#after last night's culinary misadventures

[freepassbound]

Back to 'Bake-sics'

[stringphone]

Seen On-Screen

Alvin 5: An Unexpected Apotheosis

By Dave Germaine -- 1/10/24

------------------------------------------

Walking out of the theater last Thursday, I stepped on an empty McDonald’s fry bag, small size, that had been soaking up rain water in a neglected pothole for some time.

The sound of its muffled, sewage-laden crunch contained within it all the mourning of the city’s night, all the texture of her streets.

And in the shimmering, grease-infused wetness of its plasticine surface, I saw my own reflected visage, silhouetted by the banner-like marquee that still boasted the name of the fine film I had just seen: Alvin & The Chipmunks 5: Chipmunks Furever.

Even in the obvious sadness—the melancholia—embodied by the crumpled bag beneath my feet, something about the sight of that title behind me—a reminder of what I’d just witnessed—filled me with such reverence and delight that I could only smile. In fact, so full was I of rich optimism for the future of cinema and our world, I had no recourse but to shed a single tear, to watch it fall from the tip of my nose and onto the bag beneath my wingtip shoe, my lip quivering as I followed its journey down the surface of the bag and into the puddled wastewater smearing and soaking its papery skin.

I could only cry. For the film was divine.

To place this sequel, the latest in a long line of superb entries (barring the brazen misstep that was 2011’s Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, Mike Mitchell’s insulting and completely misguided entry into the much-beloved series) along such titles as Paddington, Paddington 2, Skinamarink and Kung Fu Pandas 1 and 3 as some of the best children and family films available today may seem like a step too far—but I dare say that the latest furry romp is more than deserving of such praise, if it does not, indeed, exceed it.

The film begins with an admittedly lackluster opening featuring the dulcet tones of Post Malone, who I am not quite a fan of given his propensity toward face tattoos, bright cars, and that abomination known to the American culinary zeitgeist as the ‘chicken wing’. But soon after, we are thrust into the fury (furry!) of a rampaging houseparty at the house of Dave Seville, played in perfect tune, as always, by the indomitable Jason Lee. 

It is at this party, however, that we become aware of the movie’s departure from some of the timeless (if not somewhat derivative) themes of the series’ previous entries: friendship, found family, converging and conflicting identity, coming of age, etc.. For in this film, the chipmunks have come of age—many years have passed since their latest misadventures on the road in Road Chip, and their interests and intrigues lie well beyond the world of the puerile. These chipmunks have become, to put it succinctly, chipmen.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things…

So it is that, at this houseparty, Alvin is in the bedroom with two of Simon’s lovers—one former, one present—doubtlessly providing them with the sort of satisfaction only a chipmunk of his stature could provide, when suddenly he and his nymphai are rudely interrupted by the presence, not of Simon, but of Theodore. 

After a heated and earnest confrontation between the two (voiced impeccably by Janice Karman as Theodore and, somewhat unusually, archival audio of R. Lee Ermy as Alvin, who replaced the much-beloved Justin Long for this production due to the latter’s latest motorcycle injury), Alvin and Theodore enter a heated, bare-knuckle brawl on the floor of the bedroom, which is soon scandalously voyeured by the many bums, pop-intelligentsia, and LA-party dilettantes one could only expect to find at a bona fide Alvin and the Chipmunks house party.

After the brawl is done with, Alvin successfully coerces Theodore (with the intimidating tenor R. Lee Ermy is so well known for) to keep his momentary lapse in judgment a secret from their younger brother, Simon—who is currently away at culinary school—under threat of death.

What happens next, you may wonder? Does Alvin engage in further debauchery, forced only by the revelation of his original sin to reckon with the error of his ways? Far from it.

As the film’s second act begins, we enter not the tried-and-true territory of a reconciliation film, but instead, the wanderings of a dejected Theodore, who is so racked with grief for his brother’s loss of innocence—if not his own—that he must venture back to the wilds of the pacific forest whence he came, searching for meaning, searching for peace…

The second act of the movie is entirely silent—a directorial choice justified to its fullest extent by the tempered, steady cuts of editor Jennifer Lame (of Oppenheimer fame)—containing within it prismatic and ethereal imagery that calls to mind the inspired terroir of Kurosawa, the enrapturing dreamscape of Jodorowsky, and most profoundly, the tender, existential purgatory of Tarkovsky.

In this stretch, the film reaches not only the pantheon of family films occupied by other heartfelt stalwarts (such as Paddington and its sequel) but also finds itself nose-to-nose with greats of auteur cinema. Much of this could be credited to writer/director Derek Cianfrance, of course, but, as is the critical fulcrum of all discussions regarding the question of the ‘auteur’, it is a dishonor to refer to this work as the product of a single, inspired man.

It is, in fact, a work of collective inspiration. And it is truly inspired.

If you are unconvinced that this film achieves such kismet, though, I can only direct you to the film’s last act for recourse, in which Theodore returns from his wandering to the city (a shell of his former self) to seek out his brothers and make actualized the dream-poems which he reveled in through the months of his pine-strewn pilgrimage.

What follows is a harrowing sequence of events that put even the heartstopping climaxes of Taxi Driver and Come and See—dare I say—to shame. But, as we must acknowledge, such violence is necessitated. Inevitable. Demanded by the desolate reality in which these chipmunks—in which all of us chipmen—furever find ourselves.