Frank Darabont’s THE MAJESTIC is not for everyone, unfortunately.
First off the movie has been called a Capra film, and while that is certainly one layer of the movie, it is also a fantasy film fable.
Reality never ever touches this movie. This is a film about being a film, about being on screen, about doing the right things and being rewarded for doing them.
While the film is a pure work of fantasy, it is set very much in a real world time in the United States. Set in the world of Joseph McCarthy’s Communist Witch Hunts. The film isn’t meant to unveil new horrors about what it was like in that time. It isn’t about anything more complex than HAPPILY EVER AFTER.
THE MAJESTIC is more of a fairy tale than FELLOWSHIP OF THE RINGS, because in Tolkien’s trip with fantasy, actions had ramifications and prices had to be paid and somethings could not be undone.
THE MAJESTIC has none of that.
First off, to enjoy the film… ALL CYNICISM must be exorcised from your body before entering the theater. Next you must absolutely love film. Not the films you love, but film. What it is, that feeling of going to movies, putting them on, entertaining with them. You must love B-movies, A-movies… Genres far and wide and tiny and small. This doesn’t mean you necessarily like the individual films in question, but you love the process of watching them, talking about them and to know what it means to have a good time in the dark with others, without a single utterance.
THE MAJESTIC is about that love on many levels. The love of having made a movie, of seeing your name on a poster, of dating and having contact with a girl on that screen. Loving your job at an insanely passionate level, but having that love inexplicably spit you out.
Then it is about discovering a new way of loving the films. Maybe not making them, but perhaps showing them. Seeing the affect they have on those that attend. The couple that cuddles, the younguns with the wide eyes, the scent of popcorn and the sound of rustling wrappers.
Which is better?
Does Frank Darabont have more fun making the movies, working in the industry, dealing with apes with simian thoughts about film? Or does Tim League at the Alamo Drafthouse have more fun creating a line-up of movies to exhibit that will delight and intoxicate an audience that he sees every night?
The profit margins aside… Which is better? And if one day having done both, you had to choose… Which would you choose?
You see, that is really what is happening in this movie. McCarthyism to the side, that’s just a seasoning… a sprig of parsley to frame the meat and potatoes.
This is a movie about what movies do for people at different classes. For some it inspires them to do something positive with their life. For others it gives them moments of reflection. Some are distracted from the tragedy of life, and others… Well others are just smitten.
Jim Carrey loves the movies. From the first moments of the film we see that he’s bored with the compromise of film construction. The ‘politics’ and the ‘compromise’ whirls about his daydreaming face. His work, his dreams being rewritten by monkeys in suits. It isn’t important to see their faces, they change like phases of the moon, but what they say is always the same.
He doesn’t know it, but he wants out. He’s fooled himself into thinking he’s happy. He drives a nice car, dates a starlet… But really he’s happiest sitting in an audience watching a film.
When chaos visits his life, he wishes to be somewhere far away with a different name and a different life. His wish comes true.
He has a new life, still closely attuned to film, but without the complications. Here he gets to just watch the movies, show the movies and delight in the delight of the movies. None of the complications, all of the joy. The joy of a small town theater.
It seems that many of the folks that have sent in reviews didn’t see the film I saw. For that, I’m quite sorry. And you know, you might not find the film I’m describing either. You might very well find a trite bland wannabe Capra flick with a ‘stupid ending’. I suppose that is in there somewhere. I didn’t see that film.
THE MAJESTIC that I saw was about choosing a life with film. One with nasty in-laws. And another filled with monogamous bliss.
One has a studio and a lawyer and an agent and a producer. The other has an audience, love and simplicity.
Lastly, I can not finish a review about the MAJESTIC without lauding heaps of praise on Martin Landau, who is a vision of passionate projectionist joy! When he attempts to express to Carrey what it means to run a theater. My audience burst out into applause. He passionately captured and bottled into dialogue and delivery what it is to present a movie. Hazar!
I just hope that Darabont continues to love showing films as well as making them. The best of both worlds.
As I’ve said, this film is most likely going to play like this for very few people. Nearly everyone that I know, save for a select few, had massive issues with the movie.
I do prefer MATINEE and CINEMA PARADISO many many times over this film. And THE MAJESTIC is by no means a great film in my book, but it is one that I am quite fond of. The film has a lot of heart and innocence, a pair not often found in modern cinema. This is a movie about adults who can rediscover the magic of a first kiss… that’s a far cry from the passionate groin stirring of Lynch’s MULHOLLAND DRIVE, but has its own… less physically evocative moments. It tries to reach inside, and when it succeeds, it does so wonderfully.
Frank did a nice job here, but I would like to see him get something with a bit more meat on the bone ya know? This was a nice Lemon Meringue.
