Like virtually everyone else who writes about movies, I joined the mob that attacked Cameron Crowe a couple of weeks ago for his latest movie, Aloha. I knew what the critical consensus was leading up to the film’s release. The movie critic hive mind can be a powerful beast. Some writers don’t want to stray from the consensus, lest they appear out of touch or to have bad taste. Others try to be deliberately contrarian, but readers can often see that for the shallow attempt that it is.
But Aloha looked like more of a disaster than the one depicted in San Andreas. Even the trailer released in February looked problematic, and movie trailers can make the most steaming pile of garbage look good. Yet I still had a spark of hope as I watched the movie last Thursday. That was quickly extinguished as the movie began playing. Here’s part of what I wrote last week:
Aloha just feels completely unfocused, like a collection of scenes that Crowe couldn’t tie together into a cohesive story. Watching it is like being in a writing workshop class. There are parts that work, and several scenes have potential. But you keep waiting for the end of the workshop, when you can give notes and feedback to the writer and tell him what improvements he could consider.
Having been through some brutal writing workshops at Iowa, I doubt Crowe would have made it out of those sessions alive. Hell, he probably could have written a movie about enduring that experience and the hours of mentally recuperating afterwards. He might have joined the many others wandering the streets of Iowa City after taking multiple body blows of criticism, wondering if he was pursuing the right career. That movie would likely have been better than Aloha.
Actually, Crowe may have already written a scenario like this in Almost Famous. Young William Miller got off easy in his meeting with Lester Bangs, but critics were certainly honest and unmerciful in reviews of Crowe’s latest movie.
I consider myself a huge fan of Crowe’s work, so it’s been troubling to see the negative criticism leveled at Crowe. It was somewhat heartbreaking to pile on. But I’m guessing that many of us are coming from the same place. Aloha‘s failure felt even more disappointing because of Crowe’s previous success as a writer. He turned his passion for music into a profession, which he depicted semi-autobiographically in Almost Famous. Eventually he transitioned from music writing to screenwriting, and then to directing. So many of us in the writing trade would love to follow that path.
Crowe may not be that great a filmmaker — and some critics will point that out — but the writing has always made up for whatever skills he lacks as a director. Think of the iconic moments or lines of dialogue Crowe has created.
Lloyd Dobler holding the boombox over his head outside Diane Court’s house in Say Anything. “Show me the money!” and “You had me at ‘Hello’” in Jerry Maguire. How many times have those been invoked or parodied in pop culture? To create something that enduring is a writer’s dream, whether he or she admits it or not. The “Tiny Dancer” scene in Almost Famous. OK, Elton John’s song carries the load there, so let’s go with the “Uncool” scene instead.
A personal favorite of mine is Xavier McDaniel’s appearance in Singles. One of my favorite NBA players in a Cameron Crowe film was one of the first, most vivid examples I can remember of worlds I love colliding majestically.
What about the characters Crowe has created? Jeff Spicoli! The aforementioned Mr. Dobler. Cliff Poncier. Rod Tidwell. (That earned Cuba Gooding Jr. an Academy Award!) Ray Boyd. Penny Lane. Russell Hammond. Jeff Bebe.
Of course, those last three names are from Almost Famous, which was Crowe’s best movie. It’s painfully apparent that he’s been in a downward spiral since then. That film was released 15 years ago. It’s jarring to realize that much time has passed. One of the reasons it feels like such a surprise is because Almost Famous still feels fresh and relevant. It still resonates. It’s the defining moment of Crowe’s career.
Many people rip his follow-up, Vanilla Sky (2001), because a drama with sci-fi threads was such a bizarre turn for a guy known for romantic comedies. But I’ll defend that film (and may do so in a future post) as a daring change of pace for Crowe. Vanilla Sky was better than Abre Los Ojos, the Spanish film it remade. Crowe made Cameron Diaz scary. He helped Tom Cruise act effectively behind a mask. I’d argue he revitalized Kurt Russell’s career. And the ambiguous ending stays with you. If you saw that movie, I hope you were with someone so you could trade thoughts on what really happened afterwards.
The reaction to Vanilla Sky seemed to have knocked Crowe off track, perhaps making him hesitant to work outside of his comfort zone (or what fans viewed as his sweet spot). It took four years before he released another film. But Elizabethtown (2005) seemed like reheated leftovers. The trailer for the movie wrecked me because it came out shortly after I lost my father, and I lamented the conversations we never had, the trips we never took, etc.
I was worried about seeing Elizabethtown because I thought it might be too painful. But it was more of a disappointment, a sad attempt to repeat the successful formula he hit with Jerry Maguire: A spectacular career flame-out redeemed by meeting a special woman (of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl variety). Instead of Rod Tidwell, you get Paula Deen (who’s actually quite funny). Fans and critics saw the lack of originality and passion (while also realizing that Orlando Bloom isn’t a romantic lead who can carry a movie) and felt let down. Where was the magic we were accustomed to seeing — to feeling — from a Cameron Crowe movie?
Crowe seemed lost after Elizabethtown‘s failure, as if he didn’t quite know what to do next. Maybe he was stuck after making his autobiographical magnum opus, then trying something radically different that audiences didn’t quite respond to, despite Tom Cruise’s star power. Directing two documentaries — The Union and Pearl Jam Twenty — seemed like a restorative attempt to get back to his creative roots in music, perhaps to get away from the pressure of a studio film with big stars and expectations.
It took six years for Crowe to make another feature film. And while We Bought a Zoo had its charms, especially with Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson as leads, the movie felt kind of flat. The real-life story of Benjamin Mee obviously intrigued Crowe as a writer whose protagonists often undergo big life changes, and maybe he was also interested in making a more family-friendly film. But despite some fun and touching moments, the entire effort came off as too safe, almost as if Crowe was afraid to take a chance.
Maybe that’s what led him to Aloha. Crowe tried to go bigger, probably bigger than he ever had before with a story taking place in Hawaii, incorporating native mythology, corporate and military intrigue, a love triangle that isn’t really a love triangle because two of the characters are married and a woman who’s inexplicably in love with an unlikable main character (and is written as Asian-American, yet is played by a very, very white actress). It’s a complete mess, like a novel the author could never focus or finish, and really doesn’t work on any level.
In the aftermath, perhaps the same could be said about Crowe’s career. This past weekend, Aloha — a film with Bradley Cooper and Emma Stone headlining its cast — finished ninth at the box office and has grossed $16 million in two weeks at the box office. It’s difficult to imagine another studio putting another multi-million dollar project in his hands, even if a film with a budget below $40 million seems like nothing compared to the nine-digit behemoths Hollywood regularly produces now. Other executives have surely seen Amy Pascal’s e-mails revealed in the Sony hack, if they hadn’t heard the scuttlebutt around town beforehand.
During the exchange, Crowe expressed his interest in directing Sony’s Steve Jobs movie, but Pascal never even responded — surely because she was fuming about Aloha. As sad as that appeared, maybe it’s also reason for hope. Maybe Crowe knows he needs to direct someone else’s film — in particular, a script written by someone else — to revitalize his career. Or maybe he needs to write a script and see what another director can do with it. As terrible as Aloha was, its cast — Cooper, Stone, Rachel McAdams, Bill Murray, Alec Baldwin, etc. — demonstrated that actors still believe he’ll give them interesting material to work with.
Yet perhaps that’s not true anymore. After burning brightly with Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous, Crowe appears to have fizzled out. It happens to many directors, to anyone who creates art. As revered as he is by fans and critics, maybe he really made only two good films. And maybe that’s all he had in him. The question is whether we get to find out if Crowe has anything left. If we don’t hear much from him anymore, that will unfortunately provide the answer.
