If you want to be festive and celebrate Halloween, but are looking for a change of pace and want to see a movie that is funny and meaningful, not scary, I highly recommend Brave New Jersey, which is streaming on Amazon Prime. The residents of Lullaby, New Jersey prepare for an alien invasion after hearing Orson Welles’ iconic radio broadcast The War of the Worlds.
Jody Lambert, the director and cowriter of Brave New Jersey, creates a period piece movie, but unlike Todd Haynes’ Far From Heaven or Carol, the past is not fetishized and air brushed into perfection with yearning as something romantic as a beautiful memory. Instead the actors and the soundtrack contrast with the story and look that adhere to its era. No swelling violins here. Did I hear an electric guitar? The modern delivery does not mock the characters and wink at the audience as if they are above the roles that they are playing, but indicates true feelings as they do what is expected.
It is an ensemble cast, but most of the faces are recognizable. Brave New Jersey has some of the best comedic actors alive, but they mainly play their characters straight with sincerity, humor and heart. Arrested Development’s Tony Hale plays the tireless mayor, and his character’s journey goes against type of his usual roles. Veep’s foul mouthed Dan Bakkedahl plays Reverend Ray Rogers, a man going through the motions. Erika Alexander plays Helen, one of his congregants. The Last Man on Earth’s Mel Rodriguez plays Sheriff Dandy. True Blood’s Anna Camp plays Peg, an engaged schoolteacher, and Veep’s Matt Oberg plays her eager fiancée. The 100’s Raymond J Berry plays a recluse vet. Parenthood’s Sam Jaeger plays a self-important mover and shaker, and Heather Burns, whom I am unfamiliar with, steals the show as his wife.
Brave New Jersey does a superb job of quickly establishing every character and their routine the day of October 30, 1938. Lambert immediately creates a general atmosphere of inescapable ennui and acceptance of limits with the exception of one character who still experiences thwarted ambition. It is impossible to escape the gravity and dull momentum of their lives, but they fake the funk to get through the day and trail off in unnoticed disappointment. The radio broadcast acts as a catalyst for people to reveal their emotions and be their true selves. A few people immediately know what to do with their last night on earth before facing a potentially existential threat, but the majority of the movie focuses on the characters that spend the entire movie processing their feelings and desires before they act on them. I loved that not everyone had a positive story.
Without screaming its message from the rooftop or puncturing the light tone of the movie, Brave New Jersey is under no illusion that underneath the superficial quotidian façade, people have negative impulses. There is a Polish boy staying with the wealthiest family because Hitler is gaining power, which implies that sly, derisive comments about that family could have an unspoken anti-Semitic undertone. When people get scared, they can get mean either by simply verbally snapping at people, threatening to or getting physically violent or making false accusations. Lambert manages not to whitewash these moments, but she also knows how far she can take it without making the viewer hate her characters. Because this cast is so deft at conveying their characters’ turbulent emotions throughout the film, we cannot reduce them to a single moment, but we are dismayed when this opportunity to embrace life leads to ugliness and baser instincts.
Brave New Jersey’s willingness to address the difficulty of existence saves it from being saccharine or turning into a Hallmark movie, but its essential hopefulness and love for the characters as individuals and a community save it from being sardonic. Everyone in this community gets a story arc: wordless acceptance of dissatisfaction, overwhelming fear and uncertainty that initially leads to panic, going into default mode and going to the person that means the most to each character, awakening to wanting more out of life and finally reaching for it.
I really appreciated that some of these relationships were not romantic. While I love all the moments of connection in Brave New Jersey—some are deliciously and unapologetically unconcerned with others’ feelings and spectacularly selfish, my favorite is how the church comes together and acts in contrast with the rest of the town. I do not want to spoil the film, but while the downside of their reaction is that it is vaguely similar to how cults respond to aliens, in contrast to the rest of the town, it suggests some hope for humanity and indicates that God does work in mysterious ways. If I relate to any character in this film, it is a mix of Helen, the Mayor and the Reverend, but the latter the most. It is hard to be a leader when you are having a crisis, do not have the answers or do not adhere to leadership norms. This movie really vindicates alternate styles of leadership-transparency, confession of weakness, a give and take with your community and caretaking, i.e. traditionally feminine leadership, that gets taken for granted
After they realize that the hreat is a hoax, the open question is how will people feel and act the day after their epiphany and revealing their true selves to the entire town? Brave New Jersey does not spell it out though we get some hints. Alarmingly some of the negative actors have just shifted the target of their anger although it can be interpreted as shit talking however considering earlier events, I would not dismiss it as such. Other characters get their earned happy ending. There are a couple of characters who understand the truth revealed, but are willing to pretend it never happened. The movie suggests that these characters need a person to admonish them that not a hoax. One of those two characters is left stunned in the light of day, still perplexed at how to proceed and seemingly getting carried along by inertia and another person’s more powerful desires. While I am hopeful that this character does not make a big mistake, this character’s real self was kind of horrid.
I actually got a little teary eyed when I reached the end of Brave New Jersey. “Giving up scares me.” If and when you watch this movie, ask yourself how you have given up on yourself, lost your self-respect and how you would react if, let’s say, you were forced to face your mortality. It should not be too hard during a pandemic and the most dangerous time in our political lives. These characters were more afraid and willing to act when it was a fictional alien while Hitler was on another continent actually drawing them closer to death or nihilism about other human lives. What would it take for you to act and do better for yourself and your community? Or would you be one of the ugly characters who, when facing the unimaginable, can only feel hope through violence?
Brave New Jersey is a thoughtful comedy, but while I do not think that you will necessarily wail with laughter, it is funny. I highly recommend it, but many people hated it. If you like the cast, give it a chance. I hope that Lambert makes more movies.
