I won't say that Exploding Girl was more accessible down here in Brazil than it was in its home country, but I had the distinct advantage of watching it not merely as entertainment or a time-killer but as news from frontlines at which new technologies cross with an evolving emotional tone and evolving mores and the technology gives the emotional tone and the mores impetus.
(1) As one of the last people in the world not to use a cell phone, I was pleased to see evidence to support my lingering suspicion that most cell phone communication is merely to "check in" — I think that was the language of the movie itself — and to provide reassurance that the caller will call again later, again to check in, again to provide reassurance of yet another call to check in later still and so on, I assume, ad infinitum unto death.
2) But that's not really the whole of it. The constant cell phoning back and forth seems also to be necessary for purposes of temperature taking. First, there's the toneless "How are you?" and then an affectless, seemingly obligatory "I'm okay, how are you?" and then a further affectless "I'm okay" at the other end. Then it's allowed that the call has been just to check in and there will be another call just to check in later. But maybe it's not just the checking-in that's important but the taking of emotional temperature and the reassurance that everything is on an even keel, that no one's lurching too far out of the "okay" range, no one's getting either too hot and bothered or too chilly or cold and thereby threatening to tumble off into catatonia. And, if this is the case, then the constant checking in and temperature taking helps to hold people in the "okay" range. What do you think? Do I have this anything like right?
(3) How mannerly these young people are, within of course the parameters of their evolving manners! How solicitous they are of each other! How caring! Greg has taken up with an old girlfriend during a summer away from his current girlfriend. He calls the current girlfriend up to break it to her. He does it unshirkingly, with no more trepidation or embarrassment than if he were calling to tell her he's held up in traffic and he's going to be ten minutes late to dinner. And then he calls again later to make sure she's okay. And she has of course told him in response to the initial announcement of his calling it quits that everything is okay, everything is fine, and now everything is still fine. Reminds me of something John Updike had Rabbit observe in one of the Rabbit novels, probably Rabbit Is Rich, namely, that these young people are operating at a lower sexual temperature than his generation operated at. And then there is, in this movie, the lifelong friend Al, who wonders aloud to Ivy if their relationship might not possibly develop beyond the palsiness that has so far been its outer limit and, when she doesn't immediately fall into his arms, he apologizes for possibly rocking the boat, threatening the equilibrium of things. Friendship and . . . something more than friendship — if this movie is to be believed, and in this respect it seems credible enough, the boundaries I speak of are blurring to the vanishing point. But, then, you guys up there in the U.S. already know all this stuff about the way relationships are evolving. You're not learning anything new from this movie. I am learning from it, I am learning a lot from it, and that's why I hold the movie dear.
(1) As one of the last people in the world not to use a cell phone, I was pleased to see evidence to support my lingering suspicion that most cell phone communication is merely to "check in" — I think that was the language of the movie itself — and to provide reassurance that the caller will call again later, again to check in, again to provide reassurance of yet another call to check in later still and so on, I assume, ad infinitum unto death.
2) But that's not really the whole of it. The constant cell phoning back and forth seems also to be necessary for purposes of temperature taking. First, there's the toneless "How are you?" and then an affectless, seemingly obligatory "I'm okay, how are you?" and then a further affectless "I'm okay" at the other end. Then it's allowed that the call has been just to check in and there will be another call just to check in later. But maybe it's not just the checking-in that's important but the taking of emotional temperature and the reassurance that everything is on an even keel, that no one's lurching too far out of the "okay" range, no one's getting either too hot and bothered or too chilly or cold and thereby threatening to tumble off into catatonia. And, if this is the case, then the constant checking in and temperature taking helps to hold people in the "okay" range. What do you think? Do I have this anything like right?
(3) How mannerly these young people are, within of course the parameters of their evolving manners! How solicitous they are of each other! How caring! Greg has taken up with an old girlfriend during a summer away from his current girlfriend. He calls the current girlfriend up to break it to her. He does it unshirkingly, with no more trepidation or embarrassment than if he were calling to tell her he's held up in traffic and he's going to be ten minutes late to dinner. And then he calls again later to make sure she's okay. And she has of course told him in response to the initial announcement of his calling it quits that everything is okay, everything is fine, and now everything is still fine. Reminds me of something John Updike had Rabbit observe in one of the Rabbit novels, probably Rabbit Is Rich, namely, that these young people are operating at a lower sexual temperature than his generation operated at. And then there is, in this movie, the lifelong friend Al, who wonders aloud to Ivy if their relationship might not possibly develop beyond the palsiness that has so far been its outer limit and, when she doesn't immediately fall into his arms, he apologizes for possibly rocking the boat, threatening the equilibrium of things. Friendship and . . . something more than friendship — if this movie is to be believed, and in this respect it seems credible enough, the boundaries I speak of are blurring to the vanishing point. But, then, you guys up there in the U.S. already know all this stuff about the way relationships are evolving. You're not learning anything new from this movie. I am learning from it, I am learning a lot from it, and that's why I hold the movie dear.