Plane Movies: Pig, Dear Evan Hansen, Shiva Baby

One of my favorite things about going on vacation is the plane ride where I get to watch an eclectic bunch of movies that I missed in theaters earlier in the year. Therefore, please enjoy three reviews of insanely different movies that span quite a wide spectrum in terms of entertainment value and critical acclaim.

Pig: The trailer for this movie seemed so odd - Nicolas Cage is on a revenge mission to get back his stolen truffle pig! - but critics kept saying it was one of their favorite movies of the year and I couldn’t understand why. Then I watched it and oh man. The hype was real. 

Yes, this is a movie where Nicolas Cage gets increasingly disheveled and beaten up as he goes on a quest around Portland to find the people who stole his beloved truffle pig. But this isn’t some sort of John Wick-esque action thriller. Instead, writer-director Michael Sarnowski has created a profound movie about the toll that grief can take on a man, the need for isolation and a retreat from humanity, and then the process of slowly putting the pieces back together through your one connection to the outside world.

And this is a movie about food. Cage’s character is a renowned former chef, and every meal he prepares is this meditative exercise, the one last thing of beauty and enjoyment he has in his daily existence. I really don’t know how to explain this film to you except to say that it is a MOOD, and at one point I got very emotional about how the story had gotten very existential and meaningful. Granted I had woken up very early to take this flight and was a tad sleep-deprived, but still, I promise, this is a really surprising and wonderful film and more people need to watch it. Come back and tell me what you thought and we can all be weirdly moved together. 

Dear Evan Hansen: People did NOT love this movie, and now that I have seen it, I can see why. As you go along, you start to wonder why the hell people didn’t turn on this story sooner when it was an award-winning Broadway musical. But they've certainly turned on it now!

Ben Platt stars as the titular Evan Hansen, a high schooler who is plagued by anxiety and is struggling to make friends. Due to a series of unlikely mishaps, when a troubled student dies by suicide, his family mistakenly thinks that Evan was his only friend at school and they are desperate to connect with him and learn more about the times when their son might have been more happy. Rather than setting the family straight, Evan lets this lie snowball, to the point where he becomes a national celebrity for his relationship with the dead student.

Oh it’s all so weird and icky. There’s an all-star cast, including Amy Adams, Kaitlyn Dever, and Julianne Moore, but there’s so much going on with these characters, and all of it is a little bit twisted and a little bit sad. Contrivance is heaped upon contrivance, and it all feels so manipulative and awful, because at the end of the day, our protagonist is a kid who is lying about a dead kid, and giving false hope to a grieving family. I’m sure there are fans of the musical who will defend it to the death, but this story is just a little too insane. And while the cast, production value, and music are all perfectly decent, I felt vaguely unsettled throughout my viewing. So if being uncomfortable is your jam, this is the movie for you. But if you are seeking an inspirational and uplifting musical, please go elsewhere.

Shiva Baby: What a freaking delight. This movie is only 78 minutes long, but all those minutes are a nonstop comic masterpiece, a farce of epic proportions that keeps heaping indignities upon the main character until everything culminates in a hysterical sequence in a minivan that is *chef’s kiss.* 

Frankly, I am loath to give too much away, so here’s a very broad plot description. Danielle (Rachel Sennott) is a Jewish college student who has come home to attend a shiva with her parents (played by the incredible Polly Draper and Fred Melamed). Unfortunately, when they get there, she discovers her sugar daddy has also been invited to attend the shiva and unbeknownst to her, he used to work with her father. If that wasn't enough, her ex-girlfriend (who her mother insists was just part of an experimental "phase") is also in attendance. And things just proceed to unravel further from there.

It's impossible to be bored for a second while watching this movie. You will cringe, you will laugh, you will gasp. Anything that can go wrong, does go wrong, sometimes in quiet ways, and sometimes in very loud ways, and writer-director Emma Seligman does an incredible job of slowly charting how Danielle loses her mind over the course of this disastrous day. It is such a well-observed, perfectly crafted gem of a movie, and it is the perfect pick-me-up when you need a rapid infusion of entertainment. Seek it out immediately and  then grab a bagel and come giggle about it with me afterwards.