Ernie & Emma
Review by Mark Woodring
I was fortunate enough to snag tickets to see Ernie & Emma at the Egyptian Theater in downtown Boise while I was in town attending Gem State Comic Con.
The film is being toured by writer/director/star Bruce Campbell to small venues like the Egyptian in order to (hopefully) get the film a bigger distributor and a wider audience.
Well, we’ll get to whether or not it deserves that chance or not as we go along here, but remember, I’m a big fan of Bruce and was excited to see this one to check out what he could do if he was making HIS movie, not someone else’s.
**NOTE: You can read Mark’s review below, and you can listen to all our movie discussions directly over on ACAST. Stay tuned.**
90 Minutes (approx), Rated R
Written by Bruce Campbell
Directed by Bruce Campbell
Synopsis:
Widowed pear salesman Ernie Tyler travels to scatter his wife’s ashes in places she specified, each location stirring memories that help him process their marriage, his work life, and his future.
It’s been 2 days since I saw Ernie & Emma, l and I’ve arguing with myself about whether to discuss what I LIKE about the film first or what I feel the film LACKS first, because I have to both things. So, in violation of every critical thing rule I can think of, let me choose a THIRD path forward and start like this:
This movie is great, and you should see it.
See, now I’ve left you no reason to read the rest of this review, but I hope you will, so I can explain how I reached the preceding statement.
So here goes:
Death is a terrible thing, and while we all know it’s coming for all of us, somehow we believe we can predict or out-think out own destiny and plan for our lives after death impacts us.
But we can’t.
To start talking about the film, though, let me paraphrase Bruce Campbell in his pre-film introduction: there is no blood in this movie. No chainsaws, no boomsticks. It is, in his own description, just like a Hallmark film… except with swearing, drugs, and infidelity.
And that’s all accurate. As a truly independent film, Ernie & Emma doesn’t have a “big film” feel to it. It’s not shot in IMAX or 70MM (chunks of it were, by Bruce’s own admission, shot by a real estate drone pilot who’d never shot a movie before), but seems like it would just as comfortable on an old 4:3 CRT as on a big 16:9 multiplex screen, and the fact we saw it in an old theater like the Egyptian somehow felt right, if you know what I mean.
A throwback film about characters instead of costumes, feeling instead of fighting; Ernie & Emma simply fits here.
Let’s start with the good, then, seeing as that’s the current vibe I seem to have going.
Despite the ever-present humor of both the general and self-deprecating types, Ernie & Emma is as earnestly heartfelt a film as any to have come out of Hollywood in either its rich past (which Campbell himself seems to idolize) or its more recent, creatively-deficient present.
Every stop Emma has Ernie make on his journey to emotional salvation is one designed to wrest tears from the audience whether they want it or not. Campbell doesn’t just pummel the viewer with emotion, however; he does provide breaks in the form of humorous interstitial moments both during and between the trips Emma has planned for him.
This allows the next gut-punch to land as effectively as it should.
While not a perfect film, Bruce Campbell crafts a narrative familiar and accessible to audiences of a certain age (mine included), as well as those willing to look beyond the words and trends of the moment in quest of something more: a connection of perfect intent but imperfect execution. A connection one hopes to continue working at, but one far too many people simply give up on or lack the courage to acknowledge their own shortcomings as part of the root of those imperfections.
In terms of the script, every word Ernie utters rings with the truth of millennia of human history, undeniably true but devastating to hear, and sometimes more devastating to say.
The biggest problem with Ernie & Emma isn’t what Campbell is doing, it’s that he has fallen prey to a blunder I point out far too often: excess control of the project.
Bruce is the writer, director, and star of the film, and as such, made the film in a cocoon of protection from outside voices, when those outside voices are critical to making sure the purity of the product in your head survives the transition to the page, and subsequently the film.
In the case of Ernie & Emma, that shows up in some of the dialog, which suffers from reuse of phrases (either exactly or near-exactly) which, while acceptably unique once, stand out when they pop up again, indicating an additional pass over the otherwise well-constructed tale might have been prudent.
And I say tale, to remind myself, and thus YOU, that Ernie & Emma is also a fairy-tale of sorts, with our hero, Ernie, on a quest to recapture not only the memories he shared with his wife, but to rescue himself from his self-imposed prison of pity following her sudden death.
Like most fairy-tales, the ending can be seen, but it’s not about the ending, it’s about the journey, and Ernie’s journey is one everyone should see.
Bring a tissue or two.
Campbell, in virtually every frame of the film, carries it wonderfully, reminding audiences that he’s capable of so much more than dead-ites and blood-baths, and Hollywood has criminally overlooked him for decades.
Ernie & Emma is currently being toured independently by Bruce Campbell and stars Bruce Campbell, Cerina Vincent, Robin McAlpine, Ted Raimi, and Emma Raimi.
And remember, if the BEST thing you can say about a movie is that it’s “visually stunning,” then they’ve done something wrong.
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