Spider-Man: Brand New Day Movie Review:
When Spider-Man: Brand New Day was announced, there were a lot of online comments rejoicing the fact that we are finally getting a lonely, depressed, low-income Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the MCU. No more Iron Man to supply Peter with infinite resources, no more Aunt May to provide emotional support, no more Ned, and no more MJ. Now, why does that matter? Why do we like Peter Parker when he is at his lowest? There is undeniable allure to the idea. It is beyond a case of sadistic pleasure. It feels like a Peter Parker who is mired in the melancholic tribulations of everyday life is somehow the truest version of the character. Spider-Man is whimsical, hopeful, and always ready to fight, and almost always wins. But Peter Parker cannot catch a break; his rent is due, and MJ is in love with another guy. Do we like seeing Peter Parker suffer because of how heroic it looks when he pushes through the pain? Because the struggle of everyday life makes him relatable? Or is it a combination of both? What keeps him grounded to his central principles, his goodness, his moral core, despite the constant suffering? What makes Peter Parker Spider-Man?
Director: Destin Daniel Cretton
Cast: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Sadie Sink, Jacob Batalon, Jon Bernthal
Brand New Day meditates on these questions without presuming to know all the answers. It is the deepest study on Peter Parker in Tom Holland’s iteration of the character. The film opens with a focused yet uncharacteristically distant Peter Parker, who is still dealing with the events of No Way Home, at the end of which Doctor Strange casts a spell which makes Ned and MJ forget him. Peter becomes a workaholic; he throws himself into Spider-Man, going on a crime stopping spree, working closely with the city’s police department. However, we can feel his trepidation to make genuine connections with anyone. And yet, he stalks his friends from afar through social media. The film communicates the state of Peter’s internal world in every subliminal way it can, and through that moves us. We can see that even in how Spider-Man swings across the city. In the beginning of the film, he takes confident, measured arcs through the city’s skyline. In how it takes the time to show you the sheer joy of swinging through the skyscrapers, Brand New Day understands the first thing that made us fall in love with Spider-Man. And then, right after Peter sees MJ kiss her new boyfriend for the first time, we see him swinging through the rain-drenched city on a moonless night, not even bothering to wear the Spider Suit, and Peter takes longer than usual to shoot the web, as if he wants to fall down. In another instance, after a painful confession from MJ, Peter flicks the web off his wrist, venting his frustration.
Brand New Day is also the most visually stunning film in Tom Holland’s MCU run. The soft glowing dots of skyscraper windows, the gold hues of the desk drenching the streets, the rain-soaked nights, you can see a living, breathing city as opposed to the artificial flat lighting of a studio sound stage. Beyond the aesthetic beauty of the film’s melancholy lies real darkness as well. Sadie Sink’s Jean Grey might have your typical comic-book villain backstory, but what makes up for it is how it presents her aggression. Perhaps the biggest act of Jean Grey’s violence is when she psychologically torments Peter Parker by making him briefly believe that MJ remembers her love for him, before swiftly taking it back. Peter struggles with his own darkness as well, with the arachnid half of his DNA trying to take over at the cost of his humanity. Every time anyone has to deal with their inner darkness taking over them, whether it is Jean Grey or Peter Parker or Bruce Banner, they ultimately return to their true self through self acceptance. And yet, more than just acceptance, the film does a brilliant job of showing you how painful it is to embrace the broken pieces of the past, of your own self, and move on. It is a welcome change for the MCU to let moments assert their heaviness and not undercut them with a quip. Unlike the last few entries in the MCU, there is no anxiety to overstuff the story with cameo appearances or references or setting up further storylines. Which, interestingly, shines through as respect for secondary characters like Frank Castle/The Punisher, Bruce Banner/The Hulk, Ned, or even the police detective Jean DeWolff.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day begins with Peter Parker grieving the loss of a life he can never get back. Through the course of the story, he accepts the truth but crumbles under the weight of the grief. And through Jean Grey, realises that the grief is too much to bear alone, and imparts that understanding to her, redeeming her in turn. To answer the questions in the beginning, it is neither the powers, nor his everyday struggles, nor relatable issues that make Spider-Man your “friendly neighbourhood" superhero. It is not the “responsibility” that comes with “great power” that makes us like him. Perhaps, he is the ultimate fantasy. He is the person we would wish to be when we are granted great power or unbearable grief, and that we would embrace it both with kindness for self and empathy for all.
