Dum Dums and Hipsters

It could very well be that I am a sucker. For many things: girl singers, pancakes, inspirational sports moments. While I do not concede that I suck, I accept that perhaps I am a sucker. (What's the difference between a lollipop and a sucker? Give me five dollars and I'll tell you.)

Movies come along and people call them boring, twee, hipster bullcor disguised as profundity, but I, the sucker, become thoroughly entranced, engaged. That could be us, my wife and I whisper to each other. Neither of us wears a beard or owns an ironic t-shirt, so no hipsters are we. Where does the engagement come? The story, of course, and the characters and the beautifully photographed vistas and the intelligent writing that does not pander and the serious lack of car chases and the quest of a married couple wondering what the hell they're doing with their lives. Hey, that could be us.

"Are we fuck-ups?" Verona asks. This question crosses my mind EVERY SINGLE DAY, though admittedly it is not pluralized as my wife is in no single way a fuck-up, no matter how hard she tries and she does try. But really, am I a fuck-up? Time will tell as it so often does. We are all fuck-ps in our precious ways. The axiom "nobody's perfect" is nature's polite way of telling us we are fuck-ups. Thank you nature. And Osgood Fielding.

Now when people say that a movie like Away We Go is boring, pointless, and a waste of time, while I find it quietly enthralling, who is the sucker? Something felt so familiar about the journey of Verona and Burt. and their quest for home. And if I feel it, it should be true for me. The naysayers obviously have no connection, no feeling to the story or the material. Or maybe their quest for home is not one made up of philosophical questions punctuated by tender acoustic guitar. My thought is that most of the people who do not enjoy this movie have been cut off from the part of them that would allow them to enjoy it. They do not want to share a journey, they want to be catapulted full throttle into a world of adrenaline, pain, crunching metal, and kickassery. In their world, pain don't hurt. Thank you, Dalton.

Never wanting to dismiss someone's opinion -- unless it is really, really stupid -- I wonder then if some people are on a different path in life. They know exactly who they are and what they are doing, or even what they are and who they are doing, or even who they what and what they who. The gradual discovery of self does not interest them because they found it years ago with no questions, no sidetracks, no tender acoustic guitar. Maybe the world of the film bore no resemblance to their own. No overbearing career women with dowdy husbands; no spoiled, self-righteous hippies; no happy couples harboring deep-seeded pain; no absurd people at all in their lives -- except maybe Johnny "The Gooch" Mendoza who once banged out a pony keg of Coors solo while standing in the back of a Ford Ranger driving to Reno.

While enjoyment is experiential, the enjoyment does not need to be derived from a common experience. That is why comics who begin with "Do you ever notice" are not always funny. Yes we notice it, and what about it? People do not have to associate themselves with the characters in the movie to enjoy it, though it does help. Someone out there may have never met a spoiled, self-righteous hippie before seeing this movie and flipped at those evil peace mongers. What is it then?

It has to be the allegations of boredom. I was never bored. Someone was bored enough to describe Away We Go as boring, hence this post. Who is the sucker? Boredom is subjective -- duly noted. No car crashes or robots -- aforementioned. Are people, more specifically, people who watch movies cut off from beauty, self-reflection, absurdity of character? I usually rail against self-aware intellectuals and their dastardly bouts of cleverness, but here I could find none. I found honesty. Maybe honesty is boring. Has there ever been an honest explosion?

Understand that I do not proclaim this as the perfect film by any means. (That would be Casablanca or La Ronde or Rushmore.) It is very good, though, and when it is denounced by people, I truly wonder if I am just a sucker. Maybe so. Meanwhile, I have some magic beans to plant.