Stranger by the Lake (**3/4)

Sex and violence and friendship are the subject of this slow-building suspense drama. Directed by Alain Guiraudie, who also plays a small role, the French film makes a virtue of what must have been a tiny budget by making the sole location, a lakeside beach mostly populated by gay men, into a sort of character. The main human character is Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps), who falls hard for a mustachioed man (Christophe Paou) he sees in the woods, then watches the man drown his lover at twilight. He does not call the police, though a police detective eventually comes calling.

On the slow way to a tension-filled, mysterious ending, Guiraudie seems to be at least as interested in depicting a particular kind of cruising scene as in his characters, and much more so than in morality. While some men swim in the lake, or lounge nude (most of them) on the stony shore, others stroll along the path in the nearby woods, where one might find a casual encounter, then look up to find a schlubby voyeur watching with his pants down. With the bright sun reflected off the lake and the overall quietness (the movie has no music), this all comes off as banal more than seedy, although it is worth noting that this probably had the most explicit sex scenes I’ve seen in a movie theater.

We learn only so much about Franck or his murderous lover. Actually, we learn more about the other major character, a pudgy man who claims only to want peace and quiet after breaking up with his girlfriend, and whom Franck befriends. The blandly handsome Franck is kind of a blank slate, his major attribute a boyish inability to see consequences.

IMDb link

viewed 3/27/14 7:15 at Ritz Bourse and posted 3/27/14

The Sessions (***1/4)

The most notable thing about this small drama isn’t that the main character (John Hawkes) is severely handicapped, but that it so sensitively captures sexual inexperience from a male perspective.

That the story comes from a magazine article called “On Seeing a Sex Surrogate,” published by poet Mark O’Brien, explains the judiciously narrow focus of the movie. That its writer-director, Ben Lewin, whose primary credits are 1980s and 1990s Australian features, has captured O’Brien’s experience so ably may also have to do with Lewin’s having had, like O’Brien, childhood polio, though with less severe consequences.

In O’Brien’s case, the effect of the polio was virtual paralysis; yet, unlike a paralyzed person, he retained feeling throughout his body. One almost expects a handicapped character on screen to be feisty, as in My Left Foot, or cantankerous, like Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman. Perhaps the contrast between the boldness of personality and the physical passivity is appealing. But O’Brien has a gentle personality; he’s reluctant to fire his caretaker, who’s competent, but unpleasant.

Hawkes, who plays this gentle man, is clearly one who is really able to embody striking different characters. If I hadn’t seen the name, I’d have failed to recognize him from his creepy turns in Winter’s Bone and Marcy May Martha Marlene. As the surrogate, Helen Hunt has her best role since 1997’s As Good As It Gets; while she does not have the obvious acting challenge of playing a handicapped person, she embodies the matter-of-fact attitude and comfort level with nudity and sexuality that such a person would need to have.

It is in providing a kind of intimacy, not merely sex, that differentiates the surrogate from a prostitute, and this is best thought of as a movie about intimacy as well as sex. The disability and physical limitations are certainly presented, but Lewin underplays the tragic aspects of O’Brien’s existence. His unusual friendship with a priest (William H. Macy), with whom he has frank discussions that test the boundaries of traditional church teachings, is a frequent source of humor throughout the movie. The achievement of this movie is not to make O’Brien into an inspirational figure, but to make him seem normal.

IMDb link

viewed 10/3/12 7:30 at Ritz east [PFS screening] and reviewed 11/3–4/12

Leap Year (**3/4)

This not to be confused with the recent Amy Adams romantic comedy of the same name, and no one will make that mistake after watching this Mexican psychological drama for even a few minutes. It’s very difficult to describe without giving too much away, but the early part suggests that director Michael Rowe means to make an extremely intimate film. As business writer Laura, Monica del Carmen, who had a small part in Babel, gives a performance that can literally be called brave. Almost all of the scenes take place in a modest Mexico City apartment, and the effect is voyeuristic, like we are spying on Laura, who appears to be in her 30s. She types on her laptop and casually picks her nose. She eats packaged food. She takes a call from her mother, far south in Oaxaca province. She watches the neighbors through her window and masturbates. Some nights she goes out and picks up strange men. Last, she crosses off the day on her calendar.

This portrait of loneliness changes when one of the men returns. We learn a little more about Laura, see all of her, and surmise something about her past, yet although the movie will not be easy to forget, the effect may be more shock than enlightenment.

IMDB link

viewed 10/24/10 at Ritz 5 [Philadelphia Film Festival] and reviewed 10/25/10

Don’t Look Down (**3/4)

Sensuality reigns in this Argentine tale of a stilt-walking, sleepwalking young man whose chance meeting with a slightly older woman of the world changes his life. Or at least his sex life. As the above description suggests, there are a few quirks in both the story and the young man, who thinks his recently deceased father is writing messages in his diary while he sleeps. Death and sex are significant themes, mixing in a way I didn’t quite grasp. However, sex predominates, as the Spanish señorita teaches the young man how to thrust 81 times without climaxing, not to mention such positions as the “Monkey Coiling Around a Tree.” That this Jean Brodie of copulation is played by lovely Antonella Costa helps, since she’s naked in half of her scenes. (Fairly, lead Leandro Stivelman also reveals “Marlon,” the nickname his appendage is given—yes, after Brando—in the movie.) Undoubtedly, this is a cut above the late-night pay cable flicks it comes close to resembling at times. But classy eroticism, light comic touches, and impressive visuals (not merely the sex, but the stilt-walking) don’t completely make up for the lack of any substantial plot.

IMDB link

viewed at Ritz East 2 (Philadelphia Film Festival) and reviewed 4/6/09

Lust, Caution (***1/4)

Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain follow-up trades rustic Wyoming for stylish Shanghai in an erotic thriller set as the Japanese are consolidating their occupation of China just before World War II. All of Lee’s films are evocative of place and time, and I was drawn into this world from the opening scene, which crackles with maj-jongg tiles being tossed about like the conversation of the women playing, talk of business deals, black market consumer goods, and romantic gossip. One woman is significantly younger than the others, a seemingly naive recent bride. She’s not, but that gets ahead of the story, an adaptation of a novella by Eileen Chang that is loosely based on fact.

The young woman, played by newcomer Tang Wei, is a university student recruited by an acting troupe who are also self-styled revolutionaries who amateurishly plot to assassinate a collaborator. Given a pseudonym, a false identity, and some clumsy, comical lessons in seduction, she becomes acquainted with the powerful man and her own sexuality.\

IMDB link

reviewed 11/02/07

2 Days in Paris (***)

Ah, Julie Delpy. She acts, in French and English. She directs. She writes. She even writes music. She’s done all of those things in this most unromantic of comedies that pairs her with Adam Goldberg. Don’t mind a lot of bickering and you’ll find this frequently funny and sometimes more.

Superficially, 2 Days is like Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, the brainy Richard Linklater romancers in which a charming Delpy starred with Ethan Hawke. But charm isn’t what the actress/auteur is aiming for. Goldberg, as the American boyfriend, is a crankier, hairier variation on Woody Allen’s persona. On her home turf, he marvels at number of ex-boyfriends they run into, and her surprisingly good relationships with them. Delpy’s own character could be called flighty.

The plot is beside the point. Dividing their time between visiting with her colorful but not dysfunctional family (Delpy’s real parents act these roles), attending parties, and hitting a tourist attraction or two, this semi-happy couple hash out their relationship issues, dis each other’s nationalities (and sometimes their own), and generally talk a lot (frequently about sex). Obviously, this won’t appeal to everyone. Occasionally, I questioned whether the characters would behave as they do; the supporting characters in particular seem unnaturally colorful. Between this and Rush Hour 3, one could get the idea that Parisians drove cabs just to have a captive audience for their rants. But what I did like was that Delpy, as writer-director, doesn’t take sides. It’s not clear who we are supposed to agree with, or which of her characters’ sometimes questionable attitudes are hers. (Except, I’d guess, their mutual contempt for George W. Bush.) Probably people will differ about which of these characters is more sympathetic, whether the couple should stay together, and whether French people are really like that.

I’ll still take Before Sunset over this, but it’s something different.

IMDB link

reviewed 8/23/07–8/30/07

Superbad (***1/4)

A vulgar but funny teen comedy. Mixing the one-crazy-night plots of multiple generations of youth films (American Graffiti, Sixteen Candles) with the geeky-guy-seeks-hot-girl theme of, well, mostly the same movies, this pairs up Jonah Hill and Michael Cera (Arrrested Develpment) as pals on the eve of graduation. The script is co-written by Seth Rogen (Knocked Up), who penned the first draft at age 16 and looks not unlike Hill. Too old to play the lead, Rogen instead plays, along with Bill Hader (of Saturday Night Live), one of the two least competent movie cops ever (and the most over-the-top characters in a movie whose leads actually seem like real teenagers).

The movie earns its R rating for lots of language, underage drinking, and illegal substance use, but doesn’t use raunch as a substitute for humor. Unlike the American Pie movies, the jokes don’t rely on repeatedly humiliating the main characters. They relate to desperate attempts to score some alcohol to bring to the big end-of-school bash, to encounters with the cops, and to male-bonding via insults. The heroes are underdogs in terms of the social heirarchy, but aren’t quite at the bottom, making their potential hook-ups with the school hotties at least semi-plausible. Closer to the bottom would be Christopher Mintz-Plasse, in a memorable debut as the nerdy third wheel transformed via the magic of the fake ID.

Like so many teen comedies, the girls are second-tier characters in a film that is dedicated to the joys of hetero-male friendship. But for a movie about underage sex and drinking, there is a fairly positive social message. If these characters can’t quite yet see women as their peers, the ending suggests that one day they might develop into the sort of characters who would, who could, perhaps, be characters in Knocked Up. Right now they’re just two very funny kids.

IMDB link

reviewed 8/23/07

The 40 Year Old Virgin (*** 1/4)

Despite some crass (but usually funny) moments, this wasn’t the brainless nerd-a-thon it could have been. The title character (Steve Carell) hasn’t quite gotten past his childhood. His apartment features a poster of Asia (the 1980s rock supergroup, not the continent) and a display of action figures from The Six-Million-Dollar Man. Yet he’s not some aging Urkel who’s merely an object of ridicule. The movie’s funny because you can buy the character and therefore the premise. This shouldn’t be surprising, since director and co-writer (with Carell) Judd Apatow created the brilliant TV show Freaks and Geeks, which also wrung laughs out of sexual frustration. This isn’t quite up to that level. The supporting non-virgins (they’re all supposed to be co-workers at Circuit City—sorry, Super Tech), full of bad advice, are amusing, but not wildly original. And I didn’t go home feeling the sort of fondness I did toward the Freaks and Geeks bunch. But I did laugh.

IMDB link

viewed 8/27/05 (?); reviewed 8/29/05