Magic Mike is a fun Soderbergh film firing on all
cylinders.
The strong local color here recalls that in Erin Brockovich
in its specificity. The film looks like
coastal Florida from the opening shots as the camera peeps over the cab of a
pick-up, looking back and forth at the passing streetscapes. Low buildings, tile roofs, yellow light. Magic Mike goes on to take advantage of many
appropriate locales in the Tampa area. A
little, stand-alone cinderblock building houses the tawdry strip troupe, and the
wall-mounted heater in Brooke’s apartment tells us all we need to know about the standard of living she can manage for herself. The low, calm
water of the Gulf figures in scenes like those of the friends sitting on the bridge
and the party on the sandbar. Magic Mike
has some of the most effective art direction I’ve seen Soderbergh’s work since Erin
Brockovich. Rather than just being
appropriate to the action and characters, the settings here are important to understanding
the people and what they do.
There’s also the smart light and camera I like in
Soderbergh. Tampa exteriors are bathed
in yellow, and interiors have effective, tinted ambient light as well as
special purpose sources. When Mike, Adam and
Brooke go to an outdoor amusement to have a beer, the background detail is burned out while the foreground is slightly white at the shaded tables,
just the kind of light everyone has found in their photos when they’ve taken
pictures in similar circumstances. It’s
likewise bright as Mike and Adam meet for the last time at an outdoor table
near the end of the film. And the interior
scenes of the strip performances are a tour de force of editing, lighting and
choreography. Gels recall those in
Soderbergh’s earlier Gray’s Anatomy, though the camera here is more active than
that one. Here,
we zoom in, weave, and even launch into surprising silhouettes and reverse shots. Soderbergh revisits some of the approaches he used in
Gray’s Anatomy, but the technique here is sharper and faster. And credit the choreography here with not letting
the camera rest. These guys can dance—especially
Channing Tatum-- and Alison Faulk has done an impressive job of
amping up tease to genuine performance.
Magic Mike also has a cast of likeable characters, all touched by the
porn industry in some way. The three men
we know best are in a schematic relationship.
Thirty-year-old Mike
is soon going to be too old for the stripping gig and is trying to realize his
dream of going into furniture design. He’s
saved a lot of money for it, but he can’t get a loan to launch his
business. In a scene that is a microcosm
of his situation, he dresses well for a female bank loan officer who is charmed
by his looks but unable to give him a loan because he doesn’t have the necessary
financial justifications. Adam is Mike
ten years earlier. He’s handsome, adapts
to performing quickly, and finds himself seduced by the easy money, drugs and
sex available to him. Mike watches and
helps Adam, knowing well what the future holds for the debutant dancer. On the other side of Mike, Dallas is the club
owner. The aged former stripper just wants
to manage his troupe so he can continue to make money from them. With his snakeskin boots, country accent and
gawdy taste, Dallas is the most engaging bad guy in the film.
There are also some very good
performances here. While I’ve never taken note of Channing Tatum as a performer, he anchors this film effectively. We see him range from aping for the camera to
being hurt and disappointed, with his considerable dancing skills thrown in as
a bonus. Soderbergh is often good with
performers who haven’t hit their stride yet.
Likewise, Matthew McConaughey creates a Dallas that we remember long
after the film. McConaughey uses overly
friendly body language and a thick southern accent to make Dallas as cheesy a
character as should be running a male strip tease. And the energy McConaughey brings to his
final dance, along with his satisfactions at it, shows us the narcissistic
insecurity at the heart of the character.
Dallas is the best-realized character I’ve seen McConaughey do.
Magic Mike's ending fits into a bias I notice
in Soderbergh. For his
broader-audience films, he often goes for a partly sad--but mostly happy--ending. By the end of Magic Mike, we don’t know
exactly what will happen to Adam, but Mike has sacrificed to save the younger
man and decided to give up stripping and enter a relationship with Brooke. It’s an ending close to that of silent
melodrama where the whore does a good dead and reforms.
And this ending works well enough in
Magic Mike. Soderbergh has pulled together
many of the elements he manages best in order to create a film that’s intelligent,
has likeable characters, and is pleasing to watch. And it takes us into the interesting world of
male porn. This film is an engaging way
to spend a couple hours.
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