Rabbit holes

    Renate Reinsve in “The Worst Person in the World.” Neon image via IMDB

Super Bowl LVI's halftime show kicked off a commotion on nextdoor.com. The oldsters – the group formerly known as baby boomers – were up in arms.

In case you're not familiar with with nextdoor.com – good for you if you're not – it's the internet's version of your neighborhood. In this realm keystrokes have replaced knocking on a neighbor's door to borrow an egg or cup of flour. I'm on it twice – in Kula where our house is but we're not; and in Tucson where we inadvertently live these days.

Each nextdoor locale has its qualities – there are some awesome nature photographers in Tucson, posting hummingbirds, owls, coyotes, and the splendor of the desert captured through their lenses. But mostly I'm not a fan. Under the guise of creating communities from Arizona to Hawaii, nextdoor.com winds up providing more rabbit holes to get lost and waste time in.

At least the rabbit holes aren't like those on Facebook, halls of mirrors and selfie art galleries. But they stem from the same impulse, trying to fend off loneliness, replacing actual emotions, which are sometimes messy, with digital connections, which – barring technical difficulties – are smooth. 

One recent Kula nextdoor.com post was from a woman who had just been bitten by a centipede. She was asking for treatment advice. Having been there and done that myself, I could feel her pain. But why was she wasting time waiting for replies instead of Googling it and treating the damn thing?

Monday morning's, uh, discussion debated the merits of the previous night's Super Bowl halftime show by Dr. Dre, Snoop Dog, Kendrick Lamar, Mary J. Blige, 50 Cent and Eminem, who punctuated his performance by taking a knee, Colin Kapernick-style, despite being admonished by the NFL not to.

TV pundits the next day pondered the racial and sociological implications of it all. On nextdoor.com, the reaction was more like, “Who …?”

Or as they say it in Cincinnati, “Who dey?”

The question could just as well have been, “50 Cent … what is that exactly?”

Aside from their indecipherable lyrics – which is probably just as well – these artists are hardly household names for what one critic dubbed “the Polident demographic.” Ouch.

Many nextdoor.com neighbors chose to turn off the sound entirely, or leave the room rather than watch. The online discussion felt like a Progressive Insurance commercial featuring Dr. Rick – someone near and dear to my heart – counseling younger couples against turning into their parents.

Nextdoor.com folks are their parents. And proud of it.

Nextdoor.com's consensus was that this year's halftime show paled in comparison to Shakira and Jennifer Lopez two years ago. No one got the lyrics that time either, probably because no one was listening. You didn't have to, to know exactly what those ladies were sayin'. 

Probably the worst thing about nextdoor.com is how fast civil discourse can turn nasty and personal. Before you know it, everyone's accusing everyone else of being negative. This is what happens when you think having a smart phone makes you smart, or that misinformation and conspiracy theories are more fun than critical thinking.

Internet forums provide cover for bullies and bring out other folks' mean streaks. It's disconcerting when you find them living next door.

Speaking of being generationally challenged, I've got to admit that despite its Academy Award nominations for original screenplay and best foreign language film, I don't exactly get “The Worst Person in the World.” 

Like last year's screenplay winner “Promising Young Woman,” it's about a woman who starts the story by dropping out of med school. Like last year's foreign language winner, “Another Round,” it comes from Norway.

Structured by writer-director Joachim Trier in twelve chapters, it's set in contemporary Oslo, following a delectable millennial named Julie (Renate Reinsve), in her downward career spiral and complicated love life. Anders Danielsen Lie and Herbert Nordrum co-star as the men who love her. Two of them, at least.

Writer-director Trier has been lauded for “getting” women, and the film is being hailed for turning all the usual rom-com formulas upside-down, taking wrong turns whenever it seems headed for a happy ending. Reinsve won the best-actress prize at Cannes for the way her character tackles the check list of challenges facing young women these days: Sex? Marriage? Children? Career? Affair? Or what?

Among Reinsve' many festival award nominations, perhaps the most telling is from the Alliance of Women Film Journalists for Most Daring Performance.

She and the film around her display candor, frank sensuality and emotional honesty that seem signatures of Norway's exciting cinema scene. Director Trier adds surreal visual touches, like freeze-framing everyone on block after block of Oslo sidewalks as Julie runs through them. Or illustrating what a magic mushroom trip really feels like. Or conveying the intoxicating sensation of falling in love like few films have accomplished before.

The title – Julie's appraisal of herself – is harshly misleading. Is not knowing yourself really that bad? What I don't get is why it's labeled a comedy, even a dark comedy, or the most wishy washy of all, a dramedy.

The story of a beautiful woman who can't make up her mind, only wanting what she can't have and not wanting what she can, doesn't strike me as all that funny. 

Maybe something got lost in translation. Maybe it's a millennial thing. Maybe I need some help from Dr. Rick … or advice from nextdoor.com.