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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

The Thing I LOVED In Star Wars: The Force Awakens (SPOILERS)

Rey.

She is, as the oft-mentioned Ms. Knightley before, a perfect sexy tomboy.

Somehow “tomboy” seems like a phrase that is unacceptable in 2015. And there is much good cause for that. The top hard asses on the big screen that happen to be female these days are Charlize Theron and Angelina Jolie (less recently), who are not going to be mistaken for tomboys in any of their roles, whether playing objectified women or toughies.

Perhaps we should call it a “Tom” boy, referencing Tom Hanks… attractive, but not threatening… immediately likable and bright, never pretentious. But no one much imagines Tom Hanks wielding a weapon and shooting from the hip.

But the truth is, it is not the sexy side of Daisy Ridley, covered in carefully applied dirt and faux lack of make-up, that makes Rey so appealing. It is her journey.

HERE’S WHERE IT GETS SPOILERY IN A MINOR WAY

The Force Awakens is a coming of age movie and she is the one coming of age. And she does so in the film. And it is, pretty much, the only thing the film completes successfully. (Note: COMPLETES. The word is used intentionally. It is not to start an argument that this is the only thing in the film that works. Not what I am saying here.)

The moment of that competition – really two moments in one segment – is the only truly great moment in the movie.

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14 Responses to “The Thing I LOVED In Star Wars: The Force Awakens (SPOILERS)”

  1. Amblinman says:

    Dave, I don’t think you’ve dedicated enough words to discussing who Ridley looks like. Who does Boyega look like? Isaac? Driver? You’ve mentioned the Keira Knightley comparison twice now as though it in any way informs the reader about a single thing having to do with Ridley other than some weird fetish to compare her to other skinny British women. Absolutely no idea what it is you’re trying to say about her performance or character in the movie. I think you liked it? Like her?

  2. PJ says:

    Rey and Finn were both loves for me. Even if they both grew a bit into experts too quickly to fully satisfy their arcs. Daisy Ridley really is legit. Congrats to her and her long career. She is no Hayden Christiansen. Of course Boyega brought some more Attack the Block brilliance.

  3. JayEssTee says:

    Dave is hardly the only one making the Keira Knightley comparison. Watching Ridley onscreen last night, she plays like a genetic copy. It’s as if bullet point #1 in the talent scouting was “Keira Knightley, but younger” (Knightley being the ancient 30 now).

    What does it say about the movie? It joins the list of things that, despite everyone’s best efforts, were just slightly off kilter. Breaks in the spell.

  4. Amblinman says:

    That would make sense if she actually looked like Knightley, but I’ll leave ya’ll to whatever these comparisons are supposed to mean.

    I dunno what spell was supposedly broken either. My guess is this film is not only going to be financially successful but culturally as well for years to come.

  5. Sonny Hooper says:

    It makes perfect sense to cast an actress who resembles Knightley given Knightley’s resemblance to Nathalie Portman (Knightley even pretended to be Portman’s character in one of the prequels), and given where the new trilogy seems to be going with Rey’s backstory. Although it is s bit weird to obsess about her looks instead of her performance. And if you have an inkling that a word or phrase might be inappropriate it’s best not to use it.

  6. David Poland says:

    There’s been more discussion of the 6 words in this brief sentence than, well, 6 words.

    I guess the Knightley equivalent before Knightley was Sandra Bullock in Speed and Demolition Man.

    Do I need to explain in detail… cause it gets a little creepy. Great expressive face, lithe body that one believes can do the physical acts they do in their films, relatively small breasted so there is less of an overt sexual element involved (however much some audiences will inevitably obsess on these actresses), and the spirited nature that is part and parcel of the personality of these women.

    Theron and Jolie are exceptional because they are hypersexualized in their action films and still make it work and maintain enormous respect as actresses. They are unique.

    All that spelled out, what works about the performance, above anything else, is the energy and trajectory of her coming of age story.

    I’m not sure what weird angle Amblinman in off on… this kind of character is a classic movie convention, as previously embodied to great success by others. Physicality is part of it.

    Can it not be understood and then put in the background, as I suggested. Or do I need to do a play by play of the performance?

    There is not a ton of performance there… except for the coming of age sequence near the end. She’s too busy running to develop a ton of character. Same with Finn, who was fine in his role, but didn’t get much to do outside of look sad before leaving the stormtroopers to suggest how good a performance he could give.

    Star Wars has always been about iconic performance, not real acting. It’s made some great actors look silly. A few have kept their control of it (mostly old British/Irish/Scottish men).

    There is a reason that Star Wars has not, except for Harrison Ford, created movie stars. It’s not built for that. If Daisy Ridley is a great actress, we will find out in other work, just as we have Knightley (and Bullock).

    Didn’t see this objection coming. Not at all. Funny.

  7. Amblinman says:

    I’m not the one with the weird angle. It comes across as you projecting traits specific to female characters that actually seem more in line with general protagonists. Is she less/more “spirited” than Poe? I think you’re correct in the “little creepy” part. It’s a dissection of her as an anatomy that you don’t bother with doing for her male stars. It reads weird.

    And boy oh boy do I disagree on the idea that there’s a lack of performance. A great deal of whether an audience buys into what’s happening on screen in movies like this is how well the cast sells it. Do you buy into the gravity of these outlandish situations? I think the answer is resoundingly YES with Boyega and Ridley. Driver’s face conveying Ridley getting the upper hand during their mind meld or whatever that was, his anguish with Solo. That’s absolutely performance. On this point, I get it though. You simply didn’t like the movie. Fair enough.

    The original trilogy didn’t create stars because, quite frankly, Hamill and Fisher aren’t very good actors. Fisher fares a bit better but took her career in a different trajectory anyway. Hamill has always been a bit of a dude on screen. Even his stare at the end of TFA was goofy. And all he had to do was STARE.

  8. JS Partisan says:

    Who wants to be a movie star, when you can be a iconic film immortal? Seriously?

    Also, Mark Hamill is a tremendous fucking actor. His voice work alone, is better than most fucking actors best performances. His looking at his daughter at the end of the film, is fucking tremendous. Again though, you don’t need to be a movie star, when you are in fucking Star Wars.

  9. Amblinman says:

    His Joker sucks. The most boring, cliched take on that character possible.

  10. JS Partisan says:

    Yeah… No, so it’s an agree to disagree.

  11. Geoff says:

    JS I will say this…..that last shot just might be the best ending ever for a Star Wars film, wow! I’ve seen so much of Hamill in recent years whether in interviews or on the Flash….I had no idea they could make him look this cool. 🙂

  12. JS Partisan says:

    Totally agree, Geoff.

  13. Frankos says:

    Dave I bet you smashed up your office like Kylo does to his when you saw these numbers come in. At least we can blame his petulance on youth and you never know he might apologise for his mistakes over the course of 2 more films, something we will never see you do.

  14. Mike Klimo says:

    David,

    I thought this was a FANTASTIC point that often gets overlooked:

    “Star Wars has always been about iconic performance, not real acting.”

    Would you mind elaborating on the difference a little bit? I know Lucas has talked a lot in the past about trying to use older, “pre-method” acting styles in the Star Wars films, but I’d love to get your take on it…

    Thanks,
    Mike

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon