James Ponsoldt (2013)

The protagonist of The Spectacular Now is a high-school senior called Sutter Keely.  It takes a bit of time to adjust to this character – not only on account of his did-I-hear-that-right name but also because Sutter, described in the Wikipedia synopsis of the film as ‘charming and self-possessed’, seems at first an arrogant jerk.  Although – to be honest – he doesn’t stand out as especially awful within the American high-school social and sexual culture depicted here.  Having liked Miles Teller in Rabbit Hole and Whiplash (which The Spectacular Now predates), I hoped he’d make it worth staying with the film.  He does – and so do other plenty of others:  the acting is strong throughout.  There’s a lot to like too about James Ponsoldt’s sensitive direction (his next feature after this was The End of the Tour) and the fluent, incisive dialogue in Scott Neustadter’s and Michael H Weber’s screenplay, adapted from a novel by Tim Tharp.

Sutter Keely is living for the present, hence the movie’s title.  On the face of it, that doesn’t make him stand out from his high-school contemporaries either but Ponsoldt reveals, without being too obvious about it, that Sutter is more alcohol-dependent and less focused on tertiary education than others in his peer group.  It’s his drinking that causes his girlfriend Cassidy (Brie Larson) to break with Sutter and brings about his meeting with Aimee Finecky [sic!] (Shailene Woodley).  Sutter is ambivalent about the switch from Cassidy to Aimee and keeps backtracking – partly because he still has feelings for Cassidy, partly out of vanity and a need for sexual prestige.  Cassidy is more glamorous than Aimee – and Cassidy’s replacement boyfriend (Dayo Okeniyi) more conventionally handsome (though less verbally witty) than Sutter.  Aimee is regarded as a booby prize even by Sutter’s pal (Masam Holden) – and he’s inexperienced with girls.  Shailene Woodley is a doubly important element in enhancing The Spectacular Now.   She’s a good actress and her portrait of Aimee is finely detailed:  Aimee’s shy hesitations and nervous giggles are complemented by the determined underlying personality that Woodley expresses through her eyes.  The viewer (this one anyway) experienced some irritation with the giggles; Sutter, as his insecurity and self-dislike come to the fore, finds it hard to accept Aimee’s intimidating goodness.  While it’s hard for a viewer (this one anyway) to credit that someone as pretty as Shailene Woodley would be deemed a no-hoper in high school, she is – according to Hollywood definitions of beauty – relatively ‘plain’.  This makes the popularity Woodley’s achieved in mainstream cinema almost heartwarming – and casting her as a romantic heroine interestingly apt.

Sutter lives at home with his mother Sara (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who looks to have some kind of receptionist job in a hospital.  His father departed the scene when Sutter was a young boy.  He wants to get in touch with him and Aimee, whose own father has died, encourages Sutter to do so.  Because Sara has always opposed the idea, Sutter gets his father’s phone number from his elder sister (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and calls him.  The genial voice on the other end of the line says he’d be delighted to see Sutter again.  The episode in which he and Aimee visit the father, Tommy (Kyle Chandler), is the best part of The Spectacular Now.  The way this meeting goes downhill – inevitably but not melodramatically – is highly convincing.  Tommy Keely, an inveterate drinker, exists in an unspectacular but inescapable now.  In his few minutes on screen, Kyle Chandler brilliantly conveys Tommy’s guilty conscience and intransigence, and convinces you the combination is a recipe for stasis.

From the point at which Sutter and Aimee drive back from seeing Tommy, the film begins to strain towards resolution.  Finding her loving steadfastness intolerable, Sutter orders Aimee out of the car; as she gets out, she’s hit by an oncoming vehicle.  This is shocking but Aimee isn’t seriously hurt:  while that’s a relief, it also raises suspicions that what he’s done to her will bring Sutter to his senses.  It’s not quite as simple as that but the moment when he determines to turn over a new leaf is only being delayed.  Aimee leaves town to start college in Philadelphia.  Sutter, having said he’ll go with her, mistreats her again by failing to turn up at the bus station.  He abandons his part-time job in a gent’s clothing store (Bob Odenkirk is excellent as the sympathetic boss), gets drunk and crashes his car outside his home.  He breaks down and sobs to his mother that he’s just like his father and will never be any good.  Sara, who’s been tetchy with him in all their exchanges hitherto, now assures Sutter this isn’t so and that he’s really a lovely person.  By this stage, there’s a major tension between the seriousness of Sutter’s hang-ups – Miles Teller makes these believable – and the obligation James Ponsoldt feels to deliver an upbeat conclusion to the film.   You therefore expect that, when Sutter belatedly drives to Philadelphia, his final reunion with Aimee will make for a weak, fake happy ending.  In the very last shot, Ponsoldt and Shailene Woodley save the day.  Sutter appears before her just as Aimee is coming out of class.  She smiles at him – amazed, delighted but almost immediately anxious too.  She doesn’t speak but her face is asking Sutter if he really thinks he can go through with this.

17 June 2016