French-born filmmaker Quentin Dupieux elicited quite a stir in 2010 with his low-budget Rubber, an absurdist horror comedy about a psychokinetic tire that roams the dusty American Southwest, exploding the heads of those who get in its way. His new film Wrong, presently available on VOD, centers on a depressed suburban man (Jack Plotnick) who awakens one morning to find out that he’s lost the love of his life, his dog. His journey to find him quickly spirals into a surrealistic trek populated with bizarro characters. I recently had a chance to speak with Dupieux one-on-one, about the films he devoured growing up as a kid, Wrong, and even the spin-off it inspired, which he’s finishing editing now. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the read.
A funky and fresh tale of adolescent self-doubt and blossoming young love funneled through the prism of post-apocalyptic zombiedom, Warm Bodies conjures a lovely, commingled tone of wistfulness and witticism. The best, most unique zombie movie since Shaun of the Dead, director Jonathan Levine‘s smart adaptation of Isaac Marion’s same-named novel delivers laughs as well as an unlikely, surprisingly affecting coming-of-age tale centered around the curative powers of passion and hope.
Unfolding in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, Warm Bodies takes as its narrator R (Nicholas Hoult, above), a soulful and self-aware zombie who nevertheless can’t remember his name or the specifics of what exactly happened to the world around him, or even really speak. His days are spent mostly trudging aimlessly around an airport, though he shares a few grunts of half-formed thought with his “friend,” fellow zombie M (Rob Corddry). When they cross paths with a band of scavenging survivors, R is so captivated by the fetching Julie (Teresa Palmer) that he instinctively saves her from being eaten.
He does, however, eat the brains of her boyfriend Perry (Dave Franco), which gives R insights into the memories, thoughts and feelings of his victim. Taking Julie back to the abandoned airliner he’s taken as his home and filled with knick-knacks, R nervously starts trying to communicate with her (sample inner monologue: “Dont’ be creepy, don’t be creepy…”), and again saves her when she makes an abortive escape attempt. A small gesture of appreciation on Julie’s part seems to further trigger some sort of awakening in R, and later some other zombies as well. This development stands in stark contrast to the bleak worldview of her militant father (John Malkovich), but things come to a head when a bunch of “boneys” — too-far-gone zombies who’ve eaten all of their own skin off — gather to attack both humans and the regular reanimated corpses.
Its conceit sounds rather outrageous, and it is, but Warm Bodies is pitched perfectly, in a manner that invests a certain seriousness in the world it’s presenting. Director Levine (The Wackness, 50/50) has previously shown a knack especially for sly and effective moodcraft, marrying image to brightly chosen pop songs in a fashion that neither hijacks nor sells short the narrative, and Warm Bodies further evidences this. Via R’s narration, Levine’s adaptation of Marion’s novel ports over the bumbling and wry self-loathing that any nominally reflective teenager can identify with, but he also creates a beautifully melancholic backdrop that’s punctured by the contrast of Julie’s beauty and vulnerability. Cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe has worked in horror before, in The Others, The Road and, most recently, the remake of Fright Night, and has a smart, evocative sense of framing as well as superb sense of muted atmospheric lighting.
Mostly, though, Warm Bodies affirms its talented young leads. Palmer’s rangy performance further confirms what her tough-gal turn in I Am Number Four did — that she’s a star of the future. Hoult, meanwhile, may or may not be a star (he does have a couple big studio films on tap), but he is terrifically talented. I was a bit lukewarm on his performance in A Single Man, but his turn here is whole-hearted and so smartly modulated — carefully revealing new layers and levels of thought and engagement as he becomes more and more human.
Twenty years ago, a warped little movie called Groundhog Day released in February — an antidote to the saccharine, a sort of twisted Valentine for the rest of us. An inspired genre mash-up with allegorical underpinnings that’s also just a lot of fun, Warm Bodies is different from that ace comedy in just about every way, shape and form, except for the two most crucial — heart and brains. It has them both. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. (Summit Entertainment, PG-13, 97 minutes)
Liam Aiken made his screen debut playing Parker Posey’s son at age seven in 1997’s Henry Fool, and then kept working as a kid, in movies like Stepmom, Sweet November, Road to Perdition and Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. Transitioning to young adulthood, he’s dabbled in music, but kept working in movies, like Michael Winterbottom’s The Killer Inside Me. His latest film is writer-director Austin Chick’s Girls Against Boys, in which Aiken portrays Tyler, a guileless college student whose burgeoning relationship with the troubled Shae (Danielle Panabaker) upsets the balance of the latter’s relationship with the even more troubled Lu (Nicole LaLiberte). I recently had a chance to speak to Aiken one-on-one, about the movie and transitioning from being a child actor to a young adult still in the business. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, with a minor potential spoiler in only the second question-and-answer exchange, so click here for the read.
