The Interview. A Review.

Was there any film of 2014 that got more free publicity than James Franco and Seth Rogan’s The Interview. Rightly or wrongly it was in the public eye on every news outlet, every entertainment blog, all up in arms about art and free speech - but was the film actually any good?

The plot itself is something of a gear change for the Team Apatow alumni , with Producer Aaron Rapaport (Rogen) and chat-show host Dave Skylark (Franco) leaving the safe shores of America for North Korea in order to interview Kim Jong Un. Skylark and Rapaport are contracted by the CIA to assassinate the North Korean leader in order to instigate a rebellion.

So is the film funny? Well I cannot deny I did laugh, there are a few moments of good comedy in there. The celebrity cameos, which reached nauseating levels in This is the End, are used smartly in The Interview and produce some fun moments that add to the film rather than distract. The drug references which usually permeate Team Apatow films are present, but are fairly brief, and seem to be there mainly as a comfort blanket for Rogen. The bulk of the comedy comes from Franco, as larger than life and charismatic Dave Skylark. His sense of fun is infectious and he makes good company, and if ever a live action version of spy-spoof Archer is in the works - Franco would make a good candidate. Sadly underused is the excellent Lizzy Caplan, her role as a top CIA agent had potential - it may have been a more interesting film if she had accompanied Franco instead of Rogen. Rogen is convincing enough as frazzled producer Aaron, and it comes as no surprise that he has good chemistry with Franco, the pair have good instincts and timing when it comes to some of the comedy set pieces. Rogen is however let down by a script that more or less has him playing Seth Rogen, his character arc has him playing sidekick to James Franco while being unlucky in love. 

Comedy is of course subjective, and some of the jokes in The Interview were not at all to my taste, some just were too obvious, some sexist, some just crass. What about the main joke, the one that seems to have caused so much fuss? Well first of all, it is a joke you can see coming a mile off, and it is a joke that has been done better elsewhere. Poking fun at dictators is fun, its just that South Park already did it with Saddam, and Chaplin already did it to Hitler, so in terms of shock value the portrayal of Kim Jong Un has little to offer. Randall Park certainly has some fun as the North Korean leader, but he never really feels dangerous. Too have caused so much controversy, The Interview’s portrayal of Kim is actually rather tame and even goes some way to humanising him. It would have been refreshing for the film to have actually earned its notoriety by going the whole hog and being really vicious, it might not have been the most sophisticated joke in the world but at least it would be different. 

Can The Interview be a turning point? Not because of the controversy but because it represents the zenith of this type of comedy. It has man-child bromance, drug references, casual sexism, and improv comedy down to a streamlined art. As Paul Rudd suits up as Ant-Man, as Jonah Hill impresses in Moneyball, and Ben Stiller goes full auteur on Walter Mitty, the boys club of comedy is growing up. Franco and Rogen are clearly capable actors, and have proven themselves adept at navigating the hollywood machine, I would like to see them really challenge themselves. This is not to say that comedy ins’t challenging, its probably one of the most difficulties genres to succeed in, its just that every time someone asks me what I thought of The Interview I find myself replying that “its exactly what you’d expect”, I would love it if next time I see a Seth Rogen film I am genuinely surprised. 

The Interview has incredibly ended up the subject of a great deal of political discussion, however it is the gender politics of the film that really require some discussion. The sad thing is I wasn’t sure after watching the film whether it had been sexist or not, I had to ask my girlfriend who pointed out that the women in the film really had little to do other than serve as eye candy, and this is in spite of the fact that the two female leads are a top CIA agent and the head of the North Korean media. The Interview is by no means the main offender when it comes to sexism in films, but it is worth pointing out that I had no expectation going in that it would have an attitude of equality towards its female characters, and I had to have it explained to me afterwards. I was embarrassed, which is a good thing and certainly food for thought. In defence of the film’s gender politics (a sentence even as I type I feel wholly ill-equipped to finish) Diana Bang’s character Sook is given something of a character arc, however she simply does not have enough screen time for the reveal to feel earned, no matter how capable of an actress she is. Lizzy Caplan plays Agent Lacey, as she attempts to use her sexuality to convince Franco to join the CIA plot. Rogen points out that she is ‘honey-potting’ Franco, to which Franco replies ‘That is sexist - it’s 2014 and women can be smart now’. I laughed. And maybe I’m overanalysing here but laughing at that joke felt justified, as though we could laugh at how silly the bad old days were when we were sexist, but then Caplan is sidelined for the rest of the film, so in 2014 were we really doing that much better? I can’t help but think the filmmakers shot themselves in the foot because Caplan is a great screen presence and she was under-utilised, they could have mined greater comedic depths by having a more gender balanced script but they missed out on the opportunity.  

Judging the film on its own terms, The Interview was a perfectly serviceable entry into the cannon of Team Apatow comedies, Franco in particular is very watchable and good company. In the context of the Sony hackings, is this the film that should bring a studio to its knees? Absolutely not, if there was a Sony film really worth getting angry about it was Spiderman 3, but that’s another review. I have used the personal pronoun a lot more than I like to in reviews, in for a penny in for a pound right? I think The Interview was an okay comedy, but really it wasn’t. I think we need to expect more from comedies otherwise we will just get the same things recycled over and over and we will laugh because we’re supposed to. Franco and Rogen are smart guys, I hope they start to make smart movies, maybe then we can laugh with them instead of at them. As for the state of gender politics in movies, there’s a hell of a long way to go and there are plenty of people who could point out all the things that are done wrong a lot better than I. What I can say is that when filmmakers treat women as equals it only means good things for the film.

WHO: Franco steals the film. There’s also a puppy which convinces in its role as cute puppy.

WHAT: Probably the best use of a Katy Perry song in a film.

WHY: So you can be cool and have an opinion on the film everyone was talking about. Last year.
WHEN: It’s online, so whenever you want.