Branded is the sort of film that could have been a success. As a Russian-American film, it doesn’t ascribe to many of the cultural aesthetics U.S. movie goers are accustomed to. It has a different sort of wit and melodrama, darker and more helpless. Differences aside, there are characteristics of the film, particularly in its pacing, CGI, and a world view that’s very snobbish, rubbing our faces in the message of ‘brands bad, people good,’ that while the message may be accurate, fails miserably on screen.
The plot is simple enough: There’s a young kid in Russia who gets hit by a bolt of lightning and sees a cow constellation. As an ingratiating narration tells us, he’s marked as a visionary, as different. As a grown man, he’s Misha (Ed Stoppard), a veritable marketing genius. Bob (the gregarious Jeffrey Tambour) is his boss and introduction into the American market. Misha and Bob’s neice, Abby (Leelee Sobieski), meet and fall in love. The lovers team up to work on a reality show, Abby’s brainchild, that fails because the star, a normal woman about to undergo a disgusting amount of plastic surgery, doesn’t wake up from the anesthesia. Misha and Abby get into an ungodly amount of trouble for this, as the public opinion becomes even more skewed with the help of the “Marketing Guru” (Max von Sydow) who essentially defames the couple, ruining them, but all in secret. Machinations upon machinations occur, so Abby leaves Misha to protect him and Misha retreats to the country. Like it or not, Misha has played his part in marketing warfare.
Abby and Misha fall in love.
That explanation sounds simple and clear. Interesting, even. But it’s here that the film takes the widest u-turn into “let’s see what shenanigans we can get into and still have the viewing populace buy into what this film is selling.” The answer is not much, if any. Which is unfortunate. This brand of crazy could have been spectacular. Especially with Stoppard. In spite of the material he was given, and even when the film veered into manic parody, Stoppard was genuinely excellent the entire ride through. However, he and Sobieski, who was decently solid, aren’t enough to save the movie by any stretch.
As bad as this film was, Ed Stoppard is an excellent actor.
Misha again has divine inspiration, re-seeing the cow constellation from his childhood. As a result, he does a little bit of blood sacrifice (for real, he sacrifices an animal), and re-enters city life. He and Abby reunite and Misha meets his adolescent son for the first time. All familial joy aside, Misha, due to his ritual, can see the living brands, feeding off the people who are consuming the big bads.
I dub thee McClown the Incher. Oh, no. “Unbelievable! I picked the wrong Pokemon!”
Screeching full stop here.
I get this. I really do. Remember Fast Food Nation? Super Size Me? The Greatest Movie Ever Sold? Thank You For Smoking? Hell, even Wag the Dog? These are all films, documentary or otherwise, that dealt with how marketing slants purchasing desires, selling us our wants before we have them, be it fashion, food, gadgets, whatever. Branded tries to do this by adding a fourth dimension – the proverbial, and in this case, literal, monkey on our backs. It’s attempting the same story, but with a sci-fi/fantasy edge, that with some of the most clowntacular effects that are this odd mix of Pokemon and Adventure Time, we see what Misha sees. It’s disastrous for the film, though I concede my American special effects snobbery.
Suffice to say, Misha saves the day. It’s cool that no one really knows it’s him, because ultimately that doesn’t even matter. What does matter, horrific evil brand imaging aside (ha! it even sounds so legit), are the either overly sloppy or overly controlling methods the movie attempts to tell the story with.
The film has four time periods and uses a narrator that was plucked directly from a lawyer’s office elevator. You know, the one that announces each floor and bids you good day in that so-over-the-top-fake voice. The narration is used because the dystopia that the film touts needs to be explained visually. The script cannot achieve coherency, what little there is, without it. I know. I tried.
It’s a brand baby! What will happen when it hatches?
Oh. That’s what happens. Another PokeBrand is born.
Adding to the mess is the ultimate choice of ‘fat is bad’ that tips Misha off. Misha, a slim man himself, won’t eat the self-aware brands of food that’s fattening the population. Misha and Abby’s son is fat because he’s been downing the evil brand food since birth. Everyone in the third time period is fat. While the satire here is clear, it fails to acknowledge or accept that larger people exist because they do, instead insisting that fat equals bad . It’s easy to see that the aim was to use obesity as the visual identifier with all that’s going wrong, but it missed a final edit for it to not be offensive.
All the gooey stuff is that which has fed off us fat, stupid folk. Come on. It’s 2012. We know better.
Bringing it all full circle is the opening message we see at the opening of the film, before we meet the young Misha. The screen is black, and it flashes a few names.
Joan of Arc Alexander the Great Socrates
The screen continues to fill with names of heroes, scientists, Nobel Peace Prize Winners, and so forth. Then we’re told,
“All of these unusual people heard a voice. All of them saw things others couldn’t see. All of them changed the world.”
Misha is the unknowing savior of the epic brand battle of the future. All it took was a strike of lightning, a butchered cow, a bunch of fat people, and the marketing wherewithal to fight ads with ads. I’m sure the film will be lauded as brilliant by some. Others, like me, will respect the message, but hate the chaotic mess.
The score:
1 Bag of Eaten Popcorn
2 Sad Dystopias
2 (Unintentional) Belly Laughs
Nothing could make me watch this film again. Yet, even with it’s massive awfulness, I’ve queued up as many Ed Stoppard films as I could get my hands on. So there’s that.
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2012 fantasy Mystery drama Branded Jamie Bradshaw Aleksandr Dulerayn Ed Stoppard Leelee Sobieski Jeffrey Tambour Max von SydowYou Might Also Like
