The Atlantic’s David Sims writes a declarative piece called “Where Jason Reitman Went Wrong” because Men, Women & Children is being PANNED by critics. It’s the worst film ever, so bad it never should have seen the light of day. And THIS on the heels of Labor Day! Two in a row that critics didn’t like!
Funny story: When Robert Redford was receiving his tribute at the Telluride Film Fest last year he told the audience about the moment he learned everything you need to know about show business. He’d just done a play off Broadway. When it was finished, the audience cheered wildly, with a standing ovation. They loved it so much. They had a big party afterwards – they all thought it was going to go far in the season. One review came out the next day and suddenly the play died. No one was celebrating and he was no longer the big man on campus. So what did Redford learn? Most people don’t know what to think until someone tells them what to think, only then are they sure. That is what perception is all about. Sure, you can’t turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse but when there’s wiggle room, all it takes is one powerful influential voice to steer perception. One spectacular rave for Men, Women and Children by Manohla Dargis or AO Scott would change the way people regarded the movie. Critics at their best can illuminate the brilliance in something seemingly ordinary.
Sim’s article says maybe Reitman, the son of the famous Ivan Reitman, became too successful too soon with three well received movies in a row – Thank You For Smoking, Juno and Up in the Air. After that, according to this piece, things went very badly wrong. Indeed, Reitman is always going to be hated by people who can’t forgive him his easy success. I know, I was one of these people. Who is this Harvard Westlake brat who thinks he can make movies with the big boys? (Forget girls because girls don’t get to make movies, remember?)
It was compounded when Reitman sought sole custody of the Up in the Air adaptation in the middle of the heat of Oscar season and though he’d won more awards than any other contender in that category ever has and not won the Oscar, he lost it to Geoffrey Fletcher. That was the moment, I think, the worm turned on Reitman. The careful balancing act he’d been doing, proving himself as a talent in his own right was toppled as his critics felt free to let loose their resentment.
But let’s see where the critics fell on all of Reitman’s films, shall we?
Thank You for Smoking – a Metacritic score of 71. Not what I’d call a huge critical success, not by the critics then, that’s for sure. Glenn Kenny said about it, “This is the kind of comedy that gives you two meaty underhanded jokes for every big obvious guffaw. It doesn’t add up to much more than that, but there’s no earthly reason why it ought to.” Stephanie Zacharek, “The chief problem with Thank You for Smoking, isn’t that it’s over the top; it’s that it fits so neatly UNDER the top.” David Edelstein, “To work onscreen, Thank You for Smoking needed to be fast, scruffy, and offhand. But even the good lines here last a self-congratulatory beat too long. Aaron Eckhart is likable, but he’s too hangdog and naturalistic for a part that could have used a brisk young Jack Lemmon type.”
Those were some of the mixed reviews of the film. It only has one score of 100. So we’re not talking about a group of critics that said “wow, here’s the next big thing.”
Juno got an 81 and Up in the Air got an 83 on Metacritic. Both did extremely well with the industry, earning Best Picture nominations, and Juno won Best Screenplay for Diablo Cody. It came very close to winning Best Picture. But we’re still talking about perception here. We talking about the same perception that dubbed Hitchcock’s Vertigo an okay movie that was implausible and too long, earning it two Oscar nominations. Yeah, that perception.
Now we get to the supposed biggest crime — Labor Day.
Reitman was slapped around for trying to make a movie about a woman and one that would appeal to women. Both male and female critics tore it to pieces. I saw the movie. It made many people cry in the screening I attended. I found much to appreciate in it. I will never understand the beating it got by critics and I will never understand the continual need to punish Jason Reitman for making that movie. What I do know is this: it was “cool” to hate it. In fact, if you read the user reviews on Metacritic – you know, the people the movie was actually made for? You find the positives far outweigh the negatives. A reader named Mary wrote:
This eloquently simple, yet passionately tense movie is something to be remembered. The breathtaking cinematography beautifully meshes with
And another:
This truly caught me off guard. Jason is an excellent writer, but I don’t how Brolin and Winslet would mesh on screen. Under all of the
Sims points out Amy Nicholson’s pan of the review of the movie that got the lowest score on Metacritic but he doesn’t cite Todd McCarthy — yes, Todd McCarthy — who wrote:
The nowadays seldom-visited Hollywood women’s picture receives an intelligent and emotionally potent modern treatment in Labor Day. On the basis of Juno, Up in the Air, Young Adult and now his work here with Kate Winslet, Jason Reitman is arguably unsurpassed as a contemporary American director of actresses, and his work overall on this simple but delicate story of a lonely single mother’s quickly blossoming romance with an escaped convict is skillfully modulated. Told from the point of view of the woman’s vulnerable son, this Christmas Day release from Paramount should be promotable to solid returns on the basis of its offbeat story and heart-tugging appeal.
Labor Day received mixed reviews with the biggest complaints about it being that it was too sappy. Women critics really seemed to resent it for Reitman presuming to know what women might want. But you know what? So what. It seemed that way to me too but there was so much good about it, so much lovely swoony luxuriating sexy vicarious thrills to more than make up for that. It isn’t that many steps removed from The English Patient.
Men, Women & Children was so hated that it scored extremely low on Metacritic and now all but consumed any talk of Jason Reitman. Now, it’s fair game to say everything people have always wanted to say: he’s daddy’s little rich boy, he never had any talent to begin with, he was always overrated, he’s a hack, etc.
Years later, after that cloud of resentment dies down, critics will sift through the rubble, or younger generations will, and unearth Reitman’s Men, Women and Children and re-evaluate it. Only then will the tastes of those who write about film be judged. A film gets made. Critics revaluate it. They turn out to be wrong many years later. So, which was the greater failure? The film or those who failed to appreciate the film? I don’t know if future generations will find worth in Reitman’s work. I can’t know that.
He has nothing to be ashamed of with either film. There is no embarrassment here beyond the usual mob mentality that swirls around film fandom and film criticism these days. Labor Day was a noble effort and for many a satisfying film to watch. Though I am one of those who hated Young Adult I still admire him for making it – hell, anyone who can make a movie instead of sitting around and writing about it is a hero in my book. Men, Women and Children is scoring 50% audience satisfaction on Rotten Tomatoes, higher than the low 34% on the site. So maybe it isn’t well liked but it isn’t totally hated.
If you’ve been around this beat as long as I have you know that popularity is the name of the game. Paul Thomas Anderson could literally squat and take a shit on a plate and critics would hail that as a masterpiece. Sure, his films are rich and brilliant but right now they like him. They really really like him. But oh my foes and oh my friends, the worm can turn, even on him.
A glaring omission from Sims’ piece is that Jason Reitman was one of the reasons the film Whiplash got made. Reitman as an exec producer is the shadowy background figure of Whiplash, one of the most talked about films of the year. Reitman is credited with helping Chazelle get the short made and then the feature. How is Reitman a failure if he can also take credit for having his name on one of the critics darlings of the year?
It is way too soon to declare defeat on Reitman as though he’s a political candidate running for a second term, especially when he’s also got Whiplash to take partial credit for this year. Moreover, he made a weirdly provocative film with Men, Women & Children that maybe didn’t hit its target exactly right. The point is, he made a weirdly provocative film. Someone, somewhere is going to take notice.
He is only just now learning the lesson that many directors before him have learned: they like you until they don’t. or as John Turturro would say in Quiz Show, “you’re never leaving a guy alone unless you’re leaving him alone.”