 |
| Scene from How to Talk to Girls at Parties |
In case you didn't know, A24 is one of the great purveyors of modern cinema. Since 2013, the studio has found a way to innovate independent cinema by turning each release into an event. As a result, A24 A-to-Z will be an ongoing series that looks at every release from the studio by analyzing its production history, release, criticisms, and any awards attention that it might've received. Join me on a quest to explore the modern heroes of cinema by exploring every hit and miss that comes with that magnificent logo. They may not all be great, but they more than make A24 what it is and what it will hopefully continue to be for years to come.
Released: May 25, 2018
Release Number: 66
Directed By: John Cameron Mitchell
Starring: Ruth Wilson, Elle Fanning, Nicole Kidman
Plot: An alien touring the galaxy breaks away from her group and meets two young inhabitants of the most dangerous place in the universe: the London suburb of Croydon.
While there had been stumbles throughout A24's first half of 2018, nobody could deny the impact of First Reformed, which would become their sole Oscar-nominee for the year. With that said, their next film stood a strong chance of becoming a cult phenomenon with the right components. Based on a short story by acclaimed author Neil Gaiman, directed by the provocateur John Cameron Mitchell, and featuring A24 favorite Elle Fanning alongside Tony-winner Alex Sharp and Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman, there's a lot to look forward to with How to Talk to Girls at Parties, which mixes punk rock with aliens. The film played at Cannes and earned some praise for its oddness, but its success wouldn't match the cleverness on screen. It was fun, but it failed to live up to A24's ability to produce unconventional hits.
The story, to some extent, begins with Gaiman's eponymous short story of the same name. The story was published in 2006 in a compendium called "Fragile Things." The story was inspired by the awkwardness of being a teenage boy and not knowing how to talk to girls and the comedy that comes from not knowing that they're aliens. Similarly, Gaiman had an experience in life where he was almost signed to a record label for a band in his younger years, but his father rejected it because of its incompetence. Gaiman claims to have always had a certain feeling of "what it?" that stems from it. While it's not entirely based off of this experience, one can see in the 18-page short story some influence from this moment. The story would win the Locus Award and get a Hugo nomination. Considering that the animated film Coraline helped establish Gaiman as a writer worth adapting, it made sense that in 2010 his story got optioned by See-Saw Productions. The long road ahead, however, would be paved with a need to be patient.
In 2010, Mitchell began work on his Oscar-nominated film Rabbit Hole, which would earn Kidman her third Oscar nomination. By the time that he came aboard the project, there was some struggle as far as casting. While he would work with Kidman again, he had an issue finding his lead Enn, who needed to be virginal but also have the confidence to him. He wanted to create a Romeo & Juliet for punks and aliens. It wasn't until the 69th Tony Awards when Mitchell received an Honorary Award. This was the year where he met Sharp, who won Best Actor in a Play (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time). Mitchell felt that he found his Enn and began talking to Sharp about the movie. Sharp made his cinematic debut in How to Talk to Girls at Parties. When nervous about what to do on screen, Mitchell told Sharp to just leave his body and play the part. It gave him confidence that helped with the role. Marion Cotillard was rumored to have a cameo in the film but had scheduling conflicts with filming Assassin's Creed.
Filming began in 2015 in Sheffield, England and shot over 30 days. Mitchell was told by Gaiman that the film needed to be "grounded." This meant that it couldn't be a space opera and take place predominantly on Earth. It was also a budgetary reason, as Mitchell felt that more money would mean sacrificing a vision full of queerness and bold ideas that had to appeal to international audiences. Oscar-winning costume designer Sandy Powell would suggest to him that he needed to make the alien outfits out of latex, which Mitchell was attached to. Composer James Murphy created a new genre for the soundtrack called "extraterrestrial dance music." The animated sequence had the '70s feel to it that he felt reflected an edgy type of cinema if it had more heart.
With the film complete, A24 would acquire the rights to the film by September 2015. This was where things stalled out for over a year, where nothing exciting necessarily happened. Then in 2017, the film would finally appear in public when it played at Cannes. It was considered to be part of Kidman's big year at the acclaimed festival. Her year was already going incredibly well with the hit HBO series Big Little Lies and an Oscar nomination for the film Lion. The four projects that appeared at Cannes were: Top of the Lake:: China Girl, The Killing of a Scared Deer (also an A24 film), The Beguiled, and How to Talk to Girls at Parties. These projects would earn Kidman a special award, and The Beguiled would earn director Sofia Coppola a top prize at the festival. It's unfortunate to admit that How to Talk to Girls at Parties wasn't the runaway hit, even with its weirdness, and would become the last of the four to be released in any form.
The film played at Cannes on May 21, 2017. The film premiered over a year later on May 25, 2018. While it could be timing, the almost three-year wait from acquiring rights to release does suggest a lack of confidence from the studio in the project in spite of the buzzy premise and crew behind the project. The film would only earn $382,053 at the box office. While this may seem like the case, it wasn't A24's worst-reviewed film. At 46% on critics aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, it was only a little bit below average. Michael O'Sullivan of Washington Post noted its quality when he said "When it works, it works. And even when it doesn't, it's just endearing enough to earn a bit of forgiveness for its flaws." Meanwhile, Christopher Orr of The Atlantic was more critical when saying "One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie." Emanuel Levy of EmanuelLevy . com was one of the biggest dissenters by suggesting "The worst film I saw at the 2017 Cannes Fest: Mitchell tries hard to defy conventions of sci-fi and horror, but is unable to come up with anything coherent. Wasting the talents of Fanning and Kidman, it's a case study of a wannabe cult or midnight flick." Without major awards, it swept under the rug for the most part.
How to Talk to Girls at Parties was another example of a film in 2018 failing to earn A24 the familiar cult status that it wanted. It didn't hurt that it featured several a high caliber cast and publicity that spawned from Cannes thanks to its star Kidman an award-winning short story. It wasn't enough to make it great, which didn't help the reputation of Gaiman projects in the long run. Still, it wasn't the failure many would picture it as and showed that the studio was still willing to take risks. Similarly, the next film was one of the biggest hits for the studio financially and critically, managing to earn frustration when it didn't make it to Oscar night. It also broke the tradition of A24 making subpar horror movies by giving a legendary actress a role for the ages. It was a movie that was bound to scare anyone who so much as gazed upon it. Hereditary is one of the few films from the year with any lasting appeal, and it was for good reason.
Up Next: Hereditary (2018)
While there had been stumbles throughout A24's first half of 2018, nobody could deny the impact of First Reformed, which would become their sole Oscar-nominee for the year. With that said, their next film stood a strong chance of becoming a cult phenomenon with the right components. Based on a short story by acclaimed author Neil Gaiman, directed by the provocateur John Cameron Mitchell, and featuring A24 favorite Elle Fanning alongside Tony-winner Alex Sharp and Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman, there's a lot to look forward to with How to Talk to Girls at Parties, which mixes punk rock with aliens. The film played at Cannes and earned some praise for its oddness, but its success wouldn't match the cleverness on screen. It was fun, but it failed to live up to A24's ability to produce unconventional hits.
The story, to some extent, begins with Gaiman's eponymous short story of the same name. The story was published in 2006 in a compendium called "Fragile Things." The story was inspired by the awkwardness of being a teenage boy and not knowing how to talk to girls and the comedy that comes from not knowing that they're aliens. Similarly, Gaiman had an experience in life where he was almost signed to a record label for a band in his younger years, but his father rejected it because of its incompetence. Gaiman claims to have always had a certain feeling of "what it?" that stems from it. While it's not entirely based off of this experience, one can see in the 18-page short story some influence from this moment. The story would win the Locus Award and get a Hugo nomination. Considering that the animated film Coraline helped establish Gaiman as a writer worth adapting, it made sense that in 2010 his story got optioned by See-Saw Productions. The long road ahead, however, would be paved with a need to be patient.
In 2010, Mitchell began work on his Oscar-nominated film Rabbit Hole, which would earn Kidman her third Oscar nomination. By the time that he came aboard the project, there was some struggle as far as casting. While he would work with Kidman again, he had an issue finding his lead Enn, who needed to be virginal but also have the confidence to him. He wanted to create a Romeo & Juliet for punks and aliens. It wasn't until the 69th Tony Awards when Mitchell received an Honorary Award. This was the year where he met Sharp, who won Best Actor in a Play (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time). Mitchell felt that he found his Enn and began talking to Sharp about the movie. Sharp made his cinematic debut in How to Talk to Girls at Parties. When nervous about what to do on screen, Mitchell told Sharp to just leave his body and play the part. It gave him confidence that helped with the role. Marion Cotillard was rumored to have a cameo in the film but had scheduling conflicts with filming Assassin's Creed.
Filming began in 2015 in Sheffield, England and shot over 30 days. Mitchell was told by Gaiman that the film needed to be "grounded." This meant that it couldn't be a space opera and take place predominantly on Earth. It was also a budgetary reason, as Mitchell felt that more money would mean sacrificing a vision full of queerness and bold ideas that had to appeal to international audiences. Oscar-winning costume designer Sandy Powell would suggest to him that he needed to make the alien outfits out of latex, which Mitchell was attached to. Composer James Murphy created a new genre for the soundtrack called "extraterrestrial dance music." The animated sequence had the '70s feel to it that he felt reflected an edgy type of cinema if it had more heart.
With the film complete, A24 would acquire the rights to the film by September 2015. This was where things stalled out for over a year, where nothing exciting necessarily happened. Then in 2017, the film would finally appear in public when it played at Cannes. It was considered to be part of Kidman's big year at the acclaimed festival. Her year was already going incredibly well with the hit HBO series Big Little Lies and an Oscar nomination for the film Lion. The four projects that appeared at Cannes were: Top of the Lake:: China Girl, The Killing of a Scared Deer (also an A24 film), The Beguiled, and How to Talk to Girls at Parties. These projects would earn Kidman a special award, and The Beguiled would earn director Sofia Coppola a top prize at the festival. It's unfortunate to admit that How to Talk to Girls at Parties wasn't the runaway hit, even with its weirdness, and would become the last of the four to be released in any form.
The film played at Cannes on May 21, 2017. The film premiered over a year later on May 25, 2018. While it could be timing, the almost three-year wait from acquiring rights to release does suggest a lack of confidence from the studio in the project in spite of the buzzy premise and crew behind the project. The film would only earn $382,053 at the box office. While this may seem like the case, it wasn't A24's worst-reviewed film. At 46% on critics aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, it was only a little bit below average. Michael O'Sullivan of Washington Post noted its quality when he said "When it works, it works. And even when it doesn't, it's just endearing enough to earn a bit of forgiveness for its flaws." Meanwhile, Christopher Orr of The Atlantic was more critical when saying "One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie." Emanuel Levy of EmanuelLevy . com was one of the biggest dissenters by suggesting "The worst film I saw at the 2017 Cannes Fest: Mitchell tries hard to defy conventions of sci-fi and horror, but is unable to come up with anything coherent. Wasting the talents of Fanning and Kidman, it's a case study of a wannabe cult or midnight flick." Without major awards, it swept under the rug for the most part.
How to Talk to Girls at Parties was another example of a film in 2018 failing to earn A24 the familiar cult status that it wanted. It didn't hurt that it featured several a high caliber cast and publicity that spawned from Cannes thanks to its star Kidman an award-winning short story. It wasn't enough to make it great, which didn't help the reputation of Gaiman projects in the long run. Still, it wasn't the failure many would picture it as and showed that the studio was still willing to take risks. Similarly, the next film was one of the biggest hits for the studio financially and critically, managing to earn frustration when it didn't make it to Oscar night. It also broke the tradition of A24 making subpar horror movies by giving a legendary actress a role for the ages. It was a movie that was bound to scare anyone who so much as gazed upon it. Hereditary is one of the few films from the year with any lasting appeal, and it was for good reason.
Up Next: Hereditary (2018)
No comments:
Post a Comment