The mountains were in labour, and a mouse has been brought forth. Two hours of post-modernist argumentation on the universe, with the question being worth more than the answer and the infinitesimal devouring the giant, to celebrate the supermarket as the supreme temple of capitalist imagery and the decantation of mythopoetic American wordsmithing is too little, too late. An overspoken film, which is typical Naumbach, that shows how catastrophe interrupts social order and is the metaphor of the white noise of death’s presence in modern society. Danny Elfman’s score is imposing in its sobriety and its ability to ‘comment’ on the primary passages in the film, especially the scene of the Oedipal parallel between Hitler and Elvis: Driver and Cheadle steal the focus from each other, and music seem to echo the creepy, mysterious atmosphere of Nightmare Before Christmas. The end credits scene, an exaltation of the virtues of supermarkets, uses an amazing dance-punk piece, New Body Rhumba, produced explicitly for the film by glorious American indie band LCD Soundsystem.
