Well, it certainly took me long enough, but I finally got around to watching and reviewing "LOL," Joe Swanberg's movie about the effects of modern technology and relationships. I'd been hearing a lot about the Mumblecore genre, especially since the folks here at Spout have all but canonized Swanberg and his fellow Mumblecore artists as the patron saints of a new generation of filmmakers. I was curious to see how the movie lived up to all the hype. What I found was a movie that, while interesting, didn't really reveal its message until the last possible moment. In fact, up until the last fifteen minutes of the film, I was prepared to write off "LOL" as just another interesting but ultimately failed artistic experiment.
The movie is about a group of friends (Swanberg, Kevin Bewersdorf and C. Mason Wells) each going through some relationship issues that have something to do with their addiction to online porn.
These guys all seem perfectly normal and good otherwise, but when it comes to their relationships, the sexual disconnection seems to be a major stumbling block. Tim (Swanberg) has been unable to truly connect with his girlfriend Ada. Mike (Wells) is missing his long-distance girlfriend Greta (Greta Gerwig) and has her send him nude pictures of her, which she finds a little wrong, and he finds unsatisfactory. Alex (Bewersdorf) is obsessed with a girl who is the subject of several pornographic photos and videos on a web site.
While both Swanberg and Wells' storylines are good, Bewersdorf's predicament is the most heartbreaking. He is so wrapped up in a relationship that appears to be entirely one-way while cute young hipster Tessa pines after him to no avail.
Another neat aspect of the movie is the use of "Noisehead" videos between different scenes. Bewersdorf (who also wrote the film's soundtrack) is creating a project of his friends making random noises in front of his camera, and uses the clips to make unique songs. These videos are easily the most interesting part of the movie.
My biggest problem with "LOL" is the fact that it takes so long to get to the actual point. I didn't really feel like I was interested in the movie until the very end, when I looked down at my video counter and thought "Really? There's only three minutes left on this thing? But it was just getting good!" I think Swanberg could have benefitted by cutting off about half an hour of the film's beginning and adding more onto the end. As is, the plot just drops off, with Tessa driving, disappointed, back to Chicago and Alex wandering around St. Louis looking for the online girl of his dreams.