After Hours (1985)

Rated R for nudity, suicide, violence towards women, language, drug use (I think) and other stuff.  It's a dark underbelly in the form of a dramedy.  Heck, I'm sure that many people would simply refer to this as a dark comedy.  Still, it isn't always easy to swallow.  There were always moments where I hope that no one just walked in on me watching it.  R.

DIRECTOR:  Martin Scorsese

I think that a couple things can be true at the same time.  I don't think that Martin Scorsese is good at comedy.  The second thing, which seems in direct conflict with that first statement, is that After Hours might be one of my favorite Martin Scorsese movies.  I will admit that it might be a recency bias.  It may also be something that might be sprawling out of my headcanon, so if I'm way off on my read of this movie, please just let me enjoy the movie for the way that I watched it.

I'll be honest.  The first ten minutes of the movie frustrated me.  I got the "comedy" vibes from the font of the opening credits coupled with the music.  I also saw, in the first few moments of Paul teaching Lloyd the ropes at his data entry center, bits that were just not landing.  They were set up as bits.  The problem was that the "jokes" weren't all that funny.  It wasn't in the delivery; it was in the edit.  I was ready to strap in and watch a comedy that wasn't landing its jokes.  And, in a weird way, that mostly stays true for most of the movie.  There were a couple times that I chuckled.  There were some running gags that kind of worked on me.  But in terms of "ha-ha" funny, After Hours is terrible at that.

It's hard to like a movie once you are determined not to like it.  I mean, not for me.  I like everything.  This blog is really a waste of everyone's time because I tend to come around on most movies, which is probably annoying for you, the reader.  But I was convinced that this one was going to be a chore for me.  As much as I love Scorsese, there have been multiple Scorseses that I just did not care for.  I mean, that's not unfair.  Everyone has their flops.  I thought I was going to add After Hours to that pile.  But where Scorsese kind of fails as a comedian, he absolutely thrives as a storyteller.  I'm not saying that you have to watch After Hours as a serious piece of drama.  Lord knows that I still watched this through the lens of dark comedy.  But Scorsese got me with one thing.  I'd like to think it's intentional.  It was a key for the rest of the movie.  Paul is sitting down at the diner with Marcy in what is supposed to be a clever back-and-forth.  The dynamic between Paul and Marcy is already pretty weird.  But Marcy tells Paul the story of how her ex-husband was obsessed with The Wizard of Oz.  It is a monologue typical of most indie films of the '80s, so I wasn't shocked.  

But that Wizard of Oz diatribe did something for me.  This was Scorsese's dark Wizard of Oz.  It wasn't the same beats.  It wasn't a send-up of The Wizard of Oz.  Instead, it was spiritually a sequel to The Wizard of Oz.  Paul, a jerk no matter where you put him, is thrown into a world where there are no easy answers.  Everything is just a bit off.  His goal is to get home.  But because there is no easy way home, Paul has to keep encountering the people of Oz and dealing with immediate crises so that he can finally go home and put all of this nightmare behind him.  That's a Dark Wizard of Oz.  And when I watched it through that lens, the whole thing clicked with me.  Trust me, if the movie was closer to Oz, I would have been disappointed.  I didn't want a full on commentary on The Wizard of Oz.  I didn't want The Wiz for the '80s.  But I also like the idea that Oz doesn't have to be one thing.  It doesn't have to follow the beat for beat plot points of Dorothy going down the Yellow Bricked Road.  Instead, it's just being thrown out of one's comfort zone and looking through the world with new eyes.  If you watch After Hours with the Wizard of Oz thing, the movie absolutely crushes.  

Although I think Alice in Wonderland might be an even better comparison.

What's even more bizarre is that I'm really torn on the protagonist of the piece, especially in light of The Wizard of Oz.  Paul is no Dorothy.  If anything, the introduction to Paul Hackett is that he is no innocent.  If anything, he's so world wise that he's world weary.  When he meets Marcy, he's looking for a dirty good time.  It almost feels like slumming it might be a sexual thing for him.  He likes that Marcy isn't from his neck of the woods.  She's a damsel in the distress and he views himself as the Big Bad Wolf.  (I'm doing all kinds of fairy tale stuff with this blog today.  It's what the movie did for me.  I'm sorry!)  Paul sucks from moment one and I'll be honest, there's no redemption for him.  I honestly thought that his final just desserts were going to be him trapped in the papier-mache statue.  It's almost a little odd how hard Paul holds onto his own personality.  It often seems that we have elements of A Christmas Carol, where Paul has to come to terms with the harm that he's caused in the world.  Often, Paul will be incredibly rude on a whim because he just wants to get out of awkward situations.  But the movie almost never lets him off the hook for his behavior.  Instead, he regularly confronts the people in his life that he treats terribly.  

The odd thing is that he almost refuses to recognize anyone's humanity in this version of Oz or Wonderland.  Yes, these are people with big personalities.  Marcy has some history with being a burn victim, but otherwise is forthright with Paul.  Julie has a thing with the hairstyles of yesteryear and is a bit insecure, but really offers Paul the most safe space to stay while he's spiraling.  Tom is willing to give Paul money to get a ride home, but is processing the death of his girlfriend --whose death is Paul's fault.  Gail is trying to make Paul smile.  Admittedly, she's not reading the room to Paul's mental state, but her intentions are good.  If anything, Paul is the one who is causing the most pain in the film and yet he never learns his lesson.

But doesn't that kind of align with Dorothy as well?  I mean, Dorothy does change.  She goes from being an angry girl to a less angry girl.  But it is a story about the journey, not the character.  Ultimately, as much as the elements of Oz mirror Dorothy's Kansas life (at least in the film), she's simply a means to explore setting.  If anything, making Paul the victim of his own superiority complex makes his Oz more interesting.  

And that's why I find After Hours an incredibly engaging movie, despite failing at the comedy elements.  It's more absurdist than comedy.  It is Bukowski's (I'm so sorry for dropping that name) version of Oz or Wonderland.  It doesn't have to be funny.  It has to be engaging.  And engaging it is.  It was a pleasant surprise.