#ironclad to his role in the narrative but so few people even the ones around him barely see him as more than

[dve]

the saint of duty + an iliad's hector of troy

An Iliad, Lisa Peterson & Denis O'Hare, p. 480 / Harrow the Ninth, p. 124, 133, 191, 193, 194, 204, 228, 267 292, 469 / Nona the Ninth, p. 30, 399, 402

[helshades]

Hard to deny that we live in an age dominated by the superhero. That classic Superman chestnut, “Look up in the sky!“, feels as apropos as ever when you can’t drive down a major road without Tony Stark’s mustachioed mug or Clark Kent’s Kryptonian biceps flexing down at you like judgemental gods. They rule the box office, they rule the pop culture conversation, they rule the graphic t-shirt real estate at every coffee shop. We’re about one particularly effective after-credits scene away from fandom spilling over into actual worship—pull up any video from inside Hall H if you don’t believe me—which means there’s no better time to ring up The Boys.

Adapted by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and Eric Kripke from the Dynamite comic series by writer Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, the eight-episode Amazon series has a wickedly sharp eye for what an actual modern age of superheroes would look like. Costumed vigilantes come with an army of publicists to craft public apologies. Major media corporations schedule the crime-stopping “team-ups” that would drive the optimal amount of social media engagement. And there’s the possibility that the superheroes themselves, so shiny and glossed in front of a camera, are the type of A-list TMZ trash-monsters in their private lives who might smash a man’s skull during a particularly aggressive round of analingus. This is an actual thing that happens in The Boys. A lot of wild things happen in The Boys. But underneath all that superpowered ass-murder is genuinely one of the most timely TV series I’ve seen in a long time.

Our way into the mayhem is “Wee” Hughie Campbell (Jack Quaid), a completely normal A/V salesman living a completely ordinary life until a super-fast superhero named A-Train (Jessie Usher) literally runs through his girlfriend Robin (Jess Salgueiro), turning her into a cloud of blood and guts. A-Train is essentially untouchable as a member of The Seven, the world’s premiere superhero team, along with aquatic fish-talker The Deep (Chace Crawford), silent ninja Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell), the invisible Translucent (Alex Hassell), superstrong ass-kicker Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott), and the squad’s Superman-esque leader, Homelander (Antony Starr). Quieted with a half-assed apology and ironclad Non-disclosure Agreement, Hughie’s thirst for revenge leads him straight to Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), former leader of an under-the-radar squad that worked to keep the “supes” in check: The Boys.

Running parallel to Hughie and Butcher is the story of Starlight (Erin Moriarty), The Seven’s bright-eyed and optimistic new recruit who quickly learns she’s joined a team of corrupt corporate suits, perverts, and murderers. The two plots intertwine, and soon a grand conspiracy emerges surrounding the mysterious super-steroid “Compound V” that could completely destroy the superhero game and the mega-corporation that funds it, Vought.

The Boys operates on a few different levels, all of which the creative team nails on one level or another. It’s your classic gettin’-the-band-back-together story, as the Compound V conspiracy convinces Butcher to track down the rest of the retired Boys, Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) and Frenchie (Tomer Capon), who are eventually joined by the hyper-violent killing machine known only as The Female (Karen Fukuhara). It’s also a pretty dang intriguing mystery tale dressed up in tights and capes, as well as a pitch-black comedy filled with enough flying guts, exploding dolphins, and C-4 shoved into a person’s unholy crevices to keep even the sickest of you puppies squirming.

But where the writing staff really excels is in the world-building. They’ve kept large chunks of the comic book story intact while also stripping away a bit of the X-Treme Edginess—I like Garth Ennis a lot, but Garth Ennis is occasionally too Garth Ennis for his own good—and setting it firmly in a setting that’s both comic-book elevated and so perfectly 2019. Superheroes argue not about the number of lives saved, but their cut of the merch and box office sales raked in from the Vought Cinematic Universe. ESPN runs 24/7 coverage of a race between speedsters. SEO experts and video editors cut together image-boosting clip shows of The Seven interacting with the common folk. (Possibly my favorite joke in the entire show is the fact newcomer Starlight’s segment is placeholder text that just says “Starlight relating to people.”)

And with that comes a really dark, unique relatability to the material that’s completely different than any on-screen comic book series out there. Though we don’t live in a world of actual superpowers, we do live in one filled with supremely shitty people in extraordinary positions of power and wealth. Tune into literally any news outlet of your choice—or just log on to Twitter dot com—and you’re bombarded with the latest government figure or Hollywood elite who was caught and/or just outright said the depths of their sheer shittiness. It makes you long for the days when a celebrity’s name trending meant they were just dead, not a sexual deviant. The Boys, similar to the comic series, leans hard into this idea: What if the rich, powerful fraudsters and public masturbators of the world were actually sitting in the position of the gods? It’s the darkest material on the show, but the story approaches it unflinchingly. There’s a real stomach-churning familiarity to a high-ranking member of The Seven dropping his pants in front of Starlight and asking how badly she wants to be a part of a superhero team. But even the worst parts come with a sense of wish fulfillment; as awful as it is to see and recognize a world run by all-powerful assholes, it’s thrilling when you realize The Boys is really about how ordinary people can fight back.

As Starlight, Moriarty shines brighter and brighter with each episode, a fantastic foil to Quaid’s increasingly twitchy Hughie. The cast is pretty electric across the board—especially Karl Urban out there throwing around c-words like his name is Cookie Monster—but there are two performances in particular that really make the story tick. Antony Starr is terrifying as Homelander; he plays the main supe like a petulant child given the strength of a nuclear bomb—a Shazam who also burns people’s faces off—and it’s chilling how quickly the actor switches between Homelander’s toothy-smiled choir boy image and the stone-cold persona below. Standing behind him is Elisabeth Shue as Madelyn Stillwell, Senior Vice President of Superhero Management at Vought. The Oscar-nominee is perfectly icy in the role, and low-key the most terrifying character on the show. As the mass murders and war crimes pile up around her, Madelyn is just booking the dates and scheduling the meetings, proving there’s nothing more horrific than a suit who signs lives away with a smile.

If there’s a complaint to be had about The Boys, it’s that its first eight-episode run ends awkwardly, right in the middle of the narrative with several loose threads dangling and a few key characters left forgotten in the home stretch. You have the sense the creators were pretty confident given the fact casting announcements started to pop up before a season 2 was confirmed. [UPDATE: Which it was, just now, at Comic-Con.] But the roller-coaster ride to that abrupt end is something you must experience. Like Alan Moore‘s Watchmen in the late-80s, TV series has the chance to be the superhero deconstruction of our time. Less a peek behind the curtain, and more a seedy glimpse behind the social media likes and box office numbers, a story that manages to be heartbreakingly relevant while still finding time to have Karl Urban kill a room full of goons with a super-powered baby.

Oh shit, did I not mention Karl Urban kills a room full of goons with a superpowered baby earlier? Yeah, man. Watch The Boys. A lot going on there.

[benmiff]

A Polite Conversation

This one comes in a couple of years after The Wedding.

The Thorned Lady

Keeley had been a good friend to me over the last couple of years, even if our friendship had started as a matter of professional respect for one another before it grew into something more significant. She was a fellow specialist at night work, and we had met when it had been deemed that a particular act of sabotage would need both our talents; there had been a theft of one of House Borado’s many secrets and we were chosen to go and destroy their copies before the thief could successfully make use of the arts they had pilfered. The job required my arcane knowledge to distort the stolen spells so they looked plausible so we could bring ruin to the thief when they tried to use them and Keeley’s mechanical talents to get into the Clockwork Vault where they had been safely locked away; the Vault was one of House Kalis’ newest architectural wonders at the time and until our raid believed to be impossible to subvert, but our superiors believed that she was their best chance at getting past the many defensive mechanisms. She didn’t know me as the Ivory Mask, of course – we kept that identity strictly separate from my night work and I had developed a persona around a mask of animate thorny tendrils that continued to hide my face while also serving as a weapon should things become problematic and violence become necessary. As the Thorned Lady, we had recognised each other’s talents and artfully complemented each other when the Clockwork Vault proved as perilous as had previously been claimed; the traps were bad enough, articulated arms conveyed by springs and gears to slice through the air and take off a limb, but once we had delved deep enough we soon had to evade several clockwork golems far smarter than any spell should have made that were able to work in tandem to try to corner us before taking us down. We pulled each other clear of what seemed to be certain death several times that night, and such life and death moments do not pass without a bond being formed. Such events did not go unrecognised when we reported back on the details of our little night raid either, and we were paired up somewhat frequently from then on as and when House Borado’s needs demanded; in time, our friendship grew to the point that we would meet for evening drinks and talks, sharing what we knew about recent events and generally catching up with each other, enjoying each other’s company whenever we met as some of the few people in House Borado who truly understood what our roles were like while indulging in the luxury or the view of whatever place we had commandeered for the evening.

We were due for another such meeting, having agreed to use the long abandoned bell chamber at the top of the old Champion’s Bell Tower on the Vasari estate; the tower had slowly passed into ruin when the families’ fortunes fell and they had to limit which holdings they bothered to maintain, focusing on the central estate with not a penny to spare for such a grandiose celebration of long past glories. It was my turn to bring the wine (red as always), and Telesforo kept a good cellar and had no objection to my taking a few of the decade or so aged bottles for such evenings. Scaling the bell tower was not too difficult, with the walls shaped into great reliefs of past Vasari greats that had won plaudits for their cultivation and discovery of great artists; time had taken its toll and the tower’s walls were now ruined and decaying with cracked stone and fallen bricks providing more than enough handholds to easily pick ones way up. The vines of my mask reached out and anchored themselves into deep crevices and around protruding stones to pull me up, and soon I had found a suitable path and climbed up to the top room. The old bell still hung in the ceiling above, heavy bronze cracked by the great hammer that hung within never to ring out again without some expensive repairs that the Vasari family would never likely be able to afford; old furniture in the best styles of several decades ago cast from brass and softened with now decaying cushions sat around the room on old dusty laminate flooring that was once lovingly oiled and maintained but now had grown old and even rotten in a couple of places. I tossed the cushions aside, perfectly content with a hard seat, and arrayed the glasses and bottles I had brought for the evening upon the small table on one of the balconies ready for Keeley’s arrival. From here, the view of Pelhure was spectacular, looking down upon the lamp lit harbour one way and up to the forested mountains and other private estates in the other, all lit by the silvery light from the night’s full moon, and as I watched I saw little vignettes occurring in the streets, arguing couples or someone sneaking through back alleys believing themselves unseen; little narratives sprung into my mind to amuse me, with the squabbling pair arguing about the husband’s infidelity as the sneak-thief who was his secret love slunk away, and it was in this way I passed the time as I waited.

I did not have to wait all that long, perhaps a quarter of an hour, perhaps a little more; the quiet sound of a metal jointed apparatus clicking as the ratchets tightened and released their gearwheels repeatedly came from behind me, and as I turned I saw Keeley throw herself over the railing of the balcony at the other side of the room and onto solid footing. She was quite thin despite her half orc heritage, favouring speed and wit and intelligence rather than the usual brawn typical of her kind, but her most distinctive feature was the mechanical gauntlet over her dominant hand that was a device of her own making, aiding her grip and providing any tools she might need for lock picking or other such tinkering; it was hardly needed for a friendly conversation, though, and as she approached she folded it away until it was little more than a thick bracer around the wrist, all the little tools and mechanical parts hidden away under a golden covering plate.

“I do hope you haven’t been waiting too long, dear,” she said, taking a seat by the table and tutting as she realised she had folded away all her tools without realising she still needed the corkscrew to open one of the bottles. Fortunately, it was one of the easier ones to get to, and she unfolded a little arm with the tight metal spiral at the end to open up a bottle before pouring a pair of generously full glasses.

“Not too long at all. Well, where shall we start? Salacious rumours?” A telling smile broke onto my face as I talked, or at least the half that could smile, the other side of my mouth frozen from ruined muscles under old scars. The thorny tendrils of my mask had receded to show my lower face so I could drink and talk more freely, and I had heard rumours of my own, some pleasant and some most certainly not; there was one topic in particular I was not looking forward to bringing up, but we could talk over pleasant subjects first and get what enjoyment we could from the evening before bringing an unsavoury end to things.

Keeley smiled back and waved a hand in the air, taking a sip from the wine glass to wet her lips before she spoke. “Oh, I’ve got plenty of those. I think the best one is the Duncombe’s, though; you know Imogen, their youngest? Seems she’s got quite the appetite since she’s come of age, leading on Tomlan of the Rawnsleys and Jacob of the Thorburns and Marcellin of the Loffners; can’t see what she sees in Jacob, mind, but the other two? They’re decent enough young men, but when they figure out what’s going on, well, things are going to turn spectacularly ugly. How about you, Thorn – anything good your side?”

I had to consider carefully what I was going to tell her; Keeley was an incorrigible gossip, and anything I said would no doubt be spread across half of Pelhure by the end of the week, no doubt distorted and embellished in fanciful ways as such things always were but with the core truth still running through all the versions for those who were inclined to look. That was useful sometimes and I had planted lies before to draw targets into the open, but I had no such need for that at the present time; everyone I was working on did not yet know I was coming and were still dangerously (for them) in public. That left me with rumours about those a little closer to home, and I had no real desire to slander most of them; while I knew things that if revealed would hurt them, they were better left unharmed if there was no real benefit to it. Still, I knew of a particularly insidious rumour floating around in hushed corners regarding someone distant enough from me that indulging Keeley’s joy in muckraking was worth more to me than their comfort, and I was sure that Keeley would not have heard about it yet; the rumour was part of the reason I had picked the Bell Tower for our meeting spot, knowing I could use it to further illustrate the story. “You know the Vasari’s, right? You found their tower without any trouble, so I would imagine so. Well, if you look over there,” I said, motioning at another tower across the estate that was ironclad and in much better condition than ours, “you’ll see the Vasari’s old prison tower. No-one’s seen Varek in a long time, right? It’s unusual for a patriarch to be missing for so long, no? Well, that’s because he’s locked away in those cells. Went mad, apparently, starting shouting in some unknown tongue at the moon and had to be sealed away for everyone’s good. Such a shame, really; the Vasari’s just don’t have the luck.”

“That does explain some things going around, actually,” Keeley replied, absorbing the information. I pressured her to explain what she meant, and she revealed there were whispers that the Vasari’s were pressing for marriages and generally trying to polish the reputation of some of their lesser sons and daughters, pushing to secure themselves before they were forced to announce the patriarch’s unfortunate retirement. We continued talking in this manner for a good couple of hours, trading tales and secrets, and soon enough four of the bottles were empty and we were uncorking the last bottle, a sign I could no longer avoid bringing up the subject I was trying to delay having to discuss; Keeley finished regaling me of the stolen treasures she had seen behind the glass of her last job in the Urviche’s private halls, and as the story came to an end I leant forward to speak with a lower and quieter voice, both for the threat in what we were about to discuss and from an instinctive feeling I should as though there might be a spy who could overhear or that our words might get carried to an enemy on the wind.

“I’ve heard a rumour about you, actually. Not a good one, either,” I said, and concern crossed Keeley’s face as I spoke. “Heard House Kalis had reached out to you, wanted you to shift allegiance.”

“You know I wouldn’t, right?” Keeley responded, hand on the table betraying her as the tension caused her to grip the edge tightly; clearly she knew I wouldn’t bring such things up unless I knew something more, something to give the rumours credibility and substance, and she didn’t want to give anything away until she knew the full extent of what I had found out.

“Not what I heard, Keeley. I understand, I do… love, right? Someone in House Kalis you’ve fallen for?” I asked; love was the most common reason for such foolishness, after all, even if Keeley didn’t seem the sort to be blinded by a nice rump or pretty eyes. “You have to know it won’t work. They’ll kill you, and they’ll kill whoever it is you’ve fallen for, and that’s if they’re feeling kind. There’s worse they can do. I know you haven’t done any of those kinds of job, which is fine, but I have, so trust me here. If you really do love them, you’d stay away from them.”

“No, that’s not it,” was all I got back, not a denial she was thinking of leaving, only that the reason was wrong. I had hoped that it was a false rumour, hoped that someone was merely trying to damage her reputation and that she’d deny it all outright and be able to explain it all away, but no such luck.

“So, it isn’t love. What, then? What could possibly be so important that it means risking all of this? Do you want to lose everything?”

“I can’t tell you. I’m handling it – you don’t need to get involved, Thorn,” she replied. Too late for me to stay out of things now, though; I knew and several others had enough suspicions that they were beginning to get involved, and so I needed to do something before they did. After all, even in the worst case scenario, I could be sure that my way would kinder than anything they had planned.

“Look, Keeley. I know something’s up – if you don’t tell me, then I can’t help you. And I’ll have to tell them; they probably know already, just waiting to see if I’m compromised too. I don’t really have a choice here.”

Keeley sighed deep and long, caught between two equally terrible options, the rock and the whirlpool. I saw her glancing at the open expenses of Pelhure off to the side of the table, probably thinking about whether she’d make it she just ran now, but she had to know I’d just hunt her down, and I like to think our history meant she thought she could trust me with whatever was going on.

“This doesn’t go any further than us, not even if it means they come for me, Thorn. You need to promise me that.”

“Of course. No further,” I lied; if I needed to, I wouldn’t keep it secret, and it wouldn’t be the first such broken promise either. Such things were the nature of night work, and Keeley should have known that, but she’d been compromised and wasn’t thinking straight.

Keeley took another deep breath in. “I’ve got a child. Had him before I got into this line of work – he’s eight now. He’s with the father – it’s safer for him there, and while the dad’s not much as things go he loves the kid. Well, House Kalis found out somehow, gave the father a job, paid way better than he deserves, and now they’re threatening an “accident” unless I go over to them. You know what House Borado is like – they’ll just kill the kid, remove the complication the easiest way they know how – so I can’t go to them, so I’m stuck. At least if I go over only I’m in danger, right?”

So, there it was. An idiot of a father, not realising the trap he’d dragged everyone into. “You have to know it won’t work out that way. Who’s the kid, anyway?”

“Meiran. Good kid, more of a brawler than me though. Takes after his father that way.”

“And where is Meiran now?”

“You’re not going to do anything stupid, now, Thorn, are you?”

“Of course not,” I lied, once more. There was only one way out of this I could see, but Keeley wasn’t going to be able to do it herself. She was too deep, too invested, and couldn’t do what needed to be done. “You know I can find him myself, anyway, if I need to. It’s better if you just tell me, though – less risk of collateral damage that way and all.”

I’d left her no choice, and she even though she was still scared and worried she relented. “They’re in the Marleton estate, but...”

“Marleton. Alright. You know, you should have told me earlier, but so be it. One last thing, though,” I replied, and the animate I had been carefully moving down to the floor without Keeley noticing during the whole conversation clicked into motion as I tapped it with a foot to activate it. It was a silvery metal thing, all sharp bladed legs around a small body, and up until now I did not know whether I was just going to hurt her or whether I would be forced to kill her. I was glad it was the first option, and that the situation was not so unrecoverable that the only solution was to kill anyone connected to it. I doubt she’d be pleased with either option, but messages had to be sent and it was only thanks to our friendship that I had been asked to resolve this particular matter personally rather than immediately resorting to more unsavoury means. The animate leapt into action, scuttling under the table and ripping into Keeley’s right foot, and she screamed as it tore into the tendons at the back of her heel; her mechanical bracer opened up as she moved to destroy the source of harm, forming the punching dagger she usually wielded on our missions and stabbing through the animate before throwing it off the tower. It was destroyed in a single strike, returned to little more than crushed metal even before it went over the tower’s edge, but it had done what I needed it to now her foot was a shredded bloody ruin.

“For what it’s worth, I am sorry, Keeley, but they already knew. It’s only our friendship that saved you – they let me take care of things rather than go full bore. Your foot will mend, eventually, but until then, well – this stops you entertaining any ideas about fleeing. As to Meiran… well, that does need to be taken care of. I’ll get him, bring him back, but the father, well, he’ll have to die. He sounds pretty worthless anyway. I’ve seen you get back from a mission before now with worse injuries, and I don’t think it would be good for me to get too close to you until I’ve got Meiran in tow and you’ve had a chance to realize how lucky you are this is all I have to do to you. Goodbye – I do hope you’re not going to hold this against me, but I’ll understand if you do.” With that, I got up and looked over Pelhure again, spotting the Marleton estate off in the distance and releasing the animate bird from my ruined eye socket to scout ahead. I’d have the kid soon, and then we’d go from there.

“Thorn! Thorn,” I heard as I got ready to climb back down the tower, the bird flying off ahead. Keeley was leaning against one of the Bell Tower pillars, keeping the weight off her ruined foot, teeth gritted against the pain and trying not to show it. “Just… just make it quick for him, okay. And don’t let Meiran see – I don’t want him tangled up in any of this.”

“He won’t see a thing,” I replied, and headed out, a busy night’s work now stretching out in front of me. I just had to hope that getting the kid wasn’t going to be too difficult – I hoped that I could keep that promise.

[captainbashybae-blog]

The Mementos of Post Modernism

Watching Memento is about as enjoyable as reading the emotional breakdown of Holden Caufield.

Well not really. To be honest, I find Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye a lot more impactful and satisfying as a narrative. I also enjoy Holden’s first-person style of writing more than Leonard Shelby’s paranoia-driven revenge scheme beleaguered by short-term memory loss. I’m well aware both can be equally unreliable.

Like Inception and Insomnia, Christopher Nolan directed Memento, a film that revels in confusing its unsuspecting audience just enough so people pay attention to it. We see a handsome, rugged Guy Pearce play unlikable insurance investigator Leonard Shelby as he tries to find the one who murdered his wife. What should’ve been a solid plot of a flick from the early 2000s, Memento throws an entire wrench into the plot by afflicting Leonard with anterograde amnesia. If it wasn’t the wacky plot device of the Adam Sandler rom-com, Fifty First Dates, I would feel more sympathetic towards Leonard.

Memento centers itself around the Hermeneutics of Suspicion, a school of thought determined to “unmask the lies and illusions of consciousness,” a concept that forces you to wrestle with the acknowledgment of your existence. You couldn’t be more postmodern about it even if you wanted to.

If Nolan had a capacity for humor, it would be the type of humor that shrouds itself in dark, potentially horrifying, irony. Leonard struggles to cope with his affliction by tattooing cryptic messages, taking polaroid photos, and scattering scraps of paper scrawled with reminders. It serves as an ostensibly effective means of piecing together a future he would forget otherwise, but it turns out to be an exercise in futility. Despite his confidence and best efforts, Leonard falls victim to the manipulations of the people around him and makes mistakes in his deductive reasoning—whether out of convenience to create an easier narrative or out of a sense of guilt over his past actions. He chooses to write out his cop buddy’s band name as a license plate number, he burns photos to muddle the evidence and we come to question if the actual murderer was just him all along. He also mistakenly kills some guy and sleeps with his girlfriend—which sort of justifies her manipulation of Leonard later in the film.

The irony of all of this centers around the conviction that the world around him remains the same despite his memories and consciousness constantly changing. As if “the facts” he accrues as tattoos during his investigation are completely independent from his perception of the world, the fought never occurred to him that his flawed method of thinking is susceptible due to his shaky grasp on his state of mind. The ending suggests that certain tattoos were etched on even before his wife was murdered, AND the entire existence of Sammy Jankis, an important character to Leonard, might be made up. For all we know, the entire movie might as well been a endless goose chase meant to keep the man busy.

The funniest part of his predicament is Nolan purposely made Leonard Shelby an insurance investigator akin to a hero from a noir flick. Leonard is essentially man that has the tools and know-how to figure out his biggest questions…Except he doesn’t have the cool demeanor and class that comes along with being an actual detective. To be honest, I see all of this as just depressing, but I can find the potential humor in it. Leonard reminds us all that facts and truth aren’t as ironclad as we want them to be, and they are just as susceptible to altercation as memories are. It’s a postmodernist admission that we should never feel complacent in what we perceive and pretend to know. Truth is relative. And Leonard is a terrible narrator.

To further analyze the film in a postmodern perspective, the movie knowingly tells the story backwards. Nolan’s decision to tell his story this way demonstrates a strong understanding of audience perception. While it might seem like an artsy-fartsy decision implemented to purposely confuse everyone needlessly, it forces the viewer to see the world a little more in Leonard’s shoes. By doing so, we constantly rewind memory and details every few minutes to keep up with the movie, questioning the motivations of the people around Leonard. We’re never really sure who Teddy is or what his intentions are even after the movie. We definitely don’t know exactly what Leonard’s role in his own conflict is either, the ending leaving the revelation ambiguous. It’s a postmodern subversion of the typical noir film that leaves viewers with few answers and more questions.

Overall, I found the movie pretentious. It might be because I came to the movie forced to write an analysis of the whole thing, but I appreciate the concept of the film at least. I didn’t particularly like anyone in the movie, and the unreliable narrative of the plot left me more frustrated than intrigued. I’d rather watch Groundhog Day; Groundhog Day is a good movie.