By Matthew Wood
The moral of EAGLE VS. SHARK, the first feature film by writer-director Taika Cohen, quickly becomes quite clear: We’re all losers, but some of us just don’t know it yet. And, even losers need love too.
The movie follows perpetual dork Lily (Loren Horsley) as she looks for true love — and fails miserably. Recently fired from her dead-end job at a burger joint in the mall, Lily dreams of true love with electronics technician Jarrod (Jemaine Clement). After she shows up at his “animal party” — where you dress like your favorite animal, she, a shark and he, a, well, you know — they have an awkward courting that includes a brief (very brief) sexual encounter, shark suit and all.
When the needlessly cocky and socially awkward Jarrod announces he has to head back to his hometown to beat up the bully that tormented him in high school, Lily tags along. There, we find out the origins of Jarrod’s dorkhood: A sister and brother-in-law who sell knockoff jogging suits and generic makeup (among other things); a father who may or may not be wheelchair-bound and a 9-year-old daughter that Jarrod barely acknowledges. If that’s not the stuff of a loser in the making, I don’t know what is.
To make matters worse, Jarrod announces midway through the trip that he’s breaking up with Lily, leaving her stranded with the fam while he trains for his big fight. Most of the rest of the movie follows Lily as she bonds with his family, culminating in what can only be called an unsuccessful attempt at revenge for Jarrod against his “nemesis” — a wheelchair-bound Samoan who may not look like a worthy adversary, though proves to be nothing but.
Of course, the two star-crossed geeks find one another again (mostly because they have to keep sleeping in a tent together in the backyard because all the beds are taken) and Jarrod rediscovers his love for Lily only after realizing what he is missing.
You can’t help but make the obvious comparisons to NAPOLEON DYNAMITE — another film full of losers looking for love, and doing a pretty poor job of it. But, I found EAGLE to be much darker and more tragic, while NAPOLEON was intent on being at least somewhat lighthearted and fun. Maybe it’s because the high school characters in NAPOLEON had the rest of their lives ahead of them to change the course of their loserdom.
On the back end of their 20s, Lily and Jarrod are pretty much resigned to being left out of the cool crowd, even if Jarrod
doesn’t realize it yet. Something about that made me sad. Instead of laughing at their ineptitude, I just wanted them to quit screwing everything up and make a good decision for once.
I have to admit, I fell in love with Lily’s character. Yes, she’s a loser, but that’s not her fault. She has such a great heart, which is infinitely more beautiful than a pretty face. I think, mostly, I just wanted to just grab her and yell, “Don’t put up with this chump, you’re better than this guy!”
In the end, Jarrod redeems himself, but only after realizing that he’s really not all that. “I’m a loser, aren’t I?” he confides to Lily, to which she lovingly responds, “Doesn’t matter.”
See, even dorks can find true love. It happened to Kip and LaFawnduh in NAPOLEON, and it happened to the Eagle and the Shark. But, it still isn’t very pretty to watch.