DUNKIRK, France – If you’ve ever tried your hand at standup comedy or made an appearance at an open mic night of any kind, you may be familiar with the time-honored heckler’s cry “Don’t quit your day job.”
This taunt roughly embodies the message YouTubers, in aggregate, have been sending to porn star Mia Khalifa in response to her brief, befuddled “review” of Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, which released last week to broad critical acclaim.
While I haven’t seen the film, it seems to me most of Khalifa’s dissatisfaction with Dunkirk could have been resolved by paying closer attention to some expository text displayed on the screen at the opening of the movie — and/or looking up any number of historical facts online after she left the theater.
“I didn’t know if the whole thing lasted 23 hours or if the rescue mission took two-and-a-half-months,” Khalifa complained, after saying she “respects the effort” made by Nolan — a fact I’m sure will come as a great relief to the director-producer-writer.
As noted in one of the comments posted in response to Khalifa’s review, however, a title screen near the beginning of the movie explains in detail the time frames covered by the film, specifying the action on the beach and pier area cover a week, while the events at sea take up a day, and one hour is devoted to the in-air component of the story.
In the description of her review video, Khalifa noted she and her fellow reviewer (“Jerf”) “were less than impressed and both agreed, had we not possessed basic knowledge regarding the rescue at the beaches of Dunkirk, we would have had no fucking clue what was going on in this movie.”
Other aspects of Khalifa’s confusion stated in her review, however, suggest Khalifa and Jerf’s “basic knowledge” of the events at Dunkirk is less extensive than even the word basic would imply.
“I didn’t know when in the war… was this the end of the war?” Khalifa asked at one point. “Did this end World War II, or was this a random (battle)?”
For the record, no. A battle that took place in 1940 did not end World War II.
To be fair, Khalifa never claimed to be a historian (or a movie reviewer, for that matter) but if you’re going to complain about a movie being confusing and further suggest it would have been indecipherably so if not for your basic knowledge of the subject at hand, it might not be a bad idea to first ensure you do have the basic knowledge to which you refer.
As these lame little YouTube review videos go, though, Khalifa’s is not entirely without charm. Her easy rapport with Jerf seems to reflect a genuine friendship and camaraderie that goes well beyond a shared ignorance of World War II.
Khalifa also scored points (with me, at least) for leaving in large sections of footage that demonstrate she’s not out to present some idealized, carefully and intellectually-groomed image of herself. In candidly revealing she gets three films confused — and she’s more than a bit unclear about which three films, to boot — Khalifa provided enough humility and self-effacing humor to know she’s not taking herself, or this whole movie review thing, too seriously.
Easily the best thing about Khalifa’s review, though, is its length. At a merciful 6:38, it’s just long enough to make you consider bailing on the video outright, but short enough for you to soldier through the whole thing as a matter of faux-journalistic integrity and quasi-professionalism.
Overall, I’m giving Khalifa’s review One Thumb Up — but I’m not going to specify up where, because this just isn’t that kind of review.
