Edgar Wright – Scott Pilgrim vs.
the World
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| pic by Gage Skidmore |
While this year's best picture winner
was about dreams, I left the theater after watching Scott Pilgrim
vs. the World feeling as though I had just been through a dream.
This, I think, is the best way to understand what Edgar Wright does,
with audacious vibrancy, in this unique film about a young loser,
Scott (Michael Cera) who has to defeat the 7 evil exes (not
ex-boyfriends) of the girl of his dreams, Ramona (Mary Elizabeth
Winstead). It is true that the movie plays like a comic book, with
the sound effects lettering and super villain costumes. It is also
true that it plays like a video game, with the familiar pvp graphics
and music. In and of itself, this makes for an thoroughly enjoyable
movie experience for any geek. But Wright understands that these
elements are not ends in themselves, but tools to tell the story. In
this case, all of the funny, jarring, downright strange visuals are
used for great effect. And the effect is this: you are in a dream.
I don't mean that Scott is dreaming the story, but that Scott's story
contains the logic of a dream. The jarring non-sequiter jump cuts,
the strange changes in setting and costume, and the superpowers that
come out of nowhere that nobody questions are all part of Wright's
style. To everyone in the movie, when the Vegan Police break through
the wall or when Knives Chow (Ellen Wong) gets the highlights in her
hair punch out... all of it is perfectly normal, just like in a
dream. Not only is it normal, but it makes a kind of logical sense
in the same way that the insanity of a dream makes sense to you as
you dream it. This is not an easy thing to do. Either everything is
too strange so that you can't connect or it is too normal and loses
its ethereal quality. Edgar Wright balances the two to create a
unique and dazzling movie.
RUNNERS UP
Christopher Nolan – Inception
David Yates – Harry Potter and the
Deathly Hallows pt. 1
Lee Unkrich - Toy Story 3
Martin Scorsese – Shutter Island
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