Richard Kelly: Friend or Foe?

I'd like to talk for a minute about my fascination with the film director, Richard Kelly. Or rather, my fascination with his body of work. By which I mean Donnie Darko, Southland Tales, and The Box. (He also wrote Domino, but I heard it sucked and I didn't see it.)

Let's start with the last: The Box was incredibly disappointing. And I would like to blame it on Cameron Diaz, since I dislike her. But I can't, because she was pretty good. In fact, all the performances were good. Kelly seems to be genuinely talented when it comes to coaching actors. It's the writing and, at times, the directing that is wildly inconsistent.

"Oh, is that all?" you ask.

Now, I have to say The Box was very competently directed--from what I could tell, hell, I'm no expert. It just didn't make any sense. It was just kind of by the numbers while simultaneously being way out there. (VAGUE SPOILERS AHEAD!!!)

The heavy-handed, but at the same time non-committal, allusions to God and the Afterlife? The inexplicable and poorly done water effects? That Arthur C. Clark quote (repeated at least twice a la Southland Tales)? WTF Richard Kelly?

He wrote and directed Donnie Darko: For fuck's sake. Everything that Kelly screwed up in The Box and ST is pitch perfect in Donnie Darko. The plot is resolved. The sci-fi trappings are handled with a light touch; just specific enough to be plausible and thoughtful, but just vague enough to prevent confusion and keep the mystery. The back story does not eat the plot of the film. And Justin Timberlake does not have an incredibly awkward voice-over explaining what just happened on the screen. These are of course just examples, and I'm probably forgetting the really important things that really bothered me in his sophomore and junior efforts. However.

The problem is: I really liked Southland Tales. Like, a LOT. Like, I saw it twice in the theater and just re-watched it with my sister. Like, I have a major problem with Seann William Scott now. I mean, because I love him so much. That kind of problem.

When I first saw the movie, it was like a car crash that you can't look away from and a puzzle that you're this close to solving all wrapped up together. I immediately wanted to see it again so that I could try and figure it out. What went wrong? What is Kelly trying to say here? What biblical figure is he supposed to represent? What is her motivation here? And what exactly is liquid karma (besides the stupidest name for a alternate energy source/drug that makes you lip-synch The Killers)?

The trouble with that kind of attraction to a movie, is that it steadily gets worse the more times you see it. You figure out what that plot device is and the exact chronology of what's happening. You dig out all the metaphors and allusions you can. You speculate on what went wrong and build a pretty good theory. (which I might expand upon in future, if I'm so inclined). And ultimately you decide that it doesn't matter what Kelly is trying to say, because he failed.

But still, you have a soft spot for that big, little, train wreck of a movie that you just couldn't stop thinking about last year.

Or at least I do. And then I get sad when I realize, if The Box is any indication, it's probably all going to be mediocre movies for Kelly from here on out. No flashes of batshit crazy genius like Southland Tales, or tasteful science fiction indies like Donnie Darko. And I had such hopes for him.