Cinematic Crushes, and Ways to End a Movie

I’d been meaning to see Funny Ha Ha for a while, and the recent hype about its auteur, Andrew Bujalski (including a profile in the Times and a review of his follow-up film on Slate), helped me finally take the Netflix envelope off the coffee table and watch the damn thing. It’s a solid, even moving effort, but you do have to give yourself a good stretch to adjust to the initial awkwardness of its amateurish vibe. Bujalski casts himself and his nonprofessional-actor friends in all roles, and you know how that can be -- excruciating. But if the movie’s any good, and this one is, there comes a point when something clicks and you don’t just forgive the aesthetic, you understand its importance to the work’s effectiveness. It’s like hearing Shakespeare and taking a half-hour or so to adjust to the early modern English before everything starts sounding more natural. Same idea here -- watch stammering hipsters for long enough and all of a sudden they seem normal. (Which explains how I’ve accepted my life, come to think of it, as well as how I came to enjoy this movie.)

It stars Kate Dollenmayer as an aimless 23-year-old killing time with friends in Boston and Cambridge, and her performance was the second of its kind (i.e. mopey but bewitching) that I saw this week. I also watched The Girl in the Cafe, which has myriad faults that are almost completely redeemed by the sad-sack charm of its two leads. Bill Nighy is the main reason I rented it -- based on the few performances of his I’d seen, I suspected he might be some kind of mad genius. This confirmed that. He plays a depressive, slouching, unsure, mordantly funny guy who occupies a position of some power in the finance office of the British government. In the opening scene, he meets the titular character, played by Kelly Macdonald, in the titular location (truth in advertising is so refreshing). She’s equally low in the shoulders, but about 25 years younger and beautiful by almost any standard -- except presumably Hollywood’s, since we’re asked to believe that she spends the better part of her days huddled in self-recrimination over a cup of tea wearing what you could generously call an old bathmat for a sweater, and that she would be utterly shocked to be given a second look by any man, even a defeated one who exudes whatever is the opposite of charisma (if whatever it is can be technically "exuded"). They meet to the strains of a melodramatic Damien Rice song, and approximately 90 minutes later they hold hands during a time of crisis to a Sigur Ros ditty. Also, the movie revolves around their attending the G8 summit in Iceland, and the plot requires her to spontaneously and aggressively adopt politics that would make Bono blush for their utopianism.

So, yes, it’s flawed. But Macdonald, it seems, is not. I admit to being smitten. I’m sure women experience the same phenomenon (see: Cusack, John, entire career of). I don’t mean to make too much of movie crushes, but they’re actually more rare than they should be, because beautiful actresses often have the personal appeal of a perfume billboard, which is not much.

I’m mostly interested, though, in noting the final frame of both movies, each of which lingers on a fairly dramatic moment only to abruptly cut to black. Funny Ha Ha does this more effectively; The Girl in the Cafe’s resolution is (too) cleverly concocted, and so its lead-up prepares you for the faux cliffhanger of the last shot. Ha Ha’s final image reminded me of a movie called Fresh, which I saw many years ago, and which ends on a young boy sitting across from someone at a chess table in a public park. He’s crying, and at the crest of one of his ragged intakes of breath, the film stops. It was an arresting moment, partly and obviously because it put you in the position of literally holding your breath.

I'm partial to closing moments of that nature, somewhat ambiguous and quickly taken away, but there are terrific final scenes that don't follow that template. The Passenger, one of Michelangelo Antonioni's later works, starring Jack Nicholson, ends with a very long, painfully unhurried-but-dramatic tracking shot that I can still picture long after I’ve forgotten much of the rest of the movie.

More favorite last scenes, anyone?