Be Kind Rewind
Review by Steven D. Greydanus | posted 2/22/2008
 1 of 3
The operative words are "Be Kind."
"Rewind" also figures, both literally and metaphorically, into Be Kind Rewind's nostalgic neighborhood video-rental shop setting (for the Blu-Ray generation, that's video as in VHS videotape) and utterly silly first-act conceit straight out of a 1980s paranormal comedy like Zapped! or Modern Problems.
But Be Kind Rewind is not only a far kinder (and, yeah, gentler) film than its 1980s predecessors, it's also writer-director Michel Gondry's sweetest and most accessible film to date, with none of the narrative convolutions and isolation of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep.
Mos Def as Mike, Jack Black as Jerry
If I had to put Be Kind Rewind in a box, which is emphatically not where any Gondry film belongs, I might be tempted to call it Lars and the Real Girl by way of Bowfinger—the latter for its comic guerrilla filmmaking, but the former for its similarity of spirit, its gentle absurdism in an ode to benevolence and community togetherness.
Goodwill more than nostalgia is the prevailing sentiment. The goodwill that nutty Jerry (Jack Black) and gentle Mike (Mos Def) bring to their ludicrous scheme to save the video shop after a freak disaster wipes out its entire stock. The goodwill with which their efforts are received, and the larger goodwill ultimately occasioned by the whole business. Not least of all, the goodwill that the viewer brings, or does not bring, to the film itself.
It would be easy—far too easy—to pull Be Kind to bits; Gondry offers not the least resistance. He seems almost to relish his house-of-cards approach, so much so that the uncharmed critic might reasonably feel it a waste of breath to blow it down. I would agree. Hold your breath, let Gondry stack his cards for you, and when the topmost tier is complete I think you'll be glad you did.
Mike and Jerry in a scene from 'Driving Miss Daisy'
The story, set in my backyard in downtown Passaic, New Jersey, revolves around a video shop named "Be Kind Rewind" that could kindly be called struggling, if that term isn't too vigorous for the shop's nearly comatose business. Mike lives above and works at the shop. Jerry, his childhood friend, lives across the street in a trailer on a vacant lot in the shadow of a crackling, humming power plant that causes Jerry no end of anxiety.
The shop belongs to soft-spoken old Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover), who takes quiet pride in his deteriorating neighborhood and rundown shop, and regales Mike and Jerry with stories about jazz great Fats Waller's little-known connection with that very neighborhood and address. Alas, like most such institutions in most such films, Be Kind Rewind is in imminent danger—the death sentence, in this case, made out in triplicate. Not only is Be Kind financially insolvent, the building itself has been condemned, and there are plans to raze the entire block and build condos on the spot.
In an 11th-hour bid to save the shop, Mr. Fletcher reluctantly contemplates adapting to the business models of competing DVD chain outlets, and surreptitiously researches his competitors' methods: more copies of fewer films, with the most popular mainstream titles and genres (action and comedy) shouldering aside works of more specific interest (documentaries, classics and so on).
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