Movie Review: 'The Beach Bum' Movie as Failed Meme

The Beach Bum is a movie that eluded me. I can’t pin down the point of the movie, or the central character, Moondog, played by Matthew McConaughey. I have had a few people tell me what they believe the point of Director Harmony Korine’s meandering, yet calculated, attempt to create Jeffrey Lebowski for the modern era, but I didn’t find anything in the movie that provided any sense of direction. And combining that feeling with not finding the film entertaining, I was left entirely cold by The Beach Bum.

The Beach Bum stars Matthew McConaughey as a formerly beloved poet-genius gone to pot, quite literally. Moondog was once a vaunted voice in the literary world with, what we're told are, poems with legendary quality. What we hear of his poems in the movie are good, and demonstrate the closest thing to a perspective that the film has, but a work of towering, unforgettable genius is not present in the movie.

The Moondog of today is dedicated only to his next Pabst Blue Ribbon and next toke on a blunt. He has a wife, Minnie (Isla Fisher), whose inheritance has afforded him a life of living on a boat in the Florida Keys, flush with beer and weed. Meanwhile, back on the mainland, Minnie has begun sleeping with Moondog’s drug dealer pal, Lingerie (Snoop Dogg). In a different movie this would provide a complication, but The Beach Bum brushes past this plot in a way that leaves you to wonder why such detail was included at all. The subplot plays like an improv the director changed his mind about, and decided to abandon, and yet still included in the movie.

Moondog is eventually lured back to the mainland for his daughter, Heather’s (Stefania LaVie Owen) wedding. The future husband is a bizarre, throwaway character who is entirely dismissed by everyone, including the otherwise straightforward Heather, with a dirty nickname that I assume is meant to be funny, but never is. This is a particularly lazy subplot as well that fails to illustrate anything other than that despite being billed as the most chill, laid back dude in the land, Moondog can choose to be obnoxious and rude, further diminishing his supposed charm.

Moondog’s lifestyle is threatened by a financial complication that is supposed to have an emotional impact but doesn’t. Even when something extreme happens, Moondog doesn’t really react. He feigns disaffection that only curdles into a childish, boorish, obnoxiousness that should be a cover for real feeling, but McConaughey never lets us feel that from the character. McConaughey and director Harmony Korine appear so dedicated to the artifice of Moondog as the unaffected, go-with-the-flow, stoner God, that they forget that he needs to be compelling beyond the construct.

I found Moondog’s dedication to hedonism insufferable. I found the lack of momentum in the saggy plot to be tiresome. And, I found the calculated attempt to capitalize on Matthew McConaughey as a stoner meme to be off-putting. The filmmakers seem to be dreaming of this character becoming some kind of modern icon of freedom, right down to an ending that has him reject even the one bit of motivation the character appeared to have in the movie.

The attempt to create a character as a meme failed for me. I kept examining the artificial construct of Moondog, and never got a sense of the actual character. If you don’t find Moondog compelling you certainly won’t find The Beach Bum as a whole, compelling. McConaughey is on screen for the entirety of the movie and when the character is merely a collection of meme-able aphorisms and stoner cliches, things go from charming to tiresome quite quickly.

Director Harmony Korine, Matthew McConaughey and the rest of the makers of The Beach Bum are attempting to create a modern take on The Big Lebowski, specifically, a modern age take on Jeff Bridges’ The Dude. What they fail to understand is everything that made that character charming and compelling. The Dude was a wholly original character crafted with a meticulous level of detail by Bridges and directors Joel and Ethan Coen.

The Dude may be a stoner slob who only lives for bowling and weed, but every aspect of that character was curated and made essential to the movie. His every line of dialogue is another piece of a larger puzzle within the creation of this unique character, or in this rich, hilarious plot. As much as the character is the model of laid back affability, his creation had intent and purpose well beyond traits like weed smoking and white Russians.

The makers of The Beach Bum have created a version of The Dude who’ve never actually seen The Big Lebowski. Moondog is The Dude as a meme, a sort of Mandela Effect version of The Dude that through inattention focuses on the most irrelevant aspects of the character while misinterpreting his charm and purpose. Moondog is to The Dude what Kermit the Frog Drinking Tea is to the actual character of Kermit the Frog; a bastardization at best.

The Beach Bum is not poorly made, it has a unique, south Florida look that, though it is quite familiar, isn’t over-exposed. Harmony Korine has a good eye for visuals and the artfulness of his work is unquestionable. It’s all of the raunchy aspects, the sweaty, desperate attempts at making the character go viral. That stuff just makes the movie appear calculated and cynical rather than the celebration of freedom that others would like you to believe that The Beach Bum is.