Eagle vs Shark

Seencine.com took advantage of an advanced screening this week with a post-screening Q & A with director Taika Waititi. Here it goes:

Two oddballs are united by "Meaty Boy," a fast-food restaurant in New Zealand where Lily (Loren Horsley), a methodical cashier, ogles over Jarrod (Jermaine Clement), a too-cool-for-school yet goofy lunch-time regular. Things get taken out of the restaurant when Jarrod hands Lily an invitation - to give to Jenny, her co-worker. Lily keeps in line with her good-nature and shows Jenny the invitation in the backroom later. After Lily asks if she could come too, Jenny throws the invite in the trash. When Jenny leaves, Lily goes for the trash, grabs the crumpled invitation - among other things...

Lily goes to the dress-as-your-favorite-animal party, and dresses as, you got it, a shark. When she arrives, Jarrod who is dressed as an eagle, asks where Jenny is, and ultimately acts like an insecure jerk not only throughout the party but throughout the entire film.

According to the director, Taika Waititi, Jarrod is riddled with all of the traits males stereotypically have; thus, the character is utterly cartoonish, and hard to empathize with - yet not your average male. He's fashion oriented, and creative. Men like this do exist, and they're usually twenty and going to art school. So, the director did succeed in creating characters that acted like they were in high school but were in older peoples bodies - which is apparently exactly what he wanted to do. Lily's character is juvenile in her own way - she's dumb enough to follow a guy like this around. Not only follow him around, but convince her silly brother Damien (Joel Tobeck) to drive him hours, and hours away to his hometown so that he can seek revenge on a high-school rival whom he's been stalking for years, and is finally heading back home.

The director uses a trendy, hipster aesthetic for the film, and there is ultimately nothing new about it. Boy meets girl - turned around - in this film the girl does all the chasing. This is fine, and at times it's funny but the film generally lacks any sort of story thread. Is this about Eagle vs Shark? Is it about Eagle vs former high school bully? Is it about Shark chasing Eagle? It depends what part of the film you're watching I guess.

Ultimately, young people are into characters that dress in the slighly alternative fashions of urban twenty-somethings, and say a lot of catchy things that don't add much to the story. Because of the film's bubble gum qualities (I assume), Taika Waititi landed a writing gig for Flight of the Conchords as did Jermaine Clement as one of the co-stars. Coming to a boob tube near you. Eagle vs Shark opens in New York on June 15th.