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How entertaining? ★★★☆☆
Thought provoking? ★★★☆☆ 24 May 2015
This a movie review of RESULTS. |
“You’re not old, you’re just lazy,” Kat (Cobie Smulders) to Danny (Kevin Corrigan)
Is it all the testosterone making these personal trainers so aggro? An underserved profession covered by the movies (as opposed to cops, lawyers, doctors, etc) mean the microscope held over the world of fitness is automatically refreshing. Hopes, malaise and insecurities, if done well, are tailored to the chosen microcosm. DODGEBALL: A TRUE UNDERDOG STORY was too exaggerated to really glean insight (though that didn’t stop it from being hilariously over the top). Here, RESULTS is a more measured take.
Is it all the testosterone making these personal trainers so aggro? An underserved profession covered by the movies (as opposed to cops, lawyers, doctors, etc) mean the microscope held over the world of fitness is automatically refreshing. Hopes, malaise and insecurities, if done well, are tailored to the chosen microcosm. DODGEBALL: A TRUE UNDERDOG STORY was too exaggerated to really glean insight (though that didn’t stop it from being hilariously over the top). Here, RESULTS is a more measured take.
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Writer-director Andrew Bujalski has made his most conventional movie, jettisoning the cringeworthy mumblecore that made his name among indie cinephiles. Fascination with the socially awkward is thankfully still retained, but the odd bods of his previous sublime effort, and current pinnacle, COMPUTER CHESS, are absent. Growing playfulness as a filmmaker is reflected in a STAR WARS reference, then later a wipe edit that mimics early George Lucas.
The body beautiful are not immune from being twats, appears to be the message. Rom-coms tend to give their eye-candy leads quirks, as lame personality flaws, pilloried by THEY CAME TOGETHER, however, RESULTS makes their blind sides believable. Self-deceptions, from ‘Frasier and ‘The Office’ to ‘Arrested Development’, are what has elevated comedy over the last two decades. In our age of self-realisation, it is of course ironic that one of the maxims etched at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, “know thyself”, remains continually out of reach.
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From the pre-credits scene of Danny (Corrigan) being locked out of his apartment by angry wife, to post-opening credits residing in an empty mansion seemingly a millionaire, we wonder who this guy really is. Rocking up at the “Power 4 Life” gym, in Austin, Texas, owned by Trevor (Guy Pearce), channelling the philosophy of no fear, no excuses, no surrender, Danny wants to turn his pudge into a body that can take a punch without vomiting or bleeding too much. What a goal! Even before the results of the title, the three main protagonists are actually unaware of what their objectives should be. Comedy and enlightenment come from them rubbing up against each other.
Humour is not of the laugh-out-loud variety but from the smirks of recognition of belligerence and self-sabotage. Keeping us on our toes of what the movie is really about, supporting characters drop into the mix tangentially to muddy the waters. Will they be pointless asides showing the randomness of the people we come across, or can they be positive forces shaping us? Giovanni Ribisi’s Paul makes for an unusual commercial lawyer who will happily score weed for a stranger. Anthony Michael Hall’s Grigory is an intense Eastern European fitness guru, whose videos are continually watched by Trevor soaking up the self-help rhetoric.
Come to think of it, everyone in RESULTS is intense; unstoppable forces meeting immovable objects to endearing effect.
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