It is very interesting we have two movies this year about aging actors sort of losing their minds. The other is, of course, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), which goes about exploring its topic in an inventive, thrilling way. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for The Humbling, the latest film from director Barry Levinson (Rain Man). Its biggest problem is it wants to be about something but can never nail down a thesis. Is it a comment on how aging diminishes one’s former self? Is it about needing to regain your passion for your craft? Is it about women being horrible (more on that later)? They throw theme after idea after theme at the wall and hope something sticks, and it never is able to come together. That is to say The Humbling is not a miserable time in the theater. It provides a few laughs and has some well constructed scenes, but ultimately, it never adds up to anything.
Simon Axler (Al Pacino) is a well regarded theater actor closing in on seventy. He has lost the fire in his stomach to want to act. In the opening of the film, while performing Shakespeare’s As You Like It on Broadway, he flings himself off the front of the stage, crashing to the ground, landing him in a mental rehab facility. After he returns home, he gets a knock at the door from Pegeen (Greta Gerwig), the daughter of an old theater compatriot of Simon’s, whom he has not seen since she was a kid. She has been head over heels for him since she was a little child and has come to get what she wants. And, what, is he just going to say no to Greta Gerwig? Yeah, I don’t think so.
The thing is, Pegeen is a “lesbian” who leaves every person she is romantically involved with as a pile of crazy. The two we see here are a transgendered stalker (Tony winner Billy Porter) and a paranoid lunatic (Kyra Sedgwick), so if you think she will not do the same to Simon, you have not been paying attention. You will notice I put lesbian in quotation marks because the notion of what a lesbian is in the film is so outdated it borders on offensive. It purports if a man comes along, she could easily be swayed out of that camp.
Now, I love Greta Gerwig, but she is not the right person for this part. When I think of Gerwig, I do not get smoldering temptress from her. She shines when her characters have to deal with uncertainty, but Pegeen has no struggle the entire film. She knows exactly what she wants, and when she doesn’t, she will turn on “bitch-mode” and get it. By the end, Pacino and Gerwig’s shouting match is just hard on the ears because you don’t believe her at all.
The real shining spot of the film comes in the form of a subplot involving Sybil (Tony winner Nina Arianda), a fellow patient of Simon’s. Her husband has been inappropriate with their daughter, to put it mildly, and she wants Simon’s help to kill her husband, because she has seen him kill people in movies. Arianda is clearly having about twelve times more fun than everyone else involved, in what is supposedly a comedy. She milks every moment she has for laughs and is a joy to watch. You can tell Pacino is trying to up his comedic game to match her, and their scenes together work in ways the rest of the film doesn’t.
The film’s more serious side comes in the form of Simon’s loss of connection to reality. Levinson includes these hallucinatory moments of fantasy which never add up to much. We understand from the first one Simon is unable to distinguish what he invents in his mind and what is real, and they never explore it any further than that. We simply see this man slowly losing touch with reality without any commentary. It’s one scene after another with Simon on a Skype call with his doctor (Dylan Baker) where the commentary could come out, but he just says he is losing the distinction, and the doctor offers no insight. It is very frustrating to sit through.
I realize up until now I have yet to talk about Pacino’s performance, and he is the lead of the film. He does a fairly decent job, just overacting a bit (which is fun). The problem is the character is not all that compelling. He’s old, has tired of acting, is obsessed with Pegeen and has a bad back, which they milk for laughs as much as they possibly can and are successful about thirty percent of the time. The character is very passive. He does not strive for anything. He actively avoids making decisions. This would be fine in a more plot heavy movie, but this is a character study. Your character has to do things.
The Humbling is very confused at what it wants to be. While it does feature some laughs, mainly thanks to the immensely talented Nina Arianda, the film wants to say something and has no idea what that something is. You can see where this story could go write and be a sharp commentary on the mind of a creative person, but Levinson never gives us any commentary. He just gives us situations, and most of them are not all that interesting.
