Smile you’re dying.
This was a phrase that was spray painted on the 10th avenue bridge in the mid-1990s as I walked back and forth from art class. Every day I crossed the river from the University of Minnesota’s west bank, passed the shitty Amoco station (now a hoity-toity high-rise condo emporium where a gang of Gopher football players may or may not have run a train on a co-ed a few seasons ago) and eventually landed in my shitty little dorm room to brood. It’s this same bridge where a student or two either jumps or falls in drunk every other year. The irony, placement, and profundity of this phrase has never ceased to amuse me, even after all of these years.
When you’re in your 20s “Smile you’re dying” makes you chuckle…death is just some far away ghoul you flip off and spit at when the mood strikes you. Now that I am in my 40s and have experienced a few more things…the phrase becomes poignant in scope. Something to be fret upon, dissected, contorted, fawned over…
Once you hit your 60s or 70s, I would imagine “Smile you’re dying” simply becomes the truth.
Now imagine if you will…not being able to experience this very normal arc of aging and experience. Imagine your past and everything in it is such an abstract horror show that you just want it all to go away. That is the depths of the human soul that YWNRH attempts to plunge into. It is a herculean task that should be given as many points for the attempt as the execution. What I admire most about it, is that rather than attempting yet another film about a tortured lone wolf beating back his demons by heroically avenging evils and righting wrongs…it takes you inside the mind of a deeply troubled human being, who just happens to have a skill for avenging.
The film accomplishes this in many ways – unique experimental cross cuts and flashbacks (a la Soderbergh’s The Limey), a Johnny Greenwood score that is equal parts ribcage-rattling and sweetly symphonic, and a performance from Joaquin Phoenix that is so dry and subtle it is downright microscopic in its beauty. Phoenix is puffy, opaque, and unknowable here. He is completely bereft of all emotion at one moment…and totally immersed in it the next. His performance is the most subtle rollercoaster ride I’ve ever been on…yet my stomach was still in my throat by the time it was finished.
I think this clarity of performance and tone most likely seems so incredible because the visionary behind the camera is female. Now I’m not writing that statement to pander or suck up to female directors in any way, all I’m saying is that an objective opinion on the great “middle age white male malaise” is highly refreshing. Most male directors would have framed this type of story in a more heroic way. Males see themselves as the hero of their own story…no matter what kind of fucked up shit they get entangled in. Females see the males (for good or for ill) as something that needs to be fixed or improved upon.
How would a male fix this problem of having a tortured past? By saying 1,000 fuck yous and blowing all the bad guys away in a hail of bullets. A female? Well, they are going to show what the tortured male really wants, warts and all. And that’s a do-over. If you can’t forget your past…at least you can be reborn by shaping someone’s future. Fatherhood (or even surrogate fatherhood in this case) is the great equalizer. As a great man once said, “Love kills the demon.”
It was reinvigorating to see this kind of age-old tale played out in the dark, sinister, unrelenting capacity of our time. Not through some cartoon set piece prism or some doddering period piece. Joaquin’s average Joe is not a cowboy in the traditional superhero Liam Neeson mode…he is a cipher for our times. A reluctant avenger, who is perfect at killing others…but awful at killing himself. He could never smile at death. He can only gaze blankly into the abyss until something bright rises from the murky undertow and shows him the edge… so he can finally see how to step back into the light.
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Previously Published on letterbox.com
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