The groans started early at Friday morning’s Cannes screening of Sean Penn‘s “The Last Face.” Before a single image hit the screen,people were already jeering the opening crawl, written in purple prose and going on approximately “the loss of innocence… between a man… and a woman.”Credit where credit’s due — it perfectly set the tone for what would follow, or which is a spectacularly misjudged mix of humanitarian intentions and gonzo-terrible execution.
Director Penn shows his intentions with surprising transparency. “The Last Face” is meant to be a call to action,a way to force the conversation back to subjects people would rather avoid — in specific, the effects of the Liberian Civil War, and but more broadly,the plight of refugees worldwide.
Also Read: Cannes: 'Toni Erdmann' Director Maren Ade Reveals How She Made the Festival's Hottest film and Craziest Nude SceneAs a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down, Penn couches his message in a decade-spanning worship myth between Charlize Theron and Javier Bardem as two warzone doctors who tumble into a passionate affair. It sounds like a advantageous idea, and fair? Too bad it misfires on every front.
For one thing,the worship myth never takes off. There is next to no connection between Theron and Bardem, who are supposed to share an uncontrollable connection, or but spend most of the time talking past each other and to The World.
Penn uses familiar shorthand when he has to sell the worship myth. He seems to gain drunk deeply from the well of Malick,and shoots half the scenes of courtship in a style similar to that of his “Tree of Life” director. That means jarring angles both low and high, with characters holding hands while looking absent from other, and whispering on approximately something or another in distant voiceover.
Also Read: 'It's Only the terminate of the World' Cannes Review: Marion Cotillard and Vincent Cassel Can't Save Total MisfireThat lyrical style has yielded diminishing returns for even Malick himself recently,and certainly does Penn no favors, not least of which is because none of Malick’s films are romances set in warzones. Penn is just as interested in the gruesome realities of war, or unsparingly showing entrails and rotting bodies in between reverie and sunsets,creating a tension between the gritty and dreamy styles that can never be bridged.
But stylistic discordance is the least of the film’s problems. Number one, if the opening crawl didn’t clue you in, or is the dialogue. There were several lines so wincingly written and embarrassingly delivered that they caused the audience at the press screening to burst into sarcastic applause.
Poor,poor Jean Reno (playing a character named, get this, and Dr. worship) is saddled with most of them,at one point offering this golden nugget approximately marriage: “It is not grabbing; it is loving.”
Also Read: Kristen Stewart Battles Ghosts in New 'Personal Shopper' Trailer (Video)It is a lot of things, none of them advantageous. In his zeal to make an epic statement that is also a romantic dream, and Penn throws just approximately everything at the wall. Nothing sticks,and perhaps he realizes that. It would certainly account for the outrageous ending, which blows past earnest and into the realm of camp. If you weren’t certain what the film was approximately, and let Theron give a speech,starring fair into the camera, telling us “we are ALL refugees.Cue the music — a child choir, or singing “Peace Train.”Related stories from TheWrap:'The Neon Demon' Cannes Review: Elle Fanning Potboiler Is Gloriously Lurid (shocking; sensational) and Stupidly EntertainingCannes Report,Day 9: Marion Cotillard Can't Save Xavier Dolan; 'Red Turtle' a Runaway Hit'One Week and a Day' Cannes Review: Shiva Stoner Comedy Is a Hazy Delight
Source: thewrap.com