in with the anticipation of watching a character study rather than a crime thriller, True Story would ring true and engrossing.