I’m watching Identity thief where Jason Bateman plays a character who tries to play by the rules in life, and ends up getting screwed over and having a crisis of conscience due to realizing playing by the rules doesn’t work.
This reminded me of This is where I leave you and Arrested Development which had him more or less playing the same kind of character, someone who tried to play by the rules and who got screwed for doing so, then started to reevaluate his choices.
Didn’t he play a character like that in Juno? I haven’t seen that one in a while. Wasn’t extract kind of the same thing (I haven’t seen that one)?
No, that’s not his story arc in Juno. In fact, he chooses to not do the grown-up, expected thing. There are no negative or positive consequences to his choice per se.
I thought in Juno he tried to do the right thing by giving up on his passions for music, getting married, getting a mainstream job and he became miserable. He did what was expected of him and he felt miserable and trapped. So he decided to abandon all that.
My point was he seems to play characters who do what is expected of them, do the adult and responsible things, and then he gets screwed. And then he usually ends up reevaluating if doing the adult this is such a good idea.
Not sure how he gets screwed in Juno. He’s married, is having a kid, good job. He might not want all that, but he’s hardly getting screwed by anyone. He chooses to abandon that to pursue his music, but there is no resolution if that’s better or worse.
Identity Thief seems to match this description. JB is a corporate drone who works in a big city office, Melissa McCarthy lives in a little house in FL and steals his identity, screwing up his life. He goes to bring her back to justice and the odd couple road trip begins.
Zootopia. Nick Wilde wanted to join the Junior Ranger Scouts as a kid, but he was bullied for being a fox. He decided to fit the stereotype and become shifty and untrustworthy.
wasn’t that because juno encourages him and they had a crush on each other ? and she makes the statement to her mom that shes dealing with things shes too young to handle because she dosent act on it ?
Having followed Jason Bateman’s career arc since It’s Your Move, and he and I are roughly the same age, I’m fairly certain that he plays the same character in nearly everything in which he appears. Which is not a bad thing at all, but I prefer, and I don’t think it’s a stretch, to think of him as a grown-up Matthew Burton in everything in which he has appeared since 1985. The boy who managed The Dregs of Humanity grew up to become the man who tries to launder tens of millions of dollars on the shores of The Lake of the Ozarks. The stakes are a bit higher, sure, but he’s up for the challenge.
Hell, even his Hancock character is the same - it works out in the end, but first his wife has to nearly die, all because he want to improve Hancock’s PR…
His character in Horrible Bosses worked hard and played by the rules but when the time came for a promotion, his horrible boss gave it to himself rather than to Bateman. His character’s conscientious and careful choices extend to his preferred automobile, which creates a snag when a traffic camera catches a picture of him fleeing a shooting he’d accidentally witnessed:
I came in here to mention Hancock. He does end up with the girl but only because she can’t be with her true love. Also, the movie would have been one thousand times better without the wife character. Seriously, the stupid romantic interest subplot ruins the whole thing and without it, Batemen doesn’t get screwed over.