Rich people live in a different world than I do. Their actions carry a different weight and the physics of my universe in no way apply to them. I live in a world of consequences and stifled exploration or impulse. We've seen the rich brats behaving badly (pardon the alliteration) story executed in many ways and the part of it that we never really discuss is why we like them. Why are we compelled to watch people who can do whatever they want? Why are we fascinated by these disconnected assholes? What do we like about them? I'm fully convinced that its the things that we hate about them that make them so interesting. That they breathe rarefied air and have no idea what it feels like to sweat a mortgage payment. I wouldn't go as far as to say that we envy them but we do like to project ourselves into their fine Italian leather shoes, to wonder what it would feel like to live without regard or fear. With that lets discus The Riot Club.
The film is directed by the brilliant Lone Scherfig best known for An Education but she was also responsible for the vastly underrated Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself. Full disclosure, after typing that last sentence I went to IMDB to see what the score for Wilbur is. Its currently sitting at 6.9, admittedly higher than I expected but not nearly high enough, damn it. Alright, back to The Riot Club. The poster sums up the film nicely...
Filthy. Rich. Spoiled. Rotten. Yeah that about sums it up, but the film is so much more than that. First off the film is wickedly funny and full of solid performances. We all remember Scherfig is more than capable of capturing wonderful performances but she also has an incredible gift for comedy. Beyond the laughs there is a undercurrent of social relevance that never comes across too on the nose or overbearing but its certainly there. In other words this is an incredibly well balanced film that I had a ton of fun with.
I'd like to go deeper into this film but it would be better if I just recommend it to you. This is a fun movie and not in the giant robots destroying Detroit kind of way, this is a film with something to say but it never feels the need to lecture you while its doing it, a difficult balance to achieve but Scherfig pulls it off splendidly.
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