To borrow a phrase made famous by Ed Anger from the Weekly World News, “I’m PIG-BITIN’ MAD!” So, what’s got my goat? What caused this outburst of ire?
I’m angry that I spent nine bucks and a night out on an independent film that was so bad I found myself offended by its very existence, is what.
I’ve been eagerly awaiting the chance to see “Some Days Are Better Than Others” for some time, because it was filmed in my Pacific NW area (Portland, Oregon to be specific), and showcases two of my favorite indie musicians, Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney and James Mercer of the Shins and Broken Bells. I like when creative people step out and try different things, and I felt both Brownstein and Mercer would bring intelligence and spark to their acting roles. I like when creative people from different fields come together to work on new projects, and writer/director Matt McCormick had already worked on music videos with Brownstein and Mercer, so those relationships were already good.
But I hated this movie, and I hate that I had to hate it.
Let me retract my earlier statement. OK, this film has a sovereign right to exist, yes. However, if you are going to bother going to all the expense and trouble of making a film, how about HAVING A STORY TO TELL? Oh, brother. Is it that hard to write a cohesive, compelling storyline? “Some Days Are Better Than Others” simply has no plot, no arc, no character development, no nothing. It’s a painfully-slow collage of sort-of-arty Film School 101 images that seem to have little or nothing to do with the characters in the film, and nothing ever happens. Like, nothing at all. You know virtually nothing more about the people at the end of the film than you do at the start. This is not OK with me, because if you don’t bother to even minimally write something to hook me in and care about your characters and what is going on, you’ve wasted my time. McCormick seems to be making an attempt to say something profound about disconnection and disposability in modern life by focusing on a small and rather unlikable set of sad misfits and their single-rented-room lives, interspersed with long shots of boarded up houses, sad-looking dogs in cages waiting to be adopted, and rainbows in soap bubbles. Aw, come on, man, come on. Take it to Emo Hallmark.
The film starts to crack and bleed almost immediately. Brownstein and Mercer’s characters, working at poorly-paid non-jobs and still living with multiple roomies are, in their late-30s, far too old to be whining about college debt, extolling slackerism, collecting winsome stuffed animals, or trying to audition for MTV’s The Real World. It’s just bizarre. An additional character who works in the thrift store Brownstein frequents (Renee Roman Nose) is near-mute throughout the film, her only function to add some more pathos via a cremation urn that ends up discarded in the store’s donation sorting section. There’s the requisite Reflective Old Man, too, and the Hopeless Lesbian Crush. Come ON, man!
The acting by all is so extremely flat in affect that you wonder if they were paid not to emote. Mercer and Brownstein recite their lines, rather than feel and interpret them, and never seem to be other than their real-life selves, with less to smile about. There is even a gratuitous scene where Mercer karaokes in his tiny bedroom, and damned if he still doesn’t have to sing every note perfectly! Come on now! Their characters’ emotions, when seen at all, seem childish and stunted, with no depth whatsoever. I never got the impression that they cared all that much about anything, despite a romantic break-up and near-poverty. If the film was trying to say something about how the brutality of life breaks and numbs the gentle heart, it failed, because it has no emotional center to pull from.
Summary: the film is pretentious and boring. It’s not innovative nor beautiful enough to be worthy as visual art alone, the writing is beginner-quality at best, and the acting is self-conscious and strange. Ninety minutes dragged on and on and on, even starring people whom I was very interested in seeing on film, and really wanted to like. Silence and space can be beautiful in film; here, it reminds the viewer of how little this movie has to say.
Pig-bitin’ mad I remain, because "Some Days Are Better Than Others” was a wasted opportunity to enlighten, inform, entertain, or inspire – what all movies should strive to do. Nine bucks out of my pocket to experience a poorly-conceived and oddly-executed movie?
© Copyright 2008- Marianne Spellman