Margot Robbie's Rabbit Ears. Review of the film ”Finished”
During the localization, the new picture with Margot Robbie stumbled, did somersaults and turned from the harmless "Ultimate" into the bewildering "Finished", which gave reason to talk about it and the sophisticated fantasy of distributors long before the premiere. True, the harmless tape was only relative. The trailer promised us a neon trash, in the epicenter of which was another hypostasis of the mad Harley Quinn. At the exit, the film flirted with both neon and noir, but did not show any drive, causing only convulsive yawning in the viewer.Director Vaughn Stein is a full-length debutant. He has one non-resonant short film behind him, which only inveterate moviegoers could see. Among the producers of the tape, and there are twenty of them on the list, Robbie herself is listed. This, perhaps, confused the rookie director, who was afraid to demand a coherent game from his main star-producer. And in the end he was content with those acting crumbs that Margot Robbie left from her other roles and decided to use here. But more on that later. So far we have a picture, the genre of which is declared by the creators as neo-noir. We will figure out what is from noir and what is from “neo-”.  Strong noir and its later, darker and more bloody wave - neo-noir - are characterized by a certain, stamped set of characters. And if for many other genres, especially horror and detective films, where you want novelty and the effect of surprise, any cliche is detrimental, then for noir this approach is akin to barrel aging of whiskey and is the key to success. So, in any noir there is always him - a heavily drinking skeptic, a loner, a lover of philosophizing between glasses, a certain stable value that becomes a magnet for all the turns of the script. She is there too, but as an irresistible attraction of the hero, his fam fatal, inevitable fate on the way to death. In this picture, they decided to sort out the skeleton of noir, threw out the extra bones and instead of the spine, they made a rib in the structure as a load-bearing one.  In the center there was a woman, that same fam fatal, but for the missing hero had to take the rap for a handful of males, who, in terms of their involvement in the plot, did not even outweigh the main character. So noir turned out not according to the canon and, in all honesty, did not benefit from it. Too much was required of the heroine, and too little was allowed for male characters.Another fatal power of the picture is its location. And here you can cry about the name. The terminal, or terminal, is the place where all our moth heroes meet, flying into the light of signs. Some are looking for death here, others are not looking, but they still find. This is a night station, where restless passengers are waiting with a knife, and the only 24-hour establishment is a shabby, as if ordered here from American horror diner, where Margot Robbie reigns as a talkative and voluptuous waitress. At first, the nameless city created by Stein beckons, promises a hoax and vice, but in reality the neon lights flash like a light bulb about to burn out. The building itself is not behind the facade. Before us is a snag: plywood and cardboard. There are no here, as in a decent noir, no gateways alluring in thick darkness, no truly fallen women, no men who are ready to be gutted for their smiles. The whole film is like a scenery, in which they come, sit down, speak, try to fill them with something funny, clever, or just give an impetus to a stalled plot. But they still don't come to life.  From the first shots with the viewer, it is as if they are playing in association: guess the quote, remember the shot, evaluate the dialogue, find out the entourage. References arise so abruptly and in such quantity that quoting from previously filmed takes on the traits of fan imitation - at best, and at worst, it looks like a dishonest stealing of other people's ideas. The whole picture is teeming with trademark finds of other directors, like a magician's oversized top hat, from where the ears of a dozen rabbits stick out. If you pull on one, you will pull out the Tarantino gibberish spoken by the gangsters of his early films, for the second, you will find such a recognizable fetid city that descended from the graphic novels of Frank Miller, the ears of the third rabbit give out the street London accent of Guy Ritchie's comic characters. But such a generous donation does not save the film, it still remains insipid.  And this despite the fact that “Finished” is a fantasy Carroll Alice. At first only in hints, then more and more distinctly the film acquires the features of a fabulous surrealism. The heroine is like the sought-after white rabbit, followed by the heroes into the hole. But against the background of Carroll's genius, who managed to create the ground on which descendants have been treading for a hundred years, Stein's creation looks helpless. No matter how hard he tries, dragging out the scenes, dramatically seating the characters, thickening the purple twilight, but a smooth transition from reality to the world of dreams does not happen, instead an irresistible slumber rolls over.However, it could still be fixed. If Margot Robbie played her role, so important, brilliantly. But only her green eyeliner sparkled on the screen. This film casts doubt on the professional suitability of the actress. She was, of course, good. But only in a freeze frame. And if the Harley Quinn suit sat like a glove, then here the clothes clearly outplayed Margot herself. She is like a little girl who got to her mother's wardrobe and is so happy about it that she forgets to change her facial expressions, try to keep the frame, create symbiosis with her partner. In a static state, when she is dressed in a scarlet coat, looks predatory at the gangsters at the table or smiles with only mad eyes, the character lives. But as soon as it is necessary to convey tension, emotion, everything again becomes dead, flat, like a movie storyboard.  It's a shame that she got successful partners, and everyone, as if on command, played superbly. Simon Pegg, who managed to carry the riddle of his character to the end, Mike Myers - you will recognize him immediately and with joy, for so long he has not appeared anywhere. But the denouement becomes a big slap in the face - hackneyed, banal, simply unpleasant. And I already feel sorry for Myers, who returned in this role, and the efforts of his colleagues, who, despite the joking tone of the entire enterprise, took the picture seriously. In the memory of viewers, "Finished" will remain as a curious blunder of localizers, unfortunately, it does not pretend to be more. The Topic of Article: Margot Robbie's Rabbit Ears. Review of the film ”Finished”. |
