Lars and the Real Girl, that strange-looking film where Ryan Gosling dates a doll, is surprisingly beautiful and not at all creepy.
Brick, 2005
Film noir in a high school setting? Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the dark, brooding, and flawed hero?
I think I’m in love.
Will: I dreamt last night of a shipwreck. You were cast ashore in a far country.
Viola: Ah, not yet, not yet!
Oh, oh, oh. I love Shakespeare.
I adore how modern writers have mingled and intertwined with legendary genius to create something even more heart-wrenchingly beautiful than the original, simply because it contains both the old and the new. I love literature! I love words! I love language!
Deep sigh.
I must admit, when I first saw this film some years ago, I scoffed and deemed it another failed romantic comedy. “They just fall into each others’ arms, there’s no real substance, what terrible female-to-male disguise, why the hell did this win an Oscar, bahbahbah.” Now that I’ve read Twelfth Night and taken a class on Shakespeare, I see that this film parallels a lot of the things that bother me about Shakespeare’s work. “God, more constant disguise, instantaneous love, deception, miscommunication, bahbahbah.” Somehow, I both hate and love it all at the same time. Shakespeare takes the same basic principles and makes it different—every, single, time.
This film is almost…inspiring? We create such beautiful things, and one story can unfold beyond the barrier of time into an uncontrollable array of gorgeous. This film wouldn’t be here if not for Shakespeare, and Shakespeare would not be timeless if not for stories such as this!
Happy heart as I leave to re-read Romeo and Juliet!
