A GLIMPSE INSIDE THE MIND OF CHARLES SWAN III

This is the first in an ongoing series where I rewatch all A24 films in order of release. Check back for more. .

I love A24. That’s certainly not a unique statement and I wouldn’t say I love it any more than someone else who also loves it. But I do seek out most of their movies in theaters. Not only because I subscribe to AAA24 and get free movie tickets, but because they generally make really good movies. But today, I will be talking about one of their duds. Their first dud in fact, A Glimpse Inside The Mind Of Charles Swan III.

A Glimpse Inside The Mind Of Charles Swan III is A24’s first feature release in 2012. A company created to distribute films gets into production so, sure, why not go with a Coppola product to kick things off. Roman Coppola had written and directed films prior to Charles Swan, his first feature being CQ, an homage to 1960s European spy/sci-fi spoofs. He’d also written Moonrise Kingdom with co-writer Wes Anderson and Darjeeling Limited with co-writers Anderson and Jason Schwartzman. You can definitely feel how this wants to have some of the Anderson irreverence while completely going for a different visual style, but the whole thing misses because the story and the character are uninteresting and downright unlikeable. It did make me wonder just how much influence Coppola had on Moonrise and Darjeeling because those are very good movies. And this was very not good. 

First, a quick breakdown, the movie follows Charles Swan III (Charlie Sheen), a successful and eccentric graphic designer in the 1970s whose life spirals into chaos after his girlfriend Ivana (Katheryn Winnick) leaves him. The breakup sends him into a whirlwind of self-reflection, nostalgia, and delusion, as he struggles to cope with the loss and re-examine his relationships, particularly with women.

Charles’s mind becomes a surreal playground where we blend fantasy, memory, and imagination as he envisions elaborate scenarios. He might be hunted by jealous lovers or fighting a losing battle in the long ago West. Throughout his journey, he's accompanied by his best friend Kirby (Jason Schwartzman) and his manager Saul (Bill Murray), who try to help him regain a grip on reality. Which is why it makes complete sense for the film to end with a huge musical number on the beach where we see everyone from the movie come together! This scene was apparently inspired by the films of old that Coppola so adored, and it might have been endearing itself if it followed a better film. 

The problem, as I noted before, is that Sheen’s character is uninteresting. Boring even. To the point where you want to shake him until he snaps out of his egocentric daze. We follow him and his dick as he reminisces about how good his relationship was with Ivana even though he lies to her about keeping naked photos of women from his past. In the opening scene we’re thrust into his mind to get all of this exposition out in what is supposed to feel introspective. It's there to bring us closer to him, but just feels lazy, like, “Shit how do I set this whole backstory up. Let’s make it on a dark stage with crazy visuals to distract you from the fact that this is a crazy exposition dump!” 

Everything here is just an argument for why this womanizer isn’t all that bad. And I will take a moment to say, if you're a womanizer, you’re probably also a shitty person. I won’t definitely say that of all womanizers, but I haven’t met one who isn’t also an ass. I digress. 

It doesn’t help when later in the film, Coppola creates a fantastical world where SS-style women, also known as the Secret Society of Ball Busters, are only there to stop men from cheating on their significant others!  Look, I’m not a prude, I won’t rail against men because some are pieces of shit, I know I’m no saint, but have some decency and don’t compare women who don’t want you to fuck around on them to the secret police of the Nazi regime. 

“Tell her if she wants her stuff, tell her to get her fat ass over here!” Charles Swan is so cool that he can shit on Ivana and we just chalk it up to his quirky 70s renaissance man genius. I don’t buy it. It’s the epitome of style over substance. Look over here, ignore that this makes no sense!

What Coppola does well is use his connections to bring a slew of great actors on board. Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Aubrey Plaza, Patricia Arquette, Mary Elizabeth Winstead… But that’s where this parade stops. They're all here just sort of going through the motions. (The only one who I found to be compelling was Winstead in the SSBB segment who actually says it was one of the most fun segments to shoot, so who am I to judge). And I, because I am not writing for an outlet and can editorialize here, will say in the credits, Plaza’s interview really makes it look like she had no interest in being there. It makes me wonder if that’s what the set was like as well.

Now, the other interesting thing about this movie is the character on whom it is loosely based, the actual Charles White III, a fantastic illustrator who was a master of airbrush illustration. From his bio, “By 1967, Charlie moved with his family to New York City where he began experimenting with a range of artistic mediums that led to an airbrushing technique that soon changed the face of his art.” He was well known for album covers in the 70s as well as the 1970s Star Wars: A New Hope movie poster. The movie uses inspiration of his art in the set design and there’s a fantastic featureette in the bonus features of the Blu Ray where we hear from Charles White III.

If I had one chance to ask Coppola a question, it would be, Do you think you did the real Charles White III justice? I obviously don’t know Charles White, and hopefully he’s not a shitty person ( I will take all of this back if Sheen and Coppola actually nailed the portrayal), but It just seems like they took a fascinating person and blew his character out into this boring mess because they might have been going through their own problems. 

So would I recommend the movie? Absolutely not. Unless you are trying to be a completionist. I also blind bought this because it wasn’t streaming so if you need a copy, you can borrow it from me. 

What I do like about this movie is from the start A24 had a vision for what they wanted to become. You can see it in portions of this movie. The focus on style, the risk on a big name director. And maybe you had to have this to later have the vision for what Everything Everywhere All At Once could be. Obviously you take good risks by bringing in auteurs and well known directors and you're of course going to have some misses there, that’s natural. But I guess it’s true that you have to crawl before you can walk onto the stage at the Oscars.