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“The Paperboy” is sensational trash, and as Pauline Kael told us, if we can’t appreciate great trash then we might as well skip doing anything because most movies aren’t great art. This is a liquid, over-the-top soft focus explosion of ire with the wrong person on Death Row, the right man hiding in a swamp with his notedly inbred family, a dead sheriff, a gossipy newspaper reporter, a filthy blonde woman, the younger man who adores her, and alligators, lots of them.
The characters in “The Paperboy” spend a significant part of their time sleazing around up to their waists in swamp water, and the movie does just that right along with them. Some of the viewers would literally hoot and complain that in such a high temple of films in France, the movie should not have been shown because the taste was so poor. If this film has been in good taste, then that would have certainly been in a bad taste. Though, I have news for them.
The Paperboy is set in 1969 and revolves a Miami Times reporter named Ward Jansen, played by Matthew McConaughey. He visits his hometown of Lately, Fla because he is investigating a wrongly convicted man on Death Row. That man is Hillary Van Wetter, also known as a vicious human snake, played by John Cusack. Ward reaches out to his younger brother Jack, now played by Zac Efron, and recruits him as an assistant alongside fellow reporter Yardley Acheman, a black Briton with an unusual accent that perplexes the locals. A journalist played by David Oyelowo, takes the role of Ward’s fellow reporter who tours with him.
They go to meet a blonde Barbara model named Charlotte Bless who looks like she just walked out of a ‘Trendy Lingerie’ catalog and McConaughey describes her as a trashy blonde. Charlotte could easily have been the model for paperback covers of Mickey Spillane novels. She is not only a fan of Hillary, but is also a self-proclaimed fiancée who has been in a long distance relationship with him for quite some time.
Charlotte is not a romantic, but she is definitely in love. Ward and Jack take Charlotte out to meet Hillary, and to say that this romance is alive in their minds is an understatement. These three have never met before and already, they are ready to simultaneously climax while standing ten feet apart. It’s not a scene that should be witnessed, let alone enacted. It is a grueling, masochistic ideal that is too painful to think about.
Nicole Kidman showing the world this side of her acting is a big step. Jack is a poor college dropout and a newspaper delivery boy whose father is the owner of the local paper, while Charlotte is a seductive flirt throwing her entire life away. Jack goes to take a dip into the ocean to cool off and comes back, getting attacked by jellyfish. Instead of feeling sympathy, I can’t stop myself from feeling like Jack and Charlotte are two sides of the same coin.
He crawls ashore, half-conscious, where some local girls scream that if they urinate on him, the allergic reaction he is suffering will magically undo itself. If this were true, I’d hope it’d be common knowledge. You will find out in “The Paperboy” if it really does work or not.
This graphic tale is first recounted via the flashback of the cook and maid to the Jansen family, Anita Chester voiced by Macy Gray, who has been through quite a lot since the time of such events. It certainly seems as if she knows what exactly happened, but for some reason, she does not feel comfortable saying it, and trust me, if I was a black maid in 1969 in Lately, Fla, I wouldn’t be spewing a word.
Lee Daniels is renowned for his “overly emotional drama” style, which you might have come across in his previous movie “Precious” He seems to have the same knack in “The Paperboy” This film is also based on a novel written by Pete Dexter, who co-wrote the screenplay with Dexter. The novel would remind you of work from Elmore Leonard, Carl Hiaasen, and John D. MacDonald as they all share the same baffling inspiration from the swamps of Florida.
There is a specific lot of people I know who booed this particular film at Cannes. It’s those who enjoy minimalistic funerals filmed in sorrowful faintness and relentlessly unknown settings. At times, I will appreciate such films. However, with “The Paperboy” you have to step in there to the waist and be prepared to deal with jellyfish.
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