Happily, Roger Avary's The Rules of Attraction opened last week, and seemed to inspire the sort of responses in most critics that Glengarry Glen Ross inspired in me:

"So devoid of pleasure or sensuality that it cannot even be dubbed hedonistic."- MaryAnn Johanson.

"I felt most of the movie feeling depressed by the shallow, selfish, greedy characters." -Roger Ebert.

Or my favorite: "Mean-spirited, mocking, and puerile. Imagine an 80's slasher flick where the masked killer never shows up." - Jeremiah Kipp.

As you can see, Ebert is a nice guy. The Pillsbury Doughboy of film criticism. He admits in his review that he feels he may be taking a shallow approach to the film. Kipp and Johanson are of course completely ruthless and unfeeling, careful to detatch themselves from simply hating the visceral unpleasantness and casual nihilsm of the document and argue: "Hey, it really is pretty dumb and sophomoric." If I were a filmmaker, I know that I would rather have Ebert write a bad review of it than Kipp or Johanson. Ebert allows that a film may be beyond him or his opinion may be hasty. Kipp and Johanson either can't or won't argue for their vulnerability or weaknesses as filmgoers. Or, perhaps, they fully accept their weaknesses as filmgoers and believe it is a given that needn't really be discussed or offered. Kipp and Johanson have airtight attacks. When they rip apart a film that you adore, the response is red-faced anger. When they rip apart a film that you hate, the response is thankfulness for their articulation. These are not traits that can really be found in the work of Ebert. Ebert will give sarcastic non-reviews occasionally, but it is nothing that can't be shrugged off. I think of myself as more a Roger Ebert than a Kipp or Johanson. I realized this when I was writing a review of Pearl Harbor, and realized that I couldn't really do it right. I didn't have the blind courage of my convictions. I kept thinking that I may be wrong. If I were a real film critic, this would be torture. However, writing lengthy weekly reviews gives me time to pontificate on my feelings on each film, treating all with something akin to equal importance.

The skinny of this is that I don't just want to say that I dislike Glengarry Glen Ross. I'm afraid that we need to understand exactly is the cause of my dislike. I am unable to prove that a film has failed, as I am not sure that a film can fail. The most that I can do is say that it just was not for me. I don't say this necessarily to deflect possible criticism towards this essay, but to be entirely honest. Glengarry Glen Ross is a depressing movie. I mean a very depressing movie. I am unsure if there was a time where I felt more disgusted with a movie. The point that Glengarry Glen Ross is a depressing movie does not seem to have really been brought up, and I not only feel that critics and viewers are sidestepping a major issue that needs to be brought up, I feel that not doing so borders on the inhuman and the inhumane. I came out of Glengarry Glen Ross abused and angry for the most part. I don't really know why people would watch and celebrate this sort of thing.

There are indeed a number of things that make Glengarry Glen Ross a bad movie in itself. To begin with there is James Foley's direction. My thoughts are complex here. Foley distracts from the main business of the film, which is of course to bring misery to its viewers and convince them to kill themselves. He lights the film like it was a hepcat nightclub. Early on, there is a scene in a bar that is soaked in red light. Thumbing through some reviews, I find a comment by Frank Maloney that says this is to make it look like the men have entered Dante's Inferno while conducting their sales. I believe this. I also believe that the effect was likely to have been used onstage. In both instances it points out artifice and distracts us from the reality of the happenings. The camera work is slick. There is a shot where the camera dollies into two men talking and then pivots around. This isn't theatrical, but it's self-consciously cinematic. It has the same effect as the light; we're taken out of the experience. I see another comment by Ron Hogan saying that the film is channeling film noir. Maybe. It's plausible to argue that Glengarry Glen Ross shares something philosophically with noir. But it isn't noir.

One of the things that makes Glengarry Glen Ross so unwatchable is that there is not very much at all as far as irony, romance or romantic irony is concerned. Well, let's redefine that. There is romantic irony in that the film is deeply cynical and ends deeply unhappily, arguing that that is the way it goes. But in its purest form Glengarry Glen Ross is really acinematic. The film does not aim for any direct visceral effects and does not have any sort of otherworldliness. The only time the film even leaves the indoors is when they are going from one building to another. Later in this essay I'll go further into depth comparing the nihilism of Glengarry Glen Ross with the nihilism of a work that I can celebrate and admire, like Rules of Attraction. The point that needs to be established is that James Foley's style and execution fairly actively work against the real purpose of Glengarry Glen Ross. My argument is then if the film really wants to be completely effective (i.e. depressing), then it should lose the theatrical flourishes. As I don't want it to be completely effective, the film's partial incompetence is indeed somewhat comforting.

Another questionable element is the Alan Arkin character, George Aaronow. I hated this guy, and while it's plausible that Arkin and Mamet hate him too that doesn't completely justify his presence in the film. He is a jelly-spined non-entity, who has a number of jelly-spined non-conversations with the Ed Harris character. We soon realize that the character basically exists for no other reason than to provide Harris with someone to talk to. As the other characters in the film are so much better written, developed and defined (and, by the way, brilliantly acted; Jack Lemmon and Al Pacino have never been better), the Aaronow character exists like some sort of hole in the lifeboat. He seems out of place in this universe and thus taints all that he touches.

I suppose the element that we can most attack is the ending song. It's the Al Jarreau version of "Blue Skies." First, it's appalling to think that Foley is attempting irony here. But the use of the song is not only heavy-handed, it's ineffective. I have no idea how this joker Al Jarreau got into the business. He seems to be thinking that he's doing jazz when it really is chaos. The song will make your ears bleed.

However, all these complaints are fairly immaterial, and I will not pretend that they are the reasons that I dislike Glengarry Glen Ross. The real reason that I dislike Glengarry Glen Ross is because it is depressing. Once you get the movie, you become depressed by it. The whole point of the movie is to be negative and depressing. I loathe this sort of criticism. When I saw critics apply it to films like Boogie Nights, Happiness, the Piano Teacher or Cabaret Balkan, admiring the technique but not the content, I felt angry. There are times when I praise a film of questionable technique because it has the courage to be "negative and depressing," like Salo or Kids. Or especially last week's Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. But Glengarry Glen Ross is too much for me. Indeed, I feel that I have to apologize.

The film is about salesmen who haven't been doing a lot of selling. The company that they work for refuses to give them the good Glengarry "leads" (the names of people who may want to buy property) until they make a sale with the ones that they have. Somebody ends up breaking into the office and stealing the Glengarry leads, but this break-in is not the main business of the film. The main business is watching these men squirm and desperately try to make a sale. Selling is not simply a livelihood for these people, it is the way that they measure their self-worth and their masculinity. If you don't close you're nothing. You're shit. Probably even lower than shit. Alec Baldwin plays a motivational speaker who tells one of the office salesman: "You see this watch? You see this watch? That watch costs more than your car. I made $970,000 last year. How much you make? You see pal, that's who I am, and you're nothing. Nice guy, I don't give a shit. Good father, fuck you! Go home and play with your kids!" And that is how value is measured in this universe. I understand capitalism. I understand the Marxist conflict perspective. Value is measured in power, and power is measured in money. If you don't have power, then what the hell do you have? The celebrated Mamet dialogue and profanity centers around these men exerting their power over one another, following its connection of worth with power and money. People are powerful if they can sell, and worthless if they can't. The closers make sure to push it in the non-closers' face. And the non-closers are frequently reminded of their worthlessness.

Furthermore, the ability to sell is associated with all social relationships of the characters. One character convinces a potential buyer that the purchase is some sort of macho sex act between the two of them. The buyer's wife insists that he cancels the sale, and the buyer leaves the film apologizing for letting the salesman down. It's like he is apologizing for a premature ejaculation. There is an extremely disturbing throwaway mention of the Jack Lemmon character's sick wife. We infer that in not selling, he is failing as a provider, as a husband and as a man. He is letting this poor woman down. The problem with Glengarry Glen Ross, or to be sure the brilliance and power of it, is how much truth there is behind all of this. There is indeed something pathetic about these men obsessing over these notecards, discussing them at length. But there is nothing in Glengarry Glen Ross that is really that absurd. I believe the Alec Baldwin character. When it gets down to it, nobody cares if you beat your wife or fuck your kids. The question is can you sell?! I mean, let's cut right down to the bottom line. Success is really the only way that a man can measure his greatness. As I have showed here it encompasses everything. It encompasses fatherhood, marriage, sex, it encompasses every facet of happiness.

I'm spoiling the film if you haven't seen it, but Mamet makes damn sure that we understand that none of these characters ever actually make a sale. There is a point where we think that a couple do, and a ray of hope really peeks out of all this muck. We were stupid to think that, the film argues. And so the film is really an ode to failure. These men are salesmen, and they fail as salesmen, and so they are without identity, without value. The film has often been compared to “Death of a Salesman,” but that play seemed to argue that a man is more than a salesman. It was a pious serious work. It sees the death of the salesman as a tragedy. Glengarry Glen Ross is a far greater work with a much harder edge. But it views this from the inside. It has the "salesman" values. Mamet has not given them any attributes outside of their ability to sell or not sell. They never talk about anything else, and they hardly ever do anything else. For the most part we don't know if these guys have kids and wives at all, much less if they are good to them. I don't feel that Mamet is attacking the system that these characters inhabit. He's attacking the characters for failing to succeed within the system. The difference is crucial. Success seems to be obtainable, but nobody is obtaining it. Glengarry Glen Ross then adopts a profoundly bitter pessimism.

Michael Haneke said, I think of his Funny Games: "Anyone who leaves does not need the film, anyone who stays does." I am beginning to wonder if the people who admire Glengarry Glen Ross are separating themselves from the content and towards the technique. They are regarding the picture as not being about them, but as being about someone else. I am personally devastated by Glengarry Glen Ross. The film hit a major artery. I was able to adopt the film's viewpoint and I related to what was happening. It really did feel good when Jack Lemmon got to gloat. But when it is revealed that they are all worthless, I understood that I am really not any better. Hey, I'm an undergraduate journalism student. This isn't medical school, but I can more than relate to the pressures of academic life and the knowledge that I can and should be better than I am. Success is obtainable, and if I don't obtain it then I'm worthless.

Somebody on the IMDB mentioned that this made for great viewing after a bad day at the office. Why? So he could relive his failure in the workforce? If I had to pick a film to deny on the grounds that it's unpleasant, Glengarry Glen Ross would not be my pick. I am a filmgoer and casual film critic. I see movies and I write reviews of them. My embarrassed repulsion of Glengarry Glen Ross then further compounds the sense of failure that the film is compounding in me. It's a new classic, and I am denying it BECAUSE it is effective. The film is one of those works that haunts me occasionally. I'm a tough filmgoer. I can take the slaps and degradation. Why can't I appreciate Glengarry Glen Ross for what it is, but view Happiness or Taxi Driver many times? Or Rules of Attraction? Roger Avary's smut masterpiece is a rollicking good time. The picture begins with electronicized Bach, and proceeds in that vein with an almost never-ending in-flux of the grotesque and the absurd. The film has rape, vomit, callous cruelty and Fred Savage shooting heroin into his foot prompting him to exclaim, "I can feel my dick!" There is also a bloody suicide scored by Harry Nilsson singing "Without You." The sequence is indeed simultaneously haunting and moving and devilishly funny, much like the "All Out of Love" dance scene in Happiness. And yes, I was loving all of this. The central difference between Rules of Attraction and Glengarry Glen Ross is that the former treats suicide as a set piece existing for little else than to provoke outrage, disgust, horror and sadness. The latter treats suicide as a plainly logical solution. Not that Glengarry Glen Ross ends with a suicide, but it does not produce any compelling reasons why these characters should not commit suicide, which I think is close enough. Rules of Attraction is the perfect Bret Easton Ellis film and it's the perfect Roger Avary film. Imagine Fight Club without the moralizing of the third act. Disgusting and evil or not, Rules of Attraction is cinematic and electric. It's a celebration.

As I have implied with that suicide comparison, people are not important to Avary except to the extent that he wants to make a movie about them. While his characters are immoral, they take on somewhat otherworldly characteristics. We don't relate to them. They are freaks and cartoons. Relating to the characters of Glengarry Glen Ross on the other hand is something that is unavoidable. Mamet does not allow us to view these characters as patently immoral. And yet he does not allow us to view their immoral actions as any sort of fall. The characters in Glengarry Glen Ross are not freaks and cartoons. They are Everymen, and as Everymen they are morally and spiritually weak. These people are actually human. The reason that I like other unpleasant films and not Glengarry Glen Ross comes down to the fact that I don't mind being vomited on, beat up, cut, and possibly even raped nearly as much as I mind failing. I may cringe, but life goes on and wounds heal. The unpleasant nihilism in Rules of Attraction is all effect. The film is an experience. Glengarry Glen Ross' nihilism is more ideological. It gets down towards denigrating the viewer's personal identity and life purpose. Most of the people who see this movie will not have earned $970,000 a year, and there is an implication that they could and they should.

Glengarry Glen Ross sits like a stomachful of baking soda.