There are people who do improv, and people who watch improv. I am firmly in the latter character, but to truly enjoy The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, you may need to be the prior. There may be method to this film’s madness, but the majority of the narrative is so nonsensical that you may be unwilling to devote the time to enter the filmmakers’ mindset to get the reward of lessons that can be gleaned elsewhere easier and more intelligibly than this film.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is an adaptation of one book in a Douglas Adams’ series, which I have no interest in reading though I am surrounded by beloved people who quote it to me excitedly expecting a similarly enthusiastic response as I weakly laugh in approval. Finally I was like the majority of Americans who would rather watch the movie instead of reading the books in hope that I would finally get it, but no such luck. In spite of having a cast filled with delightful people, I did not leave the film eager to learn more. It is about a regular guy who wakes up to the news of personal, local and intergalactic bad news with a silver lining as his best friend, the author of the guide, played by Mos Def, aka Yasiin Bey, who is actually a decent actor though I would not start here to appreciate his work, whisks the protagonist away on a journey to space, the final frontier, where no human has gone before. (Is this character a magical Negro? Discuss.) Oops, wrong show. Basically he gets swept away on other people’s missions and chooses a life of adventure.
When I refer to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s delightful cast, I will admit that even hearing Helen Mirren and Alan Rickman’s voice can power me through almost anything. Sam Rockwell and John Malkovich deliver solid, but possibly a skosh too over the top and serious respectively, straight performances that never quite blend with the British deadpan delivery humor that this film thrives on. If Zooey Deschanel was not born to play flibbertigibbet, I do not know who is. It is not an accident that I am not discussing Martin Freeman.
People love Freeman. I think that I have seen The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy before (I suppressed not liking it), and it was my introduction to Freeman, who did not improve his first impression by appearing in The Hobbit franchise, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot and as wallpaper in Sherlock. I will not give him credit for appearing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe or any Edgar Wright directed film with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. You do not get the benefit of standing in the wake of incessant excellence, which seems to be the basis of his entire career. I do not get Freeman, and here is the most damning fact about this statement. When I was an Anglophile, and all anyone needed was an accent to get in my good graces, I still did not understand his appeal. He plays the regular guy so his charisma black hole effect on me did not help the movie. Being a solid straight man may be part of his appeal, but it is lost on me. (In the original British The Office, he played the antecedent for the Jim character, which is why people love him. He is the British John Krasinski, and for once, I prefer the American choice.)
I am surprised that more people do not describe The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as a surreal satire movie. The aliens are metaphors for the most frustrating aspects of bureaucracy: a literal two-faced politician, the Vogans as soulless bureaucrats who do not care how they harm people. It probably explains why it is a space adventure film that bored the shit out of me. These are not deep insights. I already know these people and disguising them as aliens just takes me the long way to ridicule them. It feels like Jim Henson met with Terry Gilliam to make an adult Muppet adventure except they forgot how to amuse people.
The only reason to see The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was Bill Nighy, who gets the best dialogue with the protagonist that summarizes the heart of the film if it is was consistently explored. “Perhaps I’m old and tired, but I think that the chances of finding out what’s actually going on are so absolutely remote that the only thing to do is say hang the sense of it and keep yourself busy. I’d much rather be happy than right any day.” “And are you?” “Um, no. That’s where it all falls down of course.” Cue Christopher Walken on Saturday Night Live singing “Let’s Face the Music and Dance.”
The flat affect in contrast with the content and meaning of the words or tone of the situation signals that The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy may be a comedy, but it should have been a comedy with a more mordant, trenchant tone. The depressed technology with the manic human beings hints at the despair that living beings desperately try to push away at the existential maw of the futility of existence, the meaninglessness of our quotidian occupations and the fear behind the story, the inability to escape oblivion or the unfathomable space as death. Unfortunately because the characters are so busy performing, it lacks any honest emotion to make it genuinely funny and resonate with anyone not simply interested in the movie’s tireless efforts to keep the ball of action afloat. There are no real, three-dimensional people among these characters. They are amoral, consequence-less perpetual motion people.
If The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy had convincingly created chemistry in the pivotal friendship that starts this crazy ride, maybe I would have been invested in the movie. I never believed that they were more than acquaintances. If the friends joining another crew felt like the consummation of finding a community that they finally belonged to, maybe I would have bought why they continued on the journey. I understand that circumstance threw them together, but they chose to stay together and fight for each other’s goals. If Freeman and Deschanel’s characters had more in common than simply being from Earth and her current love interest was not a jackass, maybe I could empathize with the protagonist’s frustration that he could not get the girl instead of evoking the Nice Guy vibe of entitlement while bringing absolutely nothing to the table that would attract any woman to him. Why should she want you?
Normally I ask people to explain something that I don’t get because I genuinely believe that I am missing something. I don’t care. If you love The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, don’t write me. It is just not for me. Enjoy your books, your movie, embrace the plethora of in jokes, the endless cameos. I do not feel left out. Leave me out. If I am a philistine, then so be it. If you are not already a fan of the franchise, but love British humor and have yet to dive into the deep end, maybe you can enjoy it. There is so much better stuff out there though. Don’t waste your time on this forgettable enterprise.