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El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
I never thought the Breaking Bad finale required a canonical follow-up - fanfiction is always a different affair -, including where we left Jesse, which was basically a Schrödinger's Jesse: free for the moment, possibly on the brink of disaster, possibly on the brink of salvation. Also, the Mike and Gus parts of Better Call Saul are easily my least favourite elements, so I was awaiting the release of this movie on Netflix with trepedition. Otoh: also with curiosity, some nostalgia and expectation, because I still love Breaking Bad, and Vince Gilligan is a superb craftsman.
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie turns out to be more of an epilogue than a sequel; one that isn't exactly necessary from a storytelling pov - Jesse at the end of it isn't in a much different position than where we left him in Felina - but does deliver as a love letter to its central character without being over the top about it. It takes place mostly during the 48 hours following the Breaking Bad finale, with flashbacks to Jesse's time in captivity and to his earlier life. Which is where the cameos of long deceased characters you may or may not have heard about come in. (All these scenes are new, Gilligan didn't reuse scenes from the actual show.) Leaving aside that Aaron Paul does look years older and so does Jesse Plemmons - who reprises Todd in easily the most chilling sequences of the film (no physical violence happens, and Todd actually thinks he's being nice to Jesse, it's the genial sociopathy and also what Jesse's reactions say about how broken he's at this point that does the trick), the oeuvre does have a "lost episode" feel. It has the great cinematography, making the most not just of the breathtaking New Mexico landscape but transforming the mundane (a ceiling, for example) into something striking because of how it appears to our pov character. There's the mixture of suspenseful pulp fiction (Jesse the underdog versus various pursuers) and character drama (those quiet moments without which the show would never risen to the heights it did). There's the black humor (ditto). And the short appearances of the deceased in (new) flashbacks are each poignant.
Mike isn't one of them, but that's mostly to my "too much Mike in Better Call Saul, season 4" issues, the scene - which takes place a few days before Mike's death - fits his and Jesse's relationship and sets up Jesse's Alaska dream. The Walt scene comes much later, in the last third of the movie, a flashback to the late season 1 time frame, and it's magical how both actors slip back to Walt and Jesse at that point - Aaron Paul's body language for Jesse is distinctly different from escaped, severely traumatized Jesse during the movie's main narration, and Bryan Cranston is distinctly early Walt, more school teacher in his mannerisms than anything else, but definitely with the potential of all the overlord to come. (Also, the way the conversation briefly wanders off course when Jesse is insulted Walt doesn't seem to remember his graduation is pitch perfect and hilarious.) The last flashback, and in fact the end of the movie, cross cut with Jesse in the present, is a scene with Jane, though, and that initially surprised me because post Jessica Jones Krysten Ritter is surely more expensive to get. Also I was wondering for a second whether I'd have trouble to see her as Jane since she's become my mental Jessica so much. But as it turned it, that was no problem, and her dialogue with Jesse - from a point before they were doing heroin, at that brief interlude in s2 they were just happy together - in a deadpan young people way - felt just right, too, with her voice being given the last line, leaving the audience hopeful for Jesse's future.
(All three flashbacks not featuring Todd, which all the others do for plot reasons, have the people Jesse arguably loved most tell him something that helps him in the present.)
In conclusion: moving and enjoyable to watch if you like or even love Jesse Pinkman, and I dare say that's true for 98% of Breaking Bad fans. (Including, of course, yours truly.) Not a must, but a treat.
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie turns out to be more of an epilogue than a sequel; one that isn't exactly necessary from a storytelling pov - Jesse at the end of it isn't in a much different position than where we left him in Felina - but does deliver as a love letter to its central character without being over the top about it. It takes place mostly during the 48 hours following the Breaking Bad finale, with flashbacks to Jesse's time in captivity and to his earlier life. Which is where the cameos of long deceased characters you may or may not have heard about come in. (All these scenes are new, Gilligan didn't reuse scenes from the actual show.) Leaving aside that Aaron Paul does look years older and so does Jesse Plemmons - who reprises Todd in easily the most chilling sequences of the film (no physical violence happens, and Todd actually thinks he's being nice to Jesse, it's the genial sociopathy and also what Jesse's reactions say about how broken he's at this point that does the trick), the oeuvre does have a "lost episode" feel. It has the great cinematography, making the most not just of the breathtaking New Mexico landscape but transforming the mundane (a ceiling, for example) into something striking because of how it appears to our pov character. There's the mixture of suspenseful pulp fiction (Jesse the underdog versus various pursuers) and character drama (those quiet moments without which the show would never risen to the heights it did). There's the black humor (ditto). And the short appearances of the deceased in (new) flashbacks are each poignant.
Mike isn't one of them, but that's mostly to my "too much Mike in Better Call Saul, season 4" issues, the scene - which takes place a few days before Mike's death - fits his and Jesse's relationship and sets up Jesse's Alaska dream. The Walt scene comes much later, in the last third of the movie, a flashback to the late season 1 time frame, and it's magical how both actors slip back to Walt and Jesse at that point - Aaron Paul's body language for Jesse is distinctly different from escaped, severely traumatized Jesse during the movie's main narration, and Bryan Cranston is distinctly early Walt, more school teacher in his mannerisms than anything else, but definitely with the potential of all the overlord to come. (Also, the way the conversation briefly wanders off course when Jesse is insulted Walt doesn't seem to remember his graduation is pitch perfect and hilarious.) The last flashback, and in fact the end of the movie, cross cut with Jesse in the present, is a scene with Jane, though, and that initially surprised me because post Jessica Jones Krysten Ritter is surely more expensive to get. Also I was wondering for a second whether I'd have trouble to see her as Jane since she's become my mental Jessica so much. But as it turned it, that was no problem, and her dialogue with Jesse - from a point before they were doing heroin, at that brief interlude in s2 they were just happy together - in a deadpan young people way - felt just right, too, with her voice being given the last line, leaving the audience hopeful for Jesse's future.
(All three flashbacks not featuring Todd, which all the others do for plot reasons, have the people Jesse arguably loved most tell him something that helps him in the present.)
In conclusion: moving and enjoyable to watch if you like or even love Jesse Pinkman, and I dare say that's true for 98% of Breaking Bad fans. (Including, of course, yours truly.) Not a must, but a treat.
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I don't have crystal clear recollection of the end of Breaking Bad anymore, and was done with that world enough to skip Better Call Saul, but I liked the way that Walt set things up at the end, giving Jesse a chance and laundering the money effectively enough that his family could take it if they chose. And going out in the only way that he could, at that point.
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