#greener grass

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[aintmovingnow]

Greener Grass (2019) dir. Jocelyn DeBoer & Dawn Luebbe

[steampunkforever]

Postmodernity is dead. Long live whatever is going on right now. It'll be dead before we can figure out what to call it.

I'm a few years removed from an academic context where I'm sure I could be properly corrected on this, but I've been lumping a lot of current post-postmodern of a certain flavor under the title of Vermeulen/van der Akker's definition of "Metamodernity" as the traditional postmodernity of the mid to late 20th century gives way to whatever we're experiencing today. Thats right, despite the harangues of cable newscasters, Postmodernity has been over for decades. Literary and artistic movements are rarely named while they live and breathe (unless they're some astroturfed "[PREFIX]-Punk" genre driven by posers) and so to try and name what's happening today is futile. But for simplicity's sake lets file this one under "Metamodern" so I can actually write this filmpost on the surrealist film "Greener Grass."

The last couple times I've mentioned the concept of metamodernity has been with Quentin Dupieux's surrealist film "Rubber" and-- on the absolute other side of the spectrum --Greta Gerwig's "Barbie." Greener Grass is like if the movies swapped directors, with the mind behind Mr. Oizo taking a crack at what dealing with life and womanhood in a pink-saturated nightmare is really like.

Anyone who grew up in an affluent suburb with a William Sonoma store in their local mall will likely resonate with this film. I think we all remember those , whip thin mothers of classmates who drove Escalades and wore outfits too intentional to not be expensive. Their kitchens were massive and uncooked in. The exercise classes they attended were always feminine, nonthreatening, and adhered to with iron wills usually reserved for Olympic training. One must be pretty like you were in college sorority but a homemaker like his mother in the 70s but "with it" in ways that don't conflict with the new Land Rover financed in your McMansion driveway. The performance of gender and class and perceived societal value is incredible, and that's exactly what Greener Grass is about.

The film talks about something much more complicated than "Barbie Goes To The Gynecologist." It's a film about performance, social hierarchies, and the injustice of artificiality thrust upon us by the manufactured standards of innocuous but deeply "wrong" systems. And it does so by creating a surreal world of skinjob characters pretending that everything is perfect, ignoring the graves their children play over as they conduct monstrous business with a smile and polite posturing. Everything is pink. Everything is perfect. Your son drowning himself and turning into a golden retriever is perfectly normal, even if he does flunk math class. It is dreadfully important you continue to be a good mother.

The fact that Covid killed this movie is a travesty. Go watch it.

[visitor-q]

[aquaria-regina]

the barbie movie could have been as weird and surrealist as greener grass if they hadn’t turned it into white woman feminism 101

[goryhorroor]

I love movies that are so ridiculous that when it’s over, you just know it’s either inspired by a snl skit or written by a snl writer

[greyeyedmonster-18]

(awhile ago, i played an ask game in which i was asked to make a story involve MCD and one of the answers i gave was: postcard from paris.

so...i present, a postcard from paris au. you don't need to read the first fic, just the second chapter and you're good to go.

xoxo)

greener grass (the greenest growing)

part 1: a beautiful day

Remus stood awkwardly in the corner of the drawing room of Number 12 Grimmauld Place, looking out the open window at the blue skies that were a perfect contrast to the heavy velvet curtains and the mood from inside the house. Glass of wine in his hand, knuckles turning white from gripping the stem so hard, only half hearing Sirius's voice telling him he was an uncultured swine--a barbarian-- for letting his fingers touch the glass.

Remus didn't pretend to have a culture in the first place, glancing down at his feet where his black dress shoes were untied and scuffed on the toe. Suit and tie, dressed in a sort of costume he hadn't wanted to put on that morning before attending the service, caught somewhere at the intersection of denial, disbelief, and dread. He typically loved going to Number 12.

They had spent birthdays and New Year's there, celebrating milestones with joy the way Sirius and Kingsley knew how to do.

Going away parties and promotion parties.

Baby showers and welcome back parties.

And now they were here.

The house was filled with small talk and music from a record player that felt more eerie than ambient. It made Remus's hair stand on edge the way everyone passed along platitudes and placations; it made him roll his eyes when he walked in and saw security scanning people's wands. Death apparently wasn't a big enough occasion to warrant privacy, treating the service and the reception as another charity gala or event of the season. And not something terrible that had happened.

He took a sip of his wine, teeth on edge as a woman's overly shrill laughter rang through the halls.

It should have been Sirius's obnoxious laughter. Not hers.

Remus stepped towards the window, slumping over to rest his forehead on the glass, eyeing the white roses that framed the backyard of Number 12.

"I think he reinforced the glass, so if you're thinking of taking a nose dive..."

Remus pulled his forehead off the window and turned around over his shoulder to the sound of the familiar voice. Familiarity was supposed to bring comfort, or so the saying goes, but it sent knots straight to Remus's stomach.

Though, at this point, his stomach had been in knots for two weeks, what was a few more?

"Looks like I've been thwarted then," Remus murmured, not quite making eye contact with the man in front of him. James gave a half-grin that quickly fell from his face, reaching a hand up to rub the back of his hair.

Nearly 40 and he still had a full head, not a strand of grey in sight. Meanwhile, Remus had bags under his eyes the size of carry-on luggage and more grey hair than he could count.

"How are you doing, Moons?"

"That's a stupid question to ask. How are you?"

James opened his mouth and closed it again, walking into the drawing room after shoving his hands into the pockets of his trousers, robes hanging over his shoulders. It was strange. James in all black, when normally James took every opportunity to wear bright magenta's and purples.

Yellow's and bright oranges, mirroring a sunset in the sky or extravagant city lights in the night. Remus had once thought James was the Eiffel Tower-- the real fucking thing that was it for him-- only to have the fantasy crumble when James hadn't followed through.

Again.

Leaving Remus waiting and disappointed.

Again.

Not that Remus had put the effort in either...again.

They went around and around, and now James was in black robes, and Remus was holding a wine glass, and they were in the same room for the first time in seven years.

"You're right...stupid question."

"Cheers," Remus raised his glass, finishing the contents in a long gulp.

"Is the wine good at least?"

"Would it be a Black party if it wasn't?"

"Not much of a party."

"That bint from the Ministry with the hat might disagree..."

"Oh, her..." James muttered, shaking his head, looking as if he was about to say something, but he stopped himself again. Remus knew that look--that feeling. He had been wearing it and feeling it for the past two weeks since he got the news.

"Yeah."

"I...I know it's been a while..." Remus snorted, "And I know...we kind of fell apart--"

"You make it sound like an accident."

"Wasn't it?" asked James, "We...were young. Some things work out when you're young, and some things...just don't."

"I don't think that changes because we're older..." Remus finally met James's eyes, hazel sending him straight back to their best friend's wedding.

“I told you we’re not doing this.”

"Doing what?" James asked hands paused on the belt buckle of Remus's trousers, identical robes already shed behind them in the bedroom of Sirius's villa in France, bottle of champagne on the dresser.

"This! What we always do!It's so fucking stupid. We pretend its forever and then it ends the same. You leaving for work, and then we write letters for another two weeks and promise to floo and visit and you send me postcards and pictures but we never end up meeting until there’s some…function. And that's what happens, every single fucking time. When Sirius moved out, when Sirius got engaged, now he's married and unless he gets married again, I don't know when the hell I'm going to see you!"

It wasn't a wedding.

"This isn't a wedding," Remus told him.

"I know," James swallowed, "I don't know how I'll get through it wit--"

"Dad-- there you are!" a third voice came and this time both Remus and James turned around to greet it, "Why are you two being all dodgy by the window?" Harry asked, adjusting the glasses on his face.

It was cruel torture, the way Harry had grown up to look so much like his father and haunted the halls of Hogwarts for Remus. The privilege of watching Harry grow tainted by memories of his father and what if's from when Harry was younger.

"Were you looking for me, Haz?" James asked a hint of amusement in his voice.

"Yeah, we're kicking people out now, Mum says we can do it but someone needs to go sit with--"

"Sure," James nodded and inclined his head toward Remus. They easily fell into step again, as they left the safety of the drawing room. Side by side, one foot after another, a single unit, but it never stayed like that for long. They walked through the hall, Remus listening to Harry and Lily move people out the front door.

Thank you for coming.

It means so much.

"He didn't even like half these fucking twats..." James muttered under his breath.

"Don't need to tell me that..."

"Good."

The casserole was delicious.

"It tasted like feet," remarked Remus and James coughed out a laugh, just before they came to the sitting room.

A casket in the middle of the room, white roses around the base.

Vacated chairs.

Velvet curtains wide open

And Sirius sitting on the edge of the couch, head in his hands now that the room had cleared out, fingers frantically combing through his hair over and over again.

Ordinarily, Remus would've made a joke about how he was going to go bald.

But it didn't seem like the time.

"Habibi," James said gently, sitting next to Sirius on the couch and pulling hands out of his hair to hold them instead, "Did you have the feet casserole?"

Apparently it was the time.

"Feet casserole?" Sirius responded quietly, still staring down at the ground. "I think its technical name is Widower casserole."

"Mmmm no, I'm pretty sure its feet," James corrected, turning his head to look at Remus, "Remus had some."

We make a good team, Moons.

"A whole big toe," Remus nodded, before taking a breath and crossing to the other side of Sirius, "Budge over, where are your manners?"

"In my husband's casket, I think..."

"I'll put mine in there too," Remus agreed.

"You didn't have any to begin with," Sirius retorted and nudged Remus lightly with his shoulder.

They were three again.

James.

Sirius.

Remus.

On a couch.

Blue skies behind their heads.

James hands holding onto to Sirius so he wouldn't slip away.

Life lines.

"We have a week. To sit here...and...be with him one last time..." Sirius said softly, lifting his head up from the ground, and staring at the casket instead. His jaw was tight, muscles in his hands flexing over and over again against James's. "You think that'll do it?"

"Do...what?" asked Remus

"Help this feel less shitty?"

"No," Remus said bluntly, leaning back against the couch to stare up at the ceiling. He felt two more thumps against the cushions in succession, seeing Sirius and James from his peripherals looking up all the same.

"But its...a beautiful day," James continued, "And...we're here."

Remus didn't have to look down to know it was James's hand on top of his knee.

Remus didn't even have to wait for the wine to kick in to know he would be absolutely fucked, once again, in ruins and shambles by the end of the week. It didn't matter that it was a funeral. It didn't matter that Remus had told himself he was too old to me making the mistakes of a twenty year old; thirty year old.

James's hand gave his knee a squeeze. An electric shock through his body, and Remus closed his eyes.

Here we go again.

[gemthegerm]

Gem’s Movie Review:

Greener Grass

this movie fuckin rules lmao 10/10

[vulnerasti-cor-meum]

why produce a movie if you’re not going to do vivid/weird things with color. im thinking like greener grass especially but also postcards from London or even the film adaptation of isherwood’s a single man like what’s the point what even is the point actually

[sleazymermaid]

[realblrr]

Wow, that sort of self confidence, self love ,and humbleness is very important...but don't let it make you selfish, arrogant and self obsessed....

[thedeathwitchescats]

Today was a bad day. But not every day is going to be a bad day. There are going to be good days. There are going to be great days. There have been great days. And there have been bad days. There have been neutral days. Days are days and words are words but the point is that just bc today was a bad day doesnt mean tomorrow isnt going to be a great day. All days can be good and all days can be bad. Whatever day you have/had/are having doesnt mean tomorrow wont be different. Healing isnt linear. Life isnt linear. This shit is a roller coaster. But its okay. There are good days to look forward to.

[letterboxd-loggd]

Greener Grass (2019) Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe

September 7th 2024

[fugottron]

Go watch this movie!! It’s free on YouTube! Don’t look up a trailer just watch it. Trust me going in blind is better

[visitor-q]

[whatthegayle]

Greener Grass

Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe 2019