The Intouchables (***)

Americans may see European films as rather arty by nature, but that’s probably because we don’t get to see many of the mainstream ones, and mainstream moviegoers wouldn’t watch them if we did. Which is too bad, in this case, because this is a pretty good mainstream film. Sure, any story about a poor black kid bonding with a rich white dude, a handicapped one yet, is already bordering on cliché, and is ripe for emotional manipulation, even if it’s set in Paris, and even, or especially, if it’s a true story. (Kind of—the actually poor kid was Algerian, although, in the context of France, it doesn’t matter that much.)

 

Driss (Omar Sy) is the poor kid, an ex-con who’s only applying for a job so he’ll be able to collect public assistance. Phillippe (François Cluzet) is the paralyzed aristocrat in need of someone to help dress and bath him. When Driss says his references are Kool and the Gang and Earth, Wind, and Fire, Phillippe misses the joke. When Phillippe refers to the composer Berlioz, Driss only knows it as the name of a housing project. But he likes that Driss won’t treat him like damaged goods. And so, Driss gets to stay, and slowly ingratiates himself into the household, though not into the undergarments of Phillipe’s redheaded assistant. And, of course, becomes a better person.

 

Was the real Driss hired without the barest of background checks or even discussion? I don’t know, but suspect not. Some of the other events seem telegraphed, but the characters seem genuine. The humor does too. It’s a formulaic picture (though not a tearjerker, as one might expect), but one well executed. At least, French audiences, who made it the second most popular domestic release of all time, thought so. Pity it will never play in the multiplexes where, were it in English, it might find a ready audience looking for a feel-good comedy-drama.

IMDb link

viewed 4/26/12 7:30 at Rtiz east [PFS screening] and reviewed 4/27/12 and 6/3/12

Albert Nobbs (***1/2)

Taking on another identity can be a liberating act, but for Albert (Glenn Close), it’s a self-negating one. Close first played the role, a waiter in a Dublin hotel circa 1900, 30 years ago on the New York stage. In addition to touching on issues of class and gender, the story is about a life constrained, how  the passage of years can render one unrecognizable, and how a chance occurrence can cause lasting change. The rest of the hotel staff regard Albert as a curiosity, or as a fixture. The humble waiter has retreated so far into an assumed identity that she’s almost forgotten herself. Albert simply works and saves, squirreling years of wages away in the hope of buying a small shop. It is only when a strangely sympathetic house painter discovers Albert’s identity that she imagines other possibilities for herself.

I envied the theatergoer who might have stumbled upon the production and been surprised that the character—and the person with the male-sounding name playing him—was a female. Of course, the character would have been much younger. Here, she is supposed to be 40, but looks older; the effect of this is to make Albert’s courtship of the young servant played by Mia Wasikowska faintly ridiculous, but probably also to make Albert more pitiable as one who has wasted so many years. In any case, it is a heart-rending portrayal. The fine screenplay, by Close and novelist John Banville (from a novella by George Moore), gives shape to the lives of the working-class characters. The story depends on two coincidences, but the motivations of the characters are still very much believable.

IMDb link

viewed 2/12/12 1:05 pm at Ritz 5 and reviewed ?–6/3/12

A Separation (****)

Iran boasts a fairly robust film industry, but its only filmmakers whose movies have been widely seen outside the country are Jafar Panahi, whose politically laced work led to his arrest and a ban on further filmmaking, and Abbas Kiarostami, who makes minimalist, arty films like A Taste of Cherry and The Wind Will Carry Us. This drama by Asghar Farhadi (whose previous work has been shown at US film festivals) is neither political or arty in an obvious way. It is both accessible enough to have been a hit in its native country and complex enough to garner a passel of awards.

The main characters in this story (Leila Hatami, Peyman Maadi) are a married, middle-class couple, but the wife is seeking a divorce. On what grounds an unseen clerk asks. Does he mistreat you? No, he is a good man, she explains, but will not emigrate with her. He does not wish to leave his elderly father, who has dementia. Neither party will budge. And so, instead of divorce, the couple separate, necessitating hiring a housekeeper who can also look after the old man. There is also a choice for the couple’s eleven-year-old, who elects, for now, to stay with her father.

The rest of the story is all complications that lead to an unfortunate incident and an accusation against the husband. What’s brilliant about the movie is the way it brings several elements together in a completely natural way. It has much to say about the push-pull of relationships, but it’s not a self-consciously psychological film. It depicts an unfamiliar (to Americans) legal system, but is not a legal thriller. It has certain cultural particulars—humorously, the housekeeper consults a sort of dial-a-cleric to see whether it’s okay for her to help undress the old man—but its broad themes are universal.


IMDb link

viewed 2/11/12 12:45 pm at Ritz 5

The Housemaid (***1/2)

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said that the rich “are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft, where we are hard, cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand.” South Korean director Sang-soo Im uses a remake of a 50-year-old film to explore this idea. At the same time, like its predecessor, it’s a psychological drama. Do-yeon Jeon (Secret Sunshine) plays the title character, whose sexual liaison with her wealthy employer begins a surprising and unfortunate chain of events.

When the original version of this movie was made, in 1960, South Korea was a poorer country, and the family the girl works for has struggled to afford a nice house. Here, although we never find out the source of the wealth, it’s clear that the husband has never wanted for it, and that his wife, pregnant with twins, shares his attitude of entitlement. There are a couple of other significant characters not found in the 1960 version. Notably there is an older servant who has been with the family four decades. As the film goes on, we find that she is more than a stock character, but instead a woman with her own resentments and motivation.

The older film is a well-made, but at times campy, melodrama that winds up being a bit like Fatal Attraction. Besides the issue of class being much more prominent here, the other difference is that the maid herself is a much more thought-out character, really a different one altogether. In the original, she veers wildly between heartsickness and vindictiveness in a way that suggests she’s simply a crazy girl. Sang-soo’s film is much more sympathetic to the maid. For her employer, there is another quote, attributed to Diogenes, the Greek philosopher, that seems apt: “In a rich man’s house there is no place to spit but his face.”

IMDB link

viewed at Ritz 5 [Philadelphia Film Festival] and reviewed 10/24/10

Happily N’Ever After

? Another retelling of the Cinderella story, this time an animated one from the point of view of a household servant (Fredie Prinze Jr.) who wonders what Ella (Sarah Michelle Gellar) sees in that dunderheaded prince.

+ The Cinderella plot is actually just the main thread in a larger story about all of the villains from famous fairy tales getting together and rewriting the endings to suit themselves—hence the title. The wicked stepmother (Sigourney Weaver) is the ringleader who stages a one-woman coup at the Department of Fairy Tale Land Security. It’s not a bad idea.

- However, it’s an idea that is executed very poorly. Check out Hoodwinked to see a snarky twist on an old fable that works. The supporting characters of Shrek also parody familiar characters in a more satisfying way. Perhaps this is trying to do too much at once. The pining-servant subplot ends up being extremely conventional, so much so that the screenwriter and director veer away from it for long stretches as we follow the villain. That part is muddled and probably confusing for small kids, with sarcastic asides and quick cuts that incorporate Rumpelstiltskin, Sleeping Beauty, etc. In the short runtime, there’s not enough time to do much with these other fairy tales, although the idea of Rumpelstiltskin mellowing out into a doting babysitter is one of the few decent ones here. Of the other characters, the most prominent are a tiny pig and mouse played by Andy Dick and Wallace Shawn, whose unique vocal qualities fail to render either as lovable or memorable.

= *1/2 There’s a reason this got released in the doldrums of January instead of the more competitive Christmas season, despite the fine animation. This isn’t as annoying as the previous year’s dog Doogal, but it’s probably more boring. I can’t even see kids getting excited about this mixture of blandness and witless parody.

IMDb link