Mad Men and Sopranos writer Matthew Weiner premiered his feature film debut You Are Here at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival - a genre-lost film filled starring comedic actors Owen Wilson, Zach Galifianakis, and Amy Poehler who are simply... not funny.
By Andrea Wrobel
It is not unforeseeable to feature a primarily comedic actor in a
film favouring more dramatic elements; Adam Sandler and Jim Carey are well
acquainted to this practice. Matthew Weiner's You Are Here, unlike films like Punch-Drunk Love and The Majestic,
invites viewers into a film that teeter-totters between a discernible comedy
and a half-hearted drama, never allowing viewers enough time to invest
themselves in the characters or story of either spectrum.
The film is about long time friends Ben (Galifianakis) and Steve
(Wilson) who return to their hometown after learning Ben's father has passed.
Back in town, Ben's sister Terri (Poehler) loses her cool when the group learns
Ben, a distracted and unsuccessful businessman, has inherited their father’s
farm, land, and business. Thrown into the mix is a one-dimensional New
Age stepmother Angela (Laura Ramsey), now widowed, and who happens to be the
same age as both Ben and Steve.
The A-list actors shine (faintly) through
their sloppily structured characters simply because of their
established place in the comedic atmosphere.
Their veracity, however, is limited by the vague and tangled plotlines
that are meant to evoke a sense of awareness and longing for days when we, as
humans, were more connected to the earth and all it could provide for us. Perhaps the film is an indication itself of how disconnected we are to what we're trying to communicate at times.
In any case, this attempt at remembrance employed situations that were explored
only on the surface. To represent pure cultivators we are shown an Amish family
who, when Ben attempts to connect with them, are reduced to pacifists, devoted
to religion. To signify Steve’s recognition of food procurement we see Angela’s
innocent encouragement for Steve to go out to the backyard and kill their
chicken dinner (which he does, and which blatantly illustrates how a chicken still
lives after its head is chopped off. To signify Ben’s re-connection with the ‘old
world’ he creates the Omega Society.
Unfortunately, Ben’s attempts in forming the group (even naming the
group) aren’t taken seriously from the get go, especially when he’s diagnosed
with bipolar disorder (another plot-point that isn’t explored or mentioned
thereafter). My only hope was that the
film would use Angela’s positive and supportive presence as a guideline for Ben
and Steve to get their substance-abusing and, for Steve, womanizing habits
under control. This, however, did not
happen.
Angela’s interest in cultivation and “feeling” (versus the very
black and white comparison of smoking marijuana and “not feeling”) and her
defense in marrying a 90-year-old man for true love is unabashedly thwarted
when she gets sexually involved with both Ben and Steve for no definable reason
with no obvious outcome. B-story
characters are also introduced that have little to no significance in proving
the point the film is trying to make. In the last act, Jenna Fischer appears
playing a (seemingly single) mom who lives in Ben’s new complex. As her and her son wait for the rain to stop
outside a grocery store, she gets a phone call, passing her meek son off on Ben who puts him on a mechanical horse at the film’s end. Weiner juxtaposes the mechanical horse and the
Amish family’s real horse while Ben draws conclusions that aren’t entirely
clear. On this note, the almost two hour film is over.
It is clear that Weiner’s talent at TV writing does not structurally
translate into the feature film realm. “I
don’t pay attention to genre,” he claimed during the Q&A portion after the
screening, and it’s made quite clear in You Are Here.