The Judge, a slick movie about a slick big-city lawyer and a cranky small-town judge accused of murder, isn’t groundbreaking or even particularly novel, but succeeds via competent execution. And who better to play this father-son pair than Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Duvall? The Roberts
seem to excel at taking these iconic male types and turning them into people.
The screenplay is almost too well-constructed. (One of the writers is Nick Schenk, previously credited on Gran Torino, another well-crafted story about a cranky get-off-of-my-lawn type old guy.) Like the way Downey’s character, Chicago criminal defense lawyer Hank Palmer, gets the call about his mother’s death at a dramatic moment in court. Or the way one of his two brothers has a penchant for making 8 mm home movies, all the better to supply real-time flashback scenes that fill in the backstory and help explain why Joseph Palmer, the father, is “dead to me,” as Hank explains to his precocious, almost too precocious, young
daughter. Or how, maximizing later dramatic impact, Hank has somehow managed not to find out a single thing that’s happened in the last 25 years to his high school girlfriend (Vera Farmiga), who, it happens, works at the local diner in Hank’s Indian hometown, and seems happy to see him.
The town, where almost all of the story takes place, is one of those nice movie small towns, not the run-down or dull-loooking kind often seen in rural America. But, to the good, the townspeople neither come off as petty and provincial nor as fonts of homespun wisdom. And the eventual trial, while featuring one of those witness-stand shockers that I suspect most trial lawyers and judges will hear only once or twice in a lifetime, has an outcome that makes sense. Most of all, while I wasn’t entirely persuaded that old Joseph was so difficult of a man that Hank would have avoided speaking to him for decades, their differences seemed real, as do the scenes explaining these differences, and his relationships with his brothers (Vincent D'Onofrio, Jeremy Strong).
The murder case, which involves a car accident that may or may not have been intentional, a lapse in memory (by Joseph) that may or may not be real, and some funny moments between Joseph’s two lawyers (Downey and Dax Shepard), is of medium-level interest, but the film is, maybe surprisingly, more than a courtroom drama. Again, possibly a little too perfect, but not false.
IMDb link
viewed 10/15/14 7:30 pm at Roxy and posted 10/18/14
Showing posts with label father-son. Show all posts
Showing posts with label father-son. Show all posts
Friday, October 10, 2014
Friday, August 29, 2014
Starred Up (***)
This is worth watching for those who like films about the internal dynamics of prison life. The screenwriter, Jonathan Asser, worked as a prison therapist, perhaps something like the one, played by Rupert Friend, who tries to help the main character, Eric (Jack O'Connell). The unusual aspect of this film, compared to other such dramas, is that Eric’s father (Ben Mendelsohn) is incarcerated in the same institution.
The title is likely to be obscure to non-UK audiences — it refers to the process of transferring an offender from a juvenile facility to an adult one. Also obscure may be much of the dialogue, which is spoken in a variety of mostly non-posh British accents. (The entire film was shot in two prisons in Northern Ireland, with no scenes set on the outside.) Best to use the subtitles, if available, though some of the most powerful scenes employ no dialogue. Asser and director David Mackenzie depict prison as an unsentimental place full of people, not least protagonist Eric, with anger issues. It’s not cheery.
IMDb link
viewed 5/21/14 7:30 pm at Gershman Y [PFS screening] and reviewed 5/21/14
The title is likely to be obscure to non-UK audiences — it refers to the process of transferring an offender from a juvenile facility to an adult one. Also obscure may be much of the dialogue, which is spoken in a variety of mostly non-posh British accents. (The entire film was shot in two prisons in Northern Ireland, with no scenes set on the outside.) Best to use the subtitles, if available, though some of the most powerful scenes employ no dialogue. Asser and director David Mackenzie depict prison as an unsentimental place full of people, not least protagonist Eric, with anger issues. It’s not cheery.
IMDb link
viewed 5/21/14 7:30 pm at Gershman Y [PFS screening] and reviewed 5/21/14
Friday, November 22, 2013
Nebraska (****)
Alexander Payne’s first two films were about young women, but since then he’s become a great chronicler of the difficult man. Probably Will Forte’s character, a mild-mannered stereo saleman, is the lead role here, but Bruce Dern’s grumpy old man dominates the story. And he’s so difficult that it becomes easier for his son to drive him from Billings, Montana, to Lincoln, Nebraska, than to convince him that he hasn’t really won a million-dollar prize like the piece of paper says. (Think Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes.) He’ll walk to Lincoln to claim his prize if necessary. If this sounds like a road movie, or a comedy, it is both, but it’s a lot more too.
As noted, Dern dominates the film, with the showy role of an ornery, bickery alcoholic, but equally good is June Squibb as his long-suffering wife, though she’s apt to strike most viewers as mean-spirited. Neither of them is especially likeable, but as the film goes on they become understandable, and Payne, collaborating with screenwriter Bob Nelson, elicits a compassion in the viewer. It’s a cliché to say that an old person feels the same inside, but you don’t see it often depicted on screen. For example, so often when you hear an old person talk about sex it’s supposed to be cute, but when Squibb’s character starts talking about the men who once fought over her, it’s not cute — though it’s funny — because you hear the way that experience remains with her.
Another of Payne’s trademarks is to set his films in places usually ignored on screen and to makes those places — the Hawaii of The Descendents, the California wine country of Sideways, key to the story. Nebraska most resembles About Schmidt, which also takes place, in part, in Payne’s native state, though the pace is a notch tighter. An important part of the story takes place in a small town, and both because of the plot and because this town hasn’t changed much, the movie deeply evokes a forgotten past. It is a reminder that, whether we know about it or not, each of us is influenced by the people and places that have gone before us.
If you are lucky, and paying attention, there will come a point in
which you recognize your parents as autonomous individuals who had lives
before you came along. This recognition is at the heart of the movie. Your parents may be nothing like the ones
in this film, your life nothing like that of the son, and your home far from the Midwest, but there is a kind of universality in this story that is only set in relief by the non-universal, peculiar details.
As noted, Dern dominates the film, with the showy role of an ornery, bickery alcoholic, but equally good is June Squibb as his long-suffering wife, though she’s apt to strike most viewers as mean-spirited. Neither of them is especially likeable, but as the film goes on they become understandable, and Payne, collaborating with screenwriter Bob Nelson, elicits a compassion in the viewer. It’s a cliché to say that an old person feels the same inside, but you don’t see it often depicted on screen. For example, so often when you hear an old person talk about sex it’s supposed to be cute, but when Squibb’s character starts talking about the men who once fought over her, it’s not cute — though it’s funny — because you hear the way that experience remains with her.
Another of Payne’s trademarks is to set his films in places usually ignored on screen and to makes those places — the Hawaii of The Descendents, the California wine country of Sideways, key to the story. Nebraska most resembles About Schmidt, which also takes place, in part, in Payne’s native state, though the pace is a notch tighter. An important part of the story takes place in a small town, and both because of the plot and because this town hasn’t changed much, the movie deeply evokes a forgotten past. It is a reminder that, whether we know about it or not, each of us is influenced by the people and places that have gone before us.
viewed 12/10/13 at 7:00 pm at Ritz 5; posted 1/9/14
Monday, October 7, 2013
Lee Daniels’ The Butler (***)
The Butler is “inspired by” the true story of Gene Allen, whose story was briefly told in a Washington Post article written just after the 2008 election won by Barack Obama. Forest Whitaker plays a character called Cecil Gaines, who, like Allen, labors for decades in the White House, where the serving staff, in contrast to everyone else, have traditionally been black. Rather than chronicling the behind-the-scenes challenges of preparing for state dinners and such, Daniels uses this melodrama as a vehicle for exploring the history of the civil rights movement.
Screenwriter Danny Strong penned the contemporary political dramas Recount and Game Change, which managed to create an air of uncertainty about outcomes that, presumably, were known by the audience. In contrast, this movie has the feel of a “great moments in history” docudrama, something to show young folks who might not know much about the Gandhi-inspired nonviolent protests of the early Civil Rights era, or the formation of the Black Panther Party years later. Starting with President Eisenhower (Robin Williams) and proceeding through the next several administrations, Gaines is shown overhearing one meaningful civil-rights related conversation and having one meaningful interaction with several of the Oval Office occupants, all played by name actors who look more like themselves than the leaders they’re playing, except maybe Alan Rickman as Ronald Reagan. It is history as inevitable march of progress, though the re-creation of a Woolworth lunch counter sit-in is powerful and upsetting.
In the movie’s telling, the occupation of the title character is not so much a window into an unseen world as a representation of one side of the black experience. For Gaines, it represents the highest position a black man could reasonably hope to obtain and a source of dignity and unalloyed pride; although he recognizes the injustice of the glass ceiling that holds back men of his color, he sees nothing to be gained by the dangerous tactics employed by the Freedom Riders and other activists. The fictional character of his oldest son (David Oyelowo), who becomes one of those activists, is meant to embody the other side of the coin. For the son, a well-paid butler who talks to presidents is still just a modern version of the house slave. Daniels shows this conflict without imposing a strong viewpoint.
Daniels and Strong mix the history with family drama. Oprah Winfrey, in her first major acting role in 15 years, manages to make you forget she’s Oprah in playing Gaines’s wife. It’s a subplot, but the marital scenes are less programmatic than the historical ones. There’s something sad about a life story, because the subject always winds up dead or very old in the end. But, despite that and the discrimination portrayed, the movie is more uplifting than depressing, and, rather than a instructional video, it comes off like a pretty good yarn.
IMDb link
viewed 10/6/13 1:05 pm at Riverview and posted 10/7/13
Screenwriter Danny Strong penned the contemporary political dramas Recount and Game Change, which managed to create an air of uncertainty about outcomes that, presumably, were known by the audience. In contrast, this movie has the feel of a “great moments in history” docudrama, something to show young folks who might not know much about the Gandhi-inspired nonviolent protests of the early Civil Rights era, or the formation of the Black Panther Party years later. Starting with President Eisenhower (Robin Williams) and proceeding through the next several administrations, Gaines is shown overhearing one meaningful civil-rights related conversation and having one meaningful interaction with several of the Oval Office occupants, all played by name actors who look more like themselves than the leaders they’re playing, except maybe Alan Rickman as Ronald Reagan. It is history as inevitable march of progress, though the re-creation of a Woolworth lunch counter sit-in is powerful and upsetting.
In the movie’s telling, the occupation of the title character is not so much a window into an unseen world as a representation of one side of the black experience. For Gaines, it represents the highest position a black man could reasonably hope to obtain and a source of dignity and unalloyed pride; although he recognizes the injustice of the glass ceiling that holds back men of his color, he sees nothing to be gained by the dangerous tactics employed by the Freedom Riders and other activists. The fictional character of his oldest son (David Oyelowo), who becomes one of those activists, is meant to embody the other side of the coin. For the son, a well-paid butler who talks to presidents is still just a modern version of the house slave. Daniels shows this conflict without imposing a strong viewpoint.
Daniels and Strong mix the history with family drama. Oprah Winfrey, in her first major acting role in 15 years, manages to make you forget she’s Oprah in playing Gaines’s wife. It’s a subplot, but the marital scenes are less programmatic than the historical ones. There’s something sad about a life story, because the subject always winds up dead or very old in the end. But, despite that and the discrimination portrayed, the movie is more uplifting than depressing, and, rather than a instructional video, it comes off like a pretty good yarn.
IMDb link
viewed 10/6/13 1:05 pm at Riverview and posted 10/7/13
Friday, April 19, 2013
Renoir (***)
Not a biopic of Pierre Auguste Renoir (Michel Bouquet), this is more like a family portrait set in the great impressionist’s late career. Like a painting, the film is still but nice to look at. It helps that Renoir lived on the French Riviera in a large home with a balcony overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. (The director, Gilles Bourdos, also lets the camera fall out of focus a few times, making the screen look something like an impressionist canvas.) In contrast to a movie such as The Last Station, which similarly
follows Renoir’s contemporary Leo Tolstoy in his senescence, it is a movie of
temperaments rather than beliefs. Where a Tolstoy evolved to the end
and lived a personal life of some turmoil, Renoir liked
to think of himself as a craftsman who liked to “go with the flow” and
favored calmness. Though crippled by painful arthritis, he carries on as before, carried around on a chair by his female staff and working with the brush taped to his misshapen hand. Asked by his doctor what he’ll do if he cannot use his hand, he says, “I’ll paint with my dick.”
Red-headed Christa Theret plays Andrée Heuschling, Renoir’s last model, though Bourdos has set the story in 1915, a couple of years before she actually posed for for the old man. This allows him to set her arrival in the midst of the first World War and proximate to both the recent death of Renoir’s wife and the arrival of his son Jean (Vincent Rottiers), who is convalescing after an injury. Another son, though also injured, is still on the front, and the third, too young to fight, is still at home.
It probably helps to know that Jean, the middle son, would become celebrated in his own right, though not for painting. Here he has principle but not ambition. Andrée, known as Dedée, inspires and challenges him in the manner of many young women in many movies about many sorts of young men. She brings out old desires but no new changes in the painter himself. Through her, we see his personality and the way he worked and the way the other members of the household regarded him.
Renoir the man was an innovator. Renoir is merely competent. Not a great love story, it is simply a drama centered around the great man, whom even his sons call “Renoir.” Bourdos and Bouquet, who gives a fine performance, give us a man who obviously inspired deep loyalty, but whose family relationships lacked intimacy. (The youngest son calls himself an orphan.)
IMDb link
viewed 4/24/2013 7:15 pm at Ritz Bourse and reviewed 4/24–25/13
Red-headed Christa Theret plays Andrée Heuschling, Renoir’s last model, though Bourdos has set the story in 1915, a couple of years before she actually posed for for the old man. This allows him to set her arrival in the midst of the first World War and proximate to both the recent death of Renoir’s wife and the arrival of his son Jean (Vincent Rottiers), who is convalescing after an injury. Another son, though also injured, is still on the front, and the third, too young to fight, is still at home.
It probably helps to know that Jean, the middle son, would become celebrated in his own right, though not for painting. Here he has principle but not ambition. Andrée, known as Dedée, inspires and challenges him in the manner of many young women in many movies about many sorts of young men. She brings out old desires but no new changes in the painter himself. Through her, we see his personality and the way he worked and the way the other members of the household regarded him.
Renoir the man was an innovator. Renoir is merely competent. Not a great love story, it is simply a drama centered around the great man, whom even his sons call “Renoir.” Bourdos and Bouquet, who gives a fine performance, give us a man who obviously inspired deep loyalty, but whose family relationships lacked intimacy. (The youngest son calls himself an orphan.)
IMDb link
viewed 4/24/2013 7:15 pm at Ritz Bourse and reviewed 4/24–25/13
Friday, August 24, 2012
Robot & Frank (***1/4)
Frank is Frank Langella, and the voice of the robot is Peter Sarsgaard in this comedy-drama about family, friendship, thievery, and Alzheimer’s. Also, it’s set in the near future, when cars can drive themselves, libraries are getting rid of books, and all phones are videophones, which 2001: A Space Odessey said would happen in 2001 and Back to The Future Part II said would happen around now. But a dutiful son (James Marsden) and a flaky daughter (Liv Tyler) are still the same. Dad’s having trouble taking care of himself, so dutiful son brings the latest technology. It looks boxy, not too human, and Sarsgaard sounds like a less-sinister version of 2001’s Hal.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” says the machine. “How do you know?” Frank answers, but like most people eventually adapts to the idea of having a machine do things for him. Things like theft, his old career. The notion of a buddy comedy with a friendly robot suggests the potential of being a little too cute, like that 1980s movie Short Circuit, but this is just the right amount of cute. It made me think about artificial intelligence, but at the same time it’s a mostly fun movie for those who aren’t into sci-fi. The ending is a reminder that, at bottom, all stories told by humans are human stories.
IMDb link
viewed 8/13/12 7:30 pm at World Cafe Live and reviewed 8/24/12 and 8/27/12
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” says the machine. “How do you know?” Frank answers, but like most people eventually adapts to the idea of having a machine do things for him. Things like theft, his old career. The notion of a buddy comedy with a friendly robot suggests the potential of being a little too cute, like that 1980s movie Short Circuit, but this is just the right amount of cute. It made me think about artificial intelligence, but at the same time it’s a mostly fun movie for those who aren’t into sci-fi. The ending is a reminder that, at bottom, all stories told by humans are human stories.
IMDb link
viewed 8/13/12 7:30 pm at World Cafe Live and reviewed 8/24/12 and 8/27/12
Friday, April 13, 2012
Friday, April 6, 2012
Boy (***)
Taika Waititi, whose earlier film, Eagle vs. Shark, a bit like a New Zealand sequel to Napoleon Dynamite, changes things up with this coming-of-age film set in 1984 in a rural Maori community. The eleven-year-old title character (James Rolleston) lives with his cousins—his mother died giving birth to his younger brother—and invents a glamorous history for his absent father, who’s apparently in jail. But then the old man shows up, leading a three-man “gang” and hoping to dig up the buried “treasure” if only he can figure out where it’s buried.
The father, played by the director, is more of an overgrown child than a gangster, and Boy initially accepts him as a cool new playmate. The movie is a drama, but in the father character especially there are at least hints of the goofiness of Eagle vs. Shark. Additionally, while the characters are not well off, there is something appealing about the way they have free run of the town’s landscapes, which include a lonely beach, and a certain self-reliance. Boy’s fascination with Michael Jackson is a reminder of the reach of global culture, yet this place seems a world apart. (For American ears, the accents may be a little tough to follow.) Boy lacks the pathos and depth that would make the film a classic, but it’s a winsome effort from Waititi.
viewed 4/19/12 7:3 at Ritz Bourse and reviewed 4/19/12
The father, played by the director, is more of an overgrown child than a gangster, and Boy initially accepts him as a cool new playmate. The movie is a drama, but in the father character especially there are at least hints of the goofiness of Eagle vs. Shark. Additionally, while the characters are not well off, there is something appealing about the way they have free run of the town’s landscapes, which include a lonely beach, and a certain self-reliance. Boy’s fascination with Michael Jackson is a reminder of the reach of global culture, yet this place seems a world apart. (For American ears, the accents may be a little tough to follow.) Boy lacks the pathos and depth that would make the film a classic, but it’s a winsome effort from Waititi.
viewed 4/19/12 7:3 at Ritz Bourse and reviewed 4/19/12
Friday, March 23, 2012
Jiro Dreams of Sushi (***1/4)
Everyone should be so lucky as Jiro Ono, who early on found his calling and has spent most of his 85 years doing the thing that he enjoys and that gives his life meaning. His life is simple and orderly; his Tokyo sushi bar is small, with ten seats, serving unadorned sushi and nothing else, save a slice of melon after the meal. His customers book a month in advance and pay a minimum of 30,000 yen for an experience that may last as little as 15 minutes. Jiro has two sons; the elder works for him, and the younger one runs a place that is the literal mirror image of Jiro’s, since Jiro is left-handed and he is not.
Except for the rumblings in your stomach, this documentary (by American David Gelb, but entirely in Japanese) provokes the calmness felt by its primary subject. We learn a little about his history (with gaps), a little about his techniques and his suppliers, and a lot about his philosophy, whose essence is to work hard and repeat until you achieve perfection. Jiro has not yet achieved perfection, he believes, but, according to the food critic interviewed here, who purports to have tried all of the sushi in Tokyo, he is the best.
Those indifferent to Gelb’s luscious close-ups of sushi may be less impressed with this film, but even the mildest of foodies will likely find something to appreciate in Jiro Dreams of Sushi, whose inspirational quality (heightened with music by Phillip Glass) is an alternative to the bustling Food Channel vibe.
viewed 3/22/2012 7:00 pm at Ritz East [Landmark Film Club screening] and reviewed 3/22/2012
Except for the rumblings in your stomach, this documentary (by American David Gelb, but entirely in Japanese) provokes the calmness felt by its primary subject. We learn a little about his history (with gaps), a little about his techniques and his suppliers, and a lot about his philosophy, whose essence is to work hard and repeat until you achieve perfection. Jiro has not yet achieved perfection, he believes, but, according to the food critic interviewed here, who purports to have tried all of the sushi in Tokyo, he is the best.
Those indifferent to Gelb’s luscious close-ups of sushi may be less impressed with this film, but even the mildest of foodies will likely find something to appreciate in Jiro Dreams of Sushi, whose inspirational quality (heightened with music by Phillip Glass) is an alternative to the bustling Food Channel vibe.
viewed 3/22/2012 7:00 pm at Ritz East [Landmark Film Club screening] and reviewed 3/22/2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (**3/4)
I’ve not read either of Jonathan Safran Foer’s novels—only excepts from each—but he obviously doesn’t go in for subtlety. The first, Everything Is Illuminated, is
written in an ersatz syntax parodying that of an an
Eastern European immigrant. The second, adapted here by screenwriter Eric Roth (Munich, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and director Steven Daldry (The Hours), is told in the voice of an extremely bright 12-year-old.* They’re mysteries wrapped in tragedies, and not just any tragedies, but the Holocaust in the first case and 9/11 here. (Oskar is played by Thomas Horn, a newcomer who definitely knows how to convey smarts, having been a Jeopardy Kids Week champion.)
Young Oskar’s father has died on what he refers to as the “worst day”; he happened to be in one of the Twin Towers. That fact figures in the story, significantly but peripherally, as when Oskar insists, to his mother’s (Sandra Bullock) consternation, that without a body there can only be a “pretend funeral.” The deceased, played by Tom Hanks in flashbacks, is the sort of dad who insisted that New York City had a now-lost “sixth borough” and from time to time produces “evidence.” The flashbacks are meant not to convey that he was a kook, but that he invested his son with a sense of wonder. One wonders if he also invested him with the sense of superiority the character conveys.
The mystery has to do with a key left behind. Armed only with a name — Black — and New York City phone books, Oskar (who’s a little Asperger-y) begins a systematic search for the lock that fits the key. (As with many New Yorkers, he seems not to consider the possibility that some people live in places outside the five boroughs.) I suppose there are brainy kids who might be like this, but must Oskar be so irritating? (Probably this is not Horn’s fault.) He irritates his mother; he irritates the staff in his building; he irritates the mute old man (Max von Sydow) who boards with his grandmother in an adjacent building. He’s indeed extremely loud. Now, I don’t mind flawed heroes. The heroine of the recent The Hedgehog, for example, who is the same age as Oskar and possibly even brainier, is flawed, but she’s not as irritating. Also, that movie less transparently— pun intended—tugs at the heartstrings.
Some people will surely find this extremely, incredibly manipulative, and I don’t entirely disagree. But I’m going to say just barely that I liked it, because I liked the mystery of it and how it’s resolved, because von Sydow is as winsome as the boy is irksome and because Bullock seems like a real mother and not Sandra Bullock being Sandra Bullock. I don’t think the movie comes close to being worthy of its Best Picture Oscar nomination, but it’s diverting if the above caveats don’t distract you.
*However, he is quite incorrect in claiming that there are more people alive today than have ever lived before. Not even close, as it turns out.
viewed 1/12/12:30 pm at Ritz East [PFS screening] and reviewed 1/20/12 and 1/30/12
Young Oskar’s father has died on what he refers to as the “worst day”; he happened to be in one of the Twin Towers. That fact figures in the story, significantly but peripherally, as when Oskar insists, to his mother’s (Sandra Bullock) consternation, that without a body there can only be a “pretend funeral.” The deceased, played by Tom Hanks in flashbacks, is the sort of dad who insisted that New York City had a now-lost “sixth borough” and from time to time produces “evidence.” The flashbacks are meant not to convey that he was a kook, but that he invested his son with a sense of wonder. One wonders if he also invested him with the sense of superiority the character conveys.
The mystery has to do with a key left behind. Armed only with a name — Black — and New York City phone books, Oskar (who’s a little Asperger-y) begins a systematic search for the lock that fits the key. (As with many New Yorkers, he seems not to consider the possibility that some people live in places outside the five boroughs.) I suppose there are brainy kids who might be like this, but must Oskar be so irritating? (Probably this is not Horn’s fault.) He irritates his mother; he irritates the staff in his building; he irritates the mute old man (Max von Sydow) who boards with his grandmother in an adjacent building. He’s indeed extremely loud. Now, I don’t mind flawed heroes. The heroine of the recent The Hedgehog, for example, who is the same age as Oskar and possibly even brainier, is flawed, but she’s not as irritating. Also, that movie less transparently— pun intended—tugs at the heartstrings.
Some people will surely find this extremely, incredibly manipulative, and I don’t entirely disagree. But I’m going to say just barely that I liked it, because I liked the mystery of it and how it’s resolved, because von Sydow is as winsome as the boy is irksome and because Bullock seems like a real mother and not Sandra Bullock being Sandra Bullock. I don’t think the movie comes close to being worthy of its Best Picture Oscar nomination, but it’s diverting if the above caveats don’t distract you.
*However, he is quite incorrect in claiming that there are more people alive today than have ever lived before. Not even close, as it turns out.
viewed 1/12/12:30 pm at Ritz East [PFS screening] and reviewed 1/20/12 and 1/30/12
Friday, December 23, 2011
We Bought a Zoo (**3/4)
It’s not often that a title so well sums up the plot. Benjamin Mee, played by Matt Damon, is a real guy who actually did buy a zoo and write a book about it, which has been adapted by Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous, Jerry McGuire) into this very drama. The real Mee was English and was living in France when he decided to buy a zoo. Crowe has unimaginatively turned Mee into an Angeleno and transplanted the zoo to Southern California. Just like the real Mee, the one here is a grieving widower with two children. One is an angry fourteen-year-old boy, the other a seven-year-old girl who spends the entire film being adorable, and it’s probably her lines, not her delivery, that makes her seem just a little too child-actorish. Elle Fanning, the second youngest female in the cast, also spends the entire movie being adorable. Probably the movie is a little too adorable. Damon and Scarlett Johansson, who plays the head zookeeper, are mostly adorable too, but their best scene is the one where they’re in conflict.
Crowe is a filmmaker who favors characters who boldly gesture—his most famous scene might be John Cusack’s holding up a boombox to woo Ione Skye in 1989’s Say Anything—but a more intimate approach may have better suited the material. (The soundtrack, featuring songs by Jónsi, is appropriately quieter, on the whole.) Or it might be that Crowe makes everything about owning a zoo seem surprisingly unsurprising. Here’s what I learned about animals from the movie—you have to talk to them the right way. Also, someone with experience can tell when a tiger is suffering.
This is a movie with a nice feel to it, but everything feels a little too simplified. The way the movie Mee buys the place is that, having decided that moving would help him get past his grief, he goes house hunting, spots the place the first day, and decides to buy it immediately after seeing how much his daughter likes it, even before seeing the photogenic staff (including Patrick Fugit, barely recognizable from his starring role in Almost Famous) that comes with. This was easily the most transparently false scene. I guess the real story, that Mee carefully researched before buying, seemed dull or complicated, but it seems to me that with a story like this, it’s the odd details that would have made it more compelling. Instead, most of this movie is simply sweet and pleasant, a good family movie if the kids aren’t too young or too cynical.
viewed 12/13/11 at Ritz East [PFS screening] and reviewed 12/13/11
Crowe is a filmmaker who favors characters who boldly gesture—his most famous scene might be John Cusack’s holding up a boombox to woo Ione Skye in 1989’s Say Anything—but a more intimate approach may have better suited the material. (The soundtrack, featuring songs by Jónsi, is appropriately quieter, on the whole.) Or it might be that Crowe makes everything about owning a zoo seem surprisingly unsurprising. Here’s what I learned about animals from the movie—you have to talk to them the right way. Also, someone with experience can tell when a tiger is suffering.
This is a movie with a nice feel to it, but everything feels a little too simplified. The way the movie Mee buys the place is that, having decided that moving would help him get past his grief, he goes house hunting, spots the place the first day, and decides to buy it immediately after seeing how much his daughter likes it, even before seeing the photogenic staff (including Patrick Fugit, barely recognizable from his starring role in Almost Famous) that comes with. This was easily the most transparently false scene. I guess the real story, that Mee carefully researched before buying, seemed dull or complicated, but it seems to me that with a story like this, it’s the odd details that would have made it more compelling. Instead, most of this movie is simply sweet and pleasant, a good family movie if the kids aren’t too young or too cynical.
viewed 12/13/11 at Ritz East [PFS screening] and reviewed 12/13/11
Friday, October 7, 2011
The Way (***1/4)
The title refers, literally, to El Camino de Santiago, or the Way of St. James, a Christian pilgrimage route through Spain for the last dozen centuries. But Tom (Martin Sheen) is a widowed California ophthalmologist, not a seeker of spiritual truths. When his priest, offering comfort upon the unexpected death of his son, asks him if he’d like to pray, Tom answers simply “What for?” But he says it in the voice of one who has become embittered, rather than a skeptic.
Tom is not an expressive
man, and he had a complicated relationship with the son. Perhaps it’s in a quest to understand his son’s refusal to settle down that Tom decides to complete the journey his son had begun before falling victim to a sudden storm. Or perhaps it’s simply to honor the dead. The son is played, in brief flashbacks that aren’t overdone, by Sheen’s son Emilio Estevez, who also wrote and directed.
The lightly plotted drama
strikes the familiar notes you expect it to—the journey being more
important than destination, the importance of human connection, the
meaning of loss—but it does
so subtly. Instead of epiphanies, the movie lets its characters,
especially Tom, emerge along the way. I appreciated that Tom remain ornery through much of the movie and quite the opposite of the silver-tongued president he played in The West Wing. As the title suggests, religion and spirituality obviously play a role in the plot, but there is no obvious message. In one scene, Tom and his traveling companions witness a
centuries-old ceremony in a famous church. Only the faces of the four—Tom, a burly Dutchman, a bitter Canadian divorcée, and a prolix Irish writer— betray what they might have made of the whole thing. They don't say anything
afterward. Estevez does not, in other words, force a particular meaning
on the scene. In the end, we don't know how the journey will change the
characters; it is enough that they will always
remember it.
viewed 10/3/11 at Ritz Bourse [PFS screening] and reviewed 10/09/11
Friday, September 2, 2011
Seven Days in Utopia (**1/4)
I’m always suspicious of titles wherein one of the words is both the name of something and also means something else. Utopia is the name of the tiny Texas town where frustrated golfer Luke (Lucas Black) finds himself after blowing the chance to win his first big tournament, crashing his car, and tossing his cell phone in frustration. That’s another thing I’m suspicious of. Who besides characters in movies like Wild Hogs intentionally chucks a cell phone? Anyway, first person that lucky Luke runs into is also a once-promising golfer (Robert Duvall, Black’s Get Low costar) who just so happens to have settled in this town of under 400. Not quite the second person he meets is the waitress at the improbably bustling local diner, who appears to be the only pre-menopausal woman in town. (Melissa Leo plays one on the other side of that divide.) She’s got an obnoxious quasi-boyfriend, but by about the third day, she saying things to Luke like, “Sometimes I think you might be hopeless.” Seriously, who thinks anything “sometimes” about a person she met two days ago?
It’s nearly the same setup as comedies like Doc Hollywood or the animated Cars, only it plays out like the Karate Kid, if the hero had been a little older, his crush object prayed a bit more, and Mr. Miyagi was an old white guy who taught sport by making his student paint pictures instead of fences. And, inside of a week…well, nothing surprising happens. Duvall, playing basically the only interesting character, comes close to rescuing the movie. When he tells Luke about having “a purpose and calling that went beyond any scorecard,” it only sounds a little corny. Mainly though, the movie suffers from blandness. Even the fish-out-of-water element is pretty mild. Luke’s neither a big-city slicker—he’s from nearby Waco—nor an egotistical big shot. You’d think there’d be more humor given the title and the premise, but about the only funny thing in the movie is the name of Luke’s golfing nemesis, a Korean (or maybe Korean-American—he never speaks) called T. K. Oh.
Those with a taste for a certain sort of old-fashioned wholesomeness (the movie’s rated G and extols faith) may enjoy this, but they’ll likely forget it in about seven days.
viewed 8/29/11 at Ritz East [PFS screening] and reviewed 9/6/11
It’s nearly the same setup as comedies like Doc Hollywood or the animated Cars, only it plays out like the Karate Kid, if the hero had been a little older, his crush object prayed a bit more, and Mr. Miyagi was an old white guy who taught sport by making his student paint pictures instead of fences. And, inside of a week…well, nothing surprising happens. Duvall, playing basically the only interesting character, comes close to rescuing the movie. When he tells Luke about having “a purpose and calling that went beyond any scorecard,” it only sounds a little corny. Mainly though, the movie suffers from blandness. Even the fish-out-of-water element is pretty mild. Luke’s neither a big-city slicker—he’s from nearby Waco—nor an egotistical big shot. You’d think there’d be more humor given the title and the premise, but about the only funny thing in the movie is the name of Luke’s golfing nemesis, a Korean (or maybe Korean-American—he never speaks) called T. K. Oh.
Those with a taste for a certain sort of old-fashioned wholesomeness (the movie’s rated G and extols faith) may enjoy this, but they’ll likely forget it in about seven days.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Beginners (**3/4)
It’s usually films about teens that get described as coming-of-age films, but some people wait longer than that to become their truest selves. Seventy-five-years old Hal (terrific Christopher Plummer) waits until his wife’s death to tell his son Oliver (Ewan McGregor) he’s gay. And, in a line echoing one that director Mike Mills’s father actually said to him, he doesn’t just want to be a homosexual “in theory.” And so he isn’t. This being set in post-homophobia Los Angeles, Hal’s sudden lifestyle change is only an issue insofar as it makes Oliver rethink his dad’s relationship with his mother. (Flashbacks show her too.)
Oliver, for his part, is 38 and also looking for love, but has a history of bailing on relationships. In the film’s other main storyline, set after Hal’s death though told in tandem, he meets a French actress played by Mélanie Laurent (Inglorious Basterds). In a terribly charming “meet cute” scene, she’s both disguised and mute. (It’s a costume party and she has laryngitis.) There are several other charming aspects to the movie, from the use of comic art to show Oliver’s thoughts (he’s an illustrator) to the subtitles showing those of his Jack Russell terrier.
Given the autobiographical nature of Mills’s film, the specificity and authenticity of even the whimsical moments makes sense. Having said that, after the bright beginning, there’s also a certain monotony. I started to notice sounds of saucers on tables and steps on wooden floors, that sort of thing, and the unvaryingly tinkly piano score. I think just altering some of the music to something jauntier would have improved the film a lot. Despite death’s significance as a subject matter, the film seems clearly intended to celebrate life, and yet the tone is a little too precious. That’s an especially subjective criticism, so I feel certain Beginners will be incredibly moving to some and quite dull to others, especially those used to the pace of more familiar Hollywood fare.
viewed 6/8/11 at Ritz Bourse [PFS screening] and reviewed 6/16/2011
Oliver, for his part, is 38 and also looking for love, but has a history of bailing on relationships. In the film’s other main storyline, set after Hal’s death though told in tandem, he meets a French actress played by Mélanie Laurent (Inglorious Basterds). In a terribly charming “meet cute” scene, she’s both disguised and mute. (It’s a costume party and she has laryngitis.) There are several other charming aspects to the movie, from the use of comic art to show Oliver’s thoughts (he’s an illustrator) to the subtitles showing those of his Jack Russell terrier.
Given the autobiographical nature of Mills’s film, the specificity and authenticity of even the whimsical moments makes sense. Having said that, after the bright beginning, there’s also a certain monotony. I started to notice sounds of saucers on tables and steps on wooden floors, that sort of thing, and the unvaryingly tinkly piano score. I think just altering some of the music to something jauntier would have improved the film a lot. Despite death’s significance as a subject matter, the film seems clearly intended to celebrate life, and yet the tone is a little too precious. That’s an especially subjective criticism, so I feel certain Beginners will be incredibly moving to some and quite dull to others, especially those used to the pace of more familiar Hollywood fare.
viewed 6/8/11 at Ritz Bourse [PFS screening] and reviewed 6/16/2011
Friday, April 15, 2011
In a Better World (***3/4)
This was the winner of the Foreign Language Film Oscar, and it’s better than the Best Picture winner, The King’s Speech. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the latter, but it settles for being a well-told drama without ever surprising the viewer in any way. Danish writer-director Susanne Bier likes to tell harder stories, of people caught between conflicting loyalties. She is best known for her features Brothers (faithfully remade as an American film in 2009) and After the Wedding. Those films and this one (all written in collaboration with Anders Thomas Jensen) have the common element of a male main character who has returned from overseas. Anton (Mikael Persbrandt) is that character here, a doctor who spends much of his time away from home, treating victims of violence in a refugee camp in Africa. He is separated from his wife, with whom he has a young son.
The parallel story concerns Christian, a taciturn boy who has just returned to Denmark from London following the death of his mother. Christian takes the side of a boy who’s been bullied and helps him take revenge upon his tormenter. Yet at the same time we applaud this as justice, the anger from which it stems is unsettling. The story of the boy and of the man both intersect and parallel each other, though it takes a bit of time to see how. The obvious point, though, is that whether it’s in civilized, modern Denmark or a country ruled by warlords, the dark heart of man lies only a bit beneath the surface. It is only because most people in places like Denmark submit to the rule of law that keeps the one sort of place from becoming the other. Returning to Africa, Christian must operate on a different set of values.
In the end, Bier veers from this theme and more toward those of family and loss, which is less difficult. In the way it is also about these things, it becomes more broadly accessible. One might quibble with the tidiness in which this plot unfolds, but for the most part her and Jensen’s script is a model of good storytelling. In a better world, there would be a larger place for thoughtful films like those of Bier.
viewed 4/20/11 at Ritz Five and reviewed 5/10/11
Friday, December 17, 2010
All Good Things (***1/4)
Some are ruined by being born into the wrong family. And some by marrying the wrong person. It’s not obvious, except in the fact that the story flashes back from a courtroom scene, that things will go wrong for David Marks (Ryan Gosling), the personable young son of a wealthy New York real estate speculator (Frank Langella). Nor for his future wife Katie (Kirsten Dunst), a sweet girl he meets in 1971. With her, he moves to Vermont, where they run a health-food store called All Good Things. Seemingly metaphorical, this was in fact the real name of the store operated by the husband and wife who inspired this movie, directed by Andrew Jarecki from a script by Marcus Hinchey and Marc Smerling.
Jarecki is best known for another family saga, the Capturing the Friedmans. That was a documentary whose intrigue came in part because the truth about this strange family was somewhat elusive. The reason this heavily researched drama is not a documentary becomes clear eventually; although Jarecki is subtle about depicting some of the darker elements of the story, he obviously has assumed (or very strongly implied) facts that in real life must have been uncertain. Where the film remains ambiguous is in why David’s life goes sour, or at least why it happens when it does. Jarecki succeeds in depicting the progress of his disintegration, and Katie’s different sort of decline. Gosling is typically fine, Dunst heart-rending in her later scenes, and Langella suitably imposing. And obviously, that David witnesses his mother’s death as a child, that he is emotionally repressed, and that his father was an overbearing presence are part of what leads him astray. Yet what is apparent, especially the hold the family real estate business has on him, is not always palpable. In the end, this is a character who remains as elusive as he must have seemed to the Texas jury he testified before in 2003.
IMDB link
viewed at Ritz Bourse and reviewed 1/13/11
Jarecki is best known for another family saga, the Capturing the Friedmans. That was a documentary whose intrigue came in part because the truth about this strange family was somewhat elusive. The reason this heavily researched drama is not a documentary becomes clear eventually; although Jarecki is subtle about depicting some of the darker elements of the story, he obviously has assumed (or very strongly implied) facts that in real life must have been uncertain. Where the film remains ambiguous is in why David’s life goes sour, or at least why it happens when it does. Jarecki succeeds in depicting the progress of his disintegration, and Katie’s different sort of decline. Gosling is typically fine, Dunst heart-rending in her later scenes, and Langella suitably imposing. And obviously, that David witnesses his mother’s death as a child, that he is emotionally repressed, and that his father was an overbearing presence are part of what leads him astray. Yet what is apparent, especially the hold the family real estate business has on him, is not always palpable. In the end, this is a character who remains as elusive as he must have seemed to the Texas jury he testified before in 2003.
IMDB link
viewed at Ritz Bourse and reviewed 1/13/11
Friday, November 19, 2010
Today’s Special (***)
I haven’t seen that many films about Indian Americans, but I’m pretty sure all of them, not to mention British films like Bend It Like Beckham, deal with issues of family and culture clash. Even the titles of such films—Mississippi Masala, American Chai, American Desi—reference these themes. This adaptation of Aasif Mondvi’s play may be the lightest version of this story. Mondvi, the erstwhile Daily Show correspondent who shares screenplay credit, plays Samir, a Manhattan sous-chef who steers clear of all things Indian—the cuisine, cricket, and the women on the Indian dating sites his mother tries to fix him up with. But when a family emergency forces his father away from the family’s run-down Indian restaurant, Samir is forced to put his own plans on hold and pitch in. And, with the help of an Indian-born cabbie he meets who just so happens to also be a master chef with lots of free time, pitch in he does.
This very likable comedy may be too likable for its own good. Samir’s potential girlfriend (Jess Weixler, of Teeth) has a kid? No problem; we never even find out whether there’s a father somewhere. His new chef doesn’t believe in menus? No problem! (Seriously? An Indian take-out place with no menus?) Of course, everything will work out in this sort of gentle comedy, and that’s fine, but a little doubt in the meantime would have made it more satisfying. The chef is a too-good-to-be true man of the world who can conjures up a full-course meal in no time. Still, as played by Bollywood veteran Naseeruddin Shah, he’s the most captivating of the characters. More downbeat, but realistic, is the relationship between Samir and his father, who simultaneously looks down on Samir for his choice of career and resents him for seeming to disregard his family traditions.
IMDB link
viewed 12/14/10 at Ritz 5 and reviewed 12/14/10
This very likable comedy may be too likable for its own good. Samir’s potential girlfriend (Jess Weixler, of Teeth) has a kid? No problem; we never even find out whether there’s a father somewhere. His new chef doesn’t believe in menus? No problem! (Seriously? An Indian take-out place with no menus?) Of course, everything will work out in this sort of gentle comedy, and that’s fine, but a little doubt in the meantime would have made it more satisfying. The chef is a too-good-to-be true man of the world who can conjures up a full-course meal in no time. Still, as played by Bollywood veteran Naseeruddin Shah, he’s the most captivating of the characters. More downbeat, but realistic, is the relationship between Samir and his father, who simultaneously looks down on Samir for his choice of career and resents him for seeming to disregard his family traditions.
IMDB link
viewed 12/14/10 at Ritz 5 and reviewed 12/14/10
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
True Legend (**1/2)
This is one of those mythic Chinese films set in the past with warriors, martial arts, revenge and so forth. The director is Woo-ping Yuen, who directed Jackie Chan in Drunken Master. “Drunken” kung fu eventually finds its way into the story here too, and Yuen directs the action scenes well. There’s a lot of swordplay toward the beginning and more hand-to-hand combat, some fairly brutal, later on. There’s some of the gravity-defying Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon-style leaps, and the hero (Man Cheuk Chiu), Su, survives blows that would fell WWF wrestlers, but you expect that sort of stylized action in this kind of movie.
So that’s all pretty good. If you don’t mind the pedestrian dialogue and general hokiness of the whole thing, it should entertain. (The acting is a mixed bag, though Crouching Tiger’s Michelle Yeoh makes an appearance.) By way of example, in a very early scene we see Su embraced by his “blood brother,” who offers only gratitude as they part. Five years pass, and though nothing else happens in the meantime, we next see him trying to kill Su—to whom this comes as a complete surprise. (Su’s new archenemy stays in madman mode for the rest of the movie.) Superior movies of this type, especially those of Zhang Yimou (Hero, House of Flying Daggers), have almost an elegance to them, with stories that seem like fables. This seems more like a yarn. I will give it points for having a completely unexpected and different (though still corny) third act when it had seemed like the movie would end with Su’s inevitable revenge.
IMDB link
viewed at Ritz 5 [Philadelphia Film Festival] and reviewed 10/19/10
So that’s all pretty good. If you don’t mind the pedestrian dialogue and general hokiness of the whole thing, it should entertain. (The acting is a mixed bag, though Crouching Tiger’s Michelle Yeoh makes an appearance.) By way of example, in a very early scene we see Su embraced by his “blood brother,” who offers only gratitude as they part. Five years pass, and though nothing else happens in the meantime, we next see him trying to kill Su—to whom this comes as a complete surprise. (Su’s new archenemy stays in madman mode for the rest of the movie.) Superior movies of this type, especially those of Zhang Yimou (Hero, House of Flying Daggers), have almost an elegance to them, with stories that seem like fables. This seems more like a yarn. I will give it points for having a completely unexpected and different (though still corny) third act when it had seemed like the movie would end with Su’s inevitable revenge.
IMDB link
viewed at Ritz 5 [Philadelphia Film Festival] and reviewed 10/19/10
Friday, September 17, 2010
The Town (***1/4)
I never thought Ben Affleck deserved his reputation as a mere pretty boy, having co-written Good Will Hunting and appeared in a number of smart films like Changing Lanes and Chasing Amy. But this, his second effort as a writer-director, confirms that, and shows that Gone Baby Gone was no fluke. (Affleck, adapting a Chuck Hogan novel, shares the screenplay credit with Peter Craig and Gone Baby Gone’s Aaron Stockard.) This is slightly more of a crowd-pleaser, being about boys causing mayhem, not the kidnapping of a junkie’s daughter. There’s even a car chase. But Affleck, who also stars, retains the intelligent approach he took before.
Take the opening sequence, where Affleck’s character Doug robs a bank with his three masked accomplices. Director Affleck keeps the music down, cuts back and forth from the victims to the perpetrators, and even shows the security cameras. It’s done in a way that shows the excitement of the robbers, but also the fear and confusion of the victims. One of them is a bank manager played by Rebecca Hall, whose expressive face conveys everything Affleck is trying to show. That Doug will wind up courting her—albeit without disclosing his profession—is the crux of the plot.
As with Gone Baby Gone, the film takes place in a Boston neighborhood, Charlestown. There, bank robbery is practically the chief source of employment, a profession handed down from father to son. Doug’s father (Chris Cooper in a small role), is in prison. The use of location is key to both the feel and the plot of the movie.
I’d say this falls just short of the earlier film, if only because it slightly sentimentalizes Doug in a not entirely convincing way. The more overt brutality of his partner and childhood pal (Jeremy Renner) seems meant to make Doug more likable by comparison, although Doug is happy enough when they’re shooting at police after a car chase. Meanwhile, the police detective played by Jon Hamm isn’t exactly a villain, but the character is (under-)written almost as if he’s someone nursing a mysterious grudge rather than one trying to protect the public. His badass line is “This not-fucking-around thing is about to go both ways.” But most of the time the movie is more subtle. Affleck, who went Hollywood, has come back strongly.
IMDB link
viewed 9/14/10 at Ritz 5 [PFS screening] and reviewed 9/17/10
Take the opening sequence, where Affleck’s character Doug robs a bank with his three masked accomplices. Director Affleck keeps the music down, cuts back and forth from the victims to the perpetrators, and even shows the security cameras. It’s done in a way that shows the excitement of the robbers, but also the fear and confusion of the victims. One of them is a bank manager played by Rebecca Hall, whose expressive face conveys everything Affleck is trying to show. That Doug will wind up courting her—albeit without disclosing his profession—is the crux of the plot.
As with Gone Baby Gone, the film takes place in a Boston neighborhood, Charlestown. There, bank robbery is practically the chief source of employment, a profession handed down from father to son. Doug’s father (Chris Cooper in a small role), is in prison. The use of location is key to both the feel and the plot of the movie.
I’d say this falls just short of the earlier film, if only because it slightly sentimentalizes Doug in a not entirely convincing way. The more overt brutality of his partner and childhood pal (Jeremy Renner) seems meant to make Doug more likable by comparison, although Doug is happy enough when they’re shooting at police after a car chase. Meanwhile, the police detective played by Jon Hamm isn’t exactly a villain, but the character is (under-)written almost as if he’s someone nursing a mysterious grudge rather than one trying to protect the public. His badass line is “This not-fucking-around thing is about to go both ways.” But most of the time the movie is more subtle. Affleck, who went Hollywood, has come back strongly.
IMDB link
viewed 9/14/10 at Ritz 5 [PFS screening] and reviewed 9/17/10
Friday, August 20, 2010
Farewell (***)
The dissolution of the Soviet Union is one of those things that happened fairly recently yet seems like ancient history. The dynamic of the Cold War disappeared in a very short time; nor is anything similar likely to happen soon. And this film implies that it will tell us how it all unraveled. It all started in 1981, with a Soviet colonel (Emir Kusturica) who decided to spill some secrets. That it was a French engineer (Guillaime Canet) working in Moscow who became his contact is one of the more peculiar aspects of the story, and why the director is not an American, but Christian Carion, who made Merry Christmas (Joyeux Noël), another tale of a rapprochement among enemies.
Carion bookends the movie with the most suspenseful parts, but the midsection is practically a buddy film. The colonel, having an affair, talks to the engineer about marital issues. At one point he warns his new partner that the KGB bugs the bedrooms of foreigners and sends women to seduce men who seem not to be getting any at home. “If you want peace, screw your wife,” he says. In return for such advice, he receives French champagne and cassettes of Queen (for his teenage son) and Leo Ferré (for himself). Occasionally there are meetings involving the French premier, François Mitterand, and his American counterpart. It may be for the best that there’s only a few of these scenes, as Fred Ward’s Ronald Reagan impersonation is pretty weak. (Willem Defoe, the best known American in the cast, plays a fictionalized CIA director.)
Probably the story could have been made to seem more suspenseful. Even though the Frenchman’s wife tells him she’s frightened for their kids, and the Russian allows his son to hate him for being a Soviet stooge rather than tell him what he’s really doing, I rarely had a sense of danger during their meetings. As for ending the Cold War, maybe the dots need to be connected more. Clearly the information provided was a coup for the French and the Americans, who learned the identities of spies working for the USSR as well as the extent of the KGB’s intelligence operation. But it’s not that clear from the film that the events portrayed helped precipitate perestroika or assisted its architect, Mikhail Gorbachev, in consolidating power.
The movie is worth watching as a portrait of an communist-era Moscow and as a character drama, but lacks the power of great spy thrillers.
IMDB link
viewed at Ritz 5 and reviewed 8/26/10
Carion bookends the movie with the most suspenseful parts, but the midsection is practically a buddy film. The colonel, having an affair, talks to the engineer about marital issues. At one point he warns his new partner that the KGB bugs the bedrooms of foreigners and sends women to seduce men who seem not to be getting any at home. “If you want peace, screw your wife,” he says. In return for such advice, he receives French champagne and cassettes of Queen (for his teenage son) and Leo Ferré (for himself). Occasionally there are meetings involving the French premier, François Mitterand, and his American counterpart. It may be for the best that there’s only a few of these scenes, as Fred Ward’s Ronald Reagan impersonation is pretty weak. (Willem Defoe, the best known American in the cast, plays a fictionalized CIA director.)
Probably the story could have been made to seem more suspenseful. Even though the Frenchman’s wife tells him she’s frightened for their kids, and the Russian allows his son to hate him for being a Soviet stooge rather than tell him what he’s really doing, I rarely had a sense of danger during their meetings. As for ending the Cold War, maybe the dots need to be connected more. Clearly the information provided was a coup for the French and the Americans, who learned the identities of spies working for the USSR as well as the extent of the KGB’s intelligence operation. But it’s not that clear from the film that the events portrayed helped precipitate perestroika or assisted its architect, Mikhail Gorbachev, in consolidating power.
The movie is worth watching as a portrait of an communist-era Moscow and as a character drama, but lacks the power of great spy thrillers.
IMDB link
viewed at Ritz 5 and reviewed 8/26/10
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