SCREENINGS & MEANINGS
By
Gerald Schmitz
Great
Scott — a Canadian Pilgrim’s Progress?
Scott Pilgrim
vs. The World
(US 2010)
It’s official — comics can be good for youth. At least that’s according to a July study by the Canadian Council on Learning which suggests that comic books and graphic novels can help children move up to more complex stories and especially help boys overcome the reading gap with girls.
Not that I think the purpose of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is educational in any back-to-school sort of way. It’s a late summer lark that, even more than other movies drawn from comic source material, will appeal primarily to a teen and young adult audience. The snappy, smart scenarios are never condescending. The surrealist special effects are terrific without overwhelming the development of a peculiar cast of characters, starting of course with Scott, played to perfection by sweet-faced star and Brampton native Michael Cera, who gets to hang out in favourite Toronto-area locales of 31-year-old Canadian born author Bryan Lee O’Malley.
Toronto gets to play itself in a very cool way, and not just because
the season is wintertime. The city that other Canadians supposedly love
to hate is the unabashedly endearing setting for O’Malley’s
popular graphic novels series that has been translated into 13 languages.
The movie version is based on the first volume, Scott Pilgrim’s
Precious Little Life, and also the latest, Scott Pilgrim’s Finest
Hour, just published by Oni Press.
Hard as it is to imagine
any North American wide release telling a Canadian story, this one opens
with “Not so long ago, in a mysterious land called Toronto, Canada
. . . .” That’s where we get introduced to Michael Cera’s
Scott, boyish 22-year-olds in real as in movie life, whose misadventures
in young love form the core of the storyline. The beardless doe-eyed
Cera, who still looks 16 and holding, will be familiar to anyone who
remembers his fumbling character of “George Michael” on
the too good for TV series Arrested Development. As he’s matured
into one of Hollywood’s go-to guys of geekdom, Cera has retained
a fresh-faced air of innocence that’s impossible not to like.
This Scott Pilgrim —
the name comes from a song by the band Plumtree (Cera wears one of their
T-shirts in a scene), not from any pretentious allusion to the protagonist
in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five — rates himself an
“A” for “awesome.” But he comes off as a rather
hapless slacker anti-superhero sort. He plays guitar in a garage rock
band “Sex Bob-omb” with a mean drummer Kim (Alison Pill)
he once dated in high school. He gets told off by his 17-year-old sister
Stacey (Anna Kendrick), and put down by older worldwise gay roommate
Wallace Wells (Kieran Culkin). Things get even more awkward when a 17-year-old
Chinese girl from a Catholic high school becomes his new girlfriend
and biggest fan. None of these situations seems at all threatening,
though.
Then along comes the enchanting
Ramona V. Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), the New York girl with
the differently coloured hair, with whom Scott is smitten as “the
girl of my dreams.” But first he must do battle with and defeat
her seven “evil exes” — one of whom is a female blonde
bombshell from when she was “going through a phase.” These
duels take place on a highly stylized plane of videogame-like choreography.
They are humorous send-ups of the genre, not confrontations meant to
be taken seriously.
One could object that the
movie, which delighted the crowd during its preview premiere screening
at San Diego’s Comic-Con in late July, caters to a dubious cool-generation
moral laxity. It certainly doesn’t offer any judgmental moral
lessons. Still, it’s hard to think too badly of Scott/Michael’s
mostly tame if aimless pilgrim’s ways. The dialogue is often wordplay
clever, and not at all foul-mouthed unlike so much else at the multiplex.
Co-writer-director and producer Edgar Wright — best known for
the laugh-out-loud excellent Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007)
— again shows off his touch for comedic parody and zinging action
sequences. There’s never a dull moment.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
won’t change, and shouldn’t rattle, your world. It’s
light entertainment that some will find juvenile. Fair enough. But,
relax, this is relatively harmless fun. Cera, the goofy beanpole turned
great Scott champion fighter for love, couldn’t hurt a fly. A
fleeting August idle, and in charming Toronto of all places.
P.S. Although the movie trailed
several big-name August 13 releases in box office, it did much better
with critics. Salon.com’s Andrew O’Hehir celebrated its
“Canadian indie cuteness gone wild!” Tellingly, on the rottentomatoes.com
website, Pilgrim scored an 80 per cent “fresh” rating on
the “Tomatometer.” That compared to only 43 per cent for
ultra-macho Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables and a dismal
38 per cent for the touchy-feely Julia Roberts feature Eat Pray Love.
It’s no contest, I agree.
Schmitz is a member of the Sundance festival’s patron circle and an ambassador member of the Canadian Film Institute.
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