The Line (2024)

The-Line-(2024)
The Line (2024)

Every newcomer gets acquainted with The Line, as it is an undeniable example of how everything is portrayed with galling accuracy. As you plunge deeper, you realize that ‘contemporary junior brotherhood life’ offers more than meets the eye. This film captures the target audience and their attention fully. It is unlike anything else on the market.

At the start, the viewers see what seems like an endless number of photographs of what looks like class pictures of various fraternity members over different periods of time. The viewers cannot help but notice the arrogant and comfortable looks on the faces of these individuals alongside their splendid and expensive attire. The faces seem to be taunting the audience to have the Greek life questioned, which the viewers are certain will be introduced. Tom (Alex Wolff) is acutely familiar with the privileges granted by access to the fraternity community, such as access to prominent people, as well as building cordial relationships all the way to political career-building opportunities.

When he steps into his sophomore year in college, having a constant flow of support from important people, enables him to become a Kappa Nu Alpha (or KNA) member. At this point, one can clearly ascertain that he is settled deep into the fraternity. The best friend of Tom, who he moved in with, Mitch, who also happens from the same fraternity however for completely different reasons, provides a sense of comfort within the fraternity. Luckily for Tom, Mitch belongs to a wealthy family which would explain the existence of his wine mom accent and broad Southern twang. The funny equivalence for the accent to his mother is ‘Faux Forrest Gump.’

Unlike quite a few of his fraternity brothers, he is familiar with middle-class life and reality. So to his knowledge, unconsciously stuffing himself into the upper-crust culture is a unique type of performance.

During dinner, he chats up Mitch’s dad and warms up to the self-assured chapter president (Lewis Pullman) who has taken him in. At a restaurant, Malkovich says, “Always surround and align yourself with only the best.” which immediately gives him everything he needs. This phrase is a key to how one should conduct oneself. It will be a year like no other for Mitch’s family. This, in combination with some of Mitch’s newfound outrageous behavior, will serve to severely disrupt the natural order of the frat social structure while also clashing with one almost quite defiant 17 pile-up violation freshman (Austin Abrams) who is fed up with all the degrading hazing the house enforces.

From the point where Berger and his co-writers Zack Purdo and Alex Russek pose the rhetorical question, “Have you ever seen a fish on the wall with its mouth shut?” one understands that “The Line” is surmounting the inevitable cost of KNA’s coked up debauchery and the aftermath it will leave on Tom. The one-hour period leading up to that moment of realization is however the most impressive, a futile peek revealing all that violence that the Greek life tempts teases. Berger systematically organizes KNA’s particular idiosyncrasies and their respective roles. Everything falls within hypermasculinity, gay quips, snorting cocaine, and ripped-off speeches from ‘gladiator’. Berger does have ethnographic dimensions to his craft and thanks to Stefan Weinberger’s portable morose mood for the eyes, we are rather convinced of the introverted nests of this macho competitiveness the Fraternity houses morph into.

Outstanding performances were given by the entire cast, with both young boys (Pullman, Abrams, Angus Cloud) and old men (Cheri Oteri, Denise Richards, Scoot McNairy) providing compelling support. In any case, Wolff is burdened with carrying Tom, who is an antagonist with the best intentions. Things start to look up for him when he realizes that he is in deep water, with a pocket full of morals ready to surface. (Halle Bailey’s character is a more progressive African girl in a Boush-style subplot of liberal teasers that encourage peers to look differently at every situation. But her eyes have not a lot to offer other than serving to pass the moral test of the movie.) The greatest insight, however, comes from Mitchell’s Mitch, whose considerable girth and roughness reveal his deep-rooted insecurities. He’s somewhat similar to Piggy from ‘Lord of the Flies’ or Gomer Pyle from ‘Full Metal Jacket’- the ultimate loser whose self-imposed isolation from society leads to extreme behavior. He characterizes that sweet spot of feeling confident but also feeling dreadfully alone.

At intervals, it might resemble a spy movie, but there’s no stewing devoid of dark humor; Berger yells at you to laugh at these idiots while they overdo everything from riding in a golf cart to not ordering strippers for off-campus bonding. (The repeating of Eiffel 65’s “Blue (Da Ba Dee)” serves as a cherry on top of these pledges’ insanity.) In the end, however, it transforms into a clever but tragic fable on the violent consequences of fraternity aversion. It’s been increased and is shocking, and while as the TV screen in the back of its last few seconds shows, this is not exactly a fantasy world.

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