Two Lovers

Evidently, Two Lovers will be Joaquin Phoenix’s last film ever. That may not be a bad thing. This film seems to be a warm-up for whatever role he has assigned himself to play in life these days. (He’s apparently grown a beard and intends to become a rapper.) As Leonard Kraditor he is distracted, mumbling, inarticulate, slightly overweight. He even tries to rap briefly in a car, and there’s a pretty embarrassing dance scene at a club. It’s hard to say if this is acting, or if it is Phoenix consumed by his new persona, or if the new persona is an act that builds on the character of Leonard. But who cares? J. Hoberman of Variety calls Leonard a “tragic asshole,” and that seems about right, with the caveat that the latter term tends to cancel out the former.

In the film’s first sequence we see Leonard try to drown himself, half-heartedly, by jumping in the bay, but he swims to the surface and a couple of guys pull him out. He walks home dripping water in the dead of winter, looking like drowned rat. We learn that he’s been institutionalized and has medications. But what really seems to be driving him crazy is that his fiancé dumped him. So, deinstitutionalized, he’s come to live with his parents in their tiny apartment and to do deliveries for his dad’s dry cleaning company, which a competitor is trying to buy from Leonard’s retirement-ready father. Somehow to seal the deal both sets of parents seem to be in collusion about getting the daughter, Sandra (Vanessa Shaw) together with the crazy, unskilled, not-terribly-bright Leonard. Why anyone, especially her parents, thinks this a good deal for her is beyond me.

At the exact moment that this arrangement is progressing, Leonard meets another resident of his apartment building, Michelle, played by radiant Gweneth Paltrow. She, as it turns out, is having an affair with one of the partners at the law firm in which she is a legal assistant. He’s married and Michelle fears he’ll never leave his wife for her. For inexplicable reasons she finds Leonard to be sparkling company and soon takes him her confidant. As if to demonstrate her lack of judgment, she invites Leonard to a dinner with herself and her lover, thinking that Leonard will be able to discern his sincerity. Of course, Leonard can do no such thing (surprise!) and knows only that he is utterly smitten by the drug-addled Michelle.

When not counseling Michelle, Leonard progresses with Sandra; she goes to bed with him (the two sets of parents having sent her from a party at their house to Leonard’s apartment, presumably knowing what will happen), buys him some nice leather gloves, and generally falls for him based on wanting to “take care of him.” In the meantime Leonard nurses Michelle through a miscarriage and persuades her to dump her lover and to fly away with him to San Francisco. Some comically bad timing ensues as he is supposed to leave for the airport with her in the midst of a party at his parents’ apartment. He’s attempting to duck out just as the hapless Sandra is arriving so that he has to hide in the stairwell. It’s not clear to me if this is intended to be funny, but it certainly has the structure of comedy.

I’ll refrain from disclosing the ending, but it strikes me as too neat by half, and I find I don’t know how cynical one should be about Leonard’s choice.

Gweneth Paltrow is quite convincing as the bad-choice-making Michelle. One critic summarized the movie as a guy “having to pick between Gweneth Paltrow and some other girl.” (Some readers may be interested to know that Ms. Paltrow has occasion to flash a little skin in this role. Flash is the operative term here.) Former David Lynch queen Isabella Rosselini is depressingly dowdy as Leonard’s Jewish mother, whom some critics have seen as a shrewish stereotype, but I can’t see that at all.

This film got very good reviews and was a hit at Cannes. Maybe I’m missing something, but I found it weird, and not very convincing, with Phoenix’s eccentric portrayal of Leonard as off-putting. It is difficult to imagine that he could win over these two lovely women without a modicum of charm.

Che (Parts I and II)

I suppose this movie could have been called Blame It on Fidel as well, but it seems more appropriate to blame director/producer Steven Soderbergh. I can’t for the life of me see what the point is here. Typically with a biopic you expect to get some insight into the character of the subject, but Che remains an absolute sipher. Played by Benicio Del Toro (usually a fine actor), we see only the outer man (he smokes a pipe, he has asthma, he has five children, he makes sage comments), but we never, for an instant, get any sense of an inner turmoil, of doubt or spiritual struggle. Del Toro, presumably at the behest of his director, gives us almost nothing of an inner man. His and Soderbergh’s Che is simply the committed revolutionary, making things happen by whatever means necessary. Maybe the problem is that the source material is Che’s own autobiographical writings and his diary; these may have been written as propaganda to support the revolution.

The second of the two films, which I found somewhat more satisfying than the first, is set in Bolivia, where Che has come to continue the revolution after the success of the Cuban revolution. We get absolutely no insight into this decision, only the TV broadcast of Fidel reading a letter of “explanation” from Che, as he deserts all his governmental posts and even gives up his Cuban citizenship (he was Argentine). He arrives in Bolivia (in one of the worst disguises ever on a movie screen) where the resistance consists of no more than a dozen or so armed peasants avoiding the army in the Bolivian mountains. Bolivian people are distrustful and indifferent of the resistance and things never really pick up for Che. He builds his army up to about 50, but they are are gradually picked off and he himself is eventually captured and executed. Did he have any doubts about the revolutionary endeavor in Bolivia? Not that we know about. We see only his actions.

You have to figure a film is in trouble if the director feels it necessary to begin with silent three-minute shots of maps (in the first film of Cuba, in the second of South America), with each state glowing in a different color and its major cities identified. That fifth-grade-geography-lesson moment is a warning sign that the director's intentions. Even the battle scenes are dull. Che’s relationships with his colleagues seem guarded and mediated by his revolutionary zeal; he tells his men how difficult it is to lose colleagues, but we never see a tear from him. When an attactive female revolutionary shows up in camp, we think, "Aha! Things will pick up now that the love interest has arrived." But no; Che just yells at her for security breaches. Sigh.

I don’t know what the critical consensus is on this ambitious two-film project. I started it on the strength of the director (Soderbergh), the star (Del Toro), and the subject matter (the life of the iconic revolutionary). I watched the first film a couple of weeks ago and determined that I didn’t need to see the second. Then I had a crisis among the thinned out shelves at Blockbuster, so I bit for the second. At least my judgment about the first was confirmed.

Subtitle Alert: Persons speaking in foreign tongues.

Blame It on Fidel

The chief virtue of Blame It on Fidel is its realistic and uncondescending view of childhood. In the film we see the world through the eyes of Anna, a nine-year-old whose early childhood is spent in the early 1970's as the daughter of a well-to-do young Parisian lawyer and a writer for a French women’s magazine. She and her oblivious younger brother undergo a significant change of lifestyle as her parents become radicalized, activists working in support of the Allende regime in Chile. Because of their politics they give up their home, their servants, and Anna’s Catholic school, much to Anna’s chagrin on all counts.

What is realistic about the portrait of Anna as a child of nine? First, she is conservative in the sense that she resists change of any sort. We think of children as flexible, and they do adapt to change generally more quickly than adults, but they would prefer to have, say, their bedtime routine remain the same forever. Second, we see Anna absorbing information that becomes part of her intellectual repertoire, and some of it is nonsense, such as her Cuban nanny’s view of Communists. Or her father’s claim that Mickey Mouse is a fascist. It is difficult for her to assess it, so her prespective is often an incongruous jumble. Finally, it is realistic in showing how children adapt to the world that is presented to them. Slowly, the conservative Catholic little girl becomes absorbed into the left-wing politics of her parents, through her exposure to and eventual affection for the radicals who have become almost co-residents of their small apartment.

Nina Kerval plays the sober Anna, and the movie belongs to her. She does not mug it up for the camera, or pretend to be wiser than she is, nor is she forced to deliver “cute” dialogue. Her demeanor is generally somewhere between worried and stubborn. Her frown, especially toward her brother, is almost constant. There are also moments of defiance (that all parents are familiar with). I imagine all this would be a difficult role for a child actress, but she pulls it off convincingly, probably a result of being well directed. Two scenes stand out—when, angry at her parents, she takes her brother by the hand and, with him scurrying to keep up with her angry walking, they run away--to the library. She brings her brother home finally, her mother takes the boy in and shuts the apartment door in Anna’s face. Anna does not break into tears, nor is her character irreparably damaged. She is merely surprised, and angry and prepared to wait. The second scene is when her parents take her to a political rally, which becomes violently chaotic when the police turns on the crowd with clubs and tear gas. Anna doesn’t understand why the people are running away and stands her ground less in defiance than mere bafflement and surprise. Finally her father finds her and whisks her to safety. The scene is shot from Anna’s perspective; she is lost in a sea of blue jeans, anything above an adult’s waist obscured to her.

One reviewer called Blame It on Fidel a double coming-of-age story. I’m not so sure of that, but the parents certainly are evolving at an accelerated pace. They also make mistakes and disagree. Perhaps the irony of the film is Anna’s relative steadfastness in the face of her parents’ radical makeover.

I can recommend this fine little movie because of its unusually honest take on childhood. Some of the historical events are a little dim in memory, but their impact on Anna and her parents is clear. Thanks to Mary for the tip.

Subtitle Alert: Persons speaking in foreign tongues.

Revolutionary Road

Before going any further I just want to note that Kate Winslet is a wonderful actress; one reviewer of this film was inspired to proclaim that she is the best actress of her generation, and I would have difficulty arguing with that. Her performance here is almost supernaturally sensitive (see, I can be hyperbolic too!); her face is so expressive of every nuance of feeling in this complex and frustrated character. And her face always conveys intelligence, hers and her character’s. She was apparently the driving force behind this film because she wanted to play April Wheeler, and it was a good choice for her.

The film is based on Richard Yates’s novel (I’m reading it now), considered a classic and the progenitor of the novel of suburban angst. The road of the title is the suburban address of their pseudo-quaint home; the name is presumably ironic. We see Frank Wheeler meet April “across a crowded room” at a Manhattan party. Winslet is almost unrecognizable, but also gorgeous, with her straight blonde hair, red lipstick, cigarette, and early 50’s attire. They are drawn to each other, strike up a conversation, and the next thing we know they are a married couple; he is watching, uncomfortably, a bad community theater play she is in; they have a rip-roaring fight on the side of the road after it. Turns out they have two kids and have moved to the Connecticut ‘burbs. Frank works for the company his father did in NYC and April stays home. Frank is restless and unhappy in his job, so for his birthday he gives himself a fling with a hapless secretary. In the meantime, recognizing that Frank is stifled, April suggests that they sell the house and move to Paris; she’ll work while he finds himself. They both become caught up in this dream (and briefly their marriage seems renewed). Then Frank is offered a big promotion with much more pay and April discovers she is pregnant. Things do not go well for either from this point forward; I won’t be the spoiler.

Leonardo DiCaprio does a fine job as Frank. He too is very expressive of his mercurial character’s mood swings, and he covers a huge range of emotion. Frank is not as self-aware as his wife is, and somehow his boyish appearance works well here. It is impressive that DiCaprio has grown from a child star into a grownup one, and one of our best actors period. Winslet apparently was eager to get him for this role.

One other performance, a minor one, deserves a remark, and that is Michael Shannon, the lunatic son of the Wheeler’s former real estate agent and current friend of April. He is one of those truth-telling crazies that movies are fond of, but his mercurial power dominates every scene he’s in. A striking visual image is Frank’s commute to work in NYC in which the city seems to have been invaded by aliens in baggy suits and Fedoras. There’s no stronger reminder that we’re in the 1950’s than the presence of a hat on every male head.

This film is directed by Sam Mendes, successful London stage director, director of American Beauty, and Kate Winslet’s real-life husband. I have noted before Ms. Winslet’s propensity for getting naked in her films, but she does not here, despite having three sex scenes; she remains fully clothed in each. Husband directs; no nudity for Kate. Coincidence? You be the judge.

The film follows the novel very closely (the dialog of the entire roadside argument comes straight from the book). Is a movie about 1950's suburban angst somewhat dated? Probably. And I get irritated when the source of most of the anguish is the characters' discovery that they aren't the privileged special beings they imagined themselves to be in their youths. Hello?

Revolutionary Road is pretty much of a downer, but it is played very well and is well worth seeing.

Let the Right One In

Here I go again, reviewing a movie that partakes of a genre I don’t really get—the horror film. But with a difference—it’s Swedish! Let the Right One In is like Ingmar Bergman meets Halloween 23. Though it’s true that Bergman had some pretty horrifying scenes, they were psychological; here there’s blood on the screen.

The story centers on a 12-year-old boy living with his single mom. He seems to be a social outcast, beleaguered by bullies. He keeps a knife with him and fantasizes killing his tormentors. It is during one of his acting out fantasies that he meets Eli, who materializes in the courtyard of the apartment complex. We know something’s fishy about her right away because it’s the dead of winter and she has no coat on. She’s 12 as well but, as she puts it, she’s been twelve for a long time. The two, who seem desperately alone, form a strange friendship, that is perhaps best characterized by their learning Morse code and tapping messages to each other through the shared wall of their apartments. Both seem emotionally deadened, perhaps with good cause, but it does tend to distance us from the film. An analogous effect is created by the director’s filming scenes in which Eli attacks people from a considerable distance. It is also supported by moments of black humor that leave the audience uncomfortable with their laughter.

The problem with the emotional deadness and distance is that, if the film aspires to rise above the horror genre, it must do so as a coming-of-age film. But for that to work, we have to be engaged with the adolescents involved. It’s hard to know how to relate to a boy who, when worked over by bullies, simply picks himself up, straightens his clothes and goes sullenly on. And Eli’s emotional life is probably difficult, but she is, after all, a vampire and pretty opaque. We also don’t know how innocent she really is. How many times, in her long twelve-year-old life, has she had relationships like the one with Oskar? Early in the film she is living with an older man who kills victims to feed their blood to Eli. He sacrifices himself to protect her in a pretty spectacular manner (which I won’t reveal). Is this a future Oskar may face by remaining with the unaging Eli?

Toward the film’s end Eli’s nocturnal habits are catching up with her and she tells Oskar she has to leave. We see her depart in the upscale car of a mysterious benefactor who apparently keeps vampires from living on the streets. This might be the end of a coming-of-age film—boy loses the first love of his life and then goes on. But in the film’s final sequence Eli reappears at just the right moment as an avenging angel and protector of Oskar. That scene’s violence (though subtly represented) and its theme of revenge, takes us back to the horror genre. It's the ending of Carrie but done tastefully--sort of. But the overall effect seems a bit conflicted.

I will confess that I have seen Twilight (not reviewed here!), a truly mindless take on the theme of human/vampire love. Let the Right One In isn’t that by a long shot, but it isn’t quite free of its genre origins. So maybe it's that rarity, an art-house horror film.

The title, by the way, is from a Morrissey song, of whom the screenwriter and novelist is a big fan: “Let the right one in/ I’d say you were within your rights to bite/The right one and say, ‘What kept you so long?’ ”

Subtitle caution: Persons speaking in foreign tongues.

The Fall

I’ll have to admit that I don’t really get the genre of fantasy, so I’m not a good one to review The Fall. (I was the only person on the planet who didn’t much care for Pan’s Labyrinth.) The plot centers on a little girl, Alexandra, in a hospital recovering from a broken arm, which she has to keep awkwardly elevated throughout the film. She is from a family of immigrant Romanians who are pick fruit in California. In the hospital she befriends Roy, a young stunt man in the brand new film industry, who has apparently attempted suicide (which we may have seen the film’s opening sequence, though it is not entirely clear) and broken both legs in the process. The young man begins to weave an elaborate fantasy story (he calls it “epic”) involving five exotic warriors who have been stranded on a tiny island by a King Odious whom they have all vowed to kill. (One of the warriors is Charles Darwin (???)) The intermixing of fantasy and reality begins early as we see characters from the hospital appearing in the story, including Roy himself. Eventually Alexandra herself appears as Roy’s sidekick. It has been suggested that although the story is Roy’s, the visuals come from Alexandra’s five-year-old mind, but toward the end of the tale, the princess is Roy’s former girlfriend and Odious is the leading man from the film Roy was last involved in. This sort of blending was probably started with the last sequence of The Wizard of Oz and continues unabated to this day.

The film turns dark when it becomes apparent that Roy’s primary motive in weaving this tale for Alexandra is to persuade her to steal morphine pills from the hospital’s pharmacy so that he can kill himself. After his attempt fails, the story turns very dark indeed.

There are many aspects in which the title comes into play. The opening sequence depicts a staged fall from a railroad bridge which may be where Roy was injured. Alexandra falls and suffers a brain injury as she tries to steal morphine pills for Roy in the hospital’s pharmacy. We also see Roy falling into despair. Much has been made of the film’s fabulous visual style, but it should also be recalled that most of that visual spectacle is a pretty ruthless manipulation of a five-year-old girl. Surely the style of the film is implicated by Roy’s motives and we don’t have a pure paean to visual filmmaking. Or not.

The director and writer, Tarsem Singh, is a very successful director of commercials and music videos (that background could have been inferred from the film’s visual manner). He apparently sandwiched between his commercial work and financed it with his own money. It was filmed on 28 international locations. You have to admire Tarsem’s gumption, but I can’t help wish it could have been applied to a project of more substance than this.

The most stunning visual of the film, at least for me, occurs when the warriors escape the island by riding on the back of a swimming elephant. It is mostly filmed underwater so that we see the elephant swimming. Of course, it makes no sense whatever that an elephant would arrive on the scene and save them all, but it was cool to see. I also admired the use of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony as the theme music.

The Fall has been called a fairytale, but not one for children. But being a fairytale also limits its appeal to adults, so it’s hard to imagine the film’s natural audience.

Oh, man, I just figured out how to embed YouTube movie trailers! New feature!

The Duchess of Langeais

The Duchess of Langeais is based on a novella by Balzac, so one might be justified in thinking that this film will be an historical costume drama the main business of which is to make viewers feel good about being cultured. That would be respectably middlebrow, and one could do a lot worse. But this film is directed by Jacques Rivette, a warhorse of the French New Wave who is still at work his eighties. And that fact tells you that any thought of a comfortable, unchallenging evening needs to be put aside. The most aggressively experimental of his peers, Rivette is known for the opacity of his characters and plots, and for doing exactly what he deems appropriate. He is the auteur, after all.

The story is of an unconsummated affair between a wounded hero of the Napoleonic wars who has spent some years as a captive in Africa and a duchess who seems far more intent on maintaining her social position than on an affair with anyone. Initially the impetus comes from the officer who is determined to have the duchess as his mistress. She strings him along mercilessly and only when he is on the verge of abandoning his apparently futile quest does she realize her passion for him, at which time he seems to take his revenge by rejecting her overtures. She gives him one final ultimatum to rendezvous with her or lose her forever. Without giving away too much, suffice it to say, he messes up and she disappears. He mounts a five-year search for her in nunneries across Europe, and finally discovers her in Spain. She refuses his appeals again, and Montriveau and his colleagues plan to kidnap her, at which point I will refrain from playing the plot spoiler.

What, besides his name on the credits, makes this a Rivette film? The characters are psychologically opaque. Gen. Montriveau seems to be deep in depression, but we don’t know why. The duchess maddening inconsistencies toward his advances are impossible to read. (One reviewer suggests that both characters may be mad.) The pacing is Rivette’s usual maddening crawl (though at 137 minutes this film breezes by compared to four plus hours for others). In one scene we spend several minutes observing the Duchess dress and pose herself for a visit by Montriveau. In another we spend at least a minute watching servants light candles in the Duchess’ chamber. Rivette likes to remind us of the artifice of cinema. In this case he inexplicably accomplishes transitions through the use of title cards like those used in early silent films.

I’m not entirely sold on the casting of the two leads. General Montriveau is played by Guillaume Depardieu, son of Gerard, paragon of French cinema. His dour melancholy seems one dimensional in Guillaume, and one can’t help imagine the depth it the father would have imbued it with in his prime twenty years ago. Jeanne Balibar seems singularly unsensual and it’s a little hard to imagine what about her so enflames Montriveau. Her expressions seem very limited in range and convey little of the pathos of their situation. Again, I imagine the richness of the role in the hands of another French actress like Isabel Huppert, who is all barely controlled feeling. That said, I’m confident that Rivette was getting exactly what he wanted from his players.

Despite its weirdness, or more likely, because of it, I was really caught up by this film and I never felt it dragged. If you enjoy it, try Rivette’s take on a “romantic comedy” with Va Savior. (Balibar plays in that as well.) It’s quite wonderfully baffling!

A quick afterword on Guillaume Depardieu—he died at 37 of an infection not long after this film. His Montriveau walks with a marked limp; we assume he has lost the lower part of his leg in the wars. The limp is not faked; Depardieu lost a leg in an accident. How's that for inside Hollywood info?

Subtitle Alert: Persons speaking in foreign tongues.

Star Trek (The Reboot)

I promised myself I wouldn't review blockbuster sequels or films that haven't yet made it to DVD, but I feel some obligation to let Middlebrowsers know that Star Trek the Do-Over meets most middlebrow standards. It is lively, it is reasonably intelligent, it is well acted, and doggone it, it's just fun! The actors they've found to play the main characters do a great job, though I've got some reservations about Kid Kirk (Chris Pine); searching for the adjective to express my reservations, my son Phillip suggested "smarmy," and I think that's pretty close. I gave up on trying to follow the plot (something to do with blackholes and alternate realities which means that none of the previous Star Trek incarnations have anything to do with current reality), but, as my son adroitly put it, the purpose of the story was merely to assemble the crew. I would also carp a little about the villain, Nero; his motives are pretty obscure and he's just not scary. I also could have done without dredging up the decrepit Leonard Nimoy as a Spock from an alternate future (where there apparently had been a short-lived TV series and a long-lived movie franchise for himself, Kirk, and company). If you see the movie, watch for Winona Ryder as Spock's mother; I just discovered who she was tonight, more than a week after seeing the movie. Also, can someone confirm exactly how many literal cliffhangers Kirk engages in the film--one dangling over a literal cliff in Iowa (cliff in Iowa?) as a deliquent teenager and another hanging for dear life from a floating drilling platform. Are there any more? Anyway, go pay your $6 to $8, buy yourself a big tub of high fat popcorn, and enjoy yourself.

Man Push Cart

Man Push Cart is Ramin Bahrani’s attention-grabbing 2005 feature film, preceding Chop Shop by just a a couple of years. Once again it deals with an immigrant experience in America, but this time the protagonist is newly arrived from Pakistan. Ahmad is sort of an unlikely character. He was a literal rock star at home (a character describes him as “the Bono of Pakistan”) who, under circumstances that we aren’t told about , followed a woman who became his wife to the US, where they were married and she died, again under unknown circumstances, leaving a child behind. The child is with the in-laws, who are not inclined to let Ahmad see his son. Ahmad stays in New York at least partly to maintain the hope that he and his son can one day be a family. It is revealed in a flashback that the wife had a push cart coffee and donut business, which he seems to have taken over after her death. Why “the Bono of Pakistan” finds himself in this utterly impoverished situation, living surreptitiously in an empty apartment, and selling pornographic videos on the side to make ends meet, is a little hard to fathom. One day a Pakistani yuppie befriends him, takes him back to his apartment to finish painting it, and finally recognizes him as a singer. He promises to help Ahmad establish himself in the US. In the meantime Ahmad has started s relationship with a newsstand girl, but his “friend” takes over with her, and he is unable to pursue it further.

We see scene after scene of Ahmad pulling his cart through the early morning traffic of Manhattan; it is sad and frightening. He doesn’t own and cannot afford a car to pull it, as some of his colleagues have. It adds considerable pathos to his situation, but he also seems to take some pride in the cart (it having been his wife’s) and he does the job well. We don’t know what exactly we are to make of Ahmad’s situation, because it seems to be a largely personal rather than ordained by larger social forces. He comes to the US because of a romantic attachment, not because he is forced to. He struggles to make ends meet, but we see many Pakistanis in the film who have been successful, and there is little indication of systemic anti-Pakistani prejudice holding Ahmad or others down. So Ahmad’s situation seems more personal than social, and his fate (whatever it turns out to be) is based more on personal decisions than on larger forces.

Things go badly for Ahmad in the film’s last half-hour. Unlike young Ale of Chop Shop, he has no dream nor does he do much to help himself other than maintain his push cart. He’s an enigmatic and frustratingly passive character. The film leaves him at what appears to be a low point. Whether the film’s last scene, like the final one in Chop Shop, is intended to imply a hopeful future is unclear, but it certainly lacks the uplift effect. Man Push Cart provides an interesting look at a subculture of New York and a challenging character study, but lacks the power and energy of Chop Shop. Roger Ebert declared "Ramin Bahrani is the new great American director," but I’d advise in favor of Chop Shop and whatever follows it (Goodbye Solo).

One curious feature of the film is that Ahmad and the other successful Pakistanis speak American English that is entirely unaccented, using even such slang as “Yo.”

The Secret of the Grain

The Secret of the Grain is about Arabic people living in France, specifically Tunisians living in the seaport town of Sete. Slimani is a sixty-year-old man who is about to lose his job as a shipyard worker. He lives in a small room in a hotel where he is having an affair with the hotel’s owner. Divorced, he is estranged from his wife, though she always sends a plate of whatever she cooks. She is best known for her couscous and mullet, and we see a long sequence of a dinner featuring that dish at the wife’s house, with all the children, their spouses and their children--everyone but Slimani. It is a lively affair (though like much in the movie, we see too much of it). Slimani has an idea for a career change. He wants to buy an old boat that is about to be scrapped and turn it into a restaurant that will feature his wife’s couscous. He enlists the help of his mistress’s daughter, Rym; a beautiful 20-year-old who proves to be his greatest ally. His project gets caught in the local bureaucracy, so he has the idea of hosting a dinner for all the local officials who must approve the project on the newly remodeled boat. Things go well until one of Slimani’s sons flees the boat in his car to avoid a confrontation with a former mistress. Unfortunately, the couscous is in the trunk of his car. Slimani goes in search of him while his guests, unaware of the problem, cool their heels. In the meantime, Slimani’s mistress goes to make a massive pot of couscous and her daughter entertains the guests with some stunning belly dancing, the sensuality of which keeps everyone happily occupied for a good while. Things do not end well Slimani, but the film ends with the crowd enthralled with Rym’s dancing. (Like almost everything in the film, even this goes on too long.)

There is much to admire about this film—the richness of the familial relationships and the Arabic culture, the wonderful relationship of Slimani with Rym, the performances of all the actors, but most especially Hafsia Herzi as Rym. She is absolutely magnetic. But the writer/director, Abdel Kechiche, is so enamored of his characters that he can’t seem to tear away from them and lingers far too long on conversations. The film is two and half hours and feels it; it would have been fine at just less than two hours.

The characters speak of the difficulty of being outsiders in France, but it is difficult for us to sort out what is prejudice. Does Slimani’s loss of his job have to do with this ethnicity? Are local authorities making it difficult for him to start his restaurant bcause he’s Arabic?

A word about the title. The “grain” is couscous. There is no secret that I can discern. The French title was “la graine et le mullet,” which is simply the name of the dish that was to be served at the dinner. Why English distributors would come up with such a misleading title is beyond me.

This is an interesting film from a cultural perspective, highly regarded by critics, and it features a fine performance by Herzi, but I think it will be too slow for most folks.

Subtitle Alert: Persons speaking in foreign tongues.

Chop Shop

First off, Chop Shop is not a slasher flick. The chop shop of the title is a somewhat disreputable auto body shop in New York; some of the parts used there may (or may not) come from dismantled stolen cars. You might want to think of Chop Shop as an American Slum Dog Millionaire: two orphans left to their own devices in a rather amoral environment that threatens extreme poverty. Only the conditions are altered because it is set in America; the setting is literally in the shadow of Shea Stadium where the Mets play. Besides the setting, the other big difference from Slum Dog is that it is essentially a Hollywood movie dressed up as realism; here the reality is, well, real. The impoverished protagonist does not find himself on a nationally broadcast quiz show to be united with his long-lost love and to become rich in the process.

Alejandro (Ale for short) is about 12, of Hispanic descent; we never hear anything about his background and there is no mention of parents. He is living in a jerry-rigged room above the body repair shop where he works in the day as a car parker and apprentice body man. He has various moneymaking schemes, including peddling of porn videos and hawking candybars on subway cars (one of the film’s best scenes). Early in the film he persuades his sister, Isamer, who seems at loose ends, to come live with him at the body shop. She manages to land a job work in a lunch van that seems to cater mostly to the body shops of the so-called Iron Triangle. Like Ale, she has a sideline: turning tricks with truckers at night. The siblings have a touching relationship, full of rough affection. They sleep in the same bed in a perfectly innocent fashion. In one heartbreaking scene Ale has treated his sister to dinner at a Mexican restaurant; one of her friends comes by and she deserts Ale to go to a party with her; he is devastated. Ale is disappointed at her prostituting herself, but he works hard to keep their little family unit together. He sells her on his fantasy of purchasing an old luch van, fixing it up, and going into business on their own. When she buys into the dream, he kicks it into high gear, needing $4500 to buy the decrepit van. He even accepts her ill-gotten money for the kitty. This being, as I said, a realistic film, Ale’s dream of the van does not come true; he is so angered by that failure that, when he sees his sister in a car with a “client," he attacks the man and they both run off. Back at the body shop she is furious with him, but the next morning he devises a beautiful reconciliation with her, which I will refrain from revealing. The film simply ends at that point, with no grand resolution, except that they will continue to survive if not prevail.

I noted that Ale lives in what appears to be an amoral environment, but that only appears to the case. His relationship with his boss is exploitative, and the boss never shows any sign of affection for the boy, but he does provide him with a place to stay, lets him learn a trade that he may be able to live on with no education, and pays him regularly. Generally people in the Iron Triangle treat him pretty well, admit him into their rough social circle, and even do some favors for him. For his part, Ale does everything he can to save his sister from the life she appears to be headed for. And, if nothing else, we have to say that Ale, like most Americans, believes in working hard (not necessarily entirely above-board) to achieve what he wants.

The film is directed and written by Ramin Bahrani, born in Iran but a resident of North Carolina. He seems to have a very well-tuned sense of the immigrant experience in the US. He uses nonprofessional actors in his leads, which adds to the reality. This film moves very quickly and, in its dogged way, is more uplifting than the far-fetched Slum Dog Millionaire.

Doubt

One of the things that movies can do is to bring the stage to us provincials, living away from the centers of theater, and bring those plays to us with first-rate casts. Doubt is one of those cases. It is a fine play by the writer and director of the film, John Patrick Shanley; it is a play that will eventually come to college campuses and local theaters, but not for a while. In the meantime we’ll just have to settle for a film with Meryl Streep and Phillip Seymour Hoffman in the lead roles. Critics will often complain that a play is too stagebound to become a good movie, and that movies’ attempts to “open up” plays are usually unsuccessful. But I can certainly handle a few scenes shot in alternate locales to get to see this play peformed by this cast.

Doubt touches upon a panoply of modern issues—racism, homosexuality, and sexual abuse of children by priests. If Meryl Streep’s character had revealed that she’s had an abortion in her youth, we’d have covered the entire waterfront. Most importantly, the play deals with the question of certainty and doubt, and how we calibrate our existence so that we have enough certainty to act when needed but enough doubt to act circumspectly. Hoffman’s character, Father Flynn, delivers a simple but moving homily to his congregation about the isolating quality of doubt, how we each must deal with it alone. (Hoffman shines in the three opportunities he has to deliver homilies in the film.) Later, after she has accused Father Flynn of child sexual abuse for which she has almost no evidence, Sister Aloysius declares that she has her certainty and concedes that there is nothing the Father could do or say that could sway her from it. In the last scene Sister Aloysius quite unexpectedly breaks down into tears to Sister James and confesses that she too is wracked by doubt regarding her charges against Father Flynn, which by then have caused him to resign his post. (I have some problems with this last turn of events because it seems to come from nowhere; to that point we have seen no chinks in her armor of certitude.)

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of doubt in the film is the doubt that the audience is left with. We certainly want to believe Father Flynn; he is presented to us in an entirely sympathetic manner. We don’t want to participate in Sister Aloysius’s certainty because she runs her school, as Sister James notes, like a prison, and much of her suspicion of Father Flynn stems from her personal distaste for him. She is clearly portrayed as a reactionary force (she won’t let students use ball point pens) fighting desperately against the open-minded liberal spirit represented by Father Flynn. And yet, much as we may be appalled by her motives and her methods, Sister Aloysius may be correct about Father Flynn; he does, after all, resign his position rather than have her pursue an investigation of his past. We are left hanging in a very precarious position of uncertainty.

One aspect of doubt that, somewhat surprisingly, never really enters the film is doubt in the tenets of religious faith. None of these characters troubled by doubt about truth as it is revealed through Mother Church.

A couple of words about performances. Meryl Streep totally transforms herself into the insufferable Sister Aloysius; it’s a relief to see her as herself in the DVD featurettes. Phillip Seymour Hoffman shows a number of sides to his character—the buddy-style mentor of schools’ boys, the political operator, the assertive administrator, the angry man, etc. It is a rich role and he carries it off well in all its aspects. Amy Adams plays Sister James as an innocent who has the strength to stand up to Sister Aloyisius; it’s a diffcult balance, but she manages it impressively. And the brief time that Viola Davis is on screen as the mother of the African American boy Father Flynn has supposedly molested is the most moving of the film; the range of emotions she covers—anger, fear, outrage, frustration, despair—is remarkable, all while maintaining the dignity of her character.

The script is a little heavy on symbolism—Sister Aloysius caught outside in a storm, windows that keep being left open, light bulbs that go out at significant moments. But overall Doubt is a great evening of substantial theater that you can enjoy at home. Let there be no doubt about that.

Your Two-Cents' Worth

Now you can get your two-cents' worth on this blog in two different ways. You can comment on the Opinionator's opinions by leaving a comment. You can also suggest a movie for the Opinionator's attention; see the post at the top of the navigation bar on the right. So is that really four-cents' worth?

Last Chance Harvey

Last Chance Harvey provides us with an excuse (though a fairly lame one) to watch two of our very best actors, Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson, play off one another. The results while away a pleasant evening but don’t leave a great deal behind. Hoffman is Harvey Shine, a writer of commercial jingles (with long repressed musical aspirations) who is struggling to keep his job as he gets older. He leaves New York to attend his daughter’s wedding in London; on arrival he finds himself the odd man out, having estranged himself from his ex-wife and daughter. Emma Thompson is Kate Walker, whose chief occupation is answering phone calls from her neurotic mother. She works in customer service at Heath Row. Paralleling Harvey’s suffering at his daughter’s wedding, we see Kate on a blind date that is thoroughly humiliating to her. Obviously these two sad sacks must get together, and, amid London’s millions, they manage to at lunch at the airport after Harvey missed his flight and just learned he’s been fired over the phone. He conducts an awkward and slightly creepy conversation with Kate that somehow wins her over. They walk around London (several people have compared this to Before Sunrise but with London instead of Paris and geezers instead of kids). She says he should go to his daughter’s wedding reception which he had skipped out on to fly back to New York for a critical business meeting. He agrees to only if Kate will accompany him, to which she agrees. When the daughter’s stepfather starts to give the father’s toast, Harvey interrupts him and asserts his prerogative as her real father. He gives a very, very awkward toast that turns gracious at the end. Kate falls for it. Eventually she walks away from him because she fears disappointment and he must win her back. And—surprise—he does!

If this sounds like thin gruel, that’s because it is. Where a romance like Before Sunrise is built on crackling dialog between two intelligent and articulate people, this film merely sets up situations for its two stars to respond to with their actor’s toolkits. The words that are spoken aren’t worthy of their speakers. Even with such a trifling plot, a really strong script would have gone a long ways to making this a better film. In the “Making Of” featurette, Hoffman indicates that some of the scenes were improvised by the leads, so one wonders what impact that has on the quality of dialog.

The script was initially written for Thompson, who brought in Hoffman with whom she was paired in Stranger Than Fiction (unseen by me). With those leads set, the film was able to attract some really fine actors for supporting roles—Dame Eileen Atkins as Kate’s mother, James Brolin as the step father, Kathy Baker as Harvey’s ex-wife, and Richard Schiff (Toby from West Wing) as Harvey’s boss. These folks are real assets to this film and bring life to their minor parts. The only supporting player I didn’t like was the daughter, played by Liane Balaban, who seemed not to bring much to the role.

Dustin Hoffman is probably 20 years older than Emma Thompson. She is probably eight inches taller than he is and outweighs him by twenty pounds, I’d bet. He’s the ugly American, she the repressed Brit. Yet the two actors make the chemistry work, and--I'll say it-- it’s just good, clean middle-brow fun.

Days and Clouds

Days and Clouds is a slice of life kind of film that follows a middle-aged couple into the economic abyss. The husband, Michele, has been ousted from the boat building company he helped to form by his erstwhile partners. Meantime his wife Elsa is completing an advanced degree in art history while working as a volunteer on the restoration of a fourteenth century fresco in their home city of Genoa. Michele doesn’t tell his wife of his dilemma until the morning after a big graduation party for her. We watch in dismay as things fall apart for them. Michele is unable to find another position, and at one point takes a job as a delivery boy and later forms a short-lived home improvement company. Elsa does a short stint as a telemarketer, and then becomes a secretary. They sell their house and boat and move into an apartment. Their relationship also suffers and Michele’s estrangement from his 20-year-old daughter Alice grows to the point that he strikes her. Finally Michele and Elsa split up, with Michele ending up staying with Alice and her boyfriend.

Things may take a turn for the better when Michele is invited by his daughter to take over her restaurant’s books. Elsa goes back to the church where the fresco she had helped to restore is being unveiled. She enjoys a celebration with her former colleagues and when everyone else has left she lays down on the floor to stare up at the fresco. In the meantime Michele has entered, walks over to where she is lying and wordlessly lies down next to her, also staring up at the fresco. The scene is filmed from above, so that it almost appears that the couple have become prototypical figures in an allegorical fresco themselves.

So the film may end on something of a hopeful note with hints that the family may be restored, as the fresco has been. But the film cuts close to the bone for most of us in the current economic downturn, and one can’t help but feel their spiral could easily become our own but for the grace of God. I was not much impressed with Antonio Albanese as Michele, but I thought Margherita Buy was poignant and convincing as Elsa; she has a very expressive face and uses it to great effect. The relationship with the daughter is irritating; Michele seems unable to be a room for five minutes without getting into a fight with her. Overall it’s a grim little drama for grim times.

Subtitle Alert: Persons speaking in foreign tongues.

Frost/Nixon

I can’t say how much appeal this movie will have for those who are not for political junkies (like me). It lacks has the transformational power of something like Shakespeare’s history plays (think Richard III or Henry V) to elevate the dross of political history to almost metaphysical heights. But it does a really solid middlebrow (in the best sense of the word) effort to make the filming of a series of interviews with the disgraced ex-President by a smarmy TV talk show host into an thrilling contest of wits and wills. Frank Langella and Michael Sheen recreate their roles from Michael Morgan’s successful play. Morgan seems to have cornered the market on literate, semihistorical films: see The Queen, The Deal (both with Sheen as Tony Blair), and The Last King of Scotland (about Idi Amin).

Sheen’s David Frost is not an impersonation, but a representation that captures not only Frost’s arrogance but his uncertainty; he seems like a man constantly working to overcome his weaknesses. Langella’s Nixon has been universally praised; he captures Nixon’s intelligence, his mercurial nature, and his tedium. His demeanor is more open than the real Nixon’s and makes him a better candidate for our sympathies. I am also fond of his portrayal of Nixon’s stooped, shambling gait which seemed awkward in the real Nixon but almost graceful and polished, designed to disarm, in Langella’s body. I think he makes Nixon rather wittier than the real man was. What Langella, and probably writer Morgan, leave out is the loutishness, the crudity, and clumsiness of the Nixon we hear on the Watergate tapes. This is a more sympathetic portrait of a man who trampled on the Constitution. I’m okay with that, and enjoy trying to penetrate this most enigmatic of our political figures (and Nixon does remain profoundly enigmatic in Langella), but we should also keep in mind what Nixon did.

There is a scene that troubles me somewhat in which a drunk Nixon calls Frost on the night before the last, Watergate-dominated interview and Nixon tries to create some bond between himself and Frost based on their rejection by the elites. Nixon admits to an inferiority complex and urges Frost to join him in sticking it to the elites. The whole thing seems unnatural and out of character, the most obviously invented element of the film. While carried off very well by both actors, it seemed contrived and unconvincing.

Ron Howard directed the film, which is to say he largely stayed out of the way of the story and the actors. In this case that is fine. He does begin with a nice montage of the historical events of Watergate, including lots of news footage that was nostalgic for me. He does occasional scenes in which we are presumably seeing through Nixon’s eyes, and they are out of focus; that effort seems superfluous and slightly distracting. I also read that Howard was insistent on getting all the details of the interview set exactly right, as if anyone was paying any attention to the furniture with all the tension that is built up and the wonderful performances that are unfolding before us in those scenes.

Nixon has been portrayed by two other great actors, Anthony Hopkins in Oliver Stone’s Nixon and Rip Torn in Blind Ambition. Langella’s portrayal stands well along side them. If you’d like to see more of Langella's skills on display, I recommend his recent Starting Out in the Evening in which he plays an aging, emotionally stifled author.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Benjamin Button is a respectable movie, well acted, well photographed, and blessed with impressive special effects and makeup. By now everyone knows that the plot is that Benjamin (Brad Pitt) is living his life backwards—he is born old and gets younger. His father dumps the freakish infant on the steps of what turns out to be a retirement home, where Benjamin fits right in. Along the way he falls in love with and marries Daisy, played by Cate Blanchett—he becomes acquainted with her when he is an old man and she is a child. Their love produces a child to whom Benjamin would like to be a father, but realizes that he will not be able to as he becomes younger.

Special effects are impressive; how they make Pitt look old I understand, but how they make him small, I’m still not sure of. Cate Blanchett also ages very convincingly. On her deathbed as an old woman in New Orleans as hurricane Katrina hits is the film’s framing device, and she is basically unrecognizable. The youthful Brad Pitt is creepy, looking like he has been digitally airbrushed of any signs of aging.

But the question of the movie is “Why?” Toward what end have we been presented with this odd story? Beyond the plot device and the challenges it poses, I can’t see that there a point to be made here. It is, as the real title implies, simply a “curious case.” Benjamin doesn’t seem to have any particular point of view, or very much to say about his odd life. The period of Benjamin’s life that would have been most interesting would be the final one in which he has his full intellectual powers and the benefit of a lifetime’s experience but the body of a child. However the film punts on this period and gives Benjamin dementia so that he recollects nothing, so no insights from Benjamin’s unique perspective are made available. There’s a random symbol thrown in—a hummingbird--but it seems to be there mostly for the sake of having symbolism. I suppose we’re to make something of Daisy passing her final moments in hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, but I’m not sure what—that her life has been tumultuous? But it hasn’t really.

There aren’t many impressive supporting parts in the film, though there are lots of characters. The one that stands out is Tilda Swinton, the English woman with whom Benjamin has an affair. Cate Blanchett does some ballet dancing in this film, or seems to. It’s impressive if real. Claims have been made about this being Brad Pitt’s best role, but he really doesn’t have an awful lot to do here but get made up. He’s much better in Fight Club (also directed by David Fincher), and even in his goofy physical trainer role in the Coen’s Burn After Reading.

Don’t get me wrong—this is a decent, hardworking film and pretty enjoyable. It’s long but the time passes quickly. I just don’t think it can figure out anything to do but to play out its plot device.

Wendy and Lucy

This is one of those movies that tells an extremely simple story in what appears to be a guileless, completely transparent manner. The Iranian film The White Balloon is the model for this style of film-making. Here's the low down: Wendy is on her way to Ketchican, Alaska to get a job (based largely on hearsay). Her ancient car breaks down in an unnamed town in Oregon and she loses her dog while she is engaged in some legal business that results from her arrest for shop lifting in a grocery. She meets a nice security guard at a Walgreens and a not too nice mechanic. A scary guy breathes over her while she sleeps and talks some crazy talk. Mostly we watch her waiting around or traipsing out to the dog pound; not a lot happens. Wendy is not especially interesting, with no very outstanding character traits except perhaps determination and a certain fastidiousness. (She brushes her teeth each morning in a Shell station restroom; we get to watch!) We are provided with no information about her motives for leaving her home in Muncie, Indiana. Why would anyone want to leave Muncie? This film got good reviews, but I'm pretty hard pressedto see its virtues. If you want to pursue this "back to basics" style of filmmaking, you'd better have a good story or fascinating characters or an exotic locale. This film hasn't got any of those.

The Wrestler

The Wrestler proves once again that a great performance doesn’t equate to a great movie. Mickey Rourke’s performance as the broken down wrestler, Randy “The Ram” Robinson, is flawless, especially in its physical aspects; one wonders what Rourke did or did not have to do to prepare himself for this role. The way he handles his long hair, puts on and removes his hearing aid, adjusts his reading glasses, carefully tapes up his knees and elbows—all are very convincing. But the script he’s working with is full of Hollywood clichés. He has a heart attack while in the ring and his doctor says he can’t wrestle anymore. How long before he’s back in the ring? By the third reel. The stripper on whom he has a rather pathetic crush rejects him as a boyfriend/lover, nominally because he is “a customer.” How long before she sees the light? Third reel. Even in Rourke’s own character we have the cliché of the “blank (prostitute, gangster, drug dealer, wrestler) with the heart of gold.” He wrestles and plays video games with the kids in his trailer park; he offers sage advice to young wrestlers; he tries to make up with his alienated daughter. The scenes with the daughter are the movie’s worst; she just seems cruel and petulant. In one of their few peaceful moments, Randy tears up and tells his daughter, “And now, I'm an old broken down piece of meat... and I'm alone. And I deserve to be alone. I just don't want you to hate me.” It’s supposed to be a big moment, but the sentiments are obvious, they are full of self-pity, and the emotions toward his daughter don’t seem deserved. Director Darren Aronofsky, whose first feature Pi dazzled everyone, resorts here to a commonplace documentary style to convey grittiness. Marissa Tomei plays the stripper Cassidy, the object of Randy’s affections, well and does a mean pole dance. We get that the stripper and the wrestler are really in the same business, and her livelihood depends, like his, on the whim of the crowd. It’s a bit heavy handed. The film is supposed to expose the reality of the wrestling world, but I find all the locker room love among these steroid abusers to be a little much. Surely there’s some ancient grudges being nursed, some envy, some plain old nastiness among them. Presumably because the film is set in New Jersey, Bruce Springsteen contributes an original song for the closing credits; like the film, its pretty obvious and not one of his finer efforts.

The Reader

I came to this movie expecting not to like it; I'm tired of holocaust films and generally avoid them, and I've even grown a little weary of Kate Winslet undressing. Also, this is a film that received decidedly mixed reviews. So I am a little sheepish to admit that I was won over.

The affair between the thirty-something Hanna Schmidt (Winslet) and 15-year-old Michael Berg (Richard Cross) is obscure in its motivation--hers, not his--but pretty convincing as it unfolds, and seems to evolve into real affection (but with lots of sex, all tastefully photographed). During their affair Hannah has Michael read to her, mostly from the classics, whenever they're not having sex. Michael embraces this role almost as eagerly as he does her. Stupidly, he never figures out that she is illiterate. The reason for her illiteracy is never made clear, just as the reason for her taking up a 15-year-old lover is obscure. Much has been made of her illiteracy as a symbol of Germany's moral blindness in the Nazi era, and their relationsip as representing the moral complexity of the relations between War-era Germans and the post-war generation. This may be more explicit in Bernhard Schlink's novel. What strikes me about this central relationship is the failure of love, or more specifically, the failure of the moral commitment inherent in love. Hannah deserts her boy-lover because she is threatened by a promotion in her job (tram conductor) that will put her in an office and expose her illiteracy. She packs up and leaves her apartment with no word of explanation to Michael, leaving him to draw his own devastating conclusions about the efficacy of his love. However, Michael echoes her failure when he attends a war-crimes tribunal as a young law student, and discovers Hannah's past as an Auschwitz guard. He fails to offer evidence of her illiteracy that would have at least lightened her sentence, even after his law professor and mentor has advised that he has a moral obligation to do so. We can only surmise that he is embarassed to admit that he had an affair with this hapless Nazi. Later when Hannah is in prison he fails to even visit her, and though her sends her tapes of books he reads aloud, he is decidely cool toward taking any responsibility for her as she is about to be released.

Kate Winslet deserves her Oscar for Hannah, a difficult woman who never expresses herself directly. What we learn in the courtroom is that she is naive to the point that her cannier codefendants take advantage of her. That is not apparent in her affair with Michael. We discover another aspect of her character as she teaches herself to read, now in her 60s, in prison. I was not convinced by Richard Cross as the 15-year-old Michael--he seemed goony and not someone who would inflame the desire of Hannah. He is better at as an early 20's law student. Two small but notable performances are by Bruno Ganz (Wings of Desire) as Michael's law professor and a double performance by the wonderful but rarely seen Lena Olin (The Unbearable Lightness of Being) as a holocaust victim testifying at Hannah's trial in the 1970's and as her daughter in the 1990's who has a devasting conversation with the grown-up Michael in her New York apartment. That uncomfortable interview may be the film's best moment. Ralph Fiennes does what he has to do as the emotionally retarded adult Michael. (I saw Fiennes in London in Coriolanus; he really can act and needs to extend his movie range.)

Here's something that bothers me: the characters in the film don't speak German, but speak English with a German accent. That seems awkward, but I can live with it. But when Michael reads Hannah Huck Finn he does Jim's dialog in Twain's slave dialect, how does that translate into German exactly?

But I got over it and found the whole film compelling; I don't recall ever getting up from my chair.

A Christmas Tale

This isn’t a Christmas movie to any significant degree, so you won’t feel any seasonal disorientation if you watch it this spring. The holiday does provide part of the occasion for bringing together a family, which has been the basis of many a movie. The difference here is in the execution. Director/writer Arnaud Desplechin delivers us sympathetic characters of great depth and a very rich occasion for gathering (no, it’s not just for holiday feel-goods). The matriarch of the family, Junon, subtly played by the still gorgeous Catherine Deneuve, has been diagnosed with a form of cancer that can only be treated by bone marrow transplant, though the transplant is about as likely to kill the host as it is to preserve her life. The only biologically compatible people who can contribute the marrow are a deeply troubled grandson and the black sheep of the family, middle son Henri, played by Mathieu Almaric (whom you may have seen last as the villain the latest Bond movie). Henri’s older brother, Joseph, died of the same cancer his mother now has, when he was six, 30 years ago; Henri was perhaps conceived to serve as a possible marrow donor to his dying brother, but turned out not to be compatible. Junon freely admits she has never loved her second son, and he has never loved her. Henri’s sister has a congenital hatred of Henri such that, in a financial arrangement that keeps him out of jail, she insists on his banishment from the family. It is only Junon’s illness that prompts her to lift the banishment and allow Henri home for the holiday. How’s that for a set up?

There’s a second familial plot line that I won’t go into, but it too is very rich. What strikes me is how thoroughly Shakespearean all of this is—and, for me, that’s a good thing. From the generic seasonal title (like A Winter’s Tale and A Midsummer Night’s Dream) to the overt references to Midsummer (watching the 30’s version on TV and quoting its epilog in the sister’s voice over that is the film’s epilog), to the legalistic deal-making (ala Merchant of Venice), to the introduction of a stranger (Henri’s Jewish girlfriend), to banishment—all of it seems there to anchor this tale in the context of Shakespeare. In a very early scene we see the father, Abel, addressing mourners at his son’s graveside. He says that his son’s death has become the foundation of his future life, so that his son has become his father. If that’s not a Shakespearean metaphor, I don’t know what is.

This is a difficult, challenging film, but one that rewards our efforts. The characters are all complex but essentially sympathetic, and they grow. I contrast it to Rachel Getting Married, reviewed here recently. It is the best film I’ve seen some time, and Desplechin has established himself as a force to be reckoned with in my book. I will probably watch it again, which I rarely do, if for no other reason than to further feed my Shakespeare obsession.

Subtitle Alert: Persons speaking in foreign tongues.

Slumdog Millionaire

I’m more or less prepared to drink the Kool-Aid on Slumdog Millionaire. It’s a pretty compelling movie, though a very traditional one at heart. It is essentially a love story (boy meets girl, overcomes tremendous obstacles to win girl); what’s different here is the setting of India, and in particular the slums of Mumbai. The portrayal of urban poverty, especially in the first half hour or so, is stunning. Seen through the eyes of seven-year-olds, it is not so much a life of deprivation, but one of frenetic, often exuberant, and inexplicable action. The mother of the brothers Jamal and Salim, is cut down in an anti-Muslim riot while washing clothes (anti-Muslim sentiments are an undercurrent throughout) and they become orphaned street children (no reference is ever made to their father). Along with another little girl, Latika, they take under their wing, the boys soon are sucked into the city’s criminal underworld, a world that Jamal embraces and Salim keeps at arm’s length. So, in addition to its traditional love story, it is Hollywood in the plot line in which one brother turns to evil and the other remains, if not pure, at least on the side of the angels— traditional even to the extent that the evil brother eventually sacrifices himself for the good. (Didn’t Cagney and Bogart do this gig?) By their early teens Jamal has killed one of their gangland oppressors; he takes Latika as his mistress, and rejects his brother. Five years pass, and Salim has found honest work as a tea server and, after futile attempts to relocate Latika, he decides the only way to reconnect is for him to appear on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. That he is able to do so, and that the questions he gets happen to be answerable from his experiences as a “slumdog,” requires viewers to suspend their disbelief, but it’s worth it as the movie ends (who would’ve guessed?), with the lovers’ kissing, reunited at last. The film is really dark and violent, not for the kiddies. Director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting) used real slum kids for the roles of the boys at seven, but actors for them at 13 and 18. I’m not fully sold on the actors in the final phase, and the lack of physical resemblance at the various ages is a bit disconcerting. It’s a feel-good movie, except for the poverty and violence, which makes for an odd mix. Stick around for the credits; there’s a fun dance sequence in the train station.

Tell No One

Who knew the French could put together such a good thriller? Tell No One has one of those plots in which what you thought you knew falls away under your feet and nothing ends up as you originally thought it was. Viewers share this experience with Dr. Alexandre Beck, played with passion by Francois Cluzet, whose wife seems to have been murdered and he is eventually framed for it. He is the prototypical Hitchcock hero, caught in a trap of intrigue not of his own making. Through the many (perhaps too many) twists and turns of the plot, most of the action seems to be driven by character, and nearly every character in the film, even the minor ones, seem to be given a touch of life. It is here that the French thriller departs from the clockwork machinations of its American cousins like the Bourne films. French films are often obsessed with romantic love, usually in pretty sophisticated forms, and here Alexandre’s love for his wife drives everything. That love perhaps demands an ending that is too neat and sentimental for a sophisticated film. The scenes of Alexandre and his future bride as children are cloying and unnecessary. The wonderful Kristin Scott-Thomas is in this movie speaking French again (can’t get work in English films?), playing Beck’s closest friend, the lesbian partner of his sister. It has been noted elsewhere that the lesbian relationship here is portrayed as a perfectly normal (and complex) domestic arrangement. The director and writer Guilliame Canet plays the small part of a spoiled, rich young rapist whose murder turns out to be the hinge of the plot. Word is that an American version of the film is in the works; sounds like bad news. A well acted, suspenseful, and intellectually satisfying thriller.

In the Electric Mist

It's always great to see Tommy Lee Jones in action, but the role of Dave Robicheaux, a rural Louisana cop, is almost too easy for him. The plot, such as it is, centers on a black man who was murdered in the mid-1960s and a series of killings of young women. The plot tries to tie the two together, partially through the contrivance of Dave's imagined conversations with Confederate general Thomas Hood (Levon Helm, formerly of The Band). Dave wants to hang the murders of the girls on local thug and aspiring movie producer played by John Goodman. As if more plot were needed, a film is being made in this corner of the bayou, and it's alcoholic star (Peter Sarsgaard) befriends Dave. The real star of the film should be the setting, but it didn't feel like French director Bertrand Travernier really nailed it. The gumbo needed to simmer awhile. Travernier did a great movie, Round Midnight, with an American jazz man Dexter Gordon; here he uses bluesman Buddy Guy in a small role and, as noted, Levon Helm. I was struck by how literary the language is. General Hood's utterances are all epigrammatic, Dave's voice overs are highly philosophic, and he has a conversation with his wife, while fishing, in which he asks, "What would be your definition of experience?" Evidently this movie was something of a mess in production and went straight to video in the US. Oops. You get the feeling that things might be clearer if you read the book (like the title?), but I have no immediate plans. This movie's got some problems but, hey, it's Tommy Lee Jones, it's bayou country, it's Travernier!

Milk

Director Gus Van Sant has done some weird movies (Elephant) and some pretty traditional ones (Good Will Hunting). Milk falls into the latter category, which, as far as I'm concerned, is a good thing because his more experimental efforts are mannered and usually tedious. Sean Penn seems capable of transforming himself into nearly any character, from the menacing murderer in Dead Man Walking to the manic guitarist of Sweet and Lowdown. His Harvey Milk is completely convincing; he even transforms the character within the course of the film, from a hippie who dabbles in politics to a mature political leader, one who can be manipulative but who also knows the weight of responsibility and finally destiny. Josh Brolin, who has been on a roll with W. and No Country for Old Men, can't manage to infuse much life into Dan White, Milk's co-supervisor (like a city councilman) and eventual assassin; Harvey speculates on White's anger and repressed homosexuality, but we don't see much depth there. The framing device of Harvey's tape recording a final statement in anticipation of being killed seemed bit obvious, but the arc of Milk's career is compelling, as is Penn's Oscar-winning performance.

Happy Go Lucky

Despite its generally sunny disposition, this film is cut from the same somber cloth as Mike Leigh's other films (Naked, Vera Drake) in depicting the lives of the English working class--this time an elementary school teacher named Poppy, the "happy-go-lucky" type of the title. It also resembles other Leigh films in being built around not so much a plot as a series of revelatory scenes, here including Poppy's intervention with an abused student, her perilous conversation with a psychotic homeless man, and especially her relationship with her driving teacher. In each lesson his rabid social views become more apparent and his anger more violent, so that when she finally confronts him we recognize her courage and resolve. Poppy is brilliantly played by Sally Hawkins; she was nominated for an Academy Award and won several others for her portrayal. While the character of Poppy can be irritating, we come to appreciate the substance beneath the effervescent bubbles.