The Orphanage (***)

The adoptive parents of a young boy with AIDS (Belén Rueda) buys the wife’s childhood home in this psychological horror film from Spain. It’s not the sort of movie where heads are getting sliced off, but rather the kind where something mysterious is going on. The boy’s imaginary friends, already a source of concern, begin to occupy much of his time, and the elaborate games they play unnerve his mother. His drawings of them seem uncannily particular, and when he disappears in a cave one day there are other footsteps besides his. Is this a ghost story, or one of madness, and how does it connect to the house’s days as a home for orphans?

This reminded me of The Others and older movies in feel. It has a couple of genuinely scary moments but more often maintains a creepy sense of foreboding. The use of a lighthouse and other visual motifs is effective. There is very little dependence on special effects; the story builds with subtlety, though in terms or horror it flags somewhat in the middle. The ending doesn’t pack quite the same shock as The Others, or The Sixth Sense, but fits the movie, which in any case works well as a drama.


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December Boys (**3/4)

Four orphans get a seaside holiday in this adaptation of Michael Noonan’s novel. The mixture of coming-of-age drama with hinted-at dark subtext recalls Stand by Me. Daniel Radcliffe gets his first substantial non-Harry Potter role as the oldest of the boys, Maps. He’s after a lovely local lass, while the youngest boy, called Misty for his sensitivity, concentrates on appealing to a young, childless couple. It is the unseen adult version of Misty who narrates. The records the girl plays for Maps pinpoint the date as circa 1970, but the southern Australian coastal area where most of the movie is set is meant to represent an idyllic, timeless place. In this it is effective, though a longer prologue at the orphanage would have established more contrast. This is one of the few movies I’ve actually thought could benefit from being a little longer. The supporting roles, including the older couple who shelter the lads, seem underdeveloped, and this makes a difference, because the point of the movie would seem to be how the boys’ personalities alternately cohere and fray when they experience life beyond the orphanage. Director Rod Hardy pushes things slightly too much in the direction of heartwarming where they should be bittersweet, and tacks on an inevitable, throwaway epilogue that is neither. Radcliffe, essaying an Aussie accent, does well to establish his acting bona fides, and his first-romance tale, though familiar, is perhaps stronger than the main storyline.

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reviewed 9/21/07

After the Wedding (***1/2)

? An orphanage manager (Mads Mikkelsen) reluctantly leaves Bombay to return to his native Denmark to make a funding pitch to a wealthy businessman. An offhand invitation to the wedding of the businessman’s daughter leads to an unexpected reunion with consequences for both men, as well as for the businessman’s wife and children. Directed by Susanne Bier (Brothers, Open Hearts).

+ The well-crafted screenplay has two significant surprises that have stunning consequences. In the businessman we see both how wealth is used for power and the limits of that power. His actions create an unexpected moral dilemma for the other man. Mikkelsen, who played the villain Le Chiffre in Casino Royale, shows his versatility, and the rest of the cast is equally strong. I especially liked Rolf Lassgård as the rich man whose actions leave the most room for different interpretations, and whom we see as imperious CEO, doting father, angry drunk, and more.

- I think I’d have liked there to be another scene in the movie where I found out more about what the other characters think about the aforementioned moral dilemma. Bier’s frequent use of extreme close-ups is occasionally distracting.

= ***1/2 Whether you like good plot twists, morality plays, or just good character dramas, this is a winner that deserved its nomination for Best Foreign Language film.

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Meet the Robinsons (***1/4)

? An animated Disney film about a orphaned science geek who dreams of finding out about his past but gets side-tracked by the future. Based on the book A Day with Wilbur Robinson by William Joyce.
+ Visual invention and conceptual imagination are all over the place. The plot hinges on the boy’s attempt to invent a device to look back in time, and while that’s a fanciful idea, it’s appealing too. Futuristic flying machines, a talking bowler hat that’s smarter than its wearer (the nominal villain), and genetically altered, singing frogs are all part of the story. Thematically, the message of the movie is to follow your inner goofball.
- So much is happening all at once that some people mind find all the zaniness overwhelming, and the youngest kids will probably get lost in all of the Back to the Future type contradictions.
= ***1/4 On the whole, a lot of fun.

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reviewed 4/6/07

Norbit (*1/2)

? A meek man (Eddie Murphy) marries a bossy fat woman (Eddie Murphy) whose brothers are secretly scheming to buy the restaurant/orphanage where he grew up from its elderly Chinese owner (Eddie Murphy) and turn it into a “titty bar.” Thandie Newton plays the major character not played by Murphy, a skinny childhood sweetheart who reenters his life along with her new fiancée (Cuba Gooding Jr.).
+ The lengthy, silly prologue, set in the orphanage, sets you up for a series of lame pratfalls that, thankfully, never come. Norbit is actually a reasonably appealing character, although you wonder how he acquired the quasi-lisp Murphy’s given him, since it’s not apparent in the childhood scenes. He’s something like Forrest Gump if he were a little smarter and the movie he was in was a lot dumber. Murphy’s mimicry skills serve him well when he plays the racist yet kindly Mr. Wong, who provokes very occasional snickers.
- Who would have thought that Eddie Murphy would have looked at Martin Lawrence and gotten jealous of his fat suit? This will only be hilarious if you think Lawrence’s Big Momma movies needed more fat jokes. Momma, and Murphy’s rotund Nutty Professor, were essentially positive characters, but “Rasputia” is a pure villain, and the main figure of fun as well. Rasputia can’t fit behind the wheel of the car, Rasputia’s passionate lovemaking style breaks the bed until it’s reinforced with concrete, Rasputia’s rolls of fat hang so low you can’t see if her bikini has a bottom, etc. You’ll get the idea very quickly. Everything else is nearly worthy of a second-rate sitcom.
= *1/2 Not quite the worst movie to open in the first two months of 2007, but not funny by a long shot. Take the kids if you want them to learn to mock fat people, call women “bitches,” and think of pimps as someone to seek out as friends. Give me The Adventures of Pluto Nash (Murphy’s 2002 megaflop) any day. Seriously.

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reviewed 2/16/07

Nacho Libre (**3/4)

Jared and Jerusha Hess recapture some of the feel of their first film, Napoleon Dynamite, straddling the line between humor and oddness as they tell the tale of a Mexican monastery cook (Jack Black) who desires to wrestle and wrestles with his desire for a cute nun.

A vehicle for its curvaceous star, Jack Black, this odd comedy is also the husband-wife duo Jared and Jerusha Hess’s follow-up to the left-field hit Napoleon Dynamite. (Their writing collaborator, Mike White, also co-wrote Black’s hit School of Rock.) Without a doubt the best wrestling movie ever set at a Mexican Catholic orphanage, it features Black as a put-upon cook who yens for the ring. (The story was perhaps inspired by a Mexican wrestling priest, Fray Tormenta.) The feel of the movie is not unlike Napoleon Dynamite, and similarly straddles the line between funny and merely strange, just as the underdog Nacho character walks the line between heroic and pathetic. (He’s not exactly an instant success in the ring.) Much humor is supposed to come from Black’s accented pronunciation of phrases like “stretchy pants.” (Funny.) Then there are scenes like the one where Nacho and his wrestling partner train by, among other things, tossing a beehive. (Strange.) Did I mention that the potential romantic interest (Ana de la Reguera, who looks like Penélope Cruz’s prettier sister) is a nun? I don’t know who suggested the apparently obscure “Hombre Religioso,” recorded in 1975 by Mr. Loco, as a recurring motif in the movie, but the goofy/charming song fits right in with the Spanglish feel. Nacho Libre is like that. It’s not the best movie (and not as good as Napoleon), and if the whole scenario sounds dumb, I doubt watching it will convince you otherwise. But even its oddest moments feel organic, not studied, and it hangs together right to the end.

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posted and rating revised 8/15/13