Blue Crush vs. Lovely and Amazing

Today we are going to compare two cinematic visions of female empowerment. The first is "Blue Crush," starring Kate Bosworth, Michelle Rodriguez and Sanoe Lake as Hawaiian surfers fighting for their gender and themselves against some mildly intimidating men and extremely intimidating waves. The second is "Lovely and Amazing," starring Brenda Blethyn as the mother of biological, medium-aged, white daughters Catherine Keener and Emily Mortimer and adopted, black, eight-year-old daughter Raven Blackwood. These four ladies have some issues with body image, immaturity, and insecurity, and not all the expected ones either.

It would probably appear to most interested cinemagoers that the cast of "Lovely and Amazing" has the cast of "Blue Crush" thespianically outgunned (except, of course, in the all-important swimsuit competition), and thus the former movie could be expected to provide more insight into the female condition than the latter. As far as I can see - and I do labor under the considerable handicap here of being male - this is so. Still, the contrast between the two films is intriguing, and examining it may well bring us closer to a common failure of the American mind, as expressed in American cinema.

That would seem like a long shot after viewing "Blue Crush," which alternates awe-inspiring scenes of young women contending agains crushing surf with boredom-inspiring scenes of young women doing other stuff on land. Kate Bosworth is Anne Marie Chadwick, a gifted surf artiste, who lives with Eden (Rodriguez) and Lena (Lake) in what can fairly be described as a shack. The three work as maids at an island hotel, raise Anne Marie's sister Penny (Mika Boorem) because Mom ran off to Vegas, and steal every spare moment they can get to ride waves. Anne Marie has gained a wild-card entry to the Pipemasters competition in seven days, but she's reluctant to actually train for it because Matt (Matthew Davis), a quarterback in town for the Pro Bowl (presumably; the actual game is never mentioned) asks her to teach him to surf and sleeps with her and generally takes up all her time. Eden hectors her to, you know, work on her talent to the point where it's useful as an occupation, but Bosworth's anxiety threatens to get the better of her, due to a near-drowning incident three years ago that drove her from the tour.

This is a flimsy plot; fortunately, it gets dashed to pieces by the crashing waves that take up so much screen time. Cinematographer David Hennings and director John Stockwell somehow managed shots of pipe that actually ride inside the wave along with the surfer; the tension as the wave crests and falls, the surfer piloting as deftly as possible to avoid being crushed by the swelling, bursting, crashing water, is exquisite. The sea in general is treated with the awe and deference that less technologically endowed generations before us held it in; while playtime on the ocean is enhanced with the latest in forgettable dance music, the true roar of the surf is never obscured by such effluvia, and it is a mighty thing indeed.

The lead actresses wear their bikinis well, which is impressive because these are some tiny bikinis, bikinis so inconsequentially sized that it seems that the surging surf's awesome power would heedlessly rip them off their bodies, which does not actually happen in this film. (Sorry!) As actresses, they don't have much to work with. Lake, a native Hawaiian, giggles her way engagingly through her role. This is the third consecutive movie in which Rodriguez has played an ethnic sidekick to a heroine, and the role does not become her; one keeps wanting the heroines to step aside so Rodriguez, who burns with determination, can get what she more obviously deserves. Bosworth is something of a cipher at the movie's center, blankly beautiful and invisibly conflicted; her thoughts don't pass across her face at all, and she doesn't express them in words.

This is unforunate, because it is in Bosworth's character that one might see an actual, as opposed to pro forma, struggle for female empowerment. Here the script demands that femals fight male mockery and gain respectability, and it happens, but any desire for that to happen comes from the audience rather than the characters. Anne Marie's real struggle is not with the surfing patriarchy but with herself; when she accepts and uses her talent, faces her fears, and becomes a person without conflicts, she's a whole person. So saith "Blue Crush."

"Lovely and Amazing" has a different take. The events here are framed by a trip Jane Marks (Blethyn) takes to her local liposuctionist and the unfortunate medical complications that result, but everything else probably would have happened anyway. Elizabeth (Mortimer), the younger biological daughter, is having appearance issues just like her mom, which is unfortunate given that she is an actress and must project confidence in her body to survive; her boyfriend Paul offers no help. Michelle (Keener), the older sister, has accomplished nothing much of consequence since giving birth to her daughter, especially in the eyes of her husband (Clark Gregg); in an effort to make herself useful, she abandons her efforts at making cutesy arts-and-crafts products for sale and takes a post at a one-hour photo shop, at which she meets an instantly smitten Jordan (Jake Gyllenhaal). And Annie (Prince George's County's own Goodwin), the eight-year-old adoptee, must steer her own course in this largely parental-rudderless atmosphere; true to eight-year-olds everywhere, it involves eating a lot and pointlessly disobeying adults.

So these people have problems. With a lesser writer/director than Holofcener, these problems could quickly turn the audience against the characters. There's a shrill me-first tone to Elizabeth's dealings with Paul. Michelle disregards her own responsibilities to the degree that she suggests that her daughter put down her book and come watch the cartoons in which her mommy is completely absorbed, and delivers borderline insults to Annie more than once. Annie is as much total pain as she is adorable, going against the cinematic stereotype of the unfailingly adorable kid, and you have to question the wisdom of a parent who adopts an eight-year-old African-American child while in her own fifties and takes time off from raising her for a medically pointless liposuction.

Holofcener, aided by her stellar actresses, manages to present these women not as types in a discussion about body image and maturity and society but as real characters, a state in which their various flaws make sense. Keener's Michelle certainly can bridle against basic notions of responsibility with anyone on the planet, but she has an admirable dedication to her art, and Keener's sensuality still crackles even as she advances in years. Mortimer's Elizabeth ends up doing something incredibly brave that, unlike every other damn reviewer of this movie, I am not going to reveal; however, you can see a perverse, glorious transgression like this coming, as Mortimer effectively runs her character through the grief and disillusionment that are a necessary prelude to any dramatic personality change. Annie and Jane get less screen time, but they both have their grace notes, and it is appropriate to mention them together because their relationship, however ill-conceived, is obviously founded on the unimpeachably deep love between a mother and a daughter.

It helps, of course, that Holofcener writes pitch-perfect dialogue and lets events unfold and indirectly comment on each other in a natural, unfussy way. The men in this film, it is true, seem to exist solely to stifle the women's ambitions, but a film needs antagonists, and as noted above Holofcener doesn't think women are universally beyond reproach either.

But we come to know them, in varying ways, and this is Holofcener's accomplishment: She makes us realize that, while society's demands have made these women's lives more complicated, and they have not always reacted in appropriate ways, they are still women and thus worthy of our respect. This movie does not end with the cleansing epiphany of "Blue Crush"; it ends when the latest storms have passed, with plenty of indication of new tumult on the horizon. Nothing has achieved resolution except our portraits of these women, and the portraits as Holofcener has conceived them are the message.

It's not a sentiment much expressed in films these days, especially those with the pop-therapeutic sensibilities so dominant in Hollywood, but it's a message we often forget and we all need to remember: Women, and men too for that matter, are lovely and amazing not because we are perfect, but because we are human.

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