For some masochistic reason, I ended up watching the trailer for The Art of Getting By today.
Here’s the official synopsis:
THE ART OF GETTING BY stars Freddie Highmore (Finding Neverland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) as George, a lonely and fatalistic teen who’s made it all the way to his senior year without ever having done a real day of work, who is befriended by Sally (Emma Roberts — Scream 4), a beautiful and complicated girl who recognizes in him a kindred spirit.
Now, I didn’t read the synopsis before I watched the trailer, and here is a more or less liveblog of my thoughts.
George doesn’t do any work, because it’s stupid and pointless. He wears black and is alienated. He doodles in his notebook. Some older brother/friend/mentor decides these doodles are genius. Freddie ends up in an art class with a beardy old teacher. There is a problem, because Freddie doesn’t have anything to say. He needs to FIND something to say.
(I bet he will meet a lady)
(cue music)
Enter a lady! She is very pretty. We know she is cool, because she wears black and white stripes, like a French person. She will inspire Freddy! She will help him find something to say, as they have school-skipping (whoa, rebellious!) adventures in New York City (of course) and he will develop a huge NiceGuy crush on her but pretend to be just her friend until his older brother/mentor decides to put the moves on her (gross!) and then he will be angrysad and do some lonely cinematic walking and then he will dig down and be inspired and make some Real Art from his manpain. (P.S. The heroine is described as “complicated” in the movie synopsis, which is usually code for “has some kind of mental illness or emotional problem” and also sometimes code for “sleeps with older men” or “men other than our dweeby hero”- aka – Manic Pixie Dream Girl).
Chances that his Great Art project is a painting of her?
I’m putting those odds at 1,000 percent, people.
I especially love the editing where the art teacher tells George to dig inside and find out what he cares about and what he believes, and they keep cutting to images of her. What does George care about and believe? He believes that if he could put his face on her face he would be a better person and a better artist.
Now, sometimes trailers undersell the movie by combining only the most “marketable” aspects of a film. So we’re lucky enough to have a scene from this masterpiece to let us know what we’re really getting into, and I feel like I learned a lot from watching it.
George and his ladylove are surrounded with wealthy, shallow, Gossip Girl people, but George is not like them.
George does not objectify Sally, at least publicly in front of other people out loud (can’t wait to see that painting, though!), so he is nicer than Party Douche and we should root for him.
I think the thing he says at the end of the scene, “I like layers,” is supposed to be a metaphor for his layered personality.
What I learned from this trailer: Boys, if you want to be an artist but you have nothing to say, you should try to find a complicated lady to inspire you. Even if you don’t work up the courage to ask her out, you can make some cool art later that will show her how you feel. Girls, if you have a crush on a boy, don’t say anything to him about it – it’s HIS job to say something to you and to try to impress you with the pictures he drew of you. Men are artists. Ladies are muses.
This film isn’t evil. It’s lonely geek-boy wish fulfillment, a staple of cinema and the reason that Michael Cera has a post-Arrested Development career. (Middle-aged lonely geeks have Sideways to escape into the fantasy that Virginia Madsen is waiting on a hillside somewhere with a good Pinot Noir and that she wants to read their unpublished novels).
I’m sure everyone involved in making it is very nice.