For those who know the films of Wes Anderson (Rushmore, , Moonrise Kingdom, The ), there is scarcely any point in reviewing them other than in relation to each other. You already know if you’ll like this, or you haven’t seen Anderson’s work. [A recent Saturday Night Live parody, in the form of a horror movie trailer, is hilarious and specific in a way that, say, a Steven Spielberg parody could probably not have been.] Whether set on a train in India (The Darjeeling Unlimited), in the poshest parts of New York (The Royal Tenenbaums), or inside animated tunnels (The Fantastic Mr. Fox), they all seem to take place in a half-real, half fairy-tale world of pastel colors, secret passageways, and Rube Goldberg-inspired plots. His heroes are the verbose but well-meaning, like the middle-aged concierge Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) and his young protegé Zero (Tony Revolori) at the center of this period piece.
It does not take place in Budapest but in Lutz, a fictional city in a fictional Eastern European country where people mostly speak English in a variety of accents, but mostly English and American. It is supposed to be 1932, which only matters insofar as it conjures up a world in which conflict and even modernity lie ahead. Technically, it is the late 1960s; the story is told by an older man (F. Murray Abraham) to a younger one (Jude Law), and this only matters insofar as it depicts the 1930s elegance as having long past, the hotel in a long, slow decline, its past as mythical seeming as a fairy tale, though the cavernous lobby remains.
Save perhaps the anti-climactic ending, the plotting here, involving the mysterious death of an elderly guest, is clever and fun. As always, the humor comes at odd moments and in unexpected ways. For me, one such moment was when Zero is surprised to learn that one way Gustave satisfied his elderly female guests was by sleeping with them. His mentor explains that when you are young “it’s all fillet steak…but as you get older, you have to move on to the cheaper cuts.” Gustave adds that he likes the cheaper cuts. There’s no meanness in Anderson’s heroes, though this movie has a pair of villains.
Anderson is apt to quickly jettison both heroes and villains from his story. For me, his previous movie, Moonrise Kingdom, had an emotional center that differentiated it from his other work, though perhaps that was an individual response. Maybe the tale of an old man recalling his long-ago mentor and long-ago life will bring a similar nostalgia to some people. For others, it will be another solid effort by one of Hollywood’s most distinct voices.
IMDb link
viewed 3/26/14 7:30 pm at Ritz 5 and posted 3/26/14
Showing posts with label flashback structure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flashback structure. Show all posts
Friday, March 14, 2014
Thursday, March 1, 2012
The Conquest (***1/4)
The rise of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and simultaneous estrangement from his wife Cécilia are the subjects of this drama. Sarkozy’s (Denis Podalydès) wily maneuvers to pressure the man he would replace, Jacques Chirac (Bernard Le Coq), and circumvent his rival, Dominique de Villepin, will appeal to those who see politics through a cynical eye. But a more nuanced conclusion from this character study is that policy cannot be achieved without politics.
Curiously, neither the woman he defeated to become president, Ségolène Royal, nor the one he would make his second wife, Carla Bruni, appear as characters. (Royal is, however, the subject of a humorous imitation by a Sarkozy aide helping to prepare him to debate her.) But in Cécilia (Florence Pernel), we see a character who is prepared to assist her husband in his ambitions but, unlike so many wives of prominent politicians, not to surrender to them.
viewed 3/1/12 7:10 at Ritz Bourse and reviewed 3/10/12
Curiously, neither the woman he defeated to become president, Ségolène Royal, nor the one he would make his second wife, Carla Bruni, appear as characters. (Royal is, however, the subject of a humorous imitation by a Sarkozy aide helping to prepare him to debate her.) But in Cécilia (Florence Pernel), we see a character who is prepared to assist her husband in his ambitions but, unlike so many wives of prominent politicians, not to surrender to them.
viewed 3/1/12 7:10 at Ritz Bourse and reviewed 3/10/12
Thursday, December 25, 2008
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (**3/4)
Curious is Benjamin (Brad Pitt) because Benjamin ages backward. Screenwriter Eric Roth (Munich, The Good Shepherd, Ali) and director David Fincher (Zodiac, Panic Room, Fight Club) borrow this idea—and almost nothing else—from the identically titled F. Scott Fitzgerald story. Whereas Fitzgerald’s “Curious” is just that, a curious trifle, the film tries to be two things: a philosophical work, told in flashback excerpts of an old woman’s diary, and a love story of longing and separation.
Benjamin is born in New Orleans at the end of the Great War. In a concession to physical reality, he is baby-size and unlearned, but with the face, and arthritis, of an old man. Taken in by a black caregiver (Taraji P. Henson) at a nursing home, he grows larger, but not, seemingly, older. (Despite this setting and time period, racial themes are not prominent.) Time marches on, but Benjamin only grows more vigorous. Partly isolated from others by his condition, he forms mostly brief relationships. Only with his (adoptive) mother and the granddaughter of one of the nursing home residents is there a longer-lasting bond. (Fincher manages to depict the friendship of the “old man” and the little girl without it seeming creepy.) Eventually, Benjamin leaves New Orleans on a tugboat.
Except for some sexual frankness, the movie feels old-fashioned and timeless, which may be appealing. It’s beautifully shot and scored (by Alexandre Desplat). The make-up effects combine with Pitt’s elegant performance to make you forget he’s a movie star, or that the plot is outlandish. (However, I never quite understood why Benjamin assumes that he’ll regress into childishness and lose his adult memories to match his appearance. Given the way he starts out, couldn’t he as easily just look childish? I suppose the answer is that that outcome would seem more comic than poignant, as indeed the reverse situation is in the beginning, but it bothered me just the same.)
Having noticed that screenwriter Roth also wrote Forrest Gump, I realize that the two movies have a lot in common, structurally. Although comedy was more prominent in Gump, both movies feature the life stories of their central characters, and romances in which the strangeness of the hero creates a challenge. Despite this, I liked Gump a lot better. For all of the loveliness of this one, I felt unconnected to the story, and two reasons suggest themselves. The first is that, notwithstanding Pitt’s performance, Benjamin is not that memorable a character. Gump annoyed some people, true, but Button won’t annoy anyone because his only major characteristics are a certain reserved politeness, and his love for the girl, played as an adult by Cate Blanchett. Which brings up the other reason I didn’t love the movie. Blanchett is another fine performer, and her role has more personality to it, but when we first see her, I could not connect this hard-edged ballet dancer to the sweet child first encountered. There is too much separation in time and in character. And so I remained unconvinced, or maybe just unmoved, by the placid man’s reawakened ardor. I actually found Benjamin’s other romance, with an unhappily married Englishwoman (Tilda Swinton), a more compelling storyline, but it’s a much smaller part of the movie.
I’m not saying there was no poignancy at all in the way these two people can love but not grow old together, or in the way that the movie reminds us of how our connections with other people make us human. But I preferred the warmer tone of Gump, where the female lead is in some way like Blanchett’s—hard, but in a way that makes it easier to see the tenderness within. In fact, a more recent movie, Slumdog Millionaire, tells a very similar romantic tale, wherein the hero tries to reconnect with his childhood friend, now a toughened-up young woman. There too, I rooted harder for the couple than here. This is clearly a well-crafted movie, and so I know some people are going to like it a lot. But in my case, it just seems like an overlong curiosity.
IMDB link
viewed 12/1/08 (screening at Ritz Bourse); reviewed 1/25/09
Benjamin is born in New Orleans at the end of the Great War. In a concession to physical reality, he is baby-size and unlearned, but with the face, and arthritis, of an old man. Taken in by a black caregiver (Taraji P. Henson) at a nursing home, he grows larger, but not, seemingly, older. (Despite this setting and time period, racial themes are not prominent.) Time marches on, but Benjamin only grows more vigorous. Partly isolated from others by his condition, he forms mostly brief relationships. Only with his (adoptive) mother and the granddaughter of one of the nursing home residents is there a longer-lasting bond. (Fincher manages to depict the friendship of the “old man” and the little girl without it seeming creepy.) Eventually, Benjamin leaves New Orleans on a tugboat.
Except for some sexual frankness, the movie feels old-fashioned and timeless, which may be appealing. It’s beautifully shot and scored (by Alexandre Desplat). The make-up effects combine with Pitt’s elegant performance to make you forget he’s a movie star, or that the plot is outlandish. (However, I never quite understood why Benjamin assumes that he’ll regress into childishness and lose his adult memories to match his appearance. Given the way he starts out, couldn’t he as easily just look childish? I suppose the answer is that that outcome would seem more comic than poignant, as indeed the reverse situation is in the beginning, but it bothered me just the same.)
Having noticed that screenwriter Roth also wrote Forrest Gump, I realize that the two movies have a lot in common, structurally. Although comedy was more prominent in Gump, both movies feature the life stories of their central characters, and romances in which the strangeness of the hero creates a challenge. Despite this, I liked Gump a lot better. For all of the loveliness of this one, I felt unconnected to the story, and two reasons suggest themselves. The first is that, notwithstanding Pitt’s performance, Benjamin is not that memorable a character. Gump annoyed some people, true, but Button won’t annoy anyone because his only major characteristics are a certain reserved politeness, and his love for the girl, played as an adult by Cate Blanchett. Which brings up the other reason I didn’t love the movie. Blanchett is another fine performer, and her role has more personality to it, but when we first see her, I could not connect this hard-edged ballet dancer to the sweet child first encountered. There is too much separation in time and in character. And so I remained unconvinced, or maybe just unmoved, by the placid man’s reawakened ardor. I actually found Benjamin’s other romance, with an unhappily married Englishwoman (Tilda Swinton), a more compelling storyline, but it’s a much smaller part of the movie.
I’m not saying there was no poignancy at all in the way these two people can love but not grow old together, or in the way that the movie reminds us of how our connections with other people make us human. But I preferred the warmer tone of Gump, where the female lead is in some way like Blanchett’s—hard, but in a way that makes it easier to see the tenderness within. In fact, a more recent movie, Slumdog Millionaire, tells a very similar romantic tale, wherein the hero tries to reconnect with his childhood friend, now a toughened-up young woman. There too, I rooted harder for the couple than here. This is clearly a well-crafted movie, and so I know some people are going to like it a lot. But in my case, it just seems like an overlong curiosity.
IMDB link
viewed 12/1/08 (screening at Ritz Bourse); reviewed 1/25/09
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