Maybe I’m the only one who didn’t understand the big deal about Juno, but I really am starting to wonder when and how staggeringly awkward and desperately uninteresting hipsters became Hollywood’s go-to protagonists. Regardless, the charm, if there ever was any, has definitely worn off. Year of the Carnivore follows in the wake of 2007’s script by Diablo Cody, which won one of the Academy’s silliest Oscar giveaways. Written and directed by Canadian indie talent Sook-Yin Lee, Year of the Carnivore doesn’t deserve to be called bad, it just hovers at a level too neutral to really elicit any response one way or the other.
When Sammy Smalls (Cristin Milioti) finally hops in the sack with her dream guy, Eugene (Mark Rendall), an aspiring musician who busks outside the grocery store where she’s employed as a security guard, things do not go well. They go their separate ways and she embarks on a quest for sexual improvement, believing him to be a pro she needs to match to ever have a chance with. The rest of the movie follows her goofy exploits and strange encounters as she attempts to force her body to blossom into a sex goddess’s, bumping into him along the way until they finally reach the film’s end.
The supporting cast delivers humorous performances, specifically Will Sasson as Dirk, the grocery store manager who drags shoplifters, no matter how elderly, into the storeroom for a rehabilitating beat down. The leads deliver fine work but their characters ultimately feel inconsistent. They both seem more inhibited by the script and direction than their own abilities. Cristin Miliot seems too “normal” for the Ellen Page character type she plays, sometimes uncomfortably straining to make a perfectly fine beat into something unnecessarily weird. Mark Rendall finds highs and lows, along with a reason to flip-out, but in the end it feels like he was trying to compensate for an arc that wasn’t quite there.
Again, none of this is to say that the movie is overtly bad. What Sook-Yin Lee’s film suffers from is too-little, too-late syndrome. Juno struck before weird got old, at least for the people who liked it to begin with. Want an Oscar? Instead of having a regular phone, make it a hamburger phone. It’s time that Hollywood realizes that these films speak for a quirky subsection of youth, not an entire generation. Maybe the box office on some of Michael Cera’s recent flops can affirm that.
Audience’s are along for the ride, assuming there is one. Hipster films are weird for the sake of weirdness, and are moving at a slower and slower pace in each incarnation. A protagonist too lazy or apathetic to change, no matter how strange they are, can’t carry even a short 90 minutes. They don’t earn our empathy or sympathy, and when Cristin Miliot delivers what would have been a superb crying scene in another film, we clinically and coldly understand how little emotion we have invested in her story.
After a festival run, Year of the Carnivore joins an ever-lengthening list of indie sex comedies that will forever fall in the shadow of Sex, Lives, and Videotape. Made over two decades ago, Steven Soderbergh’s fascinating picture defied reason by becoming both a critical and commercial success with our unusually Puritan American audience, even while it had “sex” in the title. Ever since, young filmmakers looking for their break have tried to capture its topical feel and mature edginess.
Where Soderbergh succeeded was in the depth and reality of his characters. His patient direction allowed the story to unfold organically, with the subtle touches of a developing master. Sook-Yin Lee forces herself on Year of the Carnivore, too desperate to define herself and mark the film, instead of trusting that it will speak for itself. Consequently, the film plays haphazardly, the sure sign of someone with a lot too learn, or maybe not enough to say.
DVD Bonus Features
Just a Behind the Scenes look with some interviews and a lot of scenes cut between the actual footage and the camera the documentarian had on set. Fun to see a movie set in action, but the enjoyment wears off quickly as even 12 minutes seem slow.
"Year of the Carnivore" is on sale April 4, 2011 and is not rated. Indie. Directed by Sook Yin Lee. Written by Sook-Yin Lee. Starring Cristin Milioti, Mark Rendall, Will Sasso.
