Michel Gondry is a cinematic madman. He hits it at many angles and the results grossly vary.
To illustrate the scope:
He has brought us a wide variety of documentaries from Dave Chappelle’s home grown concert film “Block Party” to an intimate portrait of Gondry’s own personal family in “The Thorn in the Heart”. All interesting stuff that illustrates the filmmaker’s versatility.
He is best known (and most effective) as a visionary movie maker that places wondrous images from dreams directly on the screen. His “Science of Sleep” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” are the best at capturing the essence of Gondry and act as a direct visual pipeline straight into his Technicolor brain.
Sad thing is that Gondry has all but abandoned what sets him apart from the rest of the class for the last few years. The glowing example of his current missteps is Seth Rogan’s “The Green Hornet,” a horrid attempt at a Big, Dumb Hollywood tent pole flick that is just as Big and Dumb as the rest of them. Why employ a director with a unique point-of-view only to limit that view to mesh in with the rest of the generic?
His latest project is a return to the experimental and is a welcomed shift after “Hornet”. In fact it is so far removed from the Hollywood norm that it’s as if Gondry is apologizing for his indiscretions. “The We and the I” uses only non-actors to tell the story of a group of inner city high school riding the bus home on the last day of school. While the concept is interesting, the end product is a disappointment and “The We and the I” doesn’t tell a strong enough story to overcome the amateur element of the acting.
This is because Gondry’s signature is the Visual, not the Story. Here, words is all we have and they are presented in a stiff, stilted manner that never eases into any sort of rhythm. The tone is reminiscent of the early works of Richard Linklater like “Slacker” or “Waking Life”. But Linklater was smart enough to work in short vignettes in those films to deal with the weak acting. Gondry soaks in it. At one hour and 45 minutes, “The We and the I” becomes too bogged down to work.
While I appreciate ideas behind this film, the end product is a disappointment. Fans of Gondry must seek this out but that is about all who should care.