Review by Bilge Ebiri
Full disclosure: despite my fondness for the original, I had to leave Michael Haneke's remake of his own film Funny Games before its crazed, depressing finale. Ordinarily, this would probably be a deal-breaker for a review, but in this unique instance, where the filmmaker seems to be deliberately daring his audience to abandon his film, there was something strangely gratifying about bailing on it.
There was also an added dimension to my departure; in effect, I had already seen this film. No, I hadn't technically seen this particular one, with this unique IMDb ID number. But there's no doubt about it: this is the same movie. A wealthy couple (Tim Roth and Naomi Watts) and their young son go up to their fancy cottage. A couple of fey, eerily polite preppies (Michael Pitt and Brady Corbet) show up to ask for eggs. Then they capture and torture the family. And thus is bourgeois society and the American culture of violence critiqued. (Sort of. More on that later.) Other than the fact that the actors are different (though in effect giving the same performances as their Teutonic counterparts) and the dialogue is now in English, Haneke has rendered his original shot for shot, this time with the full power of an American distributor behind him. (He probably got paid a lot more for this one, too.)
But in doing so, Haneke has done a disservice to his original vision: no longer is Funny Games the demented little experiment in suspense that made it a cult film for those of us who enjoy being abused by our European auteurs. Now, at least if you've seen the original, it feels like some weird old joke that no longer works. Devoid of the surprise element, Haneke's narrative transgressions just feel like tired, empty provocations. Gone is the feeling of having been ensnared in some stifling, terrifying cinematic trap. Now we know there's light on the other side of the door, and we know that we can leave.
Unless, that is, you've bought into the least interesting part of Haneke's thesis (and, arguably, the least appealing aspect of his work in general). The presskit for Funny Games offers up a number of chestnuts about how the film should always have been an American film in the first place, because it was in effect critiquing the violence and bloodlust of American films. By that logic, Haneke has now heroically entered the belly of the beast, like some grizzled Luke Skywalker, ready to fire his neutron bomb into the heart of pop culture's bloodsoaked Death Star. And that you owe it to yourself to see the movie again just to see what kind of effect it has on those evil, evil American audiences. (Oh, and by the way, please give us your money. Pleeease.)
Sorry, but I'm not buying it. Haneke's scolding pedantry has always rung false — it's hard to buy into the notion that the director of The Piano Teacher and Benny's Video is in truth some concerned, avuncular softy who makes violent films just to criticize his audiences' fondness for same. If this remake of Funny Games proves insight into anything, it's the degree to which Haneke's work had steadily advanced since the original, gaining resonance and complexity. Better to forget about this tired regression and move on. — Bilge Ebiri