Do you know the type of movie that just gets to you? It leaves such an impression that whenever you’re in a group of people and you’re all talking about movies, jumping from one to another, breaking out the IMDB to make connections, you always feel compelled to bring it up? It’s not that you even liked the movie very much, in fact, maybe you fucking hated it because it was most frustrating 125 minutes of “entertainment” you’ve ever encountered in your life. But it’s in your head. And you want to talk about it. You haven’t seen it for years, you don’t even remember the plot clearly, but talking about it helps. It feels good to share it. You want more people to watch this terrible nightmare because the best feeling is bonding with someone else who has seen it. They understand. They know that itchy, uncomfortable sensation that it gives you under your skin. They know the vultures-circling dread that settles over you while watching the desperation mount in Sean Penn as he runs out of options. The absolutely stultifying, futile, frustrated rage that it engenders down in the furnace of your belly.
You know what it is? It’s not the circumstances. I guess that’s telling you what it’s not, not what it is, but I guess also a good way to get to what is is to know what’s not. Sean Penn’s character is not particularly sympathetic. He owes money to some gangsters and is shady and opportunistic. So when you step back from the circumstances presented, which are that he’s stuck in this town and can’t get the money to the gangsters to pay them back and therefore they are going to come find him and kill him, they should be pretty easy to come to grips with. He got himself into this situation and if he can’t get out, well he deserves it. But what made me root for him, what made me want to claw at the goddam walls watching this movie (by myself in my dorm room like nine years ago), is the influence of the other people involved. Because we’ve all been there. We’ve all been in a situation where you are frantically trying to do something—maybe it’s paying off gangsters so they don’t kill you, maybe it’s as simple as catching a subway before it leaves the station, or getting your laundry done after work before the place closes at the absurd hour of 7 pm, or trying to find a restroom in the greater Coney Island area during an event—whatever it is, Other People are making it impossible. Through their obliviousness, their carelessness, their indifference, their pettiness, or even their outright, deliberate sabotage, your efforts are thwarted. Time and time again. Over and over, the more furious and desperate you become, the more your anxiety is pushing you to try every tactic—threatening, pleading, force—to simply get done what you need to get done in the sheer, unscalable face of the essentially bureaucratic nature of human interaction within our society.
That is when the tightly-held control we keep over ourselves unravels and the brittle, polite exterior we maintain to get along with others disintegrates. Like when there is someone in a position of authority over your predicament that could easily help you out but refuses to do so because of some vague “rules” that supposedly tie their hands and they don’t have the independence of spirit to do the right thing. When you are doing literally everything in your power to fulfill your deepest need or desire at that moment, but unfortunately, other people are not in your power. You have no control. And you can’t trust them, or rely on them, or get them to help you or even to just get out of your way.
That is what this movie is about. The futility of your best efforts against the will of people that don’t have anything to do with you, who have little to no stake in the outcome of what is vitally important to you, but who will fuck you over anyway, every time.
You know what it is? It’s not the circumstances. I guess that’s telling you what it’s not, not what it is, but I guess also a good way to get to what is is to know what’s not. Sean Penn’s character is not particularly sympathetic. He owes money to some gangsters and is shady and opportunistic. So when you step back from the circumstances presented, which are that he’s stuck in this town and can’t get the money to the gangsters to pay them back and therefore they are going to come find him and kill him, they should be pretty easy to come to grips with. He got himself into this situation and if he can’t get out, well he deserves it. But what made me root for him, what made me want to claw at the goddam walls watching this movie (by myself in my dorm room like nine years ago), is the influence of the other people involved. Because we’ve all been there. We’ve all been in a situation where you are frantically trying to do something—maybe it’s paying off gangsters so they don’t kill you, maybe it’s as simple as catching a subway before it leaves the station, or getting your laundry done after work before the place closes at the absurd hour of 7 pm, or trying to find a restroom in the greater Coney Island area during an event—whatever it is, Other People are making it impossible. Through their obliviousness, their carelessness, their indifference, their pettiness, or even their outright, deliberate sabotage, your efforts are thwarted. Time and time again. Over and over, the more furious and desperate you become, the more your anxiety is pushing you to try every tactic—threatening, pleading, force—to simply get done what you need to get done in the sheer, unscalable face of the essentially bureaucratic nature of human interaction within our society.
That is when the tightly-held control we keep over ourselves unravels and the brittle, polite exterior we maintain to get along with others disintegrates. Like when there is someone in a position of authority over your predicament that could easily help you out but refuses to do so because of some vague “rules” that supposedly tie their hands and they don’t have the independence of spirit to do the right thing. When you are doing literally everything in your power to fulfill your deepest need or desire at that moment, but unfortunately, other people are not in your power. You have no control. And you can’t trust them, or rely on them, or get them to help you or even to just get out of your way.
That is what this movie is about. The futility of your best efforts against the will of people that don’t have anything to do with you, who have little to no stake in the outcome of what is vitally important to you, but who will fuck you over anyway, every time.
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