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.

Rachel Getting Married

Starts out very strong--very crisp editing, sharp dialogue, intriguing character. However as the story moves along we are dumped into the middle of a very dysfunctional family undergoing a wedding; none of the family members are particularly likeable, and quarrel most of the time. The main character, Kym, is a recovering drug addict played brilliantly (Oscar-nominated) by Anne Hathaway, proves to be completely self-absorbed and volatile. On the whole the unfolding fiasco of sister Rachel's wedding wears pretty thin, and I was ready for it to be over about when it was over. Debra Winger doesn't get much to do except a rather unconvincing fist-fight with daughter Kym. Earlier in his career Bill Irwin was a brilliant clown (The Prospect of Flight); in this and other movie roles he's just adequate. Director Jonathan Demme's documentary style works pretty well, as does his fast-paced editing--except certain scenes that he lets go on way too long (the wedding toasts). The film seems to end pretty much where things began; it's hard to see that Kym, or anyone else, has changed as a result of the experience. Robyn Hitchcock performs at Rachel's wedding and no one seems to notice.

Body of Lies

Pretty entertaining. Nice feel for the Middle East. Some interesting moral complexities. DiCaprio is very good, even with a scraggly, homegrown goatee. Russell Crowe is convincing as a CIA guy trying to lead a normal life in the DC area but doesn't really have much to do; Di Cprio gets all the meaty stuff. The last 20 minutes or so get a little predictable and the cliffhanger rescue (DiCaprio's would be executioner has his knife poised in the air) is pretty trite. The introduction of a romantic interest seems more of a plot necessity than anything that grows out of DiCaprio's character. And you know the bad guys are going to snatch her from the get-go (though there's a twist on that, like almost everything else).

W.

Surprisingly sympathetic view of former (doesn't that sound great?) Presdient George W. Bush. Fun for political junkies, but it moves over critical material very quickly. For example, almost no time spent on 9/11 and none on Katrina. Some interesting interplay between W. and his father; implied competition with brother Jeb, but he never appears on screen. Josh Brolin manages not to tumble over into parody, and creates a comedic but sympathetic portrait. Ellen Burstyn is fun as Barbara. Richard Dreyfuss absolutely nails Cheney, but the rest of the cast is pretty flat. Long but doesn't feel like it.

Appaloosa

A pretty stiff-legged attempt to revive the Western. Vigo Mortensen and Ed Harris seem a bit stagey. Very slow moving and overlong. Renee Zellweger is awful and nearly wrecks the film single-handedly. Who cast Jeremy Irons as the bad guy in a cowboy movie?

Brideshead Revisited

Rather tepid rendering of the great Evelyn Waugh novel. None of the actors are particularly appealing. Sebastian is especially charmless. Sort of sad to see Emma Thompson in this dowdy role. Nice English countryside and manor house, if you like that sort of thing (and who doesn't?). Can't touch the PBS miniseries of the late 1970's that introduced Jeremy Irons to the world.

Still Life

Set in the ancient town of Fengie, which is being slowly submerged by China's Three Gorges dam project, this film is a glimpse into a fascinating subculture. There is a construction boom in the town, but it is in disassembling buildings that are soon to be underwater. A middle-aged man comes in from the countryside to find his wife (from an arranged marriage that failed) and daughter and a nurse comes to find her wayward husband. Actors are completely natural. Requires some patience--slow moving but fascinating.

Subtitle Alert: People speaking in foreign tongues.

I've Loved You So Long

I may have over-anticipated this one ("Kristin Scott Thomas acting in French!") and felt let down. The film purports to be a character study, but it really works like a mystery, releasing little facts about the protagonist one at a time through the course of the action. We slowly learn what the facts are about her, but it doesn't seem like we learn much about her depths. Director Claudel apparently thinks it is revelatory to offer long shots of Thomas staring out a window, lying on her side in bed, sitting on a park bench, etc. In the end, when we learn all the facts, she seems just another person dropped into a difficult situation and trying to do what's right. For that the film contrives a happy ending for her. I thought it didn't live up to its reviews.

Subtitle Advisory: People speaking in foreign tongues.

The Wackness

Are we ready for 90's nostalgia? Seems a little early to me, but this movie doesn't wallow in its period. It's a growing up film set in NYC with a sensitive but charming drug dealer as its protagonist. He's coached by an out-of-control shrink who trades counseling sessions for dope. The romantic plot line is a little predictable, but the friendship between the boy and his shrink is startling. The casting of the leads is great; both kids seem born to play these roles and Ben Kingsley is Ben Kingsley.

I Served the King of England

Pretty spectacular film. Dark but very funny. Some voice over narration but very little dialogue; self-consciously recalls silent films--one of the early sequences is filmed in that manner. Lead actor is a little guy with Chaplinesque grace. Every scene is a carefully composed comic tableau. The only weakness is the plot with the character in old age recalling the youth that is the bulk of the story. Lots of sex and nudity--not for the kiddies!

The Grocer's Son

Very nice family drama. Estranged son returns home to run father's grocery business while he recovers from heart attack. Brings prospective girlfriend. Lots of family twists and turns. Beautiful rural France countryside.

Frozen River

Nice subculture movie--upstate New York Mohawk reservation. Also, the culture of poverty and people in desperate circumstances. Cast is completely convincing.

Vicky Christina Barcelona

Best Woody Allen in a very long time. Wonderful cast. Beautiful Barcelona.

Synedoche New York

Charlie Kaufman has done some interesting and amusing films (Adpatation and Being John Malkovich), but this isn't one of them. It's kind of a fiasco about a man who turns his life into a fiasco. The protagonist inexplicably wins a MacArthur "genius" award and uses it's apparently endless resources to mount a play about his life that encompasses all of his life. The set grows to encompass a reproduction of New York, and the cast grows to thousands, including an actor portraying the playwrite who falls for the real playwrite's girlfriend, etc. The normally wonderful Philip Seymour Hoffman plays the depressed and depressing playwrite, but even he can't bring any life to this dour, pointless, overlong production. Just as someone needed to pull the plug on the play in the film, someone needed to pull the plug on Charlie Kaufman before this one saw the light of day.

Elegy

Movie producers wisely concluded that you can't make a great movie from a Phillip Roth novel because the quality of his books is in their effusive language and the minds of the characters that produce it. So most of his books, like Saul Bellow's, are unfilmed; and those that have been have fallen considerably short of their source (e.g., The Human Stain). You can see where we're headed with Elegy when you remember that the title of the source novella is The Dying Animal. This is pasteurized Roth and doesn't capture verbose despair of those bleak pages. Ben Kingsley is oddly cast (he's a Brit--from Oxford no less--and nobody'sa Brit in Roth), but he is always worth watching. Penelope Cruz is also very good. Kingsley's character tells Cruz she has the most beautiful breasts in the world, and we are provided ample evidence to support that hypothesis in the film. Dennis Hopper, fresh from his gig selling retirement planning in commercials, plays Kingsley's poet friend who dispenses advice on matters of the heart like you would expect to hear from an insurance salesman. Still, it's a fairly satisfying and unusual melodrama with good performances and some vestigial remains of Roth's more challenging original.

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