The rise of the man-child is one of the darkest moments of our culture. This basement dwelling cretin, personified by his lack of social grace, living with their mother and desperate clinging to childish things, has risen to prominence in just the last ten or so years and is becoming something of a force.
The movies are a haven for these overgrown children, as the career of Adam Sandler and his minions attests. In these movies the lifestyle of the man-child is critiqued but most often accepted and assimilated into the lives of exceptionally forgiving, stunningly attractive adult women in a tacit approval of the man-child life choice.
“Big Fan” is the rare film that takes the man-child to task for his childish proclivities. Directed by Robert Siegel, Oscar nominated screenwriter for “The Wrestler,” and starring comedian Patton Oswalt, “Big Fan” is a dark, ironic, parody of the man-child and his obsessions.
Paul Aufiero (Patton Oswalt) is obsessed with the New York Giants. He lives and dies with the team’s wins and losses. His nights at work, he's a parking attendant, are spent scribbling scripts for late night phone calls he places to a sports radio station. There he is Paul from Staten Island, a legend among other man-children for his passionate defenses of the Giants and attacks on their opponents. Paul even has a mortal enemy on the radio in Philadelphia Phil (Michael Rappaport). These witless battles of wit are at the center of Paul's being.
The plot of “Big Fan” kicks in when Paul and his man-child buddy Sal spot their favorite player, Quantrell Bishop (Jonathan Hamm) in their neighborhood. They choose to follow him and track QB back to Manhattan and a very pricey strip club. There, Paul gets up the nerve to approach his hero and wakes up several days later in the hospital.
Quantrell beat the holy hell out Paul after he confessed that he and Sal had followed him. Now, as Paul awakes from a coma his only concern remains whether the Giants won or lost while he was out. When asked about the assault; Paul’s fan-boy nature kicks in and he develops amnesia. Will he turn in his hero or keep the secret to save his team?
The answer is not so much the subject of “Big Fan.” Rather, it’s something of a foregone conclusion by the time the answer arrives. “Big Fan” is not a mystery or a crime thriller but a darkly humorous, endlessly ironic observation of severe arrested development.
What Director Robert Siegel and star Patton Oswalt are after is a critique of man-child fan-boys whose obsessions have rendered them ill-equipped to deal with the fully formed adults around them. In movies like “Failure to Launch” starring Matt McConaughey or “Big Daddy” with Adam Sandler this childishness is played as charm. In “Big Fan” it is realistically pathetic.
Taking the critique further director Siegel adds a disquieting homo-eroticism to Paul’s hero worship. Paul has a poster of Quantrell over his bed. He dreams about Quantrell, sweating and snarling, shirtless in his three point stance. Though Paul is too timid and immature to get it, he is a frustrated, closeted homosexual whose frustration is channeled into his love of sport.
Whether it’s Tom Brady or Han Solo this level of obsessive hero worship tinged with homo-erotic undertones is part of the culture of the man-child. Are all man-children closeted homosexuals? No, but frustrated sexuality and sexual identity are an aspect of the man-child most often unexplored.
Patton Oswalt is fearless in exploring these aspects of Paul Aufiero. Though he does well to keep Paul in the dark about his true self, Oswalt and director Robert Siegel are downright elegant in the ways they reveal and subtly ridicule Paul’s ignorance. In sending up Paul they send up those like Paul, the emotionally stunted, childishly obsessed man-child.
Darkly humorous, endlessly clever and revealing “Big Fan” is punch in the mouth to the growing man-child culture. Where so many movies let these overgrown children off the hook, “Big Fan” holds a mirror up to them and reveals them for who they truly are. It’s not a pretty picture.
BYLINE:
Sean Patrick Kernan is a film critic. Check him out at: http://www.myspace.com/number1ramjamfan.
0 comments:
Post a Comment