On Chris Pratt and Chubby Superheroes

As most of my nearest and dearest could tell you, I'm just a tad obsessed with the new and improved, french braiding, Guardians of the Galaxy-starring Chris Pratt. Or, as I am constantly referring to him, "Handsome Chris Pratt". Fans of Parks and Recreation however will know that Pratt has not always been this way - his character on the show, Andy Dwyer, is a loveable chubby idiot - a sort of cross between Zach Galifinakis and Seth Rogen. Both versions of Chris Pratt are wonderful, and the more parts that he gets, the better. (At the moment, my dream film in a rom-com starring him, Adam Driver and Sam Rockwell as brothers whose father, Christopher Walken, worries over them as they attempt to pursue girlfriends that are well-rounded and talk about stuff other than their boyfriends, played by Lupita Nyong'o, Rosario Dawson and Christina Hendricks. I just came up with this in like 3 minutes but I can already see money flooding in…) Currently, Pratt's embarking on a seemingly meteoric rise to fame as he follows up Guardians of the Galaxy with Jurassic World. But, can you guess which version of Chris Pratt it is that's getting famous? Yeeeep, you guessed it.

Pratt's character in Guardians of the Galaxy, Peter Quill, was abducted from the Earth when he was a child, and spent his youth roaming the galaxy. He considers himself to be an infamous outlaw, (whereas of course his reality looks vastly different to his dreams) all of the while listening to a cassette recording of "Hooked on a Feeling". He's an everyman, albeit one with a six pack and rugged good looks. So why exactly did Pratt have to turn into such a hulking he-man to play such a role? Yes, he looks great with the muscles. And it must certainly be easier to market him as a "proper" blockbuster star now that he's slimmed down. (As we are all aware, there are only two types of "fat" actors - comedic ones like Melissa McCarthy, and serious ones like Phillip Seymour Hoffman.) But why, rather than bulking up, couldn't he have played the character as he was? It's not exactly like his performance is one of method acting to back up his physicality - he's essentially playing a douchier version of the character that he plays in Parks and Rec and various comedy films that he's starred in… except in Outer Space.

And, come to think of it, why aren't there any chubby superheroes anyway? I get that the whole point of being a superhero is being super fit and being good at fighting and annihilating bad guys, but are people aware that it's possible to be a bit chubby and still healthy? Most superheroes were born with powers or in distant realms which pushes them into this weird other-worldy category which seems to explain their disturbingly healthy and toned bodies, but what about man-made heroes like Iron Man and Batman? (Although I suppose being a darkly tormented orphan would be enough to put you off your food) All Batman does is sit in a dumb shaped car talking in silly voices and I'm pretty sure that Iron Man just flies everywhere, so why couldn't they be a few pounds heavier? The news that Thor is to be turned into a woman and that Captain America is going to become black is amazing - even for non-comic book fans such as myself - and these are considered to be "drastic" decisions. Piling a few pounds onto a character - or inventing on that already looks that way - is nothing.

So while I will of course see Guardians of the Galaxy, and I will cheer every new development what will hopefully be a very lucrative career, I will still curse the fact that Chris Pratt's new career comes at the price of him changing his image. And I'll continue to anticipate the day that guys that look like the old Chris Pratt can be cast as superheroes, and that artists will write them to be chubby in the first place.

Grace Barber-Plentie

Review: Boyhood

It's hard to believe that Richard Linklater is an ordinary guy, (I mean really, have you seen him? He is, in the nicest way possible, spectacularly ordinary looking.) and not some sentient cyborg that is able to tap into every facet of human emotion and then accurately reproduce them on screen. But he is an ordinary guy, one who has managed to transport some of life's greatest experiences such as tentatively falling in love and forming a relationship, (The Before Trilogy) and leaving school and taking the next steps in life. (Dazed and Confused) Admittedly, he does put his own "Linklater Twist" on both of these scenarios by having these films set over just one day, but nevertheless, the naturalistic acting and dialogue of Linklater's films really does reinforce how talented he is at building characters and filling scripts with natural emotion.

In Boyhood, his latest film, he takes the experiences shown in his previous films and more, but stretches the time-frame that we see them take place in to 12 years. In just under 3 hours, we see Ellar Coltrane's Mason (a shoe-in for a million Best Actor awards if we lived in a kinder world) go from an innocent child, to an emo teenager, to a young man. Unlike most Coming of Age films that feature events like first kiss, losing your virginity and the stability of your friendships, Linklater is mainly focused on the non-events in life. Mason moves from town to town, and friends and girlfriends appear and disappear at will. We are only given brief snapshots of each of the 12 years, but each year is as engaging as the last.

It's clearly a deeply personal film for Linklater and his cast, who would meet once a year to film for a few days before going their separate ways to focus on other projects and general life. But, I was surprised to find, Boyhood was also deeply personal for myself to watch. While of course I have felt a connection to certain films and characters in the past, I was completely taken aback by how much of Boyhood seemed to correlate with my life. Having just finished my first year of University, (the film takes us up to when Mason moves away to Austin to start college) the 12 years that play out in the film seem so recent and relevant to me. And while some events are deeply rooted in the grand tradition of "American Boyhood" - a scene where Mason is given a gun and a bible for his 15th birthday could surely not happen anywhere other than America - there are scenes in the film that every 21st Century teen or adult can relate to. Linklater carefully selects music that was popular in each year of the making for the film's soundtrack, and hearing certain choices such as The Flaming Lips and Vampire Weekend instantly brought moments from my childhood when I was the same age as Mason rushing back. I have often referred to the Before Trilogy's Jesse and Celine as feeling like "old friends that I haven't seen for a long time", but here Boyhood offers you Mason as someone whose life you can choose to view through his own viewpoint or your own.

With the Before Trilogy, an obvious homage to Truffuat's Antoine Doinel series, Linklater quietly shook up independent cinema. With Boyhood, he changes cinema as we know it. Seeing actors age naturally on screen is something that is both an odd thrill - being able to watch someone's height, weight and hairstyle change in the space of half an hour is endlessly entertaining - and a choice that feels absolutely right. Whether other directors choose to follow Linklater's lead will have to be seen, but even if they do, it seems unlikely that they could possibly come close to what is seen here. We are shown what feels like a whole life on screen - although Boyhood's 12 years feel luxurious compared to the entire "extraordinary" life that David Fincher attempts to condense in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - and it is one that you take great joy in watching, even if it is filled, just like life, with sadness, heartbreak and misery. We go to the cinema for two reasons - to see realism and escapism. Here, Linklater perfectly allows us to have both.

Grace Barber-Plentie

5/5