For some reason, Journey doesn’t start with a crazy scene nestled.
On a precarious edge of a rock that’s strained before returning. To the beginning – it just starts all over again. What a novel! So husband and wife sit in bed and argue, and the conversation gets crazy. And as we thought, they’re just actors on the set of a soap opera.
He talked to a colleague about how he and his wife were going to the hut this weekend, and he kept emphasizing that he wanted to go on a long hike in the mountains, and wouldn’t that be dangerous?
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He visits his father at the nursing home on his way home so the older adult can question his maturity. Then go to the hardware emporium for hammers, hacksaws, ropes, and tape – you know, Serial Killer Special, $49.95.
He picks up Lisa (Rapas), and the fight starts immediately. Needle. Disturbance. Dig a little bit. Death 1000 cuts on both sides. Your professional life is terrible, and the poison is flowing into your personal life. They reach the hut, and as he unloads a suspicious collection of instruments.
The camera attaches itself to a cupboard full of rifles, and as it sweeps the kitchen, it receives a butcher’s lens and a bread knife. Why? There’s no reason. The usual stuff you find in a hut in the Norwegian jungle where you can hunt and then slaughter the killed animal.
Lars and Lisa argue about cooking and dinner, and before bed:
They play a game of scrabble that keeps wedges between them. The next day we follow Lars as he pulls a hammer out of the basement and goes into the kitchen to get two alcohol tapes, and the camera angle for this shot is off, oh, so angled.
He slipped behind Lisa, and before he could drill a hole in her skull, he quickly turned around and touched her. It’s probably safe to say that marriage counselling is meaningless at this stage in their relationship.
Again, Lars and Lisa finally seem to be on the same page, albeit fatally, so I love the sweet, gooey irony with the caramel scent in your mouth for a minute.
The revelation that they wanted to kill themselves came on the 21-minute note of the 114-minute-long film, so there are no spoilers to say that things escalated from there.
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Through quirky personality plays that range from cold to violent to extremely frivolous to highly violent. From disgusting to very cruel to very complex to very terrible. And yes, other characters are included to keep it from repeating itself.
If you can keep it through dementia – no guarantees, love or hate, no deposits, no returns, the mileage may vary, etc. John Niven is making this up, not because you are rooted in one of these people, a bad example of humans at best in Species.
That means that The Journey is in the realm of satire:
Where marital discord is depicted with great exaggeration, and whimsical murderous impulses are conveyed in rich, bloody red tones. One wonders if Lars and Lisa find these confrontational therapy upgrades, from passive-aggressive to intensely aggressive, dropping sniper rifles for knife fights, sometimes not at all symbolic.
Wirkola sometimes crosses the line between bad taste (good; think John Waters) and bad taste (bad; think Adam Sandler’s R-rated vehicle). The various bodily fluids that drool from the mouth.
Turning the knees and entrails of hamburgers into buckets beyond that is more significant than the two or three dumb movies. They’ve been making for eight-year-olds these days, he said.
However, the film sticks to the cliché that everything is fair in love and war. It’s fun and disrespectful, dark and disgusting – and therefore, I think there is an exercise in cognitive dissonance. This is more thought of when sick than healthy. For good or bad. “By the time we die from vents or guns, we’ll split up. I’ll stop here.
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This trip was far from good and barely good. But it does spark some choking laughs, is challenging in its issues. And will likely satisfy an iron belly that can handle the task.