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| Not even a silly futuristic comb over can smudge the gleam on this masterpiece. |
Grade: A
Profound.
That's the best word to describe Rian Johnson's third film, Looper.
Rarely have I had the opportunity to say that a film has moved me, but Looper is such a film.
I'll admit I have loved Rian Johnson's work, which is only two films and a handful of Breaking Bad episodes deep right now, since Brick, but he has truly exceeded even my highest expectations of his talents with Looper.
On its surface, Looper is a Terminator-adjacent tale of a man, Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, continuing an absolute bang-up year of work), who kills for the mob of the future by blasting away unsuspecting (read: bound, gagged, and blinded) targets sent back in time through illegal time travel. Joe is a looper, a rather short sighted group of assassins who get a significant payday after they close their loop by killing their future selves, thus closing the 'loop' and tying up all loose ends for the mob. Joe enjoys the good life as one of these select few individuals who manage to prosper in a time when the world has become 99.9% occupied by the 99%. When the time comes for Joe to close his loop, his older self (a crustier, crankier, sadder Bruce Willis than we normally get) is not quite ready to face down the barrel of a Blunderbuss (the futuristic short-range shotgun favored by loopers). Older Joe disarms his stunned younger self and launches a mission to change the future, but is he the hero, the villain, or just a man possessed? And how does Emily Blunt's hard scrabble recluse farmer and her pensive child, Cid (Pierce Gagnon), play into all this time-skipping action that culminates not with an epic CGI battle through time and space but with three people on the outskirts of a Kansas farm?
As much these questions seem like the setup for some trite exercise in convoluted, contrived sci-fi action--looking directly at you Total Recall remake--they actually lay the groundwork for one of the most heart-rending examinations of the human condition committed to film this year. Looper is not really about time travel or gangland assassins. It is about selfishness and the reasons we grapple with this terrible and beautiful emotion. It is also about companionship and love, and the reasons we need people and they need. It is a movie with something to say in an era where most films, of any genre, have stopped speaking to us in favor of yelling about nothing.
A few weeks ago,
Drew McWeeny over at HitFix said this film moved him to tears, and I am not ashamed to say he is right. It was hard to be unaffected by
Looper because Johnson clearly went out of his way to craft characters who are far more than the cliched afterthoughts they so often are. In the process, he makes us care deeply for characters who do some pretty deplorable things. Yet, you never feel guilty about that empathy because it is based on an understanding of characters with very clear purpose. Young Joe is, for most of the film, a selfish, mopey wisp of a man who is visibly disturbed by his profession (as evidenced by his growing addiction to drops), but he is a man who wants to see the day when he no longer has to watch his stopwatch and wait for some poor sucker to pop up in his Blunderbuss' sights. His older self is just as broken, but he is driven by a love that has given him a resolve he never had as a care-deficient youth. Blunt's Sara is haunted by the mistakes of her youth in a manner much like Older Joe, but she is resolute in her desire to atone for those mistakes and give her son a better life than he would have lived without her. Cid doesn't want to make his mom sad, which is a far more challenging task than it appears to be. It is each characters desires and the very human, natural quality of those desires that make
Looper so resonant. These characters are each utterly, perhaps irreparably, broken, but they are trying, desperately, to make correct their errors, not for themselves, but for the ones they love. A quality so rare in today's more popular movie's that it's more heartbreaking than
Looper's denouement.
Yet, Looper's quality extends beyond its dense story and exceptional character studies to include an earthy visual style that renders the world of 2044 in tangible terms. With only a few features under his built, Rian Johnson proves himself an absolute master of the language of cinema. He understands the value of "show don't tell" in a way that few of today's filmmakers do. Near the middle of the film, Johnson executes a montage that traces Joe's life as he ages from Joseph Gordon-Levitt to Bruce Willis. It is a stunning, purely visual sequence that captures that character's demoralizing tumble into depravity and his eventual rescue. It is a masterful series of shots that are economical and purposeful in a way that few montages are. It also reveals, in short measure, the depth of Johnson's talents. Johnson, for a such a relatively "young" director, is quickly proving himself a maestro of style and substance. His compositions are masterful. His close-ups exquisite.The world he built is distant yet familiar. So much of the craft and artistry that makes Looper amazing comes directly from Johnson's masterful direction, and the quality of the overall experience is enhanced because of Johnson's singular vision.
The remaining strengths of Looper can be traced to the Gordon-Levitt, Blunt, and Willis' amazing performances. Gordon-Levitt continues a banner year with his role as young Joe. Aided by a prosthetic that makes him look like Moonlighting-era Bruce Willis, Gordon-Levitt does a masterful mimic of Willis, capturing all of the sly, self-deprecating mannerisms that have madeWillis such an endearing talent. Beyond his interpretation of Willis, Gordon-Levitt brings a squinty soulfulness to Joe that occurs at the dangerous intersection between naivete and ambition. Joe is clearly a man possessed by short-sightedness, but he is not an evil, amoral man; he is simply practical and desperate, traits which Gordon-Levitt so subtly imbues in Joe that they may go unnoticed. Meanwhile, Willis brings his signature slyness, wry wisecracks, and exasperated cool to older Joe, but this time he saddles his character with a thick melancholy and a desperate level of obsession. What's great about Willis' performance is that his Joe is not limited to those typical Willis moments. There are scenes where he is lost in love then there are a few where he is so consumed with rage that it's hard for the audience to empathize with him. Blunt, on the other hand, continues to show why she is such a valuable component of any production. Her poise and rawness makes Sara accessible, but it is the moments where she is most vulnerable that show just how great she is. Her Sara is just as wounded as Joe, but she has a resoluteness that carries Sara through some very challenging moments, partcularly with the amazingly poised Pierce Gagnon.
From performances to direction to story, Looper is a complete package, an incomparable experience that demonstrates the best of what film can be. Granted, the film is enthusiastically dense with a second act that drags slightly, and some might even find this hews too closely to Terminator. I would encourage those who find these to be points of consternation to recognize that these are only minor snags in a fantastic masterwork. Looper should make Rian Johnson a hot commodity, he surely deserves to be, but if it doesn't, cinema, as a whole, will certainly suffer for it.
The In Between Notes:
- The future is indeed drab, but it must be pretty bad when Miatas are considered classics
- Blunderbusses, gats? Are we talking about guns or Steampunk cosplay props?
- I feel worse for Willis having to sport the ridiculouos wrestler comb over for a scene than I do for Gordon-Levitt's probiscous prosthetic
- SLIGHT SPOILER: Hopefully, Hollywood can now drop its pursuit of remaking Akira.
