“In Hawaii they say ‘Aloha.’ It means both hello and goodbye. Which just goes to show, if you spend too much time in the sun, you don’t know whether you’re coming or going.” ~ George Carlin
After decades spent producing fascinating and meaningful dramas about real human beings dealing with universal issues like love, ambition and dignity, Cameron Crowe returns with the baffling drama Aloha. And what is Aloha about? Well, it probably has something to do with reclaiming your sold-out soul, or maybe falling for a woman who is clearly way too young for you, or possibly getting your ex-girlfriend back together with her husband. But frankly, it’s a little hard to tell once all the Hawaiian spirits and Star Wars satellites show up.
Bradley Cooper stars as Brian Gilcrest, a former military contractor who now works for billionaire Carson Welch (Bill Murray), who plans to send an all-new satellite into the sky from an Air Force base in Hawaii, bringing them both into conflict with the Hawaiian sovereign nation. The Aloha State is also home to Brian’s ex-girfrliend Tracy (Rachel McAdams), now trapped in a frustratingly quiet marriage with Woody (Jon Krasinski), who speaks volumes in a body language that Tracy can’t decipher.
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Meanwhile, Brian is chaperoned by a promising young Air Force pilot named Allison Ng (Emma Stone), who secretly worships Brian for reasons that never become entirely clear, much like the rest of Aloha’s machinations. It’s never quite evident what it is that Brian is famous for, and what exactly he does for Carson Welch. All we know for sure is that he’s considered a sellout, and now struggles with his responsibility to both his job and to “the skies,” which may soon be filled with nuclear weapons and may also be the canvas on which Hawaiian gods are writing to him, through him, about him or at least near him.
Although the cast does fine work, particularly Emma Stone and Jon Krasinski, they are trapped in a story that lacks focus. Maybe Cameron Crowe was attempting to evoke the confusing complexities of adult life, but if so, he did his job too well. Confusion washes over this film in waves. Aloha is packed with plots and subplots that strike seemingly at random, and always with the same amount of emphasis, so that it’s frustratingly hard to tell who or what really matters and how it all connects.
Enormous amounts of time are spent with Tracy and Woody and their kids, but even though big revelations arise, all their problems seem to be resolved with silent hugs. Brian’s job may put him in a position to break international law and betray the Hawaiian nation, but that subplot culminates with a baffling and absurd sci-fi crescendo that seemingly has no place in this humanistic drama, unless Aloha is somehow also the prequel to Gravity. Hawaiian spirits show up, but that’s either a massively important insight into the universe, or just an unnecessarily elaborate way to get Brian and Allison to fall in love with each other.
The best part of Cameron Crowe’s previous work – even his weirder films like Vanilla Sky and We Bought a Zoo – is that he has always been able to distill complex themes into easily digestible packages. Crowe’s rich characters filled the screen with their fully realized lives, but despite the deluge of detail it was always easy to tell who’s who, what’s what, and what the damned point is. In Aloha, the center of the story appears to have slipped through the filmmaker’s fingers. The infrequent moments of genuine emotion and pleasure feel completely unrelated to one another, and the many subplots seem to be in direct competition instead of harmony.
Maybe George Carlin was right. Or maybe they just can’t all be winners.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
