L.A. Film Fest Review: A Well-Constructed 'People Like Us' Is Marred By Its Sentimental Mawkishness

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by Emma Bernstein
June 17, 2012 9:44 AM
10 Comments

In 1966, Michelangelo Antonioni directed his first English-language film, “Blow-Up,” in which a fashion photographer believes he may have unwittingly captured a murder on film. The film was hailed for its innovative use of cinematography and color composition, techniques Antonioni used to place his audience within his protagonist’s mind, to bring the photographer’s intangible feelings of confusion and uncertainty to the realm of physical depiction. This technical conceit was memorably mirrored – using sound recording rather than visuals – eight years later, in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Conversation,” then again in Brian de Palma’s “Blow Out,” in 1981. The three films were alike in their genre and premise as well, each a crime thriller centered on a character’s discovery of something hidden within the materials associated with his line of work. Alex Kurtzman’s new film, “People Like Us,” shares the technical prowess of these films, employing supreme sound and visual techniques to create subjectivity. However, an increasingly rote storyline and adherence to syrupy sweet romantic comedy tropes leaves a murky aftertaste: a schmaltzy tearjerker masquerading as a psychological thriller.

Sam Harper (Chris Pine) returns to his parents’ home in LA for the first time in many years when his father, a semi-famous music producer, dies after a long battle with cancer. Arriving late for the funeral, Sam is met with an icy welcome from his estranged mother, Lillian (Michelle Pfeiffer), and an odd last request from his father, Jerry, imparted by the family lawyer: deliver $150,000 to one Josh Davis, and take care of him and his mother. Sam immediately seeks Josh (Michael Hall D’Addario) out, only to discover that the boy’s mother, Frankie (Elizabeth Banks), is Jerry’s daughter, Sam's half-sister, a sibling he’s never heard anything about, let alone met. Rather than simply explaining the situation, Sam decides to take the friendly stranger approach to introducing himself, and it’s not long before he’s deeply involved, and in a very deep lie, with his newfound family.

The pain and chaos Sam experiences after unearthing this immense family secret is illustrated with great effectiveness through editing and sound. Determined to contact every Davis in the phonebook in order to figure out which one was named by the will, Sam paces through Jerry’s studio with a bottle of liquor, getting drunker with each phone call. Later, deciding how to approach Frankie, he hyperventilates in a bathroom stall. In each of these sequences, fast-paced cutting between slightly different angles of Sam’s tortured face is unnerving, while amplified sound effects of doors slamming, record players scratching, and dial tones indicate an eerie otherworldliness. Here are two very personal outlooks for the audience, views into the protagonist’s mind as it descends into an altered state of inebriation or panic. Both interesting and creative, these moments are perhaps the best ones the film has to offer.

Kurtzman is better known for his writing than directing, having penned the screenplays for “Mission Impossible III,” “Transformers,” and “Cowboys & Aliens,” as well as a number of episodes of “Alias.” “People Like Us” is his first effort at feature direction, and after such extensive work on action blockbusters, it’s not hard to understand why Kurtzman uses the overly technical style, despite his straightforward and sentimental narrative. And to his credit, it is, at times, effective. Yet, the potential of this stylization is lost when accompanied an expected story about ill-defined, terribly mawkish characters.

The script, written by Kurtzman, Robert Orci, and Jody Lambert, makes good use of the rom com outline, hitting all the right notes at all the right times as it heads towards its preordained conclusion. And the twist – that the two leads are siblings rather than lovers – is an interesting differentiation for this well-known format. However, the main conceit grows tired quickly, as Sam’s reasoning for keeping their shared parentage a secret from Frankie is unexplained from the start, meaning that his continued silence seems forced, a writer’s device for moving the story toward a dramatic climax rather than a depiction of real human behavior. In fact, aside from Sam, many of the characters lack realism, as they are drawn sketchily at best, inconsistent at worst, motives and manners contoured to fit the film’s needs at any given moment. Certain secondary storylines are similarly mercurial, as B-plots that would appear to be driving the story – Sam may be facing a lawsuit for a mistake he made at work, and he might be breaking up with his girlfriend (Olivia Wilde) – are resolved without too much trouble or effort – just kidding! No one’s getting sued or breaking up!

The actors each pull their weight, but a standout performance from D’Addario is the most exciting and enticing one on screen. The young boy delivers his overly precocious lines with the perfect know-it-all petulance and venom of an angry pre-teen, and probably has most of the film’s funny lines. Pine and Banks are generally good, but slip into actor-speak during many of their moments of cutesy bonding: they are charming, witty, and self-deprecating, but also visibly aware of it; in other words, they act like actors. While more natural when punctuated by shots from Josh’s handheld camera as he makes a home video, this “actors playing themselves” routine has become so overused that the supposedly realistic scenes take on a very staged feel.

The films from Antonioni, Coppola, and De Palma were groundbreaking both because they were able to build their stories and their characters via technical means as well as written words, and because the techniques used were radical in and of themselves. While “People Like Us” honors the visual and aural achievements of its predecessors well, it never manages to align its script with its images and sounds as successfully, leaving an audience with pleased eyes but discontented minds. The film is at turns sweet, smart, funny, and well acted; at others, it becomes excessively maudlin, the actors’ sentimental and nostalgic monologues covering for a narrative that has played out too quickly. Though certainly an incredibly well made film on a technical level, “People Like Us” falls short in its story and character development, and, by its conclusion, has failed to illustrate how these people are alike at all. That is, beyond the fact that they’re all really, really good-looking. [C]

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More: Reviews, Los Angeles Film Festival, People Like Us, Alex Kurtzman, Chris Pine, Elizabeth Banks

10 Comments

| Reply
Phoebe | June 20, 2012 9:46 PMReply

Well, I can't wait to see this movie. This review is unlike most all of the others I've read so I'm not going to pay much attention to what you thought.
Ben | June 18, 2012 4:16 AMReply

I too have read this script -- and know a bit about the production itself. There's nothing DePalma or Antonioni about this.
LA2000 | June 18, 2012 4:03 AMReply

When this script passed across my desk, I didn't get dePalma or Antonioni or psychological thriller.

I got Cameron Crowe lite -- sort of a cross between "Jerry Maguire" and "Elizabethtown" complete with the Crowe-esque high flying career meltdown, classic rock music cues, and precocious kid.

But now you have me curious, because the project I read would never have brought to mind "Blow Out" or "The Conversation". And while I can imagine the schmaltzy part, I never would have described it as a "schmaltzy tearjerker masquerading as a psychological thriller" because I can't recall any plot element that would bring to mind the word "thriller."
Alan | June 18, 2012 4:20 AM

Exactly (although I would characterise it as 'Elizabethtown' with an actual concept). I haven't seen the film, but - like LA2000 - I have read the script. At first, I was intrigued by the allusion to 'Blow Out', and then - remembering the film's ending - I quickly realized why the comparison was made. Like 'Blow Out', there's a camera and ... that's about it. Literally, there's nothing else in this film that even comes close to the thriller genre. There's a difference between 'intellectual' and 'pseudo-intellectual', and this review falls into the later catergory. Can't wait to read The Playlist review of 'Brave' that complains that the Pixar film fails to capture the adolescent angst of 'The Virgin Suicides'? Or the review of 'Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter' that suggests the film struggles to capture the verite intensity of 'The Battle of Algiers'? Or the 'Magic Mike' review that suggests Soderbergh's latest is no 'Sherlock Jr.'?
BAD REVIEW(ER) | June 17, 2012 9:59 PMReply

If the movie is "at turns sweet, smart, funny, and well acted", why not start with that and THEN mention what you don't like. Most movies right now aren't any of those.
yeahreallyme | June 17, 2012 3:03 PMReply

HAH ... really? ... Antonioni, De Palma and Coppola? ... Who are you trying to impress with this? ... I bet you'll love "Magic Mike"? ... critique that pretentious!... ;-) :-)
Tom | June 17, 2012 9:11 PM

Good review. It's not pretentious to actually to be knowledgeable about film.
WhatInTheHell | June 17, 2012 5:01 PM

Seriously... that has to be the most obnoxious review that I've ever read on The Playlist. Did the reviewer used to work for Pitchfork because this touches that level of pretentiousness.
lynn | June 17, 2012 11:49 AMReply

How's Pfeiffer ?
Mark | June 17, 2012 10:10 AMReply

Wait... you mean a Kurtzman/Orci film has a rote storyline? Surely not?!