Letterboxd Litter #4

SHINE / THE IRON GIANT / SPLICE

SHINE (1996)

Biopics are a pain to evaluate, because separating the film itself from its subject matter is always a mess. And based on what I glean from cursory research, Shine is very messy. Major, maaaajor elements of its plot — such as Helfgott’s relationship with his father, the nature of his mental illness, and his actual musical proficiency as an adult — are probably substantially fudged, depending on who you believe.

Then, of course, there’s the general problem of romanticizing the relationship between art and mental illness. Or just romanticizing mental illness, period. It may be a bit unfair to criticize a movie for doing that almost 25 years ago… but only a bit.

Helfgott’s condition as such (which the movie never explicitly names, but that its press and marketing inaccurately identified as schizophrenia) never has any real implications for the plot, except for a vague wave toward his institutionalization. It’s treated as nothing more than an eccentricity, one that universally elicits bemusement from the people around him. We’re basically led to believe that paternal abuse left him… really chatty and really huggy, and generally scatterbrained? Ummm k.

But there’s good parts too. The performances by Geoffrey Rush, Noah Taylor and Armin Mueller-Stahl are all electric. The production design is gorgeous, and the cinematography totally arresting — never more so than when it’s capturing fevered hands pounding at a piano.

If you can look at this as just a movie about music — about what music can do to and for people — then it’s visceral and lovely and joyous. Unfortunately it’s aiming for a lot of other stuff too, and bites off far more than it can chew. 2.5/5

THE IRON GIANT (1999)

Every little boy in America should watch this movie. Probably every child, period, but definitely every boy. It’s over 20 years old, but its message is especially relevant today, and it would have been just as relevant back in the ’50s too. It’s, yeah, timeless.

“You are who you choose to be.” A typical lesson for a kids’ movie, but The Iron Giant really earns it. It addresses grief, anger and violence in a way so direct as to be almost shocking at times, yet never violates the essential innocence of a kids’ movie. And it offers plenty of warmth, wonder and humor to counteract its darker aspects. It’s an adventure and a moral fable entirely in a class of its own.

Although the Giant himself has the most visible arc, it isn’t hard to see how Hogarth undergoes similar growth, though it’s less explicit. As a fatherless boy who’s misunderstood and picked-on by his peers, he’s a prime vehicle for the sort of wounded resentment that we usually mean when we talk about “toxic masculinity.” That resentment becomes visible in the preening arrogance of federal agent Kent Mansley, and we see an alternative to it in Dean’s good-natured detachment from other people’s opinions. “Who cares what these creeps think, man?”

The Giant’s rage-fueled transformation at the movie’s climax is an especially pivotal moment. It’s exhilarating and frightening, showing kids both the appeal and the horror of violence in a way that fits the PG rating without diluting the lesson’s power. The whole sequence plays like a prophetic warning to Hogarth, and I can’t help but think that the boy is talking to himself just as much as he’s talking to the Giant when he reminds him –

“It’s bad to kill. Guns kill. And you don’t have to be a gun.”

Then everything flips around. It’s far too common for movies to tacitly glamorize evil and then apologize for doing so with some kind of lip service to virtue or goodness, but The Iron Giant doesn’t do that. The Giant decides to emulate the original Man of Steel, not out of some vague guilt about “doing the right thing,” but rather because his very specific love for a very specific boy turns out to be stronger than his general hatred of the pricks who want him dead. Wouldn’t you know it, it turns out to be strong enough to save those pricks, too. Kids and adults alike should take note. 4.5/5

SPLICE (2009)

Splice as a whole, and the critter at its center, is all form and little substance. They made a sci-fi horror flick about the dangers of genetically engineered chimerism because that’s, you know, what you do when you make sci-fi horror. Similarly its protagonists make a genetically engineered chimera because that’s, you know, what you do when you’re a geneticist in a sci-fi horror film.

Basically, this movie checks the genre boxes with little conviction and even less interior logic. Neither its protagonists’ methods nor their motives make a great deal of sense, other than “we’re misunderstood geniuses.” And not that I’m asking for hard sci-fi here, but like… Splice takes itself seriously enough that at least an attempt at scientific verisimilitude would help me take it more seriously. But there’s little to no world-building to make its laboratory milieu feel credible.

There’s some great critter effects and freaky Gothic imagery, though honestly I found the blobby prototypes more interesting and believable than the main attraction. And the lack of sensible characterization makes its nastier moments feel arbitrary and, as a result, kind of mean-spirited.

It left a bad taste in my mouth overall. Like so many sci-fi thrillers, Splice has a compelling premise that it largely bungles, despite some fun and freaky moments along the way. 2/5