“The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth” screened last night for the DGA at the old Academy theatre at Wilshire and La Peer. Most of the team stayed for a post-screening Q&A moderated by Elvis Mitchell: director David Fincher, Elizabeth Debicki, Scott Caan and Peter Weller. Quentin Tarantino and Brad Pitt weren't there.
So how did it play? A source over at Hollywood Elsewhere was positive He called it "a violent madcap comedy that plays like a love letter to Los Angeles of the late '70s" and described the era as "ten years after, post Star Wars, creeping disco and even creepier corporatism."
That tracks. The story is set in 1977, eight years since Cliff Booth (Pitt) encountered the Manson family in Quentin Tarantino's parallel history of 1969.
The most interesting part of the reaction, though, was about the odd mix of the two filmmakers. It seems like Fincher has done the same thing he did after he was handed Aaron Sorkin’s ‘Social Network’ script: he cranked up the pace. He had his actors fire off the dialogue at breakneck speed so a script that should have run close to three hours came in at two.
"It's a weird experience listening to Tarantino but watching a Fincher movie," the friend said. "It's Tarantino on speed in somewhat the same way that Ken Russell's “Altered States” was Paddy Chayefsky on speed." His best line: "Basically Fincher has turned Tarantinospeak into FuckUFincher."
Then there's Debicki. "Debicki just about stole the show… all 75 inches of her," the friend said. "A new kind of screen goddess." She leads a supporting cast that features Elizabeth Debicki, Scott Caan, Carla Gugino, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and others, and from early word it sounds like her movie as much as Pitt's.
At the Q&A, Fincher again said he'd been handed a 230-page script and had to work out which half to shoot. That’s what he also said in October, that it was "essentially two movies.” The one reservation in the reaction came about that: "As you reach for a beer after the screening, you find yourself wondering what was in those other 100 pages." He thought some characters might have been more central to the third act, "including a cat who possibly had his own Tarantino story arc."
'Cliff Booth' opens exclusively on around 200 IMAX screens on November 25, over Thanksgiving weekend. The social media embargo lifts Monday at 9:30 p.m. PT, and reviews can be published Thursday at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET).
A source over at HE calls it "a violent madcap comedy that plays like a love letter to Los Angeles of the late '70s" and described the era as "ten years after, post Star Wars, creeping disco and even creepier corporatism."