The Irishman - 2019
Updated: Sep 22, 2022
My freshmen year of college I was sitting in a classroom listening to my Sociology professor discuss a field of study known as Gestalt Psychology. "According to this theory," he was saying. "We as humans tend to find that the WHOLE IS GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS when observing phenomena." Something like that. His point was that we often seek cohesion when viewing objects. We try to place individual things into a greater framework of understanding.
For some inexplicable (and likely damaged) reason, the part of the phrase in all caps above came back to me when watching The Irishman. (Yeah, you don't want to live in this head). Simply put, IF this is the best picture of the year (as more than a few critics have argued), it is BECAUSE OF the sum of its parts. I don't usually write in this fashion, but maybe a list is most effective here:
Legendary director
Epic in all proportions - massive cast, runtime, span of years covered in the film's story, cost, etc.
Three illustrious actors playing roles reminiscent of their past glories while being somehow new
Great writing
Solid editing (in a 200 minute picture this is quite remarkable)
Awesome costumes and production/anti-aging CGI
A story that moves with action
And, a "daughter character" who acts as this grounded moral compass (using just a look or lingering in a room). She serves as a reminder to us that what these guys are doing isn't just "business"...it's freaking evil! It's murder. If you've watched Marty before, this character is often absent.
So, that's quite a lengthy list. Indeed, The Irishman's merits seem to put it in the category of past winners like Gone With the Wind, The Godfather, and the like.
The trouble, returning to my gen ed class above, is that the WHOLE, it seems to me, is not greater than the sum of its parts (all I just listed). The movie HAS everything, but leaves me with very little. Do I identify deeply with anyone in it? Ok, maybe it's not that kind of film. Was I greatly moved? Did it transcend its individual pieces? It's never slow, but was I riveted? After much reflection, I concluded that the answer to all of these "whole picture questions" was sadly a NO. The Irishman remains a grand cinematic experience (one which many of us ironically viewed on our couches), full of all the "stuff" of movie legend, but without that extra sprinkling of magic.
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