[Video Essay] Age-Gap Relationship Depiction vs Endorsement: Licorice Pizza, Call Me By Your Name, and Lolita – Broey Deschanel

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• It seems a strange time to decide to romanticize the unhealthy relationship between an adult and a teenager … and an even stranger time for reviewers to willfully celebrate this theme.

  I admit that it took some daring to make a film with such questionable subject matter and artists should have the freedom to explore dark, even confronting topics. With that freedom, though, should come a sense of responsibility to explore those issues with integrity. Intelligent films examine doubtful scenarios; they don’t glorify them for an undiscerning audience. Simply because the characters justify something to themselves doesn’t mean that the film – or its reviewers – have to fall into line, too. 

  In fact, I have noticed an eerie strand of emotional blackmail operating in some of the film’s reviews – critics seem to suggest that, if you don’t buy into its romantic treatment of an unhealthy relationship, then you’re too “square” to appreciate cinema.

  The role of the critic isn’t to provide PR cover for an anointed director. It’s to examine films: how they work, how they don’t work. Critics shouldn’t be insulating filmmakers from legitimate interrogation.

  February 22, 2022 at 12:58 pm

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