Midweek Update: The Delightful Subversions of Goldstein & Daley

On Friday, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves hits theaters. I don’t know how the film is tracking, but Paramount seems confident enough in the movie to not only screen it well in advance for critics but also offer sneak previews to build word-of-mouth. Their confidence is well-founded as the film is a funny, exciting adventure yarn that should appeal to fans of Dungeons & Dragons while never alienating those who have never played the popular role-playing game.

For me, the film is another successful comedy from writer-directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, who previously helmed the new Vacation and followed it up with Game Night. What you can see in their movies is that they understand the rules of these genres and then find fun and weird ways to subvert those rules into something hilarious and new.

Vacation was dismissed when it was released in 2015 with a score of only 27% on Rotten Tomatoes. This is one of those times where I felt way out of step with my peers, as I thought the film was not only a delight, but superior to the original (I am not a fan of the original as I find it both mean-spirited and I’ve never been a Chevy Chase guy). The film has all these brilliant touches that makes it a solid road trip comedy but also find ways of upending the family dynamic like the younger sibling (Steele Stebbins) bullying the older sibling (Skyler Gisondo, who always manages to crack me up when I see him in comedies). But you’ve also just got scenes like this:

In a recent interview with Mike Ryan for Uproxx, Goldstein and Daley said the negative reaction to Vacation gave them pause with trying to adapt something that was already beloved and pushed them to an original idea like Game Night, which is a comic spin on a thriller. That’s already pretty tough to do, but Goldstein and Daley managed it perfectly. Rachel McAdams’ perfect line-reading of “Oh no, he died!” brilliantly compliments the knowing subversion of getting rid of a henchman, but also you’re supposed to be a normal person who values human life. There’s also the stone-cold genius of Jesse Plemmons’ character, Gary—a lonely cop and next-door neighbor who just wants to be invited back to game night—and performance that makes you slightly uncomfortable:

Rather than just shoot it as a normal shot/reverse-shot, Goldstein and Daley shoot the main characters, Max (Jason Bateman) and Annie (McAdams), in a static two-shot and then on Gary’s shots there’s a slow push-in that, coupled with Plemmons’ deadpan and quiet line-reading, creates an intensity despite the mundane nature of the conversation. It not only sets the tone for the movie (a mundane event like game night getting ratcheted up into absurd intensity), but also understands how to play against that normality with little touches that make the comedy hit but never overbearing (like how the lighting here is a little too low, giving the time of day as late afternoon, but also not the “bright, sunny normalcy” of suburban life).

Both films are well aware of what’s come before, but rather than serving as outright parodies, they’re comic plays on well-known tropes and beats the genres employ. There’s still a baseline story with real dramatic stakes, and that genuine empathy for the characters stops the movies from spinning off into the cartoonish or the cynical.

That approach continues with Dungeons & Dragons, which, while an adaptation, is a fungible enough concept that no one goes in with any preconceived notions beyond “fantasy movie” as opposed to “This is what a Dungeons & Dragons movie must do.” This gives Goldstein and Daley the creative freedom to leave their mark on the material with a film that probably owes as much to a film like The Princess Bride (a modern comedic bent within the bounds of the fantasy genre) than its RPG namesake.

I won’t spoil any of the jokes here, but I really loved what Daley and Goldstein came up with for their Dungeons & Dragons movie. Not only is it funny, but it’s got some thrilling action (there’s an action scene made to look like it’s done in one-take that’s reminiscent of the egg throwing scene in Game Night) combined with characters you genuinely care about (Michelle Rodriguez and Chris Pine are perfect together). Yes, there are dungeons and there are dragons, but the film knows when to be funny, when to be weird, and when to let emotion carry the day. It’s a film I’m eager to see again, and I can’t wait to see what Goldstein and Daley do next.

What I’m Watching

Succession is back! With showrunner Jesse Armstrong wisely choosing to wrap the story up in four seasons rather than spin his wheels, it looks like the HBO drama could go out on a high note. The season premiere also crystalized what Emily St. James wrote in her recent New York Times article about what makes the show compelling. Succession isn’t interesting because we want to see which group of unqualified jokers will get to run a media empire. Succession is interesting because as awful as the Roy kids can be, they have a chance to break free of the cycle of trauma and abuse their father has inflicted upon them. That’s the stakes of the series: will Kendall, Shiv, and/or Roman find a way to live free of fearing their ogre of father? At the very least, there was something satisfying in the premiere watching Logan taste victory only to have it turn to ashes in his mouth as he’s confronted with how alone he truly is.

I’ve also been watching The Mandalorian which is…not as good. There’s a strong chance I might just bail on the series after this season wraps if they don’t find a compelling story to tell. It’s hard for me to get excited for stuff like Skeleton Crew or Ahsoka when the only great Star Wars TV series thus far has been the first season of Andor.

What I’m Reading

I’m currently making my way through Sam Wesson’s The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood, and it’s terrific. Wesson’s writing is rich, descriptive, and informative. It’s also leading me back to check out the early work of Jack Nicholson, who has had a fascinating career, and yet I’m pretty sure many Gen Zers thinks his biggest accomplishment is serving as the avatar photo for dril.

In other reads:

• I appreciated Dave Chen’s insights from Decoding Everything on the recent congressional hearing on TikTok. I agree that the whole spectacle is hypocritical. I’m not a die-hard TikTok defender, but to argue that TikTok is a threat to national security but any domestically-based social network is okay is laughable. The problem with TikTok isn’t that it’s based in China (for all the tensions between the U.S. and China, both countries depend on each other as trading partners), but that the U.S. has dropped the ball on any kind of regulation of the tech industry in general. This is what happens when the average age of a congressperson is 57.9 and the average age of a senator is 65.3. Banning TikTok won’t solve anything or protect anyone, but it will further sour young voters on the political process as they see a government that can’t protect them or improve their lives but can arbitrarily ban apps based on fungible definitions of homeland security.

• I found this New York Times article by Tripp Mickle and Brian X. Chen on Apple’s upcoming VR/XR goggles fascinating. Apple is known for running a pretty steady ship, and while there have been mishaps along the way (remember the butterfly keyboard?), typically when Apple gets into a product space, they know how to succeed. What makes the VR/XR goggles tricky is that it doesn’t sound like they’ve cracked the technology, price point, or purpose. I was especially struck by this part: While it would be unwise to bet against Apple, as the article notes, this may be a case similar to the Apple Watch where the company releases a device only refine it when users demonstrate what they prioritize in its functionality.

What I’m Hearing

I really liked this conversation with Jason Segel on Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend. Segel is an interesting actor since he came up in comedy, but then pivoted away from it to do dramas, and now he’s back with the new AppleTV+ series Shrinking. I enjoyed hearing him talk about his career trajectory and the expectations he kept putting on himself.

What I’m Playing

I beat the main story in Hogwarts Legacy, and now I’m just going around to get the rest of the achievements because I’m a weirdo. I have many thoughts on the game, and I’ll be sharing them in a future Substack since there’s too many to sum up here.