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Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009
Can Eminem act? Who knows? But his star turn in "8 Mile," as an aspiring rapper growing up poor and white in Motown, is memorable -- even if we've seen it all before.
Nov 8, 2002 | There are 8 million stories in the naked city, a number so paralyzing that you can understand why Hollywood keeps filming the same half dozen or so. But one of the pleasures of moviegoing -- or of following any form of art -- is watching the passing parade of variations on the same old themes.
Curtis Hanson's "8 Mile," a not-really-but-kind-of biography of Eminem in which the rapper himself stars, is straightforward, rudimentary, old-fashioned moviemaking, cranking away in the service of a story we've seen over and over again, from "Rebel Without a Cause" to "Saturday Night Fever." But "8 Mile" actually seems to be straining against originality. Hanson, along with screenwriter Scott Silver and Eminem himself, seems more interested in poking a sharpened stick at age-old primal motivations. At once creaky and compelling, "8 Mile" is an early-21st-century meditation on the youthful dream (or necessity) of making yourself heard and getting away, fast, from the roots that threaten to strangle you. The movie takes some of the vitality of '40s youth musicals and retools them for a new generation: "Let's put on a show!" is followed by the even more urgent coda "and then get the hell out of here."
For better or worse -- and maybe, in the end, it doesn't really matter all that much -- "8 Mile" is far less sophisticated than Eminem's music itself: As a performer, Eminem is a master of point of view, an artist who puts himself (and his reputation) at the mercy of the characters he creates. When fancy-pants novelists do that, they win big prizes; when hip-hop artists do it, they're decried as the end of civilization.
No one needs to weep for Eminem, who has sold millions of records and won his share of mainstream music awards. But just because an artist sells millions doesn't mean he's fully understood (if being fully understood is desirable at all). I'm a fan of Eminem's precisely because I can't explain him easily: My inability to get him fully -- as opposed to my approval or disapproval of any of his perceived "messages" -- is what keeps me coming back. He's like a master novelist who writes characters I can neither love nor turn away from: the madman drunk with his own Rolling Stone-conferred power in "Kill You"; the cuckolded husband in "Kim" who turns his pain into a reign of terror. We like to think of art as our friend, but art -- as Shakespeare or Goya or Bacon would have told you -- isn't always kind.
"8 Mile"
Directed by Curtis Hanson
Starring Eminem, Kim Basinger, Brittany Murphy, Mekhi Phifer
"8 Mile" doesn't even begin to explain Eminem's complexity. If anything, it strips much of it back, making him -- through the character he plays, Jimmy Smith Jr., or "Rabbit," as his friends and family call him -- seem more likable and accessible than he comes off either in interviews or performances. But that's a problem only if you go to "8 Mile" looking for clues about how to interpret Eminem's work (they won't be there). "8 Mile" is much more generic than that -- it's about how our backgrounds always inform us, maybe even more than we care to let on. And it suggests that the only way to break free of the past is to grab it in an octopus grip and stare it down first.
The picture is set in urban Detroit circa 1995 -- the title refers to the area, delineated by 8 Mile Road, that separates the city from the suburbs. Jimmy is a kid in a dead-end metalworking job who's temporarily forced to move back home with his childish, chronically unemployed mother, Stephanie (Kim Basinger), and his adored little sister, Lily (Chloe Greenfield). That home is a trailer park, and Jimmy's none too happy about landing there: He's a remarkably talented rapper, supported by a solid group of friends, although there's a certain amount of insecurity, or maybe just plain shyness, that's holding him back. What he really wants is to land a recording contract and get out on his own. His best hope is to first win a battle in one of the local hip-hop clubs, a competition in which rappers go head-to-head to see who can come up with the cruelest, cleverest put-downs. Jimmy's chief disadvantage is that he's white; outside his circle of friends, he's ridiculed by his mostly black peers. In the movie's opening sequence, we see him taking the stage at a battle, urged on by his friend Future (Mekhi Phifer), only to choke up and fail dismally.
His disgrace and disappointment kick-start the picture: From there, "8 Mile" is all about Jimmy's efforts to find his voice and to use it as a tool, a crowbar to get him out of some pretty dismal circumstances. "8 Mile" trots out plenty of the old conventions -- we see Jimmy driving aimlessly around town in a beat-up car with his buddies, blasting signs, buildings and even police cars with a paint gun; they're the picture of perennially bored youth.
