THB #258: Things I Am Loving (11/16/22)

In today’s newsletter… Stutz, Willow, Welcome to Chippendales, and Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio…

STUTZ

Jonah Hill’s Stutz is not only fascinating on its own, it is an almost perfect pairing with the Chris Smith-directed/partnered-on-with Robert Downey, Jr. doc about Jr.’s dad, Sr., also due on Netflix in a couple of weeks.

I wrote about Sr. a couple of weeks ago and Jonah’s film deserves its own space, but I find the connection unavoidable. Jonah and Robert are from different generations, really. (Jonah is 38 and Robert is 57.) But they are both artists to their cores, both grew up on the west side of Los Angeles, and Jonah really emerged as Robert re-emerged after he got his addiction challenges under control. Superbad landed in 2007 and Iron Man in 2008.

I also bring my own limited relationship with Jonah to the film. I found him funny in The 40-Year-Old Virgin and had seen him in Brad Silberling’s 10 Items or Less, where I felt like there were signs of something special. I told him so on the set of Superbad and he was gracious, but seemed to be uncomfortable with the praise. (I’m sure he has zero memory of this.)

I sat with him at an awards lunch for The Wolf of Wall Street in 2014, where Tina Louise (yes, Ginger) was very aggressive about complaining to him about the Hard-R elements in the film and he fled from the table. I found him ranting to a publicists about how nasty the conversation was. He eventually came back to the table and put up with it as well as could be expected of a guy whose performance was universally praised and was now being asked to answer for Scorsese (a table away). But it was the first time his vulnerability was clear to me.

I interviewed him for Wolf a few months later and there was some tension in the interview. Some viewers blamed me. Some him. My reality is that, depending on the interviewee, I will push more or less. I pushed a little more here and I didn’t mind Jonah pushing back. For me, if a conversation gets outside of the junket drone, it’s gone well.

Jonah came to my home, a couple years after this, without a publicist, to talk about War Dogs. It went more smoothly.

I saw his first feature as director, Mid-90s, which was apparently very personal. I wasn’t head-over-heels, but I appreciated the intimacy of the work. A year later, I met his sister, Beanie Feldstein, who is one of those people who everyone talks about in real life a glowing way. She didn’t mention Jonah, as Jonah had not mentioned her… wasn’t sure if that was a personal choice, a publicity choice or a coincidence. And just days after the interview with the effusive and charming Beanie, their brother Jordan died at just 40.

That’s a lot going on in this family’s world.

So… I came to his film, Stutz - in which he and his real-life therapist, Phil Stutz, kind of co-star in the doc - with a lot of feelings about Jonah.

And from the Strong Baby Productions logo on…

… I felt like Jonah was exposing himself in a serious and profound way. The film is an act of generosity, not only to us, but to Jonah himself.

The film also reminds me of Ethan Hawke’s wonderful doc, Seymour: An Introduction. As Ethan presented someone who brought something to his life (and to others) in a unique way, Jonah brings us Phil Stutz, who is both a therapist in a West L.A. building overlooking the 405 and an iconoclast, with his “X” theory on the things that all humans must face in their lives and then, how to allow ourselves the freedom to experience life without getting in our own way. He uses gentle verbal aggressions and salty language. He is not a passive listener, but he also is clear that he doesn’t have all the answers.

After about 30 minutes, Jonah breaks the 4th wall of the film. He is making the film about Stutz, but really, he is making the film about him and Stutz and he confesses that he has not held up his side of the bargain, in his view.

“I’ve been lying to you in our private therapy sessions about how the movie’s going. So I’ve been, essentially, paying you to lie to you and that left me feeling more and more alone. I’m trying to land these massive ideas and also tell the story of your life. I just feel stuck. I just keep asking myself, “Was this a terrible fucking idea for a patient to make a movie about his therapist?”

And the movie moves to another gear.

For me, the honestly that Jonah displays in this film, particularly from that point on, is an honesty I had only really felt in seeing his flashes of pain and/or anger in real life in the past.

This is not self-exploitation. We do not get Jonah digging deeply into his deepest pains. He is not flailing on the floor. You won’t see clips on TMZ. He is not making the film about him (as much as a director/participant can avoid making it about themselves). He is exposing himself just enough - and it’s not nothing - to let people into the search for one’s best self, using Stutz’s techniques and direct support.

The film is fascinating, though I cannot divorce myself from the weird little parcel of knowledge I have about Jonah. For me, the movie is about Jonah and about Beanie and about his brother, who I never met, and his mother (who turns up in the movie) and his father, who is barely discussed. (Likewise, in this recent THR profile, Richard Feldstein’s famous kids are barely mentioned at the very end of the piece.)

I don’t KNOW Jonah. Please don’t misunderstand me. But I feel Jonah in many ways. And I kinda love Jonah after watching this movie. It’s not a plea for sympathy, the film. But it is a film that seeks truth in a very vulnerable way. And it makes me so happy for this guy.

Also, I am really good with his choice not to do press on this film. Perhaps he will never do press again. But particularly here, to expose himself to the banality of the questions media will inevitably ask would be self-harming.

Full circle, having seen Robert Downey, Jr at a Q&A for his film, you can see how dangerous a layer of lazy media fluff on top of a real exploration of his relationship with his father is not where he needs to be.

The films speak for themselves.