Eddie the _____ vs. Loan _____

After months of hype, our long-awaited viewing of Eagle vs. Shark somehow managed to justify the hype. Not only did we set a TNFN attendance record, but the film itself transcended its own quirkiness to actually have a bit of an emotional impact by the end.

Not the first film to match a clueless (unworthy?) boy (Jarrod) with a semi-clueless but decidedly-more-worthy girl (Lily), to be sure. (And should we not perhaps one day have a discussion of that ragged cliche? Or is this part of a vast unworthy-boy-hatched conspiracy to convince the women of the world that the right thing to do is select one of these boorish, self-centered Peter-Pans so that the happy ending of the film can happen for them too? Only then what, when Peter-Pan keeps his (literal or metaphorical/emotional) mullet and keeps on playing video games? But again, that's probably a discussion for another day.) And maybe in the end it was mostly just the Kiwi element that kept this incarnation feeling so fresh, but it did feel fresh, and it did feel sweet amidst all the awkwardness and confusion.

We compared this unworthy boy to the unworthy boy played by Adam Sandler in Punch-Drunk Love and wondered why it was that (some of us) could better root for Jarrod. As I thought about it more it seemed to me that we were given a much more compelling (or at least more explicit) justification for Jarrod's damage. The lost brother looms large in this story, and that absence is what gives it, in the end, some weight. Yes, these are all misfits, lost and clueless. Yes, they probably all would have been lost and clueless regardless. Yes, even the lost brother appeared rather lost and clueless (if a little better at sports). But that unexplained suicide left a crater that they're all unable to see beyond, now. They're all kind of just living in there. Even Lily finds it difficult to get out once she's tumbled in, but you get the sense that maybe her presence there somehow reminds them all that there is something up there, beyond the lip of the crater, and that up there the horizon isn't so near.

Finally, we must salute Loren Horsley's fantastic performance as Lily. Has anyone ever managed to pack so much awkwardness, sweetness, and cuteness into such a tiny little film? She's maybe a little too good to be true, maybe not very so convincingly messed-up. (I mean, isn't just about the only evidence that she's messed-up the fact that she falls for Jarrod?) But she takes the part as it's written and inhabits it. Here's hoping more directors figure out how to use her.

Oh, and one other thing: I'm not going to go fish through reviews, but all those annoying critics that always whine about how the Coen brothers supposedly "make fun of" or "condescend to" their regional characters better have written the same things in their reviews of this movie. I don't think it's true of this movie either, but it's pretty much the template the Coens always get dinged for. (Goofy track suits! Bad haircuts! Cheesy video games! Ha ha.)

Question of the day: Better or worse than Napoleon Dynamite, and why?