A main thing I get to do in this blog is to persuade you to see big cultural touchstones in new ways. So, for example, that's what I hope I did with "I Will Always Love You" and "Annabelle: Creation." But then I also sometimes want to evangelize on behalf of a movie no one has seen. Here, my job is a little easier. I don't have to advance a bold new interpretation of the movie "Columbus" because I feel certain no one reading this post has seen the movie "Columbus." I can simply tell you about it, and the telling will feel new.
When I was a senior in high school, I was weird and curious. I knew a great deal of data about theater. I didn't have an intense desire to go away to college, and actually the one and only college I looked at was a distraction; it was a detour on a trip to see "Miss Saigon" in New York City. Mainly, I wanted to see "Miss Saigon." The college I chose was a college I'd never visited; I had watched a few minutes of a promotional video, in a half-hearted way, and I'd decided that was enough. Part of my ambivalence was about my family; I sensed there were things I needed to take care of, and that these things would go neglected if I moved away. And, indeed, the minute I encountered some trouble in college, I was encouraged to drop everything and move back to Buffalo. This became a kind of refrain; after college, I was told Buffalo was a kind of new gay mecca, and I'd really be better off there than in New York City.
"Columbus" is about a similar situation--a young person in danger of a "failure to launch." Haley Richardson is the lead; she's a weird and curious kid, a recent high-school graduate, and she's obsessed with architecture. In one of the more endearing passages, we see her standing in front of a building, rehearsing her tour-guide spiel. (Columbus, Ind. is a stunning treasure trove for modern architecture. Who knew?) Through the long arm of fate, Richardson meets the son of a prominent architect; the son is John Cho. In conversations, Cho ascertains that Richardson is unique and that she has strayed off-course; he pushes her to get back into school. Richardson concedes that she in fact has an offer of something like a free ride at the University of New Haven; a visiting Yale architect has become entranced by her and has said, if you enroll at U. New Haven, you can audit some of my Yale classes. (I love that Richardson just attaches herself to any star architect and extracts little invitations along the way. I find this deeply relatable.)
"Tell me why this bank is meaningful to you," says Cho, standing in front of a modern architectural masterpiece, and Richardson launches into a windy speech about challenging fortress-like conceptions of bank-ness. "No," says Cho. "Don't be a tour guide. Tell me about you. About your actual life, and your personal response to this building." You sense that no one has taken an interest like this in Richardson, and soon enough, we're hearing about the mother--"In Treatment"'s Michelle Forbes--who has an on/off relationship with meth and who makes some bad choices with regularity. Richardson has planted herself in Columbus because she worries about her mother. In several heartbreaking scenes, Richardson searches for her mother through the windows of the factory where Forbes works; she places sneaky cell-phone calls to Forbes's colleague; the colleague lies for Forbes and says Forbes is working hard; we all draw the inference that Forbes is actually out partying. (It's one of this movie's thrilling flirtations with the counterintuitive; the level-headed adolescent girl mothers her mother. Also, this movie says: Do you have some preconceptions about Columbus, Indiana? Think again.)
Cho's role is to make Richardson see that she can do more than she imagines. Forbes is more capable than Richardson thinks. Also, playing caretaker might actually do harm to Forbes; letting Forbes have an adult, independent life with dignity might be a kind of gift. Meanwhile, Cho wrestles with his own issues; his Korean star-chitect father never had time for him; Korean mores dictate that Cho must feign grief he doesn't actually feel. As Richardson and Cho talk and talk, we aren't sure where their own relationship will go; there's clearly some attraction, and it's problematic that one is twenty years older than the other. The movie is exquisitely attuned to missed connections--little moments when we mishear, or misread, each other. Parker Posey's character shows intense pain; "Can we get the check?" she asks, just as the obtuse Cho says, more loudly, "I'll have another beer." "You have the worst degree in all of graduate studies," says Richardson, to a colleague, in a way that she imagines is teasing, and the wounded colleague says, "Better than no degree." And suddenly these two--who enjoy each other's company--can't be together in one room anymore. People inflict pain on one another without being evil--without consciously intending to inflict pain. People are strangers even to themselves, and so they fumble with words, with gestures; they make minor messes that have a substantial impact on the audience, because the attention to detail is so effortless and so rare.
At one point, two characters argue about the idea of an attention span. "We think kids don't have it. But they do. They play video games for hours and hours. They just don't want to read. And maybe reading isn't all that important. It's not that kids can't pay attention; it's that their definition of what is interesting differs from ours." And this seems to be partly a mission statement for the movie; "I'm going to challenge your notion of what is interesting." Nothing explodes. There isn't any sex. There's even very, very little shouting. But the director continuously surprises us with tiny insights about how people behave; like a titan of modern architecture, he gets us to see the world in a new way. New eyes, new ears. I was surprised to find myself sobbing toward the end of this movie; I doubt I'm alone in that reaction.
Well, those are some initial, messy thoughts. Sometimes, on a Sunday, you're startled to see a reflection of yourself up on the big screen. That's a treat. I did stick it out in New Haven and New York--with help from a John Cho-ish figure. I don't have much of an interest in architecture, but I do like good writing; good writing has been one thing that reliably transports me out of life's grayness. For what it's worth. "Columbus" is an example of good writing.
https://www.google.com/search?q=columbus+trailer&oq=columbus+trailer&aqs=chrome.0.0l6.1799j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
When I was a senior in high school, I was weird and curious. I knew a great deal of data about theater. I didn't have an intense desire to go away to college, and actually the one and only college I looked at was a distraction; it was a detour on a trip to see "Miss Saigon" in New York City. Mainly, I wanted to see "Miss Saigon." The college I chose was a college I'd never visited; I had watched a few minutes of a promotional video, in a half-hearted way, and I'd decided that was enough. Part of my ambivalence was about my family; I sensed there were things I needed to take care of, and that these things would go neglected if I moved away. And, indeed, the minute I encountered some trouble in college, I was encouraged to drop everything and move back to Buffalo. This became a kind of refrain; after college, I was told Buffalo was a kind of new gay mecca, and I'd really be better off there than in New York City.
"Columbus" is about a similar situation--a young person in danger of a "failure to launch." Haley Richardson is the lead; she's a weird and curious kid, a recent high-school graduate, and she's obsessed with architecture. In one of the more endearing passages, we see her standing in front of a building, rehearsing her tour-guide spiel. (Columbus, Ind. is a stunning treasure trove for modern architecture. Who knew?) Through the long arm of fate, Richardson meets the son of a prominent architect; the son is John Cho. In conversations, Cho ascertains that Richardson is unique and that she has strayed off-course; he pushes her to get back into school. Richardson concedes that she in fact has an offer of something like a free ride at the University of New Haven; a visiting Yale architect has become entranced by her and has said, if you enroll at U. New Haven, you can audit some of my Yale classes. (I love that Richardson just attaches herself to any star architect and extracts little invitations along the way. I find this deeply relatable.)
"Tell me why this bank is meaningful to you," says Cho, standing in front of a modern architectural masterpiece, and Richardson launches into a windy speech about challenging fortress-like conceptions of bank-ness. "No," says Cho. "Don't be a tour guide. Tell me about you. About your actual life, and your personal response to this building." You sense that no one has taken an interest like this in Richardson, and soon enough, we're hearing about the mother--"In Treatment"'s Michelle Forbes--who has an on/off relationship with meth and who makes some bad choices with regularity. Richardson has planted herself in Columbus because she worries about her mother. In several heartbreaking scenes, Richardson searches for her mother through the windows of the factory where Forbes works; she places sneaky cell-phone calls to Forbes's colleague; the colleague lies for Forbes and says Forbes is working hard; we all draw the inference that Forbes is actually out partying. (It's one of this movie's thrilling flirtations with the counterintuitive; the level-headed adolescent girl mothers her mother. Also, this movie says: Do you have some preconceptions about Columbus, Indiana? Think again.)
Cho's role is to make Richardson see that she can do more than she imagines. Forbes is more capable than Richardson thinks. Also, playing caretaker might actually do harm to Forbes; letting Forbes have an adult, independent life with dignity might be a kind of gift. Meanwhile, Cho wrestles with his own issues; his Korean star-chitect father never had time for him; Korean mores dictate that Cho must feign grief he doesn't actually feel. As Richardson and Cho talk and talk, we aren't sure where their own relationship will go; there's clearly some attraction, and it's problematic that one is twenty years older than the other. The movie is exquisitely attuned to missed connections--little moments when we mishear, or misread, each other. Parker Posey's character shows intense pain; "Can we get the check?" she asks, just as the obtuse Cho says, more loudly, "I'll have another beer." "You have the worst degree in all of graduate studies," says Richardson, to a colleague, in a way that she imagines is teasing, and the wounded colleague says, "Better than no degree." And suddenly these two--who enjoy each other's company--can't be together in one room anymore. People inflict pain on one another without being evil--without consciously intending to inflict pain. People are strangers even to themselves, and so they fumble with words, with gestures; they make minor messes that have a substantial impact on the audience, because the attention to detail is so effortless and so rare.
At one point, two characters argue about the idea of an attention span. "We think kids don't have it. But they do. They play video games for hours and hours. They just don't want to read. And maybe reading isn't all that important. It's not that kids can't pay attention; it's that their definition of what is interesting differs from ours." And this seems to be partly a mission statement for the movie; "I'm going to challenge your notion of what is interesting." Nothing explodes. There isn't any sex. There's even very, very little shouting. But the director continuously surprises us with tiny insights about how people behave; like a titan of modern architecture, he gets us to see the world in a new way. New eyes, new ears. I was surprised to find myself sobbing toward the end of this movie; I doubt I'm alone in that reaction.
Well, those are some initial, messy thoughts. Sometimes, on a Sunday, you're startled to see a reflection of yourself up on the big screen. That's a treat. I did stick it out in New Haven and New York--with help from a John Cho-ish figure. I don't have much of an interest in architecture, but I do like good writing; good writing has been one thing that reliably transports me out of life's grayness. For what it's worth. "Columbus" is an example of good writing.
https://www.google.com/search?q=columbus+trailer&oq=columbus+trailer&aqs=chrome.0.0l6.1799j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Comments
Post a Comment