Wow. I went in to see if Vanessa Hudgens could act and was treated instead to a Pro-Life lecture. Suffice to say – not my favorite trip to the movies. Based on a true story, an incredibly weak true story, Gimme Shelter tells of a resource-less pregnant inner city teen who goes to the ‘burbs to find her millionaire birth father (Brendan Fraser). That’s pretty much it, btw. He accepts the girl but his wife (Stephanie Szostak) doesn’t and Vanessa ends up in a special home for pregnant teen runaways.
Apple (Hudgens) opens by self-cutting her hair and escaping her tenement Hell literally chased by an awful, awful woman (Rosario Dawson) who, as it turns out, is her mother. The cabbie drives away as Dawson is hitting the car and then stops a few blocks later upon confirmation that Apple doesn’t actually have the money to pay, something the cabbie already quizzed her about – it’s one of several scenes that don’t work. This one ends with the cabbie physically tossing Hudgens from the vehicle. Wending her way, eventually, to Jersey, she finds dad after sneaking onto his property. He saves her from the rent-a-cop service that protects his gated estate and eventually accepts her into the lives of his mansion-dwelling ideal nuclear family. And from the moment when Apple wakes up queasy the following morning, this film changes from a struggling teen finding dad to a Pro-Life sermon. In fact, as I watched in relative horror, I wondered what I’d include in a Pro-Life film were I so inclined to make one:
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- First – the heroine is very important. You definitely want somebody pretty. Street or no, the audience has to see the diamond, not the rough. Vanessa Hudgens, Check. She also has to be vaguely ethnic, but Caucasian passable, nothing darker than The Rock. Check. Rich white folks won’t want to identify with a shade beyond khaki.
- Ok, now you want a compassionate 1%er to play the long lost father. Somebody rich, but with the semblance of a soul. This will be the most sympathetic figure in the film because it’s important to pretend the puppet masters are the best people in society in every single way; get that Wolf of Wall Street image crap right outta there. Ah, Brendan Fraser, perfect. That guy looks like a lost puppy even when you dress him in a tuxedo.
- And then you need an antithesis in the teen’s mother. Have a minority, yes, Rosario Dawson will do, and yes, make sure the audience knows it’s a pretty person who is distinctly filthy –inside and out– for this role. Make her a user and an abuser and a scam artist. Every scene with her has to be over-the-top as if you told her to act
while under the constant influence of crack. We need to know that Apple’s mother is rotten-to-the-core (pun intended). And make sure this character is isolated – I don’t want to denigrate an entire demographic; I’ll need their votes. - After that, you have to make the straw man opponent. A straw woman will do nicely … the educated white wife of Brendan Fraser represents Pro-Choice. Let’s make her a bitch! Oh, and make sure she delivers the rigid “get an abortion or hit the road, Ap” ultimatum. Yup, we all know all Pro-Choice voters are heartless monsters. And you see how it’s the Pro-Choice character who restricts freedom? This thought, of course, would be laughable in reality, but hey! This is “fiction.” Consolidating complex issues into deliberately mis-characterized scapegoating is such fun, isn’t it? I’ll definitely include it in my movie, too.
- Note to self: don’t forget the sympathetic priest! Thank God we can still show religious men as sources of good; it’s just nuns that suck. Now, for this role, let’s get Morgan Freeman, right? What? “No can do?” Ok, James Earl Jones will suffice. Thanks. Nobody hates James Earl Jones. Not even Luke Skywalker.
- Make sure to include a superfluous check-up scene so that the teen mom, who of course has not weighed her decision carefully, can be challenged with a take-home sonogram. The scene occurs well before the ultimatum. See how that works? This way you can portray the teen as lost and confused and the Pro-Choice option as evil incarnate. Make sure to hide all the problems with this scenario, of course. Which brings up …
- Make sure you focus only on the girl’s immediate future: healthy baby, happy motherhood.
- Make sure you don’t go any further than baby stage. Don’t ask a single question about how the girl and her child will survive without a job, home, education or sugar daddy.
- Make sure you don’t show any teens pregnant by rape or incest; in fact, show all the “troubled” teens as perfectly normal and reasonable new mothers. Might even due to make one outlier in the basket, one troublemaker – yeah, and make it the one girl who is neither pregnant, nor with newborn.
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None of the set-up is right in this picture – based on the premise, Brendan Fraser’s character can’t possibly be more than 35, which means that he’s spent half of Apple’s life in school and yet still managed to amass fortune enough for a gated, policed mansion in New Jersey. He also managed a wife and loving relationship with two perfectly well-adjusted respectful children. And he’s not a workaholic. Oh, and my favorite part: he’s flexible and accepting. Yeah, all that describes nobody. Ever. And it’s criminal to portray the woman who raised Apple as an evil crack-whore while daddy who abandoned his child to go to college is the sympathetic hero. Just criminal.
For a film that wanted to tell a gritty true-to-life tale, Gimme Shelter is as shallow and irresponsible as any Paranormal Activity film. This isn’t a portrayal of inner city hardship and shows not a single moment that would make one believe the 16-year old Apples of the big city are ready to be mothers or have any future other than street crime or stripping. Can Vanessa Hudgens act? If this is her future, the answer is, “who cares?”
Life bites for the teen runaway
Pregnancy ain’t easy day-to-day
Life bites for most resourceless youth
Or when a diatribe withholds opposed truth.
Rated PG-13, 101 Minutes
D: Ron Krauss
W: Ron Krauss
Genre: Sermon
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: The people for whom the Pro-Life battle supersedes entertainment
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: High School Musical fans
