Lily Kane/Winonan
The premise to “Warm Bodies” isn’t a new one.
Julie is a girl who lives with her dad, General Grigio. They live in fear and hatred of a boy named R, and the rest of his group. However, when Julie and R meet, they fall in love—a love that no one approves of.
Sound familiar? Cough, Romeo and Juliet anyone, cough?
But here comes the brilliance of the “Warm Bodies’” plot twist – R is a zombie, and Julie is human.
To make things even worse, they meet just after R eats Julie’s current boyfriend’s brain.
Despite the very clear Shakespearean roots to the movie the story line is a very unique and refreshing take on love, apocalypse and zombies – three concepts that can be seen in almost every movie coming out lately.
One interesting choice that Jonathan Levine, the director of this movie, doesn’t focus on how the world has gotten to this post-apocalyptic state. Because the film concentrates instead on the fact that it has already happened and it’s just how the world is, the viewer gets to focus on the budding romance between Julie and R.
This also allows Levine to make a social commentary that is subtle, yet sticks. This social commentary is shown sarcastically at the beginning of the movie.
R is walking through his home the airport and wishing he could communicate with the others who live there. He wishes he could be like humans were before, when they “communicated” with each other. The room around him flashes to how the airport used to be and every human in the scene is on the phone or some other electronic device.
This is a humorous perspective that implies the notion that humans are not far from zombies, and couldn’t communicate even before the disease.
In the movie, Julie and R meet under a very weird circumstance. Julie has been taught that the “corpses” are bad. R has learned that the humans shoot when zombies try to eat them.
So how could they ever fall in love?
Here is where the distinction between the “corpses” and the “bonies” becomes important.
R puts it best in a line, “Oh man, they call these guys ‘bonies.’ They don’t bother us much but they’ll eat anything with a heartbeat. I mean, I will, too, but at least I’m conflicted about it.” This is where viewers get the first hint of humanity in the slow-shuffling corpses.
The growing relationship between the main characters starts to change R in ways previously thought impossible.
R slowly starts changing in physical appearance, becoming more human. The change is so slight that Julie doesn’t notice, but the audience does.
The greater change, though, is how their relationship starts to affect the other zombies. They start to experience memories, dreams and feelings. It starts slowly, but then moves very quickly, leading to the conflict of zombies becoming more human and wanting to help the uninfected humans.
Despite the intensity of the horror and drama that fills the movie, there is plenty of humor from all of the characters. The constant inner monologue the audience hears from R’s head helps break any tension, “Don’t be creepy, and don’t be creepy. Oh man.”
Overall, the movie was a well-done, hilarious action romance horror movie. With all these genres filled, many movie-goers will enjoy this film.
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