Downloading Nancy has become one of those films indelibly scarred by the knee-jerk reaction of the first people to see it; if you know it at all, you know that it was hated at Sundance. I wasn’t at the infamous press screening where, as Michael Lerman wrote in a piece on SpoutBlog late last year, “Audiences fled the theater mid-picture as Nancy and her new companion engaged in depressingly violent sexual activity, padded with an icky sensitivity that makes each viewer feel like they should go home and shower after just being present at the screening.” Watching it 18 months later — alone, so doubly removed from the kind of festival fever that can cause the first opinion to become the only opinion that matters — I can understand how a viewer could have been scared away by the film’s synopsis (frankly, the equation of unhappy housewife + internet + S & M = salvation is probably what kept me away from that press screening in the first place.) It’s also understandable that the film’s first scene of brutal (although by no means explicitly shot) sexually violent game-playing would send viewers to the exits, although that seems slightly less reasonable for people who watch movies for a living. What I can’t understand, is how anyone could make it through the full film and not have some kind of admiration for the way Downloading Nancy is shot, scored and staged; for the vanity-free performance by Maria Bello and the seductively morally ambiguous work of Jason Patrick; and for the magic trick it works, lending unspeakable trauma a kind of grace.
I’ll start with a short disclaimer: I fully recognize the potential arrogance in claiming to know the four most misunderstood films of the year. To say that I have some supreme viewing power that allows me to see these films for what they truly are reeks of a high and mighty attitude that I’d rather stay away from. However, as many critics are preparing their final tallies of what they loved and hated in 2008, I simply feel the need to put into print a positive perspective on four films that seem to be frequently criticized or overlooked.
That being said, there is a certain irony in the fact that all four of these films deal with a kind of misunderstanding. Whether it be a mix-up between characters or a challenging thematic element that dares the viewer to reevaluate the way they approach the subject matter, I feel each of these films does something particularly audacious with the concept of false impression.
One of the reasons I decided to review Sundance trailers throughout the festival was to hopefully draw attention to some deserving films that I’d want to see if I was in Park City this week. Unfortunately, it has so far been difficult to find appealing-looking movie trailers — or maybe it’s just actually difficult to find appealing-looking movies this year (could that be the reason for the lack of deals?). And so, I present you today with a trailer for a movie that looks far from appealing. Maybe instead of pointing to a movie for you to see, this can serve to point to a movie for you to avoid.
I guess every year Sundance needs some kind of uncomfortable movie dealing with sex. After all, it was sex, lies and videotapethat helped put the festival on the map. But boy is that film’s subject matter tame compared to some of the selections of late. When I was at the festival in 2005, I watched all but maybe two people walk out of Michael Winterbottom’s 9 Songs, a film that features actual sex intertwined with live rock concert performances (I stuck around for the Dandy Warhols song). Since I don’t think any cool bands appear in Downloading Nancy, despite it being the feature debut of music video director Johan Renck (Madonna’s “Hung Up” and “Nothing Really Matters”; Kylie Minogue’s “Love at First Sight”), I’ll have to say that I’d rather not watch a movie that might have a naked Maria Bello voluntarily being cut with a piece of glass as a form of foreplay.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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