Thinking about Richard Armitage in Ocean’s 8 [spoilers]

I have seen the movie three times now. I have tickets to two more showings. I will probably see it again after that. I have no familiarity with the other films in the franchise. I have read an astounding amount of press about the film, more even than I read about The Hobbit films — I guess I knew ahead of time that it was a potential bone of contention, but I didn’t realize the extent of it.

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Richard Armitage as Claude Becker and Anne Hathaway as Daphne Kluger in Ocean’s 8.

I wouldn’t have seen this film without Richard Armitage (although that’s been true of a lot of his projects), and usually in a situation like that, my thinking about the work after the first viewing becomes laser-focused on what Armitage contributes. I saw Into the Storm eight times in the cinema and documented each viewing and noticed different things, but mostly about Armitage. The rest of the film was boring. With the Hobbit films, I was interested in some of the scenes he wasn’t in, but I’ll confess — I had a designated “bathroom break if needed” scene in each of those films. Seeing Ocean’s 8 has been a different experience. Part of it is that Armitage is playing a minor character and the film is written in a way that makes him largely incidental to the story — but a lot of it is that I think the film is quite smart. And — I apologize — that has surprised me.

I’m surprised because so much of the advance publicity was focused on two questions: whether the Ghostbuster trolls would inflict themselves on this film, and whether or not the film would representative of the current “#metoo moment,” politically progressive, or simply fluff. The second debate was conducted with particular obtuseness, as if emancipated women were by definition prohibited from caring about style or celebrity, or the main definition of “feminist” was “ball-busting.” On the whole, with a few exceptions, I think the entertainment media really failed audiences on this film — these discussions so over-focused dicussion of the film on these issues that I read scarcely any review that got to some of the more interesting and thought-provoking elements of the film.

Richard Armitage plays a subsidiary role in these elements, so I’ll drop some words here about his performance first, before moving on to those considerations in a separate post. He appears as Claude Becker, a ridiculous, self-obsessed art dealer on the make whose reputation is just so much Potemkin village, as he admits in the first scene where we see him. He loves the idea that he’s important, and the possibility of being seen. Because of his image preoccupation, although he’s not the direct mark of the con, when he appears in the scope of possible dates for Daphne Kluger (Anne Hathaway), he’s easily drawn in. Many reviewers seem to have missed that this development is more accidental than motivational for Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock), even if it’s potentially helped along by her partner-in-crime, Tammy (Sarah Paulson). Revenge on the man who done her wrong isn’t why she’s planning the heist — that is a matter of personal satisfaction, and to some extent a diversion while in prison — but it certainly suits her when it pops into view.

Part of the reason why the Met Gala is the perfect place for a genderswap plot is simply because the power flip doesn’t seem as strained here as it might in other settings. Becker is thus the quintessential genderswapped weakling. Armitage gets Becker’s self-obsession just right in the pre-Gala dinner with Kluger — his attentions are not so much about attraction as they are about how being seen next to her will improve his reputation. Hence, he’s smarmily solicitous in order to create the impression of attraction, and the gender-flipping gives rise to an interesting parody here (and throughout the scenes between him and Hathaway) of the way women flirt with influential men, and the way that the powerful respond to it. Watch the eyelashes and see who’s more powerful. The actual act of seduction is secondary for him to getting attention; starfucking is far preferable to actual sex. This fundamental attitude leads to an interesting series of status interactions, one of Armitage’s strengths, as when has to step aside so she can be photographed and when he has to carry her train.

But in the meantime, we know Claude’s true colors, as a flashback has revealed that he was one of Debbie’s collaborators on a previous series of cons (given that she derides him by calling him “good in the kitchen,” I won’t call him a boyfriend) and that he has sold her out. Sales, not sex, are the point here: both he and Debbie want to run a scam, both he and Debbie want the money. He repeats this behavior by interpolating his innocence into the security men’s interrogation of Daphne — he’s the least supportive date ever, one suspects, but naturally, no one concerned with image wants puke on his tuxedo. Becker is so busy being Claude Becker that he doesn’t really grasp it when he encounters Debbie at the bar. He realizes something important has just happened, but still befuddlement wins the day in the fog of the atmosphere in which he sees himself and is seen. In the end, his need to starfuck is satisfied by his visible association with Daphne, but as it turns out, when actual fucking is on the table, he’s not the man to say “no” to that either. Here again we see some interesting power reversals, as Claude, it turns out, likes it when Daphne takes control, slapping him and handcuffing him to a bed. In this seen, we see his desires naked on his face, as if he were a salivating puppy in front of a treat. What was veiled for politeness at the banquet table, where he used a highly stylized motion to indicate the attention he was paying to Katie Holmes, Zac Posen, and Aerin Lauder, among others, is completely exposed here. Once again, there’s no sex, because what’s hot is the power exchange.

Doubtless Armitage was cast because (a) he was the best available choice when they needed him, after Damian Lewis’ withdrawal from the project, and (b) as we know in the fandom, he appeals to a broad segment of women from teens who jokingly call him “daddy” to grandmothers afraid to confess their crushes on someone young enough to be their son. But the reason he works in the role is because, as we’ve seen before, he’s a status exchange master. Here, he’s got Becker down as someone who has one priority — to be in the proximity of the powerful, wealthy, and flashbulb-worthy glitterati of Manhattan. He’ll do anything to enhance that possibility — it’s himself who he loves, not Debbie or Daphne — and so his love affair has to end in an interrogation room, where it turns out that the whole spectacle he fell in love with: Gala, date, paparazzi, costumes — was a scam. The character is incapable of more as a villain because he lacks the necessary attention span.

And, I would argue — he’s a subsidiary example of what the film is really “about”, if you think it’s “about” anything:  a sort of sideways satire of the world it’s picturing for us.

~ by Servetus on June 11, 2018.