It becomes clear his father's favourite son was Jarrod's brother Gordon, an accomplished athlete. They don't have room in the house, so Jarrod and Lily have to sleep in a tent in the yard. Jarrod's 9-year-old daughter Vinny, the product of a random sexual encounter who Jarrod sees only occasionally, also lives with Jarrod's family. Jarrod's father is a withdrawn man who uses a wheelchair. His sister and brother-in-law sell all kinds of questionable products, like make-up kits and jumpsuits. Upon arriving, Lily discovers that Jarrod's family is just as bizarre as Jarrod himself. Along the way, Damon offers them apples, which will become the representation of Jarrod and Lily in several claymation scenes throughout the film. Damon agrees to drive Jarrod and Lily there. He confides that he plans to confront his high-school bully Eric, but has no car to get to his hometown. He later comes by Lily's house to apologize, saying he was depressed and needed to be alone. The following day, Jarrod invites Lily on a date but fails to turn up. He says his brother and mother are dead, too. They go to Jarrod's room and he learns Lily's parents both died of heart attacks. Jarrod is impressed with Lily's shark costume as well as her remarkable video game skills. The party is sparsely attended with what are apparently teenage and adult customers of Jarrod's store, all dressed extravagantly in animal costumes. Lily retrieves it and shows up at the party with her caring and supportive brother Damon. One day, Jarrod gives Lily an invitation to his "dress as your favourite animal" party to pass along to her workmate Jenny, who throws it away. She works at a fast food restaurant and has a crush on Jarrod ( Jemaine Clement), a geek who works in a video game store. Shark provides even more freaks (including Jarrod’s wheelchair-bound dad and tracksuit-selling sister and brother-in-law), a showdown between Jarrod and his high-school tormenter, but little that might pass as actual humor-unless, that is, one finds it funny to look down on and laugh at characters who’ve been designed primarily as abnormal objects of ridicule.Lily ( Loren Horsley), a shy, wistful girl, is a songwriter when no one is listening. Their budding courtship begins at a party in which they dress as their favorite animal (his: eagle hers: shark), flowers during conversations punctuated by “Awesome!” and “Same!,” and soon leads to Jarrod’s seaside hometown. It’s Jarrod (Jemaine Clement), a video-game store employee whose idiotic macho confidence comes from martial arts training and Xbox competition domination, who largely dominates this doofus free-for-all, even though the story’s heart lies with Lily (Loren Horsley), a shy outcast who works at a fast food restaurant and spends her days and nights pining for Jarrod. Mimicking Jared Hess’s penchant for static, center-of-frame compositions and infatuation with weirdo kitsch (both of which were modeled after the work of Wes Anderson), Waititi presents a cornucopia of gangly and/or ugly and/or socially inept and/or moronic dweebs whose every clumsy action is scored to a gratingly cutesy pop song, and interspersed by pointless, redundant stop-motion animated segments. That Taika Waititi’s film attempts to mitigate derision with something approaching sincere compassion gives it a small step up on its cult-fave ancestor, but any minor improvements made to the Napoleon Dynamite template are offset by its wholesale derivation. Shark is nothing more and nothing less than a romantic, New Zealand spin on Napoleon Dynamite in which mockery of outcasts is partially obscured by sympathy for their perfectly klutzy love.
Writer-director Taika Waititi’s Eagle vs.
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