Demolition

jake gyllenhaal. genuinely i could just write his name and that could be the whole review because that’s kind of what this movie was for me. he was incredible. but besides that, the plot was actually really entertaining too. dramatic, catchy, curious, and just very easy to stay with. there wasn’t loads to do cinematography-wise i guess, but i still liked the way it was shot and directed. it all fit the story really well. the wife bits were also really nice, the little memories of her coming in at random moments made sense and actually added a lot. the side characters complemented the story way more than i expected too, especially the little boy, bless him. i really liked the relationship he had with davis. obviously morally it was a mess and he was not a good influence at all, but it was still really interesting to watch. even the whole vending machine thing and the woman he meets through that was really fucking cool. the whole thing with davis liking to take things apart was interesting too. i liked the unscrewing stuff, pulling things apart, that whole little quirk of his, but once it got into properly destroying his house and other houses, i don’t know, that part didn’t hit me the same. not that i hated it, i just think i liked it more when it was smaller and more personal. i also really liked the relationship with the father-in-law. obviously it starts off awful, properly rocky and uncomfortable, but the development there was really good and made sense with everything davis learns throughout the film and with his own character development. and that was probably the strongest thing in the whole movie actually, the character development. the grief, the depression, the sadness, all of it was overwhelming at times. there were parts where i could really see him in me, or at least understand him. obviously he takes it to an extreme, but the coping, the pretending, the mask, all of that felt very real. jake was amazing at showing someone who is acting like he’s fine or like he’s something else entirely, while there’s clearly a real person buried underneath all of that. and i really liked that the movie trusted us to see that. the father-in-law was really strong too, very powerful performance. and by the end, when they come together and do something nice for her, when davis finally understands that they really did love each other and all of that, it was honestly really heartwarming. it was a good ending, which in a way surprised me a bit. maybe deeper down i wanted something a little more interesting, because i did kind of expect it, but at the same time, simple worked here. and honestly, like i said before about Project Hail Mary, sometimes the simpler the better. i previously gave this three stars and now i’m upping it to five, which is a massive jump, but it actually makes perfect sense to me now. i keep thinking about that tweet, “Guy who has only seen The Boss Baby, watching his second movie: Getting a lot of ‘boss baby’ vibes from this.” and yeah, that was basically me when i first watched this years ago. i just hadn’t seen enough, i was too young, and i definitely interpreted a lot of it the wrong way. rewatching it now, there were things that genuinely shocked me in a completely different way, and it makes total sense why i didn’t love it as much back then.