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Matt Walsh

Unplugging: Dealing with Digital Detox

January 17, 2023 by Steve Norton

When we?re fully connected in our online world, it can be difficult to reconnect when the power goes out.

Directed by Debra Neil-Fisher, the new comedy Unplugging tells the story of Dan and Jeanine (Eva Longoria and Matt Walsh), a couple who are plugging away at the daily grind. While Dan stays home taking care of their daughter and workin on his hot sauce business, Jeanine works tirelessly in her office to keep them financially afloat. But, living a life fueled by emails and online orders, their marriage has been struggling. So, when the opportunity arises, the two venture out into the country for a weekend of digital detox. However, what begins as the perfect getaway begins to slide into madness and the two must figure out what it means to work together offline.

What keeps the power on in Unplugging the most is its cast. Longoria and Walsh are no strangers to comedy and their ease with one another keeps their characters believable and relatable. Although they?re in heightened circumstances, the two stars manage to ground their characters in the realities of everyday life. In Unplugging, Jeanine and Dan aren?t wild exaggerations. They?re your neighbours across the street.

They?re us.

Despite moments that include mysterious drones, broken chickens and attempted felonies, Longoria and Walsh bring an authenticity to their performances that feel honest to the daily experiences of marriage.

But, while the film may be led by Longoria and Walsh, the entire cast is solid. Including some of comedies most unsung veterans like Keith David, Nicole Byer and more, it?s the strength of its team that keeps Unplugging plugging along with humour and silliness. However, it?s worth noting that the brightest light here is easily veteran Lea Thompson as the town?s bitter conspiracy theorist. With fire and fury, Thompson goes full Sarah Connor in the role and, frankly, it?s a joy to see her bring this sort of energy to the project.

Of course, the driving force of the story in Unplugging is our (over)reliance on technology and the damage that it can cause in our relationships. As Dan and Jeanine step into country living, they discover that their love of email, phone calls, Uber and more have built up walls in their relationship. Somewhere along the way, authentic communication has been replaced with social networking. For them to truly rediscover who they truly are (both as a couple and as individuals), some forced digital downtime may be required. Again, herein lies the joy of Unplugging.

They?re us.

Unplugging isn?t a film that despises technology. Instead, it?s a comedy that acknowledges how easy it is for it our screens to become the primary way that we interact with the world and each other. We can laugh at Jeanine and Dan because we recognize their world. Responding to work emails at 3am because you can?t fall asleep? Attempting to make ends meet with an online business? All of these scenarios are simply part of our daily lives. (In fact, the most unbelievable part of the film?s opening is an office that demands you kick against that lack of boundaries.) 

With that in mind, Unplugging becomes an opportunity for us to explore those same issues within our own home and relationships. Anchored by natural ease between Longoria and Walsh, it becomes easier to see ourselves in the lives of these characters, even in their strangest of circumstances. They?re struggling to find intimacy in a screen-infused world in the same way that we are on a daily basis. Their journey together challenges us of the importance of reconnecting offline and, maybe, missing an email or two in the process.

Unplugging is available on VOD on Tuesday, January 17, 2023.

January 17, 2023 by Steve Norton Filed Under: Film, Reviews, VOD Tagged With: digital detox, Eva Longoria, Keith David, Matt Walsh, Nicole Byer, Unplugging

Brigsby Bear – A Stranger in a Strange Land

July 27, 2017 by Darrel Manson

?Brigsby Bear may sound like the title of a children?s TV show (and, in fact, in this film it is), but this isn?t a children?s movie. This is a look at home, family, and belonging. It is also a story about coming to grips with a world you never knew but now must live in.

James (Kyle Mooney) has lived his whole life isolated from the rest of the world. To call his parents (Mark Hamill and Jane Adams) overprotective would be a gross understatement. They live in a bunker far off the grid. The only entertainment James knows is a children?s TV show: ?Brigsby Bear?. A new set of episodes is delivered each week on VHS. Now a young man, James has examined and dissected all the shows and plots. His entire intellectual life is tied to this show.

Then the police arrive and take him away, arresting his parents. It turns out he was kidnapped from a hospital as an infant. Now he is taken back to his biological family (Matt Walsh, Michaela Watkins, and Ryan Simpkins) and to a world he has never been exposed to. Jack struggles to adapt to the real world. He is emotionally and culturally stunted. Yet he has a childlike innocence that endears him to people.

James?s biggest adjustment is that there is no ?Brigsby Bear?. That show was something his father created all those years. As James begins to make friends in the real world, he begins to make a movie that will tie up all the loose ends of the story and give him a sense of closure.

This film is the creation of three childhood friends who went to middle school together: Star and co-writer Mooney, director Dave McCary (both of whom have worked on Saturday Night Live), and co-writer Kevin Costello. (The group of friends making a film-within-a-film reflects a bit of reality.) Additional supporting cast includes Claire Danes as James?s therapist and Greg Kinnear as the police detective investigating the case. The comedy is rather broad, but still entertaining.

James represents a ?stranger in a strange land?. He has been uprooted from his whole reality and tries to bring that old world into his new situation. ?Brigsby Bear? has been so formative in his life, he just can?t let it go. It was more than just a TV show?it was essentially his education. Early on, when he is still living with his captor-parents, James explains in great detail some of the ongoing philosophical/scientific issues that the series raises.

I sometimes feel the same way trying to coax out theological themes in movies. So I?ll go off on a bit of a theological tangent here. First, let me say I have no illusion that this was a part of the filmmakers thinking, but. . .. I?m always looking for something that can shed light on things from the Bible that we don?t often think about. For me this film offered a chance to think about the post-exilic experience of Israel that is found in some books of the Hebrew Scriptures, such as Ezra-Nehemiah, Amos, Micah, and other later prophets. When the people returned after the Babylonian Exile, they were, like James, going home to a place they had never known. Coming back to their ancestral home was a homecoming, but not one that they could really feel was home. That experience reshaped Judaism in various ways as they tried to bring the worldview from their captivity to their homeland.

James is also trying to bring two worlds together. His worldview has been shaped by his (unknowing) captivity and by ?Brigsby Bear?. His family and new friends can?t really understand that. By sharing his past with them, not only does James find a synthesis of his two worlds and families, but at the same time those around him discover an appreciation of seeing things in new ways.

Photos courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

July 27, 2017 by Darrel Manson Filed Under: Film, Reviews Tagged With: child abduction, Claire Danes, Dave McCary, Greg Kinnear, Jane Adams, Kevin Costello, Kyle Mooney, Mark Hamill, Matt Walsh, Michaela Watikins

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