I went home sick today, and so after a couple hours of laying in bed I decided to watch something. I have a longstanding tradition that when I'm sick I get to watch the movies I wouldn't otherwise watch- the chick flicks, the cheesy comedies, etc. So I decided to knock this one off my to-be-watched list. I was actually pleasantly surprised by the quality of this movie- it isn't a groundbreaker, but it knows what it's trying to do and, I thought, it does it well.
The plot is simple: Amy (Emma Roberts), a poetry major in college, is in search of a job when her parents cut her off after months of paying her student loans and other expenses. She gets rejected from all kinds of jobs before accidentally going into a porn shop and being hired. Here she meets the manager, Alex (Evan Peters), along with a drag queen named Rubia. During all this, she is striving for poetry fame and success, sending submissions to literary magazines all over the country and convincing herself her big break is just around the corner. She tracks down her favorite living poet, Rat Billings (John Cusack), and forces him to accept her as his protegee.
The whole movie was pretty straightforward, which I ended up liking about it. For taking place half the time in a porn shop, it was surprisingly PG, and the setting actually allowed the story more flexibility because it faced the whole sexual tension thing that can mire down so many story lines head-on and conquered it. It was, simultaneously, dramatic and achingly realistic; Emma Roberts' character can be a bit psycho and unrelatable at times, but the emotions she feels and her struggles as an artist- that was more realistic than was maybe comfortable. And though I don't think Roberts' acting was outstanding, I did identify with Amy; being a poet is hard, and it's so easy to be torn down by other people so you have to believe in yourself sooo much to make up for that, because people's opinions of what is quality are so entirely subjective. The minute you stop winning awards, stop being told you're special by your teachers, everything starts crumbling. Amy was simply fighting against this. And she was childish, but like the quote says, "Artists are the children that survive." Why is being childish a bad thing? It allows you to see the world with brilliance, not just in the gray tones of adulthood and monotony. I liked Cusack's character as well- he was what Amy was heading towards being; a success at a young age, and then spending the rest of his life feeling as though he had peaked. He had this great sense of candid humor, which really brought something to the movie. And Alex...awwwww. He really pulled through as a character in the end. The whole movie he spent being sort of wishy-washy, but when you realized he was this quiet artist, that didn't need to flaunt his skill, you ended up really liking him. It was great in the end, because Amy had been looking for this mentor, this inspiration, and in reality Alex was the one that could introduce her to another kind of life with interesting things and interesting people, and they ended up with this great relationship where they could inspire one another. This movie was inspiring, really. It accomplished that without a ton of frill but with a good dose of humor and quirk. Great for a laid-back day!
The whole movie was pretty straightforward, which I ended up liking about it. For taking place half the time in a porn shop, it was surprisingly PG, and the setting actually allowed the story more flexibility because it faced the whole sexual tension thing that can mire down so many story lines head-on and conquered it. It was, simultaneously, dramatic and achingly realistic; Emma Roberts' character can be a bit psycho and unrelatable at times, but the emotions she feels and her struggles as an artist- that was more realistic than was maybe comfortable. And though I don't think Roberts' acting was outstanding, I did identify with Amy; being a poet is hard, and it's so easy to be torn down by other people so you have to believe in yourself sooo much to make up for that, because people's opinions of what is quality are so entirely subjective. The minute you stop winning awards, stop being told you're special by your teachers, everything starts crumbling. Amy was simply fighting against this. And she was childish, but like the quote says, "Artists are the children that survive." Why is being childish a bad thing? It allows you to see the world with brilliance, not just in the gray tones of adulthood and monotony. I liked Cusack's character as well- he was what Amy was heading towards being; a success at a young age, and then spending the rest of his life feeling as though he had peaked. He had this great sense of candid humor, which really brought something to the movie. And Alex...awwwww. He really pulled through as a character in the end. The whole movie he spent being sort of wishy-washy, but when you realized he was this quiet artist, that didn't need to flaunt his skill, you ended up really liking him. It was great in the end, because Amy had been looking for this mentor, this inspiration, and in reality Alex was the one that could introduce her to another kind of life with interesting things and interesting people, and they ended up with this great relationship where they could inspire one another. This movie was inspiring, really. It accomplished that without a ton of frill but with a good dose of humor and quirk. Great for a laid-back day!
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