I was asked to take a look at this movie by someone, and this is my review. "The ReWrite " is a movie about a "starving artist" named Elliot, who is asked to rewrite his script to a movie, to make this Black characters more "authentically Black". Elliot goes on a spiritual journey trying to rewrite the script, but struggles to do so. The movie makes some commentary about how the White culture in Hollywood expects Black characters and writers to act a certain way.
There were parts in the movie where I really didn't understand what was going on. Why was there a guy talking about getting random spam text messages? It was funny though, when Elliot asked the friend why he had a picture of another man's penis on their phone. The idea was so that the friend would send such pictures to the spam texts, but once again, I found myself asking "Why?". Part of the idea was a sort of commentary about how Black men would be "Wilin' out" on the internet, and would post any types of pictures of themselves online, but I found this to be dismissive. Anyone from any race can posts their nudes online, wilin' out.
The cinematography to the movie is great, and many of the shots looked very beautiful.
Much of the acting in the movie is too cheesy for me. I felt like some of the actors were trying too hard to feel natural when saying their lines, which would ironically, come off as more stock than intended. The White executives depicted at the beginning and end of the movie were definitely played up a bit, which was slightly comical.
There's a lot of emphasis in the movie about this script that Elliot has to rewrite, but we, as the viewer, aren't told much about its idea to begin with. I often felt like I was in the dark. What was the script's original idea before being rewritten? This isn't ever divulged. I felt like this was a major oversight, considering that the script was the main point of the movie. If we knew what the original idea was about, we could see Elliot as more of a sympathetic character, and understand how rewriting the script, would change the movie as a whole. But this doesn't happen. Instead, Elliot comes off as whiny, and quick to call anyone that doesn't agree with him as racist.
I found it ironic that one of the main points of the movie, was that the main character didn't want to give in to Black stereotypes, yet within the first 20 minutes of the movie, Elliot's cousin is seen bringing in a bottle of either Hennesy or Courvoisier to drink.
I also found it hilarious how the love interest, if you could even call her that, told Elliot, "You are not Obama". The love plot point was completely pointless to the overall theme of the movie. In fact, it seems implied that Elliot was sleeping with one of the other female characters, other than Brandy...yet later got frustrated when Brandy moved on to another man.
In general, I found the female characters had very boring and generic dialogue. They seemed to fall into the stereotype of either the nagging female, or pick me type. It made my eyes roll, because the actresses that played the women shown did seem to try to make the dialogue work, but it ultimately fell flat. Brandy was never satisfied. The other female was clearly some sort of other love interest, that "didn't take no shit". Then of course, there was Elliot's mother, who also came off as generic.
During the scene where he talked to his mother, there was a picture shown of her and her current husband, a white guy. Elliot gave this look like he didn't approve of the relationship, at least, that was the way I took it. I don't know how to take this, the interracial relationship as not being approved of? I'm not sure what the point was in showing that, if that wasn't the point. I'm kind of surprised to have seen that. Maybe the idea was that all white people are the same? If so, that's still a stupid idea.
What especially made me cringe, was how Elliot's mother said, "He's the Doug to my Kamala!". I wanted to roll my eyes so hard. I really dislike how interracial relationships are depicted at times. Like each one is the same. I think it's disingenuous. One ironic part about this, is that not once, is Robert DeNiro ever mentioned...a white actor, who has been consistently married to black women.
I found myself wondering at times, if this had to be a movie, and not some sort of mini TV series. There are a lot of plot points, between the main character's drinking, trying to get paid, and his relationship problems. To me, some of the ideas could have been better elaborated and expanded upon if there was more time, like a mini series would allow.
I know that some of the scenes were shown to help the audience see how the people who the characters in the script were based off of were, but I wish that there was some sort of comparison to how they were written, before we saw the person they were based off of.
I don't understand the concept of trying to write a unique script for Hollywood that isn't generic, when Hollywood is known to be nothing but that.
I feel like more emphasis was put on the cinematography and camera shots, than the idea of working on the script as the plot point. The movie is 1 hour and 33 minutes long, and majority of the scenes that dealt with the actual writing consisted of the main character not knowing what to do. I feel like the movie is too long, and does not deliver on it's own main plot point.
I think there are good points about how Black people are stereotyped in the common American movie. I think there were valid points about Elliot being upset with how the out of touch executives treated his writing, but the way the movie executed the idea felt unsatisfactory. I think I'm not the right person for a movie like this. I didn't hate this movie, but after watching, I thought to myself, "Okay.".
It's not something that I would watch again, but not out of anger or hatred. I just don't feel like I "got" anything out of this. I prefer movies that I can learn from, or make me laugh, or can scare me. I don't really know who this type of movie is for, but it's not for me.
1.5/5
