Films July 9, 2017
Wright didn't spend enough time writing women.
Edgar Wright knows how to make a movie. Personally, I’m a fan of “Shaun of the Dead” and “Scott Pilgrim.” I haven’t seen the whole Cornetto Trilogy (Sorry, white dudes).
His use of music and knowledge of screenwriting shine through on screen. Friends of mine that have read the screenplay spoke of it in awe.
It is like if the “Fast and the Furious” movies and “La la Land” had a Baby. And to be sure, it’s a romp with a sprinkle of emotion that wasn’t enough to season the pot. Which is kind of par for the course when you write an entire film based on a music video, starring the Mighty Boosh.
Key terms: The Bechdel test. This test originated from a comic strip in the eighties. The requirements are simple. A work of fiction passes if two (named) women have a conversation about something other than a man. So did “Baby Driver” pass The Bechdel test? *Warning, spoiler alerts below for “Baby Driver” *
Hell no. All of the women in this movie exist to inform the characters of men.
For starters, Eiza González is only there to rev the men’s engines. She’s paired with Jon Hamm, but she flirts overtly with other men in order to, we find out later, push Jon Hamm to violence for her own personal enjoyment.
When she dies, Jon Hamm goes on a revenge spree to take out Baby’s girlfriend. When he finally catches up with the two of them, he says something along the lines of, “You took something I care about away from me. Now I gotta do the same to you.”
Baby Driver, the main character, has suffered in his life due in large part to the loss of his mother. That’s what made his connection to music so profound. Played by Sky Ferreira, Baby Driver’s mom (who has no other name) is first beaten in front of Baby, then dies in a car accident.
Super sad. For Baby’s mom, who died. But all of our sympathy is supposed to go to Baby and his mother’s plot is a (flimsy) emotional through line.
Another flimsy emotional through line? Why not. Baby Driver’s girlfriend Debora (Pronounced Zebra), played charmingly by Lily James, only exists for him. She’s another character like his father, something for the bad men like Jamie Foxx and Jon Hamm to threaten.
A gun gets pointed at her multiple times to draw some sort of reaction from Baby. He even has these “Pleasantville”-style fantasies about the two of them together. The only thing about this depiction that I like is that when a judge asks about their relationship she says, “We were friends.”
In terms of a thrill, the first car chase is worth the price of admission. And as a person who hopes to make features, I found the choreography to be a worthy educational experience.
It all just depends on whether you care at all about representation… which I do.
