Never Let Me Go

Never Let Me Go is a cold film. It's beautiful, sure. But it's cold. The only warmth and tenderness (quite intentionally) comes from the interaction between Kathy and Tommy. Circumstances both familiar and strange keep them circling each other, but their affection is always readily recognizable. This is a film of subtlety. Even when you long for it to smack you over the head with grandstanding bravado, it takes its time to simmer slowly. The first act echoes this. It should be slimmer. We spend time with the three leads as children. Even though the adult trio of Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, and Keira Knightly easily overshadow their younger counterparts, the film holds fast to the story and character development.

The story's science and politics didn't interest me. I wonder if they even interested the writers. What kept me involved was that warmth and tenderness in the performances that conveyed those feelings in the midst of cold beauty. Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield are real talents. These two can win Oscars (the new Spiderman be damned). Their work here isn't flashy enough to stick in the minds of the Academy, but it stuck with me. Love found too late, but found nonetheless is the crux here. Its because the science and the politics are secondary issues to their relationships that the film works.

***1/2

Rachel Getting Married

Be prepared for heaps of praise. I've been overusing the term "organic" lately, but Rachel Getting Married is certainly worthy of such a designation. There is not one false note in this film (perhaps to a fault). It is filled with lived in performances from an excellent cast deserving recognition come awards season. Chief among the standouts is Anne Hathaway. She stunned me with her vulnerability and willingness to leave her character to be interpreted and felt by the audience. Her character is not immediately likable, and she is certainly the catalyst for poking of the raw nerve of the family. She reveals her character slowly. I thought I had her pegged within the first 15 minutes, but there's depth to her and her relationships with her immediate family. Rosemarie Dewitt, as the title character, offers up a great supporting performance full of honesty, hurt, love, and tenderness that notes the breakout of a wonderful new talent. Family tragedy plays a large part to the raw nerve, but director Jonathan Demme and writer Jenny Lumet allow for the details to reveal themselves in fresh, real ways culminating with Anne Hathaway's Kym's harrowing confession to a support group. There's much to rave about when considering this film, but perhaps the biggest praise I can offer is that I not only watched this film but also felt every moment caught in the camera's grasp. Rachel Getting Married is a bare bones indie. There's not much style to it visually, though it certainly isn't bland. Rather, Demme allows the camera to be an unobtrusive voyeur in this family's intimate moment. The wedding rehearsal dinner might have gone on too long, but I chalked up its length to the revelation of these characters through unknown eyes and histories. And you better believe that there was a horror in my heart the moment Kym reached for the microphone. The wedding reception, also, may have run a bit long, but by that point in the film I had given myself over completely to these characters and their moment. I also was wonderfully aware that it was the coolest wedding I have ever seen. Rachel Getting Married understands and portrays the great complexity of familial love, resentment, regret, and heartache like no other film this year.

****1/2

The Savages

I had heard mixed reviews for this movie for a while, but I read the script for my screenwriting class and really enjoyed it. The movie was its own kind of pleasure. I think since I can relate to having a loved one in a nursing home with dementia, the character echoed my parents in ways I couldn't see before. The guilt. The awkward, heartbreaking goodbyes after short visits. The struggle to see your parents weak and frail and dying. And family. Another family movie that speaks to the strange ties that bind. Thick blood that sticks to everything even when it hurts. This is strong writing. This is strong acting. Laura Linney has her own brand of theatricity, but she is, to borrow a classic critic cliche, a winning performer. Her acting is specific to her and I can say with a smile that she played her character in a way no other actress could have. She's not imitating anyone. And after seeing Phillip Seymour Hoffman in his spectrum of quality performances this year (Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Charlie Wilson's War), I'd have to say that his work as John Savage is my favorite. It's not the gritty drama of BTDKYD, but it offers its own kind of drama. The chemistry between Hoffman, Linney, and the fine Phillip Bosco as their father is palpable. He's able to create a conflicted character that easily could have turned into the "evil brother". Instead, there was a helpless sadness to the guy that seemed all too familiar. There's comedy, but this is really a drama through and through. And rewarding at that.

****

Ordinary People

For the longest time, the only time I heard about Ordinary People was when people mentioned that it robbed Raging Bull of Best Director and Best Picture Oscars in 1980. Then I saw Timothy Hutton in Beautiful Girls a while back and tried to find out what he's all about. Turns out he won a deserved Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1980 for Ordinary People. "Huh," I said. "I oughtta see that." And now i finally have.

Ordinary People is a film boiling over with emotional truth. The ordinary people of the title are relatable. I could know them. I could be them. I certainly saw parts of myself in characters.

The film is about a family struggling to connect and keep a sense of normality after the accidental death of one son and the attempted suicide of another. That's enough to make any family crack. And they certainly do.

Hutton plays the son, Conrad, who attempted suicide. The film starts as he is going back to school at the beginning of a new school year. He received the Oscar for a supporting role, but his story anchors the entire film. He carries it. Everybody else helps, but he shoulders the best of it.

He delivered a big, bright, and amazing performance. Somehow he was able to stare blankly at nothing and convey an avalanche of thought behind his eyes. His awkwardness and anger in therapy scenes with Dr. Berger (Judd Hirsch) were accurately and believable performed. What really struck me in those scenes was the details he put into inflection, stops and starts, and change in emotions that were impeccable.

Hirsch played the dream psychiatrist, one who pulls you through your reluctance and resistance to a place you could never have reached on your own. It might be a movie myth - this amazing type of psychiatrist. But it certainly works in Ordinary People.

I liked that the love story between Conrad and a co-ed (Elizabeth McGovern), although helpful and ultimately rewarding, was shown as a brief interruption from troubles, but ultimately not the answer. A lesser movie would have made the journey to revelation for Conrad be with his girlfriend and not his psychiatrist.

Conrad's parents are a mess. They're able to fake pleasantness and stability, even happiness, but it's all just an escape from all the shit that keeps happening around them. The father Call, played by Donald Sutherland, is attempting to address the hardships head-on. The mother Beth, played by Mary Tyler Moore is trying to get over it all and get on with their lives.

The parents are a flip on conventional parental and gender roles. Cal is worried, nurturing, loving, and supportive. Beth is emotionally distant and/or callous, and wants to gloss over the past in favor of a happy future. This displays a characteristic common to all the characters and performances. They are all complicated, layered, and detailed.

I've never seen Sutherland like this before cautious, questioning, contemplative. And his work as a father fits him well. It's hard when an actor's been around so long that and the young people (myself and contemporaries) are only familiar with his work in Outbreak, The Italian Job, and The Puppet Masters. He's good.

Moore is amazing in this role. It's the performance of a lifetime. Her Beth is complicated and maddening but still sympathetic somehow amongst all her transgressions. When her characters was finally revealed as weak, the revelation clarified everything that preceded it and acted like a magnifying glass on Moore's perfect gift for imperfections.

Robert Redford directed the movie and handles his performers exceptionally well. His handling of flashbacks and memories was less successful. The echoed voices, the fuzzy outlines, the quick cuts - it's all too conventional and too showy for a movie that is able to understate other big themes and performances so well.

This movie was like therapy for me. The aftermath of a suicide attempt is familiar. The loss of control. The way others handle you with kid gloves that bothers ya', or bothers ya' when they don't. And most familiar was the struggling with what confronting real, raw, and honest emotions will mean. Ordinary People does it all so well.

Good Will Hunting and American Beauty owe debts to Ordinary People. They didn't steal from it, but they still owe a lot.

****

Waitress

It has been a good week for movie watching. I caught Waitress a few hours after watching Once. Each are excellent films with winning qualities. It's wrong to label Waitress as a romantic comedy. It's really a character piece. It's about Jenna the waitress, everybody else is just a part of her life. She was a wonderful character to spend time with. It helps that she's very funny, as is the film. Laugh out loud. And in ways I didn't quite expect.

Waitress is a charming little comedy with wonderful characters and performances. I was all about Keri Russell. She's spitfire, man. All woman.

I've seen her pine for a better life, but never in such a defeated way. Her Jenna is stuck with an awful husband who is both intimidating and menacing while remaining incredibly needy. I cringed every time he touched Jenna. I wanted to save her. But she didn't need saving. She said so herself. Russell also handled dialogue very well. She has many wonderful conversations in the movie, and she always manages to steal each one out from under the other talented performers around her. It's a memorable performance I'll be talking about for some time.

This movie is about finding happiness. Sometimes, it means messing up. Sometimes it means settling. Sometimes it means saying no to what you thought it was. Sometimes it means...well, you get the idea. Lots of definitions unique to each person.

I liked the feel of the movie. It was sweet and sassy, and sometimes dark. Jenna basically hates her unborn child and curses her every once in a while. I did feel bad for her while she felt bad for herself. And I rooted for her. I really rooted for her. I wanted her to be happy.

SPOILERS SPOILERS

When she found happiness, she found strength. It was so unexpected that I appreciated it all the more. The final scene with Jenna walking hand in hand with her little girl was priceless. It was so unusual to feel so happy walking out of the movie after Jenna had been so unhappy for much of the film. The happiness she found was abrupt, a 180 move. But I believed it because the filmmakers and Russell sold it so well. I didn't believe her husband would fold so easily afterwards, but I appreciated the way she found strength when she found love. Real love. Not the kind she had with her equally charming doctor played by Nathan Fillion. It was interesting to see the two become intoxicated with each other because the film didn't really dwell on the fact that both were committing adultery. Rather the film chose to focus on how each fulfilled a missing part of each other for a spell.

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I also liked how the film realistically portrayed how people rationalize doing things that are considered wrong. And I didn't blame them. They convinced me.
These people have to work things out for themselves. No amount of preaching is going to fix things for them.

I can't really complain about anything about the film. It was a great way to spend an evening.

****

Sherrybaby

This is another addict movie, the genre of which I have been watching much of late. Sherry (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is a manipulative, angry, selfish woman trying to get her life in order. She exhibits a lot of bad qualities complete with bad habits, but she honestly wants to do better and be better. She just doesn't know how. And everytime she tries and fails is a wince-inducing moment. She tries often. The peformance is uncompromising and the writer/director has created a complicated character who is hard to root for. She has goals, specifically to become a mother to her daughter again, but in that respect I found it difficult to want her to get there because every attempt was maddening. Her brother roots for her, but even he has gotten used to the idea that his sister may never get right for good. And that is the feeling I as a viewer was left with. I wanted to see her pull through and win, but any movie that tries to portray that faces the risk of sentimentality. I've seen it before. Still, I want to believe every time that addicts will get better and stay better. Sherrybaby portrays the attempts in a realistic manner, with Sherry ultimately facing the idea that she can't make the jump from being the idea of mother to being an actual mother without help. And she offers honest humility before her brother before going into in-patient care. The ending avoids the over sentimentality it could have embraced in favor on a more authentic, satisfying feeling.

***

Maria Full of Grace

I saw Maria Full of Grace with great expectations for the indie. I wasn't disappointed. Catalina Sandino Moreno was amazing. The film won't work if she won't work, but luckily for me, she does. She is a natural. It is one of the best performances by a leading lady that I have seen in a long time. She just inhabits the role. She lives in the skin of the character to the point where I can no longer see the actress, leaving only a life-like character dealing with extraordinary circumstances. I don't know anything about the drug trade or what mules go through other than their small roles in Law and Order and Traffic. But the portrayal of the life of a mule and the dangers and fears they face felt extremely real. Even when the face of Maria was quiet and steadfast in danger, I could sense her fear. It's the mark of a good film to get complexities across when surfaces are what you see. That isn't to say the emotional scenes do not reveal as much as the quiet ones. Each offer their own kind of intensity. Maria Full of Grace is a very intense movie for a drama. This is not a thriller or action movie. It is just a well made bare bones drama with a great lead performance.

****

Junebug

This was much better the second time around after my initial sky high expectations had lowered and I was able to accept this film for the lovely indie it is. I never questioned the quality of Amy Adams' performance. She is a "firecracker" who alternately warmed my spirits and broke my heart. The ease with which she does both is the mark of a truly talented performer. She is, in my opinion, thbe Best Supporting Actress of 2005. The rest of the performances are very good two. It would have been easy for the actors to put in caractures of southern bumpkins. But each character is felshed out and complex. There's subtext to every action and every word. It's had to put a finger on the reason I'm not giving it a higher rating. I guess I just didn't love it. It's a good movie, no question, but I didn't have that deep connection with the final product.

***1/2

Marie Antoinette

This is not for history buffs. The inaccuracies will bug the hell out of them. But, you know what? Get over it. It's a character piece. It captures feelings of real people during real events. I don't think Coppola has ever claimed that she was trying to tell it like it was. I think she was aiming for what it could have been. And that's fine. That's good even. Because it works on that account. Kirsten Dunst has never been my favorite actress, but I think she breaks a bit of ground with this film. In between her usual Dunstisms, she believably portrays a teenager obsessed with "things" (i.e. - owning them) and the pressures of fulfilling the expectations of an entire country (which she doesn't). Jason Schwartzman steals the show with his understated humor. He's hilariously awkward, a teenager that happens to be king. Complaints could be made about the contemporary music being inserted into the period film, but you just have to get over it. Toss yourself in and submerse until you're breathing the movie like air. It's a fun time. It's a good film.

***1/2

Half Nelson

Half Nelson is a wonderful film about friendship and making strides. There have been plenty of films about teachers making a difference in the lives of their students, but how many films actually show a real difference a student can make in the life of their teacher. The film can be heartbreaking with generic tear drop scenes that somehow scream authenticity or looks in characters' eyes that linger and are so layered I could take about the resonance for hours. I liked how Half Nelson portrayed addiction. Ryan Gosling just kept making me to yell "snap out of it!" But addiction is harder than that. We forget sometimes. The struggle Gosling goes through is internal. His words betray him. He can handle it, and all that jazz. But the struggle feels real. He's not a bad guy. He can be self-centered and rude and cold, but he genuinely cares about Shareeka Epps. Without that gleem of caring, I think it would have been more difficult for me to sympathize with Gosling's character (like the trouble I had with Nic Cage in Leaving Las Vegas). Gosling's performance is, I think, the best of the year. It was very genuine, sometimes painfully so. And in spite of his character's flaws, I felt justified in rooting for the guy, in part because Shareeka Epps was rooting for him. She is a real find. Her laughs, her little smiles and anger all breathe naturally. The characters needed each other in a way that I think is unique in the portrayals of teacher-student relationship in film where usually one depends more on the other (usually student depends on teacher). The change was welcome.

Gotta' love that open-ended ending. They give you hope without ramming your skull with it. the ending felt so natural to the point where any other possible ending just seems wrong now.

****