Elijah Wood - Day Zero - Performance

Elijah Wood

Performer for Our Time

Day Zero
(2007)

EJW's Performance

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	Day Zero (2007) Elijah Wood as "Aaron Feller" MAJOR SPOILERS: BE WARNED
Spoiler	Edward C. Patterson, site owner Annie Graham, copy editor
Alert	Edward C. Patterson, site owner Annie Graham, copy editor
	Elijah Wood is the Performer for our time; and no where else does he prove this better than as Aaron Feller in Day Zero. Does he do it with the emotional stabbing or ranting or shouting to the world, “I am an actor, and I have a Streetcar Named Desire?” No. He leaves that to his co-stars. Does he read poetry like Lawrence Fishburne in Bobby, or does he have the grand gestures of a noble Hobbit or the frozen solemnity of a cannibal or a young Jewish man searching the Ukraine for clues to his past. No. None of it. This is a master, who rises above all his previous performances, and although we see traces of this film or that, as he invites us to inhabit Aaron’s mind and experience his dilemma, nothing prepares a viewer, fan or not, for the sheer scope and range of this performance. First, it must be said, that the nature of this film’s script has set the other main characters on a traditional interpretive path. They preach, sermonize, bump heads, scowl, frown, moan, whine, fuck, face family, and embrace the issues surrounding being conscripted during war time. Since this potentially is too much drama for any viewer, Bryan Cole balances all this angst with Aaron Feller. While we might relate to George and Dixon’s dilemmas (and they are different from Aaron’s), we can never really like them. They are too imploded to be more than cannon fodder for political talk show spin and discussion; but Aaron is something else. Elijah’s role is revealed in short vignettes interspersed between his scenery chewing friends scenes. We welcome his appearance for relief, and it is comedy, in its most noble sense. He’s worried about everything. He’s a worrier. We all are worriers, and Elijah chatters about all the things he has to do—not enough time. Then it dawns on him, he unfit; thin and puny. The scene when he discovers this, steals the film. He pinches his thin stomach and grabs lose flesh. “I’m fucked. I’m fat and skinny at the same time. I’m fucked!” We enjoy him and his bewilderment. We laugh at his attempts to rectify the situation. He buys a bowcraft. We get this brilliant shot of him reading the instruction. “Stick A into B. Fasten D to P.” We all know when he gets on that contraption that it’s going blow up and leave him helpless. Elijah trims his dialog into a realm of frantic listening and echoes. In the bar, while George and Dixon are having a meaty discussion on “the issue,” all Aaron hears is, “we could die.” “Guys, do you think we’re goin’ to die? Do you think?”” As they talk, you can hear the subtext of Elijah’s questioning through one of his best acting assets . . . his eyes. He has been able in passed films to carry other characters dialog through his eyes, but in this one, he carries on an unspoken conversation as well. It’s magical. His three scenes with Ally Sheedy as his therapist are the most telling of where his character will go, but Elijah manages to belay the drama and deliver pure comedy. His comedic timing is sharp and with the thinnest of scripts, he can raise a smile and deliver punch lines in subtext. At the screening I attended, the audience was roaring every time Elijah has a scene in the early part of the film. The therapist is apathetic, but Elijah doesn’t notice. He blathers and babbles. In the second scene, he arches backward on a giant gym ball and delivers his dialog upside down. It’s only on the third visit that he realizes that the therapist is a dead-end. She recommends “pills.” We also get a tell tale hint of things to come. “How many years have you been seeing me?” she asks. “Seven.” Audience laughs, but then tones down. How sad. Elijah continues to pull us down this humorous trail with his over-the-top pursuit of the Top Ten List of things to do. The funniest are the three attempts to get laid. He picks up a woman in the bar, takes her back to his apartment and talks the entire time about the war. Funny, yet the subtext is clear. He is alone and lonely. The second time is the Peep Show, which is destined to become an Elijah Wood iconic moment. As probably will the prostitute scene, when he pre-ejaculates and then thanks the prostitute. As the film paces forward, Elijah’s relationship with his fiends deteriorates. He sees their argument and complete disregard for his problem. He also develops writer’s block and becomes so overwhelmed with the news broadcasts, he can only type one word, and that word’s WAR. This serious turn in the character doesn’t take the viewer for a turn. Elijah manages to hold your attention with his sheer concentration. When he smokes pot with his friends, we fully expect him to go goofy, but he doesn’t. He confesses he has stolen his story idea from someone else, calling himself “a frog.” As Dixon and George’s roles roar to a head, Aaron’s begins to shut down. Then, we get the scene in front of the bathroom mirror. Elijah has gotten us to a point where we are most interested in the fate of Aaron than any other character in the film. He has engaged us, made us laugh, made us laugh at ourselves and finally we, like him, face our demons in the mirror. As Elijah shouts drill sergeant commands at himself, we get nervous. This is not what we want for Aaron. We want him to get laid, acquiesce and serve with honor, but the draft isn’t his problem. He is an island, remote from reality and in the mirror, reality shows up. “I will die for you!” He shouts over and over again. It is then we know that Aaron Feller will die. We are treated to more comedy, but of the blackest kind. Elijah gives us one Frodo moment, when his head is being shaved, when we can see the madness of the wraithing process possessing him. Mount Doom rumbles in the near distance. And the tattoo scene is short, sweet and funny, but disturbing. Elijah arcs his character to the silent zone. We get prolonged shots of him in quiet retrospection, similar to those in Green Street Hooligans, but we somehow get the feeling he’s on death row. Even his bed and surroundings look like a prison cell. After his sister hangs up on him, his last lifeline is gone. He has no more dialog. He delivers the remainder of his performance in silence; each gesture is filled with unspoken dialog. By the time he reaches the roof, we know what he’s about to do; and why. As Elijah Wood (bald and rough shaven, not the puny character we met at the film’s beginning, the one who pukes when he reads his draft notice), shows us his trademark gap between his teeth, and we are ready to say goodbye. When he runs across the roof, we see his back, as we are there to say farewell to him; and then his leap. There’s no blood, no scream, no neighbors gawking; just our sinking pit in our stomach. He dies as he lived—alone and with the world watching, but not helping him. We are that world, and we watch helplessly on the roof top. BUT, Aaron’s Top Ten Sheet survives him. It states “#10-GONE WITH HONOR.” Elijah Wood has inhabited characters before. I can name at least 30, but with Aaron Feller, his Chaplinesque genius invites us to inhabit the character as well. In the end, the only thing we care about in this film is the fate of the Aaron Feller’s of this world—the ones that are championed by a young actor with noble vision: A true Performer for Our Time.