MAGIC MAGIC Review
Magic Magic is now available on home video and can be rented via Amazon Instant Video
To be honest, this is the sort of challenge I love to get into: how to recommend a movie while saying as little as possible about the actual content. Because this is a movie that should be seen by people who want something different. Something that doesn’t go where you think it’s going to go, or do what you think it’s going to do. Hell, the chances are good it might not even be about what I think it’s about. I can’t say to a certainty what it all means, but I was riveted the entire time.
They story, or as much of it as I’m willing to divulge, goes like this: Juno Temple is Alicia, a shy girl who tags along with her cousin Sarah (Emily Browning) on a trip she and her friends are taking to Chile. Due to unforeseen circumstances, Sarah has to return to school to take a test, leaving Alicia alone with her friends until she can come back the next day. Things get awkward, and that’s all I’m going to say about that.
This is not the easiest movie to digest. It’s a film that unfolds its secrets and its themes slowly, and in ways that creep up on you. The actors do an amazing job in this regard. Most of the attention will undoubtedly go to Michael Cera and Juno Temple, the two biggest names in the film, but they are surrounded by a small but powerful group that matches them beat for beat. As Sarah, Emily Browning is at turns caring, understanding, deluded, cruel, and in an intentionally jarring instant, shockingly selfish. Catalina Sandino Moreno is barely in the movie, but makes her every moment count. Her very elusiveness, her odd distance even from her so-called friends, draws you in. Augustin, as Sarah’s boyfriend seems loving, goofy and kind, and yet… And yet.
But in the end, it comes down to Temple and Cera, and their powerhouse performances. Temple is the lead, and without giving too much away, it’s a stunner. There’s something unique about Juno Temple. She has this weird ability to go from heartbreakingly fragile to unearthly strange to downright terrifying, usually within the space of a minute. The many facets of her presence get play here, as she makes you step into her shoes (Even when you don’t want to. Especially when you don’t want to). Her confusion, her anxiety, her fleeting moments of joy… she practically grabs you and forces you feel them all. It is impressive to say the least.
And we all know Michael Cera, don’t we? His gawky physique, his squeaky voice, his soulful eyes… everything about him condemns him to a pretty small selection of roles. But the impressive thing is how well he finds the nuances within his limitations. Here he’s one of the creepiest guys I’ve ever seen in a movie. And sure, he’s played creeps before (certainly his self parodying cameo in This Is The End is a superior example), but there is something very off about him here. And yet, almost disgustingly true to life. I’ve met this kind of creep before, in the real world. And it was not a pleasant experience. He comes on and at first I thought he was supposed to be mentally impaired. But as we find out moments later, he’s more stunted and almost overwhelmingly awkward. And then, moments after that, we realize that no, this guy might actually be dangerous… but his true nature won’t be revealed until the very end, at which point it’s far too late.
Like everyone else, Cera only reveals his true nature one moment at a time, and yet it’s never enough for you to get the big picture. Like in real life, these people are complicated. They’re never just one thing, never just one type. They will do something or say something in one scene and say or do the complete opposite thing in the very next and it never feels fake or manipulating. More than any other movie I can think of, this captures the messy nature of human interaction and the inherent unknowable nature of humans themselves.
I don’t know if that sounds like a good time to you, but personally: I was riveted. At this point I probably risk overselling the movie. It’s not a big twisty thing, nor is it reinventing the wheel. It’s just that I went in knowing nothing (even in giving that purposefully vague synopsis, I have revealed to you more than I knew when I got it), and at no point was I able to figure out what was going to happen next. The movie was that rarest of things: wholly unpredictable.
I like being surprised, and I liked the ride the movie took me on. I didn’t know where it was going, and I certainly didn’t know how it was going to end, even if in retrospect they’d been pointing in this direction the entire time, hiding in plain sight. And that was exciting to me.
Human nature is to try and guess the twists, to try and figure out what’s next, what the twist is. But like I said, it’s not a twist kind of movie. If it’s a mystery at all, it is a mystery in the sense that people are a mystery. And because they’re unable or unwilling to even try to solve those mysteries, bad things happen.
That’s all I’m going to say. Even though I’ve told you almost nothing, I still feel like I’ve said too much. Magic Magic isn’t for everyone, but it is a well-made, smart, thought provoking film. I highly recommend it, but I also understand why people might be hesitant to seek it out without knowing more about it. I beg you to just see it. Don’t even go on IMDb to look it up. Don’t read the back of the DVD case. Go in as blind as you possibly can. Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith. That last sentence, by the way, might just be the biggest spoiler of them all…
