Kanye West is a rather divisive character – not just to the point where you either love him or hate him but even within one's else there are things you'll love about him as much as there are things to hate. For instance for me I really do like most of his music and think without doubt that he has real talent in this area and generally doesn't sit back on his laurels much. On the other side though, he can be a quite spectacular cock whether it be comparing himself to soldiers in terms of his service, storming the stage at an awards show and many other examples of a man with a massive ego and no reason to try to rein it in. I mention this because these two parts of him are very much on display in this short film which is at once good but also painful to watch.
The plot sees West directing himself in a story written by music director Hype Williams (that noise you hear is an alarm bell); his character Griffin is out driving through woods when a beautiful Phoenix falls from the sky in a ball of fire. He takes her into his awesome house and watches as she marvels at nature in the garden – chasing sheep and rabbits with wide eyes. He tries to make her welcome and loved but perhaps she is too different for his world? As an idea it already seems corny and indeed the delivery of it mostly is. The dialogue is howlingly bad, with the final speech about "your world" and having to burn being a real cringe throughout. In this sense it really feels like poetry that every teenager has written thinking it is profound – which it is to them, but terrible to everyone else.
Visually West does a good job aside from some poor coloring of skies etc in some scenes. His camera moves well and he is best when directing sections which feel like music videos and this is where the film is best – the music. I like most of these tracks and mostly they work well and the imagery works well with them – in particular the use of ballet dancers being a simple but effective scene. A shame that it tries to be more than this though, because it doesn't work in terms of being arty or meaningful and the harder it tries the harder it fails.
The performances outside of the music video bits are poor. West mostly stands looking profound except when he performs and he has no chemistry with Ebanks, mainly because he seems more intent on being "deep". Ebanks deserves some credit for bravely going with the film and doing what is asked of her; although the sight of her being "amazed" by a rabbit or a leaf is a hard sell for anyone far less a swimwear model. When she is asked to focus on image and the camera she does well, but all else she is poor and her dialogue stilted – a stunning woman for sure, but seeing her screaming at the sight of a cooked pheasant was funny and I don't think that was the goal. The script and story is the biggest problem though and Hype Williams shows us again that while he may be great at music videos, there is a reason why Belly was so awful and why he has yet to come back to make another attempt at a film.
Runaway has good music and West fans will enjoy it for that – hell, they may even be fans enough to go with the silly "profound" story and all the content with it. For me though it was laughably embarrassing with all the depth and profundity of recently dumped teenager writing poetry in their bedroom.
