[yasr_overall_rating]
“Anything” is a story about the infinite possibility of love.
Sometimes, a film title, as well as its concept and cover art, can be utterly vague and/or misleading. Having worked in the distribution business, I know all about making a film seem like it’s about something entirely different than its actual plot. This is mostly done to sell, say, a low-budget indie drama about homeless people under the pretense that it’s a high-octane thriller about the urban underground.
Such is the case with Timothy McNeil’s “Anything.” It’s almost like the film’s marketers tried to conceal what it’s actually about: a love story between a grieving middle-aged man and a down-on-their-luck transgender person. The key art – which cunningly lops off the top half of the transgender character’s head, making it seem like it’s a cisgender woman, and slims down John Carol Lynch’s character so he looks like a 20-something hottie – along with the ambiguous title and synopsis, all make “Anything” seem like a Nicholas Sparks adaptation. Angsty teenagers will fume when they realize they’re watching a dark drama about a suicidal man falling in love with a desperate prostitute.
But enough about the appearance. We don’t judge a book by its title here at Irish Film Critic, after all. The film itself is an odd amalgamation of touching sequences that absolutely nail the tenderness of romance and scenes of grotesque exaggeration, of incredibly nuanced acting (especially from its two leads, Lynch and Matt Bomer, both subtle and fearless) and an awkward pace, of earnest intentions and lunkheaded choices. Timothy McNeil caresses greatness, waltzes around it but never quite achieves it, which makes this film that much more of a bummer.
The film starts off on a lighthearted note: when Early’s (Lynch) wife passes away, he quietly slices his veins in a bathtub. Refusing to commit the poor sap to a mental facility, his privileged white sister Laurette (Maura Tierney) brings him home to L.A. with her. After a freeing nude night swim in the ocean, Earl moves out to his own place in Hollywood. There, he meets a variety of quirky neighbors. Among them: the self-professed “Santa Monica Boulevard hoe” Freda (Bomer), who says things like “my sphincter tightens up like a drum” and the hipster pessimist singer Brianna (Margot Bingham). Before Early knows it, he’s helping everyone go through all kinds of withdrawal, bonding with his little band of outcasts. In the cesspool that is Hollywood, he finds redemption.
All of this is “complemented” by a twangy soundtrack so deliberate in its intention to guide us through the film’s emotional highs and lows, it’s borderline nauseating. The film is about compassion and love and overcoming tragedy, but it also revolves around a character that saves all the hapless inhabitants of the so-called “slums” (where studio apartments still cost upwards of $1,000 per month) with his whiteness and money. Just when a lump crawls up your throat at the poignant exchanges between Early and Freda, a half-witted sequence of drug withdrawal makes you gag on that same lump. Just when your chest tightens with tension when Laurette unleashes hell at dinner, your ribs are unintentionally tickled by a misguided scene of Early (almost) doing heroin.
“Deep South?” Freda inquires Early about his origins at one point. “About as deep as you’re gonna get,” Early replies. “‘Cause I like things deep, d’you know what I mean?” Freda says. Whether or not you’ll like “Anything” depends on how you feel about this dialogue exchange.
So yeah, somewhere within this weird concoction a great film lies. To hear the great John Carol Lynch say “you did threaten to gouge my intestines out of my anus” is almost worth the rental price alone. Just don’t expect this to be a sequel to “The Fault in Our Stars.”
In theaters Friday, May 11th
