If you’re thinking of visiting Thailand for your next big vacation, you’re in luck, Seth Green, of “Robot Chicken” and “Austin Powers” fame, has made an exquisite-looking 80-minute visual brochure for the country in his feature film debut, “Changeland.” Just be aware you’ll have to wade through a scattered, numbing semblance of a movie while watching his painful, drama-free travel ad.
Undoubtedly, “Changeland” works better as sponsored content than a movie with drama and story, which is sorely lacking. There’s mild intrigue in its concept, and in its humble beginnings; think back to the last boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-begins-to-realize-what-a-big-world-it-is-without-the-girl movie you watched. “Changeland” kicks off where the credits to that type of films would start to roll, as Brandon— played by Green— flies out for a trip he hopes brings some clarity.
The trip isn’t of the spur-of-the-moment variety, however; Brandon had been planning to surprise his wife with the trip for their anniversary. But that was before he discovered she was cheating on him, and what is originally envisioned as a romantic getaway devolves into an expensive sojourn of introspection; Brandon’s best friend, Dan (played by Breckin Meyer) comes along instead, to join in the fun, and more pivotally, as a guiding force for a suddenly lost soul.
But there is little-to-no story or plot and when the pair arrive in Thailand, and this is precisely when the promise of “Changeland” falls apart. A man in a long-term relationship finds himself on the other side of the world to try and discover himself…the movie’s taglines write themselves. But there’s little in Green’s hollow screenplay to activate interest or engender empathy.
Before so much as a word is uttered, we can immediately sympathize with where Brandon finds himself. Green is known for his baby-faced, ostensibly innocent precociousness, and here it’s weaponized to a fault. While he and Dan explore the country and all its exotic flair, the despondency on his face lingers…and lingers…and lingers. Green probably would like to make us think he’s searching deep in his soul for answers and emancipation; instead, he looks deeply bored in his own movie.
As the writer-director of “Changeland” he isn’t faring much better either. Green manages to find an opportunity to copy-paste the same scenario, repeating himself literally and metaphorically with increasingly frustrating results. The best friend tries his best to do what best friends do, encouraging Brandon to take the leap of faith— sometimes literally— with eye-rolling levels of unsubstantiated melodrama.
There’s an emotional absence in “Changeland” and it’s rooted in the movie’s insistence not to reach a significant point of catharsis or introspection for a central character we’re supposed to care about. It’s pretty difficult to care when the movie limits the perspective of Brandon’s wife to a few dozen words via concerned voicemails that are never returned, even when she wonders out loud if he’s in trouble, if she should contact the police.
While the screenplay is depressingly down in the dumps, the camera certainly isn’t. The person behind it, Patrick Ruth, is having the time of his life shooting sweeping, beautiful, vivid Thailand. To the movie’s credit, it looks gorgeous, as Brandon and Dan ride on speedboats and explore caves with friends they’re making along the way. To the movie’s detriment, the beautiful cinematography exacerbates the overwhelming emptiness that fills its vistas and beaches and bars.
If “Changeland” is trying to paint a world that feels endlessly lonesome after a major relationship hiccup—even with your best friend there—Green is doing his job. But there’s nothing in the narrative to match, no emotional anchor or charisma in the cast (which also includes Brenda Song, Clare Grant and Macaulay Culkin in a what-the-hell-is-he-trying-to-do performance for the ages) to inhabit the world.
“Changeland” feels like what happens when you decide to take a vacation and make your first movie, from inception to realization, while you’re on the plane. Fortified with an endless loop of poppy hits a la The XX and “Time to Pretend”-era MGMT, Green has created, at best, a wonderful Expedia ad, with a soundtrack that’s more emotionally charged than his story.
And where it shakes out, disappointingly, isn’t a climax so much as a cheap, last-ditch effort to impress us with something, anything. It’s a desperate ploy, the movie smugly insisting that you can find life’s answers in the bathroom stall with a stranger or at the bottom of a shot glass, and not have to worry about the hangover the next day.
For how much “Changeland” mostly feels like a story grounded in reality, its dream-like conclusion—or lack thereof –kills, with lethal injection, any belief that a journey has actually taken place. In the middle of the movie, Dan asks Brandon if they’d like to visit what is said to be a waterfall where enlightenment is found. Brandon could use some illumination, sure, but Green even more so. Maybe at that point, he can try to learn from his clichéd, lukewarm mistakes and make enlightening movies too. [D]