Nora's Will: Grade A

A

Nora’s Will (2008)

Fernando Luján; Writer-Director Mariana Chenillo. (Spanish and Hebrew; subtitled)

An old retired guy (Lujan) finds his ex-wife has committed suicide, but not before setting an elaborate table for the Passover feast. The ex-husband calls his adult children and the ranking rabbi. He is a nonbeliever himself however, and is annoyed at the rabbi’s authoritarian insistence on details of the funeral, including the fact that it will have to wait four days because of the religious calendar. The body is put on ice.

The husband thinks all this is ridiculous and signs up for a Christian funeral service and burial just to get it done, and also to annoy the rabbi. Crosses, flowers, and a cross-shaped casket appear in the apartment. The rabbi is extremely annoyed, all the more when he is offered a pork, bacon and sausage pizza by the husband. But the rabbi ultimately has his way when he calls all the important Jewish cemeteries and advises them that they cannot take a suicide. So the family has a problem, reminiscent in some ways of Faulkner’s novel, As I Lay Dying.

The acting by Lujan and several others is superb, and the script is scintillating. The humor is dry and subtle, yet at the same time, the dramatic moments are deep and poignant. That is quite a writing achievement. Costumes are perfect, and while the movie is somewhat setbound, the cinematography is excellent. A very personal, funny and moving picture that illuminates life.

Melancholia: Grade A

A

Melancholia

Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgård, Alexander Skarsgård, Kiefer Sutherland, Charlotte Rampling; Writer-Director Lars von Trier.

This film is perfection of the art in every respect except one: editing. Its 2 hour, 15 minute runtime is not justified by the material. Not that I was ever bored, because the visuals took a grip on my eyeballs from the opening scenes and never let go. But the first half, focused on an elaborate wedding, verged on repetitive and tedious.

In the first half, Justine (Dunst) marries Michael (A. Skarsgard) in her sister’s home, so luxurious it would make royalty blush. Throughout this long segment, Justine is withdrawn and melancholy and finds no happiness in the wedding. But she is there, after all, in the appropriate costume, so she is conflicted. She arrives 2 hours late, then during the festivities, disappears to take walks on the grounds, retires to take a nap, and even takes a bath. She finds no pleasure in the social rituals of dancing, drinking, cutting the cake, exchanging the vows. Is it because she is clinically depressed? Maybe, but it is more like she just doesn’t see the point of the ridiculous ceremony. Her mother (Rampling) is explicit about contempt for all aspects of marriage, but Justine seems ambivalent. She can’t decide if she wants to be a member of the social community, with all its stupid, contrived rituals, or whether she is an existential monad, alone in the world, finding her own meaning. Her vacillation goes on far too long. I wanted to scream at von Trier, “Okay, we get it!” But I think he was trying to make the viewer feel Justine’s conflict, the endless, intellectually empty tedium of well-worn social ritual, and attraction to fabulous costumes, bright lights, fine food, and excellent music. I felt it, though I didn’t need such a long dramatization.

In Part 2 the story focuses on Clair, Justine’s sister, married to Jack (Sutherland). Justine stays on with her sister’s family after the wedding because she alienated her new husband on the wedding night and he left in confusion. Claire is worried about a new planet, called Melancholia (get it?) hurtling toward Earth, threatening total destruction. Jack assures her that all the scientists predict it will miss, and that “Melacholia will pass us by.” In other words, Justine’s rejection of the social rituals we live by will not hurt us, and death itself will pass us by, because we are together. Justine tells Claire however, that we will all die because the Earth is evil. Her melancholic diffidence now seems like stoic acceptance of humanity’s inevitable fate.

The themes in the film are thus the most fundamental existential questions facing us, the inevitability of death, the meaning of society, the vagaries of fate, and the survival of the planet, making the movie intellectually and emotionally engaging, much more than mere eye candy. Acting by Dunst is phenomenal, and von Trier takes advantage of her beauty in some stunning, if gratuitous, shots. Acting is also very strong from the other main characters, especially Rampling. Sets, costumes: superb. CGI: perfect. Directing: flawless. It’s a masterpiece.

The Beaver: Grade A

A

The Beaver (2011)

Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster, Anton Yelchin, Jennifer Lawrence; Director Jodie Foster.

Whatever you think of Mel Gibson personally, you have to admit the guy can act. In this surreal comedy, he demonstrates that, by playing an American suburban husband who suffers from depression. He is unresponsive to his family and especially his wife (Foster). Finally she boots him out of the house and he drunkenly attempts suicide in a cheap hotel room. By chance he regains consciousness next to a beaver hand puppet that was among his personal goods (for reasons never explained). He talks to himself about his disorder by using the beaver as an alter ego. Thus his depression morphs into a dissociative disorder, which would not happen in reality, but hey, it’s a movie.

By speaking through the beaver puppet, he is able to reestablish emotional contact with his family. He tells his wife it is a new kind of therapy and she goes along with it. He regains his dynamism as CEO of a toy company, again by talking through the puppet. The employees accept the puppet device, and the company becomes more successful than ever. Eventually though, the wife becomes impatient and demands the elimination of the puppet. The ending is grim yet satisfying.

The movie is not believable in any realistic sense. Rather you have to take it as an allegory for mental illness, but even at that, it is not accurate enough to be informative or helpful. So in the end this is just a dark, goofy comedy with a mental illness theme. As such it is quite successful, mainly because it is so original. The writing is excellent and acting by Gibson and Foster make it well worth watching. Especially entertaining is Gibson’s working class English/Aussie accent (think Geico Gecko). The substory of romance between teenager Yelchin and his high school girlfriend (Lawrence) seems like a different movie. Maybe it was an ill-advised attempt to add a note of realism to the strange tale of the man with the puppet. If so, it only partially works because it is not well woven. Foster’s directing is impeccable.

Conviction: Grade B

B
Conviction (2010)

Hilary Swank, Sam Rockwell, Minnie Driver, Melissa Leo, Juliet Lewis; Director Tony Goldwyn.

Rockwell plays an impulsive, perhaps psychopathic, ne’er-do-well, working class guy in rural Massachusetts. When a woman is found stabbed to death, the police pick him up because he has a record and is one of the “usual suspects.” But when his wife and a girlfriend both testify that he confessed that he did it, he unexpectedly goes to prison for life.

His sister (Swank) is desperate, convinced that he is innocent, but she has no resources to help him. All appeals are lost. So she goes to law school, struggles, alienates her husband, and eventually becomes a lawyer, along with her buddy, Minnie Driver, who is an eyeball magnet. As a lawyer, she discovers that DNA evidence could exonerate her brother (this is set in the 1980’s-early 1990’s when DNA evidence was just coming into use in the law). A long, drawn-out scramble follows while she tries to locate the 15 year old bloodstain evidence from the case, but eventually her brother is freed.

At 2.5 hours, this movie needed some serious editing. As with most fictionalizations of a true story, the filmmakers cannot decide if they are doing a documentary or a piece of fiction, so they do both, to the detriment of both. There are tons of irrelevant and saggy scenes that needed to go.

It is an inspirational story of one woman’s tenacity fighting an uncaring, flawed, legal system. The acting is very good, but I confess that I am not a huge fan of Swank. She is good, yes, but she just does not have the emotional range of, say, Juliet Lewis or Minnie Driver. She is either “on” or “off.” Those seem to be her only two emotions. But that is not to say she is bad – she is a good actor, just noticeably limited, and I did not get involved in her character. Juliet Lewis, now, there is a fabulous actor. In her two brief scenes, she is just electrifying. Sam Rockwell is convincing and consistent, and conveys the emotions extremely well. So despite the bloated and overly sentimentalized nature of this picture (don’t get me started on the sappy piano music –barf!), the strong acting makes it a worthwhile see.

The Next Three Days: Grade B

B
The Next Three Days (2010)

Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks. Writer-director Paul Haggis.

Banks is riveting as an ordinary office worker who is unexpectedly accused of murdering her boss. The evidence is pretty shaky but good enough for the movies. Her fingerprints are on the blunt object, although an omniscient cutaway shows us that she just moved it out of her way in the parking garage. And oh, yeah, it had some victim’s blood on it which she managed to pick up as well. That's a life sentence in Hollywood.

She goes to prison, all appeals are lost. Her husband, Crowe, is an ordinary college professor who doesn’t have the money for high priced lawyers but believes in his wife’s innocence. He is frustrated and helpless. Being a bookish kind of guy, he researches the heck out of how to accomplish a prison break. Then he carefully executes his very detailed and tricky plan, and that is the fun part of the movie.

What makes this extremely implausible story worth watching is the fine acting from the two principals. Crowe is capable of a lot more than swishing a sword around. He really can act and this is among his best performances, well worth the price of admission. He does not step out of his seething, mumbling, slit-eyed, laconic persona – he is still Russell Crowe, (nor does he go very long without the aviator sunglasses), but still, he is a compelling screen presence. Against Banks, the acting makes this thriller for ordinary people seem more reasonable than it is.

Welcome to the Rileys: Grade A

A

Welcome to the Rileys (2010)

James Gandolfini, Kristen Stewart, Melissa Leo; Director Jake Scott.

I never saw The Sopranos series, so I don’t have Gandolfini typecast in my mind. That’s a good thing, because in this movie he is completely believable as a middle-aged plumbing supply merchant from Indianapolis. He and his wife of thirty years (Stewart, who strongly reminds me of Patricia Clarkson, in look, acting style, and talent), are distant from each other because they lost a 15 year old daughter in a car crash. The wife blames herself because she was following the girl, and the husband tacitly agrees to that by letting her blame herself. She is traumatized and never leaves the house. At a conference in New Orleans, he calls home and says he is not coming back “for a while.”

In New Orleans, he meets a 16 year old stripper/prostitute (Leo), and informally adopts her, fixing up her derelict flat and giving fatherly advice. He claims he does not know why he is doing this but the viewer can see he is trying to resurrect his daughter. Eventually, his wife joins him in there, “mothers” the girl but has the sense to realize the situation is unhealthy. The girl finally runs from them, claiming “It is way too late for me to be anybody’s little girl.”

The writing is very strong (Ken Hixon) and true. Every line of dialog is on target. The acting is superior, especially by Gandolfini and Stewart. Stewart’s character takes a while to get going because there’s only so much acting you can do as a stunned, near-catatonic recluse. But late in the film she shows real depth. Leo has a stereotype character, really just a foil for the adults to work out their relationship, but there are several scenes in which it is clear that she has serious talent.

There are technical problems with the cinematography. Many scenes are so dark and muddy, it is impossible to make out what is going on. Sure, they are nominally night scenes, but still, memo to the cinematographer: photography requires light! In one scene, the picture actually drops in brightness by 50% as if there had been a power failure, but it is just a technical goof-up. The director pulled some terrific performances out of these players, but there are far too many “dead zone” scenes of people driving or sleeping. Seriously, how interesting is it to watch somebody sleep?

The story itself is not very original (grief over a lost child), but the main characters are so well developed and their acting is so outstanding, that despite its flaws, the movie is highly watchable anyway.

Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity : Grade B

B
Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity (2002)

Sandra Oh, Valerie Tian; Co-writer and director Mina Shum. (Chinese and English, subtitled).

A working class single mother in a Chinese neighborhood of Vancouver (Oh) struggles to raise her extremely cute twelve-year-old daughter, Mindy (Tian). Mindy finds a magic book and begins to practice spells that will help her mother fall in love (no clue where the missing father is ). The magical-fantasy thread of the movie is that the childish spells really do work, but because Mindy is inept, they do not seem to. When she tries creating a winning lottery number for her mother, she goofs up the spell and the butcher wins instead, but Mindy never knows what happened. There are other charming episodes of that nature, and these give us a loving and intimate portrait of life in that community. In the end, Mindy’s mother does find love, and the other characters’ stories are resolved as well, not all of them happily.

The plot is pretty weak, depending on our acceptance of the magic, but the characterizations are strong, and the acting is excellent, especially by the principals, Oh, and Tian. The writing is sharp and Oh stands out as a fine actor. Cinematography is marvelous and Vancouver never looked so good, even in winter with its bare trees and gray skies. There is practically no dramatic tension in the script. It is instead an almost documentary exploration, with magical realism and humor adding spice. It is a lightweight, but heartwarming, family story that is affecting without being melodramatic, insightful without being voyeuristic.

Leaves of Grass: Grade B

B

Leaves of Grass (2009)

Edward Norton, Keri Russell, Tim Blake Nelson, Richard Dreyfuss, Susan Sarandon. Writer-Director Tim Blake Nelson.

Edward Norton displays his remarkable talent by playing twin brothers, one a professor of philosophy at a Northern university, the other a pot-growing redneck in Oklahoma. The professor escaped his steamy southern hometown and his eccentric (if not crazy) brother and mother (Sarandon) years ago, and has made a name for himself, when he is tricked by a false report of his brother’s death into returning to “Daisyville” or whatever the town’s name was. But his brother is alive and wants the prof to show himself to the locals to provide an alibi while he, the pot-grower is in Tulsa dealing with a problematic drug lord (Dreyfuss). Needless to say, the plan does not go well and disaster ensues.

The story is not believable, and the characters unconvincing. For example, the redneck brother convinces the professor to suck on a bong, his first day there, and he agrees. Believable? Not to me. Likewise the prof agrees to the wacky impersonation scheme because, well, because I don’t know why. Then he falls in love, and who wouldn't, with an enigmatic teacher (Russell) because she quotes Walt Whitman. Then a random orthodontist suddenly turns sleuth, discovers the impersonation, and buys a gun to threaten the brothers, for reasons never made clear. Right: an orthodontist would do that. It’s just bad writing.

The dialog is stilted and unimaginative ( “I can’t believe I’m doing this”). There are some redeeming story virtues, such as having the two brothers use distinct vocabularies and grammatical constructions (and accents, too, of course). There are some really funny lines, though far too few, and all the performances are strong, despite the weak material.

Cinematography is traditional and unobtrusive. Music is twangy Okie tunes, presumably genuine, but they drove me up the wall, forcing emergency >>FF. Pacing is unreliable, with lots of sagging dead space, such as cars and trucks driving around (so the dreadful songs could play).

Despite these serious flaws, I recommend the movie just because Norton is so unbelievably good.

Solitary Man: Grade D

D

Solitary Man (2009)

Michael Douglas , Susan Sarandon, Danny Devito, Mary Louise Parker, Jenna Fischer; Writer and co-director Brian Koppleman.

Douglas is a former car dealer in New York who was apparently once super successful and wealthy from a chain of dealerships (this is all told to us as backstory) but he committed some unspecified fraud and spent everything he had staying out of jail. Now he is near destitute and tries to get a new start, but alas, he suffers from a narcissistic personality disorder that makes him obnoxious. He sleeps with women and girls of any (legal) age, although it is not credible that an 18 year old college student would agree to sleep with a 70 year old geezer, especially if he is her mother’s current boyfriend. Everyone rejects him on general sleazeball principles, even the bank, and he can’t get a restart. DeVito, an old college pal, gives him advice he ignores. He is irresponsible to his grandkids, and an all around, immature jerk. Supposedly we watch him degenerate into self-destruction but in fact, he is just plain unlikeable, and has a police record. He doesn’t do drugs or drink, gamble, or contemplate suicide. He’s just an ordinary baboon and it is difficult to feel sorry for him or to even be interested in him. At the end, he conveniently tells his ex-wife (Sarandon), that he is afraid to die and that is why he is a jerk. Right. That explains everything.

Granted, Douglas is a powerful screen presence, and Sarandon does more acting with one eyebrow than a dozen other people, but that’s not enough to redeem this dead weight of a movie. Directing is significantly terrible, with good actors just woodenly announcing their lines. Everything about the film is bland and familiar and uninteresting. The script is so incredibly boring, it stands as an example of what happens when a writer-director has too much control with no pushback. A lot of talent is wasted in this project.

The Inheritance: Grade A

A
The Inheritance (2003)
Ulrich Thomsen, Lisa Werlinder; Co-writer and director Per Fly (Swedish and French, subtitled)

Christoffer (Thomsen) is the son of a wealthy steel tycoon in Sweden. He has left the family firm to pursue his dream of building a restaurant business in Stockholm. He has the support and love of his actor-girlfriend Maria (Werlinder). But when his father dies, his mother urges him to take the lead at the steel company, as a crucial merger with a French firm is in the works. The mother insists that the younger brother, Ulric, is not competent to lead. Against his better judgment, and against the wishes of Maria, Christoffer takes the helm. He quickly finds that the company is in dire straits and that severe action is needed, like massive layoffs. He is required to become cold-blooded, which he does, but Maria leaves him. It’s the story of the human cost of modern capitalism.

The internal structure of the story has much in common with The Godfather, I thought, including the betrayal by the younger brother, the “whacking” of close associates, and so forth. (No actual whacking. This is a character study, not a mobster tale, but many of the moves are similar). Christoffer’s ambitious mother takes the Vito Corleone role, while Werlinder plays Diane Keaton’s part. Not to make too much of that analogy, because this is a completely different film, but the family dynamics are just as dramatic. Acting is uniformly strong, sets are excellent, directing is deft (although a little slow for my preference), and photography is compelling. Plus, as a bonus, it makes you think. How much is business success worth? Your whole life? Maybe so, if you have nothing else going for you.

Nobel Son: Grade B

B
Noble Son (2007)
Alan Rickman, Bryan Greenberg, Shawn Hatosy, Eliza Dushku, Mary Steenburgen, Bill Pullman. Co-writer and director Randall Miller.

In this offbeat comedy-caper, Greenberg is the twenty-something son of an egocentric, overbearing father (Rickman) who gives him nothing but contempt. The son meets a weird, poetry-reading woman (Dushku), but before the relationship can develop, he is kidnapped by Hatosy. The ransom payoff involves one of the more interesting car chases you will ever see. There are so many double and triple-cross plot turns that you don’t know who you can trust. The plot is thus unguessably clever but also self-consciously writerly. We don’t for a minute believe in any of these characters, but the dialog is intermittently witty enough that the implausible story successfully navigates between ridiculous irony and serious drama. Excellent acting by the three young people (Greenberg, Hatosy, and Dushku) makes the film compulsively watchable. Dushku especially is magnetic. Rickman blusters as only he can, and Steenburgen, as the youth’s mother, proves her greatness again. A small part with Danny DeVito is gratuitous. The music is strangely eclectic, from pounding techno-rave to subtle orchestration. Camera work and editing are often intrusive, probably trying to align with the comedic element. Despite a too-slow half hour opening, the movie quickly picks up the pace to become an unexpected oddball delight.

Rachel Getting Married: Grade A

A
Rachel Getting Married (2008)
Anne Hathaway, Debra Winger, Rosemarie DeWitt, Anisa George; Director Jonathan Demme.

Hathaway is Kym, the black sheep of the family who gets out of rehab to attend her sister Rachel’s wedding at the magnificently wealthy family home in Connecticut. Kym is intensely self-centered, immature, angry, and disruptive to all. Family members try to be nice to her but really would rather she disappeared and she knows that and lashes back to demand acceptance. All the scenes you expect of a dysfunctional family are played out as we pace through the fitting of the costumes, the wedding rehearsal, the big wedding, the cutting of the cake, the reception, and on and on. There is no plot, although some supposedly shocking family history is inevitably dredged up.

We are not buried under the banality of family muck because Hathaway’s acting is spellbinding. It is a performance equal or better than the one that got Penelope Cruz the Oscar this year. Hathaway is an amazing actor who dominates every scene she is in. Debra Winger also grabs your attention and won’t let go. Those two actors alone make the movie. But in addition, the sets are marvelous around that gorgeous, sprawling house maintained in tip-top condition, as only old money can afford. Then there is Demme’s excellent direction. Most of the camera work is hand-held so you feel you are watching a documentary, or even that you are a participant. That makes the family scenes familiar and compelling, especially when emotions are demonstrated rather than spoken about. Excellent writing gives the principal characters three dimensions and a good deal of wit. Some of the dialog is a little too witty, as if everyone were channeling Oscar Wilde, and most of the wedding scenes went on too long (the movie runs almost 2.5 hours). But overall it is a very satisfying family drama.

Lakeview Terrace: Grade C

C
Lakeview Terrace (2008)
Samuel L. Jackson, Kerry Washington, Patrick Wilson. Director Neil LaBute.

Wilson and Washington, an interracial young couple, move into a California suburb where their neighbor is LAPD cop Jackson and his two young children. Jackson seems to have a problem with interracial marriage and makes life difficult for the newcomers, without being overtly nasty. With a warm, broad, charming smile, he simply invites Wilson to live somewhere else where his values would be more accepted. The movie plucks the racial strings well and subtly, although I don’t know if anyone gives interracial marriage a second thought anymore, especially in California. It is portrayed as the cop's problem, not a larger social issue. Jackson’s harassment becomes increasingly overt until the movie finally ends in a gun battle. Sure, that could happen. It’s a shame the writers could not have done better than a Hollywood cliché.

Whenever I see a mentally disturbed character, I assume it is so a lazy or unskilled writer can avoid developing a proper characterization. It is obvious that the cop suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder. Crazy characters are expected to act crazy for no reason, and sure enough, he is nuts and gets nuttier as the film goes on.

Despite the poor writing, Jackson gives a very attractive performance, full of humor and menace and a full range of emotions. Kerry Washington gives an impressive performance too, and being gorgeous doesn’t hurt either. She has a lot more potential than the few small but outstanding parts we’ve seen her in (like Idi Amin’s wife in The Last King of Scotland, and Ray Charles’ wife in Ray). Wilson plays his role convincingly, although he does not jump off the screen like the other two principals. He was supposed to be a plain, bland, suburban white guy, and his performance was bland and I kept thinking he was Kevin Costner. Maybe that was an achievement. Camera work was good, and sets captured perfectly aspirational middle class aesthetic squalor. Music was annoying. But at least there was no car chase.

Sleepwalking: Grade B

B
Sleepwalking (2008)
Charlize Theron, Nick Stahl, Annasophia Robb, Woody Harrelson, Dennis Hopper. Director Bill Maher (not the comic).

Rarely will you see such fine acting, by every player in the film. Theron (also produced) is a master. Hopper electrifies the screen, as he always does. Stahl, who is in nearly every scene, is totally convincing, as is the amazing young Robb. This is acting at its finest.

However the story is utterly bleak. A deeply troubled single mom (Theron) is suddenly made homeless when her loser boyfriend is busted for drugs. She crashes at her brother’s (Stahl) decrepit apartment. The confused daughter (Robb) is “creeped out” by her uncle. It is a very awkward situation, then the mom disappears, leaving a note that she will be back in “about a month.” The daughter is devastated. Out of emotional necessity, she forms a tentative relationship with her uncle. He loses his job and the apartment so they drive a beat up car to his abusive father’s (Hopper) derelict cattle farm. And so on. There is no plot. It is just a story about characters at the very bottom of the societal food chain, how they cope with life. There is some development in Stahl’s character toward the end, but overall, the story has no point.

The scenery, costumes and sets are unrelentingly desolate. It is the dead of winter in Denver, on the depressing side of the tracks. Everything is cold, gritty, grubby; the characters dull and unknowing. They are all poor, uneducated and unskilled, so they have no choice but to blunder through their lives. This makes the pace of the film slow, and if you stick with it, the effect is a merciless emotional downer. Yet the acting is so good, directing so nuanced, dialog so honest, production values so perfect, that you realize you have just seen a fine piece of American cinema.

Shotgun Stories: Grade B

B
Shotgun Stories (2008)
Michael Shannon, Douglas Ligon, Barlow Jacobs; Writer-Director Jeff Nichols.

In contemporary rural Arkansas, three adult brothers are notified by their hateful mother that the despised father who abandoned them years ago has died. They attend the funeral where they encounter the three half brothers from the runaway father’s second family. These half-brothers seem to be a little better off economically, but such things are only relative in this poor community. The oldest of the abandoned brothers insults the memory of their father and spits on his grave, starting a family feud that begins as insults and threats, and over the weeks escalates to fistfights, knives and shotguns. It is a sensitive portrayal of character, not the shoot-em-up vendetta movie it is promoted as. You can feel the sweat running down your back in the hot, humid, rural settings. Characters move slowly and talk slowly. The writing is Faulkneresque in the way it portrays the rural south, the naivety and ignorance, yet sensitivity of its inhabitants. I don’t like Faulkner for that reason. It is just not very interesting to watch stupid people behave stupidly. Yet the acting is superlative, directing, sets, costumes are perfect, and the script is engaging and original, so the movie, while a bit too slow for me, never sags.

Turn the River: Grade C

C
Turn the River (2007)
Famke Janssen, Jaymie Dornan, Rip Torn. Writer-Director Chris Eigman.

Janssen is a pool hustler in modern New York City, hanging out at a dingy pool hall run by Rip Torn. She is desperate to “find a game” so she can raise money for fake ID so she can kidnap her own son (Dornan), who lives with his father. The rich father is a mean drunk, the stepmother is clueless, and the meddling grandmother a witch, so the boy is supposed to be unhappy there, making the mother’s kidnap plan seem less selfish and more acceptable to the audience. We don’t know anything about the marriage or divorce, or why she didn’t get alimony or child support, or why the incompetent father got custody. The film shows some nice pool shots, although the camera has to cut away to allow professionals to slip in there and make the spectacular plays shown on the table, so the continuity of the games is not smooth. Still, the movie is about the woman and her child, not really about the game, so that is ok. She raises the money and takes the child. There is no character development and we never really understand her. All the characters are stereotypes, and the acting is only adequate, except for Rip Torn, who is really obnoxious, barking his lines without context as if he were deaf. There is no chemistry among any of the characters, not even between mother and child. But sets, costumes and colors are good, and it is nice to see a woman play the “tough-guy” pool-shark role.

Fierce People: Grade C

C
Fierce People (2007)
Donald Sutherland, Diane Lane, Anton Yelchin, Chris Evans, Kristen Stewart. Director Griffin Dunne.

Yelchin is a 15 year old with absent father and alcoholic mother. He is obsessed with anthropology and the fierce Amazonian Yanomami tribe. His mother (Lane), a masseuse, goes on the wagon and takes her son to a rich client’s estate in New Jersey. Sutherland, the rich man, gives a wonderful performance as a modern day Great Gatsby. There are parties, feasts, festivals, balloon races, and romances as the undereducated, amoral and idle rich fritter away their lives. The thrust of the story is that the boy is supposed to study the wealthy clan anthropologically, establishing a parallel with the premodern Yanomami by showing extremely primitive motives and behavior beneath the veneer of high society. The sets and costumes are excellent and do convey the boy’s sense of being accepted into the upper crust, but as a mascot, not a real member, perhaps as a participant anthropologist would be.

Unfortunately, all the characters are two-dimensional and uninteresting. The rich people’s antics are stereotypical, exaggerated, and the portrayal is mean-spirited. The directing of physical movement is good but the dialog is clunky so characters seem to be reciting lines. At the end of the movie, everybody just goes home. No conclusions are drawn, no lessons are learned. The filmmakers add some ghostly Yanomami tribesmen in the woods to reinforce the supposed parallel between the two kinds of “fierce people,” and that’s a nice touch, but only a superficial overlay, symptomatic of the way the premise for the story is wasted. The Nanny Diaries also adopted the anthropological premise but like this movie, threw it away. Rich people with feet of clay is a fertile topic, but it was explored better in The Godfather series or even in TV shows like Dallas, than in this movie. One last criticism is that Yelchin’s character grated on my nerves throughout. He plays a slow-talking, highly controlled, extremely precocious youth, so precocious that the character was downright annoying. The movie is a lost opportunity but moderately interesting for what it attempts to do.

Lost in Beijing: Grade A

A
Lost in Beijing (2007)
Tony Leung, Bingbing Fan, Dawei Tong. Cowriter and Director: Yu Li. (Chinese, subtitled).

A young, poor couple and an older, rich couple interact in modern Beijing, which was unrecognizable since I was there in 1979 when there was no building over about 7 storeys, and even those were crumbling stone blocks built by the British. Now gleaming glass and steel towers sprout like mushrooms after a rain, under a filthy brown sky. It could be Detroit or Miami or any other modern city. The movie gives a glimpse into the lives of people living high in the towers and low on the ground.

The young man (Tong) is a window washer and happens to see through the window, his wife (Fan) being raped by her boss (Leung). The young man demands payment in retribution, but things become complicated when we learn that Fan is pregnant. This movie is banned in China and the filmmakers are forbidden to work for two years, ostensibly because of the sex and nudity in the film. But I don’t think that is the real reason it was banned. There isn’t really much nudity on screen and the film is in no sense pornographic. We see some naked legs and buttocks, and that’s about it.

Of course among a billion people, there is sex every minute of every day, but to show it on film probably contrasts too harshly with the “official” view that all Chinese people are proud and dignified. The sharp division between inner and outer personality is core to the culture, and this film allows all the world, especially us barbarian Westerners, to look past the outer formalities to the inner private life.

More important though was probably the censors’ embarrassment or shame about how badly women are treated. The movie is a strong social statement by the female director and co-writer. Women are raped, beat up, murdered, ordered to have an abortion, forbidden to have an abortion, kidnapped, their babies bought and sold. Although the movie is not explicitly violent, the story makes it very clear that women are chattel in China today, despite the veneer of modern civilization. If that were not so, the censors would not be embarrassed by the movie and would have let it run. In the ending, the protagonist woman makes a defiant move, her declaration of independence, but I wonder how realistic that possibility is in today’s Beijing.

It is a very well-acted movie, with considerable sensitivity and humor, great photography, some interesting editing, and a stunning look into modern Beijing. But above all, it is a courageous expose and plea on behalf of Chinese women, and women everywhere.

King of California: Grade A

A
King of California (2007)
Evan Rachel Wood, Michael Douglas; Writer-Director Mike Cahill.

Douglas gives a terrific performance as a geezer just released from a mental institution to his 17 year old daughter (Wood). She has been driving her beat-up Volvo to work at McDonalds in a California suburb, just getting by. We see in flashbacks that their 100 year old house was once a jewel in rolling agricultural acres, but now is a sore thumb in an endless sea of unimaginative tract homes. Charlie, her dad, believes he has discovered a map to golden treasure, buried nearby by early Spanish explorers. He schemes to find it, even selling the Volvo and the house to finance his exploration. The best line in the movie is the daughter’s incredulous outrage: “What? Are you nuts?” He stares at her. She says quietly, “Sorry.” He actually does not seem to be psychotic, only slightly delusional, and who isn’t these days? That ambiguity makes it plausible that she would become Panza to his Quixotic search for the maybe-gold. The ending is accordingly ambiguous as well. We are half-convinced there might be gold, but finally we realize it doesn’t matter. The point is that she is able to re-establish her relationship with her father during the adventure. The movie is also a cry of anguish over the squalor of cookie-cutter “development” that relentlessly buries the treasure of natural beauty under concrete and commerce. It is a surprisingly sensitive performance from Douglas, and first rate from Wood, too.

Savages: Grade A

A
Savages (2007)
Laura Linney, Philip Seymour Hoffman. Writer-director Tamara Jenkins.

Adult brother and sister must find a nursing home for their estranged father who is showing clear signs of dementia. The father has never been good to them, and they have never been close to each other, making their anxiety in dealing the situation poignant. It’s a universal story, and one that an increasing number of baby boomers are now facing. The writing is sharp and very witty. There is only one speech (People are dying in there, and death is gaseous, smelly, and ugly… etc.) that makes the character sound like the writer’s mouthpiece. Most of the script is right on target. At the same time, both brother and sister are aspiring but not successful writers, envious, and competing for acknowledgement from each other. Neither has a successful romantic life. Linney is a great but underexposed actor. Here, she plays the neurotic, vulnerable, struggling New York writer to a T. Hoffman is so consistently good that you expect it of him, although his character is not as clearly outlined as Linney’s. A student ironically asks in his classroom, “What is the difference between plot and narrative?” This story has plenty of narrative but there are no guns, no missing money, no drugs, spies, bank jobs or explosions. Just good writing and powerful acting.