When you look at the cover of this movie, what is the first thing you see? “Jay, you need a better camera.” Okay, what else? “Better lighting.” And? “A better intro.” Try again. WIL WHEATON IS IN THIS MOVIE! OHH MAHH GAWWDDDdddd there he is, front-and-center in the group shot. Star Trek: The Next Generation was into its fourth season when this came out, so he is obviously the main attraction (could be the reason it got released in the first place). I like Trek but I am not a fanboy, and I don’t camp out at conventions hoping to get a sniff of Westley’s Essential Oils. I have actually never been to a Star Trek convention so I don’t know what it would be like, but I have an inkling that the attention these actors get – especially the TNG cast – is INSANE. Like, a real endurance test of patience and compassion to be able to tell the same stories; to sign autographs all-day; and to be accosted by fans of every sort, asking questions to plot points an average viewer would never have asked themselves. These are just the actors, people: not the writers. Wheaton seems especially game these-days to joke and explicate a career he left when he was a child, but he’s still famous for what he did when he was a kid and not really much else these days. Fame is messy. The more you know.
December the movie starts with Christmas lights and carols! Yay, a Christmas movie in March! I thought Pearl Harbor was the only time Christmas was exempt from a plot taking place in December the month. Just because it’s December the month doesn’t mean your film needs to glorify Christmas. For once, I’d like to see someone make a movie that takes place in December the month and doesn’t have to do with Christmas or Pearl Harbor. Wheaton is one in a small cast of five boys, who have a big choice to make the day after Pearl Harbor when Roosevelt declares war and their private school offers deferment. You have the patriot blinded by duty, deferment-be-damned; a pragmatist and his doting younger brother; and a few undecideds, including a comic book fan who wonders if Captain America will go to war, too. These characters stand in a room and proceed to talk to each-other for ninety-minutes. Over the course of their conversation, some will change their minds; some won’t; and some will remain undecided. That’s it. SUCH IS LIFE. Of note is a near-swirly, and a fair amount of young adult actors trying to do the Sean Penn-thing and shout all their lines angrily (and making it very clear they are acting): highlights were Wheaton huffing, “I’m getting out TO-NITE!” and Chris Young’s Stuart monologuing about his duty to his military father: “He’s an honest to goodness GOD-DAMM’D HERO!”
One day with more space I will rant on movies where it’s just a bunch of people in a room, but for now let’s call December the movie “theatre-on-film.” It’s about the responsibility to one’s country; to one’s parents and their family legacy; and to yourself. The box press likens it to Dead Poets Society and the comparison is apt, but there is no replacement for Robin Williams and leaving December the movie in the hands of its young characters is mortal. The film references their “mean” Headmaster but he is rarely seen and his presence doesn’t leave the impression that a strong, guiding adult character would. Even The Breakfast Club had Principal Vernon. Instead, December the movie is a bunch of children, in a room, bitching and complaining and generally-frustrating one-another. It doesn’t make for compelling viewing and amounts to a lot of questions getting asked and not many answers being given. In fact it’s the lack of real answers that was the biggest let-down: the constant pandering and self-reflection showed just how one-dimensional these characters are. But what was I expecting? They’re teenagers! They come from rich families and go to a private boarding school! Unless you’re gang-raped in the garden shed, they don’t know anything about life. Is this the point of the movie, then? That choosing whether or not to enlist is the inciting incident to the rest of their lives, or what’s left of them? It’s a shade of self-righteous drama that my patronizing classmates would write in first-year film school: “Would I fight? Would I stay? Why would I go down and see my friend off to war when I could sit in the nook of a frosted window and feel sorry for myself? What would my Daddy think? Oh Daddy, you know you make me cry-y-yyy….”
//jf 3.11.20
theory of a daskeman 