Two men descend into madness on an island. What the hell is The Lighthouse? Nah, I’m talking about the *totally* true story of when Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder made… Ebony & Ivory, also the title of this wild and weird odyssey from Jim Hosking.
Ebony & Ivory is written and directed byJim Hosking, the same filmmaker who delivered The Greasy Strangler nearly a decade ago. It’s a film I love, a semi-slasher gross-out oddity that I describe as “Tim & Eric, John Waters, and Lloyd Kaufman smoked a vat of meth and decided to make a movie.” If you’ve seen it, how you took it will determine your thoughts on Ebony & Ivory. It’s the same avant-garde sort of niche strangeness. The type of film that’s an excuse for weird and strange people to come together and be just as weird and strange as they want and can. For better or worse (depending on where your line is), you must love the sheer will of chutzpah to make whatever messed-up ideas enter Hoskings and his team’s twisted minds. Hosking (and I) know it won’t be in everyone’s bad taste, but for those who do, it’ll land with gleeful mania.
The reason for this round of raunchiness is a fictional meeting of musical legends Paul McCartney and Steve Wonder. Wonder, rowing himself in a tiny boat, visits Paul at Mull of Kintyre for a weekend of talking, smoking marijuana, and just all around weirdness as they go just a wee bit mad in seclusion. This is your The Lighthouse on [adult swim].
The humor that drives Ebony & Ivory is ludicrous. It’s deliberately awkward, with jokes in strange places, delivered oddly, coming off as a sort of performance art. It’s dry and matter-of-fact with strange turns of phrases, and it pushes it all to the limit. How long can you watch a single scene or hear a phrase repeated ad nauseam for several minutes? It’s the shift from “okay, that’s funny” to “how long is this going to go?” ultimately shifting back to hilarious in how far it’s taken. It’s a punishing push of humor. For many, it’ll be a chore; for others, it’ll be a gleefully weird riff. There’s a joy in not knowing where any particular moment will go, whether it be Paul trying to get Stevie to say “Doobie Woobie”, becoming rams just because, circular arguments, or Paul’s long explanations of “By the Wife” vegetarian protein products. The film is punctuated with wonderful visual gags (said product’s labels) and a fair bit of physical comedy, but the focus is on the performance of the pair bickering like children.
The pair of performers (this is a two-hander besides a brief third player) is perfectly suited for Hosking’s world. They should be; both have worked with Hoskings before. Sky Elobar and Gil Gex, as Paul and Stevie, were Big Brayden and Big Paul in The Greasy Strangler. For the sake of the film and its style, neither is truly trying to emulate their famous counterparts. It’s a lot of fun watching them hang their unique performances and methods on the pop culture understandings of the pair. Elobar’s purposely wide accent, sounding like an imitation of an imitation, is a hoot and adds another level. Gex’s Stevie is a boisterous ass, turning “shit & fuck” repetitions into a mantra of character. The pair have amazing chemistry, bouncing the barbs so well.
Although the Paul & Stevie dynamic is more of an excuse for the depravity, there is a slight level of parodying the self-righteous biopic. The sort of films about famous people, which make on-the-nose or cringe-inducing winks at the pop culture and history of the figures. Walk Hard and Weird: The Weird Al Story (bring Madonna to justice for her crimes!) explored the biopic so perfectly and deeply, but Ebony & Ivory touches on it in the funniest, most direct manner, fitting the type of picture. (Paul himself had one of these movies with another fictional meeting in 2001’s Two of Us, a solid if twee flick of Paul and John reuniting the night George was on SNL). I’ve even avoided filling this review with references. I’ve been listening to Paul’s catalog a lot of late, so I’ve been putting some puns on the run (heh, okay… live and let… live :-p ). I loved how Ebony & Ivory turned the eventual reveal of the titular song. It’s done in the most insanely dumb, low-key way that had me cracking up. But the whole film did.
Jim Hosking’s Ebony & Ivory is an absurdist exercise in oddball performances by a pair of committed performers, an odder script, and all-around weirdness. It will not appeal to everyone. But for those who like to tap into its strange vein, it’ll be a saline solution of silly citations. I am one of those.