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message in the movies
By Rev. Bruce Batchelor Glader
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Click
Rated PG -13
Directed
by Frank Coraci. Starring Adam Sandler, Christopher Walken
Photos © Copyright Columbia Pictures
In these couch potato days of ours, just about everyone owns half a
dozen or more remote controls to operate everything from DVD players to
wall fans. Michael Newman (Sandler) is an up-and-coming Type A
architect who has too little time with his family at home to mess around
with remotes. He walks into the “Beyond” department of Bed, Bath &
Beyond and meets Morty (Walken), an in-store inventor, who hands him a
Universal Remote Control that can control everything in his subjective
life. Michael can mute irritating voices, fast forward through fights
and chores, and even speed ahead past life’s slings and arrows. “Click”
is an interesting morality play that finds time to comment on how often
our multi-tasking, flex-time, consumer-focused American lifestyle
prevents us from really appreciating life. There’s even a cautionary
message about the emptiness of a self-centered worldview. This sounds
like a bit much for an Adam Sandler comedy, but his fans needn’t
despair; there’s plenty of lowbrow humor involving bodily functions,
sex, drugs and cruelty along the way. (There were also more than a few
worried parents awkwardly answering questions from their children during
the screening I attended.) The sentimental ending of the film
shamelessly borrows from both “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “A Christmas
Carol”, but at least “Click” is willing to go to a few dark and tragic
places along the way.
Pitchfork Rating:
Three
halos.
. (An entertaining – and at times thoughtful – comedy about the
emptiness of a self-centered life.) Three pitchforks.
(Most of the humor is pitched low; there are scenes involving
love-making between humans and between household pets and a stuffed toy;
drug references; many bad words (including a not-soon-enough bleep of a
really bad word), and mean-spirited behavior.)
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