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January 19, 2022 - Image 5

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The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, January 19, 2022 — 5

























Several months ago, my answer seemed

to be “no.”

After witnessing the catastrophic fail-

ure of “Dear Evan Hansen” — a film which
I hated, adapted from a musical I liked (or
at least used to like. It’s difficult to listen to
Ben Platt since seeing the movie) — I began
to wonder whether a musical could go from
stage to screen without being ruined in the
process. Thinking about others I had seen,
I realized with some unease that every
one I came up with had disappointed me

somehow. “Evita” awkwardly fits songs
and story together in a way that detracts
from any power the film could have had.
“Les Misérables” adds songs not from the
original soundtrack. Both “Les Mis” and
“The Phantom of the Opera” suffer from
suboptimal singing (“Les Mis” being the far
worse offender).

These movie musicals feel like they

aren’t meant to be movies. But they also
aren’t meant to be musicals. They are
unable to maintain what made them work
as musicals while justifying their existence
as films. It was the adaptation from one
form to the other where they struggled,
specifically when it came to suspension of
disbelief.

If a movie is going to be a musical, this is

something it must contend with. On stage,
we don’t think twice when the characters
start singing. We have already decided

to believe that the stage is a setting other
than a stage (excepting, of course, musicals
where the stage is canonical). We accept
this just as we accept that the story is being
told through song.

It’s not the same case with movies. Or at

least, this acceptance isn’t as easy or auto-
matic. In “Dear Evan Hansen,” when high
school student Evan (Ben Platt, “Pitch Per-
fect 2”) starts quietly singing at the dinner
table in response to a question he is asked,
it feels wrong, especially when the other
characters continue to speak normally. It
seems less like he is delivering the story
through song and more like he is actually
singing his side of the conversation to these

people in their dining room. Much of the
suspension of disbelief is lost in the film
because Evan sings so much more than the
rest of the cast.

Despite all his singing, there never

seems to be a reason why. In musicals,
when characters start singing in situations
where people wouldn’t normally sing, it is
usually because they are expressing some-
thing where words aren’t sufficient. They
are moved to song, so to speak. But in the
film, Evan appears to just decide to sing all
of his thoughts, and when the other char-
acters rarely sing about their arguably more
complicated feelings, it becomes harder to
accept this.

The songs themselves often don’t move

the story forward because they lack move-
ment in a literal sense. The characters stand
or sit in a single place while singing or move
in a way not conducive to the song’s intend-

ed effect; for example, the original impact
of “If I Could Tell Her,” an alleged love
song, is lost as we watch Evan awkwardly
stalk Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever, “Booksmart”)
around her kitchen island like a serial killer.

I was given hope for movie musicals

after seeing Steven Spielberg’s (“Ready
Player One”) “West Side Story” last week.
Unlike in “Dear Evan Hansen,” the sing-
ing in “West Side Story” doesn’t feel jarring.
Everyone sings, for a start, and when they
do so, it moves the story forward. When
Anita (Ariana DeBose, “Hamilton”), joined
by an ensemble, sings “America,” we under-
stand not only her struggles and hopes as a
Puerto Rican immigrant, but the commu-
nity of similar people living in Manhattan.
The film also makes use of choreography
— absent in all but one song in “Dear Evan
Hansen” — letting the audience know that
they are not meant to take what is happen-
ing literally.

When Tony (Ansel Elgort, “Baby Driv-

er”) and Maria (Rachel Zegler, debut) sing
“Tonight,” the impression is that words
would not have been enough to express
how much they mean to each other. The
song acts to persuade the audience that they
are falling in love despite having just met.
The musical element, the theatricality, the
importance of music as something charac-
ters are moved to do when speaking will
not suffice, is preserved in this movie. In
“Dear Evan Hansen,” song simply replaces
dialogue when Evan wants it to. “Dear
Evan Hansen” brings singing to the screen.
“West Side Story” brings a musical there.

This idea of bringing the theatrical ele-

ment of musicals to the screen has led to
the success, or partial success, of other
movie musicals as well, at least as far as sus-
pension of disbelief. “The Phantom of the
Opera” and “Cabaret” are set in an opera
house and (as the title suggests) a cabaret,
respectively, where singing is a canonical
part of the story. This makes it more natu-
ral for characters to break into song even
when they are no longer in a scenario where
they normally would. “Chicago” makes use
of this as well, having most of the musical
numbers take place on an imagined stage
meant both to show how aspiring celebrity
Roxie (Renée Zellweger, “Bridget Jones’s
Baby”) imagines her life as a series of stage
acts and to comment on the immoral work-
ings of the justice system and its relation to
the press.

If you’ve seen the trailer for

Paul Thomas Anderson’s (“Inher-
ent Vice”) latest film “Licorice
Pizza,” you probably remember a
brief snippet: two people laying
nearly shoulder-to-shoulder on a
waterbed, faces turned towards
each other, silhouetted hands
almost touching. It’s a cute, sappy
little thing.

But in the movie, that scene

abruptly ends with the girl fall-
ing asleep and the boy trying to
grope her breast before changing
his mind.

I interpreted the moment as

simply a reflection of his childish-
ness, his horniness. It wasn’t until
I was talking about the film with
my girlfriend, days after we’d seen
it, that I questioned this.

“What if she was faking being

asleep?” she asked me. “Like a
test?”

I wanted to say no, to simplify

the scene into a transgression of
a teenage boy, but I couldn’t. I
wasn’t sure. That lack of certainty
of the extent to which the two are
aware of each other, testing each
other, is the driving force of “Lic-
orice Pizza.”

The truth of their relationship,

and of “Licorice Pizza” at large, is
complicated sometimes.

Like many of the best Ander-

son films, the plot is nothing
more than two infinitely interest-
ing characters colliding, finding
themselves unable to stay away
from one another and seeing what
happens.

This formula (or lack thereof) is

responsible for the tautly roman-
tic, intoxicating atmosphere of
“Phantom Thread” and the wan-
dering ambiguity of “The Master.”
In “Licorice Pizza,” it plays out
in episodes of ’70s tropes woven
together by the odd companion-
ship between 15-year-old hustler
Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman,
debut) and in-her-twenties-and-
still-figuring-shit-out Alana Kane
(Alana Haim, of the rock trio
HAIM).

Their relationship is definitely

romantic despite their gap in age
and life experience, but is no less

challenging than other Anderson pairs.
The two are mutually unsure of their
place in each other’s lives but simulta-
neously feel more recognized together
than they do anywhere else in the world.

It’s precisely in these kinds of odd,

undefined relationships where the writ-
er-director Anderson thrives; where
his indiference toward cliché gives his
characters an unmistakable realism.
One of the fascinating parts of Gary and
Alana’s relationship is the way its ambi-
guity makes it more, rather than less,
palpable to their friends and families.
Anderson is adamant about peripheral
characters asking Gary if he is dating
Alana and vice versa. Their confused
hesitation in responding embodies the

kind of tension that gives “Licorice
Pizza” constant forward momentum,
even as the plot (often hilariously)
meanders.

The film certainly has its laughs

— particularly an episode at prolific
producer Jon Peters’s house that exists
simply for Bradley Cooper (“A Star is
Born”) to clown around in a little mullet.
Yet the film is more efective as a study
of two young people coming to terms
with themselves through each other’s
eyes than it is as a ’70s LA hangout flick.
What I can’t stop thinking about, even
days after my viewing, is the minutiae of
Gary and Alana’s behavior towards each
other, how their mutual attraction cata-
lyzes just as much frustration.

It becomes hard not to adore how

messy the film feels. Gone are Ander-
son’s
signature
frame-within-

a-frame shots: his use of doors,
windows and other physical con-
straints of his sets to naturally
zoom in on a scene. Everything
here feels hazier, less concrete.

Alana is often shot in reflec-

tions instead, like in the mirror
along the wall of a restaurant’s
dining area in a pivotal ending
scene. This moment is one of the
highlights of her performance, the
conversation happening on either
side of her forcing her to take in
shocking information, while the
shot only lets us see a dim, muted
version of her expression.

The characters themselves are

messy too, an indication of the
era and the instability of grow-
ing up. The way the film includes
the anti-Asian racism, particu-
larly pervasive in its era, paints its
characters with gritty, sometimes
uncomfortable depth. Much has

been written about Jerry Frick
(John Michael Higgins, “Pitch
Perfect”), the white owner of a
Japanese
restaurant,
breaking

into a gross caricature of an Asian
accent in multiple scenes. I wish
similar attention was paid to the
more important characters’ rac-
ist actions too — Gary complete-
ly mistakes Frick’s second wife
Kimiko (Megumi Anjo) for his
first wife, Mioko (Yumi Mizui),
Alana literally bows to Kimiko
and Gary’s mom writes a rather
questionable marketing descrip-
tion of this restaurant, referring
to the waitresses as “dolls.”

There’s something honest in

this messiness. Anderson wants
us to soak in all the details of the
time and place in which he grew
up, to depict people as who they
were rather than who an audience
might want them to be.

Honesty penetrates “Licorice

Do good movie musicals even exist?
‘Emily in Paris’ season two has

improved ‘un petit peu’

Messiness in PTA movies, and why it

works in ‘Licorice Pizza’

Design by Madison Grosvenor

The image is from the official trailer for “Licorice Pizza,” distributed by MGM.

ERIN EVANS
Daily Arts Writer

ANISH TAMHANEY

Daily Arts Writer

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

I’ll be the first to admit it: “Emily in

Paris” is one of my favorite TV shows. Ever
since the first season dropped on Netflix
in October of 2020, I was hooked. Lily Col-
lins (“Tolkien”), gorgeous shots of France,
a fun romance? Sign me up. I finished the
first season’s ten episodes in record time
and sat around waiting eagerly for season
two — which dropped right as the Uni-
versity of Michigan went on break for the
holidays when I’d have plenty of time to
binge it. The show has improved in a lot
of ways, but the second season reinforced
some flaws as well.

“Emily in Paris,” from “Sex and the

City” creator Darren Star, quickly became
some of Netflix’s most-watched content,
though not all of the attention was posi-
tive. Critics and viewers alike hated the
countless clichés and stereotypes of the
French. That didn’t change much in sea-
son two, as Emily’s Instagram influencer
status became even more far-fetched.
While going viral can happen to anyone
at any time, the level at which it happens
to Emily is unrealistic (something which
users on TikTok are quick to make fun of).

One of the biggest — and most exciting

— differences between the two seasons is
that when Emily is not around, the French
characters actually speak French! Who
would have thought?

Emily’s sad attempts to practice her

French continue to be a running joke in
the first half of the season. In one episode,
she tries to write Camille (Camille Razat,
“The Accusation”), the rich Parisian who
befriends Emily at the start of season one,
a letter in French as an apology, but when
read aloud it makes absolutely no sense.

The show finally gave more attention

to minor characters like Mindy (Ash-
ley Park, “Girls5Eva”), Julien (Samuel
Arnold, “Antony and Cleopatra”) and Syl-
vie (Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu, “Call My
Agent!”). Madeline (Kate Walsh, “Grey’s
Anatomy”), Emily’s boss in Chicago, has a
much larger role in the second half of this
season as well. After a surprise arrival at
Savoir, the French marketing company
Emily works for, Madeline uncovers a
few business practices that the American
workplace would consider unethical. She

tries taking control of the French offices
and conforming them to the style of her
Chicago firm, only to have Sylvie quit and
open her own firm, with her employees
and their highest-paying clients in tow.
Seeing Sylvie and the others walk away
was satisfying, even though, for that
moment in time, Emily’s job seemed up in
the air.

One of the biggest areas where the

season fell flat was in the romance
department. Season one left off with a
cliffhanger: Emily spent the night with
Gabriel (Lucas Bravo, “Smart Ass”) before
he leaves Paris for good, only to find out
the next morning that he’s staying. Emily
then got a text from Camille, her friend
— and Gabriel’s ex-girlfriend (hence the
need for a letter of apology). Much of the
promotion for season two played into that
“will they/won’t they” romance, only for
it to appear exclusively at the very begin-
ning and very end. Emily doesn’t want to
sacrifice her friendship with Camille in
order to date Gabriel so she tries to stay
away, only increasing the sexual tension
that made their relationship so enjoyable
the first time around. But after Camille
finds out that they slept together, she
stops speaking to both of them, and Emily
suddenly moves on to Alfie (Lucien Lav-
iscount, “Katy Keene”), the handsome
Brit in her French class. The chemistry
between Emily and Alfie felt forced and
was nothing compared to that between
her and Gabriel. Emily’s relationship with
Alfie felt like a poor excuse to let Emily
keep speaking English without feeling
guilty, too.

Even worse, Camille’s treatment of

Emily is completely swept under the rug.
Her reaction to finding out about Emily
and Gabriel is justifiable, but she does a
complete 180 with Emily and gets her to
enter a “no dating Gabriel” pact only to
take him back herself. There’s no explana-
tion as to why Camille goes behind Emily’s
back like this (beyond Camille’s mother
cryptically suggesting it), and after Emily
discovers they have gotten back together,
there isn’t any kind of confrontation. Sea-
son two ends on a similar cliffhanger to
season one: Emily’s future with Gabriel is
up in the air, and this time she’s the one
who might not be staying in Paris.

HANNAH CARAPELLOTTI

Daily Arts Writer

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

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