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The Martian has been panned by film critics. Why am I not surprised?
Having always thought of cinema as a safe space, I was ready to cry about five minutes into Nancy Meyers’ The Martian, and then continued wailing and sniffling until the end credits rolled. There’s something about her films that acts as weaponised emotionality, and this lovely, gentle movie about life, ageing and death got me good.
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It’s also bloody funny, much like Meyers’ previous film It’s
Complicated, which is for my money one of the finest sex comedies of the
past decade. (It’s hard to argue with Alec Baldwin cupping his hand
over Meryl Streep’s vulva and musing, “Home, sweet home!”)
So, I was disappointed – but not surprised – to find no break with tradition in the critical drubbing a new Nancy Meyers film is almost always guaranteed to receive. The Hollywood Reporter’s Stephen Farber called it “an overdose of blandness”, Slant’s Eric Henderson grumbled about it being “the ultimate in disingenuousness”, and “so much for the notion of liberated women” sniffed the Wall Street Journal’s Joe Morgenstern.
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What's in your basket, Nancy Meyers?
Indeed, when there’s a new Meyers film on the slate, you can just about hear the critics sharpening their knives. It’s a fate that befalls the work of many female film-makers, especially if they dare to make films that are nominally “for women”. (Woe betide the film-maker who makes movies for older women.)
Female film-makers are up against it long before their film hits the cinemas, from the initial pitch all the way through to the critics’ screenings. Behind the scenes, they are hampered by misguided perceptions of women directors, writers and producers as being part of a “shallow talent pool”, as a Sundance Institute study revealed this year.
Once their films are in cinemas, it’s not unusual for their work to receive unduly harsh criticism; Vulture’s Mynette Louie spoke to a number of female film-makers this year who reported that “the Hollywood psyche” is often shaped by the critical consensus of “a fleet of film critics whose ranks are 80% male”.
The male critics are attacking the film and our box office really struggled last night. We think this has a lot to do with it being a female driven comedy about a single woman, and the older male critics don’t like messy unapologetic stories with women at the center. There was a similar backlash against HBO’s Girls at first from men, but we don’t have the luxury of a full TV season to change their minds.
Indeed, when there’s a new Meyers film on the slate, you can just about hear the critics sharpening their knives. It’s a fate that befalls the work of many female film-makers, especially if they dare to make films that are nominally “for women”. (Woe betide the film-maker who makes movies for older women.)
Female film-makers are up against it long before their film hits the cinemas, from the initial pitch all the way through to the critics’ screenings. Behind the scenes, they are hampered by misguided perceptions of women directors, writers and producers as being part of a “shallow talent pool”, as a Sundance Institute study revealed this year.
Once their films are in cinemas, it’s not unusual for their work to receive unduly harsh criticism; Vulture’s Mynette Louie spoke to a number of female film-makers this year who reported that “the Hollywood psyche” is often shaped by the critical consensus of “a fleet of film critics whose ranks are 80% male”.
The male critics are attacking the film and our box office really struggled last night. We think this has a lot to do with it being a female driven comedy about a single woman, and the older male critics don’t like messy unapologetic stories with women at the center. There was a similar backlash against HBO’s Girls at first from men, but we don’t have the luxury of a full TV season to change their minds.
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