Mr. Lonely

Harmony Korine
2007

For a long time I've been fairly dismissive of Harmony Korine, but after recently reexamining his work I was pleased to find that my relationship to the auteurist art punk has become more of a love/hate affair than one of total disinterest. Korine's latest film, clearly his most mature and arguably most accomplished, now threatens to tip the scale in his favor. Mister Lonely may be the director's turning point from sleazy quasi-exploitative youth shockers, to well crafted adult cinema.

Barely successful Michael Jackson professionally impersonates the King of Pop, but has been relegated to honing his craft in Parisian parks and hosting the occasional gig at the local old folks home. After a flirtatious run-in with a Marilyn Monroe (Samantha Morton) impersonator Michael is swept away to a castle in the Scottish highlands, and is introduced to a seemingly utopian community of celebrity impersonators ranging from James Dean to the Queen of England - from The Pope to the Three Stooges. Theirs is a childish fantasy world marred by the love triangle between Michael, Marilyn, and her capricious and abusive husband Charlie Chaplin. These impersonators' well meaning escapism is further complicated by the stony realities of diseased livestock and an apathetic public. After all, what's a performer without an audience?

For Korine, this is a remarkably restrained film in which the signature white trash/ghetto-fab freak show is replaced with competent acting and believably honest sentiment. In dealing with a cultural phenomenon like celebrity impersonation Korine benefits by bringing forth a host of characters that create certain presupposed impressions. Therefore unsurprisingly, both Michael and Marilyn have a childlike naivety, James Dean and Sammy Davis Jr. are preoccupied with style, while Abraham Lincoln and the Pope are prone to spout off in blustery bouts of public address.

The major roles are superbly acted, with Morton's Marilyn as the proverbial cherry on top in a performance that trumps the real McCoy in its delicate vulnerability. Her imperfect looks and non-cover-girl figure lend her a satisfying accessibility: the cinematic equivalent of comfort food. Along with Marilyn, Diego Luna's Michael is given more dimension with characterization beyond his self-assumed identity. At times he seethes with the quality of an awkward tween in a man's body, something like a low self esteem Peter Pan. Denis Lavant as Chaplin effectively creates a two-faced clown with his tomfoolery and pratfalls masking a wickedly pitted face, and cruel dark eyes. Also of note, Werner Herzog puts in his second appearance in a Korine film, after his turn as the maniacal patriarch of Julien Donkey-Boy. This time he plays Father Umbrillo, a wisdom imparting missionary priest who leads a troupe of flying nuns. As an actor, one can only expect Werner Herzog to play Werner Herzog - not necessarily a bad thing considering his powerful presence and subtly comic delivery.

Seeing as it hardly pertains to the main action, Father Umbrillo's clucking and kibitzing is the kind of superfluous indulgence that could weaken or muddy the film, however Director of Photography Marcel Zyskind's photography of miraculous nuns falling through clear blue is genuinely breathtaking, and ads a playful layer to the wide-eyed tone. Much of the cinematography is effortlessly intimate with probing closeups and candid performances. Sammy Davis Jr. practices his routine on the castle parapet, and Buckwheat swoons over the chickens he's charged with caring for.

Mister Lonely is not wholly without its detractions. Abe Lincoln possesses a notably foul mouth, and his frequent cussing is played more for cheap laughs than worthwhile characterization. Michael's jaunt in the old folks' home gives us a hefty dose of Korine's standby anthropological gawking, as the near-catatonic elderly grotesques are wheeled up to the camera lens. Admittedly this scene is played with a degree of playful fun as opposed to the bratty pretensions of Gummo's (1997) "Down Syndrome beauty," but nevertheless the scene retains a hokey element of misplaced comic relief.

It would be trite to say that Mister Lonely is a coming of age picture, yet it has many of the genre's trappings, and many familiar tropes are used. Questions of identity, longing, and confusion with one's place in the world are core themes of the film, and if that doesn't speak volumes of the modern teenage experience I don't know what does. The film ends with an uncertain future for the commune, and not all characters make it through. Michael has returned to the Parisian streets Marilyn found him on, but his Scottish adventure has created a sea change in his identity which provides a new set of challenges and a new purpose. For Korine, like Michael, this appears to be a step towards a change in his identity as an artist. He's the same man at heart, just a little more grown up now.