Click, a remote control film

Welcome to first, and perhaps only ever, movie review at the History of the Button. I watched Click with Adam Sandler simply because it was a movie all about a remote control. A movie about buttons!

The plot is simple: Sandler gets a remote control with which he can control his actual life. Pause time, rewind to good memories, fast forward through the boring parts, the works.

I fully expected the usual goofball cheese from a Sandler movie. In fact, my expectations were so solid that I actually wrote the following before watching the movie.

I just saved you two hours and three dollars. I watched Click so you don’t have to.

Oops. Reviews are better written after, not before. Sure, there were plenty of the standard Sandler jokes written for eight year olds, but there was also enough of the Punch Drunk Love Sandler to make Click a little surprising.

Savor this thought for a second: this is a film about a remote control. This little device has elevated itself in our culture enough to become the focal point of a large budget film. In fact, Click follows the trend of other recent movies based on a piece of technology. You’ve Got Mail with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan was all about e-mail. And just this year we saw Harrison Ford play a security specialist in Firewall. What’s next, a movie called RSS?

The central philosophical question of Click is obvious: if you could, would you fast forward your life? Of course we say “of course not,” but think of all the traffic jams, the bad days at work, the trips to the dentist. All that waiting in lines. Wouldn’t you fast forward just a little bit here and there? C’mon, just a little?

The film wastes no time in setting up the remote control theme. In the initial scene, we see a coffee table with four different remote controls, a familiar scene in the modern home. Sandler, an overworked architect with a great family that he can’t find time for, can’t figure out which remote is which. He tries to turn on the TV, but instead opens the garage door, turns on the fan, and starts a toy car.

Sandler: “Which one of these turns on the TV? Whatever happened to the good old days when you pulled the knob and on came the boob tube?”

Six year-old son: “The O’Doyles got a universal remote control. One clicker controls everything. Makes life a lot easier for old people like you.”

Sandler: “Well whoop-de-do for the O’Doyles.”

So he goes out shopping for a universal remote control. Everything is closed, except for Bed, Bath and Beyond. He finds a salesguy.

Sandler: “You got any universal remote controls?”

Salesguy: “For a shower curtain or a bath vent?”

Sandler: “For a television.”

Salesguy: “Hmmm, I don’t think so, maybe for a blanket?”

Sandler: “You got a remote for a blanket?”

The remote control jokes are flying. Definitely an Adam Sandler movie so far.

He notices a door marked Beyond, naturally after the Bed and the Bath. He finds an eccentric technician, Christopher Walken.

Walken: “You’re looking for a universal remote control?”

Sandler: “Yeah, just one device to do it all for me, make my life a little easier, quicker, not so damn complicated.”

Walken: “I’m going to show you a remote we just got in that’s probably the most advanced piece of technology we got in this place.”

Sandler: “Sweet… I guess the O’Doyle’s remote can bite my advanced technological ass then.”

Walken: “I don’t know the O’Doyles, but they can bite it hard.”

Walken hands him a shiny blue remote control.

Sandler: “Where’s the box? Does it come with directions?”

Walken: “Not necessary. Just point, click. Eventually, it will program itself.”

It’s practically a film with usability jokes so far.

He accidentally discovers that this shiny new blue remote can control his own life. He pauses his wife during an argument, mutes the dog’s barking, and wow! This is the greatest thing ever, so he plays with it. Gets back at the annoying neighbor kid, slaps his boss around, gets in the requisite Sandler fart jokes.

Then he’s tempted to skip over the little things. A traffic jam here, getting showered there, cruising through dinner with his parents. Life is good because he’s skipping all the unwanted boring parts of life. Great, no?

Uh oh. He’s agreed to do something that he doesn’t now remember because he fast forwarded through the conversation. So what happens to you while you’re fast forwarding? He asks Walken. They rewind to the hidden conversation. There’s Sandler, almost looking like a robot.

Walken: “You must’ve been on autopilot, that’s what happens to you when you’re on fast forward. That’s you on autopilot. The lights are on but nobody’s home. The remote lets your mind skip around but the body actually stays put for all the boring stuff.”

Ah, the philosophy begins to emerge.