Terrace Agenda

Two things that must be said before the rest of it:

1) It has to be clear by now that I’ll fight on Steven Soderbergh’s side under pretty much any circumstances. I have a heavy, heavy bias in his favor. That said, I think he’s earned it. Still, it should be noted.

2) I’ve seen exactly as much of this movie as you can see in that clip above. I don’t have any special knowledge here.

I get the feeling some people are pretty skeptical about the quality of Haywire. I’ve seen any number of tweets and other comments wondering why in the world Soderbergh made this movie, how he “must be sleeping with” Gina Carano (we’re still saying things like that?), how the movie will be junk, etc. I think this really ignores the way Soderbergh has behaved in the past.

It has to be clear by now that Soderbergh is willing to sacrifice polished acting in pursuit of other ideals. Bubble used no professional actors, and was probably better because of it (the questions asked by the detective, an actual detective, scared the hell out of me and pretty much convinced me never to commit a major crime—NOT THAT I NEEDED CONVINCING—because of the way he got to the truth). He cast a real-life porn star (Sasha Grey) in The Girlfriend Experience, which gave him someone who could approach the subject with a matter-of-factness he wouldn’t get from a Hollywood actor. This isn’t anything new for him.

So: you watch the above clip, and the first thing you’ll notice is that, it’s true, the acting is not… good. Carano is obviously conscious of herself, and that comes through. Then Channing Tatum shows up, and it actually brings the level of acting down. Ugh, that guy.

BUT: look at the fight sequence. Look how different it is from the cut-cut-cut-cut-cut-cut-cut-cut-cut-cut-ridiculously edited scenes that are so common in action movies today. Usually, you can’t even tell what’s going on, it’s just a bunch of visual noise and you just have to assume someone good is fighting someone bad, even though you have absolutely no sense of space (Quantum of Solace is a depressing example, but you can see it in the vast majority of action movies today). Here? This fight feels real. Those hits look and sound like they’re happening. Probably they’re not. But we know where the people are, we can tell how they are interacting in the space they’re in, and it seems like a real fight.

Soderbergh might have been able to accomplish this with “regular” actors (I don’t know if Tatum has any kind of fighting background, but he does have the physical stature to play this scene), but I’m willing to bet that the level of authenticity would have been lower. Instead, he finds a woman who really has experience with physical confrontation and exploits that. He doesn’t need to use those silly quick-cut tricks to cover up the fact that it doesn’t look real, because it does look real, because she knows what she’s doing. This is refreshing, and exciting. That scene is jarring and kind of exhilarating.

The acting? Whatever. Let’s say that acting can be about more than looking smooth and saying your lines well. Here’s something: if you can’t push past the lack of polish someone displays as a “conventional” actor in favor of another ideal, you’re a bad movie watcher. There’s something different happening here. Let it happen.



Update:For some reason, I used the phrase, “it has to be clear by now” twice in this post. I have no idea what that’s about. Apparently, I think you’re a moron if you don’t see these things.