Movies That Move: Seven Pounds
In New York/Chicago/LA/Toronto/Vancouver/North American, you hit the ground running. Actually it’s a knee-cracking dead sprint. It still feels like the pavement is lifting up its skirt and running five paces quicker than you. Blackberry in one hand, bodega/Starbucks coffee in the other, umbrella/newspaper wedged in your moist armpit and laptop bag further loaded down with textbooks/briefing papers/job applications on your back/shoulder/pulled behind you, all you can do is watch the sidewalk run to the finish line as the contents of your day begin to hold all the weight of a tumor. You think of beaches of sweating sand and warm beds in the country and wonder why you are killing yourself to navigate piled garbage bags split like busted spleens with their contents vomited all over the sidewalk, or catcalls and sneering, dusty mouths every time you leave your apartment in something above the knee, or bosses who ignore your judgment while extracting every last grain from your body until you feel like you are losing hold of your DNA.
All the while you are trying to date. Make friends. Keep the ones you have. Look pretty. Look handsome. Network. Write the great American novel in between shifts. Perform at the Met. Dance for Ailey. Be fly. Remember to call home. Remember to visit your sick aunt. Remember to eat. Remember to feed your goldfish because the last one died. Remember to forget that you are broke. Be sensational company. Be informed. Pretend not to be jealous of your friend’s promotion or your roommate’s book deal. But you’re not jealous: it feels more like a beaker of acid overturned in your stomach. You can deal with this as long as you remember to keep one loafer/sneaker/stiletto in front of the other and forget to look at the sky.
Because of all this, you like your entertainment entertaining. Hard. Fast. Pretty pictures and surround sound. If you are cultured, no pyrotechnics or Michael Mann-ish dialogue, but you still need a brisk pace and a minimum amount of processing. The synopsis of your life is confusing enough – more twists and turns and ambiguity than you need. You are here in this theater to submerge for 90 minutes and to forget about chasing sidewalks.
I had to pause and think about where we have gotten to in our culture for a film like Seven Pounds to get filleted at the box office and in its reviews. Before watching this film I had already come across friends and critics alike describing it as boring, confusing, dumb, unbelievable, manipulative and pretentious. I wonder if this is because we’ve evolved to develop the attention spans of six-week-old puppies. There is, no doubt, a manipulative vein to the type of emotion the film works to evoke from its audience – but please show me the movie that doesn’t do that. I appreciate three things: 1. A big budget black actor who isn’t afraid to do a film that doesn’t involve wearing a dress and wig, going to prison, watching things blow up or singing; 2. a unique storyline that forces me to pay attention; and 3. a film with enough space for my brain to pull up a chair and watch along with me. Seven Pounds had all three so I’ve got no complaints. L. and I thought the story was beautiful, sad, hopeful and of course heartbreaking – but not even because of the ending. Will Smith is such a dope actor to me and I saw his character’s pain played out on his face throughout the film. Rosario Dawson was beautiful and authentic. I already dig Woody Harrelson so he easily won me over, and I love Michael Ealy in a role completely different from one I’ve seen him in before. So what’s the problem, my little soul has to ask. I don’t know if it was the allusions to Shakespeare or Will Smith in an uncombed afro that turned people off, but living in Brooklyn and chasing sidewalks every day, I know I can appreciate a film that forces me to pause. We’re so busy trying to think that we forget to think – I think. L. and I loved the story, the acting, the shots of Cali and the way it make us head to Wikipedia immediately after watching. Seven Pounds isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of java, but there is something in it to be appreciated. So can we slow down? Can we breath? Can we remember to feed our goldfish? I’m a little worried about us out there, tripping over sidewalks.
