Michael Shamus Wiles | Through the Shattered Lens

The Bronze has been getting terrible reviews since it first premiered at Sundance last year. Telling the story of an Olympic bronze medalist who has grown up to be bitter and angry, The Bronze has been unfavorably compared to Bad Santa, Bad Words, Bad Teacher and … well, bad anything. (You know you’re in trouble when your film gets compared to Bad Teacher because most critics have an irrational hatred for that film. I actually enjoyed it.) The Bronze was originally scheduled to be released last July and then it was pushed back and then, for a little while, it vanished all together as it was traded between different distributors. Finally, last Friday, Sony Pictures Classics released The Bronze with all the fanfare of a community theater announcing their annual production of Forever Plaid.

Well, after hearing how terrible it was, there was no way that my BFF Evelyn and I could resist the temptation to experience it for ourselves. (We both enjoy watching and commenting during bad movies. That’s what led to us watching that Tyler Perry movie about the adulterous matckmaker .) We caught a 10:15 showing last night at the AMC Valley View and the theater was almost totally deserted. (Admittedly, not many people are brave enough to go to Valley View Mall past 9:00 but Evelyn and I fear nothing.) We were expecting to see a thoroughly mediocre film but you know what?

We were both kind of surprised to discover that The Bronze was not the terrible film that we had been led to expect.

Melissa Rauch (who co-wrote the script) plays Hope Ann Gregory, a former Olympic gymnast who won the Bronze medal at the Summer Olympics. She won the medal despite competing on an injured ankle. Unfortunately, her injury ended her competitive career but it also briefly made her a national celebrity. 12 years later, most of the country may have forgotten Hope but the people of hometown of Amherst, Ohio still love her.

When we first meet Hope, she’s masturbating while watching footage of herself competing at the Olympics. She then proceeds to steal money from her father’s mail route so she’ll have enough money to buy weed. Hope is rude to almost everyone and yet, no one in the town seems to notice. Or maybe they are so happy to be in the presence of a minor celebrity that they just don’t care how terribly she treats them. The movie is actually somewhat vague on this point but still, the contrast between Hope’s reality and the opinion that others have of her is one of the best things about the film. Intentionally or not, it perfectly satirizes that way that we idealize our celebrities.

When Hope’s former coach commits suicide, her final request is that Hope agree to train an up-and-coming gymnast, Maggie (Haley Lu Richardson). At first, the jealous Hope tries to sabotage Maggie but eventually, Hope starts to take her job as coach seriously. (When Maggie first shows up, she seems to be a one-note, excessively perky character but eventually, she reveals some needed, if not exactly surprising, complexity.) Hope also develops an unexpected relationship with Maggie’s assistant coach, Twitchy (Thomas Middleditch). (Twitchy is called Twitchy because he blinks a lot.)

The Bronze is not a great film. Instead, it’s an extremely uneven film, one that often seems to be trying too hard. It never manages to find the right balance between its raunchy comedy and the occasional and surprisingly subtle moments when it suddenly becomes a character study.

And yet, at the same time, it’s not as terrible as you’ve heard. There are moments that work surprisingly well. Some of them are moments like an enjoyably over-the-top sex scene between two gymnasts. But then there are moments like the scene where Hope talks about the first time she learned that, as a result of the injury she sustained while winning her Bronze, she would never be able to compete again. There are scenes like the one where Hope proves herself to be surprisingly loyal to the citizens of Amherst or where her long-suffering father (Gary Cole) confronts her about her behavior. Though these moments may be few and far between, they still work surprisingly well. It’s during these moments that The Bronze drops the protective mask of outrageousness and reveals some unexpected depth. It helps that, along with writing the script, Melissa Rauch totally commits herself to the role. At her best, she’s like a force of stoned nature.

Is The Bronze really worth seeing on the big screen? Probably not. It’s too uneven to really be successful. But when it shows up on Netflix, I predict that a lot of people are going to be surprised to discover that The Bronze isn’t as terrible as they’ve been told.

“And then all this happened…”

Nurse Evelyn Johnson (Kate Beckinsale) in Pearl Harbor (2001)

The “this” that Evelyn Johnson is referring to is the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. You know, the date will live in infamy. The attack that caused the United States to enter World War II and, as a result, eventually led to collapse of the Axis Powers. The attack that left over 2,000 men died and 1,178 wounded. That attack.

In the 2001 film Pearl Harbor, that attack is just one of the many complications in the romance between Danny (Ben Affleck), his best friend Rafe (Josh Hartnett), and Evelyn (Kate Beckinsale). The other complications include Danny briefly being listed as dead, Danny being dyslexic before anyone knew what dyslexia was (and yet, later, he’s still seen reading and writing letters with absolutely no trouble, almost as if the filmmakers forgot they had made such a big deal about him not being able to do so), and the fact that Rafe really, really likes Evelyn. Of course, the main complication to their romance is that this is a Michael Bay film and he won’t stop moving the camera long enough for anyone to have a genuine emotion.

I imagine that Pearl Harbor was an attempt to duplicate the success of Titanic, by setting an extremely predictable love story against the backdrop of a real-life historical tragedy. Say what you will about Titanic (and there are certain lines in that film that, when I rehear them today, make me cringe), Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet had genuine chemistry. None of that chemistry is present in Pearl Harbor. You don’t believe, for a second, that Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett are lifelong friends. You don’t believe that Kate Beckinsale is torn between the two of them. Instead, you just feel like you’re watching three actors who are struggling to give a performance when they’re being directed by a director who is more interested in blowing people up than in getting to know them.

Continuing the Titanic comparison, Pearl Harbor‘s script absolutely sucks. Along with that line about “all this” happening, there’s also a scene where Franklin D. Roosevelt (Jon Voight) reacts to his cabinet’s skepticism by rising to his feet and announcing that if he, a man famously crippled by polio and confined to a wheelchair, can stand up, then America can win a war.

I’ve actually been to Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. I have gone to the USS Arizona Memorial. I have stood and stared down at the remains of the ship resting below the surface of the ocean. It’s an awe-inspiring and humbling site, one that leaves you very aware that over a thousand men lost their lives when the Arizona sank.

I have also seen the wall which lists the name of everyone who was killed during the attack on Pearl Harbor and until you’ve actually been there and you’ve seen it with your own eyes, you really can’t understand just how overwhelming it all is. The picture below was taken by my sister, Erin.

If you want to pay tribute to those who lost their lives at Pearl Harbor, going to the Arizona Memorial is a good start. But avoid Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor at all costs.