The Congress (2013)

This cynical movie NOT about politics, taking place in a dystopian Hollywood, about an insecure actress named Robin Wright who sells the digital rights to her image in order to support herself and her family is extremely weird and hard to follow, especially in the second half which is animated. Robin Wright (last blogged in A Most Wanted Man) plays this version of herself in the live-action part, her voice in the animated part, and sings a couple of songs on the soundtrack (see below). Harvey Keitel (most recently in Moonrise Kingdom),  Danny Huston (last in Hitchcock), and Paul Giamatti (most recently in The Amazing Spider-Man 2) add to the mayhem live and drawn, and Jack picked up the voice of Jon Hamm (Million Dollar Arm) in the second half as the nice guy.

People are bound to say Wright is "brave" for appearing middle aged--her actual age is 48 and the character is 44. In the second half she's 64, bent and skinny, with gray hair in a bun and a loose matronly dress. Give me a break. Director Ari Folman (the animated documentary Waltz With Bashir) is 59 but he has no clue about aging. With its central theme of Wright's inability to find work, this was clearly made either before or with no knowledge of her tour de force in the House of Cards series.

The animated part, with doses of R Crumb, Ralph Bakshi, old Disney, and Monty Python is literally trippy--I had to look up why she hallucinated (she drank the tap water) in research about the Stanislaw Lem novel from which Folman adapted the screenplay. The novel also includes a 164 story hotel in which "The Congress," a trade show, takes place, and where we saw cartoons of, among others, Grace Jones, Yoko Ono, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, and Queen Elizabeth. It's only because I took notes after seeing it four weeks ago that I can give you this much info.

I do like composer Max Richter (last scored The Lunchbox) and you can listen to tracks from the movie, beginning with Wright's two songs, and more by him here.

I've had it with Rotten Tomatoes (or critics in general). They dislike so many movies that I/we like, including the last two I just summarized, and this one, at 76% critics and 63 audiences (what hallucinogenics are they on?), is practically a rave but Jack and I do not urge you to see it!