I guess I’m reviewing Levity and Phone Booth together because they’re both about letting go of one’s past, paradoxically by holding onto it, and what can cause the need for outright honest human sympathy to engage. I’m also reviewing them together as a rebuttal to Jared’s Levity-is-not-a-ridiculously-pat-movie comment, because maybe you didn’t get what I meant by ridiculously pat, bud.

Yes, Levity is unresolved, but somehow, it is still pat; it’s like a cold blanket on a warm night, a self-medicated desire to approach a place where mistakes don’t matter, as long as we Realize Who We Really Are. The quintessentially Billy Bobbian character wanders about, spouting arbitrary biblical nonsense about salvation, facing the cliched teen characters with an ossified, reactionary kind of maturity.

I didn’t like the way the movie was composed and laid out – it’s as if every image (including, for example, the ghost-at-the-subway sequence, the pictures, the running into the Holly Hunter, holy shit can you get any more obvious and self-rationalized) was structured around the obvious fallacy that Billy Bob will overcome, even though he won’t. Ultimately, it’s a ditty about being content with the fact that you are yourself, but the edges are weightless, made flimsily out of the obsessive therapy that permeates so many awful modern films (Antwone Fisher, My Architect, etc.). I am myself. Look into mirror. Repeat.

In contrast, Phone Booth is more preposterous – ultimately Sutherland is a very Movie hypocrite, who contradicts the very social mores he pleas for – but hell, that’s the point in my opinion. Think of the sniper as Ed Solomon, the ghost of resolution in a completely depersonalized world where relationships and memories are fragmented and there is no room to work life out, only, as we are encouraged, to live it (thus justifying Schumacher’s Schumacherness of techn[o]ique, implying that outer space is the sort of universal connection modern humanity can relate to moreso than Changing Lanes-style compromise, and that is our tragedy).

On top of that, I thought Colin Farrell was terrific (currently my second favorite lead male performance of the year under Paul Schneider in you-know-what, which means he’s better than a lot of porno stars I’ve seen) at balancing hyper control with fear, and I liked the way the movie pitted everyday fears (the pimp who might beat me up) vs. semi-fears (of the over-reliance on communication via technology) vs. guilt fears (the sad pizza guy) vs. allegorical fears (the sniper). While Billy Bob must piece together who he is according to the principals of the man he wants to be after compensation, Colin is asked who he is, by the wall and the strange man, and the ending, I believe, told me a couple of things: this idea of an honest, true self is impossible to rely on or achieve; but nevertheless, in individual situations, it may determine the winner of the game.

4.6.03

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