Sticking point: Movies that failed in getting their message across

Oliver Stone has never shied away from controversy when it comes to his films, but even so, Natural Born Killers is arguably his most vexing. It is supposedly a critique of the way that the mass media tends to fetishize mass murders and those who commit them. However, it never quite succeeds in these aims, and, just as importantly, it doesn’t do much to force the viewer to examine the characters and their actions critically. When it comes down to it, the film is far too in love with its own blood and pulp for its message to ever really land.

The Menu was one of the most highly lauded films of 2022. This is hardly surprising, given the extraordinary performances from its lead cast, which includes such heavy hitters as Ralph Fiennes, Nicholas Hoult, and Anya Taylor-Joy. The film seems to be about several things: the agonies of celebrity chefs, the banality of the culinary world, and the overweening of creative egos. However, none of its messages manage to land with any particular punch, and it often seems a film that is so much in love with its own cleverness and arch sense of humor as it is with its satire. 

Rambo is one of those films that looms large in the collective American imagination, due in no small part to the fact that Sylvester Stallone is an undeniable star. For many, the film is the epitome of the machismo and macho masculinity of the 1980s, and there are elements of the film to support this reading. However, this doesn’t seem to be  Rambo’s primary intent since it is often far more interested in the damaging legacy of the Vietnam War and the way that it left an entire generation of American soldiers deeply and irreversibly wounded. Unfortunately, the more militaristic reading has gained prominence, particularly since the other entries in the series lean much more into the macho vibe.

A Serbian Film is one of those movies which goes out of its way to court controversy, particularly since it focuses on an out-of-work porn actor who finds himself recruited for a snuff film. There are few buttons that this film doesn’t try to push, and the results are decidedly mixed. While it seems to want to be an exploration of Serbian society in the aftermath of decades of civil and social disruption. In the end, though, it tends to get in the way of its own messaging; it ends up leaning so hard into its own violence and ugliness that any larger message or piece of social commentary ends up being completely lost.

The Last Jedi has the dubious distinction of being one of the most controversial Star Wars films. This partly stems from director Rian Johnson’s iconoclastic approach to the mythology and his decision to make Rey a regular person rather than the scion of some powerful dynasty such as the Skywalkers or the Palpatines. Unfortunately, the film’s central message never quite lands, partly because Rey is still the chosen one in this story when all is said and done. It certainly doesn’t help that the concluding film in the sequel trilogy,  Rise of Skywalker, goes out of its way to utterly obliterate any trace of its predecessor. 

In some ways, District 9 is one of the most compelling and thought-provoking sci-fi films to have emerged from the 2000s. Its story about a group of aliens, who are called Prawns due to their crustacean-like appearance, trapped in South Africa is obviously one with many political overtones. Sometimes its political messages land, particularly when it comes to the perniciousness of apartheid, at others it falls a bit flat. Sometimes, as is often the case with its representation of Nigerians, it ends up becoming just another iteration of ugly and very problematic racist tropes. 

The aptly-titled Megan is Missing is supposedly about how young women disappear and are never heard from again and about how this should horrify culture and society at large. However, it seems to go out of its way to exploit its characters to ask the audience to indulge their voyeuristic and sadistic impulses. Some horror films are able to pull off this kind of balancing act, but unfortunately, Megan is Missing ends up replicating the very systems of exploitation that it is supposedly trying to critique. It is, ultimately, undone by the same conventions of the genre in which it chooses to work. 

Mommie Dearest — the film based on the memoir of Christina Crawford, the adopted daughter of noted classic Hollywood star Joan Crawford — is supposed to be a serious drama about childhood abuse and trauma. What it ends up being, however, is a film that is, in some ways, the very epitome of camp excess. Much of this can be ascribed to the central performance from Faye Dunaway, who seems intent on devouring every aspect of the film, including her co-stars. The suffering Christine allegedly endured as her mother’s daughter is largely subsumed into the film’s overwrought screenplay and performances, and it has become particularly beloved as a queer classic. 

At first glance, The Greatest Showman  is a fun musical starring Hugh Jackman, who portrays P.T. Barnum, arguably one of the most successful entertainers in the history of the US. However, a closer look reveals a film much more uncertain in its grasp of its central character. Though the movie goes out of its way to highlight the extent to which Barnum gave opportunity to the outcasts of society, it often ends up shuffling those very characters to the edge of the story in favor of the man himself. More egregiously, perhaps, it also valorizes a man who, most historians agree, was a ruthless opportunist who was more than happy to exploit those in his employ.

Yorgos Lanthimos is one of those directors with his own unique style and sensibility, and he brings both to bear in Poor Things.  Based on the novel of the same name by Alasdair Gray, it follows Emma Stone’s Bella Baxter, who has the body of an adult human but the mind of a child, as she goes on a journey of sexual self-discovery. While the film clearly wants to position Bella as the subject and as the owner of her desires, it frequently caters to the male gaze in a way that aligns it with so many other Hollywood films. 

Disney has long excelled at creating films that manage to entertain and convey important life lessons. At first glance, Encanto seems to continue this trend, with its story about Mirabel, the only member of a magical family without a special gift. For most of its runtime, the film seems to suggest that there are more important things than simply having a magical gift, only to make an about-face at the very end, when the family’s gifts are restored, and all is made right with the world. While this makes for a traditional fairy-tale ending, it does serve to undercut the rest of its egalitarian message.

On the surface, Saltburn seems to be a scathing critique of the obliviousness of the British upper class, focusing on Barry Keoghan’s Oliver Quick as he ingratiates himself with the wealthy Catton family at their estate known as Saltburn. However, the film very often veers into provocation for provocation’s sake, muddying and muddling its supposed message. In the end, it’s hard to say whether it wants viewers to praise Oliver for his takedown and destruction of the Catton family and his eventual ownership of Saltburn or whether it wants them to see him as a threat and a danger. Either way, it’s a stylish film that focuses more on how it presents its message rather than the message itself. 

Promising Young Woman vaulted writer/director Emerald Fennell into the ranks of young filmmakers to watch, and Carey Mulligan gives a stunning performance as Cassie Thomas, who is determined to get revenge for her friend who was sexually assaulted and later died by suıcide. In the end, she does get her final revenge on the perpetrators, though she has died at their hands, and the police undertake the actual punishment. Given the extent to which the film has emphasized the systematic failures that led to her friend’s suıcide, it’s an odd and ideologically incoherent move for it to rely on that very system to effect the final bit of justice.

Much like Fight Club, which was released a year before it, American Psycho  is a film that seeks to examine the ugly violence seething at the heart of American masculinity, particularly that associated with the yuppies of the 1980s. However, while Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman is a murderous psychopath, he is also undeniably handsome and charismatic. There is, thus, a certain dark appeal to his behavior, which dilutes the power of the satire. In this sense, it is also like Fight Club, and both films have been celebrated for the very things they are supposedly trying to condemn.

Based on the bestselling memoir by JD Vance, Hillbilly Elegy  focuses on Vance as he contends with his mother’s addiction and his impoverished upbringing. The film seems to want to capture at least some elements of the original book, which sought to explore some of the cultural and social rot afflicting America’s rural communities. Unfortunately, the film becomes quite lost in its own domestic melodrama, and it seems to take particular pleasure in pinpointing Amy Adams’ Bev Vance (JD’s mother) as the source of many of his problems. Not even the presence of screen legend Glenn Close, who plays Vance’s redoubtable grandmother, is enough to save this film from its own ideological incoherence. 

Few films have been quite as misunderstood as Starship Troopers. It is, in many ways, a critique of authoritarianism and fascism, and it shines a light on how easily such toxic and violent ideologies can take root, but the irony is that many audiences and critics at the time of its release saw it as the opposite. Though some of this can be ascribed to the film itself — satire is always a tricky genre to master, and it becomes even more complicated when it’s undertaken through the genre of science fiction — it’s also an indication of how easy it is for audiences to bring their own prejudices to a particular film.

Joaquin Phoenix is one of his generation’s most talented and versatile directors, and he certainly delivers a compelling performance in Joker, in which he plays the title character. The film, however, ultimately seems a bit messy in its own purpose. On the one hand, it seems to be about the danger of mocking and dismissing those with mental illness, while on the other, it paints one such person, the Joker himself, as a true menace to society. Furthermore, like so many other films of its kind, it often veers dangerously close to valorizing the very violence it is supposedly critiquing. 

David Fincher’s Fight Club  might not have been an enormous success upon its release, but it has become a true cult classic. Many young men, in particular, have felt drawn to its message about the ways that 20th and 21st-century culture has emasculated an entire generation and set them adrift. However, their valorization of Brad Pitt’s Tyler Durden and his violence misses the point of the film entirely, which serves as a warning about the dangers of radicalization among disaffected young men. Ultimately, Fincher’s cool direction and the undeniable star appeal of both Brad Bitt and Edward Norton subverts the film’s biting criticism of the self-indulgence of modern men.

Martin Scorsese is one of those directors who has expressed a career-long interest in American masculinity, and The Wolf of Wall Street is one of his most compelling and opulent films. At the center of the film is Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jordan Belfort, who is in some ways the epitome of Wall Street corruption in the 1980s and 1990s. Obviously, the film is ostensibly about the hubris of Belfort, but it can’t quite shake the glamor associated with his lifestyle and DiCaprio’s magnetic star persona. In some ways, Belfort becomes just the type of person the audience should try to emulate rather than a cautionary tale. 

Fatphobia has long been a standard part of Hollywood storytelling but rarely is it so explicit as in the film Shallow Hal . Jack Black is, of course, quite charming as the title character, Hal Larson, who is hypnotized into seeing only the inner beauty of others. He then proceeds to fall in love with someone who is obese, all the while thinking she is thin and stereotypically beautiful. The film’s heart might be in the right place, but the means by which it tries to convey its message, including the numerous fat jokes, ultimately undercuts its intentions.