People Like Us.

AKA that movie that everyone thinks is about incest.


I'll be honest, despite coming out in the summer of this year, I'd never heard of this film. I began to look around at reviews both from mainstream critics and men with blogs like me and I found a lot of positive stuff said on the film. Wiki claims critics were 'mixed' but I'm not so sure, since every review, whether overall negative or overall positive basically had the same things to say. In short, generalised fashion, they said this is a rather run of the mill drama, that sets itself apart by actually giving its characters something to do, characters which are all acted well. So, what is this 2012 film I've never seen advertised once, that everyone thinks is about incest? Let's find out!

You know what is terrifying? The words, 'inspired by true events', aside from Lawless and maybe one other, can you think of any other American films 'based on true events' that are actually any good? And the ones that carry across maybe a persons name and that is it, don't count. You can't think of any can you? That is because they are usually awful and People Like Us is no different. It's amazing someone can write and direct something about their own life and miss the mark so completely.

People Like Us is another drama about broken people, struggling against an exaggeratedly difficult life, as played by beautiful people, who have never had a difficult day in their entire lives. Our two central strugglers are Sam and Frankie. Frankie is an alcoholic, a single parent, a bit of a whorebag and to all extensive purposes, doesn't exist. She is a nice person who does horrible things. Sam's father dies, dumps a huge lump of cash in his lap which could pull him out of all the debt he is in. However none of it is for him, it's for his nephew. Funny thing that though, Sam doesn't have a sister, so he can't have a nephew... or does he? The two end up bonding over their mutual hatred of their father, the only two people who seem to know the dick he really was or at least the only two who will admit it. She ends up seemingly falling in love with him and it becomes harder and harder for Sam to admit who he really is. Of course, he comes clean eventually, at first she is mad but then she accepts it and they live happily ever after. Blah blah.

I sat around, taking notes throughout the film and reading back, my notes were actually quite positive, which is funny because even reading my notes  back, rewatching key scenes and contemplating I realised this film just never clicked for me. The big, emotional punches, were played so lightly and so often were the characters own fault, I never felt I was ever forming any kind of emotional connection to the characters. And when you feel no bond with the characters, it's hard to enjoy a film. And it's hard not to feel like the film was a waste of time when you feel you barely know the characters by the end, despite sharing their journey with them.

There are other issues too, namely that some of the biggest conflicts in the film come down to the fact that most people in this film are just bad. They aren't nice people. There is a big reveal towards the end of the film where Lillian, Sam's mother, reveals that she made Sam's father choose, Sam and Lillian or Frankie and her mother. She is the sole reason Frankie had no father, and Sam and Frankie grew up without knowing who each other was. And then Sam hugs her and the audience goes aw and yet I was left feeling cold. Okay, so she told the truth, so now we just forgive her? Sure, she is beating herself up over it but the movie doesn't seem to want us to beat her up over it. Honestly all it leaves me is not caring, Lillian, you are a horrible person. I know Sam's Dad is to blame but Lillian should have been the better person. Sam spends most of the movie contemplating whether to fix his own problems with the cash or actually help his sister and her son like instructed, he only does the right thing, seemingly because the last ten minutes were rolling in. The list goes on and on, about the only character who escapes turning out to be a real cunt is Hannah, but that is because she is only in it for five minutes.

And God, don't get me started on the casting. Chris Pine is so stunningly gorgeous, so perfect in the words he chooses to say, I can't believe in him for a second. A Clash fan? I believe in that almost as much as I believe in Vulcan's. And subtle tattoos and low cut tops don't ever make me believe glamour model stunning Elizabeth Banks is some life weary single parent, her radiance is so intense you could use her as a reading light. You can't try and tell a real life story, with people who don't actually look real. Casts have never been something that really swayed my opinion on a film but aside from some melodramatic moments, this film wants to be a drama for adults. And yet it uses the kind of casting CW uses to bring in more teenage viewers. This. Doesn't. Work. It undermines the point you are making. To be fair to both the casting and the acting Michael Hall D'Addario may be a child actor but he's a great one. He is probably the strongest and most convincing actor in the entire film.

Okay, in the films defence, it is well paced. Thanks to Sam not revealing who he really is to Frankie right until near the end, it gives the film a sense of purposeful trajectory that so few drama films really feel like they have. That being said, People Like Us has way too much going on. It tries to give every character in it some kind of arc, no matter how minor they may be and before the hour mark even rolls in, the film starts dropping the juggling balls. It never quite counts as padding, I suppose, but since it already has a central narrative, something so few drama films actually have, I have no idea why it thinks it needs to sandwich it in so many smaller stories. In the end, the way the film deals with all that is going on, is by dropping entire stories and characters from the film for lengthy amount of times only to occasionally remind us of them, before finally raising them back up at the end to wrap them up best it can. You could probably shuffle the scenes around with little impact on the story.

I know I complained about how softly People Like Us plays everything but even now, I'm still chewing on whether this really was a negative. Hesher, which I reviewed last time, was so overwhelmingly depressing, it made it hard to watch. This may lack an emotional right hook but what punch it sacrifices, it gains a certain amount of mindless entertainment. Sure, you could argue that a drama film is meant to be challenging, it isn't meant to be an easy watch but honestly, it was nice to watch a drama that made me laugh without trying to drag me into the dirt in the next scene. This was refreshing but I'm not sure I could ever answer if this was really a good thing.

And no, the film isn't about incest. Sam is extremely creepy and the way a lot of this is constructed can be very understandably taken the wrong way but no, there is no actual incest. I mean I guess the most extreme way to do anti-romance is to have the two leads related, (500) Days of Summer can't say that at least.

So do I recommend it? This is a movie about a bunch of unnaturally gorgeous human beings, who are utterly rotten to their very core, who spend two hours moaning and expect us to feel sorry for them. It wasn't until further watches and further contemplation on the film until I realised just how much I hated everyone in this film and so in turn, just how much I hated the movie. This has been done before, with much better characters. If you like utter cunts moaning for their entire runtime, despite all their problems being created by being such disgusting human beings, watch reality television.

Think About It!

-Locke