Scott Pil­grim vs. the World

Edgar Wright’s adap­ta­tion of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s com­ic-book series isn’t per­fect, but it exudes the tell­tale ener­gy of a water­shed moment in cin­e­ma. Here, on screen, in this elec­tric explo­sion of videogame imagery, the PlaySta­tion Gen­er­a­tion has come of age.

Scott Pil­grim – geek, slack­er, ego­tist, fool – is also a prophet of change. The touch­stones of cin­e­ma are giv­ing way to a new era; an era in which the bric-à-brac of our twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry lives can no longer be denied their place. Scott Pil­grim is furi­ous­ly, hyper­ac­tive­ly unre­al, but in its appre­ci­a­tion of what mat­ters to us now, of how we have been shaped, guid­ed and reborn by tech­nol­o­gy, it is more inti­mate­ly con­nect­ed to the real­i­ty of life as we know it than any of its contemporaries.

Direc­tor Edgar Wright has tri­umphant­ly recalled Pauline Kael’s con­vic­tion that junk cul­ture is cul­ture. Scott Pil­grim is a psy­che­del­ic 8‑bit trip through the mind of a gamer. It is a mind forged by Street­fight­er 2 and Son­ic the Hedge­hog, a solip­sis­tic day­dream where love is some­thing that must lit­er­al­ly be fought for.

As Scott (played by Michael Cera) over­comes the sev­en evil exes of girl­friend Ramona Flow­ers (Mary Eliz­a­beth Win­stead) in a series of extra­or­di­nary bat­tles, the film grad­u­al­ly unteth­ers itself from the stric­tures of cin­e­ma, and assumes the struc­ture, speed and vital­i­ty of a game – lev­el­ling up through a series of chal­lenges rather than pro­gress­ing down a nar­ra­tive path. And as it does so, Wright dress­es the film in the cheery visu­als of both games and comics: pow­er meters, one-ups and biff-bash-bosh sound effects.

For although Scott Pil­grim is a hyper­ac­tive feast, its great­est strength is its stud­ied lit­er­al­ism. By refus­ing to offer a nod and a wink to the audi­ence as Scott per­forms grav­i­ty-defy­ing kung-fu, Wright dis­plays an admirable courage in his aes­thet­ic con­vic­tions. This is his world – deal with it. For all that he throws a bewil­der­ing array of effects at the screen, none of them offers an escape hatch. Scott Pil­grim takes us remorse­less­ly beyond our com­fort zone, speak­ing to us – indeed, shout­ing at us – in a new cin­e­mat­ic language.

And yes, at times it becomes too much. If this is the future, some peo­ple will be appalled. Scott Pil­grim is a relent­less expe­ri­ence in which the few qui­et moments are crowd­ed out by the film’s gen­er­al air of noisy enthu­si­asm. That is a con­se­quence of its ambi­tion. What Wright is attempt­ing here is so new, and the excite­ment so pal­pa­ble, that it occa­sion­al­ly over­whelms the film’s focus. The aes­thet­ic will mature, but Scott Pil­grim is a cin­e­mat­ic ado­les­cent, awk­ward­ly test­ing the lim­its of its new form.

Whether or not Scott Pil­grim augurs a last­ing change is open to debate. There’s plen­ty of evi­dence from the US box office to sug­gest that it hasn’t con­nect­ed with a main­stream audi­ence. But that isn’t real­ly the point. The suc­cess of a film like this isn’t about num­bers or sta­tis­tics. It’s about devel­op­ing a new sen­si­bil­i­ty. It’s about a gen­er­a­tional shift. And it should be divi­sive. There are lines being drawn. The past is on one side; the future is on the oth­er. Where would you rather be?