Between the poorly delivered lines and the completely disjointed characters – and not in a symbolic “no one connects with anyone else in this lonely, selfish world” way but in a “we desperately need someone to stand on this mark and say this line to move the film along” way – and its constant fluctuation from film to Public Service Announcement about the danger in chemicals in the products that we use, A Green Story might be the worst film so far this year – and that’s saying something in a year that has produced nothing memorable in the first five months of 2013.
Beginning in Greece in 1942, Van Vlahakis sees his father die – the Nazis are somehow involved – and then he goes to America and his chemistry genius is discovered.
Using this chemistry genius, he takes what he learned from his mother as a child, using natural elements to create cleaning products. All in all, this is fairly admirable and clever, but it certainly doesn’t demand the attention of an entire film, which is why there’s an evil, competing corporation that leaks false reports and fabricated, malicious reviews about Environmentally Friendly Products. The supermarket that agrees to carry 300 pieces of Val’s product is at the mercy of another cleaning-product company, and all they can do is disclose this information to Val – which seems a bit improbable, but when the film’s two biggest names are Shannon Elizabeth and Billy Zane, logic dictates little.
These two certainly don’t sink the film, but they are there simply to be, well, there.
In addition, Val surrounds himself with beautiful, young, mostly blonde women. His wife is dead; his children are grown up; he becomes a philanderer; and, he’s dying.
There are so many tropes and clichés at work, it’s hard to determine what, if anything, is quality.
The best part of the film might be when it flashes back to Val’s life as he first moves to America. The cinematography here is better than throughout the rest of the film, but it may just be the familiarity in brown and tan tones to The Godfather II that makes me slightly nostalgic. Each time Val enters a classroom, I expect to see DeNiro flitting across a series of rooftops to destroy a pistol and rejoin his family, but this clearly doesn’t happen.
Instead, whatever pace and flow of the film is interrupted by a score of exposition, informing us that Val’s work has taken him away from his family, or reminding us of chemical dangers, tossing epithets like “unethical,” “dangerous,” and a list of nefarious- and unfamiliar-sounding ingredients.
I don’t want it to seem as if I’m railing against the little guy, supporting corporations, or throwing environmentalism under the bus. My own ethos and such are far from it. At the same time, this film that delves into the theme of environmental protection and individual liberties in the shadows of giant corporations is missing cohesion. Unsure what to sacrifice to drive home its points, it sacrifices everything, assuming that a tale of a Greek man who, fifty years prior, ventures to America with only twenty-two dollars in his pocket and makes himself a success, will transcend the gaps left by the script, the direction, and the overall story.
It doesn’t.
