Review of Branded (2013) by Stephanie C — 06 Sep 2012

Branded with spoilers, but who is really going to take the time to see it?

Did LeeLee Sobieski lose a bet on some horses? Or maybe Max Von Sydow has to work off something by doing the movie version of community service. Finally did Jeffrey Tambor just see Pink Floyd's the wall and wanted something a little more down to earth to participate in? Either way this movie "Branded" which was entitled "The Mad Cow" originally is one convoluted screenplay.

I liked some of the concepts of the movie, but others I just couldn't or in some cases, wouldn't follow. You know, you kind of see where a movie is going and sometimes you think to yourself "yes, I can go along with this." Well, there is a zag in the movie where I decided "nope, this is too weird for me." I think the tipping point was when the white cow turned red at sundown. And no, I am not speaking metaphorically.

Ed Stoppard plays Misha Galkin , a marketing guru who can sense just how to market a brand and make it succeed. Abby (Leelee Sobieski), the niece of Bob Gibbons (Jeffrey Tambor), the head of the marketing company falls for him. Together the two figure out how to market a new reality television show where they are going to do a complete makeover to an overweight woman into a beautiful model. Only something goes wrong and the woman enters a coma.

Consumers/civilians are outraged that people cannot accept people as they are so they go out to blame the producers of the show. here consumers often become angry mobs brandishing farm implements from the 1930's. Misha and Abby disappear in disgrace. Later we find out the whole reality show was a ruse created by the fast food companies in order to have a chance to redefine what people's idea of beauty is. In this case, fat is the new beautiful.

While in the wilderness, Misha completely repudiates all things advertising/marketing/and branding and creates a way to cleanse himself of the capitalistic world. And when he returns to it, he sees things differently, really...different.

The movie goes surreal here as Supersize me meets "They Live" and yes, it is just as if not more campy than the John Carpenter movie. Misha literally "sees" brands as parasitic entities attached to people. Although it is unclear if these are manifestations of the brands themselves or the desires they create in people.

Here, the plot twists and turns , and although the movie is short in duration, it feels longer than it actually is. Probably because I alternated between wondering where this movie was going and then at other times why they actually chose for it to go this way.

I like the concept of Branding being almost an organic entity that creates a desire for something in us. I also like the concept of brands at war with one another. What I didn't like in this case was a visual representation of this war that is almost fluid and Daliesque in surrealism.

The movie itself takes place in Russia which I guess would be immersed in the culture shock of capitalism once it arrived and very much would appear as an invading force.

There is also an interesting amount of exposition in how Misha explains to Abby that Lenin's communism was the ultimate branding and how he illuminates that the star (logo), the color red (similar in some ways to a certain beverage company, and the promises communism made were all part of its advertising package. The only problem was that communism did not live up to its promise.

Another problem of the movie was the creation of "off-brands" of well known brands. Burger, which was an amalgamation of Burger King and McDonalds is one example of this followed by Giantsoft (Microsoft) Yepple (Apple) and others which just made the whole brand thing annoying.

I would have been happier with a more generalized sense of advertising as invasive and another explanation for Misha's new perceptions of the world around him. Both of these things ended up hindering the movie overall, and distracted from it's central theme which is the idea that advertising is dangerous.

I would not recommend this movie in the theater, wait till it hits streaming or some other service. Although one thing I would be interested in hearing is the commentary.