Your Weekly Dose (3/31/22)
Apologies for the radio silence last week. Packing for the move and prepping to teach a class took up most of my time last week. I’m hoping to keep up the emails over the next few weeks but they might be spotty during our big two week road trip to Mississippi. In any event, as always, thanks for subscribing and sharing.
FILM
The Worst Person in the World
I’ve still been thinking about the conclusion of the second season of Euphoria. In some ways, I think it even prepared me for this week’s film prescription, Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World, a dramedy, whose setting and main character are just as far removed from my experience as Euphoria’s Rue.
The Worst Person in the World follows Julie (the brilliant Renate Reinsve), a young woman in her early 30s living in Oslo, bouncing from career to career. She drops out of medical school and courses in in psychology and photography, opting instead to work in a bookstore. She falls in love with Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie), an artist and writer, who is 10-15 years her senior, after he tells her that they can’t be together given their age difference. Their relationship soon starts to crumble when this age difference manifests itself in their different views on starting a family together. Aksel wants children, but Julie doesn’t…at least not at the moment. The other problem, it seem, is that Julie isn’t quite sure what she wants at all. She eventually meets and falls in love with Einvind (Herbert Nordrum), a barista, and they seem to be perfect for one another until Julie starts to feel hemmed in again and begins to sabotage the relationship.
Nothing much else “happens” in the film, and this is what will likely divide audiences. Julie’s is an unmoored spirit. In one captivating scene, she wonders the streets of Oslo after leaving one of Aksel’s book release parties. Before crashing a wedding party, she stops to look out over the city of Oslo, and her eyes well up with tears. In this moment, I was reminded of what St. Augustine wrote in his Confessions, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” Now I’m not here to convert Julie to Christianity or to impose any sort of theology on the film, but it feels like Julie is desperately searching for something in which to rest…something outside of herself to which she can attach her soul, so to speak. A career in medicine or psychology could have potentially provided that, but they didn’t fit. I’ll leave it to you to determine if she finds it at the end of the film.
As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Euphoria is an empathy machine. I think The Worst Person in the World, can be that too if we open our hearts to Julie. Like Rue, she’s part of a generation that has seen the embarrassing failures of just about every major traditional institution. Like Rue, Julie longs for a relationship with her father, who has essentially abandoned her and her mother and started a new family away from Oslo. She shows a talent for writing, but she seemingly has no one to shepherd that talent, and pushes back against her boyfriends when they praise her work. While all of this sounds terribly depressing, I found the film, if not hopeful, then somewhat uplifting. It’s beautifully shot, Reinsve gives a stellar, captivating performance, and the soundtrack is sure to be one of the best of the year (can we get that on vinyl ASAP please?!).
The Worst Person in the World is available to rent on all major platforms.
TV
Moon Knight
I know it’s waaaaaaay to early to recommend this series, especially since Disney+ only launched it with one episode (and not the customary three), but I can’t help myself…I loved the pilot, “The Goldfish Problem.” With only one episode to review, there’s not much to work with in terms of plot here. Oscar Isaac plays Steven Grant, a bumbling and socially awkward, but also brilliant, employee at the British Museum. He’s confined to working in the gift shop, even though he would make an excellent tour guide. Part of the problem is that he frequently suffers blackouts, is late for work, and sometimes misses entire days at a time. Like Steven, we’re not sure what’s going on for most of the first episode, until he (and we) realize that his body is playing host to more than one personality and that Steven’s corporal roommate is one badass superhero, Moon Knight.
Everything is working right off the bat, from the villainous Ethan Hawke to Isaac’s lovable Steven (that accent!) to the Oscar Isaac’s multiple personalities, culminating in that triumphant Moon Knight reveal in the final seconds of the episode. The edits that convey Steven’s blackouts are perfectly timed, and when we finally witness some of the action sequences they are, true to Marvel form, thrilling. Who knows where this will go or if the series as a whole can live up to the pilot, but for now, I’m along for this crazy ride on the cupcake truck (if you’ve already watched it, you know).
New episodes of Moon Knight release on Wednesdays on Disney+.
James Tynion IV is one of the most prolific writers in any medium at the moment, responsible for two of my favorite current comic series, The Department of Truth and The Nice House on the Lake, both of which feature strong elements of horror and not a little mystery. The Nice House on the Lake is currently seven issues in and about to be on a five-month hiatus, which is the perfect time for you to catch up with the recent release of the first trade paperback collecting the first six issues.
Walter’s a lovable guy, who invites twelve friends to a getaway at one of the most beautiful lake houses you’ve ever seen. The guests are from all walks of life and have enjoyed varying degrees of friendship with Walter at different points in their lives. What seems like the perfect vacation quickly unravels when they learn both why they were invited in the first place and who Walter really is. I don’t want to say much more than this, because the shocking reveal is worth experiencing for yourself.
The Nice House on the Lake instantly feels like the type of story I want to see on a premiere streaming platform when I finish reading the series. But it’s also highly unlikely that an adaptation could capture the brilliance of Tynion’s and artists Alvaro Martinez Bueno and Jordie Bellaire’s work. I mean look at this page:
As you can see above, it can be terrifying, but it’s also occasionally funny and always deeply emotional, both in the characters’ desire to connect with each other and their (in)ability to comprehend their new reality. The first volume of The Nice House on the Lake is available wherever comic books are sold, but if you don’t have a comic book shop near you, you can also read it on Kindle.