The Greatest
Directed by: Shana Feste Cast: Carey Mulligan, Susan Sarandon, Pierce Brosnan, Johnny Simmons Running Time: 1 hr, 40 mins Rating: R Release Date: April 9, 2010
PLOT: After a young man dies, his family of three (Brosnan, Sarandon, Simmons) and his pregnant girlfriend (Mulligan) must find ways of coping with their grief.
WHO'S IT FOR?: This is a real test for movie sadists – this is beyond a bad movie. Something like this could really test someone’s ability to hate a flick while still trying to endure it. Oh, and if you’re one of the people who really liked Carey Mulligan in An Education and are curious as to how she fares in other roles, please don’t check this one out to get an answer. She has at least four other movies available to rent that should help your investigation, and you won't spend money on hating a movie (and then yourself) in the process.
EXPECTATIONS: Before stepping into this casket, I did not know anything about this strangely-titled movie except that it starred Carey Mulligan.
SCORECARD (0-10)
ACTORS:
Carey Mulligan as Rose: Her pregnancy is handled poorly, and so is the important story point about her shacking up with her dead boyfriend’s parents. Neither subplot is given the right amount of time, despite the amount of attention such situations would gather if this were to happen in the real world. But Mulligan and her honest eyes will last, even if she has to be in more movies like this to gain our attention. Score: 4
Pierce Brosnan as Allen Brewer: Brosnan has been on-screen a lot lately, so why shouldn’t he appear in some weepy movie that requires him to act resilient, only to break down in a semi-believable crying sequence? I like this new trend of "Bond seriously trying to act" (no longer just flirting with drama), but his character here is very uninteresting. Even during moments in the film where he starts to represent the qualities that made Rose love her ex-boyfriend, our attention isn’t grabbed by any firm dramatic grip. Score: 3
Susan Sarandon as Grace Brewer: Each character is implemented to show a different shade of grief, and her unreasonably selfish, grieving mother does so at an exaggerated cost. Her reactions are always questionable as to whether they’d happen in actual moments of grief. At times it feels more like the writer/director was aiming to make Grace the most difficult, and at whatever cost. Score: 2
Johnny Simmons as Ryan Miller: The former co-star of Jennifer's Body has a passable flooding of the tear ducts at the end of the movie, but that’s it. A bland character like Ryan is meant to show how teens deal with death, but the story cares about him the least of all characters. He even has a small relationship with a girl he meets through counseling (Fight Club, anyone?), but the script quits on them halfway through and just lets Ryan do what might make him a bit more interesting – smoke "doja" and cry all day in his room. Score: 2
TALKING: Revolutionary Road's Michael Shannon is in the movie, but he’s in a coma. When he does talk, its for about two minutes, and with a thick New York accent. As for this being a movie about grief, this preposterously-titled flick says nothing remarkable or noteworthy about the subject in its dialogue. Score: 2
SIGHTS: Driving back from the funeral, the indie-flick introduces its dreariness and bits of overwhelming pretension with a pointless 30-second-shot that shows the remaining family members inside the car as they ride away from the service. Of course, this is when the absolutely arrogant title The Greatest fades onto screen. This is also right about the time when I probably raised an inspired and stiff middle finger to the air, and directed it at the images projected in front of me. I have never been so enraged by just a title sequence. Score: 1
SOUNDS: The “tender” moments of this movie-with-a-ridiculous-title are accompanied by syrupy acoustic ballads, none of which strike at the heart, or offer anything remarkable to our ears. Featured on the soundtrack are Fleet Foxes, The Broken West, The Virgins, and Sea Wolf. Score: 3
PLOT SPOILERS
BEST SCENE: The only shred of sweetness that this moronically-named movie can offer is when the “family” is driving in the car, towards the very end of the film. Rose is trying to capture “more memories” of her dead boyfriend from his family so she can put them in a baby book. This scene has a handicap though, as it’s the event that this whole garbage can has been building up towards – of course something like this is going to happen. It’s the only time the movie can get our heart to beat. We might as well be dead when trying to experience everything else.
ENDING: Without spoiling anything (or rather, making you realize the obvious), a certain harmony is reached between the four mourners. Then, after it cuts to black, a bell is heard. If you have actually seen this crap, then you’ll know that the bell isn’t a metaphor like it wants to be, but an official sign that indicates its audience can now begin vomiting.
QUESTIONS: Was this drama originally condemned to video, but then brought back to theatrical life with the success of Mulligan’s An Education? Dammit, now I have to hate that movie too? And also, because I am so angered by this disgusting work, I wonder: how much did I really loathe The Bounty Hunter?
REWATCHABILITY: No. I’d prefer to watch Ordinary People instead, no matter what time it was, or whatever mood I was in. In fact, Up speaks more tenderly about death in two minutes than this entire movie does in a 100-minute running time.
OVERALL
I believe the great Roger Ebert said it best when he once wrote, "I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie." Fortunately for everyone who helped in some way to actualize the disgraceful script which would later create this movie, it is safe to acknowledge that the acting is not the worst I’ve ever seen (that might be reserved for a movie called Birdemic, but I digress). Were it not for Mulligan’s OK performance, this really would be a disgusting piece of film school bullsh*t, and I am going to now explain why:
From the moment that it considers "stopping your car in the middle of the road" to be a romantic gesture, this mopey picture begins an incredibly cheap handling of a subject that is literally as serious as life and death. This is also (by no coincidence) the moment where the movie becomes the audience’s enemy, and the flick fights to win our love and tears right up until the very last moment. Consider this mission impossible, however, as the audience has now become incredibly emotionally detached from the story. Some of its moments are so implausible that, compared to actual stories of grief, they’re in very poor taste. As for an audience member relating to some of the moments where emotions run high (which happens in good films), they should refuse to associate anything personal with such a flick that is so blatantly ingenuous to our own recollections.
This is one of those weepy tales about death that treats organic moments of grief like some directors treat porn – it’s all about the “money shot.” The mopey story savors any moment where it can ejaculate some good ol’ tears out of its co-stars, and the “William Tell” Overture” finale might as well be playing in the background when the father and son crack their external shells and deliver monologues about a dead character we hardly even know.
Pierce Brosnan’s character likes thick math equations to rattle around in his brain, so here’s one: Scene that shows innocent loss of virginity + a sudden death + the formation of a dysfunctional “family” + announcement of pregnancy – divided by a span of fifteen minutes. This equals enough reason to walk out of this movie before the thirty-minute mark. The foolish twists, which could only come from an indie-movie when packaged all at once, are only introductions to how this movie is going to pimp out tragic moments in any confrontation it can create. Later on there will be brushes of adultery, broken homes, and of course, the corniest story of how Rose meets with her boyfriend (real kids in the real world just use Facebook, morons.)
I never think too much about cheeky titles, but its clear that this insipid tripe is declaring war against myself and anyone else who thought brutally pretentious independent movies were more myth than reality. So, for those sorely misguided people who try to sit this one through, I must warn you: this movie is only great at insulting our deeply personal memories of loss. The Greatest is without a doubt the most heartless, insincere, and absolute worst movie I've ever seen about grief.
FINAL SCORE: 2/10