My coworker was telling me how well Jerry Maguire stands up today and I forced myself to remember the major beats of that piece of shit:
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Big company bad and evil; small start up good and pure.
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Being principled always pays off in the end.
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Everyone can make it if they try hard, believe in themselves, and believe in each other.
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We can have perfect interpersonal relations if we just learn to balance work and life appropriately, and it’s up to us to accept that challenge.
Fuck this movie. More importantly fuck people who like this movie. Jerry would have turned out just like his old firm buddies (even if the major plot points largely stay the same). Everyone in this movie is actively trying to exploit each other in the beginning. And even though it’s totally inconsequential to how bad these people are in their shitty lives, if you ask me the most unbelievable part is when Jerry and Bridget Jones get back together at the end.
Not buying it.
Tell me about the shitty liberal movies that are renting space in your head.
I watched this movie on Netflix a couple of months ago called I Care a Lot. It’s from 2020; It’s got Peter Dinklage in it, it’s listed as a comedy, drama, thriller, LGBTQ… And it’s fucking monstrous. Here’s the storyline off imdb:
Poised with sharklike self-assurance, Marla Grayson is a professional, court-appointed guardian for dozens of elderly wards whose assets she seizes and cunningly bilks through dubious but legal means. It’s a well-oiled racket that Marla and her business-partner and lover, Fran, use with brutal efficiency on their latest “cherry,” Jennifer Peterson - a wealthy retiree with no living heirs or family. But when their mark turns out to have an equally shady secret of her own and connections to a volatile gangster, Marla is forced to level up in a game only predators can play - one that’s neither fair, nor square.
So the opening scene shows Marla Grayson(Rosamund Pike) winning a court case where a distressed white guy framed as a weak, neglectful, mama’s boy is no longer allowed to see his mother. Marla has her in a rest home and the movie is framing everything as if Marla is the good guy. The weak white guy spits on her after the case, calls her a fucking bitch, we then find out Marla is a lesbian with a girlfriend, has her own very successful guardian business; In the first 15 minutes the movie checks all the neoliberal boxes as a White Yass Qween fighting the white man. But then we find out, that actually, Marla is a fucking monster and is taking advantage of these people, working with a doctor to find wealthy people who don’t have anyone that can stand up for them when the doctor recommends them for guardianship and Marla comes in and liquidates their life. It even shows her having a collusive relationship with the management of the care home she’s sending these victims off to.
Here’s where it’s supposed to get funny:
spoiler
Marla’s doctor friend recommends to Marla a woman who is really fine, but has no one to stand up for and then we see the evilness of Marla and her process. She swoops into court gets guardianship without the lady knowing what’s going on and totally wrecks her life… and just as we’re supposed to see how horrible Marla is we find out that actually the lady wasn’t alone, she was in hiding as the mother of a big Russian Mafia guy who faked his own death in Peter Dinklage. OMG! THE HILARITY! Peter Dinklage says give me my mother or I fucking ruin you… and not only does the movie frame Marla as a victim making her evil pale in comparison to Dinklage, but eventually Marla gains the upper hand and the fucking movie frames her as a a hero for it. A Yas Qween White Lesbian Woman who defeated the scary russian mobster! Hooray! She even earns his respect and they go into a partnership to expand her business of ripping off old people!
But wait! Remember that loser who couldn’t see his mother from the beginning of the movie? His mom died and that pathetic piece of shit never got see her again, so just as Marla is cresting the peak of her ascension, this pathetic, sexist, piece of shit comes along (regularly calling her a fucking bitch) and shoots Marla. And I shit you not the ending scene fades out with us seeing Marla’s girlfriend crying for her! It feels like we’re supposed to feel bad that Marla dies! Seriously, if you don’t plan to watch it check out the ending scene and tell me Marla is the bad guy.
It was like Neoliberalism the movie. Whether it meant to be or not. Fucking drove me crazy watching it. Reminded me of something Thomas Frank said about the reason no one really got in trouble for the 2008 crash was because the neoliberals didn’t care about the moral implications, they were impressed by the convoluted intricacies by which they worked around the rules.
I hated that movie so much. Not only is the ideology paper deep, the shooting is terrible, the writing is bland, and (as you say) the ‘heroes ’ are exclusively pieces of shit. Also it was like three different stories wrapped up and sold as one. Dog doo film making really
I would really like to know what the point of making it was? Were they really trying to make us feel for her? Or was the true intention supposed to be that the throwaway white guy was the real hero all along and we’re just supposed to hate lesbian girlbosses? It’s such a weird fucking movie. Why was it listed as satire? As crypto-neoliberal propaganda. WTF!!!
I have literally no idea. I hated everyone in the movie except the ‘villain’ (the dude who had his mom stolen, but was mean about it?). More than anything, I want to be a fly on the wall of Dinklage’s office after he read the script, but before he accepted the role. What was my man thinking???
Sound like the writer had in mind a dark comedy where everyone is terrible, and the director decided that actually one of the terrible people was the good guy.
I watched that and I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to think the main character is a likeable slay queen girl boss. I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to think she’s a sociopath lol.
Then they probably shouldn’t have repeatedly tried to frame her as sympathetic and a hero, which is my point. Check the comments on that YouTube clip of the ending. It’s not just me.
To me it just seems like the same energy as people watching breaking bad or the sopranos and thinking the protagonists of those shows are meant to be heroic. I’m not saying it’s a well made movie or anything, but people having no media literacy doesn’t mean the creators intended her to be an inspirational character 🤷♂️
I got so viscerally mad at the lead character in the movie, and so for better or worse this movie made an impression on me. I was so disgusted with this character it had me wondering if the movie was actually good. Like, to evoke such a reaction. The elder abuse was particularly angering as it was kind of played for laughs and i guess we were supposed to think it was kind of okay because, like you said, Russian mob. On the other hand, it’s probably more like a rorschach test or something. What I saw was abhorrent but others might’ve found themselves titillated by the extreme self interest and terribleness of the characters. Like Scorcese making movies that he claims are scathing indictments of his subjects and you are supposed to hate or something, but most people see it as normative and good (and tbf, that is a pretty reasonable impression to develop in a world under capitalism). I agree with your takeaway one hundred percent
