Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Scott Pilgrim

It’s hard to know where to start with this wacky, entertaining little film. Scott Pilgrim bends all kinds of storytelling rules, expecting us to ride along, say, when Scott, a lightweight, wimpy dude turns into a live action video game superhero, endures a colossal battle and then turns right back into his old persona, happily collecting his bonus coins from the floor (“Cool, coins!”) while his score totes up absurdly in the background. I love this stuff.

Scott Pilgrim, played by Michael Cera, is a shiftless twenty something Canadian, who doesn’t have much going on except a band (Sex Bob-omb) where he plays a fierce bass guitar. His heart was “kicked in the butt” by a rock singer named Envy who left him behind when she got famous. Scott compensates by dating a 17 year old high school student, much to the chagrin of everyone he knows, and everyone he knows is kept well informed by his roommate Wallace (Kieran Culkin) who has superpowers himself when it comes to texting about Scott’s personal life. He can do it – literally – in his sleep.

Then Scott meets Ramona Flowers, an edgy young woman with purple hair; she delivers packages for the Canadian version of Amazon and occasionally shows up in Scott’s dreams because there’s a subspace in his brain she likes to use. (If you’re not a Scott Pilgrim aficionado you won’t understand what that means, and it never gets explained, but that’s the way this movie rolls.) Scott falls head over heels for Ramona but she’s got baggage: in order to date her, Scott has to defeat her seven evil exes (and, perhaps more frightening, break up with Knives Chau, his seventeen year old girlfriend). And so the video game battling begins, with the first of the evil exes mounting an assault in the middle of a Sex Bob-omb concert. Scott is baffled: “Wait! We're fighting over Ramona?” Evil Matthew Patel responds reasonably, “Didn't you get my email explaining the situation?”

This film is full of great characters, with Kieran Culkin nearly stealing the show as Wallace, a low key but sharp witted gay lothario who loves Scott like a brother but isn’t afraid to call him on his romantic peccadilloes. Anna Kendrick is terrific as Scott’s impatient, down to earth sister, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead is pitch perfect as the mysterious Ramona. And a shout out is due to Alison Pill, who plays Kim Pine, the drummer for Sex Bob-omb; Pill (looking oddly like a young Molly Ringwald) nails the acerbic wit and sharp insight that make Kim a welcome antidote to the freewheeling style of the rest of the gang.  Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is not a serious movie, but it creates its illogical universe with such care, each piece of the story fitting snugly into the next, that we quickly believe that the whole thing makes perfect sense. This is a really fun ride. B+