Cast: Michael Douglas, Evan Rachel Wood, Willis Burks II
“Its still the middle of nowhere… there’s just more people here.”
I am what the UK Film Council’s survey on ‘UK Audiences and Indicators of Commercial Viability’ would refer to as a film ‘aficionado’. The word sounds complimentary – perhaps it’s just the Hispanic twang – but it really means ‘devoted amateur’.
This is essentially another way of saying that I am pretentious enough to watch foreign language and art house films, but I still need to have my opinions formed for me by critics and real ‘film buffs’. The thing I hate most about this typology is not that it is reductive… but that it is 100% accurate!
I studied cinema for three years at university, and I am still working my way through the titanic backlog of films and filmmakers that I want to be well versed in. Every new film throws up five more that inspired, or were inspired by, said film. It is a losing battle, and at no point am I making an independent, creative decision about which film to watch.
But a few weeks ago I found myself in Qatar for a long weekend with no films. Doha is not famed for its art cinema scene, and after a few hours trawling through ex-pat forums on the Internet, all I could find was a Virgin Megastore on the fringe of the city.
One hair-raising taxi ride later and I found myself staring at three extraordinarily long walls stacked to the rafters with films I had hoped I would never have to subject myself to: everything the Olsen twins ever made mixed with box-sets of Smallville and all the Shrek films.
But in a dark, dusty corner of the store (I’m using poetic license here… it was actually just in the section marked ‘K’) I found a film whose minimalist yellow cover and classic ‘Indie’ typeface reminded me of David O Russell’s Spanking The Monkey.
It turned out to be Mike Cahill’s King of California, and it might be the first film in over half a decade that I have watched entirely independently and found as thought provoking, emotionally-engaging, and thoroughly enjoyable as any of the most famous films of the past century.
The story concerns a middle-aged man, Charlie (Michael Douglas in my favourite performance of his career), who is released from a mental institution and his luckless daughter, Miranda (Evan Rachel Wood), who is forced to look after him. Miranda had to leave school, get a job and a car, and lie to child welfare in order to look after herself while Charlie was institutionalised. His release doesn’t mean she can finally become a 16-year-old girl again… it just means she has one more thing to look after!
When Charlie tries to persuade Miranda that he has found Spanish treasure buried under the local Costco, she has an important decision to make: have him sectioned, or believe in him and follow him on what may be his final adventure. Needless to say, she chooses the second option; and what follows is a heart-warming, realistic, and thoughtful exploration of the sacrifices people are willing to make to believe in their loved ones.
This is a debut feature from an inexperienced director, but you would never believe it. Cahill holds this interesting story together by allowing the truly unique characters to dictate the action, rather than falling into the safety blanket of cliché and generic story beats.
He was certainly aided by the presence of Alexander Payne (Election, Sideways) as producer and Douglas and Wood as the starring duo. Michael Douglas is not my favourite actor by a country light-year; but here he is witty, confused, vulnerable, and yet strangely courageous and capable of carrying the hopes of so many people.
He manages to persuade us of Charlie’s mental frailty, but then forces us to take the same leap of faith that Miranda has taken. We end up following Charlie on his mad adventure to find the treasure, and we really do want to believe him.
Evan Rachel Wood is as captivating and mysterious as ever. She was perfect in Thirteen, Running with Scissors, and The Wrestler. Why she isn’t already considered Hollywood’s leading lady is beyond me. Maybe it has something to do with her choice of boyfriends.
This really should feel like a whimsical ‘Indie’ film about the American family: floating in a haze somewhere above the snow-capped hills of Sundance, but failing to have any real resonance with the social context it manages to completely ignore (i.e. anything by Wes Anderson).
That it doesn’t feel this way is testament to the depth of Cahill’s love and understanding for his subjects. He never foregrounds the social implications and causes of Charlie and Miranda’s situation, but it is always purposefully and unavoidably present in the background.
They live in an old house, which feels more like something out of The Searchers than the manufactured, assembly line houses we are so used to seeing in films about suburban America. All around them, these cloned stucco neighbourhoods are rising up out of the dust.
Miranda works at a MacDonald’s in a neighbourhood that didn’t even exist before Charlie was sectioned. How can we expect anyone to feel a sense of belonging, normality of self-control in a world that is constantly changing and growing at such an uncontrollable and senseless rate?
Of course, this also fits in with the symbolic message of the film: Charlie’s ‘treasure’ (the chances of acceptance and a sense of belonging) is buried under ‘Costco’ (the soulless expansion of corporate America that douses the flames of the individual in favour of the ‘good of the many over the few’).
I know this sounds cliché, and it easily could have been; but all the elements of this film – the cast, the director, the producer, and most importantly the idea and characters – come together to explore the expansion of the American Nightmare and the effects it has on individuals in a new and interesting light.
Was Charlie right about the treasure?... You’ll have to watch the film to find out!
If you do take my advice and watch this film then I might be able to reach up and grab on to the final rung of the UK Film Council’s ‘UK audience’ ladder… that of the ‘Film Buff’. But when I get there I won’t look down on aficionados. I think that the world needs more people who value the opinions of others over their own.
“Its still the middle of nowhere… there’s just more people here.”
I am what the UK Film Council’s survey on ‘UK Audiences and Indicators of Commercial Viability’ would refer to as a film ‘aficionado’. The word sounds complimentary – perhaps it’s just the Hispanic twang – but it really means ‘devoted amateur’.
This is essentially another way of saying that I am pretentious enough to watch foreign language and art house films, but I still need to have my opinions formed for me by critics and real ‘film buffs’. The thing I hate most about this typology is not that it is reductive… but that it is 100% accurate!
I studied cinema for three years at university, and I am still working my way through the titanic backlog of films and filmmakers that I want to be well versed in. Every new film throws up five more that inspired, or were inspired by, said film. It is a losing battle, and at no point am I making an independent, creative decision about which film to watch.
But a few weeks ago I found myself in Qatar for a long weekend with no films. Doha is not famed for its art cinema scene, and after a few hours trawling through ex-pat forums on the Internet, all I could find was a Virgin Megastore on the fringe of the city.
One hair-raising taxi ride later and I found myself staring at three extraordinarily long walls stacked to the rafters with films I had hoped I would never have to subject myself to: everything the Olsen twins ever made mixed with box-sets of Smallville and all the Shrek films.
But in a dark, dusty corner of the store (I’m using poetic license here… it was actually just in the section marked ‘K’) I found a film whose minimalist yellow cover and classic ‘Indie’ typeface reminded me of David O Russell’s Spanking The Monkey.
It turned out to be Mike Cahill’s King of California, and it might be the first film in over half a decade that I have watched entirely independently and found as thought provoking, emotionally-engaging, and thoroughly enjoyable as any of the most famous films of the past century.
The story concerns a middle-aged man, Charlie (Michael Douglas in my favourite performance of his career), who is released from a mental institution and his luckless daughter, Miranda (Evan Rachel Wood), who is forced to look after him. Miranda had to leave school, get a job and a car, and lie to child welfare in order to look after herself while Charlie was institutionalised. His release doesn’t mean she can finally become a 16-year-old girl again… it just means she has one more thing to look after!
When Charlie tries to persuade Miranda that he has found Spanish treasure buried under the local Costco, she has an important decision to make: have him sectioned, or believe in him and follow him on what may be his final adventure. Needless to say, she chooses the second option; and what follows is a heart-warming, realistic, and thoughtful exploration of the sacrifices people are willing to make to believe in their loved ones.
This is a debut feature from an inexperienced director, but you would never believe it. Cahill holds this interesting story together by allowing the truly unique characters to dictate the action, rather than falling into the safety blanket of cliché and generic story beats.
He was certainly aided by the presence of Alexander Payne (Election, Sideways) as producer and Douglas and Wood as the starring duo. Michael Douglas is not my favourite actor by a country light-year; but here he is witty, confused, vulnerable, and yet strangely courageous and capable of carrying the hopes of so many people.
He manages to persuade us of Charlie’s mental frailty, but then forces us to take the same leap of faith that Miranda has taken. We end up following Charlie on his mad adventure to find the treasure, and we really do want to believe him.
Evan Rachel Wood is as captivating and mysterious as ever. She was perfect in Thirteen, Running with Scissors, and The Wrestler. Why she isn’t already considered Hollywood’s leading lady is beyond me. Maybe it has something to do with her choice of boyfriends.
This really should feel like a whimsical ‘Indie’ film about the American family: floating in a haze somewhere above the snow-capped hills of Sundance, but failing to have any real resonance with the social context it manages to completely ignore (i.e. anything by Wes Anderson).
That it doesn’t feel this way is testament to the depth of Cahill’s love and understanding for his subjects. He never foregrounds the social implications and causes of Charlie and Miranda’s situation, but it is always purposefully and unavoidably present in the background.
They live in an old house, which feels more like something out of The Searchers than the manufactured, assembly line houses we are so used to seeing in films about suburban America. All around them, these cloned stucco neighbourhoods are rising up out of the dust.
Miranda works at a MacDonald’s in a neighbourhood that didn’t even exist before Charlie was sectioned. How can we expect anyone to feel a sense of belonging, normality of self-control in a world that is constantly changing and growing at such an uncontrollable and senseless rate?
Of course, this also fits in with the symbolic message of the film: Charlie’s ‘treasure’ (the chances of acceptance and a sense of belonging) is buried under ‘Costco’ (the soulless expansion of corporate America that douses the flames of the individual in favour of the ‘good of the many over the few’).
I know this sounds cliché, and it easily could have been; but all the elements of this film – the cast, the director, the producer, and most importantly the idea and characters – come together to explore the expansion of the American Nightmare and the effects it has on individuals in a new and interesting light.
Was Charlie right about the treasure?... You’ll have to watch the film to find out!
If you do take my advice and watch this film then I might be able to reach up and grab on to the final rung of the UK Film Council’s ‘UK audience’ ladder… that of the ‘Film Buff’. But when I get there I won’t look down on aficionados. I think that the world needs more people who value the opinions of others over their own.
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