Sicko
Directed by Michael Moore
Evan Almighty
Directed by Tom Shadyac
The seminal moment in Michael Moore’s new documentary, SiCKO, doesn’t have the gall to enrage anyone. After profiling a diverse cross-section of Americans suffering from largely unreliable health insurance plans, the plump rabble-rouser launches an extensive comparative study, traveling to Canada, the United Kingdom, France and, ultimately Cuba, examining allegedly superior methods for handling basic medical and social concerns. In his third stop, Moore dines with a group of young Americans living abroad, allowing for the opportunity to hear astonished members of the Western world fawn over the white-glove treatment that French plans allocate to the country’s inhabitants. Moore off-handedly jokes that French insurance probably guarantees that somebody will do your laundry; to his apparent surprise, the speculation is confirmed, but Moore won’t buy it. Cut to a new scene: The director looks shocked as a government worker informs him that the clothes she’s folding don’t belong to her. Point taken: The country keeps its citizens alive and…clean. Right down to the shirts on their backs.
A subtle and witty revelation that sets up the movie’s calculated one-liner climax, the sequence isn’t the least bit preachy—instantly launching its appeal to a refreshingly broader terrain than the fierce rhetoric of Fahrenheit 9/11, or anything else Moore has done since Roger & Me. He still manipulates his audience, as film mechanics enable him to deliver a punchline with the formalist magic of a scene switch, but the trick is unabashedly obvious. Does it matter that the sensationalist opener to Moore’s Bowling for Columbine purported to show him walking right into a bank and getting a free gun for opening an account, even though the visit had been arranged in advance? Maybe. But the gimmicks in SiCKO are pointed and accessible, not disingenuous. They nudge people to think outside of the American paradigm and consider the potential for improving the nation if everyone was guaranteed proper treatment. If the documentary’s lack of confrontational interviews with representatives from greedy for-profit health insurance companies results from the possibility that nobody wants to end up in Moore’s acerbic crosshairs, then the final outcome benefits from it. In moving away from the dirty arena of polemics, SiCKO accomplishes something Moore has sought for quite some time: coherence.
Stunned by the existence of authentically provocative content in a Michael Moore movie, even staunch conservatives have praised its sound execution. Everyone seems to agree that, within the sporadically provocative realm of mainstream entertainment, lessons hide in unlikely corridors. But the realization that the painfully unfunny script for Evan Almighty, director Tom Shadyac’s sequel to the zany 2003 Jim Carrey vehicle, contains popularized sentiments about the importance of confronting environmental issues in Congress, surprises less than it disappoints. The New Wave of ecological awareness spearheaded by Al Gore has been churned through the blockbuster machine, and the results are uncomplicated and boring.
In Bruce Almighty, Carrey played an agnostic dope whose faith became emboldened when God (Morgan Freeman) paid him a visit and shared some powers. The follow-up puts Bruce’s former reporter colleague (Steve Carell) in the Noah role, as Freeman forecasts a flood, compromising the protagonist’s burgeoning career in politics and comfortable family dynamics in order to construct an Ark. The shame and discomfort that Evan endures from his coworkers and loved ones suggest that Shadyac confused the accounts of Noah and Job, but that’s irrelevant; Evan Almighty strains consistently to pave the way for topical humor, yet lacks inspired comedic charm and a cogent message. (The green politics are apparent, but sort of draped there, rather than being evaluated with intelligence or humor.)
The considerable talents of Wanda Sykes and John Goodman, handed the respectively meaty roles of Evan’s assistant and greedy boss, feel wasted on unimaginative characterizations. Freeman has the easiest job, gloriously draped in white and comfortably god-like, but Carell’s widely beloved screwball dexterity shrinks to the unexciting components of a cardboard grin and frozen lime-colored eyes. A thespian deer caught in the headlights of his first significant flop, Carell can’t be faulted for the humor drought, considering his unflaggingly impressive comedic abilities on display in NBC’s “The Office” and various other roles (including the best scene of Bruce Almighty, where his character, slave to Bruce’s supernaturally-enabled whims, involuntarily babbles nonsense for the better part of two minutes).
The movie seems like it’s trying to appeal to the Bible Belt mentality with a PG-rated, family-friendly storyline that should make any zealous Sunday school disciple swoon, but it can’t even get that right: The eventual deluge mangles the dark quality of the original tale by attributing God’s principal motivation for natural destruction to the maintenance of a relatively small natural landmass, so that the finale offers a miracle as performance art. This stands in stark comparison to Moore’s accomplishment in SiCKO, which offers performance art as a miracle.
If the sob stories from those who have suffered from insufficient health insurance plans reinvigorate important debates, Moore can take credit for instigating valuable discussion. But Evan, whose sympathetic family man persona represents the average American dreamer that Moore addresses as his central audience, lacks the depth required to incite real-world pontification. Since Evan Almighty struggles and fails again and again to find comedic inspiration, the potential for satire comes across as whiny bait-and-switch support for contrived ideology. Moralists shouldn’t mince words, even when telling jokes.
anonymous
