"Manhunter" Year Two

Manson!  Son of Sam!  BTK! There are plenty of big serial killer names in this season of "Manhunter," which helps to add some energy to the traditionally slower middle episodes of the season.  However, "Manhunter" has a pretty unorthodox structure that already largely avoids this. It's only nine episodes this time around, and constantly juggling a lot of different balls.  The big case this year is the Atlanta Child Murders of 1979-1981, which Holden stumbles across by accident. Other ongoing storylines include Bill's home life being thrown into crisis, Wendy getting a new love interest, and a regime change at the Behavioral Science Unit.  

I appreciate that Holden is no longer the central focus of the show, ceding more of the narrative to Bill.  The Behavioral Science Unit (hereafter the "BSU") is now overseen by Ted Gunn (Michael Cerveris), who wants to expand and accelerate their work.  He charges Bill with keeping a closer eye on Holden, who is being treated as a loose cannon after his last encounter with Ed Kemper. A trauma at home complicates things, putting Bill's relationships with his wife Nancy (Stacey Roca) and son Brian (Zachary Scott Ross) in jeopardy.  Wendy also starts taking the lead on interviews alongside new hire Gregg Smith (Joe Tuttle), and begins a relationship with a bartender, Kay (Lauren Glazier).

As in the previous season, the BSU tends to come on to cases that are ongoing, and there are frequent detours with interviews, FBI internal politics, and other subplots.  This season, there is more of a willingness to let storylines overlap, with Wendy becoming more prominent and the Atlanta case having a lot of lead-up before it seizes the national spotlight.  However, its approach to the serial killer procedural formula hasn't changed. It still keeps the focus off of the grisly murders, only showing glimpses in photographs, and puts the attention on the psychology of the murderers and the members of the BSU.  The individual interviews are still a highlight, but I wasn't as impressed with the appearances of Stan Berkowitz (Oliver Cooper) and Charles Manson (Damon Herriman) as I was with the lesser known Elmer Wayne Henley Jr. (Robert Aramayo) and Manson acolyte Tex Watson (Christopher Backus), or the show's first interview with one of the victims - Kevin Bright (Andrew Yackel), who escaped BTK (Sonny Valicenti).  

The Bright interview happens in the second episode, one of three directed by David Fincher.  It takes place entirely in a parked car where the camera never shows us Bright directly, because Bright has asked his interviewers not to look at him.  Fincher manages to get some real, queasy intensity out of the very limited visuals, a stark reminder that his work has been unfortunately missing from movie screens since 2014.  "Mindhunter" isn't a great substitute, but there are enough scenes like the Bright interview that I'm glad that Fincher is involved in the show, ensuring unusually artful handling of the sensitive subject matter.  The Atlanta case is especially thorny, involving the deaths of multiple children, racial and social politics, and too much media attention. Holden and Bill team up with Atlanta FBI agent Jim Barney (Albert Jones), and try to enlist the help of locals like Camille Bell (June Carryl), the mother of one of the victims, who has become an outspoken activist.  

At times it feels like the show isn't giving enough attention to all these different cases and characters.  Even Holden feels like he's been downgraded to a supporting player at times. He develops an anxiety condition that's never explored past the first episode, and no time is spent on his personal life, which is odd since so much of the first season was about his relationship with Debbie.  On the other hand, this season is clearly designed to part of a longer narrative, it makes sense that Bill and Wendy are getting more of the spotlight now. The BSU is still a work in progress, and so are many of the cases it will be part of. BTK, for instance, finally shows up on the BSU's radar, and continues appearing in little teaser scenes, but there's almost no movement on his actual investigation.     

The cast remains very strong, with special kudos to whoever is casting the various serial killers.  I appreciate the more cerebral approach to the cases, and attempts to show different perspectives and considerations in handling the investigations.  Inevitably the stories get sensationalized, but I like that the show tempers the more lurid aspects in various ways. In the interview with Henly, for instance, the focus is on Gregg and Wendy's interview strategies.  It also thematically ties into Wendy's struggles with her sexuality and the progression of Bill's storyline with his son. The interview with Manson is spent mostly debunking the popular narrative around him, though it also ends up adding a bit to his mystique.     

All in all, this is a solid second season that's set up plenty more to look forward to.  Little is resolved, but all the right questions have been asked. I do wish David Fincher would get another major project off the ground, but "Mindhunter" has benefitted so much from his involvement, I wouldn't mind him sticking it through to the end.  

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Nuts, I Liked "Dark Phoenix"

There is a very long list of reasons why I shouldn't like "Dark Phoenix," which is going to be the last of the Fox produced "X-men" films.  It is writer and director Simon Kinberg's second attempt to adapt the "Phoenix" storyline from the "X-men" comics, after the disastrous "X-men: Last Stand," and he didn't really solve the major problems with it.  Jean Grey was always a difficult character to get right, and though Sophie Turner does her best, she's not very compelling here. I don't appreciate the way Kinberg mucks with the characterization of Xavier (James McAvoy) and Beast (Nicholas Hoult) to generate more conflict.  There are still way too many characters with too little to do. Surely Cyclops (Tye Sheridan) should have gotten more attention here, but then there's really no attempt at significant subplots. Or humor, for that matter. There's also a new villain, Vuk (Jessica Chastain), that is really just walking exposition in a cool outfit.  The whole second act is remarkably poorly put together, dropping plot points like lead weights while emotional arcs are barely sketched in.

And yet, to my immense annoyance with myself, I still liked the movie.  I have invested so much in this run of "X-men" films, I couldn't help feeling happy seeing these characters again.  I got such a kick out of watching the fully formed X-men team in action in the first act, rescuing a group of astronauts, and I liked the big showdown in the third act, which was well paced and showed off everyone's powers in a fun way.  And the sight of Michael Fassbender out-acting everyone around him, even if it's doing something as goofy as tug-of-war with a helicopter, still makes me so happy. "Dark Phoenix" is the only movie he and Jennifer Lawrence are appearing in this year, so that probably influenced me subconsciously too.  Compared to "Apocalypse" and a string of other, much more disheartening franchise films this year, "Dark Phoenix" came off as massively flawed but actually pretty watchable as an action spectacular.

Sure, I could nitpick about the nonsensical timelines or how ridiculous the latest costumes look, but when it comes down to it, I watch these films to see good actors taking on these larger-than-life characters and conflicts, engaging in CGI enhanced fisticuffs, and maybe a little social commentary around the margins too, if we're lucky.  "Dark Phoenix" gave me plenty of the first two, as "X-men" boasts the best casting out of any of the current superhero franchises, and the actors deliver plenty on even the worst outings. It also has a couple of interesting ideas regarding human-mutant relations that don't get nearly enough screen time or development, but at least the filmmakers actually tried to engage with that side of the premise this time.  We're probably never going to see any of the Genosha storylines on film, but it was nice getting just a hint of what it might have looked like. And I'm clearly not above being pandered to as a fan, so the little callbacks to past relationships and events went a long way with me. The final scene with Xavier and Magneto may have felt forced, but it was the right note to end the Fox "X-men" series on.    

Maybe I'm just feeling generous because the "X-men" series is being put out to pasture so abruptly, in less than ideal circumstances.  I thought it had hit its expiration date a few years ago, but I'm not happy that Disney is taking over this franchise, because as bumpy as the output has been, Fox has done some great things with it.  I can't help wondering what "Dark Phoenix" would have looked like, if they'd done it ten years in the future with a more seasoned director, or what some of the proposed spinoffs with this group of actors could have achieved.  Jon Hamm as Mr. Sinister will remain a pipe dream, alas. I almost wish that "Dark Phoenix" had been a real dud, because I could have written off the whole universe with no regrets. Now, I'm seeing it off with more reluctance. 

In the end, I want exactly what I wanted after "Apocalypse," which was to see all of these characters take a long break and regroup.  The reasons are a little different, but my sentiments are more or less the same now. Rushing into things and overreaching, as we're seen demonstrated over and over again, just makes a mess.      

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Mad About China

I want to preface this post with a few caveats. First, I've been keeping an eye on China's attempts to build their "soft power" by beefing up their entertainment industry, and Hollywood's attempts to court Chinese audiences and Chinese investments for roughly a decade now. I've also been familiar with Chinese censorship efforts for a long while before that. So what's been happening over the past few months doesn't surprise me in the least. I don't want to downplay how concerning these new developments are, but I've also been thinking of them as inevitable for years. I don't mean to sound flippant, but I'm far past the point of being surprised or outraged with anyone involved. Secondly, I'm definitely pro Hong-Kong, just as I've always been pro Taiwan, but geopolitics are complicated, and anything involving China is doubly so. Therefore, I'm going to avoid commenting directly on the politics of the current Hong Kong crisis. This will be a post focusing on the relationship between American entertainment and technology companies and the Communist Chinese government.

So, if you haven't heard, the Chinese government controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (the CCP) has been cracking down on media content due to a combination of factors. One is the current series of protests in Hong Kong over newly proposed extradition laws. Another is this year's celebration of the 70th anniversary of Communist rule. Still another is a new round of human rights abuses being uncovered, which are predictably heinous. Oh, and the creators of "South Park" decided to join the fray with a series of episodes directly calling out the Chinese government for its wrongdoing, and Hollywood for catering to them in order to access Chinese audiences. This earned them a total ban of "South Park" content in China. And suddenly the NBA is involved, because the general manager of the Houston Rockets tweeted his support for Hong Kong. Chinese broadcasts of NBA games have been put in jeopardy. LeBron James is now in hot water because of his tweet backing the CCP, and Hong Kong protest supporters are showing up to NBA games. And Apple pulling an app that the Hong Kong protesters were using has drawn criticism. And Blizzard Entertainment punished a pro gamer for voicing support, only to back down after fan outrage.

What does all this mean? Well, it means that a fight that's been going on mostly out of the public eye for years now is finally being dragged into the spotlight. China has been in empire-building mode for that past decade or so, but instead of conquering physical territories they've been using investments in business and technology to garner greater and greater influence. They figured out that companies are often as powerful as countries these days, and have thoroughly entrenched themselves in many different industries, including the entertainment world. And they may have embraced capitalism, but not democracy, and certainly not free speech. Now they're demonstrating that by actively leaning on major corporations to back them in their efforts to put down the Hong Kong protests and related criticism Some brave souls are resisting, but it's disheartening to see how many are giving in to the CCP's demands in order to protect their Chinese business interests. Fortunately, they're seeing a lot of push back for it this time.

Keep in mind that companies appeasing the Chinese and other problematic actors has been going on for a long time now. However, it hasn't been nearly this visible or this dramatic. The Hong Kong protests have worldwide attention and it's impossible to ignore how awful the behavior of the CCP-backed police has been, and often how outrageously out of proportion. And the crucial mistake that they'e made is that these strongarm tactics are spilling over into their online response to criticism as well, hitting much closer to home for some international observers. A disengaged American schlub might not care about kids in Hong Kong being beaten up and disappeared, but they might care about a Hearthstone gamer getting banned from competition for shouting a fairly innocuous protest slogan in an interview. Or that LeBron James is looking awfully hypocritical, promoting civil rights, but throwing his support behind the CCP.

I expect that we're going to see more flashpoints as the situation develops. The release of Disney's "Mulan" next year is sure to be one. However, I suspect that the little, petty power moves that the CCP has regularly made in the past, like refusing Chinese releases to Brad Pitt and Richard Gere movies, are going to be scrutinized more carefully. The map in "Abominable" highlighting Chinese claims to disputed territories got a lot more press than I think it would have if it weren't for everything else going on.

No one's cancelling China in a hurry, but the heat is on.

Stay tuned.

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"Legion," Year Three

I went into the third season of "Legion" very worried.  While I still enjoyed the show, I felt that the second season had become increasingly obtuse and inaccessible.  Certain changes to the characters and their relationships felt too extreme, potentially painting the writers into a corner.  And while I appreciated that the characters were morally greying, it was also becoming difficult to root for any of them.  

The third season doesn't change course, but it makes a difference that it really commits to its own special brand of madness.  David has now set himself up as the guru leader of his own personal cult, with Lenny as chief minion. The Summerland/Division 3 folks, assisted by the Shadow King, are trying to hunt him down and stop him from destroying the world.  As the premiere makes clear, Syd is now very willing and able to kill David dead to ensure he doesn't become the monster tyrant we've glimpsed from the future. There's just one little hitch - David has become friends with a time-traveler, Switch (Lauren Tsai), who is willing to help him muck with the timeline to an alarming degree.  

It's been observed that genre properties tend to introduce time travel whenever they find themselves narratively stuck somewhere they don't want to be.  The MCU and "X-men" movies, for instance, have taken advantage of this. With "Legion," it feels like less of a course correction than something that was planned from the beginning.  The third season is entirely built around the concepts of time travel, cause and effect, and David's obsession with trying to fix things. We meet the younger versions of his parents, Charles (Harry Lloyd) and Gabrielle (Stephanie Corneliussen), and a younger version of the Shadow King too.  

"Legion" continues to be visually inventive and wonderfully innovative with its storytelling.  Traveling through time is visualized as traversing a murky corridor that Switch accesses by drawing neon-lit doors in the air.  There are monsters that inhabit the corridor, the time demons, who look like a nightmarish cross between Cheshire Cats and Blue Meanies.  Their arrival is announced by the sound of a ticking clock, and with each tick their seemingly frozen images keep advancing closer, and closer.  The episode where they're introduced was directed by Daniel Kwan of the DANIELS directing team, who does all kinds of fascinating, experimental things in portraying how time can be warped.  Once sequence is entirely done in still photographs. In another, Lenny watches an entire human lifetime play out in a few seconds.  

This is in addition to the usual "Legion" graphic extravagance.  There are song numbers, a rap battle with Jason Mantzoukas, pastoral fantasy interludes, and much kung-fu fighting.  David has spruced himself up with brightly colored clothing and a color-coded new compound for his hippie-like followers.  Switch's eye-catching wardrobe immediately sets her apart, and she communicates with a distant father (Ben Wang) only through screens and recordings, which she listens to over ever-present headphones.  The show still looks and feels like a comic-book in the best way. The soundtrack is similarly impressive, and deployed with expert precision.          

   

But while all the style is impeccable, the substance left me a little wanting.  I could follow what was going on better than in the previous season, and I'm glad that the creators addressed some longstanding issues with characters like Syd, but parts of the story felt neglected.  There's no resolution for some of my favorites, and others have little more than cameos. I'm okay with how David's story ultimately concludes, but I think it could have been set up better. Navid Negahban distinguishes himself this year, but it felt like major chunks of the Shadow King's story were simply abandoned to play out offscreen.  

"Legion" remains the most daring and unlikely corner of the vast Marvel media universe.  I don't think we're going to see anything like it again in a hurry, especially now that Fox and all its various holdings are part of Disney.  And I don't know that Noah Hawley will ever have so much free reign over a television series in the future. This is a show so niche and so off-the-wall, and yet requires so much patience and indulgence, I'm delighted that it exists, but at the same time I have no idea who I could safely recommend it to.  David Lynch fans? Really dedicated Marvel comics lovers?      

Maybe I could just recommend the pilot and the Daniel Kwan episode.  And then, I'd let people find their way down the rabbit hole themselves.

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Uneasy Climate

Up until about two years ago, climate change was acknowledged, but not really spoken about directly in the media.  The mood has changed, however, and climate change has become a regular talking point. Maybe the sheer volume of the bad news about our deteriorating environment hit some kind of critical mass. Maybe it's because movies like "Downsizing" and "First Reformed" started addressing people's anxieties about the environment directly.  Whatever the reason, it's clear that Trump-era media is going to be marked by fears of environmental catastrophe the way that '80s films were marked by fears of nuclear annihilation.

So far this year, there have been direct mentions of climate change in shows like "Euphoria" and "Big Little Lies," and it's been explored through a more allegorical lens in genre films like "Fast Color," "Godzilla: King of the Monsters," and "The Dead Don't Die."  Disaffected television teenagers now regularly cite ecological apocalypse as a reason for their angst. In "Big Little Lies," a second grader had an anxiety attack brought on by a global warming lesson. Direct effects of climate change are rarely discussed - this is left for the many documentaries being produced about the subject - but they're treated with a grim sort of respect and certainty these days.  Environmentalists are no longer written off as kooks or conspiracy theorists. Even "South Park" apologized last year for its 2006 episode mocking Al Gore's efforts to raise the alarm about climate change, represented by the notorious "ManBearPig."  

Probably the genre that has been the most affected by the climate change issue has been science-fiction.  Over the past few years, nearly all depictions of the future have been dystopian. You don't see the kind of blissful, edenic views of the future that used to be common in the '50s and '60s.  Instead, there have been a lot of overcrowded ghetto cities full of corrupted technology, as seen in "Ready Player One," "Elysium," and "Blade Runner 2040." Or else it's environmentally devastated future Earths like "Interstellar" and "Avatar."  Brad Bird's "Tomorrowland" pointed out this difference explicitly, contrasting the space-age optimism of the past with the pessimistic views of the present, warning that this was becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Even in this context, climate change is rarely discussed directly.  I think there's still a certain reluctance because everyone is still having trouble parsing how to talk about the subject.  Clearly there's a major crisis looming, the outlook is bleak, and each new headline about the state of the environment has been more awful than the last.  However, there's also an important need to avoid being alarmist and defeatist about the subject. Every serious discussion of climate change tends to put the emphasis on what people can do to avoid or mitigate the worst outcomes.  Dwelling on the darkest timeline isn't helping anything.      

So evoking climate change in a fictional context is difficult because there's often not the narrative space to address concerns like this directly, and mining the crisis for entertainment value feels increasingly distasteful.  There's the whole political context that complicates matters. Many people, sadly, are still in denial that climate change is real. For others, however, it's too real, a topic that inspires such existential distress that it overwhelms whatever else the story is trying to achieve.  Cancer and Alzheimer's used to be verboten topics on soap operas for this very reason, recognized as too upsetting for many members of the audience.     

The doom-and-gloom treatment of climate change is no doubt also exacerbated by the current social and political climate in the U.S. and U.K., and I expect it's going to get worse over the next year with the 2020 election season coming up fast.  Watching the rise of the hard-right and alt-right, the spread of disinformation over social media, and the crackdowns on civil liberties, free speech, and privacy since 2016 have been exhausting. It's clear that there's plenty to be anxious about even without climate change issues.  

As all this anxiety comes to a head, I take some comfort in observing that attitudes toward climate change are changing, at least among fictional characters.  The creators still have to walk a fine line, and most mentions are brief, but climate change is getting more time in the spotlight. More importantly, it's being treated more seriously and more carefully.  We're a long ways away from Roland Emmerich's "The Day After Tomorrow," and that's a good thing.  

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My Favorite John Cassavetes Film

I've struggled to write this post for a long time now, because while I love the work of John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands, I've found it difficult to get across why I find it so affecting.  On the surface level, it's easy to describe a John Cassavetes film. He was one of the most influential independent American filmmakers of the 1960s and 1970s, shooting his films cinema verite style, with an emphasis on unpolished performances and bare aesthetics.  Most of his films were self-financed, funded by his acting career, and his major collaborators were a small circle of friends and relatives. My favorite of his films, "A Woman Under the Influence," used a crew of mostly students, and was self-distributed. This allowed Cassavetes total creative freedom, and the ability to tinker with his films in ways that few others could.  Many of his pictures have multiple versions and cuts.    

The result is a rawness and intensity to Cassavetes' work that was unlike what anyone else was making at the time.  Many assumed his films were improvisational, but they were almost always fully scripted, presenting a startlingly candid look at intimate relationships and situations.  "A Woman Under the Influence" is about Mabel, a housewife and mother of three, who suffers a mental breakdown and navigates a difficult recovery. She's played by Gena Rowlands, Cassavetes' wife and most frequent collaborator.  Like most Cassavetes protagonists, Mabel is desperate and on edge, unhappy with her life and unable to cope. What distinguishes Mabel, however, is that she's such an ordinary, believable woman. Her stresses - family, lack of privacy, stifling home life - are mundane and familiar.  As depicted by Cassavetes, however, they quickly become alienating and unbearable.  

I have trouble articulating what it is about Rowlands in this movie that is so electrifying.  The film runs for two and a half nerve-wracking hours as we watch Mabel and her husband Nick, played by Peter Falk, fight and rage and love each other.  The two spend most of the film playing the couple in crisis, but you can also see flashes of how they used to function, who they were and urgently want to be again.  There is so much in the performances, especially from Rowlands, that conveys the magnitude of what we're watching transpire. It might be two and a half hours of screen time, but you can feel the weight of years of escalating stress and denial and uneasy compromises.  The relationship has a sense of history to it, of past battles and too much swept under the rug. Falk has never gotten as much press as Rowlands for his work here, but he's fantastic, clinging to any semblance of normalcy he can for dear life.

I've seen complaints that the film is too long, and too bogged down by incidental small talk.  However, this is what makes "A Woman Under the Influence" so unnerving. The audience knows that despite the casual appearances, there's something wrong with Mabel, but not when or how she's going to explode.  And when she does explode, the scale and the severity of it is breathtaking, terrifying. Her world, her sphere, is not equipped to contain it. And what I love about Cassavetes is that he stays with Mabel, with her discomfort and her exhaustion and her devastating moments of clarity.  The entire film is really two long sequences, each building up to dizzying emotional crescendos, but also full of little moments of quiet and contemplation, tension and release. Without that context, the film's effectiveness would be a fraction of what it achieves.    

 I've seen most of Rowland's other film with Cassavetes and enjoyed them, especially "Gloria," where she gets to play a flinty gun moll who discovers her maternal side.  However, many of her other performances feel like variations on Mabel - the disintegrating actress in "Opening Night," and the codependent sister in "Love Streams." The hooker in "Faces" was perhaps a prelude.  They're very good in their own right, but I can't help seeing the echoes of "A Woman Under the Influence" in them. And those echoes keep showing up in so many other films and performances, from "Raging Bull" to "Her Smell."  American independent film wouldn't be what it is now without Cassavetes' efforts paving the way. 

What I've Seen - John Cassavetes

Shadows (1959)

Husbands (1970)

A Woman Under the Influence (1974)

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)

Opening Night (1977)

Gloria (1980)

Love Streams (1984)

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A Rom-Com Round-Up

I've been very tentatively and gingerly easing back into romantic comedies over the past few months, after many years of avoiding the genre.  There are landmines everywhere, from "Hallmark Channel" schmaltz to brainless raunch fests. I detest some of the tropes that plagued mainstream rom-coms in the 2000s - manufactured problems, horrible cartoonish characters, and outdated expectations about love and romance.  In other words, everything that "Isn't it Romantic" tried to lampoon earlier this year.

However, romantic comedies have changed, putting some of the old notions behind them while doggedly clinging to others.  I watched Netflix's "Set it Up" and the indies "Destination Wedding" and "Plus One" recently, and wanted to dissect them a bit.  Note that two feature Asian-American female protagonists, which is germane to my interests, being an Asian-American blogger. Two feature couples who despise weddings being forced to endure them as singletons, which is germane to my interests as someone who likes watching people being miserable at weddings.

I feel that "Destination Wedding," starring Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves, is the outlier here, as it's about two middle-aged wedding guests (and self-described narcissist monsters) who spend the entire film having extended conversations with each other, eventually resulting in a hookup and presumably a relationship.   There are barely any other cast members who appear onscreen and only the barest skeleton of a plot. It's really just the two of them cynically bickering at the sidelines of the joyous affair for an hour, before eventually softening and getting lovey dovey with each other.

This initially appears similar to the premise of "Plus One," where Maya Erskine and Jack Quaid play Annie and Ben, two old college friends who agree to attend a marathon of weddings together as each other's dates, despite not being romantically linked.  Of course, they quickly become romantically linked, unlinked, and relinked before the film ends. However, the characters are much better defined than the "Destination Wedding" duo and at a different point in their lives. Annie and Ben are endlessly sarcastic young millennials, still a little idealistic about love, and willing to be raunchier and sillier with each other.  

In that way they're similar to Harper and Charlie, played by Zoey Deutch and Glen Powell, from "Set it Up."  These two initially join forces to set up their demanding bosses, played by Taye Diggs and Lucy Liu, and end up falling for each other in the process.  Harper and Charlie are both horribly overworked assistants, juggling other demands, and are only taking part in the mutual scheme to try and get their bosses off their backs.  I like that both "Plus One" and "Set it Up" could work pretty well as comedies where the protagonists are simply friends. It's the "When Harry Met Sally" approach, and it still works.       

However, these are also both clearly movies about characters in 2019.  Though there's a lot of fantasy in play, the situations are more grounded.  Casual sex is fine. Comedic besties are off the table. Harper and Charlie both have to wrestle with the spectre of economic insecurity, and "Set it Up" opens with a great montage of frazzled corporate underlings struggling to run endless errands in New York City.  Annie and Ben are more well off financially - enough to afford attending roughly a dozen weddings in a single season - but are also more realistically situated in a web of relatives, friends, and acquaintances who take turns weighing in on the state of their relationship.  

All the movies I watched also made a point of commenting a bit on older rom-coms.  "Set it Up" pointedly shows that the relationship orchestrated by Harper and Charlie, featuring all the usual hallmarks of onscreen romances, doesn't work if it's based on false pretenses and bad motives.  "Plus One" and "Destination Wedding" spend a lot of their screentime having the characters gripe about and make fun of weddings - all of them very traditional affairs with formalwear, speeches, and dancing.    

And yet, some of the old tropes persist.  The women are prone to being a little manic and overly talkative.  The men are idealists, if a bit misguided, and always secret romantics at heart.  Many characters are cynical about marriage and throw shade at excessive consumerism, but in the end "Plus One" makes a nice case for long term commitment and "Destination Wedding" posits that mutual adversity is a great way to meet people.     

Of the three films, "Set it Up" is the clear winner for its good performances and juggling of a lot of different ideas, but the other two are also pretty decent.  And that's a relief.

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