Sorry, Haters (2005)

Too much of everything

Let's be realistic.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Ah, I thought about five minutes after the film ended, so THAT'S why they put a picture of the World Trade Centre attack on the cover! It's not immediately clear why, but I appreciated being allowed by the director to puzzle it out on my own. I suspect that's the whole point of this film?There's almost no mention of 9/11 in 'Sorry Haters', a fact that I appreciate, because I watch movies for the drama and not for the cold, hard facts. But in the tradition of all great dramas, the makers of 'Sorry Haters' have managed to make a total fiction tell us some hard truths about 9/11.This story is one big metaphor for the dynamics between the West and Middle East. The West is embodied by Phoebe and the Middle East, by Ashade. On the one hand, Phoebe goes out of her way to stir sh*t because she's brimming with inner tension. It turns out that she probably got this way from a lifetime of being casually tormented by people around her who got what she wanted to get, but was too 'civil' to fight for. Even Phoebe's so called best friend snipes, "I wasn't an accountant, I was even WORSE: a sales rep!" (Oh how nice Philly, you shouldn't have!) The hyper-successful and outgoing Philly practically oozes a constant stream of subtle insults like this, all meant to put Phoebe in her place. Whether she's doing it consciously or not is another question. It's obviously a very ingrained habit, though. Having been forced to compete brutally with her peers, and even her best friend, Phoebe seemingly doesn't know how to stop until she's clawed her way to the top of some sh*t pile, somewhere in the city. And she's willing to go to desperate measures to do that. It looks like all that competitive spirit has wiped out any trace of sympathy or humanity in her. It's The American Dream gone oh-so wrong... as it increasingly tends to do, these days. I kept asking myself throughout the film why Phoebe was so bonkers: it was her single minded obsession with, 'I want what she has'. It does make you ask questions about how much you really need any of the things you want.There's a pretty clear connection between the rise of Islamic terrorism and the invasions of the Middle Eastern by Russia, the U.S., U.K and France over the last few decades. Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq were once more progressive places than they are… before the West started to get antsy about how much oil they were sitting on (or near). Every time we withdraw our troops, having failed, yet another chunk of Middle Eastern progress crumbles away for good. And the likes of ISIL and the Taliban spring up to funnel people's anger and pain into fundamentalism or civil war. Or terrorism. Of course, the problem could be solved (or at least lessened) if the West would just STOP messing about in the Middle East, but why do that when the weapons industry's making a killing from it all too...?That's not to excuse terrorism - one attack is as bad as the other - but Western nations do like to play the innocent victim even as they go on doing things that they KNOW will add fuel the terrorists' fire. The western world's compulsion to invade and manipulate the Middle East to enhance its own bank portfolios is very clearly mirrored in Phoebe's compulsion to violate Ashade's personal boundaries. She infiltrates his mind and controls him for the sake of saving her ego. It's insane but she's just like some of the more cutthroat businessmen I've met. She goes to radical extremes because she's bored with her routine, and exists in social isolation. The one-track mind she possesses isn't inherited, it's earned, and the business she works in rewards it. Just like the Western world, Phoebe seems to 'have it all' but having it all's not enough. She's obviously just broken from living in her cut-throat object-obsessed world for so long. Again, the American supermalls full of dead eyed shoppers come to mind. (Sorry Haters might be interesting companion film for Dawn of the Dead or American Psycho for that reason!).I also felt that Phoebe's character was strangely sympathetic... which is a real feat considering her actions. Bravo to Ms. Penn for sustaining that balancing act. Most western people will have felt as enraged about the unfairness of capitalism at some point, so it would have been bad to alienate all those people by making her too 'evil'. Many other actresses would have taken an easier route, but Penn keeps you guessing and wondering whether you should take her side. I agree with the other reviewers who commented that Ashade is a little bit TOO good, though. After all, fundamentalist forms of Islam have always existed and have almost always been quite hostile toward women. It would be silly to dichotomize the Muslims as wonderfully good & pure people, just as it would have been a bit silly to turn Phoebe into a purely heartless killing machine. No one is totally good or evil. So as far as a realistic drama goes, it's a bit of a push... BUT seeing as this is a metaphorical drama, it worked out okay. While the film opens on a city that's clearly still a bit edgy after 9/11, the ensuing tale neatly answers the question of who planted the insane IDEA of 9/11 in the minds of terrorists in the first place. Maybe it was someone like Phoebe who took "my family, my whole world" away from a stranger. Most acts of war and terror are like that, when you think of it - they're all just an externalization of the sound a mind makes when it pops.

Jeff Stanzler's second feature-length film is a lacerating gem of such unhinged chaotic force that it's hard to believe it got made in the first place. It's one of those movies that, especially if you know nothing going into it, consistently shocks and amazes you. It has a plot that makes a sick sort of cosmic sense but that couldn't possibly come from the mind of anyone but an independent film geek --- it's anti-derivative, if anything, and all the better for it.Robin Wright Penn gives what is probably the spookiest, most immediate portrait of a woman unhinged since Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction. No...strike that. At least Alex seemed to have moments of genuine emotional regret. Penn's character is a hate-o-tronic machine, seething with disgust for the MTV-like cable station she slaves away at during the day, biding her time until she can trash luxury status symbols on off-hours, many of which belong to her former best friend, (Sandra Oh in another of her effortlessly breezy portrayals) whom she blames for wrecking her life.But Penn's character isn't just some random sociopath, she's a woman with a plan, and at the center of that plan is an innocent Muslim cab driver. After shanghai'ing him for a late evening-early morning cab ride out to Jersey from NYC, she lures him in with promises of legal help for his unjustly detained brother. It is gradually revealed that her motives are far more sinister and twisted, however, than just procuring an admirer for her over-active imagination.What's really incendiary about this film is the writing and Penn's performance. The script lets us know in a million little twists and slips-of-the-tongue just how bonko Penn's character is. She's like a human grenade on screen...her psychosis is ingrained so deep we never know just when the pin will fall out. It's a riveting performance.Much has been made of the finale, which, while shocking, is just about perfect in its style and execution. It's a great finish for a film that eloquently turns the tables on the myth that all hate, in America, comes from the outside. "Why? Why?" the cabbie beseeches Penn, after she has done much more damage than good for his brother's case. This is a question we often seem to be asking the terrorists...and the answer is no more comforting here than in real life. Sometimes hate isn't a grandiose statement...many times it's just cheap and ugly.

Interesting title, it turns out that "Sorry, Haters" is the title of a TV program that Robin Wright Penn's character Phoebe is associated with producing. The fictional program has wealthy flaunting the products of their wealth.As the movie begins we see her needing a cab ride, and she happens upon Abdel Kechiche as Ashade, a Muslim in NYC. Innocently enough Phoebe has him take her to New Jersey where we see her watching a family from afar, then going up to the new Lexus in the driveway and putting large scratches in it. Then, getting back in the cab and going home.It doesn't stop there, she ends up insinuating herself into his life, going to where he lives, and where he visits the French Canadian wife of his brother who was arrested and deported for the wrong reasons. Phoebe gains Ashade's confidence when she tells him she has connections that will help get his brother free.The movie is one of those where you can't take your eyes away, because you simply never know what is coming next, and most developments are not what you would expect. It helped overall to view the 14 minute DVD extra with Tim Robbins and several others discussing the movie and what they thought it meant.SPOILERS. Another character was Sandra Oh, as the big boss where Phoebe works. In fact, Phoebe misrepresented herself, told Ashade a series of lies, on a rooftop pretended to call a lawyer to get the brother freed. Phoebe has problems, and the one time she felt really useful was on 9:11 when her boss was frightened and asked for comfort. Her whole life now has become to try to recreate that feeling, all the while not caring about anyone else. In the last scene, she and Ashade are going somewhere, they pause at the top of subway stairs, puts something in his pocket saying "my parents gave me this, I want you to have it." Then she pushes him down the stairs, a few seconds later an explosion as she walks away. In a final act of terrorism she tosses her dog into an oncoming truck and walks away. She no longer needed the one thing that was comforting her.

This movie's description fails to describe the actual story or feeling of the movie. I don't know if the director's point was to show how only a crazy person would consider a violent reaction to government oppression rather than using legal channels and means, but that's what I got out of it. Additionally, the movie explores how quickly an immigrant's life can be ruined in this country -- especially one who has limited financial resources, and who fits into a specific "profile." Also, the director shines a light on domestic terror, and the problem in general of combatting irrational angry reactions by individuals that affect the masses.A great movie! Suspenseful, unpredictable, and in the end your jaw may just drop open.