| Entertaining and Provocative Satire on American Corporate Culture |
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| written by gbraren |
February 8, 2005 - 1:47 PM PST |
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2 out of 3 members found this review helpful
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Apparently a lot of people missed the "satire." While it has significant problems and is far from brilliant, it was unjustly maligned upon release. Faults aside "She Hate Me" is an entertaining, inciteful, original piece of satiric cinema.
Faults first: it's way too long. There are a few Spike Lee films - usually of his original scripts - that have a problem here. Second, the first act really doesn't work so well. In terms of plot, it is all set up. Mackie's character makes a decision, thinking it right, only to find his world turn upside down, from the top of the social ladder to the bottom in a day. It also sets up the context for the themes to be explored in the rest of the film: life in the corporate world and the moral and ethical compromises that follow. The problem is that all the characters are playing sterotypes of white corporate pofessionals and it really just isn't very funny. Woody Harrrelson and Ellen Barkin never recover as this is all there is to their characters. It feels like bad writing and acting but, once Mackie moves in to his new life and we see the depth of his character, we realize it was really more of a directing problem to play it so thin.
Does Spike really think a lesbian would sleep with a man to conceive a child? Does he really think gay women are like the lesbians in this film? If you are preoccupied with these concerns you are missing the fun. The scenario is utterly ridiculous and deliberately so. Our main character is getting played by some very powerful women because "you can put a price on anything." Most of the satire is played out in this setup: putting a price on something so intimate - the cornerstone of "American family values" - and exploring the comedy, drama and controversy that comes out of it.
While once the film gets going 30 minutes in, it mostly coasts at "entertaining" for the rest of its running time (with the exception of a couple throw-away scenes), there are a few points of brilliance as well. Some great scenes - such as Q-tip at the sperm bank - need to be experienced as fine moments in Spike Lee's filmography. Also of note is the fantastic cinematogrphy by Matthew Libatique. The whole film was shot on 16mm and it looks awesome.
Finally, in reference to Spike's other films, "She Hate Me" is similar to "Bamboozled," his only other real foray into satire (unless you count "School Daze"). I enjoyed this one more.
Don't believe the hype. With an open mind, this is a fine film. Spike Lee remains one of the only American filmmakers producing challenging, original films about life and ideas in contemporary America. This one's no different. |
| She smart. |
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| written by talltale |
February 3, 2005 - 8:58 PM PST |
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4 out of 7 members found this review helpful
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Responsibility is the ostensible subject of SHE HATE ME, and if your idea of a responsible filmmaker is Spike Lee, then by all means rent this and discover new meanings of the word. As phony but pretty as the three-dollar-bill that decorates the opening and end credits and so jaw-droppingly awful--stupid, lame, embarrassing and crazy, really--this nearly 2-hour-and-20-minute nut-fest makes one wonder if some sort of brain damage might be a possible side effect.
Where to begin? Perhaps with the "Watergate" break-in from the Nixon regime--which we get to see from odd perspectives twice (at least) because, it seems, director/co-writer Lee imagines his main character as a stand-in for the guard who discovered the break-in and was never--for his trouble--properly cared for by unfeeling and hypocritical America. (That guard is played by Chjwetel Ejiofor, so terrific in "Dirty Pretty Things," but for all the difference it makes, the role could have been played by my dead grandmother--that's how alert Spike is to writing, directing and casting.) That main character, by the way, was fired from his job because he is a "whistleblower" (we get a silly, heavy-handed reference to that Time Magazine cover of a year or so back). Did I also mention that the fired "hero" then takes up his ex-girlfriend's offers to impregnate all the available lesbians in town (she's one of them) so that they can have babies. Toss in the hero's diabetic dad and alternately sweet/nasty mom, sister and hubby (who thinks all this impregnating is immoral--or wait, no he doesn't--but that's OK because we're all hypocrites anyway, as Mr. Lee so subtly tells us).
I know some filmmakers tend to bite off more than they can chew, but this is ridiculous. Can Mr. Lee really be this clueless about lesbians, women and sexual desire? Sure looks that way. The cast just drowns in this mess: Woody Harrelson fares worst, but Kerry Washington--so good in everything else she's done--comes in a close second. "She Hate Me"? Spike, honey, after this debacle, most everyone do. |
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