Somewhere between 2009-2014, writer/director Jason Reitman lost his touch. His acute, darkly-laced vision has become muddled by predictability and cloying sentimentality since his meanderingly dull Labor Day. While showing mild signs for reformation, his latest Men, Women & Children, is no different.
In a small-town in Texas, modern technology dilates the woes of both teenagers and their middle-aged parents. Whether for escapism from their fractured marriage, as seen by Helen (Rosemarie DeWitt) and Don Truby (Adam Sandler), or to deal with his growing depression on account of his abandoning mom, studied by Tim Mooney (Ansel Elgort), or bridging an even bigger gap between mother-daughter Patricia (Jennifer Garner) and Brandy Beltmeyer (Kaitlyn Dever), no one seems happy with their lives, thanks and no thanks to the Internet.
If it isn’t made abundantly clear by its space-centered opening, Men, Women & Children, Reitman’s sixth film, has a lot of big ideas in mind. An adaptation of the book of the same name by Chad Kultgen, its easy to see how this kind of tale — not too much different from 2013’s Disconnect, another woeful ensemble piece about the “dangers” of the web — would work better on the page. The bouncing back-and-forth between characters rarely has any rhythm, and leaves a majority of the players to feel shallow and half-written, save for Sandler, DeWitt and Elgort’s characters.
Reitman — once proven to do wonderful things with literary adaptations through Up in the Air and Thank You For Smoking — feels lost as to how he should approach this kind of piece. His depictions of teenagers, beyond Tim, feel stereotypical and jaded, while his adult characters all-too-often walk a fine line between quiet nuance and melodrama. It’s weird how Men, Women & Children can feel both so timely and dated, and it is, in large part, thanks to this distorted reception of reality.
Still, despite its apparent flaws, its middle act carries a number of touching, thoughtful and silently compelling scenes, thanks in large part to Sandler, DeWitt and Elgort’s aforementioned performances, as well as the sadly underused Dean Norris, as Tim’s dad, and J.K. Simmons, who appears in every Reitman movie to date. By the time Reitman’s overbearing and trite third act arrives, though, a lot of the movie’s goodwill vanishes — despite one well-crafted scene of tragedy with Elgort.
For all its ideas and finger-wagging, Men, Women & Children is a kind of shallow film. It’s broad ideas can be found on a poster in the guidance office of any high school, and its desire to shock you with its depictions of sexuality wears thin after the first 10 or 20 minutes. This is not even mentioning its muffled attempts at dark comedy — something that once came so naturally for Reitman — which come across more awkward and confused, especially involving a 9/11 subplot.
There’s reason to believe Reitman is going to come out of this slump one of these days, and hopefully it’ll be sooner rather than later. For Men, Women & Children is ultimately just something of a mixed bag, with a lot of big-headed thoughts and nice character moments in a film that lacks flavor or style, despite a nicely concentrated focus. These kinds of trappings are typical of this genre, though, and it’s the reason why the good ones are so good.