Weapons

Grade: A

What Weapons ended up being is much better than anything I might have concocted in my head. It kept me guessing. It kept me absorbed. It kept me on the edge of my seat. It played around with my expectations, time and time again. You could compare Weapons to works from Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction), Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia), a Robert Altman film, 2005’s Crash, and a great Stephen King novel from his heyday. Writer/director Zach Creggar (Barbarian) has ambitiously pulled from some big legendary sources, and has succeeded with flying colors at all of them.

While I liked Barbarian, there were a few too many moments of characters carrying on way too well after some debilitating injuries. Since that story didn’t involve anything supernatural, it’s not as easy for me to forgive things like that. Weapons is a fantasy, so because we are already removed from reality, I can go with the flow better. It’s great to see Julia Garner (Wolf Man, The Royal Hotel, The Assistant) in her regular human form, after being buried under makeup and CGI as the Silver Surfer in The Fantastic Four: First Steps.

She plays an elementary school teacher, who comes into work one day to find her classroom almost empty. The night before, 17 of her students all got up at 2:17 am, and left their houses, never to return. Front door camera footage from those who have it shows them all running out in the same way – arms raised by their side at a 45° angle. Only one kid in the class shows up for school, unaffected by this phenomenon. Of course the parents are outraged, and think Garner has something to do with it. Why did this only happen in HER class? – they (and we) wonder. And why did that one kid remain? Garner’s character receives anonymous threatening phone calls, and somebody paints “witch” on the side of her car. She keeps telling everybody that she loves those kids, and is just as confused and devastated as they are.

Creggar’s screenplay dips its toe in the metaphor pool without beating us over the head with “this signifies this.” School shootings obviously come to mind, and their aftermath of town hall/PTA meetings where emotions are high, and parents understandably demand answers. Creggar seems to be telling us we’re welcome to think of it on that level if we want – or if we’re simply a passionate moviegoer that just wants a great story, strap on in for this thrill ride.

The movie cuts around, Tarantino/Altman style, to various episodes involving characters in the town. They are so full of life and depth, that any one would make its own great short story/film. A fellow critic took Weapons to task for the non-linear structure, saying that it just as easily could have been presented to us in order, without jumping around. I disagree. We needed to receive it like this, because we see things from different perspectives. Some of the stories end with enemies becoming friends and allies, after something happens that changes everything. Amidst this engrossing sci-fi horror story, the intersecting vignettes serve as a reminder to look beyond our chronic Main Character Syndrome, and remember that things are happening to different people all the time. Billions of people have their own journeys, and it’s not all about us any more than it’s all about them.

I haven’t even talked about the rest of the cast. Apparently it had quite a different one attached to the project before the strikes. Pedro Pascal was in, but now instead, we have an effective Josh Brolin. I won’t say how Amy Madigan fits into it, but it’s wonderful to see her again. I don’t remember her ever raising her voice in Weapons, but she is terrifying. We do finally circle back around for a resolution to the original plot point. This isn’t a situation like Picnic at Hanging Rock, where people disappear and we never find out what happened. An explanation for everything regarding those kids is provided to us, with appropriate closure.

The ending is simultaneously vindicating, unpredictable, happy, sad, gory, but most of all satisfying. There’s a showstopping laugh in the final sequence (of the “the villain isn’t really dead” variety), when someone keeps coming back, and coming back, and coming back, and coming back a crazy number of times – and they are taken care of blasély in each instance. Weapons is an enduring, stirring, movie that utilizes so many different influences, yet makes it its own. Whatever you think it’s about, from seeing the trailer, it is about that – and so much more. The more I let it sit with me, the more the underlying themes and ideas reveal themselves. Also, the more I let it sit with me, the more I love it.

Grade: A