Cherry Jones | Through the Shattered Lens

What is the best way to deal with the grief of losing a family member?

That is the question asked by The Sky Is Everywhere, the latest film from Josephine Decker. The film’s answer seems to be that the first step is to have a quirky grandma who paints and a stoner uncle who is somewhat inevitably played by Jason Segel and to live in a big, rambling house that, in the real world, you probably wouldn’t be able to afford to keep up. The second step is to be a member of the band at one of those weird high schools where everyone loves the band kids as opposed to finding them to be insufferably pretentious. The third step is to have a chance to win admission to Julliard but only if you can play through your grief. Finally, find yourself a bland and non-threatening love interest who is supposed to be a musical prodigy. If you can complete those four steps, you might just make it!

The Sky Is Everywhere, which is based on a YA novel that I have not read, stars Grace Kaufman as Lennie Walker, who was extremely close to her sister, Bailey (played, in flashbacks and fantasy sequences, by Havana Rose Liu). At one point, Lennie explains that she always felt like she was “a show pony” whenever she was next to her sister and that she never really had any identity outside of being Bailey’s supportive sister. But then Bailey dropped dead while at rehearsals for Romeo and Juliet so Lennie has to find her own identity and decide whether to date the aforementioned bland musician, Joe Fontaine (played by Jacques Coliman), or Bailey’s ex-boyfriend, Toby (Pico Alexander). Lennie’s real name, by the way, is Lennon and I assume she’s named after John Lennon because that’s just the type of film that The Sky Is Everywhere Is. What if Lennie’s parents had been fans of the Starlight Vocal Band and decided to name her Taffy? Would she still be the first chair clarinetist? It’s something to think about.

(Also, who was Bailey named after? I’m going to guess Connecticut political boss John Bailey.)

Grandma Walker (played by Cherry Jones) is a painter who keeps insisting that it’s time to pack up Bailey’s things. Grandma also has a gigantic garden, one that is full of roses. When Lennie and Joe listen to music together, they’re suddenly floating through the air and surrounded by Grandma’s flowers. When it comes time for Grandma to finally express her grief over losing Bailey, she does so by destroying the least favorite of her paintings. “Not my best work,” as Grandma puts it. But, to be honest, all of Grandma’s paintings suck so I have to wonder how she managed to narrow down her least favorite painting to just one. Does Grandma make her living as a painter? I guess so, since Jason Segel’s Uncle Big doesn’t really do much other than smoke weed and pick bugs off his windshield.

Anyway, I suppose this film was made with good intentions but it’s just too overwritten, overdirected, and overly quirky. For a film that deals with grief, there’s really not a single authentic moment to be found in the film. A huge part of the problem is that, though we always hear everyone talking about Bailey, we never really know who Bailey was. The same is true of Lennie, who is on-screen all of the time but who always just seems like a collection of YA quirks. She reads Wuthering Heights (presumably because she and Bailey are meant to be like the Bronte sisters). She plays the clarinet. She likes to walk among the redwoods and she writes messages on leaves. These are all legitimate interests but they’re not a personality. They’re not an identity. It’s hard not to compare this film to something like CODA, where Ruby’s love of singing and her love for her family were all a big part of her life but they weren’t the only things that defined who she was as a person. Ruby was an individual, which is something that really can’t be said for any of the characters in The Sky Is Everywhere. Since none of the characters feel real, there’s no emotional authenticity to any of the big moments. Instead, it just feels like we’re watching people who learned how to talk and act by watching other YA adaptations.

The Sky Is Everywhere tries so I guess it deserves a half-star for that. But, in the end, it doesn’t add up too much.

Some day, someone will get around to making the ultimate Tina Fey movie, which will basically just be 4 and a half hours of people talking about how much they love Tina Fey while Tina makes silly faces in the background. Until that day comes, viewers will just have to settle for Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

In Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Tina Fey plays Tina Fey playing real-life journalist, Kim Baker. When the film starts, Kim accepts an assignment as a war correspondent in Afghanistan. Though she starts out as neurotic and intimidated, Kim soon steps up and emerges as a passionate and committed journalist, one who is dedicated to revealing the truth — both good and bad — about what’s happening in Afghanistan. Helping her along the way is a BBC reporter, Tanya Vanderpool (Margot Robbie) and a Scottish photographer named Iain (Martin Freeman). Iain and Kim may be attracted to one another but Kim has a boyfriend (Josh Charles) back in New York. How long do you think it takes for Kim to catch her boyfriend cheating via Skype?

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is one of those movies that you just know was made to be an Oscar contender. Not only does it deal with a big important subject but it stars a popular performer in a change-of-pace role. Except, of course, it’s not really that much of a change-of-pace. Tina Fey’s a good actress but you never forget that you’re watching Tina Fey. You never think to yourself, “Kim is caught in the middle of a firefight” or “Kim is getting addicted to the rush of being a war zone.” Instead, you think, “Any minute now, Tina Fey’s going to start shooting a gun and it’s going to be funny because she’s Tina Fey.” Towards the end of the film, when a U.S. soldier who has lost his legs tells Kim to never stop trying to tell the people the truth about what’s happening in Afghanistan, you don’t think, “Don’t give up, Kim!” Instead you think, “Wow — so that soldier lost his legs so that Tina Fey could have an Oscar moment.”

If I haven’t already made it clear, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is an extremely uneven film, one that never seems to be sure if it wants to be a relationship comedy, a media satire, or a serious look at the realities of war. The film works best when it concentrates on the friendship between Tanya and Kim and it’s nice to see a film about two women who are colleagues and friends. When Tanya first showed up, I was worried that the film would devolve into one of those “Women can’t work together” diatribes or that Tanya would immediately be set up as some sort of mean girl rival for Iain. Instead, the film explores how women support each other through even the most difficult of circumstances. But then there’s other scenes that just don’t work as well, like the scenes with Alfred Molina as an Afghan politician who has a crush on Kim.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot has its moment but ultimately its too uneven to be of much consequence.