{"id":40931,"date":"2018-02-20T22:06:42","date_gmt":"2018-02-21T06:06:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=40931"},"modified":"2018-02-21T11:05:38","modified_gmt":"2018-02-21T19:05:38","slug":"the-public-emilio-estevez-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=40931","title":{"rendered":"The Public (Emilio Estevez, 2017)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Reviewed by Diana Diaz.\u00a0 Viewed at the Arlington Theater, Santa Barbara.<\/p>\n

Most people think of Emilio Estevez as Martin Sheen’s younger son, or as the jock in The Breakfast Club<\/em> (John Hughes 1985).\u00a0 The stamp of that heritage is still on this film.\u00a0 The Public<\/em> leaves the protagonist, Stuart Goodson (Estevez), trapped in the library on lockdown, wearing what looks almost like a letterman jacket.\u00a0 This is a humorous tangent to the next point.\u00a0 The Estevez\/Sheen family is well known through Martin Sheen’s activism and deep faith which he clearly passed on to son Emilio.<\/p>\n

The draw of this film comes somewhat from a somewhat realistic depiction of the often overlooked – librarians and homeless people – as they deal with a severe winter chill.\u00a0 It was filmed on location with non-actors as extras in Cinncinati, Ohio at a multi-story, fluorescent-lit library.\u00a0 In that sense, it is firmly grounded in a 1970s style of gritty underdog-focused, realistic films.<\/p>\n

The film commands a certain amount of charm and skill.\u00a0 Effective montage sequences feature one or two liners of people asking the kinds of mundane questions librarians hear every day.\u00a0 And the kind of situation the find themselves in, that libraries have become de facto daytime homeless shelters.<\/p>\n

What initially seemed unbelievable was actually based on multiple true events.\u00a0 A plot point in the outset of the film is that a homeless man sued the library after being kicked out because he smells and other patrons feel uncomfortable.\u00a0 People have actually sued the library after having been kicked out due to an offensive personal odor, homeless or not.<\/p>\n

Some of the objections to the film include the idea that the homeless depicted therein are too nice, together, and sanitized.\u00a0 However, one must realize that there are plenty of very nice people who become homeless and can’t get back on their feet without intervention.\u00a0 Goodson seems to understand that and is always kind to them.\u00a0 He’s also not much better off.\u00a0 No one ever became a librarian to get rich.<\/p>\n

Kudos are owed to the well-crafted script.\u00a0 The women speak their own minds and become secondary protagonists when the camera begins to follow their point of view.\u00a0 Jena Malone unleashes her cute inner geek who obsesses about literature and her carbon footprint.\u00a0 The film even passes the famed Bechdel test which means that two named women in the film talk to each other about something other than a man.\u00a0 Stranger things have happened than hooking up with the building super, but it serves the story.<\/p>\n

There are moments of humor and the casting was very good.\u00a0 Christian Slater gives a solid performance as an abrasive attorney.\u00a0 Alec Baldwin as a police detective is caught between a rock and a hard place. \u00a0 Jacob Vargas plays a security guard who comes across as friendly and funny.\u00a0 Taylor Schilling (Orange is the New Black<\/em>) plays the building super.\u00a0 Gabrielle Union plays an ambitious, driven, and bitchy reporter with aplomb<\/p>\n

Comic relief often comes from the homeless population with Michael Kenneth Williams having some pretty good zingers.\u00a0 Sometimes, though, it seemed mental illness was slightly trivialized.\u00a0 At the same time, saying that is a double-edged sword because few films give the homeless as much dignity as they have here.\u00a0 And some of the extras were really hired straight off the street.<\/p>\n

The one piece that sometimes fit only 95% perfectly was writer\/director\/actor\u00a0\u00a0 Occasionally it seems like he or the cast could have done some more rehearsal or the editor could have shaved just a touch more tightly.\u00a0 The cinematography is active and beguiling.\u00a0 And the film is still enjoyable as it attempts to tackle a real social issue in an honest, something that can always be a bit awkward.\u00a0 (That is, it can be awkward, unless you’re Jordan Peele and you know how to layer a social issues satire into a sci fi\/horror\/comedy version of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner<\/em>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Diana Diaz.\u00a0 Viewed at the Arlington Theater, Santa Barbara. Most people think of Emilio Estevez as Martin Sheen’s younger son, or as the jock in The Breakfast Club (John Hughes 1985).\u00a0 The stamp of that heritage is still on this film.\u00a0 The Public leaves the protagonist, Stuart Goodson (Estevez), trapped in the library […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180314,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,322],"tags":[325],"class_list":["post-40931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","category-santa-barbara-film-festival-2018","tag-social-issues-film"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/180314"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40931\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}