Probably many will disagree with the first sentence of my review, but I really disliked the film version of The Da Vinci Code. I enjoyed the book, and I simply couldn't find it anywhere in the movie. Now a confession: I haven't read Angels and Demons, and I have no plans to. Perhaps this influences my assessment of the film; but if so, so what? For whatever reason, I liked it a lot. I enjoyed seeing Hanks in the role of Robert Langdon this time, Ayelet Zurer taught me a new respect for particle physics, and Ewan McGregor (one of my favorite actors) turned in a terrific performance. The Rome locations were well used, and there was an amazing scene toward the end in St. Peter's Square involving a helicopter. For a blockbuster summer picture, this one has some brains to go along with the brawn. I say unto you it's worth seeing. Amen.
ANGELS AND DEMONS
Angels and Demons is about 100 times better than The Da Vinci Code. Director Ron Howard’s puzzling 2006 adaptation of Code, Dan Brown’s monster bestseller about a secret Catholic organization’s attempt to suppress the “true” history of Jesus, turned a superior potboiler into an inferior one with depressing ease. Code still raked in enough money to make the Vatican envious, but fans worldwide felt sinned against. Now comes the expected sequel, drawn from Brown’s other novel about cover-ups in the Catholic Church, and lo, like water turned into wine, it’s a refreshing surprise.
Angels and Demons is, at its best, an expert genre film. Strip away all the arcane church lore and the End-of-Days portents and you find an old-fashioned race-against-time thriller, executed with confidence and skill. Thankfully, it’s more of an action pic than its stultifying predecessor, and a pretty good mystery into the bargain. Red herrings are scattered about like loaves and fishes, so the audience has plenty to chew on while waiting for the plot’s final revelations.
A beloved pope has died and the conclave of cardinals is gathering in Rome to choose his successor. While they are preparing to sequester themselves in the Vatican, however, four of them are kidnapped—the four favorites to become the next pope, or “preferitti”—and an ominous message is sent to Vatican officials, warning of their deaths and the ultimate destruction of the Church. Meanwhile, in a research facility elsewhere in Italy, a team of physicists achieves a scientific breakthrough by creating antimatter in a massive collider. No sooner have they succeeded than a mysterious intruder infiltrates the facility and steals a critical portion of it, killing one of the scientists in the process. When the missing vial of antimatter turns up in Rome as part of the threat against the Church, the Vatican has a problem worthy of Hollywood’s attention.
And Robert Langdon’s. Langdon (portrayed once again by Tom Hanks) is the Harvard professor of religion and “symbology” expert who, despite having embarrassed the Catholic Church in his previous adventure, possesses skills so uniquely suited to helping the Vatican in its current crisis that they have no choice but to turn to him. It’s the kind of antagonistic partnership that thrillers have thrived on since Alfred Hitchcock’s formula-making The 39 Steps (1935), and Howard and his screenwriters (David Koepp, Akiva Goldsman) demonstrate they are attentive students of the Master.
The key to the plot is a secret society known as the “Illuminati,” free-thinking intellectuals from centuries past who questioned Church doctrine and were severely persecuted (think Galileo), many even put to death. It seems some remnants of the Illuminati still exist, and they have regrouped for their long-awaited vengeance. Each of the kidnapped cardinals will be executed in a public place one hour apart, according to their plan, which will culminate in their release of the antimatter, producing an explosion forceful enough to destroy Vatican City and half of Rome. Langdon has his work cut out for him, since he has only a few hours to interpret clues in the kidnappers’ messages that will lead him to the various locations where the cardinals are to die, and eventually to the hiding place of the antimatter. As if this weren’t enough, Langdon has to do it all while contending with a suspicious Vatican security chief (Stellan Skarsgard), who may or may not be undercutting his efforts, and the enigmatic Camerlengo Patrick McKenna (Ewan McGregor), the Vatican official who temporarily wields the late pope’s authority. Fortunately, the Hitchcock formula provides him with the able assistance of a beautiful woman, Dr. Vittoria Vetra (Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer), the physicist in charge of the antimatter project. She has been called to Rome to help find the missing vial and keep it from detonating. Other duties include looking great in a trim black dress and making flirtatious eye contact with Hanks. I’m assuming he appreciated it.
This is pulpy, improbable stuff, kept alive by faith, I guess, but also by works: a breakneck pace and razor-sharp timing. It doesn’t hurt that Hanks’ Langdon can make deductions so quickly it would put Sherlock Holmes to shame; this ability keeps the audience off balance and willing to accept anything he says just so they don’t get left behind. Well, and why not? What I especially liked about this movie is that at least Hanks and Howard are having fun this time. The dour Da Vinci Code felt joyless, afraid to breathe--the current film exhales noisily, and it’s a blessing. Hanks will probably never be anyone’s ideal Robert Langdon, but he’s settled into the role and seems much more comfortable the second time around. He’s even relaxed enough to flash traces of the wiseass humor that’s been his trademark since he began his illustrious film career two decades ago in Splash (also directed by Howard), and before that on TV in Bosom Buddies.
Angels definitely qualifies as a summer action blockbuster, but it has a spiritual side to it as well. Nestled behind the elaborate rituals of the suspense thriller is a sober study (though I assume a highly fictionalized one) of Vatican politics and protocol surrounding the election of a new pope. The central conflict in this embedded story is between the Camerlengo and Cardinal Strauss (Armin Mueller-Stahl), leader of the conclave. Theirs is a quiet, and one suspects, longstanding duel over control of the papacy, the future of the Church, and even the nature of the God they both serve. While Langdon and company race around Rome trying to protect the body of the Church, these two men struggle to save its soul, speaking feelingly to each other about how it can survive the destruction set to occur. But their views are opposed, the aged cardinal insisting on the necessity of tradition and the young priest arguing for the inevitability of change, and it is this debate that gives a deeper urgency to the film than the kind supplied by narrow escapes and last-minute rescues. A parable of faith woven into a tale of worldly intrigue, Mueller-Stahl’s and McGregor’s soft-spoken but intense exchanges provide the film’s emotional core. Both actors are excellent, giving subtly veiled performances that lend voice to their characters’ convictions while masking the motives behind them. As our perception of those motives changes throughout the course of the film, it becomes apparent that their dialogue has more to do with the events unfolding around them than we first supposed. And it is through the twists and turns of their evolving relationship that the meaning of the film’s title is finally revealed.
Through the plot’s many convolutions, Howard’s direction displays more than its usual serviceability, guiding the activity with enough assurance to make one believe at times the film has style, although it's really just bravado. He’s a successful but rather ordinary filmmaker who has achieved stature in Hollywood by constantly overreaching, tackling subjects complex enough to pull him out of his comfort zone and elevate the level of his achievement. I admire him for it, but only occasionally do I find one of his films truly satisfying--Cocoon comes to mind, and Parenthood, the underrated Cinderella Man, and certainly Apollo 13, his greatest artistic success to date. The angels are on his side with this current choice—let us pray that Da Vinci’s demons are at last safely behind him.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Sunshine Cleaning
I liked this film a lot, although I recognize its limitations. Never as funny as the oddball premise would lead you to expect, it also seems to pull up a bit short as a drama about two sisters trying to heal their damaged lives and relationship. In a way, it kind of suffers from an identity crisis, but since I do, too, I'm willing to forgive it. Amy Adams and Emily Blunt are terrific as the sisters, and that simply may be enough for a strong recommendation. Ditto Alan Arkin, one of my favorite actors. No, it's not Little Miss Sunshine Redux, although it's certainly guilty of swiping a bit of that film's mojo. It stands on its own, however, and I actually like it better. Heresy, I know. It won't be the last time I'm guilty of it.
SUNSHINE CLEANING
What I like most about Sunshine Cleaning is that it’s the kind of story that isn’t immediately obvious. There’s no direct, predictable path from the beginning to the end, and the characters never do quite what you expect them to do. But neither are there any truly big surprises along the way. Outfitted with a genial group of eccentrics and an offbeat premise, Sunshine settles for a sweet, mildly unconventional outcome, rather than pushing the audience toward anything too dark or disturbing. The film could have taken some risks, but instead stays safely within the boundaries of its rather modest goals. This is not entirely a bad thing. But I couldn’t help feeling a slight bit of disappointment at the end, as with a promise left partially unfulfilled.
Unfulfilled promise is the theme with which the story opens. Two sisters, Rose (Amy Adams) and Norah (Emily Blunt), lead lives of quiet desperation in their home town of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Rose, the eldest, toils for a maid service and does her best as a single mom to raise her son, Oscar. The mostly out-of-work Norah still lives at home and seems to care for little besides babysitting Oscar, whom she entertains with hilariously awful bedtime stories about serial killers. It’s through Oscar that these two moribund lives are given a chance at revival. A precocious, sweet-tempered boy suffering from ADD, he is expelled from school for constantly disrupting his classroom. In order to send him to a private school where he will receive the special attention he needs, Rose looks around for ways to make more money. She decides to try her hand at cleaning up crime scenes, especially those of murders and suicides, a lucrative field because of the high cost of wiping away blood and other biohazards. With the reluctant Norah in tow, Rose creates “Sunshine Cleaning” and embarks on a seriocomic journey into the messy aftermath of violent death.
A quirky set-up and down-on-their-luck characters generally mean that a movie is going to spend its quality time exploring relationships and character, rather than building plot. Sunshine Cleaning treats these expectations as earnestly as a moral duty. Episodic and deliberate, the film unveils its plan slowly and cautiously, like sunlight advancing across a room. The focus of the story is the relationship between the two sisters, whose lives prior to their business partnership present a study in contrasts, as well as unresolved tensions. Rose, a former high school golden girl--head cheerleader, dated the quarterback--gamely tries to project a positive attitude despite confronting the specter of failure and unfulfilled potential behind every thankless task of her daily life. Self-administered pep talks (“You are strong, you are a winner”) temporarily prop up her hopes for a better future, but her heart isn’t in it when called upon to make a real effort at self-improvement. Instead, she treads water by sleeping with her ex-quarterback boyfriend (Steve Zahn), now married and a cop. Norah, sullen and rebellious, pursues a Loser lifestyle of oversleeping, wearing too much black eyeliner, and getting fired from crappy jobs she never wanted in the first place. “Pursues” might be putting it too aggressively—it’s more like she sits still and waits for failure to catch up with her. But she seems to welcome it when it arrives. Surprisingly sensitive for her tough chick look, Norah is more hurt than angry—her rebellion is half-hearted, literally a mask of make-up behind which crouches a sad, irresolute child.
Rose’s and Norah’s dead-end lives conflict in many ways yet are so closely intertwined they make no sense without each other. The reason is revealed through uneasy flashbacks as the film unfolds: their low self-esteem and lack of ambition are rooted in their mother’s mysterious suicide when they were children (a trauma made worse by their discovery of her body). Although raised by their loving father, a well-meaning but hapless salesman (the always wonderful Alan Arkin), they are stuck on hold, their futures blocked by the confusion and pain of this event. As is their relationship: it’s the different paths this tragedy has sent them down that form the basis of the ongoing, silent quarrel between them. Neither is happy with the other’s choices, or weaknesses, or mistakes.
The main business of the story, then, is to help each woman find her way back to a sense of purpose in her life, and to each other. Adams and Blunt make this business worth investing in: each inhabits her half of the damaged pair with the right proportions of whimsy and soulfulness. Adams, an actress whose nervous intensity sometimes proves distracting, tempers it here with low-key humor and a rueful self-awareness. As a result, she offers a touching portrait of a once-shallow woman, uncomfortable with introspection, who learns to believe in her own resolve. But it’s Blunt who gives the film its edge. While Adams blossoms as Rose, Blunt’s Norah sinks further into the depths of her despair, until she touches bottom. Norah perpetrates the film’s two worst events--deeply hurting a friend and causing a near fatal crisis for the burgeoning business, which almost severs her relationship with Rose completely. Blunt avoids all the possible clichés in portraying this damned soul: Norah has a genius for self-destruction and a taste for self-pity, but Blunt makes her warm, empathetic, and engaging throughout, without ever compromising the volatility or unpredictability that make Norah dangerous. It’s a performance of great skill and subtlety from an actress who needs more exposure.
Sunshine is not completely dark, however. Arkin delivers another comic gem in his turn as the family patriarch, strongly reminiscent of his Oscar-winning role in Little Miss Sunshine (2006). This film has been accused of over-emulating the earlier one, and writer Megan Holley and director Christine Jeffs may indeed have had their eyes on the prize of that unexpected hit--Arkin is once again paired with a winning child actor (Jason Spevack), and a family of mismatched members once more learns to pull together in a crisis--but if it starts out copying the formula for the first Sunshine, it ends by mixing the elements very differently. The current film is not the ensemble piece the earlier one was, since it’s basically a sister act, and its humor is far less raucous, much more attuned to the troubling undercurrents of lives haunted by loss and wounded love.
What Holley and Jeffs have actually created in Sunshine Cleaning is an elaborate metaphor for healing: cleaning up other people’s messes, the bloody remains of others’ broken lives, is the surest way for Rose and Norah to put themselves right at last, and restore the emotional order that finding their mother’s blood-soaked body blasted apart. By running her own business, Rose discovers a mature sense of self-worth that is far more satisfying than what the extrovert life of a high school celebrity provided her. Norah’s fate is more open-ended. She finally leaves home at the film’s conclusion and takes to the road, searching for an identity beyond the limits of the grief that for years has defined her.
Sunshine’s final revelation comes quietly but inevitably, the result, I believe, of Jeffs’ leisurely pacing and understated direction: these two women--whose disappointing, interrupted lives were not the causes of their unhappiness but symptoms of it--are two halves of one person, finally completed and made whole in the film’s climactic scene, a beautifully played moment of reconciliation between Adams and Blunt. If Sunshine Cleaning isn’t the inspired or beguiling film it could have been, neither is it a film which fails to warm and illuminate in many small but important ways.
SUNSHINE CLEANING
What I like most about Sunshine Cleaning is that it’s the kind of story that isn’t immediately obvious. There’s no direct, predictable path from the beginning to the end, and the characters never do quite what you expect them to do. But neither are there any truly big surprises along the way. Outfitted with a genial group of eccentrics and an offbeat premise, Sunshine settles for a sweet, mildly unconventional outcome, rather than pushing the audience toward anything too dark or disturbing. The film could have taken some risks, but instead stays safely within the boundaries of its rather modest goals. This is not entirely a bad thing. But I couldn’t help feeling a slight bit of disappointment at the end, as with a promise left partially unfulfilled.
Unfulfilled promise is the theme with which the story opens. Two sisters, Rose (Amy Adams) and Norah (Emily Blunt), lead lives of quiet desperation in their home town of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Rose, the eldest, toils for a maid service and does her best as a single mom to raise her son, Oscar. The mostly out-of-work Norah still lives at home and seems to care for little besides babysitting Oscar, whom she entertains with hilariously awful bedtime stories about serial killers. It’s through Oscar that these two moribund lives are given a chance at revival. A precocious, sweet-tempered boy suffering from ADD, he is expelled from school for constantly disrupting his classroom. In order to send him to a private school where he will receive the special attention he needs, Rose looks around for ways to make more money. She decides to try her hand at cleaning up crime scenes, especially those of murders and suicides, a lucrative field because of the high cost of wiping away blood and other biohazards. With the reluctant Norah in tow, Rose creates “Sunshine Cleaning” and embarks on a seriocomic journey into the messy aftermath of violent death.
A quirky set-up and down-on-their-luck characters generally mean that a movie is going to spend its quality time exploring relationships and character, rather than building plot. Sunshine Cleaning treats these expectations as earnestly as a moral duty. Episodic and deliberate, the film unveils its plan slowly and cautiously, like sunlight advancing across a room. The focus of the story is the relationship between the two sisters, whose lives prior to their business partnership present a study in contrasts, as well as unresolved tensions. Rose, a former high school golden girl--head cheerleader, dated the quarterback--gamely tries to project a positive attitude despite confronting the specter of failure and unfulfilled potential behind every thankless task of her daily life. Self-administered pep talks (“You are strong, you are a winner”) temporarily prop up her hopes for a better future, but her heart isn’t in it when called upon to make a real effort at self-improvement. Instead, she treads water by sleeping with her ex-quarterback boyfriend (Steve Zahn), now married and a cop. Norah, sullen and rebellious, pursues a Loser lifestyle of oversleeping, wearing too much black eyeliner, and getting fired from crappy jobs she never wanted in the first place. “Pursues” might be putting it too aggressively—it’s more like she sits still and waits for failure to catch up with her. But she seems to welcome it when it arrives. Surprisingly sensitive for her tough chick look, Norah is more hurt than angry—her rebellion is half-hearted, literally a mask of make-up behind which crouches a sad, irresolute child.
Rose’s and Norah’s dead-end lives conflict in many ways yet are so closely intertwined they make no sense without each other. The reason is revealed through uneasy flashbacks as the film unfolds: their low self-esteem and lack of ambition are rooted in their mother’s mysterious suicide when they were children (a trauma made worse by their discovery of her body). Although raised by their loving father, a well-meaning but hapless salesman (the always wonderful Alan Arkin), they are stuck on hold, their futures blocked by the confusion and pain of this event. As is their relationship: it’s the different paths this tragedy has sent them down that form the basis of the ongoing, silent quarrel between them. Neither is happy with the other’s choices, or weaknesses, or mistakes.
The main business of the story, then, is to help each woman find her way back to a sense of purpose in her life, and to each other. Adams and Blunt make this business worth investing in: each inhabits her half of the damaged pair with the right proportions of whimsy and soulfulness. Adams, an actress whose nervous intensity sometimes proves distracting, tempers it here with low-key humor and a rueful self-awareness. As a result, she offers a touching portrait of a once-shallow woman, uncomfortable with introspection, who learns to believe in her own resolve. But it’s Blunt who gives the film its edge. While Adams blossoms as Rose, Blunt’s Norah sinks further into the depths of her despair, until she touches bottom. Norah perpetrates the film’s two worst events--deeply hurting a friend and causing a near fatal crisis for the burgeoning business, which almost severs her relationship with Rose completely. Blunt avoids all the possible clichés in portraying this damned soul: Norah has a genius for self-destruction and a taste for self-pity, but Blunt makes her warm, empathetic, and engaging throughout, without ever compromising the volatility or unpredictability that make Norah dangerous. It’s a performance of great skill and subtlety from an actress who needs more exposure.
Sunshine is not completely dark, however. Arkin delivers another comic gem in his turn as the family patriarch, strongly reminiscent of his Oscar-winning role in Little Miss Sunshine (2006). This film has been accused of over-emulating the earlier one, and writer Megan Holley and director Christine Jeffs may indeed have had their eyes on the prize of that unexpected hit--Arkin is once again paired with a winning child actor (Jason Spevack), and a family of mismatched members once more learns to pull together in a crisis--but if it starts out copying the formula for the first Sunshine, it ends by mixing the elements very differently. The current film is not the ensemble piece the earlier one was, since it’s basically a sister act, and its humor is far less raucous, much more attuned to the troubling undercurrents of lives haunted by loss and wounded love.
What Holley and Jeffs have actually created in Sunshine Cleaning is an elaborate metaphor for healing: cleaning up other people’s messes, the bloody remains of others’ broken lives, is the surest way for Rose and Norah to put themselves right at last, and restore the emotional order that finding their mother’s blood-soaked body blasted apart. By running her own business, Rose discovers a mature sense of self-worth that is far more satisfying than what the extrovert life of a high school celebrity provided her. Norah’s fate is more open-ended. She finally leaves home at the film’s conclusion and takes to the road, searching for an identity beyond the limits of the grief that for years has defined her.
Sunshine’s final revelation comes quietly but inevitably, the result, I believe, of Jeffs’ leisurely pacing and understated direction: these two women--whose disappointing, interrupted lives were not the causes of their unhappiness but symptoms of it--are two halves of one person, finally completed and made whole in the film’s climactic scene, a beautifully played moment of reconciliation between Adams and Blunt. If Sunshine Cleaning isn’t the inspired or beguiling film it could have been, neither is it a film which fails to warm and illuminate in many small but important ways.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Duplicity
There isn't much to say about this film. It's enjoyable but almost instantly forgettable. If you like heist or crime caper movies, or movies about elaborate con jobs, with beautiful people in beautiful locations doing dishonest things, then it's worth a couple of hours in the theater. But it won't make you forget the classics it's based on--most particularly, Charade, which I was reminded of several times. I went to it, I watched it, I liked it, next month I won't remember a thing about it. Too bad, because the cast has some heavy hitters--Julia Roberts, Clive Owen, Paul Giametti. I especially worry about Owen, one of my favorite actors. He seems intent on making mostly films like this one these days--can't be good for his career. At least it isn't Shoot 'Em Up (shudder).
DUPLICITY
Duplicity is one of those films that knows it doesn’t matter, but it does its not mattering with so much style that it makes you want it to matter more. A throwback to the sophisticated crime caper films of the 1960s (Topkapi, The Thomas Crown Affair, The Italian Job, etc.), Duplicity attempts to get by on charm, pretty locations (Dubai, Rome, Zurich), and charismatic stars, and for the most part pulls it off. This is a film of flourishes rather than substance, of pleasures for the eye and ear that fade so quickly there’s little left to think about once they’re gone.
Like many of its predecessors, Duplicity’s plot is both breezy and cynical. Just ask yourself what might happen when a suave British secret service agent (Clive Owen) meets up with a cool CIA operative who just happens to look like Julia Roberts. They might, say, be attracted to one another. And since they work for different governments, they might be rivals of a sort. Which means love and gamesmanship might be on the agenda. The answers, of course, are yes, yes, and yes--rather predictable, ironically, for a movie whose name means deception. The British agent, Ray Koval (Owen), is on assignment in Dubai for MI-6 when he meets Claire Stenwick (Roberts) at a party, hits on her and enjoys her company for a night, only to discover when he wakes that she’s Mata Hari’d him: slept with him so she can steal some top secret papers in his possession. Some years later, they meet again, and although Ray wants a reckoning for a career that was almost derailed by Claire’s double-cross, he settles for picking up where they left off in bed. The results are presumably more satisfying this time, because they spend a lot of time in bed over the next two hours, where, between bouts of lovemaking, they hatch an ingenious plot to make themselves very, very rich.
It would be unfair to summarize too much of the story that follows. What happens isn’t all that important, but there are surprises in how a lot of it is revealed. The film’s whats and whys take a back seat to its whens and hows. Suffice it to say, the lovers quit their government spying jobs to go undercover in the private sector. Their scheme has them land jobs in the security divisions of two rival skin care corporations locked in a bitter war over a new product. The object: larceny on a grand scale. And so the fun begins, which for the audience means trying to figure out, first, exactly what Ray and Claire are doing, and second, if they are actually doing it together. The lovers spar over commitment issues in between arguing over details of the elaborate con they are working on the two companies—and, perhaps, each other, judging from the little amount of trust between them. The model here is Stanley Donen’s comedy thriller Charade (1963), in which another impossibly handsome couple (Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn) chase each other through gorgeous locations around the globe while trying to decide if they can trust each other enough to fall in love. Duplicity can’t match the Donen classic for chic, but it gamely emulates its mentor’s playfulness, ultra-sophisticated thievery, and travelogue approach to storytelling.
Writer-director Tony Gilroy was responsible for 2007’s superb thriller Michael Clayton, which also took place among the boardrooms of Corporate America. That film was a trenchant indictment of criminality in the upper echelons of the business world, but this time he obviously goes for a lighter mood, combining white-collar mischief with romance instead of murder. His newfound sense of fun finds expression in the use of split screen images and multiple flashbacks, techniques that add to the film’s general air of trickery, in addition to recalling the pop language of 1960s cinema.
The high-end crime genre should be very familiar to contemporary audiences, of course, because of the number of examples, both serious and tongue-in-cheek, still being produced. The genre got a creative shot in the arm a few years ago when George Clooney and his crew revived the heist film in the Ocean’s 11/12/13 series (inspired by the Frank Sinatra original from 1960). Other key films of that era have been remade in recent years as well (The Italian Job, The Thomas Crown Affair). Apparently, America is nostalgic for its swashbuckling crooks of yesteryear. They are certainly more fun to watch than the parade of gray-faced corporate felons on the nightly news.
The actors certainly seem to be enjoying their flashy roles. Roberts, a veteran of the Ocean movies, is right at home. She has carved out quite a niche for herself in this retro genre. Surprisingly restrained, given some of her past performances in light-hearted fare, Roberts invests Claire with more warmth and sensuality than she could have gotten by with. Her reteaming with Closer co-star Owen is pretty successful, as he already knows the right tone to take with her in a battle of wits and sexual wills. The problem is that Claire and Ray are mainly props in the story rather than full-fledged identities. The energy of each performer radiates from deep within, but their characters are too shallow and lacking in fiber to hold it all. Owen, a ferocious actor by nature, is way too powerful at times for the frothy part he is asked to play. Still, the chemistry between the two is there, and it makes the movie what it is, an enjoyable romp with two attractive and well-matched people.
What’s most intriguing about this film, perhaps, is how it slyly introduces a weightier thought into the proceedings: the by now familiar word trust. Not satisfied with merely playing with that issue, Duplicity decides to make it into its theme. Deceit and constant suspicion are endemic to a life of spying, so what changes does one’s personality undergo after long exposure to that kind of lifestyle? What is the impact on human relationships, most particularly on love? These become the film’s central questions, in a way. Beneath the glossy surface of scheming, double-crossing, and intrigue lies a story that wonders aloud how love can survive a life devoted to scheming, double-crossing, and lots and lots of lying. Can it? Will it? It matters, during occasional pauses in the action, to Claire and Ray, but despite the number of times these questions are asked, in the end I’m not convinced the movie makes it completely matter to us—not about these one-dimensional characters, at least. Worth a try, though.
DUPLICITY
Duplicity is one of those films that knows it doesn’t matter, but it does its not mattering with so much style that it makes you want it to matter more. A throwback to the sophisticated crime caper films of the 1960s (Topkapi, The Thomas Crown Affair, The Italian Job, etc.), Duplicity attempts to get by on charm, pretty locations (Dubai, Rome, Zurich), and charismatic stars, and for the most part pulls it off. This is a film of flourishes rather than substance, of pleasures for the eye and ear that fade so quickly there’s little left to think about once they’re gone.
Like many of its predecessors, Duplicity’s plot is both breezy and cynical. Just ask yourself what might happen when a suave British secret service agent (Clive Owen) meets up with a cool CIA operative who just happens to look like Julia Roberts. They might, say, be attracted to one another. And since they work for different governments, they might be rivals of a sort. Which means love and gamesmanship might be on the agenda. The answers, of course, are yes, yes, and yes--rather predictable, ironically, for a movie whose name means deception. The British agent, Ray Koval (Owen), is on assignment in Dubai for MI-6 when he meets Claire Stenwick (Roberts) at a party, hits on her and enjoys her company for a night, only to discover when he wakes that she’s Mata Hari’d him: slept with him so she can steal some top secret papers in his possession. Some years later, they meet again, and although Ray wants a reckoning for a career that was almost derailed by Claire’s double-cross, he settles for picking up where they left off in bed. The results are presumably more satisfying this time, because they spend a lot of time in bed over the next two hours, where, between bouts of lovemaking, they hatch an ingenious plot to make themselves very, very rich.
It would be unfair to summarize too much of the story that follows. What happens isn’t all that important, but there are surprises in how a lot of it is revealed. The film’s whats and whys take a back seat to its whens and hows. Suffice it to say, the lovers quit their government spying jobs to go undercover in the private sector. Their scheme has them land jobs in the security divisions of two rival skin care corporations locked in a bitter war over a new product. The object: larceny on a grand scale. And so the fun begins, which for the audience means trying to figure out, first, exactly what Ray and Claire are doing, and second, if they are actually doing it together. The lovers spar over commitment issues in between arguing over details of the elaborate con they are working on the two companies—and, perhaps, each other, judging from the little amount of trust between them. The model here is Stanley Donen’s comedy thriller Charade (1963), in which another impossibly handsome couple (Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn) chase each other through gorgeous locations around the globe while trying to decide if they can trust each other enough to fall in love. Duplicity can’t match the Donen classic for chic, but it gamely emulates its mentor’s playfulness, ultra-sophisticated thievery, and travelogue approach to storytelling.
Writer-director Tony Gilroy was responsible for 2007’s superb thriller Michael Clayton, which also took place among the boardrooms of Corporate America. That film was a trenchant indictment of criminality in the upper echelons of the business world, but this time he obviously goes for a lighter mood, combining white-collar mischief with romance instead of murder. His newfound sense of fun finds expression in the use of split screen images and multiple flashbacks, techniques that add to the film’s general air of trickery, in addition to recalling the pop language of 1960s cinema.
The high-end crime genre should be very familiar to contemporary audiences, of course, because of the number of examples, both serious and tongue-in-cheek, still being produced. The genre got a creative shot in the arm a few years ago when George Clooney and his crew revived the heist film in the Ocean’s 11/12/13 series (inspired by the Frank Sinatra original from 1960). Other key films of that era have been remade in recent years as well (The Italian Job, The Thomas Crown Affair). Apparently, America is nostalgic for its swashbuckling crooks of yesteryear. They are certainly more fun to watch than the parade of gray-faced corporate felons on the nightly news.
The actors certainly seem to be enjoying their flashy roles. Roberts, a veteran of the Ocean movies, is right at home. She has carved out quite a niche for herself in this retro genre. Surprisingly restrained, given some of her past performances in light-hearted fare, Roberts invests Claire with more warmth and sensuality than she could have gotten by with. Her reteaming with Closer co-star Owen is pretty successful, as he already knows the right tone to take with her in a battle of wits and sexual wills. The problem is that Claire and Ray are mainly props in the story rather than full-fledged identities. The energy of each performer radiates from deep within, but their characters are too shallow and lacking in fiber to hold it all. Owen, a ferocious actor by nature, is way too powerful at times for the frothy part he is asked to play. Still, the chemistry between the two is there, and it makes the movie what it is, an enjoyable romp with two attractive and well-matched people.
What’s most intriguing about this film, perhaps, is how it slyly introduces a weightier thought into the proceedings: the by now familiar word trust. Not satisfied with merely playing with that issue, Duplicity decides to make it into its theme. Deceit and constant suspicion are endemic to a life of spying, so what changes does one’s personality undergo after long exposure to that kind of lifestyle? What is the impact on human relationships, most particularly on love? These become the film’s central questions, in a way. Beneath the glossy surface of scheming, double-crossing, and intrigue lies a story that wonders aloud how love can survive a life devoted to scheming, double-crossing, and lots and lots of lying. Can it? Will it? It matters, during occasional pauses in the action, to Claire and Ray, but despite the number of times these questions are asked, in the end I’m not convinced the movie makes it completely matter to us—not about these one-dimensional characters, at least. Worth a try, though.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Taken
This movie was a pleasant surprise. I wasn't planning on seeing it until a friend recommended it to me. It's not great, but it's certainly entertaining, and there is a surprising amount of heart behind the physical action. But it is thrills that it was made for, and in that category it delivers. Liam Neeson's debut as an action hero (I believe) is pretty successful. He's a gifted, intelligent actor, so his world-weariness looks like wisdom most of the time. And it's just good to watch someone who isn't a muscle-flexing dumbass run, jump, and hit people. Does that sound elitist? So be it. I had some problems with the politics of the film, but that's often the case, so I just tried to sit back, relax, and let the movie take me in. For the most part, it did.
TAKEN
The title of this film describes, in effect, the experience of watching it. Taken takes hold of you and moves you right along for nearly all of its 93 jam-packed minutes. It’s a thriller that depends less on mood, character, or suspense than on sheer speed and relentless forward motion. It’s like a train on an express route: arriving at its destination is its paramount goal, which leaves little time to admire the scenery along the way.
The plot is succinct. A divorced ex-government agent, Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson), has retired early so that he can live near his 17-year-old daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) and try to build the relationship with her that he had sacrificed to his career while she was growing up. His ex-wife (Famke Janssen) has remarried into serious wealth, which makes this task all the harder. When Kim asks his permission to vacation in France with a friend, he reluctantly gives it; his fatherly worry reawakens all the old fears that went with his spying job. But Bryan’s “paranoia” proves instead to be prescience: no sooner have the two girls landed in Paris than they are abducted by a gang of Albanian thugs who are running an international sex slavery ring. Kim’s heartrending phone call to her father moments before she is dragged out the door of her apartment provides the film’s first real jolt of emotion, as well as the adrenalin needed to start the plot racing. From this point on, Mills is a man with a single mission: to find his daughter and bring her home.
Despite its many improbabilities, I rather liked Taken. Directed with zeal by former cinematographer Pierre Morel, the film concerns itself not with testing the limits of the action thriller genre but with staying safely inside its comfort zone and fulfilling our expectations. For the most part, it does this with enough energy to compensate for its lack of originality. Anyone who has watched the TV series 24 knows roughly what to expect: a headlong race against time, a tightly forged chain of events which are absorbing because of their speed and intensity, but which would never stand up to the scrutiny of logical analysis or exposition. Mills is even given his own time limit. A former associate tells him that after 96 hours, any hope of finding Kim will have vanished. Apparently, it takes that long for women to disappear completely into the sex trade underworld. So Bryan has four days to revive his skills as a spy—or, as he calls himself, someone who “prevented bad things from happening”—and rescue his beloved daughter.
What is most welcome about this film is that beneath the formulaic activity is a deeper layer, a substratum of emotion that is surprisingly powerful. This is entirely due to the presence of Neeson, who brings gravity and credibility to his farfetched role. Ten years ago, this movie would probably have been a routine Steven Seagal vehicle, but Neeson gives the obligatory heroics psychological depth and an urgency of purpose that distracts from the bareness of the mechanics. The anguish his suffering father experiences is not only believable in and of itself, it fuels the pace of the action. His performance is stronger than the thin premise deserves, but it’s what makes this film into something more than just a series of action set pieces. Supporting performers are generally effective--Grace is winning and vulnerable in the thankless part of victim, and Arben Bajraktaraj, as Albanian gang leader Marko, does some admirable snarling--but this is really a one-man show. Without Neeson at the center, the movie would stall in its tracks.
This seems to be the time for movies about rescuing heroines from prostitution. Recent Oscar-winner Slumdog Millionaire involved a quest of this kind, with references to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, but Taken’s version comes from closer to home. It’s pressed from the mold of John Ford’s classic western The Searchers, in which John Wayne spends years trying to retrieve his niece from a band of Comanches, and two modern equivalents written, as tributes to Ford‘s film, by Paul Schrader: Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (with Robert De Niro’s famous descent into the hell of New York City to bring back teenage prostitute Jodie Foster), and Schrader’s own Hardcore, in which another distraught father (George C. Scott) searches for his runaway daughter, who has become an actress in porn films.
All these films are obsessed with saving a young woman from sexual “defilement’ and cleansing her of that perceived shame, whether or not she's been a willing party to it. In the three earlier versions, rescue comes “too late”: the daughter has been initiated into sexual experience with undesirables (Indians, pimps, johns, pornographers) and the possibility of her redemption/purification and reentry into her former society is left up to the viewer. But in keeping with the times, and the need for contemporary American films to have happier endings, Taken takes no chances with ambivalence: it won’t be giving much away to reveal that Mills is successful, and Kim is spared everything he fears. Taken is the fairy tale version of the virgin/whore paradigm for women in American movies--the heroine’s virginity is preserved, and like a princess she is restored unambiguously to her former place, seemingly untouched by the entire ordeal.
Taken isn’t just a rescue fantasy, however, it’s a revenge fantasy as well, and here the script by Luc Besson (of La Femme Nikita fame) and Robert Mark Kamen takes a darker turn. It’s not just the delight the movie takes in dispatching bad guys--Mills kills a lot of men in a very short time, many of them brutally--it’s also the revenge it wreaks on the mother who opposes his view of parenting. In several early scenes, Mills spars with his former wife, Lenore, about his protectiveness towards Kim. Lenore accuses him of smothering their daughter, of trying to prevent her from growing up and learning about life; Mills insists he just wants to keep her safe, because he knows the world and the dangers that lurk there. He permits Kim’s trip to France at Lenore’s urging, against his better judgment. His judgment proves correct, of course, and his attempts to keep his daughter close by, and forever his little girl--his smothering behavior--is validated by the movie’s turn of events. This is a reactionary view, to say the least, and a solidly conservative take on the world as a dangerous place in need of swift, violent action to keep its evils at bay. The more liberal-minded mother is ineffectual and wrong, and the suffering she endures when she learns of Kim’s disappearance becomes her justified, almost self-willed, punishment.
Taken never presents much of a challenge to the viewer, and of course never aims to. It’s not built on surprises but on predictable solutions to familiar screen problems. Bring a willing suspension of disbelief and a passing familiarity with movie logic and heroics to the theater, and you'll find it’s a pretty easy film to take. But the standard action scenario does have a twist, and the twist is the humanity of its characters—in particular, the unexpected strength behind a movie father’s love.
TAKEN
The title of this film describes, in effect, the experience of watching it. Taken takes hold of you and moves you right along for nearly all of its 93 jam-packed minutes. It’s a thriller that depends less on mood, character, or suspense than on sheer speed and relentless forward motion. It’s like a train on an express route: arriving at its destination is its paramount goal, which leaves little time to admire the scenery along the way.
The plot is succinct. A divorced ex-government agent, Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson), has retired early so that he can live near his 17-year-old daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) and try to build the relationship with her that he had sacrificed to his career while she was growing up. His ex-wife (Famke Janssen) has remarried into serious wealth, which makes this task all the harder. When Kim asks his permission to vacation in France with a friend, he reluctantly gives it; his fatherly worry reawakens all the old fears that went with his spying job. But Bryan’s “paranoia” proves instead to be prescience: no sooner have the two girls landed in Paris than they are abducted by a gang of Albanian thugs who are running an international sex slavery ring. Kim’s heartrending phone call to her father moments before she is dragged out the door of her apartment provides the film’s first real jolt of emotion, as well as the adrenalin needed to start the plot racing. From this point on, Mills is a man with a single mission: to find his daughter and bring her home.
Despite its many improbabilities, I rather liked Taken. Directed with zeal by former cinematographer Pierre Morel, the film concerns itself not with testing the limits of the action thriller genre but with staying safely inside its comfort zone and fulfilling our expectations. For the most part, it does this with enough energy to compensate for its lack of originality. Anyone who has watched the TV series 24 knows roughly what to expect: a headlong race against time, a tightly forged chain of events which are absorbing because of their speed and intensity, but which would never stand up to the scrutiny of logical analysis or exposition. Mills is even given his own time limit. A former associate tells him that after 96 hours, any hope of finding Kim will have vanished. Apparently, it takes that long for women to disappear completely into the sex trade underworld. So Bryan has four days to revive his skills as a spy—or, as he calls himself, someone who “prevented bad things from happening”—and rescue his beloved daughter.
What is most welcome about this film is that beneath the formulaic activity is a deeper layer, a substratum of emotion that is surprisingly powerful. This is entirely due to the presence of Neeson, who brings gravity and credibility to his farfetched role. Ten years ago, this movie would probably have been a routine Steven Seagal vehicle, but Neeson gives the obligatory heroics psychological depth and an urgency of purpose that distracts from the bareness of the mechanics. The anguish his suffering father experiences is not only believable in and of itself, it fuels the pace of the action. His performance is stronger than the thin premise deserves, but it’s what makes this film into something more than just a series of action set pieces. Supporting performers are generally effective--Grace is winning and vulnerable in the thankless part of victim, and Arben Bajraktaraj, as Albanian gang leader Marko, does some admirable snarling--but this is really a one-man show. Without Neeson at the center, the movie would stall in its tracks.
This seems to be the time for movies about rescuing heroines from prostitution. Recent Oscar-winner Slumdog Millionaire involved a quest of this kind, with references to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, but Taken’s version comes from closer to home. It’s pressed from the mold of John Ford’s classic western The Searchers, in which John Wayne spends years trying to retrieve his niece from a band of Comanches, and two modern equivalents written, as tributes to Ford‘s film, by Paul Schrader: Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (with Robert De Niro’s famous descent into the hell of New York City to bring back teenage prostitute Jodie Foster), and Schrader’s own Hardcore, in which another distraught father (George C. Scott) searches for his runaway daughter, who has become an actress in porn films.
All these films are obsessed with saving a young woman from sexual “defilement’ and cleansing her of that perceived shame, whether or not she's been a willing party to it. In the three earlier versions, rescue comes “too late”: the daughter has been initiated into sexual experience with undesirables (Indians, pimps, johns, pornographers) and the possibility of her redemption/purification and reentry into her former society is left up to the viewer. But in keeping with the times, and the need for contemporary American films to have happier endings, Taken takes no chances with ambivalence: it won’t be giving much away to reveal that Mills is successful, and Kim is spared everything he fears. Taken is the fairy tale version of the virgin/whore paradigm for women in American movies--the heroine’s virginity is preserved, and like a princess she is restored unambiguously to her former place, seemingly untouched by the entire ordeal.
Taken isn’t just a rescue fantasy, however, it’s a revenge fantasy as well, and here the script by Luc Besson (of La Femme Nikita fame) and Robert Mark Kamen takes a darker turn. It’s not just the delight the movie takes in dispatching bad guys--Mills kills a lot of men in a very short time, many of them brutally--it’s also the revenge it wreaks on the mother who opposes his view of parenting. In several early scenes, Mills spars with his former wife, Lenore, about his protectiveness towards Kim. Lenore accuses him of smothering their daughter, of trying to prevent her from growing up and learning about life; Mills insists he just wants to keep her safe, because he knows the world and the dangers that lurk there. He permits Kim’s trip to France at Lenore’s urging, against his better judgment. His judgment proves correct, of course, and his attempts to keep his daughter close by, and forever his little girl--his smothering behavior--is validated by the movie’s turn of events. This is a reactionary view, to say the least, and a solidly conservative take on the world as a dangerous place in need of swift, violent action to keep its evils at bay. The more liberal-minded mother is ineffectual and wrong, and the suffering she endures when she learns of Kim’s disappearance becomes her justified, almost self-willed, punishment.
Taken never presents much of a challenge to the viewer, and of course never aims to. It’s not built on surprises but on predictable solutions to familiar screen problems. Bring a willing suspension of disbelief and a passing familiarity with movie logic and heroics to the theater, and you'll find it’s a pretty easy film to take. But the standard action scenario does have a twist, and the twist is the humanity of its characters—in particular, the unexpected strength behind a movie father’s love.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Frost/Nixon
I'm a child of Watergate, and I remember spending a summer home from college watching the congressional hearings on TV. I also remember where I was when I heard that Nixon had resigned the presidency. And I've seen a number of movies, and read a couple of books about the events surrounding this sad episode in our history. All that was long ago, however. I do not purport to be any kind of scholar on the subject; in fact, most of the details have grown kind of fuzzy in my memory. Which is why I am glad to see that the subject is being revisited in this film, and the play it's based on, because it needs to be, continuously, so that those details remain fresh and are never forgotten. I only wish this film had done a better job of that. But it's an honest effort, and I agree with its overall point-of-view. I think it has unfortunate, and unintended, consequences, however, which you can read about below.
FROST/NIXON
To the generation that grew up firm in the belief that Richard Nixon=Bogeyman, this film presents something of a dilemma. On the one hand, it purports to dramatize the moment when the disgraced 37th president finally confessed to the American people that he had sinned against them. On the other hand, the characterization delivered by actor Frank Langella, and guided by director Ron Howard (both Oscar-nominated), in no way demonizes him. Good for the project overall, I suppose, but frustrating for those who still need to view Nixon as the devil. Full disclosure: I grew up during the Watergate era (politically as well as biologically), and I have always been of that camp. As a consequence, this movie had me squirming in my theater seat.
Frost/Nixon covers the events leading up to, and key moments from, the famous 1977 television interviews between British talk show host David Frost (Michael Sheen) and former president Richard Nixon (these interviews have recently been released in their entirety on dvd). Frost had made his mark on American television in the early part of the decade with a show devoted mostly to celebrity chitchat. Suave, confidant, cheeky, he combined the fun of swinging London with an earnestness that hinted at erudition. After Richard Nixon resigned the presidency, Frost concocted the idea of sitting down with him and going over his life in a series of interviews. It would be his biggest “get” ever, and the ratings—he was convinced—would go through the roof. A savvy entertainer, he turned out to be more right than even he probably anticipated.
The potential for a fascinating look at the aftermath of Watergate is certainly here. So what exactly is wrong with Frost/Nixon? It probably is terrific theater (the screenplay is by Peter Morgan, based on his well-received play). But adaptations are tricky; it’s a rare film that can successfully capture the singular style and impact of another medium. Not to mention that the play is about a third medium, television. What makes great television, or a compelling play about it, does not guarantee that a great or compelling film will emerge from either. Under Ron Howard’s capable but uninspired direction, this proves true. Frost/Nixon comes off more like a casual backstage tour of its events rather than a gripping backstage drama of how they transpired. It has a loose, gossipy feel to it; if you’re looking for historical insight or revelations about the people involved, you’ll have to look elsewhere. Howard and Morgan are on the trail of smaller game.
They begin by tracking dual story lines which alternately follow Frost and his associates plotting to woo Nixon onto TV and Nixon’s gloomy exile at his seaside home in San Clemente, California, where he dreams of reentry into public life. Eventually, these plots come together as serious negotiations between the two sides begin, terms are agreed to, and Frost assembles his team of researchers to help him “prepare” for the interview. That word was in quotes because Frost’s idea of preparing, according to the film, is to let his researchers (Oliver Platt, Sam Rockwell, Matthew Macfadyen) do all the work, while he burnishes his reputation as a party- and premiere-attending man-about-town, in between pitching his show to prospective backers (all the major networks have turned him down, and this is, of course, in the era before cable). As it progresses, the film gradually builds its portrait of each man as they prepare for their history-making contest before the cameras.
These portraits are meant to be the film’s strength, but they are actually its greatest weakness. There is no question that both men are subjects worthy of screen treatment, although it might not be immediately obvious in the case of Frost, who is portrayed as shallow, self-absorbed, and clueless about how unprepared he is for what he’s planning to do. Early in the story, he smoothly picks up a woman (Rebecca Hall) on an airplane, and she becomes his companion for the remainder of the film. It is clear that he views Nixon in the same light: an easy conquest for his charm. Ironically, it is only when things begin to go wrong--one potential sponsor after another turns him down, and his search for money becomes increasingly desperate, and comic--that his character starts to develop into something more interesting than the Lovable TV and Party Guy. As his position weakens, his character deepens, but Sheen’s performance unfortunately does not follow along. It may not be wholly his fault: despite the direction the script maps out for him, Frost’s part is seriously underwritten. But even so, Sheen simply finds no way to suggest what’s happening behind the crumbling façade of Frost’s self-assurance beyond clutching his head and mussing his beautifully coiffed hair. The script wants you to believe that Frost finally grows into the responsibility of his role, but it’s a suggestion in the story outline and not a realized fact on film.
Nixon is a different story, and it’s a story the American public doesn’t seem to tire of. This Foundering Father endlessly fascinates, illustrated by the number of times he’s been portrayed in film or other media. Is there another U.S. President who is the subject of an opera (John Adams’ Nixon in China)? And, of course, his disembodied, living head was a recurring figure in the animated television series Futurama. I have admitted my discomfort with the notion of a repatriated Richard Nixon. Yet I welcome the introduction of a character with enough edges and angles to keep the film from becoming too obvious a civics lesson/morality play. The screenplay gives us this Nixon: a heavily scarred monument to ambition and pride, furious, hurt, his hunger for vindication and approval so palpable it’s like another person in the room. Yet for every diatribe against the liberals that hounded him from office, every crass joke, or lip-licking reference to the fee he will be paid for his TV appearance, there’s an image of an isolated, introspective Nixon, sculpted in shadow, his eyes haunted by what he sees of the past, or of himself, when he dares look inward. It’s the image of a tragic, fallen man, and it might be the most romantic picture of Nixon ever painted.
Serving this end is Langella’s performance, which truly commands the viewer‘s attention, although not always for the best reason. Gone are the weird tics and mannerisms, and that nervous, unconvincing smile, of Tricky Dick; in their place are a reflective, melancholy bow of the head or a poignant stare offscreen—Lear in exile, contemplating his failure. And he does that haunted eyes thing a lot, which is pretty effective. But like so many other actors trying to capture this most mannered of politicians, Langella falls victim to the temptation to impersonate. How does one do Nixon without some approximation of the Voice? Not possible, of course, and Langella’s attempt is often painful to listen to--a lugubrious and weirdly folksy vocal characterization that sounds at times like Jimmy Stewart doing his impression of Dracula. I’m not sure what director Howard could have been hearing that he liked.
The key question, however—and the one that had me squirming in my seat at the beginning of this review—is this: Does Frost/Nixon give Richard Nixon the exoneration he so desperately sought during his lifetime? Of course, the film does not give us the real Nixon; no narrative, even a careful work of “faction,” can do that. It offers us instead a construct of historical hindsight, a wish-fulfillment portrayal of a Nixon tragically aware of his shortcomings, his squandered opportunities, and the uncomfortable place he will occupy in American history. The last image Howard offers us is of Nixon standing alone on his balcony, staring moodily out at the ocean at dusk: the image of a man contemplating the emptiness of his future, perhaps, or the vast expanse of what he's lost. Frost’s chief researcher, James Reston, Jr. (Rockwell) states earlier in the film that he wants the television interview to serve as the trial Nixon never got, the trial America needs to have, in order for the country to find some sort of peace. This film may have set out to give him that trial once again, but it’s hard not to see in it the resurrection of Nixon as a man: lonely, regretful, oddly graceful in the final stance of defeat. It really should be called Nixon/Frost. The former president comes out on top.
FROST/NIXON
To the generation that grew up firm in the belief that Richard Nixon=Bogeyman, this film presents something of a dilemma. On the one hand, it purports to dramatize the moment when the disgraced 37th president finally confessed to the American people that he had sinned against them. On the other hand, the characterization delivered by actor Frank Langella, and guided by director Ron Howard (both Oscar-nominated), in no way demonizes him. Good for the project overall, I suppose, but frustrating for those who still need to view Nixon as the devil. Full disclosure: I grew up during the Watergate era (politically as well as biologically), and I have always been of that camp. As a consequence, this movie had me squirming in my theater seat.
Frost/Nixon covers the events leading up to, and key moments from, the famous 1977 television interviews between British talk show host David Frost (Michael Sheen) and former president Richard Nixon (these interviews have recently been released in their entirety on dvd). Frost had made his mark on American television in the early part of the decade with a show devoted mostly to celebrity chitchat. Suave, confidant, cheeky, he combined the fun of swinging London with an earnestness that hinted at erudition. After Richard Nixon resigned the presidency, Frost concocted the idea of sitting down with him and going over his life in a series of interviews. It would be his biggest “get” ever, and the ratings—he was convinced—would go through the roof. A savvy entertainer, he turned out to be more right than even he probably anticipated.
The potential for a fascinating look at the aftermath of Watergate is certainly here. So what exactly is wrong with Frost/Nixon? It probably is terrific theater (the screenplay is by Peter Morgan, based on his well-received play). But adaptations are tricky; it’s a rare film that can successfully capture the singular style and impact of another medium. Not to mention that the play is about a third medium, television. What makes great television, or a compelling play about it, does not guarantee that a great or compelling film will emerge from either. Under Ron Howard’s capable but uninspired direction, this proves true. Frost/Nixon comes off more like a casual backstage tour of its events rather than a gripping backstage drama of how they transpired. It has a loose, gossipy feel to it; if you’re looking for historical insight or revelations about the people involved, you’ll have to look elsewhere. Howard and Morgan are on the trail of smaller game.
They begin by tracking dual story lines which alternately follow Frost and his associates plotting to woo Nixon onto TV and Nixon’s gloomy exile at his seaside home in San Clemente, California, where he dreams of reentry into public life. Eventually, these plots come together as serious negotiations between the two sides begin, terms are agreed to, and Frost assembles his team of researchers to help him “prepare” for the interview. That word was in quotes because Frost’s idea of preparing, according to the film, is to let his researchers (Oliver Platt, Sam Rockwell, Matthew Macfadyen) do all the work, while he burnishes his reputation as a party- and premiere-attending man-about-town, in between pitching his show to prospective backers (all the major networks have turned him down, and this is, of course, in the era before cable). As it progresses, the film gradually builds its portrait of each man as they prepare for their history-making contest before the cameras.
These portraits are meant to be the film’s strength, but they are actually its greatest weakness. There is no question that both men are subjects worthy of screen treatment, although it might not be immediately obvious in the case of Frost, who is portrayed as shallow, self-absorbed, and clueless about how unprepared he is for what he’s planning to do. Early in the story, he smoothly picks up a woman (Rebecca Hall) on an airplane, and she becomes his companion for the remainder of the film. It is clear that he views Nixon in the same light: an easy conquest for his charm. Ironically, it is only when things begin to go wrong--one potential sponsor after another turns him down, and his search for money becomes increasingly desperate, and comic--that his character starts to develop into something more interesting than the Lovable TV and Party Guy. As his position weakens, his character deepens, but Sheen’s performance unfortunately does not follow along. It may not be wholly his fault: despite the direction the script maps out for him, Frost’s part is seriously underwritten. But even so, Sheen simply finds no way to suggest what’s happening behind the crumbling façade of Frost’s self-assurance beyond clutching his head and mussing his beautifully coiffed hair. The script wants you to believe that Frost finally grows into the responsibility of his role, but it’s a suggestion in the story outline and not a realized fact on film.
Nixon is a different story, and it’s a story the American public doesn’t seem to tire of. This Foundering Father endlessly fascinates, illustrated by the number of times he’s been portrayed in film or other media. Is there another U.S. President who is the subject of an opera (John Adams’ Nixon in China)? And, of course, his disembodied, living head was a recurring figure in the animated television series Futurama. I have admitted my discomfort with the notion of a repatriated Richard Nixon. Yet I welcome the introduction of a character with enough edges and angles to keep the film from becoming too obvious a civics lesson/morality play. The screenplay gives us this Nixon: a heavily scarred monument to ambition and pride, furious, hurt, his hunger for vindication and approval so palpable it’s like another person in the room. Yet for every diatribe against the liberals that hounded him from office, every crass joke, or lip-licking reference to the fee he will be paid for his TV appearance, there’s an image of an isolated, introspective Nixon, sculpted in shadow, his eyes haunted by what he sees of the past, or of himself, when he dares look inward. It’s the image of a tragic, fallen man, and it might be the most romantic picture of Nixon ever painted.
Serving this end is Langella’s performance, which truly commands the viewer‘s attention, although not always for the best reason. Gone are the weird tics and mannerisms, and that nervous, unconvincing smile, of Tricky Dick; in their place are a reflective, melancholy bow of the head or a poignant stare offscreen—Lear in exile, contemplating his failure. And he does that haunted eyes thing a lot, which is pretty effective. But like so many other actors trying to capture this most mannered of politicians, Langella falls victim to the temptation to impersonate. How does one do Nixon without some approximation of the Voice? Not possible, of course, and Langella’s attempt is often painful to listen to--a lugubrious and weirdly folksy vocal characterization that sounds at times like Jimmy Stewart doing his impression of Dracula. I’m not sure what director Howard could have been hearing that he liked.
The key question, however—and the one that had me squirming in my seat at the beginning of this review—is this: Does Frost/Nixon give Richard Nixon the exoneration he so desperately sought during his lifetime? Of course, the film does not give us the real Nixon; no narrative, even a careful work of “faction,” can do that. It offers us instead a construct of historical hindsight, a wish-fulfillment portrayal of a Nixon tragically aware of his shortcomings, his squandered opportunities, and the uncomfortable place he will occupy in American history. The last image Howard offers us is of Nixon standing alone on his balcony, staring moodily out at the ocean at dusk: the image of a man contemplating the emptiness of his future, perhaps, or the vast expanse of what he's lost. Frost’s chief researcher, James Reston, Jr. (Rockwell) states earlier in the film that he wants the television interview to serve as the trial Nixon never got, the trial America needs to have, in order for the country to find some sort of peace. This film may have set out to give him that trial once again, but it’s hard not to see in it the resurrection of Nixon as a man: lonely, regretful, oddly graceful in the final stance of defeat. It really should be called Nixon/Frost. The former president comes out on top.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Happy-Go-Lucky
The main thing to say about this film is that it is pretty much a one-woman show. The movie IS Sally Hawkins. If you're as captivated by her performance as I was, then this movie will delight you to no end. If you find her annoying or uninteresting, then chances are the movie won't affect you much at all. But what kind of emotional armor could you be wearing to resist her? She's simply amazing, and she gives as completely lived a performance as I've ever seen in a movie. How did she not get a nomination for best actress at this year's Academy Awards? How did Happy-Go-Lucky not win the award for best original screenplay? (I mean, Milk was very good, but the screenplay was often unruly, and the film's power came mostly from its performances.) I don't know the answer to these questions. I just know I can't wait to see this film again.
HAPPY-GO-LUCKY
The title of this splendid British film (Oscar nominee for Best Original Screenplay) is a bit ironic, because Happy-Go-Lucky is often not a very happy film at all. Although essentially a comedy, it delves into some pretty dark corners of the human soul—sexual frustration, anger, bigotry, child abuse, and madness all make their startling appearances in what is otherwise a buoyant celebration of a unique free spirit and her irrepressibly upbeat approach to living.
Poppy is a 30-year-old kindergarten teacher of boundless enthusiasm, for her students, her friends, and seemingly everyone she meets during the course of her day. As portrayed by the wonderful Sally Hawkins, Poppy is also endearingly eccentric—no saccharine Pollyanna, she’s an outrageous (though innocent) flirt, a bawdy drinking companion, and a deliberate but disarming disturber of the peace for those quiet, serious souls she considers to be in need of a good shaking up. In fact, it is her self-described mission in life to raise people’s spirits, to make them see the possibilities for joy around them, and she carries it to great—and sometimes maddening--lengths.
Happy-Go-Lucky certainly begins happily enough. In an opening credits sequence that nearly bursts from the screen, Poppy rides her bicycle through the streets of London, gaily weaving around traffic as the camera sweeps ahead of her, smiling, laughing, observing, drinking in every moment and sight along the way, and making them all as lovely as she is. The film that follows is essentially an exploration of the energy behind this ride, of the effervescent personality and joyous connection to the world that it represents. At heart it’s a character study: what little plot exists is provided by the daily ups and downs of Poppy’s existence, by the various encounters--some random, some routine—with all those lucky enough to cross her path.
This quality gives it something in common with the Italian Neorealist films of the post-World War II era, films whose artful arrangement of the simple incidents of everyday life often emphasize character over the furtherance of story. In fact, Happy-Go-Lucky might be slyly alluding to that famous film movement in a very specific way: after the exuberant opening, Poppy’s bicycle is stolen while she is browsing in a bookstore (and flirting, unsuccessfully but hilariously, with its owner). In Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves, probably Neorealism’s best-known film, a bicycle stolen near the beginning of the story starts a man on a downward spiral towards tragedy. No such fate awaits Poppy, however--she quickly shrugs off her loss as one of life’s little annoyances, absorbing the incident into her optimistic worldview, something to be regretted but still laughed at and gotten over. The difference in reactions, and the way this film recovers and begins anew in the very next scene, not only marks an important divergence in purpose between the two films, but also suggests that writer-director Mike Leigh (Secrets and Lies) might have inserted the theft as an in-joke for cinema lovers.
Still, Poppy’s life is by no means trouble-free. Several of the film’s episodes describe trials that test her spirit, trials which grow darker as the story progresses. A child in her class is the victim of abuse at home; a tense weekend spent at her married sister’s house uncovers old family wounds; and in the film’s most mysterious and moving sequence, Poppy discovers a disturbed homeless man while walking alone at night, and though his behavior is erratic and potentially a danger to her, she bravely (or foolishly?) tries to befriend him.
And then there’s Scott. Poppy’s penchant for trying to bring out the best in people meets its severest test when she decides to learn to drive (a consequence of the bicycle theft). Her weekly lessons with Scott (Eddie Marsan), a driving instructor with some serious issues, provide the film’s free-flowing story line with its most overt organizing principle. An angry, embittered, bigoted man who resents Poppy’s relentless good cheer, Scott resides at the antipodes of Poppy’s world. They clash over everything, from what she wears to her inability to stop chatting during her lessons--even over her attempts at friendship. And yet slowly, inevitably perhaps, Scott begins to answer her invitation to relate to her as a human being rather than as just another student. In the end, they affect each other in ways neither could foresee, and while the audience might not be completely surprised by the dilemma Scott eventually finds himself in, the explosiveness of his reaction to it is a shock that threatens to rip the delicate fabric of the film apart.
The driving metaphor is brilliant, providing multiple ways to picture the central conflict of Poppy’s life: her struggle not just to enjoy her time on earth but to define it in terms of personal freedom, her own as well as others’. Scott’s dogged determination to remain disengaged is embodied by his profession: keeping one’s eyes on the road, moving straight ahead down predetermined paths is essential to the business of driving. Poppy, of course, is used to the greater freedom of riding a bicycle, and her inability, or unwillingness, to adapt to the more restricted circumstances of an automobile finds expression in her continuous stream of conversation and her continued attempts to notice everything interesting around her. What Scott warns are distractions, Poppy sees as the reasons she’s alive in the first place.
The enclosed space of Scott’s tiny car perfectly depicts this contradiction. Poppy is almost literally trapped, confined by a seat belt and by Scott’s instructions, his attempts to control every movement of her hands, her head, her eyes. Hawkins’ energetic and voluble performance is answered by Marsan’s tight-lipped, glowering turn as Scott in a conflict of personalities that redefines the notion of incompatibility. Despite the fact that they sit in such cramped proximity, they hardly share this space: Leigh depicts them mostly in separate shots, rarely in the two-shots that he employs for Poppy’s encounters with the other people in her life, where entire conversations play out in a single continuous take, using the unbroken frame and real time to capture the ease with which she relates to them.
This tactic is put to especially good use in the scenes devoted to her budding relationship with Tim (Samuel Roukin), a social worker who comes to help the abused boy in her classroom. Poppy’s interest in a man strikes the right chord this time, and the chemistry of their first date leads to what has to be one of the most sweetly erotic love scenes ever filmed. Leigh once again trusts his actors to play the entire scene in a single shot, and the simplicity of the set-up, plus the charm of Poppy’s goofy approach to foreplay, make their transition to lovemaking seem both effortless and real.
It’s a mark of the command Leigh has over his material that he follows this romantic interlude with the fury of the final encounter between Poppy and Scott, and it feels dramatically right. Both terrifying and sad, this final “driving lesson” is about how one navigates through the traffic of other lives, and it leaves the viewer grasping the irony that although Poppy has finally succeeded in breaking down Scott’s reserve, it has made her realize that there are times when she needs to invoke that protection for herself.
Happy or sad, Happy-Go Lucky engages the viewer as completely as it does because of Sally Hawkins’ incredible charm as Poppy. The film marks the harmonic convergence of an amazing actress and a role she seems not so much to perform as to let radiate from her. But more important than its winning portrait of an unforgettable character, Happy-Go-Lucky offers us a reminder of what character is, or can be: the ability, in often unremarkable circumstances, to live one’s life remarkably from within.
HAPPY-GO-LUCKY
The title of this splendid British film (Oscar nominee for Best Original Screenplay) is a bit ironic, because Happy-Go-Lucky is often not a very happy film at all. Although essentially a comedy, it delves into some pretty dark corners of the human soul—sexual frustration, anger, bigotry, child abuse, and madness all make their startling appearances in what is otherwise a buoyant celebration of a unique free spirit and her irrepressibly upbeat approach to living.
Poppy is a 30-year-old kindergarten teacher of boundless enthusiasm, for her students, her friends, and seemingly everyone she meets during the course of her day. As portrayed by the wonderful Sally Hawkins, Poppy is also endearingly eccentric—no saccharine Pollyanna, she’s an outrageous (though innocent) flirt, a bawdy drinking companion, and a deliberate but disarming disturber of the peace for those quiet, serious souls she considers to be in need of a good shaking up. In fact, it is her self-described mission in life to raise people’s spirits, to make them see the possibilities for joy around them, and she carries it to great—and sometimes maddening--lengths.
Happy-Go-Lucky certainly begins happily enough. In an opening credits sequence that nearly bursts from the screen, Poppy rides her bicycle through the streets of London, gaily weaving around traffic as the camera sweeps ahead of her, smiling, laughing, observing, drinking in every moment and sight along the way, and making them all as lovely as she is. The film that follows is essentially an exploration of the energy behind this ride, of the effervescent personality and joyous connection to the world that it represents. At heart it’s a character study: what little plot exists is provided by the daily ups and downs of Poppy’s existence, by the various encounters--some random, some routine—with all those lucky enough to cross her path.
This quality gives it something in common with the Italian Neorealist films of the post-World War II era, films whose artful arrangement of the simple incidents of everyday life often emphasize character over the furtherance of story. In fact, Happy-Go-Lucky might be slyly alluding to that famous film movement in a very specific way: after the exuberant opening, Poppy’s bicycle is stolen while she is browsing in a bookstore (and flirting, unsuccessfully but hilariously, with its owner). In Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves, probably Neorealism’s best-known film, a bicycle stolen near the beginning of the story starts a man on a downward spiral towards tragedy. No such fate awaits Poppy, however--she quickly shrugs off her loss as one of life’s little annoyances, absorbing the incident into her optimistic worldview, something to be regretted but still laughed at and gotten over. The difference in reactions, and the way this film recovers and begins anew in the very next scene, not only marks an important divergence in purpose between the two films, but also suggests that writer-director Mike Leigh (Secrets and Lies) might have inserted the theft as an in-joke for cinema lovers.
Still, Poppy’s life is by no means trouble-free. Several of the film’s episodes describe trials that test her spirit, trials which grow darker as the story progresses. A child in her class is the victim of abuse at home; a tense weekend spent at her married sister’s house uncovers old family wounds; and in the film’s most mysterious and moving sequence, Poppy discovers a disturbed homeless man while walking alone at night, and though his behavior is erratic and potentially a danger to her, she bravely (or foolishly?) tries to befriend him.
And then there’s Scott. Poppy’s penchant for trying to bring out the best in people meets its severest test when she decides to learn to drive (a consequence of the bicycle theft). Her weekly lessons with Scott (Eddie Marsan), a driving instructor with some serious issues, provide the film’s free-flowing story line with its most overt organizing principle. An angry, embittered, bigoted man who resents Poppy’s relentless good cheer, Scott resides at the antipodes of Poppy’s world. They clash over everything, from what she wears to her inability to stop chatting during her lessons--even over her attempts at friendship. And yet slowly, inevitably perhaps, Scott begins to answer her invitation to relate to her as a human being rather than as just another student. In the end, they affect each other in ways neither could foresee, and while the audience might not be completely surprised by the dilemma Scott eventually finds himself in, the explosiveness of his reaction to it is a shock that threatens to rip the delicate fabric of the film apart.
The driving metaphor is brilliant, providing multiple ways to picture the central conflict of Poppy’s life: her struggle not just to enjoy her time on earth but to define it in terms of personal freedom, her own as well as others’. Scott’s dogged determination to remain disengaged is embodied by his profession: keeping one’s eyes on the road, moving straight ahead down predetermined paths is essential to the business of driving. Poppy, of course, is used to the greater freedom of riding a bicycle, and her inability, or unwillingness, to adapt to the more restricted circumstances of an automobile finds expression in her continuous stream of conversation and her continued attempts to notice everything interesting around her. What Scott warns are distractions, Poppy sees as the reasons she’s alive in the first place.
The enclosed space of Scott’s tiny car perfectly depicts this contradiction. Poppy is almost literally trapped, confined by a seat belt and by Scott’s instructions, his attempts to control every movement of her hands, her head, her eyes. Hawkins’ energetic and voluble performance is answered by Marsan’s tight-lipped, glowering turn as Scott in a conflict of personalities that redefines the notion of incompatibility. Despite the fact that they sit in such cramped proximity, they hardly share this space: Leigh depicts them mostly in separate shots, rarely in the two-shots that he employs for Poppy’s encounters with the other people in her life, where entire conversations play out in a single continuous take, using the unbroken frame and real time to capture the ease with which she relates to them.
This tactic is put to especially good use in the scenes devoted to her budding relationship with Tim (Samuel Roukin), a social worker who comes to help the abused boy in her classroom. Poppy’s interest in a man strikes the right chord this time, and the chemistry of their first date leads to what has to be one of the most sweetly erotic love scenes ever filmed. Leigh once again trusts his actors to play the entire scene in a single shot, and the simplicity of the set-up, plus the charm of Poppy’s goofy approach to foreplay, make their transition to lovemaking seem both effortless and real.
It’s a mark of the command Leigh has over his material that he follows this romantic interlude with the fury of the final encounter between Poppy and Scott, and it feels dramatically right. Both terrifying and sad, this final “driving lesson” is about how one navigates through the traffic of other lives, and it leaves the viewer grasping the irony that although Poppy has finally succeeded in breaking down Scott’s reserve, it has made her realize that there are times when she needs to invoke that protection for herself.
Happy or sad, Happy-Go Lucky engages the viewer as completely as it does because of Sally Hawkins’ incredible charm as Poppy. The film marks the harmonic convergence of an amazing actress and a role she seems not so much to perform as to let radiate from her. But more important than its winning portrait of an unforgettable character, Happy-Go-Lucky offers us a reminder of what character is, or can be: the ability, in often unremarkable circumstances, to live one’s life remarkably from within.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Coraline
I love stop-motion animation, better than any other type. There's something about the original King Kong or one of the classic fantasy films that Ray Harryhausen did the special effects for (Jason and the Argonauts, etc.) that makes them look unlike anything else. They have such a strange, other-wordly quality to them. In recent years, I've become a huge fan of Aardman Studios, particularly their Wallace and Gromit series. And let us not forget Tim Burton, who has experimented in various ways with stop-motion animation in several of his films. Now comes this new movie, Coraline, based on a novel (and graphic novel), neither of which I've yet read. But I think it won't be long. Not only is it an amazing film (I did not see it in 3-D, but it didn't matter), it illustrates one of the most interesting ironies of recent filmmaking--how animated films can somehow seem more expressive and human than most live-action films. If you have an explanation of this phenomenon, please let me know. And if you haven't experienced it yet, I think Coraline will provide you with a pretty good introduction.
CORALINE
Alternate realities are tempting to think about, it’s pretty safe to say. Haven’t we all indulged in fantasies about what our lives would be like if we could change just one thing, or a few things—or maybe everything? The new animated film Coraline poses this question, then answers it with devilish complications. A fractured fairy tale with a deliciously perverse sense of humor, Coraline is nominally about childhood and its discontents but is really about the discontents we all have that merely started in childhood. Parents will want to take their children to see it because it is an animated film, but they’ll most likely be rocking them to sleep for weeks to come if they do. This is one “kid’s” film that Mom and Dad might want to see alone. It’s a tale told through a glass darkly, a triumph of the kind of imagination that animates the grimmest of Grimm’s cautionary tales about being tempted by the wrong choices.
Coraline Jones is the unhappy young daughter of unhappy parents, writers for a gardening publication who despise actual gardening. They move Coraline to a run-down rooming house in the country so they can immerse themselves in the peace and quiet they need to do their work. Of Coraline they have little thought, other than that she distracts them from making their deadlines. Perpetually harried and crabby, Mr. and Mrs. Jones are not bad parents, just overworked and ineffectual ones, unable to find the proper balance between their careers and parenting. Their bored and lonely daughter entertains herself by visiting her eccentric neighbors and exploring the grounds and the interior of the decaying mansion she unwillingly occupies. Until, that is, she finds a mysterious door in the wall of one of the rooms--then the house takes on fascinating possibilities. Bricked up by day, at night the door magically opens onto a parallel world, one in which everything in Coraline’s life seems greatly improved. There her parents are successful, happy, attractive, and interesting. And very, very attentive to her. In short, her entire world is transformed from drab and dysfunctional into an exciting and nurturing environment, where she is loved and amused in exactly the way she yearns for. The kindly couple invite her to stay and live with them permanently, instead of just visiting at night, and it is an offer that it would seem impossible for Coraline to resist.
But this wouldn’t be a fairy tale if there weren’t a catch. There’s a catch. Maybe it has something to do with the buttons sewn over her new mom’s and dad’s eyes…. Repeated nighttime visits to this seemingly ideal family make Coraline begin to suspect that there’s an ulterior motive to their kindness, and that maybe things aren’t quite as wonderful in this alternate world as they appear. No surprise in that--wouldn’t be much of a movie if they were. But from this point on, the intensity with which Coraline explores its kinship to nightmare is surprising, as well as both thrilling and disturbing--giving emotional life to the duality behind the film’s structure and theme.
Fortunately, little Coraline--as voiced by wunderkind Dakota Fanning--is a wise and plucky heroine, completely up to the challenges the story throws her way. It doesn’t take her very long to tumble to the false promise of her wish-fulfillment world; in fact, she seems wary from the start, never completely seduced. And when she finally learns that her charming new home is a deadly trap not just for her but her true parents as well, her adventurous spirit blossoms into the resourcefulness she needs to rescue them all from a terrifying fate. Fanning perfectly captures Coraline’s contrary nature--her combativeness, her stubborn streak--but also her hurt and the essential sweetness carefully hidden behind a protective layer of tomboy cool. More excellent vocal work comes from Teri Hatcher as the two Mrs. Jones. Skillfully negotiating the transformation of her character from the tired, unwittingly neglectful mother in the real world to the scheming, ultimately abusive Other Mother, Hatcher manages to make each distinct and yet obviously related, two manifestations of the same personality. Her Other Mother is not wholly villainous, despite her villainy; Hatcher successfully conveys the vulnerability and desperation the two women share, despite their diametrically opposed deeds.
For years, animated films--the stop-motion kind, like this one, or those with computer-generated imagery--have been among the most sophisticated and inventive movies being made. Coraline continues this trend, and may even have raised the bar somewhat. Adapting Neil Gaiman’s 2002 book and the subsequent graphic novel, writer-director Henry Selick (Tim Burton’s The Nightmare before Christmas) draws upon a rich store of imagery from horror films--the Old Dark House, the creepy neighbors, the vaporous line between waking and dream--as well as a Dr. Seuss-like menagerie of mad contraptions to create a stunning, kaleidoscopic universe that’s part Gothic landscape, part circus, part delirium tremens.
But Coraline is not merely a visual tour-de-force; it’s anchored by a strong, archetypal story that speaks to the kinds of fears which unsettle us all: fears of abandonment, of not being loved, of life becoming a disappointment. Like another young, dissatisfied heroine embarking on a perilous journey to find her heart’s desire, Coraline discovers her “dream” world to be a bright illusion masking terrors more real than those she left behind, and must employ wisdom, courage, and a newfound love for those at home to find her way back to them. The parallel to The Wizard of Oz may be obvious, but I was reminded also of George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, and his wish to lead a life completely other than his own. The nightmare that nearly envelops him teaches him to embrace his own world, flawed as it is, and rededicate himself to making it better. In Coraline, a tiny puppet heroine completes this life-changing journey there and back again, as well--probably a journey we all need to make, in our own time, in our individual ways.
CORALINE
Alternate realities are tempting to think about, it’s pretty safe to say. Haven’t we all indulged in fantasies about what our lives would be like if we could change just one thing, or a few things—or maybe everything? The new animated film Coraline poses this question, then answers it with devilish complications. A fractured fairy tale with a deliciously perverse sense of humor, Coraline is nominally about childhood and its discontents but is really about the discontents we all have that merely started in childhood. Parents will want to take their children to see it because it is an animated film, but they’ll most likely be rocking them to sleep for weeks to come if they do. This is one “kid’s” film that Mom and Dad might want to see alone. It’s a tale told through a glass darkly, a triumph of the kind of imagination that animates the grimmest of Grimm’s cautionary tales about being tempted by the wrong choices.
Coraline Jones is the unhappy young daughter of unhappy parents, writers for a gardening publication who despise actual gardening. They move Coraline to a run-down rooming house in the country so they can immerse themselves in the peace and quiet they need to do their work. Of Coraline they have little thought, other than that she distracts them from making their deadlines. Perpetually harried and crabby, Mr. and Mrs. Jones are not bad parents, just overworked and ineffectual ones, unable to find the proper balance between their careers and parenting. Their bored and lonely daughter entertains herself by visiting her eccentric neighbors and exploring the grounds and the interior of the decaying mansion she unwillingly occupies. Until, that is, she finds a mysterious door in the wall of one of the rooms--then the house takes on fascinating possibilities. Bricked up by day, at night the door magically opens onto a parallel world, one in which everything in Coraline’s life seems greatly improved. There her parents are successful, happy, attractive, and interesting. And very, very attentive to her. In short, her entire world is transformed from drab and dysfunctional into an exciting and nurturing environment, where she is loved and amused in exactly the way she yearns for. The kindly couple invite her to stay and live with them permanently, instead of just visiting at night, and it is an offer that it would seem impossible for Coraline to resist.
But this wouldn’t be a fairy tale if there weren’t a catch. There’s a catch. Maybe it has something to do with the buttons sewn over her new mom’s and dad’s eyes…. Repeated nighttime visits to this seemingly ideal family make Coraline begin to suspect that there’s an ulterior motive to their kindness, and that maybe things aren’t quite as wonderful in this alternate world as they appear. No surprise in that--wouldn’t be much of a movie if they were. But from this point on, the intensity with which Coraline explores its kinship to nightmare is surprising, as well as both thrilling and disturbing--giving emotional life to the duality behind the film’s structure and theme.
Fortunately, little Coraline--as voiced by wunderkind Dakota Fanning--is a wise and plucky heroine, completely up to the challenges the story throws her way. It doesn’t take her very long to tumble to the false promise of her wish-fulfillment world; in fact, she seems wary from the start, never completely seduced. And when she finally learns that her charming new home is a deadly trap not just for her but her true parents as well, her adventurous spirit blossoms into the resourcefulness she needs to rescue them all from a terrifying fate. Fanning perfectly captures Coraline’s contrary nature--her combativeness, her stubborn streak--but also her hurt and the essential sweetness carefully hidden behind a protective layer of tomboy cool. More excellent vocal work comes from Teri Hatcher as the two Mrs. Jones. Skillfully negotiating the transformation of her character from the tired, unwittingly neglectful mother in the real world to the scheming, ultimately abusive Other Mother, Hatcher manages to make each distinct and yet obviously related, two manifestations of the same personality. Her Other Mother is not wholly villainous, despite her villainy; Hatcher successfully conveys the vulnerability and desperation the two women share, despite their diametrically opposed deeds.
For years, animated films--the stop-motion kind, like this one, or those with computer-generated imagery--have been among the most sophisticated and inventive movies being made. Coraline continues this trend, and may even have raised the bar somewhat. Adapting Neil Gaiman’s 2002 book and the subsequent graphic novel, writer-director Henry Selick (Tim Burton’s The Nightmare before Christmas) draws upon a rich store of imagery from horror films--the Old Dark House, the creepy neighbors, the vaporous line between waking and dream--as well as a Dr. Seuss-like menagerie of mad contraptions to create a stunning, kaleidoscopic universe that’s part Gothic landscape, part circus, part delirium tremens.
But Coraline is not merely a visual tour-de-force; it’s anchored by a strong, archetypal story that speaks to the kinds of fears which unsettle us all: fears of abandonment, of not being loved, of life becoming a disappointment. Like another young, dissatisfied heroine embarking on a perilous journey to find her heart’s desire, Coraline discovers her “dream” world to be a bright illusion masking terrors more real than those she left behind, and must employ wisdom, courage, and a newfound love for those at home to find her way back to them. The parallel to The Wizard of Oz may be obvious, but I was reminded also of George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, and his wish to lead a life completely other than his own. The nightmare that nearly envelops him teaches him to embrace his own world, flawed as it is, and rededicate himself to making it better. In Coraline, a tiny puppet heroine completes this life-changing journey there and back again, as well--probably a journey we all need to make, in our own time, in our individual ways.
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