by Christopher James
Day Two of the SXSW Festival provided even more interesting, high profile premieres. Between a billion dollar flamout and a star-studded movie shot entirely on zoom, it would be hard to find more disparate projects on the second day of the festival. Both WeWork: or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn and Language Lessons were engaging and worthwhile watches in very different ways. One was a grandiose look at the rise and fall of a famous company born out of the ashes of the financial crisis. The other was a heartfelt dramedy where two lonely souls connect via online Spanish lessons...
WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn
WeWork set the real estate world on fire, only to crash and burn all of its promise. The insane, billion dollar rise and fall of the corporation made plenty of headlines. Jed Rothstein’s documentary does a great job chronicling why someone would get sucked into the world of “we,” but doesn’t dig too much further than that.
The documentary is primarily centered around the beguiling, charismatic leader of the WeWork movement, Adam Neumann. He didn’t just provide a creative solution to lease out short-term real estate for growing businesses. His idea for WeWork was to reinvent the entire idea of work and upend the model of real estate. His confidence and ambition knew no bounds, which helped the company rake in investors. However, his shady business practices and creative accounting solutions hid particularly damning information on the company’s profitability from investors.
Rothstein does a fine job nailing down the culture of “game changers” that made WeWork such an attractive place to work. The free alcohol, collaborative environment and connection to a new work movement felt very attractive to young people out of college who were less enticed by corporate America. However, Neumann also promoted many bro-centric workers to leadership positions and created an environment that felt more like a frat party than a workplace. The party has to end sometime, and the documentary uses its wide array of former employees to pinpoint the “aha” moment that the spell of Neumann’s grandiose ideas was broken. Like anyone who feels too big to fail, Neumann and his wife, Rebecca, kept wanting more to conquer. Rebecca even set her sights on “we” school in an effort to disrupt the education system, with elementary tuition going up to $50K a year. The documentary is most effective when building this portrait of delusional leaders at the top who start to believe their own bullshit.
There’s a lot that connects WeWork: or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn to the Fyre Festival documentaries, and not just because the Fyre Festival is name checked a few times. Both stories are interesting and salient observations of the emptiness of millennial wealth aspiration and excess in a post-2008 crash world. However, those documentaries were so skilled at charting the specifics of the Fyre Festival unraveling and contrasting that with interviews from Billy MacFarlane. Without the cooperation of Adam or Rebecca Neumann, the picture of them feels only partially sketched out. The devil is in the details, and the documentary would’ve likely been more interesting or insane had it concentrated more on the specificities that made WeWork such an odd company. Still, the story of WeWork is wild and corrupt enough on its own to make the documentary a compelling, interesting watch. B-
WeWork: or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn premieres on Hulu on Friday, April 2nd.
Language Lessons
We’ve all spent enough time on zoom this year. Why would we want to watch a movie completely set on zoom Luckily, Natalie Morales’ latest film, Language Lessons, is a thoughtful and sweet gem that shouldn’t be missed. Alternating between sweet, devastating and comedic, Language Lessons understands how personal and impersonal getting to know someone over zoom can be. Like any zoom call, the fatigue of watching people solely interact over video chat does set in. Luckily, at 91 minutes, the film finishes quickly enough that the audience is left charmed, rather than exhausted, by its premise.
The set-up is simple. Will (Desean Terry) buys his husband Adam (Mark Duplass) 100 weekly Spanish lessons. While terrified of the surprise commitment initially, Adam fits these lessons into his morning routine and develops a friendship with his teacher, Cariño (Natalie Morales). Over the course of these 100 sessions, the two develop a real friendship. However, unexpected hardships force them to become each other’s emotional support. There are thousands of ways this could’ve gone wrong, but Morales and Duplass (who wrote the film together) seem to be aware of them. Adam, who lives a lavish lifestyle that he’s self-conscious about, readily shares his emotions and hardships with Cariño. While she is sympathetic and caring, Cariño is more reticent to open up about her life. Each section of the film explores the power dynamic between these two people who are connected solely through the internet.
As screenwriters, Morales and Duplass expertly bounce between light comedy and deep pits of grief. None of the shifts ever feel too abrupt or out of nowhere. At many points, Language Lessons threatens to fall into conventional plot pitfalls. Perhaps, it tiptoes too close to a “white savior” narrative, even by its own acknowledgment. However, there are enough twists and turns that keep the movie feeling fresh and unexpected. It subverts expectations by walking really close to traditional cliches before veering in another direction. This all builds to a satisfying conclusion. Language Lessons is a sweet gem. There’s no zoom fatigue here. B
Language Lessons made its North American premiere at SXSW.