Review of Barracuda (2017) by Sweetdreamplace — 28 Dec 2016

Listen very carefully. I cannot imagine being the only person alive who interprets the ending to this exquisitely beautiful movie the way I do? Oh by the way the Oscar race for best picture is officially over two months ahead of time because La La Land will win in a landslide. But back to the confusing and vaguely nightmarish ending. If you insist on labelling it bittersweet then at least recognize it as five pounds of bitter and four ounces of sweet. But here is the clincher. The ending is not real. Think back to when Mia was in the restaurant with her boyfriend and another couple. Bored out of her mind and feeling out of place she is startled to hear the pretty piano motif that Sebastian was playing at the supper club she had wandered into earlier in the movie. Alas the music could not have been playing on the juke box because it was Sebastian's song and at that point he was just a nobody with no record contract. So it is our first taste in the movie that something surreal is taking place. She escapes and meets Sebastian at the movies to see "Rebel Without A Cause." As they are just about to explore their first kiss the screen dissolves. Later on in the movie as shadows start to hover while driving by the same retro movie house she notices it is shuttered up for good. Just like the real life star of the movie James Dean who died prematurely. During the latter half of the movie I was wondering and anticipating when the next song and dance number would take place since the previous four were so swoony and catchy and sweet. Soon Mia and Sebastian have their first serious fight over a surprise dinner Sebastian had made which echoes a line in a Smiths song that goes " I just liked you more when you were hopelessly poor." Sebastian reels Mia back in after her seemingly failed one woman show and after some give and take he talks her into another audition. It is at this point much like another movie set in Hollywood "Mulholland Drive" where the story turns surreal. Mia sings her heart out during the audition in a song entitled "Audition (The Fools Who Dream) with lines that include "and died with a flicker and I'll always remember the flame and I trace it all back to that".

She has one last hesitant talk with Sebastian before heading off for Paris to prep for her breakthrough role. The movie jumps five years later and we see that Mia has obtained stardom as she orders form the very same barista she used to work at and jumps into her mini cab to be shuttled back to the studios we presume. But you sense a chill in the air and a lack of intimacy we have felt throughout for Mia. We discover she has a husband and small child around the age of two or so. Everyone in the audience is asking the same question? Why isn't she with Sebastian her lover and dance partner with the stars? Mia and her husband are heading to some event or something and there is another traffic jam similar to the one that opens the movie but this one is at night. Mia suggests they veer off and they end up stopping at a jazz club. Lo and behold it is Sebastian's club ( he finally opened up his own club) and it is named after Mia's suggestion Seb's with the cute bar note replacing the apostrophe just like she suggested. After some music Sebastian, master of ceremonies appears and spots Mia in the crowd. He sits down and plays "their song" the motif she heard the first time she saw him playing. Her mind is swirling in technicolor musical magnificence as she imagines an alternative life with Sebastian and "their" child. Sebastian finishes the song and Mia decides they should leave. But before parting she glances back at Sebastian with tears in her eyes of memories and what could have been. So why the mysterious and vaguely bewildering ending to this sublime piece of movie making. Think folks. Do you really think it is plausible Mia would not know that Sebastian now owns a club in the very town she has been working in? Although it is not directly implied Sebastian in real life must have died probably while Mia was in Paris and Mia was imagining her love in an alternative setting. We first see Mia in the movie improvising in her car rehearsing. By the end of the movie she has nailed the acting part down with her heartfelt "Audition (The Fools Who dream) song but this heartbreak carries over and fuses with her own life as her true love has vanished as well.