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Be Kind Rewind (2008)

Director: Michel Gondry

Time Out rating

Average user rating

89 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

French celluloid sorcerer Michel Gondry delivers his most playful, accessible and subtextually sparkling slice of bespoke whimsy to date in the follow-up to his stifling 2005 quirk mire, ‘The Science of Sleep’.

This time, he accompanies us on the Capra-esque journey of highly-strung VHS rental shop clerk, Mike (Mos Def) and his skittish, mildly unhinged mechanic buddy Jerry (Jack Black) as they are forced – via myriad helter-skelter plot machinations – to locate the journeyman director deep inside them and remake all the films in the store when they are inadvertently erased. In doing so, they manage to convert the present-day dead-end town of Passaic, New Jersey into a teeming, ramshackle film lot where customised (or ‘Sweded’) versions of ’80s popcorn classics such as ‘Ghostbusters’ and ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ are rolled out at a dizzying rate and perform a roaring trade.

On paper, it sounds eccentric, but this is all part of Gondry’s vision. He presents us with a film whose simple structure could have tripped from the tongue of any vacuous pony-tailed studio exec (a community coming together to save a dilapidated video shop? It could only have come from the ’80s!).But Gondry uses this premise to flip open the ribcage of cinema and allow us to peruse its blood, bones and sinew, and really see how they flow, fit and flex into a glorious whole.

The magnitude of Gondry’s visual ingenuity is consistently jaw-dropping: with the aid of some washing machine innards and a white jump suit, he manages to reduce the iconic rotating space station scene from ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ to a kind of cinematic primordial ooze, at once presenting the infinite potential of the camera to create, subvert and renew reality while also screaming, ‘Yes, you can do this too!’

Because this is a film in thrall to the fact that we have camera phones, YouTube and iMovie at our fingertips, and that there are people who go out there and make movies – just for the hell of it. But the joyful process of filmmaking is not its sole concern: there’s also a fondness for archaic technology (you could even read it as a clarion call to a generation weened on in-built obsolescence) to the point that CGI is rejected in favour of in-camera effects which lend the film a ragged visual energy comparable to the ’80s classics to which it pays homage.

In the end, though, it’s this total respect for its ironic source material which has enabled Gondry to achieve his greatest coup. In a postmodern rendering of the archetypal ’80s schmaltz finale, the director picks at our heartstrings like a cigar-box banjo, assembling the entire town together to watch Mike and Jerry’s fictitious biopic of local jazz legend Fats Waller in what must be one of the most nakedly romantic salutes to the restorative power of cinema since the ‘montage of kisses’ scene from ‘Cinema Paradiso’. It’s an awesomely simple and powerful moment, echoed by an earlier declamation from Mia Farrow’s doddery Mrs Falewicz as she enjoys one of Mike and Jerry’s remakes: ‘A toast to movies with heart and soul!’ Hear hear!

Author: David Jenkins

Time Out London Issue 1957: Feb 20 to 26

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User reviews of this film

John Cooper said...

Posted on Jul 04 2010 23:09 The Time Out review wins the Oscar for the most
pretentious review of the year. This mildly amusing satire on movie-making doesn't get close to the quality
of movies like Bowfinger or Ed Wood which are much funnier and much more engaging in terms of plot, character and thematic cohesion. Do not be fooled by the reviewer's use of words like `postmodern` and `visual ingenuity` in an attempt to justify this indulgent jumble of a film with its anti-Hollywood , anti-professional subtext. Basically, the film doesn' work . . . it doesn't engage . it doesn't amuse . . Shallow people won't understand its putative intellectual subtext . . . and intellectual people will be stupified that a film with such a shallow premise ever got made. Just read the comments that this film has elicited . .. apart from the apologist suppport from movie nerds. . . If you haven't
seen Johnny Depp in Ed Wood or Steve Martin in Bowfinger, then, rent themboth out instead of wasting your time with this.
.

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Rachel said...

Posted on Apr 28 2010 12:11 Just saw this film as our final film of the Film Society season. I can see how some people would just not get it if they were expecting standard popcorn comedy fodder. But the film managed to create its own hilarious moments, in both acknowledging and parodying those films. Some lovely sequences of home-made props and imagination which shows what can be done if you try. One downside was the dialogue which in our copy was not easy to follow (maybe just us?) I'd recommend it, but don't expect the ordinary

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Chad Goodell said...

Posted on Mar 11 2009 07:48 A gorgeous, loving film. I was awestruck by the heart & balls Gondry used making this story; it says more about community and self-invention, about the pure, clean joy of narrative construction/destruction than it does about "movies," per se. Gondry's concern seems to be with bringing us back that feeling of community, that ineffable joy watching shadows on the wall and identifying with them, recognizing the bits of ourselves we want to improve and develop in the characters playing onscreen. But I guess some people want another Tropic Thunder. Whatever. If you give this film a chance, you'll be surprised. See it.

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RobG said...

Posted on Nov 28 2008 11:20 Not as good as promised on the cover but interesting and some funny moments (fliming Ghostbusters 2 - hilarious). Schmaltzy too so one for the girlfriend but worth watching - Mos Def steals it.

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katherine said...

Posted on Aug 19 2008 11:25 watched this in bed last night, was switched off after half an hour it was that bad, will be going in the bin when i get home tonight, what a load of pish

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Simon said...

Posted on Jul 15 2008 19:55 One of the worst films it's been my misfortune to see. The only upside was that I didn't pay to see it as it was on the flight home from holiday. Needless to say, few people were watching

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Will said...

Posted on Jul 14 2008 10:43 People seem to be forgetting that this is a MICHEL GONDRY film and not a Jack Black vehicle.

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Gubboo said...

Posted on Jul 12 2008 21:20 I was waiting for it to get better, it only got worse. :[
BIG disapointment.

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corne said...

Posted on Jun 26 2008 20:41 This must have been the worst movie I have ever had the pleasure to see. Half way through this film I had suicide thoughts. DO NOT WATCH THIS.

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stacey said...

Posted on May 24 2008 11:39 Pointless! Throughout this film I was clinging to the deperate hope that something, anything, would rescue it from the depths of mediocrity. It was self-indulgent pap - and what was with the ending?? My children and myself were left feeling bemused and puzzled and irked that we'd wasted the previous two hours of our lives on this tosh! Avoid at all costs!

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sarah said...

Posted on Apr 07 2008 19:18 who are the donkey brains that write these time out reviews? this film was dull, ive never felt so desperate for a film to end and i felt a great sense of acievement for not falling asleep. Saying that, I wasted 3 hours of my life for this naf rubbish-boo!

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dee n loz said...

Posted on Apr 06 2008 10:47 this film was the worst movie we have ever seen in our entire lifes. it was soo borin and if we were you do not go and see it! omg were famous!

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tony said...

Posted on Apr 05 2008 22:38 not great really

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R U Mad said...

Posted on Mar 28 2008 17:57 This film is not slapstick Jack Black, so if that's what you are expecting you're in for a dissapointment - that being said, it is brilliant. Way beyond some simpler examples of his work, this film is thoughtful, extremely human and touching. I loved it....

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Mii-Chan said...

Posted on Mar 26 2008 22:19 I....hated this film. Me and my friend ahd heard good reviews about it, but to be honest everyone in the theater where I watched it were talking amongst themselves after the first 20 minutes. Started crap, ended even worse, and there was few funny moments....I can't believe people actually are reccmmending this, However, I would go if you have money to spare to make your own judgement; but go with friends in case you get bored.

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