Mama Bear
Elizabeth Banks cements her status as a major blockbuster movie director with Cocaine Bear: but, Ella Kemp asks, why should that come as a surprise at all? A drug-fuelled investigation.
I simply cannot believe how good Cocaine Bear is. I was not looking forward to this film, had no interest, it looked tacky and noisy, but here I am, defending this poor, poor bear out of its mind on coke. This is the blockbuster moviemaking of dreams.
The film is loosely based on the true story of an American black bear who ingested a duffel bag full of cocaine in 1985 – except in real life the bear overdosed and died, whereas in Banks’ film, the bear goes on a murderous rampage.
Cocaine Bear was written by Jimmy Warden, but it has Banks’ pawprints all over it. The actor and director made her directorial debut in 2015 with the infectiously enjoyable Pitch Perfect 2, and has never shied away from a big-budget challenge.
She held her hands up high after the excruciating box office disappointment of the 2019 Charlie’s Angels reboot (which I maintain was, in fact, good) and fully threw herself into the gonzo requirements of what can be, and often is, perceived as a undeniably masculine project with Cocaine Bear.
It’s a thrill to see Banks’ name on the credits, here, not just because it’s nice when women are given the same amount of money as men to make massive crowdpleasing blockbusters (a rarity) but because it’s a total thrill to feel that this was made by a woman in every frame. It didn’t need to be, but it wouldn’t have been as memorable if it wasn’t.
There is a gag halfway through the film in which the bear, who is on cocaine, simply keels over and passes out for a nap. On top of Alden Ehrenreich (who among us, etc). A couple of the guys he’s with check in with our solo warrior, crushed under the animal’s might, asking if “he’s dead”. Ehrenreich’s Eddie then deadpans to his buddies that the bear, in fact, is female. Her vagina is on his ear.
I felt like an idiot when 1) I laughed 2) I too had been calling the cocaine bear “he”, for all of his chaos, all of his tragedy, in the same way so many of us might have asked to speak to the manager to in fact be told that she is in a meeting. It’s a small touch, but one that does give Cocaine Bear a little more weight than just another throwaway comedy about an animal gone wild.
As the bear’s rampage continues, we learn two things. She is, of course, desperate for more coke, just one line, whatever she can get, she will follow the scent. But then when one of the characters is found by her mother, hiding and shivering in a dark little cave, she tells her mum that the two baby bears nuzzling at her feet are, in fact, harmless. They are the cocaine bear’s children.
It is, somehow, a story about family. A mother must protect her cubs. Both Keri Russell wading through the forest in her puff-pink jumpsuit to find Florida Project breakout Brooklynn Prince, and Ehrenreich explaining to his onscreen dad Ray Liotta (tremendous and sorely missed) that although he needs these drugs back, he will simply never be stronger than a mother bear.
The sweet undertones and emotional throughline don’t detract from the gory and silly performance of the film, which, for many, will probably roar far louder than Banks’ subtly feminist messaging. Who came to Cocaine Bear looking for this anyway?
But sometimes it’s just nice to be validated for liking dumb things. To laugh at a ragtag group of foragers and explorers looking for their loved ones (yes, the duffel bag), to squirm at the grisly end so many of them meet, to feel a pang of sympathy for this poor little bear who was just doing her best, to have hope that mindless, thrill-first cinema isn’t in fact gendered. It’s not a revelation to say so, but only really feels real when films like this finally give us proof.
What feels best of all is simply having a reason to remember this film for something beyond that. I want to show my dad the trailer, tell my mum that I promise she’ll find something maybe a tiny bit enjoyable as well. It’s literally just a bear on cocaine, but maybe it’s not. But thank god I have an excuse to watch it again, and again.
Give films like this all the money in the world. May our brains rest and our broken families find themselves. Long may Elizabeth Banks lead the way.
