Instant Favorite.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Harmony Korine's Mister Lonely is a worthwhile picture in many ways, but it's also a frustrating one, which is something that could be said by critics of his work as well. I consider myself a pretty sizable fan of his material, loving his daring debut Gummo and his terrific sophomore effort with Julien Donkey-Boy, which took on a Dogme 95 personality. This film is, as expected, something different. It's a film with a more visible message, but one that tests patience, which is a talent Korine can employ very often in his work. As maddening as Mister Lonely is, it's also worth a look and some much-needed examination.The story of how Korine struggled to make this film is a bit more interesting than the film itself. The gap between the release of Julien Donkey-Boy and this film was eight years, due to Korine's drug addiction and loss of interest and enthusiasm for cinema as a whole. He was also unable to get respectable funding for the picture, further delaying the project, and when the money was finally obtained (a heavy $8 million for Korine's standards), it wasn't even remotely covered, grossing roughly $300,000 upon release. It's a devastating feature when your film, which took years to make and finance, only goes on to gross middling numbers. This is a picture that, despite its notable issues, at least deserves to be seen by a broader audience. Surely broader than a handful of independent theaters that were gracious enough to run the film.The film, as you can expect if you've been familiar with Korine prior to this, is bare-bones and the direction lies within the tribulations and details of the characters. Diego Luna plays a Michael Jackson impersonator in present-day Paris. He is a direct clone of Michael when he throws on tight outfits, dark shades, a black hat, and a splash of makeup, and tries to adhere to his fascination with inhabiting the characteristics of the larger-than-life pop singer by earning wages off of his talent working as a street-dancer.He eventually encounters a Marilyn Monroe impersonator (Samantha Morton) at a coffee shop, who chats him up and is "starstruck" to find another celebrity impersonator. She takes him to a remote Scottish island, which seems to only be inhabited by a large, spacious commune that is home to a number of other impersonators. Marilyn is married to Charlie Chaplin (Denis Lavant) and her daughter is Shirley Temple (Esme Creed-Miles). The other icons include the Pope, the Queen, Madonna, James Dean, Sammy Davis, Jr., a vulgar Abe Lincoln, and Buckwheat. Together, they make up an enormous family of acclaimed, recognizable icons and wouldn't have it any other way. Their divine goal, in the end, is to put on something of a variety show, anticipating the entire world will come watch them perform.A minor subplot involves Werner Herzog (perhaps one of Korine's biggest fans) and his character, a lanky, soft-spoken preacher, and a group of nuns who fly over the Scottish island in a helicopter and toss food to the people below. One nuns falls out of the helicopter and lands on the grass below, miraculously, without a single scratch. She is quick to thank God, who she believes prevented her from being injured and later encourages her other sisters to jump out of the helicopter. Her argument is supposed to be that if you don't jump, you lack the faith that God will rescue you.Both of these plots don't gel very well together, but they share the same meaning of both groups of people in desperate search of a direction in life and looking towards a way of momentary satisfaction that will somehow turn into a lifetime's worth. As time goes on, we see Michael Jackson become very detached from this society, almost fearful of it, and beginning to dread its shortcomings and behavior more-so than the kind he's long neglected out in "the real world." The encompassing theme of Mister Lonely is what kind of thinking and rationale can prevail when one feels hopeless and inadequate thanks to whatever societal barricade has been set. The impersonators feel insecure about their personalities and are unaware of their true colors; confused on how to show them, whatever they may be, to a judgmental, unforgiving society. The nuns see God as the reason for their good fortune, unable to think or believe they, themselves, have gotten them anywhere.The ideas and limitless morals of Mister Lonely make this film beyond interesting and deep. However, it's writer/director Korine (and his brother, Avi) who make it deteriorate in quality overtime. For one, the pacing is achingly slow and the entire film goes on for an overwrought one-hundred and twelve minutes. This is far too long for a story of this magnitude, especially when the end functions predominately on disjointed scenes and sequences where the meaning is kind of a muddle. If the film needed anything, it's less impersonators and more editing and structure.The film works competently as something of a parable or a soothing meditation on life; a character study on characters of characters, if you will. Put to Korine's trademark vision, involving many calm sessions and many quirky ones, and cinematography of the Scottish island that is downright gorgeous. Think a less formal Wes Anderson for the true landscape and feel of this film. As usual, Korine never allows his aesthetics to flounder of disappoint.My three stars to Mister Lonely is a generous three stars. I recognize its immediate problems, but, too, see them through for its message, tone, aesthetics, and strong message that is almost impossible to ignore. This is a beautiful film; one I wish would have more of a strict duration on its premise and not carry on for twenty more minutes when it was an appropriate time to end the excursion.

Just got through watching this and had to comment on how wonderful it is. I am a big fan of Harmony Korine but if I hadn't known he had made this, I would have never guessed it was his film (I probably would have guessed John Sayles first).So many amazing sequences in this film--the first Flying Nun sequence is unbelievable and I cannot get it out of my mind, brilliantly edited. The "Singing Egg" sequence almost had me crying and I don't normally get choked up. The stage show was also very poignant. And Werner Herzog's performance was pitch perfect.I normally don't gush over movies, but Mister Lonely was so original, I need to gush. My one peccadillo? Not sure the title fits the movie.(P.S. I hate critics and the ones on Rotten Tomatoes who called this a chore to sit through suck the most).

Korine's established himself, by now, as a talented and impressive image-maker. The promotional posters for Mister Lonely all include the film's most impressive compositions (though there's one in particular I've yet to see in promo material: that of a blue-clad nun teasing a dog with a stick, surrounded by green forest with torrential rain pouring down). The opening images of this film, of Michael Jackson lookalike (Diego Luna) riding a small motorbike round a track, is strangely compelling and beautiful: Roy Orbison's "Mister Lonely" plays on the soundtrack, and the images unfold in slow-motion. There's also a funny and terrific sequence in which the same character mimes a dance, without music (though a radio sits like a silent dog next to him), in the middle of a Paris street; Korine splices in sound effects and jump-cuts that evoke both a feeling of futility and dogged liberation in the character's dance routine.The first instance of the segment dealing with the nuns is also strangely poignant; Father Umbrillo (Werner Herzog) is an autocratic priest about to fly with some nuns over, and drop food into, impoverished areas nearby. In a scene that is both light-hearted and affecting, Herzog must deal with a stubbornly enthusiastic local who wishes to make the plane trip with them in order to see his wife in San Francisco. As the exchange develops, Herzog draws out of the man a confession: he has sinned, and his frequent infidelity is the cause of his wife having left him in the first place. This scene, short and sweet, gains particular weight after one learns its improvised origins: the sinner is played by a non-actor who was on set when Korine and co. were filming - and his adulterous ways had given him, in real life, a lasting, overwhelming guilt.Henceforth, the film is hit-and-miss; a succession of intrinsically interesting moments that add to a frivolous, muddled narrative. Whereas Gummo and Julien Donkey-Boy maintain their aesthetic and emotional weight via coherent structural frameworks, Mister Lonely feels like a victim of editing room ruthlessness. A few scenes were cut from the film, which would have otherwise painted fuller pictures of certain characters, due to continuity errors in costume - a result, no doubt, due to the absence of a shooting script and Korine's tendency for improvisation. One deleted scene in particular - in which 'Charlie Chaplin' (Denis Lavant) and 'Madonna' (Melita Morgan) have sex - would have added much more emotional conflict to a scene later on in the film (I won't spoil it, but it's there to deflate any feeling of warmth or celebration, and, as it is, only half-succeeds).The two strands of the narrative, unconnected literally, are best approached as two entirely different stories with the same allegorical meaning; one compliments the other and vice versa. (It's something to do with the conflict between one's ambitions and the reality of the current situation.) But there's not enough of the Herzog scenes to merit their place in the film, and so any connection between these two allegorically-connected threads is inevitably strained - and the inclusion is, in retrospect, tedious.This is an ambitious step forward from Julien Donkey-Boy that suffers mostly, at least in the lookalike segments, from having far too many characters for the film's running length, a flaw that would have been even worse had big star names played everyone (as was originally planned).With many of the imagery's self-contained beauty, and moments of real, genuine connection with the soundtrack, this feels like it'd be much more suited to an art installation or photo exhibition. As an exploration of mimesis and the nature of impersonation, it'd lose none of its power - indeed, for me, it would perhaps be more impressive. The loneliness attached to iconic performativity (such as that encountered by both the icons themselves and those who aspire to be like them) is well-captured in images such as that wherein 'Marilyn Monroe' (a gorgeous Samantha Morton) seduces the camera with a Seven Year Itch pose in the middle of a forest, or when 'Sammy Davis, Jr.' (Jason Pennycooke) settles, post-dance rehearsal, with his back to the camera overlooking an incredible, tranquil lake.As it is, moments like these, and all those where the titles of randomly-chosen Michael Jackson songs crawl across the scene, are married to one another in a film narrative far less affecting than it should be.(For those who see it, I lost all faith during the egg-singing scene, late on. You'll know which scene I mean because it sticks out like a sore thumb, as some sort of gimmicky attempt at the new cinematic language for which Korine has previously been hailed.)

Mister Lonely is one of the most original films of this year, or any year and with a plot consisting of a young man who makes a living as a Michael Jackson impersonator, you would have to agree. Michael soon meets a woman who impersonates Marilyn Monroe and she invites him back to a commune in the hills where in a secluded village, everyone there lives as someone else and pretends to be them and their big delight comes from putting on talent shows for the other villages. Mister Lonely really made an impression on me when I watched it for more reasons than I can probably think of, so I will do my best to list all of them. First of all, the script and film itself is really unlike anything I have seen before because of it's original storytelling and concept. It is also one of the best looking films I have ever seen with luscious landscapes and backgrounds to gritty and natural settings as well. Whatever the film is capturing with it's lens, it looks fantastic. The performances were all right on key and the whole ensemble cast needs to be recognized for that. The film with it's music, slower pace and images of beauty and sometimes shots of absurd things going on, are shot in such a particular way and with the background music and the cinematography, I found a lot of the film to be peaceful, harmonious and quite something to behold. The story itself is an excellent character study and from my past reviews, you may be able to tell that those are the particular type of films that I enjoy. This look at characters who are unhappy with their own lives, so they have to resort to being someone else to make themselves feel significant is something I know I have dealt with in my life and I'm sure many readers of this have in their lifetime as well. The way the film dealt with these characters trying to cover up their sadness by putting on a different face and being someone else and concluding with a message that I truly found touching, inspirational and a brilliant way to end a film like this. The last part of this film, just like the rest of the film is poetic in it's style and beauty and I truly felt moved by emotions of happiness and sorrow with this film, but they were never bad feelings and were always totally appropriate to what was going on in the film. What an interesting concept of people having to be someone else in order to please themselves and what a wonderful message to get across in such a unique and creative way. Visually this film is stunning, the storytelling and pace as well as the acting all work out perfectly and create a fable that is truly one of a kind and probably has to be seen to be believed and it should definitely be seen. I know a lot of critics have not given this film all that positive reviews, but I think they missed the film's point completely because on an artistic level there is so much to admire here and if you are anything like me you are probably tired of all the same old clichéd story lines coming out of Hollywood and now we have this inventive, touching and truly unique film to come along and critics don't get it. Something is definitely wrong there. If you have ever been interested in independent, or experimental films then this film is a great place to start and for those tired of the same old Hollywood stuff that we see each week then definitely give this one a try as well. I only wished I lived in a bigger city where I got to review films like this all the time. A moving, beautiful and completely artistic overwhelming treat for your mind and eyes, Mister Lonely is the best film I have seen so far this year and one of the most important films of this decade, or any decade and deserves to be seen and studied by film students and film buffs for years to come. A wonderful achievement.