Spiderhead (Joseph Kosinski, 2022)

[DarkImbecile]

Netflix's pharmaceutical comedy-thriller Spiderhead, Joseph Kosinski's second movie of the summer after Top Gun: Maverick, starts off promisingly enough in delivering on the promise of the smaller scale and more personal stakes of its concept, taken from a George Saunders short story: quirky pharmaceutical CEO Chris Hemsworth experimenting with mood-altering drugs on an island prison full of messed-up criminals, including Miles Teller and June Smollett.

I haven't read "Escape from Spiderhead" — and I see we have at least one Saunders fan who could confirm or shoot down this suspicion — but the way the script's wry, melancholic tone and focus on character in the first couple of acts sputters into a disappointingly conventional and unimaginative conclusion makes me wonder if the original story's conclusion wasn't tidy or traditionally satisfying enough for this to be greenlit without a tacked-on, unconvincingly tidy ending. Most unfortunately, this generic ending also seems to have come at the expense of any meaningful conclusions about brain-altering chemicals, how the introduction of drugs can change meaning of relationships (with lovers, authority figures, our pasts), or the use of prisoners as guinea pigs.

Despite closing on a dispiritingly weak note, this was still passable enough in the moment, largely due to the three leads; I can't think of anywhere else I've seen Smollett, but she holds her own with Teller and Hemsworth, who continues to be a remarkably versatile actor when given a chance to play a character rather than — or at least in addition to — beefcake. Teller comes across as more likable than usual here, and does so convincingly, though I still suspect he's better served by roles that allow him to be intense, aggressive, and difficult. Meanwhile, Kosinski's signature cinematographic traits are all here, though his favored "clean lines, wide shots, and empty spaces" approach holds the viewer farther away from the emotional core of the story than a director more inclined toward intimacy might have; still, I haven't actively disliked any of Kosinski's movies yet, and the mere fact that he has recurring visual and thematic tendencies makes him interesting to follow as he works in mainstream studio projects that would be far more bland in journeyman hands.

Nothing too special, but not a terrible way to spend a couple of hours if seeking a Netflix diversion as the summer drags along.

[Mr Sausage]

Yeah, the original story didn’t have anything like a neat resolution. Or really a resolution at all. That wry, melancholic tone and focus on character you mentioned sounds more like the story. I’m guessing the movie ran into the exact problem I’d predicted when I heard this was being adapted, that there isn’t a conventional evolving plot with a beginning, middle, and end that could fit the demands of commercial cinema. More a series of situations exploring the central concept.

[therewillbeblus]

I'd have to reread the story to recall specifics, but nothing about it is conventional or unimaginative, and its unadaptable nature would suggest that a feature-length production is a terrible idea. Everything I've read about the adaptation indicates that it's a bit erratic in its execution of a compromised tone (The New Yorker wasn't specific but it was enough to indicate that they used Saunder's idiosyncratic wry dialog verbatim at times, but embellished backstories for moral identification and completely altered the ending). I reread the last few pages after reading your post, and while I don't feel entitled to comment without revisiting what it's connected to, it's pretty dark and cringe-funny and... not a conventional ending

[Mr Sausage]

Netflix's pharmaceutical comedy-thriller Spiderhead, Joseph Kosinski's second movie of the summer after Top Gun: Maverick, starts off promisingly enough in delivering on the promise of the smaller scale and more personal stakes of its concept, taken from a George Saunders short story: quirky pharmaceutical CEO Chris Hemsworth experimenting with mood-altering drugs on an island prison full of messed-up criminals, including Miles Teller and June Smollett.

I haven't read "Escape from Spiderhead" — and I see we have at least one Saunders fan who could confirm or shoot down this suspicion — but the way the script's wry, melancholic tone and focus on character in the first couple of acts sputters into a disappointingly conventional and unimaginative conclusion makes me wonder if the original story's conclusion wasn't tidy or traditionally satisfying enough for this to be greenlit without a tacked-on, unconvincingly tidy ending. Most unfortunately, this generic ending also seems to have come at the expense of any meaningful conclusions about brain-altering chemicals, how the introduction of drugs can change meaning of relationships (with lovers, authority figures, our pasts), or the use of prisoners as guinea pigs.

Despite closing on a dispiritingly weak note, this was still passable enough in the moment, largely due to the three leads; I can't think of anywhere else I've seen Smollett, but she holds her own with Teller and Hemsworth, who continues to be a remarkably versatile actor when given a chance to play a character rather than — or at least in addition to — beefcake. Teller comes across as more likable than usual here, and does so convincingly, though I still suspect he's better served by roles that allow him to be intense, aggressive, and difficult. Meanwhile, Kosinski's signature cinematographic traits are all here, though his favored "clean lines, wide shots, and empty spaces" approach holds the viewer farther away from the emotional core of the story than a director more inclined toward intimacy might have; still, I haven't actively disliked any of Kosinski's movies yet, and the mere fact that he has recurring visual and thematic tendencies makes him interesting to follow as he works in mainstream studio projects that would be far more bland in journeyman hands.

Nothing too special, but not a terrible way to spend a couple of hours if seeking a Netflix diversion as the summer drags along.

I didn't much like Saunder's story collection, Tenth of December, but the story Escape From Spiderhead was the standout and left a real impression on me. But its absurdist edge and dispassionate tone didn't suggest itself as movie material. I think the movie works better if you haven't read the story, not because any adaptation would pale next to its mastery or something, but because it makes you more aware of the layers of convention and narrative orthodoxy that have been applied to the movie. You can see its (sometimes clumsy) attempts to create a hero, villain, and love interest, where the Saunders story had none. The scientists in the short story weren't bad the way Hemsworth is here, pushing boundaries, taking knowingly unethical risks, and consciously lying and manipulating to get what he wants. No, they were banal; they followed the rules and protocols to a T, and their deadpan institutionalized responses to the increasingly unethical tests were horrifying and hilarious, especially with how inauthentic they sounded when trying to act like caring humans. It was an effective parody of bureaucratic manners. On the other hand, the narrator, if I remember, was a murderer serving a life sentence, unlike the Teller character who accidentally kills someone while drinking and driving. You can see the filmmakers trying not to get in the way of audience sympathy. There was no Jurnee Smollett character, either. In fact the nature of the chemical tests in the story made a mockery of the very idea of love and attraction.

Basically, having read the story, I was aware of how the movie was forcing a clumsy set of Hollywood conventions on the situation, and that bored me. It also rendered the satire largely ineffective. One of the terrifying things about large bureaucracies like pharmaceutical companies is that they don't require any one person to be evil. But it doesn't make for an exciting movie if your villain is faceless, apathetic, and functioning on a complex set of power structures, one of which is people's susceptibility to authority. So the movie reduces that to one man doing bad things. Not that the movie needed to be making a systemic critique, but to remove the system entirely like that blunts the satire in a familiar way. It's comforting, actually, to think that the problem is a few bad men rather than large, autonomous systems whose abuses go unchecked because of petty human evils like apathy and greed.

That's my real critique of the movie, the lack of sharpness to it. Everything feels blunted. The all-too-superficial carefree tone of the opening act, its contrast between artificial pastels and upbeat pop music on the one hand, and brutalist concrete architecture and droning industrial machinery on the other, this contrast isn't pushed far enough to be jarring or truly uneasy. It's there, but restrained, the visual style never fully committing to its dichotomies or willing to call attention to itself. The early sexual experiments explore the uneasiness in violating conventional moral codes through a broad comedy that is itself full of conventional morality: we're supposed to laugh that the second woman Teller is made to sleep with is old (being attracted to older women is gross); we're definitely supposed to laugh that the next subject isn't just a man, but a gigantic, tatted up gangbanger (having sex with other men is gross--and scary too). The comedy in the short story was mordant and deadpan, coming from the contrast between what was happening and the dispassionate, clinical way everyone went about it. In the movie, the comedy comes from reinforcing traditional morality by setting up breaking it as the thing that's really absurd. The final act then ends with the revelation that true love, the perennial commonplace of any movie needing to seem profound, is too strong to be controlled.

I'm not making an ethical point, just saying that the satire here can't work if it's in support of the status quo. What the short story was making fun of, the movie takes as granted. And that filters into the tone and style. The film doesn't push its distanced visual style (DI described it very well) into formalism, nor does it push its tonal contraries into a sustained comic energy. Everything feels comfortable and controlled. The movie is inoffensive. Risk averse. It's...fine.

[therewillbeblus]

That's an excellent writeup and fits exactly what my impressions are, as the populist needs for the design of what a mainstream success is don't gel with the eccentricities of this kind of satire Saunders specializes in. I'm with you in finding that particular collection underwhelming comparatively to Saunders' other work, though it's the favorite of some of my friends who are fellow fans. Even though his first collection is my favorite, Pastoralia remains the story (within the titular volume of shorts) that had the largest impact on me. Perhaps it's no coincidence that it's in the running for his least adaptable story, for good reason! All the best moments come in wry letters the Sisyphean protagonist receives in deadpan form from the corporate employers, and I'm fighting back the laughter just thinking about it.

[Mr Sausage]

That one book is actually the only Saunders I’ve read, because for the longest time I think I was fusing Saunders and William Styron in my head and avoided Saunders as the paragon of late 20th century American realism that seems boring. Then a bunch of you sang his praises on here and I discovered he’s actually a fantasist and absurdist, which are two of my favourite things, and, feeling chastened, I immediately grabbed one of his books. And then I ended up not liking it anyway. Go figure.

[therewillbeblus]

I would highly suggest CivilWarLand in Bad Decline. If you don't like that one, stop, but it'd be a shame to skip his first and most consistently strong collection, especially when the Spiderhead story made a larger impression on you.

[Mr Sausage]

Thinking on it, maybe the best way to adapt Escape from Spiderhead is to push it in the opposite direction: abandon narrative and character and make instead a series of sketches. Various 5 to 10 minutes sketches or scenes playing out different strange drug tests. You can make some comical, some surreal, some dark, whatever you wanted, and maybe slowly reveal background information in this or that incidental detail, or work up a larger critique through patterning. At the least, such a format would force a lot more creativity and allow the adaptation to keep Saunders’ tone.

[knives]

Sounds like that one Ballard adaptation. Exhibition something.

[Mr Sausage]

Sounds like that one Ballard adaptation. Exhibition something.

Coincidentally I started reading The Atrocity Exhibition today. I don’t think it gave me the idea, tho’.