Film: The Game
Dir.: David Fincher
Cast: Michael Douglas, Sean Penn, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Deborah Kara Unger
Screenplay: John D. Brancato & Michael Ferris (These guys wrote Catwoman! But they also wrote The Net, the greatest 90's movie ever made.)
Cinematography: Harris Savides
Plot: A successful businessman cashes in a birthday present and signs up to play a game, no, The Game. I shan't say more.
A few days ago I watched The Game. I'm not quite sure how to broach this film; The Rebound it most certainly is not. To give some context, I saw The Social Network in theaters about 7 times. I adopt a Wayne and Garth-like "I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy," towards Fincher.
Which is wholly deserving, because The Game is everything I love about him and everything I love about The Social Network. In looking over Fincher's oeuvre (hayo, I went to school!) there seem to be odd fraternal twin-like pairings: Se7en and Zodiac are on the same spectrum, albeit located on very different places, Panic Room and Fight Club seem distantly related in the same way as The Game, and TSN. With these films it feels like Fincher's rubbing different sides of the same coin.
Lower lip curling at its greatest.
So it makes sense that when I was watching The Game, my mind kept drifting back to TSN. Jesse Eisenberg's intimidatingly pithy Mark Zuckerberg is reminiscent of Michael Douglas' emotionally vacant Nicholas Van Orton. I haven't seen Wall Street (WHAT?!?) but based on this performance, it's safe to say that Michael Douglas has perfected the role of the successful businessman who is missing nothing and everything. He does this dissatisfied lower lip curl, which I didn't know existed outside of Counts in Tolstoy novels. Everything about his performance is very quiet. He never betrays too much emotion, but it’s easy to infer what he’s feeling. Who thought this one was such a thespian?
"Dasvidanya, Anna Ivanovna! Eastern Promises is quotable for all occasions.
And why did no one tell me my favourite Russian Chester the Molester is in this? Albeit for maybe 10 minutes, but Armin Mueller-Stahl was perfect as a sweet, yet inefficient businessman. And Sean Penn. He plays Nicolas’ brother Conrad, who signs him up for The Game as a birthday present. It should be noted that Anita has had a life-long love affair with this man. I have not. But I’m coming around because of this performance. In the 20 minutes he was on screen, he was really fucking good. I don’t know why I’m surprised by this. He’s been in every amazing movie AND Charlie Sheen likes him.
This here is a god, an Adonis.
But enough about performances. The most obvious similarity between The Game and TSN is in the wash of the films. Everything is done in browns and blues and greens and greys, but all the vibrancy of the colours has been drained. Things seem cold and harsh, and even with so much opulence this world looks hard. Fincher's cinematographer on this, Harris Savides, was on the fucking ball. Savides has an impressive rack of films to his name (Milk, Zodiac, Greenberg, Last Days). On this, He made the immaculate framing mirror NIcholas' tightly wound character. In the beginning, every shot seems formal. I felt like I was being kept at arm's length by the character and the camera.
Show me an MBA who doesn't want an office like this, and I'll show you an English Major. Does that make sense? Whatever, I got it.
By the time the film ended, I felt tired. Not bored, tired, almost physically worn out. This was partially because of Howard Shore’s nerve-racking score. I think I was on edge the entire film because of the unsettling violins that made me think anything could happen at all times. Genius!
Nothing says I bought my house and housekeeper with the money I made in the summer between undergrad at Harvard and post-grad at Stanford, than a pinky ring.
Plot-wise I kept thinking “what the WHAT?” (SPOILER ALERT. I’m going to assume everyone is better than me and has seen this movie already. If not, avert those eyes.) I felt like I felt in Inception, albeit less confused. In the end when Conrad shows up on the roof and then Nicholas SHOOTS HIM, I had a heart attack. And then, of course, Nicholas has to jump off the roof. And fall through the roof, into his birthday party. And then implied hook-up with the film-noir hottie (Deborah Kara Unger) who he wasn’t sure he could trust but in the end has a heart of gold.
The Demon Banker of Fleet Street.
This all felt like the modern man’s exorcist movie. All the demons Nicholas carried from his childhood and his relationship with his father are exorcised through The Game. I don’t know why it’s so effective when creepy people quote the Bible in films, but a skeevy businessman describes The Game to a bewildered Nicholas, by saying “John 9:25 ‘whereas once I was blind, now I can see.” Oddly enough, that’s the quote that seems to epitomize The Game.
I’m not worthy, I’M NOT WORTHY!
"UGH, traffic was a bitch! How did you get here?" " Oh, I fell through the roof."
