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‘Irreversible’ — Is It Better Chronologically or as Its Original Chaotic Cut?

The best film you never want to watch again might be best experienced as a double feature.

Gaspar Noé is widely known as quite the provocateur whose films are often best approached as viewings that are meant to be experienced rather than enjoyed. They are often incredibly brutal and dive into the deepest parts of humanity that most believe are best kept hidden or, at the very least, not presented in mainstream media. Noé, however, forces his audiences to look. His work forces you to gaze into the deepest recesses of depravity and refuses to let you walk away unscathed. To this end, it isn’t an understatement to say his 2002 film Irreversible leaves absolutely no holds barred. It will purposefully leave you feeling physically ill, disoriented, and utterly dejected.

The film takes place in the course of a day, and it follows the events that occur before and after a woman named Alex ( Monica Bellucci ) is horrifically raped. Except the audience witnesses all the events in reverse. The film begins with her boyfriend Marcus ( Vincent Cassel ) and ex-boyfriend Pierre ( Albert Dupontel ) seeking vengeance on her attacker. As the story unfolds, we slowly learn everything that led up to the infamous fire extinguisher murder that occurs within the first 30 minutes of the film.

RELATED: Netflix Movie Racks up Millions of Hours, Illuminating a Country's Femicide Epidemic

Nearly 20 years later, Noé re-released Irreversible: Straight Cut . Unlike his original director’s cut, this director’s re-cut presents the events to his audience in chronological order. Rather than first meeting Alex after her attack, we now begin the story with her. If the original cut of Irreversible can be understood as a film that evokes a strong sense of melancholy by the end, its straight cut brings on an incredibly strong feeling of vitriolic anger. In many ways, this straight cut certainly reveals that time, and the ways in which we experience it, truly does reveal everything.

A Story Told in Reverse

Irreversible is nearly a completely different film when watched in sequential order. The biggest difference between the two viewing experiences of Irreversible is, unsurprisingly, the way in which we meet Alex. This switch in the order we witness the events unfold radically changes the ways in which we understand the story. At the beginning of the original cut, it is incredibly difficult to understand what the hell is going on. Everything from the camerawork, lighting, setting, and dialogue is utter chaos. We don’t know what incited this rampage the two men, Marcus and Pierre, have embarked on. All we know is that one was arrested and the other taken into an ambulance.

Viewers are kept so busy constantly trying to reorient themselves that it becomes nearly impossible to make complete sense out of what caused the ensuing mayhem onscreen. Right off the bat, the audience is shoved into a setting full of animalistic anger in which the men’s reactions to the events dominate the rest of the film. In other words, beginning the film at the end centers on the male perspective, and it colors how we experience the rest. The first time we meet Alex is immediately after the attack. Her face is disfigured as she is being carried away while unconscious on a stretcher. Moments later, right in the middle of the film, she walks down the street and into a red-soaked tunnel where viewers are forced to watch in abject horror as Alex is utterly brutalized and violated for nine entire minutes. For once, the camera is steady and lies on the floor as her hand seems to reach toward it. Toward us. In the distance, we see what seems like a male figure walking in on the scene only to turn away.

Each second of this sequence feels like an eternity and anchors the vastly different halves of the film. In comparison, every moment after almost seems like a palette cleanser with a bitter aftertaste and the brutality of the first half manages to nearly convince you to forgive Marcus’ bigoted-tinged vitriol as twistedly justified. Then, for the first time, we see Alex. We see her smile, dance, kiss, and throw her head back in laughter. Only after knowing what happens to her are we allowed to know her. Though the film ends with Alex at peace reading in a lush park filled with greenery, the imagery is tainted with the knowledge endowed upon the viewer of what’s to come. We are left only thinking of her, what could have been, and what will inevitably be.

Where’s Alex? The Straight Cut Reveals All

Alternatively, the straight cut begins with Alex in the park. Unlike the madness of the original director’s cut, we can linger on these moments with her and be present. She now centers everything we experience afterward. The brief moments with her alone appear to last longer than before and, strangely enough, we seem to be given more insight on her character despite having seen these same exact scenes before. We revisit the moments between Alex and Marcus that felt tender when presented in reverse chronological order, however, they now strangely take on a much more sinister air. Instead of watching a couple make blissful love in their cozy apartment, moments where Alex hugs herself as Marcus climbs on top of her begin to stick out as wildly unsettling. While he kisses her body, Alex can be seen staring straight ahead. The kiss while she showers no longer feels tender, but the clear curtains evoke the sense that she is in a fishbowl under his gaze.

The scenes with Alex, Pierre, and Marcus continue this trend. What seemed like mostly harmless banter in the original cut, now even more obviously highlights the ways in which both men center their conversations with her around her body and sex. Notably, while conversing on the train, Marcus has his arm fixed around her neck as the two men converse while Alex mostly stares ahead. In these ways, the film foreshadows Marcus’ actions during (what is now) the end of the film. He is less of the extremely flawed yet doting boyfriend and more akin to the likeness of her rapist.

Marcus’ dialogue in their scenes alone together parallel a number of lines spoken by her attacker later on in the film as do his actions. In the same way we first encounter the rapist in the tunnel attacking a sex worker as Alex looks on in horror, we later witness Marcus attacking that same sex worker in a manner eerily similar to the scene Alex witnessed. Marcus no longer comes off as seeking revenge against his girlfriend’s rapist, but as a man angry that something of his was stolen and uses it as an excuse to blindly partake in the same senseless violence she suffered from rather than sitting by her side in the hospital. As we revisit the final act in a club called The Rectum, Alex is wholly forgotten in his blind rage. What becomes even more evident in the straight cut is that the wrong man even dies for it. Through witnessing the events chronologically, we no longer finish the film with Alex but in utter disbelief that what happened to her was all but forgotten. Once again, left alone.

The Verdict

When viewed chronologically, the film’s concern with criticizing masculine violence is much more obvious. What first seems like a revenge film is quickly unraveled. Even Pierre, the supposed foil to Marcus’ more overtly violent and hypersexual tendencies, succumbs to this rage. Despite being our “nice guy” figure, it is no coincidence that he is the one who actually lands the final blow on (and murders) the man they believe attacked Alex. Though he often tries to feebly dissuade Marcus and attempts to convince him to go see Alex in the hospital instead, it becomes even more evident that Pierre enables this behavior before finally partaking in it himself.

Pierre is always free to abandon Marcus to act on his own devices but chooses to follow him until the bitter end despite having no loyalty to him before this night. Even though he says the right things, Noé’s characterization of Pierre cements the film’s themes regarding the condemnation of violence against women and how even the seemingly least culpable men still implicate themselves in and help to perpetuate said violence. This is made even more explicit in the straight cut once it ends with a conversation between two men where one admits he slept with his own daughter while the other consoles him. While the original cut leaves us mournful for Alex’s return to her slice of heaven in the park, the straight cut leaves us to wallow in unrelenting and continuing violence.

All the observations made upon viewing the straight cut are still present within the original, however, the switch in chronology opens up swaths of information easily buried in the chaos of the original. The revelations the straight cut brings to light, however, do not necessarily make it superior. Instead, the straight cut justifies itself as an entirely new film meant to be viewed in conjunction with the original. Even though they are both made of the same parts, they build upon each other to make the story whole. In this way, it is best to experience Irreversible as a film told in two parts. One isn’t necessarily better than the other; however, the straight cut is undeniably a lot stronger when you’ve seen the original cut beforehand.

Irreversible (2002)

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Eye For Film >> Movies >> Irreversible (2002) Film Review

Irreversible.

Reviewed by: Keith Hennessey Brown

Alex and Marcus get ready for a party. Marcus goes out to get a bottle, while Alex takes a pregnancy test. It reads positive. Along with Alex's ex, Pierre, they go to the party. There, Marcus and Alex argue, and Alex leaves. In the underpass, she is raped and beaten by Le Tenia. Marcus goes off in search of revenge with Pierre in tow. They track Le Tenia down to a gay club, The Rectum. Le Tenia beats Marcus, then Pierre staves the rapist's head in with a fire extinguisher.

Argentinian-born French-based auteur Gaspar Noé's Irreversible can fairly be summarised as a rape-revenge exploitationer, with artistic pretensions.

The violence, though heavy going, isn't anything that students of the subject won't have seen before. Yes, the nine-minute rape sequence and the head bashing are gruelling, harrowing, shocking and all the other conventional adjectives. Crucially, the one thing the rape is not is rousing/exciting. To make a pro-sexual violent film would, one suspects, be a provocation that not even Noé would countenance.

However, Irreversible is not offering those who have seen Straw Dogs , Salo, A Clockwork Orange , House On The Edge Of The Park, The New York Ripper, Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer, or the filmmaker's earlier Carne and Seul Contre Tous , anything they won't be able to watch.

The artistic pretensions take the form of presenting everything in reverse chronological order, similar to Christopher Nolan 's Memento , but easier to put a structure to. We start 85 minutes in, play to the end, then jump to 75 minutes and play to 85, then to 65 and play to 75 and so on. The effect, when combined with Noé's vertiginous camera, is to seriously disorientate the viewer at the outset and then bring progressive clarity as the story unfolds.

Whether the device works in conveying Noé's argument that the future is predetermined is, however, debatable. But if a case can be made for the temporal structure of Lucio Fulci's The Beyond as a cinematic manifestation of symbolist writing, anything is possible.

For all its confrontational posturing, there are moments when the film fails to take the leap into the abyss. In particular, the scenes at The Rectum leading up to Marcus's showdown with Tenia screamed cop-out to me. Noé would probably argue that his decision to shoot in the style of a war cameraman, dodging fire, added to the confusion and intensity of the scene. Fair enough. But it also meant he could avoid confronting the audience - and himself? - with gay S&M activity head on. It's a moment of curious prudery, reminiscent of the faux shit eating in Pasolini's Salo.

Irreversible is a decent enough follow-up to Seul Contre Tous, but doesn't have the impact of that film for me. Partly it was the presence of recognisable star names in Monica Belucci and Vincent Cassel. The real-life couple do fine and one must applaud their boldness in consenting to appear in an apparent career suicide piece like this. But they just didn't do it for me in the same way as Seul Contre Tous's Philippe Nahon.

Irreversible is arthouse exploitation and "people who like this sort of thing will find herein the sort of thing they like."

Read more Irreversible reviews:

Director: Gaspar Noé

Writer: Gaspar Noé

Starring: Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassel, Albert Dupontel, Philippe Nahon, Jo Prestia, Stephane Drouot

Runtime: 95 minutes

Country: France

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Glenn Lovell, San Jose Mercury News : Once the shock wears off and feeling returns to the extremities, Irreversible is unmistakably life-altering and affirming. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe : Noe's summation is an ideological sucker-punch from a filmmaker who gets off on abusive relationships. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press : Extremely difficult to endure, and if you choose to endure it, it could leave you feeling angry and upset. Nevertheless, this is serious filmmaking, and Noe is a gifted filmmaker. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald : It is a work specifically designed to disturb and disgust, and it accomplishes both goals so completely some people will find it impossible to watch at all. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper : I hope people who go to see this don't walk out in the first ten minutes or after that scene, because I think you have to experience the entire film. And then you can decide whether or not you're offended by it. Read more

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune : The hard, lurid images catch you in a vise. But dramatically, with few exceptions, it's a mess. Read more

Elvis Mitchell, New York Times : The frenzied momentum churns up a lot of adrenaline and stomach acid for Irreversible. But the performances certainly don't stir up much emotion. Read more

Bob Longino, Atlanta Journal-Constitution : A sometimes repellent yet deeply moving film. Read more

Manohla Dargis, Los Angeles Times : Noe isn't concerned with subverting the status quo. Indeed, what he really seems to want to do is make a Hollywood movie. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader : So formally and stylistically aggressive that this aspect overpowers what it has to say, which isn't much. Read more

Houston Chronicle : Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly : An amazing and profoundly disturbing experience. Read more

Gary Dowell, Dallas Morning News : It's a gritty, vicious assault on the senses, one that very nearly evaporates due to writer-director Gaspar Noe's short-changing of the narrative. Read more

John Powers, L.A. Weekly : The opening 50 minutes are brutal, but if you can take the punishment, you'll probably be wowed by Noe's skills as a filmmaker. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday : What's apparent about Irreversible is that, at some point, the message about and depiction of violence becomes violence itself. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer : Powerful and profound. Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer : Convinces me as nothing else so far that I have reached the point of diminishing returns with movies that pretend to be profound by having their pulpy, banal stories told backwards and sideways and upside-down. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews : Those up to a challenge who attend with an open mind will find something to gnaw at the soul. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times : The reverse chronology makes Irreversible a film that structurally argues against rape and violence, while ordinary chronology would lead us down a seductive narrative path toward a shocking, exploitative payoff. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com : Gaspar Noe's horrifying film about rape and revenge erases the boundaries between porn and exploitation. Read more

Edward Guthmann, San Francisco Chronicle : Is there a point to this spew, a cry against the mongrel violence of men? Or is Noe merely a sadist who enjoys inflicting ugly, pitiless images on his audience? Read more

David Edelstein, Slate : There is nothing moral about Irreversible -- only sneeringly superior and nihilistic, like Johnny Rotten at his most fatuous. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune : Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch : Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail : An integrated work whose form clearly mirrors its content. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star : At once overwhelming and inconsequential, harrowing and banal, gimmicky and humourless, overheated and undercooked, this mega-hyped French movie may represent the ultimate triumph of cynicism in the global trade in non-English-language movies. Read more

Geoff Andrew, Time Out : Read more

Mike Clark, USA Today : Without an episode to develop character, Noe can't really finesse the 180-degree transition to show how a single event can irrevocably transform lives. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice : Noe's stunt is an exploitation movie with a gimmick, not to mention a vacuous philosophy. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post : A genuine outlaw work of art. Read more

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Irreversible: Straight Cut Reviews

Whatever the case, in whatever sequence it unfolds, Irreversible leaves a lasting impression, a template for the kind of grueling, torture-porn subgenres eventually normalized in the preceding decades.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 27, 2023

While this new chronological edit is a capably crafted piece, it robs one of the ferocious disorientation of the original.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Feb 27, 2023

Love it or (most likely) hate it, this is a movie that causes an impact and isn’t easily forgotten.

Full Review | Feb 17, 2023

It is still just as hard to watch. Even as a structural tumult rejiggers our approach to and relief from those scenes, shifting the order has a way of shifting the implications.

For a movie known for being one you never want to see again, its director has created a compelling reason to watch it anew.

Full Review | Feb 14, 2023

It's a different experience. It's logical, but it doesn't cease to be stimulating how the same sequence can be disturbing in a different way simply by the way it's told. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Feb 13, 2023

"Irreversible" may have felt like a bomb detonating on original release. "Irreversible: Straight Cut" does not quite have that power, but it does gives viewers a chance to revisit this extraordinary film and see it in a new way.

Full Review | Feb 11, 2023

Irreversible: The Straight Cut has something of a reputation to contend with in that regard, and whilst it’s equally as devastating to watch, there are now different levels of complexity on hand with a story that no longer “ends” on a happier note;

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 10, 2023

While no one will claim "Irréversible" to be a “feel-good story,” it allows us to understand the relationships that drive it. In "The Straight Cut," we instead see a descent into darkness that genuinely feels like a thousand other tragedies.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Feb 10, 2023

Gaspar Noé made his masterful shock art piece even better by removing all the gimmicks and leaving us with raw brutality.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 7, 2023

Flickering Myth

Geek Culture | Movies, TV, Comic Books & Video Games

Video Review – Irreversible: Straight Cut perfects Gaspar Noé’s shock art masterpiece

February 15, 2023 by EJ Moreno

EJ Moreno reviews the Irreversible: Straight Cut…

Irreversible, 2003.

Directed by Gaspar Noé. Starring Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassel, and Albert Dupontel.

“One of the most infamous films in history is finally restored and coming to the U.S. with a brand new director’s re-cut of the film that puts the notorious revenge tale in chronological order.”

We see a master of shock art return with a new version of one of his most infamous films; Gaspar Noé is releasing Irreversible: The Straight Cut, a re-cut of the original French film. With this new version, Noé takes his iconically twisted tale and presents it in an even better way. 

Critic EJ Moreno dares to call this even better than the original in a new glowing ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ retro review. Check out the review below, and  be sure to follow us on YouTube for more reviews, exclusive interviews, and other video content …

Irreversible is opening theatrically on February 10th at the IFC Center/NYC and the Landmark’s Nuart/LA, with more cities to be announced soon.

About EJ Moreno

EJ Moreno is a film and television critic and entertainment writer who joined the pop culture website Flickering Myth in 2018 and now serves as the executive producer of Flickering Myth TV, a YouTube channel with over 27,000 subscribers. With over a decade of experience, he is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic who is also part of the Critics Choice Association and GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics.

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Review by Ian Floodgate

Irreversible 2002 ★★★★.

Watched Jul 27 , 2022

Ian Floodgate’s review published on Letterboxd:

Gaspar Noé‘s sophomore feature Irréversible arguably received some of the most infamous reactions the Cannes Film Festival ever reported when it premiered in 2002. The film focuses on events throughout one traumatic night in Paris, unfolding in reverse-chronological order. Some critics deemed the film’s sexual violence as gratuitous, including the brutal raping of Monica Bellucci‘s character. Despite this, some critics praised the film, with a consensus on Rotten Tomatoes aptly stating: “Though well-filmed, Irréversible feels gratuitous in its extreme violence.”

And Irréversible does display some excellent filmmaking. Shot in Super 16mm with around a dozen unbroken shots fused from shorter takes, the film feels claustrophobic and simultaneously engaging despite the despicable actions and the elongated and sometimes swirling cinematography while the use of low-frequency sounds creates a sense of nausea. Understandably, some audiences would walk out of Irréversible because of these feelings, but I do not think this makes it necessarily a ‘bad’ film. Irréversible transports the audience beyond the confines of the cinema or one’s own home, albeit to an experience most of us would not choose if told about beforehand. However, Gaspar Noé probably never wanted to please everybody, and the fact that Irréversible stirs our thoughts and emotions is evidence of its staying power.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE ON CINECCENTRIC

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Irréversible

There is no denying that Irreversible was not an easy watch. A 10-minute rape scene and a murder pushed the endurance and sensitivity of even the hardiest of filmgoers, while the film's initial low-frequency background noise (similar to the noise produced by an earthquake), strobe lighting effects and a camera constantly in motion were designed to disorientate and disarm the viewer (with, in some cases, stomach-wrenching results). However, it is precisely this manipulation of the audience rather than actors or characters that made Irreversible such a triumph of style and extremely riveting.

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Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, irresistible.

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"Irresistible," about a political campaign manager who helps a salt-of-the-earth small-town Democrat unseat a Republican mayor, is a conceptually fascinating, deeply annoying film by writer/director Jon Stewart , formerly the host of "The Daily Show." The story begins on Election Night, 2016, with two political consultants, Democrat Gary Zimmer ( Steve Carell ) and Republican Faith Brewster ( Rose Byrne ), watching the election returns. Gary is shocked that Clinton lost. Faith is shocked that Trump won. Then both political operatives let their masks drop and tell assembled reporters that they're liars, offering the public a fairy tale, a story, a drama. 

Turns out this is a prologue, or a false start. Nothing like that could ever happen, but we're supposed to be sad that it can't happen, because the system is so corrupt, you see? Like so much in "Irresistible," the scene is trying to be meta. It's trying to "make us think" about "stories" and "lies" and how they contribute to the mess we're in. It's the first of many missteps by a film that plays as if it might have been made by a young person who just became politically aware a few months ago, rather than, say, Jon Stewart, the man who used to be in charge of the most influential politically driven TV program of the last two decades. 

Many of the movie's leaden, cornball choices and self-conscious distancing devices ultimately reveal themselves as aspects of a grander, quite foolhardy strategy. It appears that Stewart is being shallow and sentimental and predictable  on purpose , to show how shallow and sentimental and predictable American politics has become. Which of course means that the movie's condemnation extends to us, the viewers. After all, if we  really  hated all the intellectually poisonous nonsense that has made politics, and life, so horrible, we'd do something about it. 

After a second opening/false start (a bummed-out, hungover Gary ignoring calls and texts the morning after the election) and a third opening/false start (the credits sequence, a collection of presidential campaign photos highlighting how phony these "candid" moments are) we finally arrive at the fourth opening and actual start of "Irresistible." Former Marine Col. Jack Hastings ( Chris Cooper ), a conservative Democrat, drives his pickup truck through his solidly right-wing Wisconsin town, which was economically devastated by the local military base shutting down and has turned into a wasteland of rundown homes and boarded-up stores. 

Despite all these pressing real-world crises, the town council is debating an ordinance that will require immigrants to present a picture ID whenever they're doing anything remotely official. Jack ambles in, summons the spirit of another famous movie Cooper, Gary, and makes a heartfelt speech opposing the measure. Someone in the audience captures the moment it on video and uploads it, our hero sees it, and wham : he decides that this extraordinary ordinary man is the key to gradually flipping the rural part of the state from Republican to Democrat. All Gary Zimmer has to do is convince Jack to run against incumbent mayor Braun ( Brent Sexton ), an entrenched Republican. It's an uphill fight. But Gary believes that between his political savvy, piles of money, Democratic campaign operatives, and Jack's angry tortoise energy, they can pull off a miracle. 

What ensues is sock puppet theater. Gary and his colleagues speak through Jack, a grumpy widower who lives alone on a farm with his daughter Diana ( Mackenzie Davis ), and is pretty good about taking direction despite seeing through the city slickers' phoniness. Faith, who flies into town to thwart Gary, is determined to beef up Braun's image and crush Jack beneath piles of Republican cash. 

Stewart is sharpest when highlighting the absurdity of all these D.C. manipulators with their data and charts and apps and polls, rumbling through a burg full of laid-off, blue collar people. The pumped-up proxy battle that follows is as superficially absurd as the United Kingdom and Argentina going to war over  the Falkland Islands. The handful of belly-laugh bits in the movie are in a "Daily Show" vein, like the campaign ad that shows Jack firing a heavy machine-gun into a lake, scowling into the camera, and saying, "My name is Jack Hastings, and I endorse this message."

Along the way, there are some suitably mortifying jokes at the expense of Faith, an ice-blooded Nixonian fixer, and Gary, a foul-mouthed, condescending, pampered corporate liberal who finds rural midwestern politeness hilarious. Gary is the kind of guy who orders a "burger and a Bud" at the first pub he enters after arriving in a small town without asking what else is available (he's a haricots verts and red wine person). Gary and his team (which includes Topher Grace as a numbers-cruncher who would marry his spreadsheets if he could, and Natasha Lyonne as a bare-knuckled, ground-level campaigner) are simultaneously contemptuous of, and intimidated by, the "red state" townies. They insult them while trying to court them, and offer "alternatives" to right wing, grievance-driven politicians that amount to defanged or deflated replicas. Like so much in "Irresistible"—including the classic country song "Rhinestone Cowboy," which introduces Jack, a "real American" embellished with Hollywood touches by Gary—the political strategy on the ground is a metaphor for what's been happening nationally in real life for at least three decades, with the Democratic party betting on presidential candidates that are, for the most part—with some immutable ideological exemptions, like abortion rights—essentially "nicer" Republicans. 

What ensues is a gently wacky comedy, with a poker-faced sincere streak reminiscent of Frank Capra 's dramas (particularly "Meet John Doe ," which starred the other Cooper), plus satirical elements in the vein of cockeyed Americana comedies by Preston Sturges ("Hail the Conquering Hero," "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek," "The Great McGinty"). Sturges' movies mocked and punctured America's sentimentalized, "Aw, shucks!" image. But at the same time, they had fun cooking up eccentric characters who showed how Americans embraced their own worst stereotypes, even when their personalities were too complex to be fully contained by them. 

It goes without saying that Jon Stewart is no Frank Capra or Preston Sturges, but in the spirit of this film, we might as well say it anyway. "Irresistible" banishes itself to tonal limbo and stays there. It's not punk enough to make us gasp. And it's not skilled enough to massage its cliches to life and make us care about whether, say, Jack will rebel against Gary's increasingly desperate attempts to trade on his war hero/widower/Man of the People vibe; or whether Gary will escape the toxic yin-yang dynamic of his sexual obsession with Faith by hooking up with Diana, an emblem of the pure-hearted American spirit that the major parties always ignore. (Spoiler, but not the bad kind: the 57-year-old does not end up with the 33-year-old Davis.) 

Really, though: I suspect "Irresistible" fails to sell the Capra or Sturges elements in its DNA because it's after a more intellectualized target: the prepackaged American political narrative that's been dominant since the '90s, and keeps money flowing into the coffers of the usual suspects. 

And presto, change-o,  voila ! The falsity and simplemindedness of the film turns out to be another way of making its point. Stewart, who hosted "The Daily Show" for 16 years and helped spearhead the 2010 Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear (which veered perilously close to enshrining Stewart as the Florence Nightingale of Comedy Central, healing a fractured nation) wants to demonstrate how left-wing/right-wing, red state/blue state, rural/urban labeling makes America's systemic and institutional paralysis worse. The central story of "Irresistible" is not about the mayors or the town. It's about subverting (or asserting) the narrative of Republican dominance over the rural citizens of swing states. And it's about Gary and Faith, who (in a kinda-metaphorical touch, or perhaps just the millionth homage to the marriage of Democratic strategist  James Carville and Republican Mary Matalin ) are insatiably attracted to each other, and keep almost ending up in bed at night after days spent attacking each another in public. 

Is this take sophisticated enough to justify a feature-length, handsomely produced motion picture, anchored by the former star of "The Office" (and previously a "Daily Show" regular)? No. And it's certainly not enough to make us retroactively appreciate Stewart's version of ingenuity, which can be summed up as, "Well, it's supposed to suck, because  everything sucks." The story builds to this peak of insight after having us sit through what might as well be a glorified thesis film, made by a trust fund kid who saw "Veep" and a couple of classic old Hollywood comedies and resolved to sally forth and make a statement , despite lacking the showmanship required to entertain the audience until his message could scroll across the screen. 

The needle-drop soundtrack of pop classics starts and ends with Bob Seger's "Still the Same," which is like starting and ending a war film with "War (What is it Good For?)" The reprise of "Still the Same" accompanies a shot of a treasury press spewing cash right into your face, a literal as well as figurative money shot. Bryce Dessner's score has three modes: 1. "Sinister financial and political shenanigans, watch out!"'; 2. "iPhone ad where a little girl teaches grandma how to download an app"; and 3. "Charlie Brown gets his biopsy results." But it's intrusive and bad on purpose, you see. Because politics is all manipulation, you see. It's all a lie, a story, you see, he typed, as Charlie Brown's corpse rolled towards the furnace. Why are things still the same? Well,  this  is why. Poor Charlie Brown.

More devastating than the film's tactically half-assed storytelling is its numbed and heavy-lidded world view. "Irresistible" accepts as nigh-indestructible that which America itself shows signs—at long last, and collectively!—of wishing to dismantle and revise. At the moment this review was being written, Americans were growing more politically energized, outraged, at times destructively furious, expressing a volatility not seen since the paroxysms of the 1960s. Regardless of whether you think one cause or person is right or wrong, you can't say no one cares.

Yes, of course, it's just a fluke of timing that "Irresistible," a long sigh of a picture, is being released at the exact moment when the country seems to be awakening from a four-year lucid nightmare and realizing that the terrifying shape that had them cowering behind the covers was just a cheap suit on a coatrack. And yes, of course, this window of opportunity could still slam shut. After World War II, Americans seemed to slowly lose their patience and willpower, along with their tolerance for real sacrifice, or even sustained inconvenience. That's why, when the Center for Disease Control suggests wearing a mask in public to prevent the spread of a new and potentially deadly virus, a third of the electorate reacts as if they'd been commanded to gouge their eyes out with KFC sporks. 

But still! Even if "Irresistible" were released a year ago, when its face-down-on-the-bar, abandon-all-hope vibe would've made more sense, it would still be entering a pop culture landscape in which " Sorry to Bother You " and " The Death of Stalin " existed, and it would seem imaginatively as well as politically bereft in comparison. 

To the best of my knowledge, in the entire history of cinema, no one has used "It's supposed to suck!" as a blurb in a trailer. I grant the filmmmakers permission. I endorse this message.

Now available on VOD.

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

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Film credits.

Irresistible (2020)

Rated R for language including sexual references.

101 minutes

Steve Carell as Gary Zimmer

Rose Byrne as Faith Brewster

Chris Cooper as Jack Hastings

Mackenzie Davis as Diana Hastings

Topher Grace as Kurt

Natasha Lyonne as Tina

Will Sasso as Big Mike

• Jon Stewart

Cinematographer

• Bobby Bukowski
• Jay Rabinowitz
• Mike Selemon
• Bryce Dessner

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The Two Unblemished Science Fiction Films as Declared by Rotten Tomatoes

I n a split where movies are judged as either “Fresh” or “Rotten,” Rotten Tomatoes provides us with a unique, if not somewhat trivial, system for appraising films: the elusive “perfect” score. The annals of horror have inscribed that only two films wear this crown, and now we have it on good authority that the realm of science fiction shares a similar fate. The distinguished titles holding the perfect score in science fiction are “The Terminator” helmed by James Cameron and “Stalker,” the cerebral work of Andrei Tarkovsky.

So, what exactly constitutes a “perfect” Rotten Tomatoes score? It all boils down to an aggregation system that compiles reviews from accredited critics to formulate the well-known Tomatometer score. The rules are simple:

“If the positive reviews for a film or television show comprise at least 60% of its total, the production earns a Fresh status with a red tomato icon. Conversely, if the positive reviews fall below 60%, the production is deemed Rotten, represented by a green splat icon.”

Those productions that sustain a “Tomatometer score of 75% or higher,” have a minimum of five reviews from Top Critics, among other stipulations, may also receive the “Certified Fresh” recognition. However, this achievement is not as prestigious as the perfect RT score, which implies a 100% consensus on the Tomatometer. “The Terminator” and “Stalker” are the sole sci-fi productions to have acquired this distinguished honor, which is noteworthy, if not a bit surprising. It raises the question of the degree to which Rotten Tomatoes scores should really sway public opinion and industry perspective.

FAQ Section

In the expansive universe of film criticism, Rotten Tomatoes has carved out a prominent niche with its Fresh and Rotten ratings. The existence of only two science fiction movies with perfect scores—James Cameron’s “The Terminator” and Andrei Tarkovsky’s “Stalker”—highlights the rarity of unanimous critical praise. It underscores the importance of recognizing that while Rotten Tomatoes’ rankings can provide a snapshot of critical consensus, they are just one of many tools audiences can use to discern the quality and impact of a film.