Film Review: Simply put: ‘Aloha’ made me happy

A quick description of “Aloha’s” plot appears to fit the standard romantic comedy formula. That’s what I came into the theater expecting, anyway. But this is not a romantic comedy. This film is way too complex, real and focused on characters to be flippantly tossed into that category.

Bradley Cooper is Brian Gilcrest, a private contractor currently working for billionaire Carson Welch (Bill Murray). Welch is trying to develop land in Hawaii so he can achieve his ambition of launching his own rockets into space. The land he wants, however, is sacred burial ground owned by a local Hawaiian tribe.

So Welch calls in Gilcrest.

Gilcrest fixes things; in this case the issue with the tribe. Things get complicated, though, when, to get to the island, he hitches a ride on an Air Force cargo plane that happens to be flown by John ‘Woody’ Woodside (John Krasinski), who is married to and has 2 children with Gilcrest’s old girlfriend Tracy (Rachel McAdams) and who is not terribly excited to have his wife’s ex in town. As soon as he lands, the Air Force assigns Allison Ng (Emma Stone) as his escort to aid him with his assignment.

Gilcrest is battling feelings for his old love, unexpected fascination and adoration for Allison, a jealous husband, a bad recent history with Welch and General Dixon (Alec Baldwin), who is in on the rocket project, and his own confliction with the work he is asked to do, and “Aloha” doesn’t cheapen those issues/feelings with unnecessary sex, unrealistic/awkward situations with exes, and cheap gags for cheap laughs.

Actually, while the natural charms of Cooper and Stone provide some laughs, I wouldn’t use comedy to describe the movie at all. I’d use ‘magical’ to describe it (I don’t mean metaphorically, either. There were brilliant little moments where, as the characters did their work on the island, they would suddenly find themselves surrounded by magic (visions, bursts of wind and music, lights in the sky, etc.). They became part of the myths and legends of Hawaii in those moments.

I did feel a little excluded, though, when it came to the myths and magic. Not having any connection to the Hawaiian culture, there were lots of references and cultural ideas that I didn’t understand, and there was no effort made to clue me in. This was particularly bad in the first 20 minutes of the film, when I was trying to understand who Gilcrest was and why he was coming to Hawaii and there were hints that he had been injured recently but it wasn’t clear how or why and then, on top of that, I was tossed right into this Hawaiian culture. But once Gilcrest gets settled in and begins his work escorted by Allison, that exclusion/confusion went away.

But magic is just a small, small part of the film. I would also call it adorable, uplifting, and dramatic. I felt empathy for so many characters as I got to really know them. But there is romance, actually. There are complex, romantic relationships. But those relationships in and of themselves are not the plot of the movie (which I find to be the case in many romantic comedies). There is, instead, a fantastic story filled with tension and intrigue, plots and schemes, and the characters interact with the story as well as developing romance and relationships.

Wait, I take my earlier comment about humor back. There was a theme regarding men’s ability to speak to each other without saying anything, when Bradley Cooper and John Krasinski have full-on conversations without saying a word, I died.

So it is funny. I guess I can’t pin this film down with an adjective or category of film. But the final scene of the movie was so beautiful and made me so unexpectedly happy that I literally burst into tears (I’ve never done that for real; I just use that to express lots of crying, but I went from dry-eyed to gushing without any buildup). So instead of pinning down an adjective to describe the movie, I’ll just describe what it did for me — it made happy.