Life Itself: Should be put out of its misery

Life Itself (2018) • View trailer 
One star. Rated R, for profanity, dramatic intensity, relentless heartbreak and brief drug use
By Derrick Bang

This is the most relentlessly, manipulatively, cruelly depressing film I’ve ever had the displeasure to endure.

Abby (Olivia Wilde) and Will (Oscar Isaac) linger in bed with their beloved little pooch,
convinced that every morning — every day — will be as giddily, lovingly happy as this
one. Obviously, they haven't read the next page in this unspeakable film's script.

Writer/director Dan Fogelman obviously had some serious demons to exorcise, but that’s no excuse; he could have poured his heart into a journal, and spared the rest of us this soul-numbing slog of gloom and despair.

It’s also counter to what we’ve come to expect from the writer who brought us droll, sharply observed ensemble dramedies such as Crazy Stupid Love, Danny Collins (which he also directed) and the ongoing TV series This Is Us, not to mention Tangled, his clever animated take on the fairy tale Rapunzel. This has been a go-to guy for guaranteed entertainment for more than a decade.

What the hell happened?

And what in the world made Amazon Studios think people would want to watch this?

As becomes clear immediately, Life Itself also suffers from obnoxiously contrived structural and presentation tics, any one of which seasoned filmgoers generally recognize as a signal of Bad Things To Come: 1) tedious, said-bookism narration; 2) cutesy “chapter titles”; and 3) far too much time spent in a psychiatrist’s office.

At times, this is a deliberate deconstruction of cinema’s traditional storytelling process, in service of a running subtext concerning a fictional device known as the “unreliable narrator.” Hitchcock employs this quite notoriously in Stage Fright, when the “flashbacks” related by Richard Todd’s character turn out to be lies. More recently, The Usual Suspects tricked us grandly with an unreliable narrator.

But Fogelman’s use of this gimmick isn’t clever; it’s simply mean-spirited, as if he derives some sort of sadistic pleasure from shattering not only our expectations, but the investment we have in a blossoming series of captivating characters. By the end of the first “chapter,” the message becomes clear: Neither Fogelman, nor this film, can — or should — be trusted.

His apparent point: Life, itself, is the ultimate unreliable narrator, because just when things seem to be going wonderfully, true happiness can be shattered by tragedy.

Okay, fine … but must that happen over, and over, and over again, in the same dreary slice of rancid cinematic pie?

The film spends most of its footage with two sets of relationships. The first, bouncing back and forth in time, traces the blossoming relationship between New York college sweethearts Will (Oscar Isaac) and Abby (Olivia Wilde). They fall in love, get married, acquire a dog, and prepare to bring their first child into the world. They’re giddily, effervescently, swooningly devoted to each other: best friends, lovers, soul mates.

Isaac and Wilde are charming together, their shared chemistry enhancing the sense that these two people were born to be together. That said, Will clearly is a little too intense — a romantic extremist — but Abby seems able to cope with it; he promises to love her in the manner, and to the degree, that she’s most comfortable.

Except that something obviously went seriously wrong, because these events are related by an obviously distraught Will, during one of his ongoing daily sessions with therapist Dr. Cait Morris (Annette Bening). “She left me,” he keeps repeating, morosely, and we wonder: How can that be?

Elsewhere — elsewhen — and halfway around the world, in the Andalusian region of Spain’s southern coast, wealthy landowner Saccione (Antonio Banderas), who runs an olive plantation, becomes intrigued by his most loyal and hard-working employee. Javier (Sergio Peris-Mencheta) methodically picks the olives by hand, eschewing the rakes used by everybody else. They damage the fruit, he explains.

Saccione, a lonely bachelor with his own grim past — everybody in this verdammt flick has a grim past — seeks friendship; Javier, a simple man who’s much too aware of everything that divides them, resists. But he accepts a promotion to become plantation manager: a wise decision, because Saccione sees that all the other men like and respect Javier.

This enhanced status gives Javier the financial security to do what he has long desired: propose to the equally humble Isabelle (Laia Costa). The marry and have a son; Rodrigo (Alex Monner) grows into an adorable little boy. Saccione, captivated by the child, begins spending time — a lot of time — with the family. The tension is palpable.

By now, accustomed to the way Fogelman jerks us around, we anticipate the worst.

Banderas and Peris-Mencheta share a strong — if wary — dynamic. Banderas radiates the quiet grief of a man who has achieved what many would regard as an incredibly successful middle age, only to realize that he has failed to make connections with friends, lovers or anybody. Banderas’ cadence and inflections are so precise, so verbally descriptive, that when Saccione shares the story of his past — in Spanish — we almost don’t need the subtitles to follow the saga.

Peris-Mencheta, making Javier forever stoic and mostly silent, nonetheless “speaks” volumes with his gentle and perceptive gaze. From the onset, we recognize that he doesn’t really approve of Saccione — certainly not after hearing the man’s story — but refuses to judge, because it’s not his place.

Costa, in turn, is radiant as Isabel: a young woman so happy and consumed by love, that her feet barely touch the ground. 

Let’s see, who else? Abby endured her own grotesquely horrific childhood, as we learn during Will’s session with Dr. Morris. Dylan (Olivia Cooke), a wild child embracing her inner punk rocker, finds that young adulthood has estranged her from the kind and patient grandfather (Mandy Patinkin, as Irwin) who has raised her. Irwin’s wife, Linda (Jean Smart), is relentlessly — albeit hilariously — tactless.

You remember the dog, right? Nothing good there.

Oh, yes; there’s also a numb-nuts cameo by Samuel L. Jackson, under circumstances that set up Fogelman’s role as brutal puppet-master. And which also (I guess) justifies college-age Will and Abby’s choices of costumes for a Halloween party.

None of the actors can be faulted; Fogelman (as director) coaxes compelling, persuasive performances from everybody. But these characters, however well defined, are only props in service of an aggressively malicious and increasingly ludicrous series of gradually intersecting narratives. The story’s outcome becomes obvious midway through this 118-minute grind, and it’s as forced and artificial as everything else about Fogelman’s insufferably didactic sermon.

This is Fogelman’s “jump the shark” movie. Many successful filmmakers, too full of their own plaudits, succumb to such temptation. Spielberg had 1941; Michael Cimino had Heaven’s Gate; Barry Levinson had Toys.

Let’s hope Fogelman got this out of his system, and can move back to better things. Meanwhile, avoid Life Itself like the plague. Because, frankly, that’s what it feels like.