Trailer: https://bit.ly/3itskNr

Aubrey Plaza is wicked good.

Just a couple of hours ago, I was thinking how the movies are over. Except for the superhero flicks, because really they’re like series, you know, the Marvel Universe is like a multi-season extravaganza on Netflix.

But the real movies, the soul of the industry, the stories, based in real life… They can’t open anymore. Oh, they can promote ’em, put ’em in theatres, but people just won’t go. They posit the audience, mostly oldsters, who support these flicks are afraid to go because of Covid…but in truth, they got out of the habit. Never mind it’s so much more convenient at home.

My mother, bless her soul, gone just over two years now, was addicted to the movies. That was her go-to. If there were a few hours, some empty time, which she hated, she’d pick out a flick. It was a religion.

It was also art. Something to believe in and live for. She went to the Judith Crist weekends…

Fewer people today know Judith Crist than Johnny Carson. I’ll bet no one under thirty, maybe forty, has a clue who she was. But she was the film critic for “New York” magazine, amongst other periodicals. Back in the heyday of film criticism, the late sixties and seventies, when movies still counted, before “Jaws” and “Star Wars” ruined the paradigm.

You see there was too much money in blockbusters. Just like there’s too much money in finance and tech. And there are some who can resist, but not many.

I was introduced to a friend’s friend in Two Elk, the day lodge atop Vail. He too was from Connecticut, but the relative boonies.

So I asked him how he got out of there, ultimately he coughed up that he went to Harvard.

So what did he do after that?

He went into “investments.”

What a waste. He could have changed the world, but he just wanted to get rich.

Sad.

You need enough money to live, but how much is that?

And that’s just the point of “Emily the Criminal,” she needs the money.

They set it up pretty well. How she got into this hole.

And then she makes choices…

I guess that’s got to do with your background too. If you grew up in a middle class family, your values are such that…

The middle class has evaporated. And the truth is those on the bottom will do anything to survive. Desperate people do desperate things, and Emily is desperate.

Is it wholly believable?

What we needed was a few hours to set up a slow transition. But you don’t have that time in a movie. So when Emily makes certain choices, they don’t ring true.

But that’s the script, the plot. The film’s execution is great, as is Aubrey’s performance.

I know Aubrey Plaza’s name, but prior to tonight I couldn’t pick her out of a lineup. Ever hear the host of SNL and wonder who it is? Impossible in the seventies, de rigueur today. At least I knew Aubrey Plaza’s name.

And she impressed me by being real. Sans plastic surgery. A regular person. The kind you’d meet, maybe not on the street, and would be intrigued by. Then again, Emily’s so down and out she doesn’t say much. Until…

Ultimately this movie is about standing up for yourself. It’s very well articulated. I tell friends this all the time. If you don’t stand up to bullies, they’re going to push and marginalize you. That’s how they became successful, by making you feel you’re inferior, taking advantage of you.

Emily says you must make your own rules.

Wow, that resonated. You’re either the boss or the employee. And if you’re the employee you haven’t got much power. Sure, there are nascent unions. Then again, everybody agrees to arbitration and the company always wins and…

Life is hard. Friends can be two-faced, they don’t want to take a risk for you.

And all of this is in “Emily the Criminal.”

I was aware of it, I caught the buzz when it was released in theatres, but I had no intention of seeing it. Until two people e-mailed me about it, I checked the RottenTomatoes numbers and the critics’ number was 94. Sure, the audience number was only 79, but I trust the critics first. And my cutoff number is 80, and 79 is close enough.

You’ll enjoy “Emily the Criminal.”

But it would have been better as a streaming series.

P.S. “Emily the Criminal” is a Sundance movie, as in it premiered at the festival and was acquired based on the buzz. But it stiffed in theatres, it only grossed $2.2 million in North America, which barely exceeds its budget. And since theatre owners take half the gross…

P.P.S. The festival model if not dead, is dying. You know, where distributors show up to skim the cream. Now that the films don’t do well, the glow is off. “The Los Angeles Times,” the industry newspaper of record, said this. Furthermore, the paper said that it doesn’t make sense to travel to Utah, when insiders can just screen the movies at home. You can go to the film festival as a punter, just don’t think you’re on the cutting edge, the festival circuit is now niche.

P.P.P.S. “Emily the Criminal” is on Netflix. 

You won’t know where this is going at first. But by the end of the first episode, you’ll say “wow,” and look forward to watching the other five.

Yes, there are only six episodes. A couple forty five minutes, but the rest an hour or so.

So it’s not a huge commitment. But if I were honest, I’d tell you to watch it all in one sitting. Because when a night or more goes by you have trouble keeping track of some of the plot lines. A week by week drip would be an utter disaster. “Black Butterflies” is really one long movie. And it’s French. And it plays that way.

“Black Butterflies” would not have the same impact if it were American. You see in America the stars dominate the story, cinematography is key, and the end result is something fake. You don’t get wholly engrossed, you don’t wholly believe it. And even though a couple of plot twists in the fourth episode might make you wince, “Black Butterflies” feels strangely real.

So if you’re a fan of French film…

I’m not talking “Mr. Hulot” here. I’m talking about something grittier, more cerebral. That reflects the human condition, and makes you think.

Adrien is a writer. Past his peak. Although married, he doesn’t really fit in. Then again, a writer does not have regular hours, unlike Adrien’s scientist wife Nora.

I don’t want to put all the pieces together, but let’s just say Albert, the old man, is very believable. Someone who has lived his life, and is now just biding time until it is over. He looks experienced, he’s lumpy, got lines in his face, but he’s still sharp.

As for Catherine… She was a babe once, but she’s not desperately holding on to her youth like so many Americans, she’s not trying to compete with the twenty-year-olds. She’s not caking on makeup, but she’s also not let herself go. This is a French archetype, and you’re drawn to it.

So when the series gets going, they flash back to the past. And the strange thing is you lived through it. At least me. And you reflect back on what you were doing then, and compare (and contrast!) yourself to the characters.

And there are multiple characters and multiple plot lines and you know they’ll converge, but you’re not exactly sure how. Which keeps you watching.

Not that “Black Butterflies” is a hard watch. It’s all there, what happens is easily digested, but what does happen is constantly unanticipated. I won’t say it’s a thrill ride, because unlike an American production it’s not screamingly fast-paced. Not that it’s slow, it moves at the pace of life. There’s an intellectual element. Life is being left alone with your thoughts. It’s the essence, it’s what we do most. But that’s not what we tend to see in American art. Unless it has that “look-at-me!” quality, begging for attention. Most of us don’t get attention, we’re flying solo, as many friends or relations we might possess. We want to feel integrated, but it’s a constant challenge, and the isolation can kill you. Never mind that you can be alone together.

“Black Butterflies” is not a comedy. I hear that from people all the time, they want something light, to take them away from the detritus of everyday life.

Now I’m not inherently against light, but I will say it’s hard to do right. I will also say I prefer gritty, edgy, that’s what I want from my entertainment. I don’t want to be taken away, I want to see myself, question my behavior, go inside. I want insight into the human condition, I don’t want to feel so alone.

Not that I could connect with the characters. That’s another cliché that drives me wild, when people say there was no one they could root for, no one they could identify with, that they dislike all the characters. Well, that’s how life is, why should art be any different!

Life is about making choices. And you’re constantly searching for information and also constantly finding out you don’t know much, or you’re surprised by something key. You want to grab hold, you want to eliminate the risk, plan it all out, but no life is like this, and the more you try to attempt this the more you squeeze the life out of life. What I mean is placidity yields little. It’s when you’re a pinball, when you’re the main character in an evolving movie, that life gets interesting.

I don’t want to overhype “Black Butterflies.” It’s not “The Bureau,” or “Happy Valley,” or even “Broadchurch.” But it’s well worth your time.

If you’re watching French shows I’d start with “A French Village.” Forget “Call My Agent,” that’s light fodder akin to “Mr. Hulot.” The French can do that, but it’s earthy and human they specialize in. And, of course, watch the police show “Spiral.”

But as French as “Spiral” is it’s akin to an American series, “Black Butterflies” is not. It’s got the essence of the country in the pacing, the plot twists, the characterizations, it’s the other, and therefore much more the real thing, as in the characters are real people, whose choices…you can evaluate them as opposed to laughing and discarding them, wondering what you’d do in the situations.

Will you be satisfied when it starts to all play out?

Well, maybe not as much as you were in the first half of the series.

Just one warning, really a tip, stay to the very end of the last episode, don’t turn the show off during the credits, which is de rigueur in streaming, hang in there.

__________________________________________

Subject: Trust me on this

We have the exact same taste in shows. Here’s one for you:

Black Butterflies.  Netflix.

Judie Gregg Rosenman

My voice is back and we’re going to try this again.

Tune in tomorrow, Saturday January 7th, to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

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https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/marshall-chess/id1316200737?i=1000592614468

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