Word: deweyism
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...good-natured lads - smart, but not mean-spirited - and richly blessed by the presence of John C. Reilly in the title role. There's an almost pre-moral innocence about his soft and squishy mug, a heedless exuberance in his playing. He's happy to play dumb - allowing Dewey to live profitably within the unexamined premises, the mythic fatuity, of his media-driven myth. Like the other films Apatow has been involved with, Walk Hard is a clever blend of very broad, occasionally raunchy gag-smithing and an unspoken, yet palpable, social shrewdness. For the moment, at least, this...
...populist audience, which prefers sentiments of a more uplifting kind, while the crowd that might get a kick out of this film it will likely dismiss it as kid stuff. But call me a cynic, call me a curmudgeon, call me perverse - I loved every moment of Dewey Cox's story. I hope I'm not alone in that feeling...
There you have it, the utterly improbable central trauma that "explains" the rest of Dewey's life: his drive for the fame that can never compensate for his terrible guilt, the self-destructive drinking, drugging and sexual outlawry that sully his path to pop icon status, the bum musical trips - his adored brother may have been an authentic musical prodigy that Dewey dimly needs to emulate - that threaten his career. You've been here before, of course, with Walk the Line and Ray, to name only the most recent biopics about the trials and triumphs of pop-music icons. These...
...troubles this movie recounts: The first wife who contemptuously refuses to believe in Dewey's dream, the second wife who endlessly rebuffs his sexual blandishments, the trips up musical blind alleys (it's almost worth the price of admission to watch Dewey during his Bob Dylan and Beatles phases). And that says nothing about the ways inspirations for his songs strike...
...next thing we know his band is playing the song featuring the overheard phrase, while a montage shows it rising on the charts. As it is in allegedly authentic biopics, so it is in this send-up. There is no effort or intentionality in Dewey's story. He writes songs the same way he gets girls - by standing around and looking receptive. We are to understand him as the pure product of, the pure prisoner of, his "genius." Which is why, of course, he is totally unable to cope with celebrity...