Pitch Perfect 2: The Pitches are Back
Thursday, August 20, 2015 |
| source: imdb.com |
“Sometimes you have to break things down before you can build them up again.” –Aubrey (Pitch Perfect 2, 2015)
“I
know it doesn’t seem like it, but I’m afraid too, to move on, to graduate. It’s
really scary.” –Chloe (Pitch Perfect 2, 2015)
“You
know, when I look back on this, I won’t remember performing and competing. I’m
gonna remember you, weirdos. It makes me really sad to think it won’t ever be
like this again. I’m gonna miss you guys.” –Beca (Pitch Perfect 2, 2015)
Title : Pitch Perfect 2
Director : Elizabeth Banks
Starring : Anna Kendrick, Brittany Snow, Rebel
Wilson, Skylar Astin, Hailee Steinfeld
Genre : musical, comedy
Distributor : Universal Pictures
Release
date : 15 May 2015
Running
time : 115 minutes
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| "Pitch Perfect 2" movie poster - source: imdb.com |
College
life plays a significant role in a human’s life, which is a never ending
journey of process. Whether they are freshmen or seniors, college life has its
own charms that can excite and terrify people at the same time. It’s just a
history repeating itself from time to time. Getting into a school that we’ve
always wanted is like living in a dream; it’s so exciting yet so terrifying, now that it’s really happening, can we do great, or just good at least? Being in a group that we’ve always been is
like living in a dream too, because we know that sooner or later we have to
move on and leave it all behind; and now
that it has become our everything in life, how will we leave that behind? Well, every in-between transition of
life’s stages makes people scared and growing strong at the same time. Eventually,
every moment of the present will be memories for the future. So while we’re
living it, why don’t we make it into a wonderful one? Here is the second movie
for Growing Strong, “Pitch Perfect
2”. Yup, they’re back, pitches.
 |
| source: imdb.com |
Three years after the events of the ending scene in “Pitch Perfect”, the Barden Bellas are now led by co-leaders Beca Mitchell (Anna Kendrick) and Chloe Beale (Brittany Snow). Their performance at President Obama’s birthday gala disastrously ends when Fat Amy’s (Rebel Wilson) airlifting solo goes awry, and they are suspended from performing in any a cappella showcase. The National A Cappella Association, hereby represented by Gail (Elizabeth Banks) and John (John Michael Higgins) makes a deal with Beca that Bellas’ only shot at redemption is to win at the World Championships of A Cappella, which is almost impossible for an American group to do so. As a part of their suspension contract, the Bellas aren’t allowed to participate in the audition to recruit new members. However, a freshman Emily Junk (Hailee Steinfeld) stops by the Bellas’ house for an audition, which is not violating the terms since Emily is the one who’s coming to them, not the other way around. And also, she’s a legacy –her mother, Katherine Junk (Katey Sagal), was once a Bella – and the Bellas need new blood anyway, so they decide to accept her.
Meanwhile,
Beca secretly starts an internship work at a recording studio that only her
boyfriend, Jesse Swanson (Skylar Astin), knows about. None of the Bellas, not
Cynthia Rose (Ester Dean), Stacie (Alexis Knapp), Lilly (Hana Mae Lee), or Flo
(Chrissie Fit), find that out but Fat Amy. Because of her new job, not only
Beca has her concentration divided between it and the Bellas, but she also
doesn’t present when the Bellas are recruiting Emily. The two meet for the
first time during a party, the same one which the Treblemakers’ member Benji
Applebaum (Ben Platt) flirts with Emily, as well as Fat Amy with the
ex-Trebles-now-campus-security Bumper Allen (Adam DeVine). The Bellas confront
with Das Sound Machine, intimidating German group led by Kommissar (Birgitte
Hjort Sørensen) and her second-in-command Pieter Krämer (Flula Borg). Despite
their big efforts to reinstate their status, the Bellas find their warm-up
performance becomes another disaster, which leads them to go to a retreat led
by their former leader, Aubrey Posen (Anna Camp).
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| source: imdb.com |
People who once found their harmony, they will always find it again no matter how many times or how bad they’ve lost it. The harmony is always there. It’s just that they’re too busy seeing something else out there, rather than just trying too look at deeper inside. At some point, disharmony apparently happens when people are on top of the world, when everything seems like an easy clear path to them. They basically do whatever it takes until they’re losing their originality, subconsciously. They start to lose focus and end up losing their true spirit of harmony. In order to find it again, they must try to bound themselves, like they did the first time they succeed. In attempt to regain their lost harmony, people have to go back to ground zero, refind their original intention of having the harmony in the first place. And that’s what Chloe tries to do by taking the Bellas to a retreat with having Aubrey back as their coach.
Apparently,
the retreat reveals their individual problems all this time, Beca and Chloe in
particular. Both have a post-graduation syndrome, but in different ways. In
Beca’s case, being a part of the Bellas doesn’t make her forgetting her dream
of being a music director, and she thinks that three years in Bellas are enough
time, and that everyone’s thinking the same: focusing in life after college and
the Bellas. In Chloe’s case, she’s intentionally failed to graduate three
times, stubbornly staying her seventh year in college now, just to be a Bella,
and she thinks that the Bellas are her only life, her everything, and that
everyone’s thinking the same: focusing on how to reinstate Bellas’ status. They
both have the wonders and the fears: what will they do after this? Will they do
better without it? Will they ever felt the same feeling again? Will they ever
get a moment like this again? Have they done enough experimenting so that they
won’t have any regret later?
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| source: imdb.com |
Well, those kind of wonders and fears are natural for seniors like Beca and Chloe. They’re afraid of failing. They’re anxious of being success. At some point in life, we will eventually get to that. We will eventually come to the time and space we only imagined before. And at that time, the thing we only imagined before is happening before us. And when it happens, it’s just happening. We will eventually realize that there’s nothing more to be afraid and anxious of. It’s just another next phase of our lives. Just because someone is graduating and moving on, doesn’t mean that they are really going away. Just like Chloe finally realizes that she must graduate this year, pursue what she likes to do, and make her last performance with the Bellas the best of all. Just like Beca finally realizes that although she will leave the Bellas sooner or later, she must leave it with a good legacy instead of one with a disgraced reputation as it is now.
As
long as people live, bigger challenge will always come towards them. The
seniors Bellas now must make their final attempt to repair the damaged legacy,
in order to leave the group with a good one. They’ve hit the rock bottom,
therefore they’re growing strong. They’ve visited their ground zero, and so they’re
ready to crush it again just like the first time. The bigger challenge usually
leads people to their life-changing event of life, a rediscovery of dreams, a
rebound of will. Just take a moment for a deep breath, look around, be grateful,
because, “When tomorrow comes, I’ll be on
my own, feeling frightened of the things that I don’t know. I got all I need
when I got you and I, ‘cause I look around me and see your sweet life. I’m
stuck in the darkness, you’re my flashlight, you’re getting me through the night.
You kick start my heart when you shine it in my eyes, I can’t lie, it’s a sweet
life. I’m stuck in the dark but you’re my flashlight, you’re getting me through
the night.”
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| source: imdb.com |
I remember Jesse said in the first movie, “I told you, endings are the best part.” And here for the sequel, I’m telling you that the ending is the best part. Actress-producer Elizabeth Banks took over the directing helmet from Jason Moore this time, marking her directorial debut. The story is developed from the perfectly laid background story from the original movie. Though Beca-Jesse romance is being benched in their stable state of relationship, we can see the comical relationship built between Fat Amy-Bumper, and also the new romance bloom between Benji-Emily. The Bellas also show a transformation in their more fashionable and feminine looks, without losing the touch of their true personalities. Kay Cannon who was back as the scriptwriter daringly took the story to the another level, which turned out great. As a result, “Pitch Perfect 2” has surpassed the total gross of its predecessor and also become the highest-grossing music comedy film of all time, making it one of the few successful sequels ever being made.
“We
are gonna show them who we are. A bunch of ethnically diverse, for the most
part feminine, amazing singers! Let’s just go out there and ack the world!”
–Fat Amy (Pitch Perfect 2, 2015)
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