It's clearly Alyssa Hates Everything day here on the blog, because man, I thought the trailer for Bad Lieutenant looked bad, but this looks dramatically worse:
Perhaps I have beef because there are actors I like quite a bit in this: Josh Brolin, Carla Gugino, and the sigh-inducing Joseph Gordon-Levitt, all of whom appear to be wasting their talents. But I think what really makes me angry is the dumbass broads-in-trouble storytelling that makes everyone in the trailer look like an utter moron. I hate people who treat trashiness as if it must be meaningful. Hate it. Trashiness can be a vehicle for some incredibly powerful storytelling, Leaving Las Vegas, a movie I found almost as uncomfortable to watch as it was compelling, being Exhibit A for the prosecution in that particular case. But the idea that dissolution, and particularly the dissolution of women, is supposed to be inherently profound has been kicking around in wide circulation in popular culture since Valley of the Dolls. That doesn't mean it's ever been true.
Women have problems. Women get into trouble. Women get pregnant when they don't want to, and hook up with guys who treat them badly, and get overwhelmed by motherhood, or sucked into their jobs, and marry charming cads, and do drugs, and strip, and get tattoos, and many other things besides. Sometimes these events, these choices, signify something meaningful. Sometimes they don't at all. But to suggest that anytime something happens to a woman that doesn't make her feel sunshine, lolipops and rainbows that it's got to be significant is the same kind of inane pop psychology that can lead a character to utter something as stupid as: "If we don't tell people how we feel, what are we doing here?"