Veronica Mars was a teen sleuth whose power was storytelling . She was adroit at making up clever lies and craft fake identities , but it was always in the service of piece together the the true — which was another story she constructed . Now she ’s starring in a cock-a-hoop crowd - funded movie , which turns out to be about how we keep stories alive long after they seem gone and forget .
Very pocket-size spoilers ahead …
Most sequels to dead franchises have a certain amount of self - awareness that the protagonist ought to have moved on , that he or she might be too older for this , but something is making our hero number back one more time . normally , that something is the studio apartment , seeing a last bit of profit to be squeeze out of an IP . This time , though , Veronica is recalled to natural action strictly because the sports fan opened their wallets .
So it ’s fitting that the Veronica Mars flick really is about the seductiveness of Veronica ’s universe , and the chill of piecing together a hidden story that they do n’t want you to discover .
The fan relapse right along with Veronica
Anybody who ’s see the laggard will hump that Veronica has move on with her life sentence — she ’s been promoted to Admiral get a fancy career as a high - power New York attorney . But just when she thought she was out , they rend her back in , because Logan Echols is criminate of murdering his pop - maven ex - girlfriend .
Veronica jet back to Neptune , the most corrupted town in California , and embark on investigating despite her best intention . As we see Veronica get seduced by the thrill of digging up dirt , the film simultaneously does its best to seduce us back into the human race of Mars , maintain the fan - favorite characters , apt jest , and gut - punching darkness come in a steady stream .
Veronica gets pulled back into her old dual role as trickster and truth - teller , while everyone who loved the show gets pull back into adoring all of the complex backstory and the entanglement of personalities that we obsess over when the show was on the strain . In both cases , it ’s all about not being able to let go of a practiced narrative .
I ’m not sure how well this moving picture will process for someone who was n’t a Brobdingnagian rooter of the TV series . For sports fan , this movie will land squarely in your glad place and fill it to burst with felicitous succus . For fan , this movie is near - double-dyed . For non - fans , it ’s in all likelihood a pretty in effect movie , somewhat marred by self - self-indulgence . The sports fan paid for this film , so they get the maximum fan - avail .
But even if you never saw the television show , it ’s deserving checking out this film — because the core political theme of Veronica Mars are more relevant than ever before . And they have a caboodle to do with what ’s pull back Veronica back into the quondam story that she call up she ’d let go of .
Neptune is the dystopia we deserve
These days , we have an embarrassment of dystopias on the bountiful screen . Often , they ’re a iota stylized and contrived — it ’s ancient Rome , only in the hereafter ! — but most of the meter , they ’re notice on the world we live in now . The dystopia of Veronica Mars is much closer to the world we live in , but it ’s still stylise in its own noir fashion .
Veronica Mars was always about a townsfolk without a middle course of study — Neptune is a place of extreme wealth and poverty , in which you ’re either inhabit in the fancy houses or cleaning them . The extreme wealth watershed leads to putrefaction and iniquity , as the cops are purely at the service of the ample .
Probably the best part of the new Mars movie is how terrible it makes Neptune look — the town has cause worse since Veronica lead , and a fortune of the most barbarous parts of the film involve Veronica realizing how depressed and hopeless her father has become . Enrico Colantoni ’s minimize , sombre performance gives the film its center of gravity .
As the opening soliloquy of the movie read , when America ’s future year warfare commencement , it will start in Neptune . In a path , this is a vindicated vision of our moody future than any dark fantasy about jump suit .
This vision of a radically inadequate bon ton was bracing ten years ago — but now it feels way more prescient and timely , in an era when fewer and fewer people find as though they have any Bob Hope of getting forward .
Veronica ’s sports fan know her because she ’s an underdog , and because she chip out at the lies and self - deceptions that underpin this horrifying system . The township of Neptune is inhabit with lousy liar , but also with futile and stupid hoi polloi who have invented personal mythologies that make them look sound . And then there ’s the huge helping of celebrity civilization and the fame - whoring that goes with it . Most dystopias are about Propaganda with a cap - P , but Veronica Mars atomizes propaganda down to the level of mortal , personal untruths , which collectively build the big lie .
Fame - whoring is uglier than ever
Plus all of the obsessions with fame , secret and overexposure that ran through the original series get a new letting on life and a raw relevance in the era of omnipresent sex tapes and sexting and lilliputian webcams . This movie has a whole fresh handbag of tricks , thanks to how much technology has changed since the show go off the gentle wind seven year ago .
This time around , the hits on celebrity - whoring and renown culture include some fairly sharp commentary on fandom — and the line between fans and stalker . An obsessional fan of the murdered daddy Isaac Bashevis Singer comes to personify the dark side of the very same impulse that throw this movie its life .
That same kind of obsessiveness drives Veronica , too — and she maintain using an addiction metaphor to account her need to dumpster - dive in the worst parts of Neptune . She have sex she ought to walk away and go back to her perfect spirit in New York , but she ca n’t , because she ’s relapse .
And Veronica Mars is an addictive flick , because it captures so well why we always hunger just one more big reveal , one more twist . Veronica ’s insalubrious addiction is our own . I ’m already dying to watch this moving-picture show three or four more times .
Divergenthunger gamesMoviesNoirTelevisionVeronica Mars
Daily Newsletter
Get the upright technical school , skill , and culture news show in your inbox daily .
News from the hereafter , delivered to your nowadays .
You May Also Like
