SON OF MORNING (2011)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
"Son of Morning" has an ingenious and timely premise - what if someone was mistakenly billed as the Messiah when in fact it is all a big misunderstanding. What happens when the media milks this sort of stuff for all it is worth and you gain not just fifteen minutes of fame but, what I like to refer to as, 150 minutes of fame. A clever premise with the religious angle but the movie never quite fulfills its promise.
A stressed-out copywriter named Philip (Joseph Cross) is living with his church-going mother (Lorraine Bracco). One day, on his day off from work, Philip's father is home and commits suicide by hanging himself! Philip cannot function with this mess, nor with work which he tries vainly to succeed in (though he is unable to come up with a good idea for a gerbil-as-its-sponsor commercial). He has a quickie with some club girl (Tony Soprano's daughter Jamie-Lynn Sigler) but that also feels inadequate. A kind unemployed man (Danny Glover) offers him sound advice and Philip not only gives him a twenty-dollar bill, he quits his job to work at a cafe. But when he goes to church with his mother, he yells from his pew and blood trickles from his eye. Philip's moment of rage is caught by a reporter, Josephine (Heather Graham), and is inadvertently referred to as a sign of stigmata - he is not only the Messiah but he might solve the solar crisis!
Director Yaniv Raz juggles a few ideas here but he never fleshes them out. The movie is technically entertaining and Raz uses vast spaces, especially hotel lobbies and hospital rooms, imaginatively. I also love some of the absurd humor that, occasionally, hits some high notes (Josephine's bit about this new Messiah being more popular than, oh, just more popular than the Beatles is the movie's best line). Danny Glover's sunny disposition about life gives the film a lift, a sense of purpose, but it is unfortunately never followed through. The movie rushes itself to get to a simplistic though valuable last scene that could used more substance. We get too many scenes of fast-motion trick photography and wild parties with many women, but there is nothing tangible for the satire to hang onto. The film appears to go in the direction of how the media and politicians can use Philip's newfound status for their own needs but it stops short of going there (at an 80-minute running time, it definitely falls short). Philip also has nothing to say about religion or being the alleged Son of the Son of God. The guy is a nervous wreck who just needs his prescription medication to stop the blood tears. He just simply ran out of medication. What a buzz kill.
No comments:
Post a Comment