Miracle on 34th Street

 

Miracle on 34^th Street (1947)

Dir. and written by George Seaton, Story by Valentine Davies

Starring Maureen O'Hara, John Payne, Edmund Gwenn, Natalie Wood

 

Is it possible to be both a universally acknowledge classic and still misunderstood and underrated? I submit to you that MIRACLE ON 34^TH ST (the 1947 version, obviously) is exactly that. You’ve probably seen it. Along with the 1951 Alastair Sim SCROOGE and IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, (and maybe throw in the actually-not-very-Christmas-heavy WHITE CHRISTMAS) it’s one of the few movies from the first half of the Twentieth Century which is still required Holiday viewing for many people, myself certainly included. And of course, it’s easy to see why: it’s a delight through and through, charming, whimsical, and, it must be said, exceptionally funny. Not just in the polite, slightly patronizing way we often talk about classic old comedies, where you acknowledge that I’m sure it was very funny back then; no, to this very day, even after watching it dozens of times over the years, I still frequently laugh out loud.

But even so, I suspect that it seems so effortlessly charming that most folks just take it for granted that it’s simple. When I mentioned to a hip cinema pal that this was my favorite Christmas movie, he kind of rolled his eyes at me. When I protested, he was dismissive: ‘Oh, they think Santa Claus is crazy, it’s like they’re putting Christmas on trial!’ he jibed, insisting the movie is a thin parable about the importance of belief, with all the religious implications for the nominally Christian holiday that accompany such a reading. That is, in fact, exactly where the horrendously ill-conceived 1994 John-Hughes-produced remake goes with the material, ending (SPOILERS for the 1994 version) with a Judge, apparently in a fit of religious ecstasy, suddenly declaring that because a dollar bill has the words "in God we trust" on the back, Jesus is real, and therefore the old man in his courtroom over an assault charge is legally Santa Claus, case dismissed.

As a confirmed non-believer, this isn’t the kind of moral message I’m likely to find especially appealing, and my friend found it very amusing that I’d swallowed this old-fashioned conservative hokum. But I maintain that he is quite wrong, at least in the case of the 1947 version (hereafter, “the good version”). While the topic of belief is definitely in the air, I would suggest that the end result is anything but a simple argument for blind faith. It has, in fact, a remarkably secular outlook, especially for 1947 – but even more so, it has a surprisingly unsentimental, sharp-eyed view of the world. Its genius is to somehow entwine a sardonic perspective on human smallness with a subtly bemused appreciation for our fallible, perhaps even hubristic inclination to imagine that we’re capable of better – and to take both perspectives seriously.

The thing that really makes MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET special is that it is, in a lot of ways, a legitimately cynical movie. It sets itself up as fiercely modern (by 1947 standards), plunging us immediately into the world of a hard-driving executive who is also a single mom (Maureen O'Hara, RIO GRANDE, known for her many on-screen pairings with John Wayne, which makes it odd that her co-star here is named John Payne. Ain’t life too funny sometimes?). In 1947, this was certainly an unusual, perhaps borderline scandalous, situation, especially for a Christmas movie. But the movie does not judge her for it; in fact, it is openly impressed by her tenacity. Sure, by the film’s end she will wind up safely in a heterosexual romantic relationship, with a restored nuclear family. But, crucially, she ends up there on her own terms. Not once does the movie suggest that her life or femininity is stunted by being a tough businesswoman and single mother. Her story has been one of triumph over adversity, and O’Hara is the absolute embodiment of a flinty force of nature, unwavering, indominable, always in control, always thoughtful about how she wants to arrange her life.* And not in a cheesy Hallmark Christmas Movie kind of way, although the standard plot about how the uptight businesswoman finding love with an easy-going small-town artisan would almost certainly not exist without her; no, she is happy, is fulfilled. She enjoys her job, she loves her daughter, she doesn’t need anything else, although right from the start she’s certainly open to the idea of romance, if one comes along that fits into her world. But she can be comfortable in looking for love because she’s confident that she can deal with anything that life could throw at her. The only challenge she has yet to overcome is the idea that life could be anything other than adversity to be beaten.

Which is, of course, the dramatic core of the movie. Friendly, eccentric Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn, THEM!, giving one of the most irresistibly charming screen performances of all time) waltzes into the lives of savvy, driven professionals –tough businesspeople, clever lawyers, canny politicians—and simply stands there, refusing to play their game, refusing to acknowledge that the world is a hard place where only the strong survive. Cheerfully --but resolutely-- refusing to admit that sanity is defined by your ability to beat the other guy. By his very existence, he challenges the defensive posture O’Hara and the rest of the modern world accept as basic common sense.

Of course, he is crazy. Harmless, certainly; likeable, certainly; but nevertheless utterly delusional. The movie loves Kris, but never seriously flirts with the idea that he might literally be a mystical figure. But his delusion allows him to do the one thing that no one else in the movie is immediately able to do: see the best in people. Not that it’s an easy thing to see! Indeed, the movie expects people to be myopic, self-interested hustlers most of the time. Likes them for it, even; respects the funny, sharp-eyed canniness of the conman. But it also believes firmly that deep down, just about everyone would like to do the right thing, would like to be warm and caring and generous. They've just resigned themselves to the fact that they don't live in a world where that's possible. And most still get on pretty well! People live practical lives, learn to enjoy the madcap rat race, and don't spend a lot of time moping about how the world is. The "Miracle" of the title is the way the jolly machinations of one kindly, delusional old man upend that world and get people to actually behave humanely to each other, in the most unexpected way possible: by playing on that very cynicism.

From the money-grubbing department stores that are stunned to discover that putting people before profit actually boosts their business, to the lazy postal workers who end up saving the day by pawning their inconvenient mail off on someone else, virtually every good deed done in the movie is done out of cynical self-interest. In fact, a great deal of the movie's considerable joy is about watching feisty lawyers and salesmen try to get one over on each other, so much so that the movie's abrupt pivot to a cat-and-mouse courtroom drama for the final act feels much more inevitable and smooth than it probably has any right to.

And yet, there's something deeper, too; the "miracle" is that, when these people are suddenly, unexpectedly offered a chance to do the right thing for purely selfish reasons, something else happens. Sure, they do it because it’s the smart move for them, the same thing they do every day. But this time, it also happens to be the right thing, and that surprises them, wakes something inside them, something that they'd mostly ignored or forgotten about. They're glad to do the right thing. It makes them feel good, gives them something they didn't know they were missing.

It's a small thing, really; there's no suggestion that it's going to change their lives forever and they're going to give away all their possessions and become enlightened. But there's something very near magical about the way the cast uniformly seems startled and giddy about finding good inside themselves they didn't expect. When business tycoon R. H. Macy (Hollywood bit player Harry Antrim) is forced to take the stand to improbably testify in support of the sanity of a man who believes himself to be Santa Claus, his first thought is for his own business: he suddenly imagines tomorrow's newspaper headlines trumpeting his abandonment of the old man. This obviously cannot be allowed to happen, and he stammers something noncommittal. But then, pushed by the cross-examining attorney, he's asked to directly answer if he believes "Mr. Kringle" is actually Santa Claus. This time, he doesn't think about himself, but thinks about the kids, and how happy his Santa made them. If this old man is crazy, he doesn’t want to be sane. Suddenly the imperative for self-preservation actually overlaps with doing something genuinely good. And then he answers with confidence: "I do." And he’s not just relieved, he’s elated. He remembers something about himself, a feeling he’d probably just written off long ago as unrealistic sentimentality. But there is it, overwhelming him, real as the nose on his face. It's a moment of serenity in a world which offers so few chances for such moments.

The movie is full of little moment like that, tiny, impossible victories for the human spirit. And for once, they cost nothing – they require no sacrifice, no hard choices. For once, good is just sitting there, waiting for you to take it. You don’t have to worry that the world is going punish you for showing your humanity, you can just give in and see how you like it. Most movie fantasies play on our desires for selfish things –what if I suddenly had power, or good looks, or wealth?—but this one offers a more unusual fantasy: what if I could just do the right thing? Wouldn’t that feel great? It’s not realistic; the movie knows –puts it right out there in the text, even—that you’re going to be faced with a million chances to be kind and compassionate, and you’re mostly going to have to just ignore those options and be practical and do the sensible thing and get on with your life. You can’t give away all your possessions, can’t just drop everything and help someone in need, can’t devote every moment of your life to saving the world. But maybe it’s valuable just to know it’s in you to want to. Life gives you so few chances to just indulge in that fantasy that you can forget, can think that you really are tough and hard and cynical deep down, rather than just pretending to be so you can get by. And of course, you do have to get by, and that’s OK. But MIRACLE ON 34th STREET is a gentle reminder that there’s something better in you, too, even if the world doesn’t give it a chance to fully emerge very often. You never really doubted it. It’s just your silly common sense.

It helps that the cast is without exception terrific, it helps that the script is unshakably lively and funny.** But if the movie is a miracle, it comes out of its unique blend of snarky cynicism and warm humanism, and its certainty in the value of giving people a chance to do the right thing, even if it's only for a moment. I don't know any other Christmas movie which manages to strike such a perfect balance between unsentimental satire and genuine good-heartedness, and maybe no other movie of any kind. No wonder it’s remained so beloved for three-quarters of a century, during which time a lot has changed and much culture has become difficult to relate to. People may not completely understand it, but they can certainly feel it. If it’s a testament to the power of belief, it’s a testament to a very particular belief, and one which I sincerely hope will never be completely extinguished, no matter how much countervailing evidence life piles on the scales: that the world may push us to be callus, but somewhere deep inside, we’d rather be kind. If the spirit is willing, even if the flesh is predictably weak, there is always hope.  

 

Merry Christmas.

 

 

* In particular, O’Hara’s ability to furiously turn away from someone who's angered her is powerful enough to melt steel, and I doubt any human could survive having it used on them. These are just special effects, kids, or poor John Payne would be splattered all over that wall.

 

** Even if pivoting to a courtroom drama and abandoning almost the entire cast in the last act is such an insane thing for any script to do that even one this savvy can't entirely avoid some turbulence, but whatever, it makes it work.

False Positive

 

False Positive (2021)

Dir. John Lee

Written by Ilana Glazer and John Lee, story by those two plus Alissa Nutting

Starring Ilana Glazer, Justin Theroux, Pierce Brosnan

 

I like Broad City quite a bit, so when I heard co-star Ilana Glazer had a horror movie, you bet I was on-board. Frankly, I’m more bullish on comedians making horror movies than the artistes who we have lately allowed to run roughshod with the genre; at the very least, they tend to have a more innate desire to entertain. I mean, it worked out pretty well for Jordan Peel, right? If top-tier satirists are feeling drawn to the horror genre, I’m at least game for it, even if horror-comedies have a pretty uneven track record (and anyway, it’s not like normal horror is exactly famous for its consistent high quality). Plus, we can always use more movies written by women; though horror has never exactly lacked in female representation on-screen, it’s rarer that a female star also serves as co-writer, so that’s a nice bonus.

The pedigree is worthy, then (along with Glazer, we have director John Lee, a longtime trench worker in weird comedy like Wonder Showzen, Xavier: Renegade Angel, and The Heart, She Holler, along with episodes of Broad City and Inside Amy Schumer and such, and also director of PEE-WEE’S BIG HOLIDAY). This time, however, the resulting movie leaves a little to be desired. FALSE POSITIVE (which is not something this review will be) tells the story of Lucy (Glazer), who, along with her vaguely-defined husband Adrian (Justin Theroux, noted former Jennifer Aniston boyfriend, and hey, he was also in MULLHOLLAND DRIVE!) is having difficulty conceiving. Somewhat reluctantly, she goes to see Adrian’s old med school professor, leading fertility expert Dr. Hindle (Pierce Brosnan, Treehouse of Horror XII) who quickly manages to induce pregnancy, but at the cost of the fact that he’s, like, openly evil, and so Lucy begins to suspect that something sinister is afoot, which would certainly explain all the ominous music on the soundtrack.

This is, then, pretty obviously a riff on ROSEMARY'S BABY, if by "a riff" you mean "the exact same movie except with iPads and a way lamer ending." It correctly understands that ROSEMARY'S BABY is about subtle subversion of female bodily autonomy --an important topic which is every bit as relevant today as it was 1968, sadly—but in trying to articulate that theme, it simultaneously lays it on too thick and too tentatively, emerging with a “message” movie whose message is artlessly blatant but also lacks much bite. It grasps the idea of womens’ autonomy being maliciously undermined in small ways, but the only thing it can think to do with that concept is to run through little sketches which demonstrate it. The doctor addressing her husband first and only then turning to the person with the womb. Her theoretically-supportive boss constantly asking her (the only woman at the firm) to pick up everyone’s lunches. Her friends patronizingly blaming her anxieties on “Mommy brain.” And so on, again, and again, and again, and again, and again, each time turning to us to say “See? See?” until at the end the villain walks out and says “My evil plan was to maliciously undermine womens’ autonomy!” and the movie says “What we have just seen is a movie exploring the idea that womens’ autonomy is maliciously undermined” and we roll credits.

Which is not in itself inherently a problem. When you’re as mad as this movie is, sometimes a direct approach is exactly what’s called for, a righteous hammer rather than a delicate ballet. Thing is, though, for a movie this absurdly on-the-nose, it’s also weirdly shy. The story keeps insisting on hints: small moments, insinuations, careless slights and minute faux pas. But since it is also absolutely petrified by the very notion that anyone watching might miss the point for even a single second, it insists on giving you the same tiny hint over and over until it’s sure you’ve got it. Which is to say, every single scene in the movie –every single one-- involves someone saying something subtly disempowering while Lucy looks quietly hurt. Little things, but little things which contain a clear message. All frustrating and –for many women-- probably extremely relatable slights which sketch out an invisible conspiracy every bit as malicious and far-reaching as the Satanic one in ROSEMARY’S BABY, but far more mundane in practice: just a loose affiliation of good ol’ boys who, despite their pretense to the contrary, will never, ever take women seriously. But if the movie convincingly depicts these little moments where the mask slips, it also never escalates into bigger moments, basically just repeating the exact same scenario with the exact same spooky insinuation for the entire none-too-hurried 92 minutes.

The result is basically MICRO-AGGRESSION: THE MOVIE… but played as if it was THE OMEN, complete with bloody hallucinations and ominous images set to music just this side of THE SHINING. That’s a disastrous mismatch, because it refuses to allow us to simply empathize with Lucy over how rude everyone is to her. Everyone is kind of a prick constantly, but the movie’s tone insists that this is a matter of apocalyptic evil rather than a perpetual annoyance. And the very mundanity of the situation makes that hard to square, despite the insistent score (from Yair Elazar Glotman and Lucy Railton, making their feature debut) and the moody, dread-soaked camerawork (by Pawel Pogorzelski, Ari Aster’s guy).

It simply pushes too hard with too little, making it impossible to stay on its side. Whereas ROSEMARY'S BABY was content to let the little red flags add up and speak for themselves, FALSE POSITIVE is functionally incapable of letting things speak for themselves, and therefore strikes a tone of absolutely -- dare I say?-- histrionic panic right from the get-go, making its equivalent emphasis on little red flags completely self-defeating. Despite the quietly mendacious insinuations the movie clings to, there’s no room at all for ambiguity; even if we ignore the aggressively spooky tone and miss the opening few minutes (which flash forward and reveal this will come to a bloody end*), Brosnan is practically twirling his mustache from his first scene. He’s obviously a villain, the film is practically screaming at us that there’s evil afoot, and it assures us this will end in blood from the very start, so we don't ever experience the genuine horror of tumultuous self-doubt that might actually strike a nerve (though obviously that's where the script wants us to go), and instead this lady just seems like a chump for taking the world’s bullshit and looking secretly wounded over and over. She’s so mopey and passive in the face of the movie’s screeching proclamations of doom that eventually we stop feeling sorry for her and start to feel like she’s less a victim and more a passive-aggressive doormat. Which is not the direction you want to push your audience when the whole point –I mean, like, the entire point—is to generate sympathy for pregnant women oppressed by the patriarchy.

I think this is possibly one of those "visual metaphors" you always hear about

And yes, that is the point, and it’s not a point the movie is going to let you miss. Like so many A24 movies, FALSE POSITIVE feels unreasonably anxious to dispense with the dull requirements of narrative and genre content so it can get down to the business of loudly declaiming about the ISSUES, about the PATRIARCHY, about how SCIENCE IS A MALE-CENTRIC MALE-OCRACY AND NATURAL CHILDBIRTH IS THE ONLY WAY A REAL WOMAN WOULD EVER BRING A CHILD INTO THIS WORLD. The last of which is a particularly uncomfortable sentiment to espouse so passionately at this exact moment (um, is Ilana Glazer an anti-vaxxer? Seems kinda like it), and unfortunately not one which you can really ignore because due to the movie's terror that you might miss the subtle point that it keeps making in every single scene, it also takes the liberty of just going ahead and stopping everything to have a character give a lecture on this topic, complete with a slideshow of BABIES DEFORMED BY THE CALLOUS, COLDY UNFEELING SCIENCE OF THE PENIS (these appear to be real medical photos, an especially questionable choice). The criticisms expressed here are not exactly unwarranted or without merit, but a youtube slideshow lecture sure is an awkward, clunky thing to have right in the middle of your genre movie, and it's about as subtle as Steven Seagal's speech at the end of ON DEADLY GROUND. And it just feels so desperate. Do they really think that if we didn't understand by the millionth repetition that the cavalcade of little slights ends up leaving the lead character feeling oppressed and gaslit, that explaining it aloud is going to do the trick?

As with so much modern horror (particular from A24), this makes FALSE POSITIVE feel like a PSA first, and a movie --let along a genre movie—a distant second. It's the kind of movie so eager to demonstrate its intersectional right-thinking that it goes out of its way to introduce a disorientingly stereotypical “ethnic” character just so it can admonish itself for being racist. I mean, come on. I hate to use the term “virtue signaling” because it's been co-opted by the absolute worst people on the planet, and hey, virtue is a good thing, and it's fine to signal it, especially if it encourages others to be virtuous. But this smug, handwringing genuflection to the alter of twitter talking points is exactly why this kind of thing irks people. In fact, it makes the very real issues the movie is about feel phony and calculated, self-serving strawmen constructed to score easy culture war points, rather than honest reflections of an imperfect real world. The one-note desperation of the messaging makes the film seem insecure about that very message; surely if they had real confidence in these themes, they would just tell a story and let the message emerge naturally from that, rather than stringing along a skeleton of a plot from a series of pre-planned talking points.

SPOILERS ABOUT THE ENDING: And unfortunately, it’s not like this is all going somewhere which will justify all the pedantic hand-holding. In fact, it’s not really going anywhere at all. The ending is just kind of small and dumb, and while certainly on-point for the movie’s theme (though no more or less than any other scene) I can’t help but notice that it doesn’t seem to square up too well with the movie that leads up to it. Turns out the big secret is: Brosnan’s narcissistic doctor has impregnated Lucy with his own sperm, and was never going to take her preference for a female child seriously. And I guess her husband was in on it, although he remains a completely murky character and I’m not sure exactly how involved he was in the whole thing. But that’s it, that’s the whole evil secret; there’s nothing supernatural going on, there’s barely even a conspiracy, just some sordid medical malpractice with rapey overtones. I guess she really was a big hallucinating baby after all? I don't see why Dr. Hindle’s self-promoting eugenics program would cause her to hallucinate and black out and shit. And what was up with the sinister safe her husband was hiding? Was that real, and if so, what was in it? Just, like, a letter that said, “I confess that I collaborated with my medical school professor to impregnate my wife with his sperm?” Obviously Lucy has been extremely ill-used, but this seems like awfully small potatoes to have, like, a complete mental breakdown over. I’m not even sure Dr. Hindle (and his sinister henchwoman, played by Gretchen Mol!) deserve to be savagely bludgeoned to death. He definitely needs to lose his medical license, get slapped with a bankrupting civil lawsuit, and probably spend some time in jail, but at the same time, just marching into his office and murdering him doesn’t feel like righteous vengeance so much as the movie anxiously assuring us that, darn it, it sure would smash that nasty ol’ patriarchy right up if only it could. It makes thematic sense more than it feels like it naturally arises out of anything in the story or character. In fact, it really feels most like something they reshot at the last minute when they decided they didn't like their original ending, something that sort of vaguely relates to the rest of the movie, but feels so arbitrary and disconnected that it’s hard to believe this was always where the filmmakers intended the story to go.** ( END SPOILERS ABOUT THE ENDING.

Anyway, it’s not all bad news; the movie looks great (Pogorzelski gets up to a lot of funny business with mirrors and lighting, probably mostly out of boredom) it has a solid score, and Glazer's expressive face --so great for comedy-- at least nails the nuanced emotions she experiences (over, and over, and over) again. And Brosnan, basically playing his character for velvet-tongued camp, is kind of a hoot. But yeah, "ROSEMARY'S BABY but clumsier and more pedantic and with a worse ending" is not really something the world was in desperate need of. Although it is nice to have a version which wasn't directed by a rapist.*** Oh yeah, right. That. Although I didn't like this movie much, let’s not forget that despite its clumsiness, the very fact of Roman Polanski's continued freedom does prove that it has something of a point. I just wish it were expressed with more verve (and more whammy) than this.

 Also, holy cow, I was going to make a joke in there about director John Lee referencing the 2002 They Might Be Giants song John Lee Supertaster. But then I found out the song actually is about this John Lee, who knew They Might Be Giants through his now-defunct band Muckafurgason! Woah, this movie is directed by John Lee Supertaster! Wild shit.

 

* Man, good thing ROSEMARY’S BABY doesn’t open with her looking at the devil-baby’s eyes and then flash back to “nine months ago,” huh? That would really suck.

** END SPOILERS CONTINUE HERE: This sense that the whole ending got re-shot into vague nonsense is bolstered by what happens with the babies; returning home to her disgusting, unwanted male children, she walks them over to the window of her high-rise apartment and lets them float away, maybe vaguely playing off some of the Peter Pan motifs which have been lurking around. But holy shit, wow, she murders her own children! I’m not sure I’m on this lady’s side anymore! But wait, oh, ok, I guess that was just a fantasy because then it flashes back to her just handing them off to her weird husband and giving all three of them the boot. Still pretty harsh, but more to the point, now we just have two scenes in a row communicating the same basic rejection of her children, and I just don’t believe a writer, even a bad writer, would think that was necessary or wise. My guess is they originally ended with the window thing, which is at least kinda bold and crazy, but then chickened out when they realized that no audience, however pro-woman, was going to be happy seeing the protagonist send two babies to splatter on the concrete fifteen floors below, so they punted and tried to claim it was just a metaphor. But the fact that I don’t really know just emphasizes how muddled this all is.  END SPOILERS STOP

 

***As far as I know