I like Simon Pegg. I don't know anybody who doesn't. Everybody always like the funny, sophisticated imaginative guy until he laughs at you and the British actor always kept a polite distance to his audience. A couple years ago, the trailer for A FANTASTIC FEAR OF EVERYTHING captured the imagination of adventurous moviegoers as a celebration everything Simon Pegg stands for. A couple of rotten reviews later, the movie has become a floating object, revolving around collective consciousness in cyberspace. Doesn't take much to kill a movie in the internet age. A FANTASTIC FEAR OF EVERYTHING nonetheless became Josie and I's compromise movie last weekend, during a babysitting session. It might not have the spontaneous charm of SHAUN OF THE DEAD, but I wouldn't say it's a bad movie. You can't fault a movie for not living up to its trailer, no matter how promising it may be.
Children's author turned crime novelist Jack (Simon Pegg) is writing a series of scripts about Victorian serial killers called ''Decades of Death'' and it is driving him insane. He lives in complete paranoia that he is about to be murdered. His agent Clair (Clare Higgins) got the attention of Harvey Humphries (Kerry Shale), a head honcho at BBC, for ''Decades of Death'' and it sends him over the edge. Bear with me here...he proceeds to superglues the windows of his apartment shut to insulate himselfd from the Hanoi Handshake killer, currently roaming the streets, superglues a knife in his hands in the process AND has to go do the laundry before figuring a way to unglue it, because he has an appointment with Harvey Humphries the next day. That is when shit hits the fan hard. But I'll keep the surprise intact for you.
I believe I understand what ticked off most reviewers about A FANTASTIC FEAR OF EVERYTHING. It's a magic realism movie. There are two kinds of magic realism: the unwitting and the self-aware. A FANTASTIC FEAR OF EVERYTHING situates itself in the latter category and like other self-aware pieces of magic realism, it tries WAY too hard to milk the ''magic'' part: off-screen narration that's straight out of Charles Dickens' playbook, a crazy, old Victorian house that's intentionally creepy, a jumpy wreck of a protagonist, A FANTASTIC FEAR OF EVERYTHING likes its magic realism so much, it actually gets in the way of its own story. Rolling your eyes and pushing the stop button is the easy thing to do here.
If you can't look past its obnoxious manners, A FANTASTIC FEAR OF EVERYTHING has an original coming of age story to tell, that offers a well-balanced mixture of realism and fantastic element that reflect human beings' tendency of creating their own inner mythology. I mean, it's literal in A FANTASTIC FEAR OF EVERYTHING, whatever Jack believes is true will materialize on screen one way or another, but that's part of the movie's charm, to recreate its characters' own private hyperreality on screen without ever losing itself in its fantasy world. I also enjoyed the angsty, wiry nature of A FANTASTIC FEAR OF EVERYTHING. Most magic realism loves to lose itself in a pleasant balloon of ether, but the fantasy part in this movie isn't fun to the protagonist. It's a genuine torture he's looking to pull away from. Score another originality point for that.
If you're expecting a Jean-Pierre Jeunet level of magic realism out of A FANTASTIC FEAR OF EVERYTHING, of course you will be disappointed. You might not know the genre very well too. It's not because you know the name of the original Kiss members that you know rock n' roll, you know? A FANTASTIC FEAR OF EVERYTHING is wild and a little obnoxious, but it has an original story to tell that doesn't get complacent with its own fantasy material. It's a good movie, but it's not a great or really memorable one. Of course, it fell short of its ambitions. It doesn't leave you with a fulfilling sense of wonder when the credits rolls and that's probably why you won't watch it. Can't blame you if you do, can't blame you if you don't. All I know is that it shone a pleasant pale little light on my Friday evening.