If I go by Rotten Tomatoes, then this movie is going to be gross. But I’m a brave viewer; I make my own opinion and boldly go where angels fear to tread. This movie stars Anne Hathaway, Ben Affleck and Willem Dafoe, so how bad could it be? There are also pretty slim pickings for new movies, thanks to COVID, and beggars can’t be choosers.
Set in early eighties United States, Elena (Anne Hathaway) is a headstrong reporter with a passion for deciphering the supply behind guerrilla warfare in South America. Then, her father gets sick, prompting Elena to commit to his last business deal in his place, that should set Dick (Willem Dafoe), her father, up for the rest of his life. Elena finds herself in South America without a clear way home, and her guard up, turning every which way without knowing who to trust. The Last Thing He Wanted is directed by Dee Rees, coming off Mudbound; a Netflix movie from a few years back that I quite enjoyed.
This movie is ridiculously hard to follow and drastically scattered. There’s a lot of complicated political exposition that whizzed too fast over my head, and I doubt will be accessible to the average viewer. Even the subtitles in the end non-English-speaking scenes, and opening titles, seemed to move too quickly for me to follow; I recently watched Parasite, a film that is completely subtitled, and I never once had that trouble. There’s a lot of scene changes that have the story take a sharp turn, which I found really jarring. The Last Thing He Wanted is a thriller, where Elise is often at a loss for clarity, so I’m not sure if these sudden twists are supposed to be part of the intended thrill-ride or not, but they left me scratching my head – characters go from talking to sharing a bed unexpectedly, while other characters reappear firing guns as allies when they were once foes; it’s complicated. There are also two or three ‘reveal’ scenes where Elena is rethinking over her situation, that show revelations to problems that I hadn’t even clued in needed answers. The movie sets up Elena as a bare-knuckled reporter, a ballsy and somewhat gristled lady in search for the truth and I was accepting of that. Then it’s like the story splits in two directions without the correct balance to support either strand. There becomes a strong focus on Elena’s personal life, that stops the movie’s focus into South America dead. You can tell great stories of personal woe alongside the protagonist solving a bigger problem; movies do it all the time and Inception springs to mind as a prime example, but this one isn’t as effective. The Last Thing He Wanted fails to find the proper flow; even some of the dialogue seems to negate any focus of the story, just blurted out of left field and comes across as unrealistic.
Even though getting into this movie is like trying to chew cardboard, Willem Dafoe still brings it in his few scenes as Elena’s father. In one particularly great scene, Dick is dealing with the early stages of dementia and struggling with the realisation that his body is failing him. I really liked the detail that’s gone into creating Elena too; the sun-worn skin in Hathaway’s face, and the scarred nipple-less boob from breast cancer, which is something I had never seen before. Elena also wears a lot of high-waisted or loose-fitting pants to extenuate an hourglass figure. Anne Hathaway is one of the most gorgeous women on the planet and I’m used to her always looking glamourous; I respected the gruff look of Elena, and still found her sexy in her own way. Rosie Perez and Edi Gathegi also act well in this movie, Toby Jones is always a delight, and Ben Affleck drops in from time to time as a fast-speaking CIA agent.
At times I wondered if this movie was based on true events, and, it would have been a shame if it was, with so many good historical movies of late getting to the heart of the drama with sharper focus – Richard Jewell, Bad Education and even Bombshell. But The Last Thing He Wanted is based on a novel and here’s hoping that the paperback flows better than this troubled adaptation. I’m still trying to pin down what even was the last thing who wanted – there’s a few choices for male characters who want and don’t want things in this movie, but I’m going to go with Dick wanting Elena to help him with his business deal, in the kitchen with a wrench 😉
0.5
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