While it must have been personally frustrating for director David Cronenberg, the fact that it took almost 20 years for him to get his latest film, Crimes of the Future, onto the screen was probably for the best. Originally titled Painkillers, Cronenberg’s return to funky, disturbing body horror was first set to begin production in 2003, but the project stalled out until last year.
What he’s made feels like a snapshot of our current moment. I suspect Painkillers wouldn’t have captured the feel of its time, had it been released when initially planned. Crimes of the Future’s fidelity to our present malaise is probably due in part to the rewrites and revisions that undoubtedly took place in the interim between Cronenberg’s first draft and the start of production.
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There’s been plenty of digital ink already spilled about Green Book being a White Savior Film. While I’ll also spill a bit of my own on the topic, there isn’t much I can add. For me – an average white dude who’s seen his fair share of movies – the most glaring fault about the picture, a dramedy dealing with race relations in the Jim Crow era, is the paint-by-numbers feeling of it all. This is a movie that strives to hit every standard beat in the uplifting “inspired by a true story” template. As an exercise in mediocrity that serves up something we’ve all seen dozens of times before, Green Book is an unparalleled success. It’s utterly predicable and is the kind of movie that would have felt fresh had it been made 20 or 30 years ago. Still, for all it’s flaws, Green Book isn’t entirely without its charms. In addition to a superb turn from actor Mahershala Ali, the movie does provide some inspiring moments and a message about race that plenty of people still haven’t absorbed.
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