The zany The Congress, Israeli director Ari Folman’s follow-up to the Oscar-nominated Waltz With Bashir, is twice as playful and half as coherent. No worries. Once one gets used to Folman’s keeping us guessing throughout the film’s back-and-forth switches from a live-action present to an animated 2033, it’s fun to sit back and rake it all in. Some of the animation, a million miles stepped up from Waltz With Bashir, can be breathtaking in a Betty Boop meets Yellow Submarine sort of way. Harsh characters pop up in surprising places, and a dystopian future can be terrifying one moment and hilarious the next.
Once The Congress gets rolling into its trippy animated scenes, you’ll have no trouble spotting a toothy Tom Cruise, or an hilarious Dr. Strangelove reference. You may, however, want to also keep your eyes peeled for additional take-offs of Clint Eastwood, Grace Jones, and Pablo Picasso, or, for that matter, John Hamm who’s not a caricature but actually a co-star of the film, doing voice-over as Robin Wright’s animator, who desperately falls in love with her.
Wright is very good as the has-been movie star Robin Wright, who’s talked into selling her “scan” to a movie studio that will revolutionize filmmaking. Once her images and mannerisms are scanned she is asked to agree to be finished as an actress, although her scan is the studio’s to use as they see fit. (The hopelessly cheesy Rebel Robot Robin eventually results). Reluctant at first, Wright agrees to the deal due to her son’s degenerative disease. The film’s satire of the Hollywood scene of studio lawyers and agents (Danny Huston and Harvey Keitel, respectively) is spot on. Paul Giammatti also stars.
Sure it could have been a better film if there weren’t so many confusing, dangling loose ends. It’s also one of the most inventive films you’ll see at this year’s Philadelphia Film Festival.
