The set-up is basic but provocative enough. Imagine a world where Robin Wright plays herself who indeed shot to stardom in 1987 with "The Princess Bride." (Gawd, has it really been that long ago?) Her star has fallen over the years. With no mention of her being in "House of Cards," "The Congress" envisions Wright as a single mom of two kids, living in an abandoned structure near an airport. Few if any movie studios want to work with her, and her longtime agent Al (an unusually restrained Harvey Keitel) struggles to find her work. But there's one final option and it's a doozy.
Miramount Studios (get it...a play off of Paramount and Miramax?) wants to scan Wright, literally, all of her physical and emotional features and preserve them in digital form. Wright herself won't have to work anymore, but gets paid a hefty sum to have her younger, digital version play roles such as a short-cropped, weapon-slinging rebel of the future. Her new "roles" make millions for the studio; one such role is almost a parody of Ben Stiller's Tugg Speedman character from "Tropical Thunder." Wright balks initially at the thought, but thinking of her children, the ugly reality of her situation, the creepy studio head (Danny Huston) puts it bluntly: The digital version of Robin Wright will do things the real Robin Wright wouldn't do, especially the one now in her 40s.
Twenty years later, Miramount is a world-dominating megacorporation - more than a movie studio - and it's unleash its latest, most powerful product at its cultural confab, The Congress. Miramount has figured out how to reduce an actor's chemical makeup to a drug. Yes, you as a fan can literally eat/drink/inhale your favorite performer and imagine yourself as someone/something else. Everybody else does. Heck, at this point Hollywood has become an animated zone, as in Roger Rabbit's Toontown on steroids. In effect, the entertainment business has become an opiate for the masses that yearn to retreat from an increasingly ugly real world.
Wright is asked to speak to the greatness of what's happening and, well, I'll spare you the rest of the plot. The story doesn't really matter. What matters in "The Congress" is what is seen and done. Visually, especially the animation part, is stunning. Some of the satirical characterizations are hilarious. Some people online criticize the animation part, calling it cheap. I think it's partially because it's meant to be inexpensive. This is an indie/art house flick, after all. So much of it recalls classic cartoons of old, but more so it speaks to some people's desire to escape from their reality and enjoy how they want to be seen/perceived rather than how they are in real life.
Folman touches upon so many themes in his film: Identity, one's hold on reality, free will, capitalism, imagination. The film is a critique of the movie industry, how it treats aging performers, and its plans for a more digital universe. There's a critique about overmedicating our population. "The Congress," visually, is filled with inspiration ranging from "Inception" and "2001" to "What Dreams May Come" and "Solaris."
Wright herself portrays "herself" well but appears a bit distant. I'm sure if she's directed by Folman to be a tad distant or she's just that way, as she was in many of her previous films. With its mish-mash of live action and animation. "The Congress" says something on the whole, but it does feel incoherent in bits and pieces. I'm still trying to figure it all out. Maybe there's a point. Maybe there's not! But it's a philosophical, entertaining, mindblowing trip all the same.
