The Square

Below be Spoilers!

Recently, the Hollywood Theatre (yes, it's spelled that way) was showing an Australian film called The Square, and Australian thriller directed by stuntman Nash Edgerton. Here is the trailer:


The Square has been almost universally lauded stateside and audiences at the Hollywood were enthralled by it during its entire run, citing the fact that "you never knew what was going to happen next!" I saw it almost two years ago at the Sydney International Film Festival and, along several of my festival going friends, despised the film. I am completely mystified that anyone could watch The Square and not realize how absurd the entire film is (I had a similar experience with Happy-Go-Lucky, shown at the same festival).

I understand that all films (and novels and plays and whatever else tells a story) hinge on coincidence, but The Square's use of coincidence is taken to almost an artfully ridiculous level. It's not enough to toe the line ("Oh no! He forgot his cell phone!" or "Oh no! His house caught fire!"), but they treat the line like the launching point for the long jump ("Wait... he didn't just forget his cell phone. He forgot BOTH of his cell phones!" and "His house isn't just on fire. His house is on fire and HIS MOTHER IS ASLEEP IN THE LIVING ROOM!"). The worst offense is a character going out to "the Square" on a hot. summer day (in Australia!), tooling around, getting caught and winding up in a crazy car chase out of a construction site only to have it revealed that there's a baby in the back seat of his car! Oh, the tension! Forget that he left the child alone in the car with the windows up for at least ten minutes or the maniacal driving with total disregard for the child's well-being.

Anyway, I didn't mean to rant like that. The point is, theater goers love to ask the ticket sellers if the movie is any good. In most cases I can deflect the question saying, "I haven't seen it, but audiences really like it" or "it's been our most popular movie for weeks." But I've seen The Square and I'm not one to lie. So what am I supposed to tell people who are about to put their money down to see the film? I don't want to lower their expectations. Plus, why ask me in the first place? They don't know me. They have no idea what my tastes are.

So, I just tell them, "the critics and audiences love it..." The ellipses usually lead to them asking, "but not you?" and I explain to them that they should pay no head to my opinion based on the above reasoning while silently judging them because, after all, I know they are going to like this abhorrent film.

On the plus side, we are now showing the excellent The Good, the Bad, and the Weird! It's nice to be able to enthusiastically endorse a film for once.


PS -- It's pure coincidence that I wrote this post on Joel Edgerton's birthday (star/co-writer of The Square and Nash Edgerton's brother)