On Demand Weekly

On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of hot movies on demand from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: NORTHEAST (Tribeca Film).

Hipster men: prepare for celibacy. The writer and director of NORTHEAST has pointed his camera at you. Your cover is blown. When you’re at a party talking about your film project, your photography or your found object art or not talking at all because being cute and mysterious gets you laid, you still know that you spend your days killing time and producing next to nothing. Hey don’t change, but since you partied your way through a certain Ivy in Ithaca (via the Ag School), graduating without any debt, but also without any education, what else could you do anyway? Whatever but don’t see this film with the chick you’re trying to shag or she might see who you really are: a loser.

It’s easy to watch this film expecting that it’s actually about its protagonist, Will. That’s what we expect when we watch a movie: the protagonist does stuff, we relate to some of the experiences he has and wish we could experience others. Sometimes its even fun to identify with bad guy or girl – we can even root for them. Unfortunately just about everyone is going to watch NORTHEAST this way and then wind up confused because the story is so, to be polite, sparse. This is not a movie about Will.

NORTHEAST is dating manual. It’s a red flag. It’s an older brother telling you that you should know better. If you’ve ever lived in Portland or Berkeley or Austin or Brooklyn and dated a cool guy who didn’t have a real job because he was trying to achieve his “vision,” this movie will mean much more to you that to the rest of us. You’ll remember how cute he was and how you romanticized the bravery it took for him to reject materialism and financial security. You’ll also remember that he stopped returning your calls and pretty much ignored you after you slept with him a few times. If you haven’t yet been charmed by a Will in real life, you’ll watch this movie and wonder why anyone would give the time of day to this boring zero on the road to nowhere. But now you’ll know how to identify him at the next party before you’re drawn into his bullshit.

Will is happy to consume alcohol, friendships and women as long as the price is right (i.e., free). I mean “free” like he doesn’t want to feel like he’s committed to talking to you after sex and certainly free like he’s not expected to return a favor. The only time Will experiences any feeling in this film is when he’s pissed that someone stole his bike that he bought on the street for $60 (obviously because it was stolen). Of course, Will has been subtly stealing rides, favors, booze and sex from his friends all the time, but man! is it unfair when it happens to him!

By the way, how does Will have any money at all? He spends all day doing nothing and all night at apartment parties. He doesn’t even have a lead on a job. How is he paying his rent with enough left over for an impulse purchase of a bike? Well it’s unknown but if one were to guess: probably from a slowly decreasing trickle of dough from enabling parents, self-deceiving enough to believe that it matters when they tell him, “Remember it’s a loan.” Yeah, like someone like Will is going to get a job in the boring world of responsibility and competition rather than continuing to leech off of everyone until they wise up and are replaced with the next batch. Please. The only way someone like this could ever pay their parents back is if they inherited a pile of dough. Oh wait, nevermind, that’s the plan.

Anyway, when his always-works-once-but-less-often-twice combination of a shy smile and aloof mystery falls flat on a favorite ex-hookup, we wonder if Will can dig down and produce an actual emotion. Can he pull anything out of the black vacuum that once was the soul of a little boy trying to catch his mother’s eye through the thick bottom of a Scotch glass? It would take a lot of courage to expose his feelings and risk rejection by competing with her caring new boyfriend and the promise of a beautiful life in the suburbs. We wonder, can this guy grow up? And . . . cut to him waking up in the bed of his current bauble, having some impersonal sex and without a word, he’s gone. The greatest trick Will ever pulled was convincing a girl he cared she exists.

A funny detail that Gregory Kohn left out of his script is that the real life Wills of the world don’t get laid unless they say they are doing something while doing nothing – a real life Will says he’s writing a (cough) screenplay. The difference is that Kohn actually wrote one and was able to persuade people to produce a film that 99% of the people who watch it will never understand. Few movies are made to show the main character as a selfish prick.

Hey but don’t judge! Sure it’s fine that a cute guy with no skills, promise or compassion for humanity can still get a piece if he is smart enough to compete in a field with no measure of success – just don’t date him. You’ve been warned.

Look for NORTHEAST (Tribeca Film) in your local cable movies on demand section.

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