2015 in review: before we go

*SPOILER ALERT*

(dir: Chris Evans) Everyone knows you can make the switch from one side of the camera to the other. Dick Powell did it, after two decades of the mad fuckery that is the life of a matinee idol. He directed five pictures in all, including the atomic-age melodrama Split Second, the infamous the Conqueror, in which the Duke armors up as Genghis Khan, a couple of Mitchum-powered war pictures and a remake of It Happened One Night starring his wife, June Allyson. Then there's Charles Laughton, who hit it out of the park on the first swing with Night of the Hunter, a piece of brilliance so bold and visionary that nobody was ready for it; his masterstroke went unheeded; everyone turned their heads politely and chuckled in vague embarrassment, and he never directed another. Some would call that a shame; I call it a damn tragedy. Costner, Streisand, Gibson, Eastwood all made the jump and landed in one piece, winning accolades and ready acceptance. Some have even worked their way up to sit among the highest of the adepts: Eastwood with Unforgiven and, I would argue, Gibson with Apocalypto.

I'm willing to concede that two of the big strikes against Before We Go, the title (cashing in on the Linklater/Delpy/Hawke trilogy) and Evans himself playing the lead, were probably enforced from without by the money-men. You can hear the meeting, right? "So these kids meet cute, they wander around all night, it's like that Ethan Hawke picture, am I right? People will think it's another one in the series if we stick a 'before' in there. And don't think you're not starring in this, pal. These girls, they don't give a crap what you do behind the camera, as long as that pretty mug is in front of it." (Don't you hope producers really talk this way, like they're in a bad '30s movie? Like Bruce Campbell in the Hudsucker Proxy? "Say, what gives?")

I hope Evans sticks with it. Learning your craft in public is tough, probably tougher when you're one of the most famous handsome men currently extant in the galaxy. (Although it'd be a thousand times tougher if he were a woman, yeah.) The good news is, he's not travelling down the Charles Laughton road. But that's also the bad news, you know? In forty years, nobody's going to dig this up and call it a forgotten treasure.

The plot summary my cigar-chomping producer guy gave is correct: girl meets boy, she's had her purse snatched and he's playing trumpet in the train station. They walk around all night, falling just a little bit in love, and part in the morning, after two chaste kisses, to return to their respective lives, forever changed by the brief encounter. As formulas go, it's not a sure bet, but it's no longshot; we all know you can make it work, and on a slim budget, to boot.

This one suffers from a weak script, leads who share what you might call a friendship-chemistry but no fire, and a main actor who, like John Wayne when he finally found Howard Hawks, needs an objective director to remind him to stop depending so much on his eyebrows.

Alice Eve, so winsome and charming in Men in Black III, and, as I recall, fully satisfactory in Star Trek Into Darkness (although that whole film seems to have folded into a mental black hole from which my memory can access only a few unextraordinary glimpses), leaves the fun behind for this one, coming across stodgily, unremarkably. I am ready to give her the benefit of the doubt and place the blame elsewhere, perhaps at the writer's doorstep. For instance, it's unclear from the start why this handsome busker latches so firmly and immediately onto this rude, icy woman of a Type That Is Not His (he says it later on, straight out, "You're not my type"), but that kind of "don't ask" is typical of this script.

Here, look, here's her story: she's been married for several years, and for the last few she's been secretly reading her husband's intimate emails to his clandestine lover, but never let on. The marriage went on as before, he never guessed she knew, and the only difference was that she recognized it all as one vast sham.

This is HIS story: for six years he's been carrying a torch for his undergrad romance, the girlfriend who broke his heart and got away. They've had no contact at all during this time, but he's thought of her every day, dreamt over and over of her return into his arms, into his life. This is a fellow we're supposed to buy as healthy, strong, creative, a talented jazzman, a guy with Chris Evans' looks, mind you, and well-to-do enough to carry eighty bucks folding money in his pocket while he busks.

Something's wrong with both these pictures, you see what I mean? This cat either has a drug habit that's inhibiting him from emotional maturity, or he's got some kind of compulsive disorder. This woman, I'm sorry, I don't buy it. You don't keep reading the emails for that long without the habit itself bringing a change into the marriage: either it's going to break, she's going to fold, he's going to realize she knows, SOME damn thing. My point is these are not stories from the real world. These are fantasy, made-up stories. They could be reasonably delivered by a Billy Liar or a Walter Mitty, or someone whose life is on hold due to drugs or neurosis or the shyness that comes from extreme homeliness or from having ducked out of life to care for your ailing mother, like in the Haunting of Hill House. But healthy, grown-up people with money to spend on artwork and haircuts, like these are supposed to be? I don't buy it, sorry, not for a nickel.

I'll tell you the one thing I DO like about this story, the one thing I've never seen before and worked like gangbusters: the ex-girlfriend is not a bitch, and she and the trumpet-playing torch-bearer still have a good, strong chemistry. The relationship didn't work because they met at the wrong time, that's all, and now there's too much water under the bridge, it's still the wrong time. You never see that in film, but it happens all the time in life. That was a great choice on Evans' part, to shoot the reunion as if it were a love scene, with gazes locking across a crowded room, melty-eyed smiles, pounding hearts, the whole nine yards.

As far as the camerawork goes, they say that nascent directors choose handheld because handheld is easier to cut. Alright, I'll allow it, this one time. But as soon as you learn your craft, you buy a damn tripod, do I make myself clear? Handheld works OK for this kind of film, but don't you dare make it your automatic, unthinking, fallback choice. Find yourself a crackerjack editor instead, and get to work on your Scorsese/Schoonmaker, Tarantino/Menke relationship.

IN SUMMARY: I can't think of a compelling reason to watch it unless you're an Evans completist. The upside is that he's been in far worse films, and it's not, indeed, the worst romance ever made. The downside is that I can't think of a compelling reason to watch it, unless you're an Evans completist.