CLICK
US, 2006, 107 minutes, Colour.
Adam Sandler, Kate Beckinsale, Christopher Walken, David Hasselhoff, Henry Winkler, Julie Kavner, Sean Astin, Jonah Hill.
Directed by Frank Coraci.
Adam Sandler has gone much more ‘up-market’ since his Billy Madison-Happy? Gilmore days. After pleasing the critics in Punch Drunk Love, he acted with Jack Nicholson in Anger Management. Besides his remake of Burt Reynolds’ The Longest Yard, he also tried a less sympathetic role in Spanglish. In Click, he continues in this vein, extending his range to appearing as a fat, ageing, self-centred workaholic.
Click should please Sandler fans and should draw in further admirers. It did particularly well in the United States.
As you watch it, there is a sense of familiarity with the plot and with some of the humour. When a harassed architect who keeps trying to please his demanding boss (a funny turn from David Hasselhoff) meets and eccentric inventor called Morty (Christopher Walken in another of his eerily funny turns), he is given a remote control that can turn voices off at whim, can freeze characters into pause or inaction. He then discovers he can control his life, finding it on a menu like a DVD and, at the jab of a click, he can fast forward or rewind his life. He can skip unpleasant days or months at a time. Needless to say, there are some ultimate catches and to write more would spoil the enjoyment.
However, most audiences will guess that this is a variation on It’s a Wonderful Life, providing our hero with another version of what happens to him. And some of the jokes, especially with upsetting people with the remote, are reminiscent of Bruce Almighty, so it is not a surprise to find that Click is from the same writers, Steve Koren and Mark O’Keefe?. The director is Sandler’s friend from college days, Frank Coraci, who directed him in The Wedding Singer and The Waterboy.
Besides Hassellhoff and Walken, the supporting cast includes Kate Beckinsale as his wife (who shows how one can age gracefully) and Sean Astin as the children’s swimming coach. There are very entertaining appearances (with some pathos) from Henry Winkler and Julie Kavner as Sandler’s parents.
Since the plot takes us twenty years into the future, it is interesting to see how the main characters age as well as to imagine the technology of the future.
Ultimately, this is a modern spin on an age-old moral tale about gaining the world and losing one’s soul – and appreciating what we have because what we might yearn for could destroy us. But, while the moral is serious, the treatment is pleasingly humorous.
1.Adam Sandler and his popularity, his comic style, down-to-earth jokes, spoofs and parodies? His serious persona? This film as a message film?
2.The tradition of It’s a Wonderful Life, the hero, imagining an alternate world, becoming despairing, learning what he had missed, returning to the world and able to make a different life? It’s a Wonderful Life for the 21st century? The technological age?
3.The presentation of the ordinary household, the ordinary present? Home, husband, wife and two children? Parents visiting? Family love? The pressures of the workplace? Overwork, ambitions, pressures from bosses? And the new technology?
4.Adam Sandler as Michael, ordinary, loving his wife and children, neglecting them? Busy at work? The pressures of Ammer, pressure in the workplace – and David Hasselhoff’s performance as the boss? The consequences? At home, neglect, his character, moods? His disrupting the family?
5.The character of Donna, loyal and loving wife, mother of the children, the scenes at home, trying to have discussions with Michael? The children, love for their parents, neglect, concern?
6.The middle of the night, Michael going to the shop, searching for the parts, going to the back room? His discovery of Morty? Christopher Walken in this role, his appearance, way of talking? An angel of death? His character, the visuals? His explanations of the remote, muting the sounds of the dog, zooming past quarrels? The wonders of the remote? The extensive program? Michael taking it?
7.Michael playing with the remote, going past the promotion, seeing the changes in his life, losing the year, his ability to move back and forth, his losing control, the effect on him?
8.Donna in herself, the effect of Michael and his work and promotion? Building up to the divorce? Courtship, her new husband? The effect? Seeing the children, the children in their teen years, typical behaviour, attitudes?
9.Michael and his going into the future, his being stuck in his work, becoming obese, the relationship with Donna and her new husband, his relationship with his kids, the alienation?
10.The build-up to the wedding, Ben and his becoming like his father? Trying to persuade Ben not to be like him? His death?
11.The supporting characters and their contribution: Morty and his intervening in Michael’s life, the significance of his name – an angel of death? Ammer and the pressures of bosses? Michael’s parents and their kindness, not understanding? Bill and his interacting with Michael? Marrying Donna?
12.Michael waking up, discovering that he was still in the present – and the possibility for change and a new life?
