Matty

The Hypnosis starts out as a relationship movie that subtly satirises the environment of technology start-ups and then blossoms into a wonderful cringe-fest in the mould of Toni Erdmann, when your skin crawls because of the onslaught of inappropriate interactions. Director Ernst De Geer stages awkwardness as masterfully as his compatriot Ruben Östlund. He doesn’t go to similar extremes, though only for a few moments. ___ What if we could use hypnotherapy, for example, to release our consciousness bound by social conventions and rid ourselves of the fear of losing face? Like the protagonist manages to do, having returned to the self of her childhood and whose thinking is no longer limited by routine and rules. Everything becomes a game for her. But she has ahead of her an important presentation of the mobile app that she developed with her anxious partner, who expects Vera to play the role of the professional in meetings with mentors and investors, and to pretend that she is pursuing a worthy cause and, like him, wants to save the (third) world. However, it no longer makes sense to her to be only outwardly authentic just to not step over the boundaries within which “naturalness” and “true self” are merely harmless slogans aimed at increasing the attractiveness of the product. She wants to play with an imaginary chihuahua, drink vodka with milk and dance to loud music until the morning. Her dedication to the game highlights the hypocrisy and prudishness of the other characters, who have standardised their behaviour in the interest of career growth. Their imagination has atrophied in the meantime. Therefore, the question arises as to who is actually hypnotised, who behaves as if they are not themselves, but is instead a slave to norms and expectations. ___ The Hypnosis basically updates Lars von Trier’s The Idiots, though with a lesser degree of filmmaking radicalism. It adds the motif of performative feminism, corporate virtue signalling and a modern approach to relationships and to the psyche, which we constantly attempt to optimise as if they were our work projects. Unlike von Trier and Östlund, however, De Geer doesn’t approach the characters only as the objects of a social experiment. He is also interested in their feelings, not just the masks that they wear, thanks to which The Hypnosis ultimately works best as a relationship film in which the ultimate expression of love is acceptance of one’s partner in all of their positions. Including the absolute strangest ones. Or the most authentic. 80%

On the one hand, Baby Boom is an entirely progressive comedy showing how unhelpful and unfair the corporate environment of Reagan’s America was towards a woman with children who had to make much greater sacrifices than her ignorant colleagues and incompetent partner. At the same time, it is a film whose protagonist does not fight against discrimination in the workplace, but constantly retreats from it. She leaves the company and the city, but in the end, when she is in a very favourable negotiating position, she doesn’t try to change the unjust systemic conditions (or least confront the company’s exclusively male management with them). On top of that, she discovers within herself the maternal instinct, the seeming lack of which is the main source of humour during the first half of the film, and she even falls in love with a handsome doctor. The emancipatory idea that it is possible for even a woman to “have it all” (as her boss says during dinner in the introduction) is thus served up together with a celebration of traditional female roles. In any case, Diane Keaton is great in her role as a manager who is not a walking stereotype, but rather a believable mix of incompatible qualities (neurotic and chaotic when it comes to her child, but goal-oriented and practical when it comes to business), and even in terms of the visual aspect – unlike contemporary examples of the genre – Baby Boom is not an entirely run-of-the-mill romantic comedy in which only shots and counter-shots would alternate in badly lighted interiors. 65%

A masterclass in dreadful overacting (Faye Dunaway acts as if she is possessed by the spirit of Joan Crawford, but for all of the maniacal mimicking of theatrical gestures, her performance lacks nuance, thus remaining only a grotesque sneer). Neither the filmmakers nor the actors have a sense of moderation. The emotions are turned up to eleven from the opening minutes and even the style is exalted, when the most banal verbal exchanges are carried out in urgent detail, when you expect the actors’ heads to explode and merely walking down the stairs has the seriousness and nobility of an ancient tragedy. Not only the main protagonist, conceived as a horror-movie monster, but the whole film seems to suffer from psychosis. The dramaturgy is lame in both legs. It’s mostly just a succession of totally overwrought scenes (like the frenzied destruction of the rose beds and the hysterical fit over the wire coat hangers) that would be intentional parody in the hands of someone like John Waters (who loves this film), but here they are approached with absolute seriousness, without even a hint of distance. Due to the lack of any connective tissue that would bring sense to this cascade of rage and because there is zero understanding for the characters, this film cannot be taken seriously as either a character study or as an account of child abuse. I hope this will not be taken seriously as a biopic about Joan Crawford by anyone who endures until the last scene, which clearly declares that the film (and the book on which it is based) is an act of revenge by a daughter who was disinherited by her mother (a lot of the things that happen in the film are demonstrably not only exaggerated, but simply made up in order to make Crawford come off as the most repulsive monster possible). Given everything mentioned above, however, Mommie Dearest can be enjoyed as a first-class or even one of the best examples of what Susan Sontag described as camp, i.e. a work so intensely bad and devoid of a sense of detachment, and in which everything on every level is so shamelessly excessive, that it becomes entertaining and unforgettable. And impossible to rate, because it would equally deserve either one or five stars.