Directed by: B.J. Novak
Starring: B.J. Novak, Boyd Holbrook, Issa Rae, Ashton Kutcher
Rated R, 107 minutes
B.J. Novak, best known for his work on “The Office,” which he co-wrote, produced, and acted in, is uniquely situated to make a movie like “Vengeance.” “The Office,” with its longevity and continued relevance nearly a decade after its finale, holds a singular place in American TV of the 21st century. Even people who didn’t watch the show regularly are familiar, still, with many of its running jokes and characters. It would seem that Novak, now several years removed from the ubiquitous NBC sitcom, has set out to explore what other types of stories can resonate broadly, this time in a more dramatic setting.
His directorial debut, “Vengeance,” sees him taking on the role of a New York City writer and podcaster, Ben Manalowitz, who travels to Texas to write a story about the grieving family of a dead woman he once knew. His preconceived plan—to tie the story to a larger theory about the American ethos—proves impossible, though. As his producer, Eloise (Issa Rae, “Insecure”), points out, “Americans are people, they’re not ideas.” “Vengeance” traces one man’s journey to see his fellow citizens as people; he almost succeeds.
In many ways the trials of Ben Manalowitz are Novak’s way of poking fun at himself. Ben, a city boy thrust into the unfamiliar world of the Texas borderlands, embarrasses himself at every turn, making assumptions about the rural town where he’s staying and the people who live there, and misunderstanding the anti-establishment attitudes and vigilantism endemic to the area. The dead woman’s brother, Ty (Boyd Holbrook, “Milk”), believes his sister was murdered and sets out to avenge her, a decision Ben views as a simple and sorry case of a macho man drowning in grief and reaching out to conspiracies for comfort. Again and again, Ben turns out to be wrong, with consequences both small and great.
The eventual revelation of what happened to the dead woman is clear-cut enough, but along the way “Vengeance” treads through the waters of contemporary issues in American politics, from the opioid epidemic to gun ownership to the classic “coastal elites vs. rural Joes” dynamic that pundits love to harp on. Ben’s fatal flaw, as a writer for national publications, is that he can’t help but try to synthesize everything into a perfect summary. His response to seeing firsthand the varieties of American life is not to accept that a single definition of America doesn’t exist, but rather to try coming up with a newer, more elegant definition. His is, ultimately, a vanity project doomed to failure; “I am the story, and the story sucks,” he records into his phone.
It’s hard to separate Ben’s project from B.J. Novak’s. On the one hand, “Vengeance” is an effective satire of bloviating journalists, of writers and thinkers like Ben who prefer to pontificate about the forces and trends that shape American life without actually going out into the world and talking to people. But then, “Vengeance” falls into the same trap by assuming everyone else operates the same way. Quinten Sellers (Ashton Kutcher, “Jobs”), a record producer with a studio in the middle of the Texas desert, proves the character most emblematic of the movie as a whole, full of long-winded ideas that he can’t help but share. Even if his opinions (not to mention Ashton Kutcher’s even-tempered, slightly sinister performance) lead to some fascinating ruminations on what it means to live in the age of digital recording, Sellers betrays a flatness in Novak’s script, wherein every character exists to wax poetic about America and then exit the stage.
Interesting is not the same as affecting, and “Vengeance” too often favors the former at the expense of the latter. Much is made of Ben’s aptitude for listening, but the movie spends precious little time in contemplation, instead spinning its wheels in a constant search for the next profound statement, the next cornerstone of the zeitgeist. Still, even with this overly broad cultural discourse weighing it down, “Vengeance” is a promising first effort from B.J. Novak the filmmaker, with moments of tenderness and surprise that speak to his obvious talents behind the camera. Now that he’s gotten the confused social commentary out of his system, maybe he’ll take the advice of his fictional producer and tell a story.
Originally published in The Harvard Press on 8/26/22.