All this time, I’ve been thinking my aside has nothing to do with The Public, but now I realize I’m shockingly on topic. Writer/director/star Emilio Estevez is really starting to remind me of his father, Martin Sheen. He moves like him, sounds a bit like him, definitely sighs like him. And honestly, I’m not sure if that’s because he’s naturally becoming more like him with age, or if he’s deliberately thinking of his father while playing this character.
Both my husband and I have been dying to see The Public because we loved the trailer, so once we found out it was opening near us this week, the debate over what to see ended immediately. I’ve always liked Emilio Estevez. Actually, he’s always been my Sheen brother of preference, mainly because my mom was somewhat obsessed with the Stakeout movies when I was a kid. One summer, I think she watched Stakeout 2 about ninety-seven-thousand times, and I also liked that movie because of that over-the-top ludicrous sequence when Rosie O’Donnell serves armadillo meatloaf at the diversion dinner party. (I’m a sucker for zany dinner party sequences! Granted, Estevez isn’t at that party. That’s the whole point. He’s breaking into the house next door.)
I wish Emilio Estevez appeared in more movies these days. I’m always happy to watch his work, and it’s cool see something that he wrote and directed.
The Good:
The Public is a love letter to anyone who still appreciates libraries. The institution of the public library is becoming endangered. In case we fail to appreciate that, The Public drops a gigantic polar bear from the Natural History Museum into the center of the building. The people concerned about the threat to polar bears are the same people determined to keep the library a thriving space that benefits the public.
I actually love the title’s play on words. The film is about the public library, but also about what it means to be the public. The library was built to serve the public, surely. Is the public being served by the library? Which people exactly make up “the public”? All of us? Is this word just an empty adjective, a descriptor of certain types of standard town buildings, a rhetorical flourish during political campaigns? What does “the public” mean, and who decides that?
What the protagonists in this story want is so simple. They want not to die. Just like the polar bear, many members of the homeless population of Cincinnati can’t find a suitable habitat. The weather has become unbearably cold. During the day, the homeless mill around in the library to escape the harsh weather, to pass the time in safety and comfort. But in the evening, they have to leave. The city has provided shelters for them, but in this prolonged cold snap, many shelters are full, and the overflow shelters are a prohibitively long trek for people of limited means. They simply want to remain inside the place they’ve already been all day through the night in order to avoid freezing to death. So they stage an action. They refuse to leave the library. They barricade themselves inside.
The people tasked with responding to this “crisis” escalate events unbelievably (except it is believable because life actually works this way).
At one point, someone thinks to ask, “What if we just let them stay in the library tonight?”
The Public is designed to make the audience ask themselves some hard questions. Isn’t it logical not to let people freeze to death by allowing them to remain inside an otherwise empty building where they already are?
But in real life, it’s never that easy. People are frightened of the homeless. For as long as I can remember, various media outlets and politicians have hyped the homeless population as scary and dangerous. And, to be fair, even as sympathetically depicted in this film, some of these people are scary and dangerous. Most of them have some combination of untreated mental illness, substance abuse problems, and anger issues. Many are unemployed because they’re not employable in the long term without some sort of treatment or therapy.
So some of the more antagonistic characters in this movie make a point, too. In attempting to prevent the homeless from taking over every public building in the city, they are serving the will of the people. It’s just a different set of people. Far too often, the best meaning of us are like Jenna Malone’s character in this film. Yes, we care. Of course, we want to help. No, we don’t want to be threatened or inconvenienced in any way.
This meditation on homelessness moved me deeply. I’ve long been terrified of becoming homeless, a fear that began in college and intensified when I became a mother. Imagine, your child is hungry and cold, but you have no food or shelter.
The characters in The Public are all well drawn and vaguely likable, even the “villains” (except maybe Christian Slater. He plays a tone deaf, self-aggrandizing jerk, but you still kind of like him just because he’s Christian Slater). I appreciated the fact that no one emerges as a flawless, pure hero, and the bad guys aren’t really villains, either. Everyone is just trying to live.
Not surprisingly, Emilio Estevez’s character is the most interesting and complex. I find it fascinating (and convincing) that he’s a man more of deeds than of words. I see completely why he finds such comfort in books because they provide what he needs.
This movie has a big cast. Estevez himself, Christian Slater, Jeffrey Wright, Alec Baldwin, Jenna Malone, Gabrielle Union, Taylor Schilling, Michael Kenneth Williams. They’re all great, and so are some of the supporting players like Jacob Vargas, Rhymefest, Patrick Hume, and Michael Hall.
Apart from Estevez himself, Michael Kenneth Williams definitely plays the most like likable character with some of the best lines and moments. My husband also noted that Estevez has great chemistry with both Shilling (who is fantastic) and Malone. Jeffrey Wright’s character also has more and more winning moments as the movie goes on.
I also liked the music, more the use of songs than the score (which I didn’t really notice).
One aspect of the film surprised me. The (highly effective) trailer did not stress the location of the public library. It could have been in any city with inclement winters. But as the movie opens, we get all of these lovely establishing shots introducing us to the city that houses the library with as much care and detail as if the city itself were a character in the story. Usually when the city is showcased with such loving attention, not only is location central to the story, but the city itself is one that we should already recognize or will soon come to know intimately.
“What city is this?” I asked my husband.
“Maybe Boston,” he guessed, “or Philadelphia?”
“I was thinking Philadelphia,” I whispered. I could see it wasn’t New York. Neither of us knew for sure, so we were watching intently for clues.
I kept seeing what looked like landmarks I didn’t recognize, bridges, buildings. After a few minutes, I began to get the nagging suspicion that maybe it was Chicago. I’ve been to Chicago, and none of these environs looked familiar, but it’s a big city, you know. Finally I decided that it must be some part of Chicago that I didn’t recognize.
But, actually, it’s Cincinnati (as in Ohio. You’re probably asking yourself, “Is there another Cincinnati?” For your information, my grandpa was born in Cincinnati, Iowa.)
I never would have expected a movie with an intro like that to be set in Cincinnati. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything set there before (except, obviously, the show WKRP). Suddenly I became so attentive to all the shots of the city.
“I know nothing about Cincinnati,” I realized in wonder. “I need to fix that.” I started to ask myself how much the movie would teach me about Cincinnati. It left me wanting more. So the city of Cincinnati owes Emilio Estevez a debt of gratitude. I find myself infinitely curious about the place now, and I’ve never given it a second thought before.
The movie also addresses issues like substance abuse and mental illness (which much be close to Estevez’s heart) with such compassion and insight. And my husband really liked the way The Public highlights the fact that so many of our nation’s homeless are veterans.
Best Scene:
An early highlight is Estevez’s first scene with Shilling. I’ve never actually seen Orange is the New Black, so I’m not very familiar with her as an actress, but I think she’s fantastic in this. Perhaps I liked her so much because her character reminds me of someone (specific) I know. But their interplay is fantastic and Shilling’s character manages to be quirky without being so quirky that she seems like a fantasy instead of a real woman.
Also fantastic are all the one-on-one conversations Estevez shares with Michael K. Williams. I love the idea of being “one of us” or, by implication, one of them. It really makes you wonder, “Who is us?” People often deliberately ignore the terrifying overlap, the blurred boundary between us and them. A “them” is just an “us” under slightly altered circumstances. Underneath it all, we’re all really one way or the other. And isn’t it more charitable and less paranoid to make us all “us”es rather than all “them”s?
Best Scene Visually:
The most striking scene comes near the end of the film, and revealing it would be huge spoiler. It’s an image that will certainly stick with the characters in the story who witness it. I, personally, thought, “This would make you ask yourself, am I a police officer or a member of the Gestapo?”
Another scene I loved, I call, “Jena Malone wanders the streets of Cincinnati lit by the ambient glow of police cars.”
The film’s second most striking image, certainly intended to stick with the audience, is the stark and memorable sight of a polar bear in the library. It’s pretty hard to miss the point here.
Best Action Sequence:
Probably the most exciting scene in the movie comes when the patrons barricade themselves inside the library. This is when the movie really hits its stride.
The Negatives:
The Public takes its time getting started. My husband admired the economy of storytelling. What we see in the early scenes almost always comes back later. “No scene is wasted,” he said. That’s true (for material related directly to Estevez’s character and the main plot, at least). Still, the set up is slow. You might even call it institutionally paced. As we watch, it feels like we are at an actual library on a typical day. I love the library as much as the next person, but how often do you hear someone say, “I want to do something really exciting. Let’s go to the library!”
Well, okay, my college friends said that all the time, and I’ve said it myself (in fact, I said it last Wednesday), but notably, there is not a movie about me.
When I say that the movie is slow, I don’t mean that nothing happens. I just mean that before the big event kicks things into high gear, this movie has all the excitement of riding a bicycle in low gear until you build up enough speed to switch gears. Anyone who has ever ridden a bicycle knows that this can be engaging and rewarding, and probably people who cycle to work rather than taking a car would really enjoy this film. But you have to want to like it in order to appreciate it fully.
Sometimes, I found it a bit too contrived, but then if it hadn’t been, nothing ever would have happened.
Also, I wanted more development and resolution for practically every character. Certainly all of the women need more development. I don’t think that’s because they’re women. It’s not that Estevez deliberately ignores or marginalizes female characters. It’s just that the characters who did happen to be female also happen to be the ones whose journey left me scratching my head and feeling less than satisfied. Maybe that’s because I’m a woman.
Gabrielle Union’s character, in particular, I had a hard time accepting. The major thrust of her story arc I was totally on board with because it seemed like a fun surprise twist on what the audience might expect from her. But the ending seems to imply that she’s had a sudden change of heart, which I did not buy at all. It felt too abrupt, kind of forced, and also weirdly inconclusive.
Jena Malone’s character deserved more resolution, too, I thought. I actually loved the character and Malone’s performance, but I think the film takes her to an interesting place and then kind of leaves her hanging. And what’s the deal with her mom?
Taylor Schilling gets adequate development given her role in the story. I just wanted to see more of her.
Alec Baldwin’s got this ex-wife who gives out debit cards, but…who cares! We actually see this woman in at least three scenes (that I can remember), but why does she have this much of a role in the story if she just kind of drops out?
The story doesn’t do justice to the Baldwin/son storyline, either. It left me wanting more there. “We already saw that movie,” my husband said. “It was called Beautiful Boy.” True, I am relieved that Estevez didn’t make us watch that anguished tale a second time, but I felt his film set up more than it delivered here. Why so many details if it all comes to nothing?
And what is going on with Christian Slater? I love him, but his character is unbelievably tone deaf when it comes to politics. I wondered about his opponent, too. Is that character truly a humanitarian, or is he more of an opportunist? (And is there a difference?) Again, I thought this part of the story was just sort of dropped.
We get so many characters, and such an intricate set up, but most of it ends up not mattering in the end. Because of the time Estevez takes establishing the complicated lives of Baldwin and Slater, I expected negotiations with them to unfold in a far more complex and surprising way. But none of the details of their own stories actually matters much in the end. Is that the point? I’m not sure.
Maybe one reason so many characters feel underdeveloped and unexplored is that Estevez spends far more time developing the homeless characters. Is that a deliberate choice? So often, we look away from homeless people, barely seeing them at all. So in this movie, do we spend so much time getting to know the homeless while the “important” people are less developed by design? I’m not sure.
I thought the very ending was a touch heavy-handed, too, but maybe that’s just me.
