Time to dip into the hidden gem well again and talk about a movie that’s about the rotary phone. Or it might as well be, because it’s about something else that’s basically extinct, the movie rental store. Let’s talk about Be Kind Rewind (2008), Michel Gondry’s follow-up to 2004’s excellent and trippy Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
The movie opens on a film within a film and gives us a bit of a history lesson about jazz artist Fats Waller and his life and influence in Passaic, New Jersey, where this movie is set. Now, I know a little about Passaic since I spent a fair bit of time there as a kid because of my parents’ work and the movie depicts it pretty accurately from my memory. It’s a small city, much like other cities; people have struggles, incomes are low, buildings are old, and prospects can be lacking. Unlike Gondry’s more famous (and more critically acclaimed) work, Be Kind Rewind is a much more down to earth film, less dreamily contemplative, and definitely rooted in the real world, despite some fantastical elements. Don’t get me wrong, it does get trippy itself at times, but that just sort of adds to the quirky charm of the film. This is just a bit more down to earth.
As such, our fictional version of Passaic isn’t much different from the one I remember visiting in my childhood. Facing urban renewal, Mr. Fletcher, played by Danny Glover (Lethal Weapon), who is most definitely getting too old for this, is in a desperate scramble to get his building up to code otherwise it’ll be torn down and replaced with something new. It’s not just the building where his video rental store, Be Kind Rewind, is, but also where he and his assistant, Mike, played by Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def, The Italian Job), both live. It’s quite the dilemma. What promises to be a fresh new building also means that he will lose his home, lose his business, and be relocated to a housing project. Not really a situation you want to find yourself in. It’s a lovely throwback to the sort of “save the rec center” type of 80s films that we just don’t see anymore, with a nice, socially conscious twist that raises a lot of questions about how we approach the idea of progress.
As Mr. Fletcher embarks on a secret journey to surveil and learn from a more successful video store, West Coast Video (a Blockbuster competitor that went defunct in 2009, only a year after this film was released), he leaves Mike in charge with one specific order, which is to keep Jerry out of the store. Enter Jerry, Mike’s best friend, played by Jack Black (High Fidelity, one episode of Community), who is not really all there all the time. A conspiracy theorist, he has concerns about the nearby powerplant (and having seen Erin Brockovich, I’m not sure he’s all that far off-base), so he ropes Mike into a plan to sabotage it. Feeling the pressure of minding the store on his own for the first time and not wanting to let Mr. Fletcher down, Mike ultimately abandons the sabotage effort after some excellent visual comedy involving a ladder and camouflage, leaving Jerry to his own devices. Now, neither Mike nor Jerry are exceptionally bright guys, though they are well-meaning and kind-hearted, which makes them very endearing characters. Unfortunately, this also means that Jerry’s devices are rather haphazard and ineffective, so the sabotage efforts go horribly wrong. The next time we see Jerry, he’s stumbling into Be Kind Rewind to yell at Mike for ditching him, but something is really off—as it turns out, the botched sabotage resulted in Jerry becoming super magnetized. Now, if you’re of a certain age, you will know right away that magnetism and VHS tapes don’t mix very well, and they slowly come to the realization that the tapes have been wiped—all the tapes.
Flustered and desperate himself for Mr. Fletcher not to find out about the disaster that would end the efforts to save the store before they even began, Mike hatches a plan, grabs a camcorder (a device that is like a prehistoric cell phone that doesn’t make calls, which captures audio and visual data and traps them on a VHS tape, which is like an ancient SD card for 80s and 90s kids), and drafts Jerry into recreating a film for a loyal customer who has never seen it before. In one afternoon, he has to film and edit a passable version of Ghostbusters so Miss Falewicz (played by legendary actress Mia Farrow) doesn’t catch on that something is amiss at Be Kind Rewind. Luckily, he decides to skip the editing part and gets a copy of the tape to her in the nick of time. It’s just a brief respite, however, as a second customer comes in looking for Rush Hour 2, leading to another montage of Mike and Jerry working together to recreate that film as well. In fact, a lot of this movie’s laugh out loud moments come from the montage scenes as, against all odds, word of the homemade movies gets out and people start lining up to see them. Eventually, Mike and Jerry draft in Alma, who works at her family’s dry cleaner up the street, who does have a good head on her shoulders (and gives them someone to play the leading ladies in these recreations, instead of Jerry’s mechanic putting on a wig and doing his level best).
But, even though this is a comedy, it’s not the laughs that made me love this movie. It’s not that it’s not funny, I laughed out loud in several moments, even watching on my own, but the lasting impression that I got from this movie goes much deeper than just finding it funny. What is ostensibly a love letter to movies, creativity, and the power of film, even homemade ones pretending to be big budget action movies in the way that kids might act out in their basements or backyards or alleyways, whichever the case may be, is a much smarter and less superficial look at so much more than just that. Of course, there is a strong reverence for films and their magic and their ability to capture your imagination; there is a heartfelt understanding and earnest love of film that drives so much of this movie. But it’s actually a love letter to community; the people come together in a way that makes any of their differences immaterial. They’re not even really addressed, and even a good-natured faux pas where Mike attempts a moment for blackface to play a character is treated as a teachable moment rather than a cause of tension. There are antagonists in this film, of course, but it’s not in the neighborhood; rather, it’s outside forces that threaten irrevocable change. After Alma figures out the best way to make more movies to raise money for the store is to make the movies shorter and involve the people requesting them in the production, the people of Passaic rally together to help them with ambitious project after ambitious project as they film guerrilla style and hide from the cops, like some speakeasy where they serve movies instead of bootleg booze. They come together as one, as a community; they are together and in that togetherness, they find that indomitable spirit that no wrecking ball or urban planner could ever demolish. Progress, however and by whomever that is defined, always marches forward in ways that we can’t always control or expect, but it’s up to us to keep as much of the good things that we can in the face of change. While I used to believe that change always trends to the better, we’ve seen that isn’t always the case; but this film is the kind leaves you with a shred of hope in that cavern in your chest where there previously might have been none.
Be Kind Rewind is a testament to the power people have when they work together for a common goal, when they want to protect and preserve something that means something. Winning or losing in this context doesn’t really matter. Whether they save the video store and the building or don’t doesn’t really matter. The fact that they came together to save it does, that’s the thing that is really important. As the hearts of the world grow collectively colder and our meeting spaces become increasingly hostile and digital (which are often the most hostile spaces of all), the warmth that people can provide each other is often forgotten. And I understand why; people can’t trust each other these days, we are more and more divided and many times for good reason. But Be Kind Rewind reminds us that we are all looking to be a part of something good. It doesn’t matter that the production of the movies are way too elaborate for the time and cost (usually one day turnarounds and an absolutely zero dollar budget); it does at times stretch the suspension of disbelief, but just go with it and let the movie wash over you with its big, big heart. It is kind, it is warm, it is worth your time. It’s a fantasy where people are good and fight for each other. And it’s what we need right now. Unfortunately this one isn’t streaming anywhere at the moment, but it is available for rent on Apple TV and Prime Video (I purchased it digitally on Apple TV). Keep an eye out for it on streamers, add it to your watchlist, find it at your local video rental store if you still have one; it’s definitely one I think you should watch. Ignore its 64% RT score—this movie is criminally underrated. It’s 102 minutes that will brighten your day.
