Eagle vs. Shark

"My mom got kicked in the head by a cow.  I can't go near cows now because I think about her too much."

Such is the kind of dialogue you get in Eagle vs. Shark.  Here's a choice exchange between brother and sister:

"Stop calling me 'cockhole,' bitch."
"Cockhole."
"Grr!  You're a bitch, and you're gonna die of diabetes."

I mean, come on.

Eagle vs. Shark is a terribly underrated and unknown quirkfest of an independent film from New Zealand, directed by Taika Waititi.  The protagonist, Lily, is a fast food clerk who has a crush on Jarrod, a video game store clerk (Jemaine Clement from "Flight of the Conchords").  In short, they get together, and Jarrod invites Lily to visit his hometown, so that he can fight his high school nemesis, Eric.  When they arrive, Lily meets Jarrod's family.  Quirkiness with real emotional depth ensues.  You even get whimsical stop-motion animated interludes featuring apples.

As much as I hate the comparison, this is sort of like Napoleon Dynamite, but more heartfelt, and more New Zealand-y.  I really don't want to reveal many more specifics about the story of Eagle vs. Shark.  You're either in the camp who can take a quirky indie film or you're not.

But I will say that Jarrod wears pants that say "Awesome" down the leg.  He also has a mullet. If that does anything for you, like if you want to rent a movie and find yourself in a mood to watch a man with a mullet wearing pants that say "Awesome" down the leg, then I would suggest Eagle vs. Shark.

Unfortunately, films like Eagle vs. Shark, Napoleon Dynamite, and to some degree, Juno, all get lumped together under the umbrella of precious and condescending (and sociopathic, misanthropic, and downright eeeevil) indie comedies, a categorization that I reject.  Those critics miss the point.

Here's a screed on Napoleon Dynamite and Eagle vs. Shark, written by someone who openly admits to not watching all of the latter.  Obviously he wasn't engaged with the subject matter, which is fine, but he makes some pretty damning accusations about a film he didn't finish.

Eagle vs. Shark is sort of like a Todd Solondz film, but infused with actual joy and humor, and doesn't leave me feeling empty and hopeless, like my heart has been squeezed and my confidence in the goodness of humanity has fallen away.  If you want to understand why we have school shootings and why little girls and boys grow up to be horrible people who tell homeless people to get jobs and think Sarah Palin is just neat, then watch a Todd Solondz film.  I'm not saying his work is bad, but you'll want antidepressants afterward.

Eagle vs. Shark does the opposite.  Despite taking me to dark places and offering awkward, hide-behind-the-couch humor (my wife's phrase), the film ends on a note so uplifting, I really don't want to hear the cynics bitch.  (Also, any movie that features The Stone Roses' "This Is The One" under the climactic sequence sells me right there.)

It's not that films like Napoleon Dynamite and Eagle vs. Shark have no heart, or that the directors hate their characters, but you'll hear plenty of critics say that.  It's that these characters have so much heart that the directors have trouble getting all of it on the screen.  (I know that sounds sentimental, and I don't care.)  Waititi's characters harbor deep longing, unfulfilled dreams, and repressed emotional traumas, and they keep going despite their pain, and fuck if they don't find joy in their lives anyway, with quirks as their defense mechanisms against the world and all the bullshit that life has dealt them.  These are characters who get up, every day, no matter how much it hurts, and they do stupid, insane things to themselves and other people, and they instantly regret what they've done, and they stumble onward.

To dismiss this film is to not understand; these characters are not empty — they're too full, and what spills over is what they can't contain. There is something rare and beautiful here, and because I identify with these kinds of characters, I find myself laughing not at them, but at the pieces of myself that I see in them.