An Amazing Cast Makes A Mess With Tallulah.

The Good: Decent performances
The Bad: Unlikable characters, Sheer volume of ridiculous plot conceits, Severe story and direction problems
The Basics: Tallulah has a wonderful cast led by Ellen Page and Allison Janney doing their usual great jobs, but is riddled with problems that make for a generally poor film.


There are very few actors or directors who can get me to change my viewing plans these days. As a reviewer and a Netflix subscriber, I have a pretty massive queue of things to watch, but there are a couple of people who pretty much instantly get my attention. When, rather suddenly, I discovered that there was a new film featuring Ellen Page and Allison Janney, that was enough to get me to completely change my reviewing plans for the day. The new film is Tallulah and it was released only a few days ago on Netflix. I was surprised to discover that Tallulah was the first Netflix-exclusive film I've actually watched and reviewed.

And it's unfortunate that Tallulah is such a mess outside the performances.

Tallulah and Nico are two young people, living out of their van, surviving off of dumpster food, stolen credit cards and shower tickets they get from truckers. Tallulah dreams of going to India, but Nico just wants to go home. So, the morning after Nico tells her he loves her, Tallulah awakens to discover Nico has abandoned her and she drives the van to Nico's mother's apartment. Margo Mooney is going through a divorce from Nico's father and has not seen her son in two years. While scavenging for food in a nearby hotel, Tallulah encounters Carolyn and asks Lu to watch her one year-old baby for a night. Despite Tallulah not exhibiting any special skills, Carolyn abandons her daughter Madison with Tallulah. After Carolyn returns and collapses, Tallulah takes Madison out to her van for the night.

The next morning, as Tallulah tries to bring the baby back into the apartment building when she finds the place swarming with police. After a disastrous day - including a lousy book signing and the death of her turtle - Margo is visited by Tallulah, who tries to pass Madison off as her and Nico's baby. While the police hunt for Madison, Margo and Tallulah begin to bond. As Carolyn struggles to find Madison, Margo and Tallulah start to rely upon one another . . . until a chance sighting and Nico's return to New York City results in everything falling apart for Tallulah.

Tallulah is plagued almost immediately by a problem with the direction. The film is one that involves, essentially, a child abduction. While Margo's apartment is a different building from Carolyn's hotel, the distance between the buildings or their relative locations (they are within Tallulah's walking distance of one another, at the very least) is not made clear and the transition between the buildings is fast and awkward. As a result, elements like Tallulah standing outside Margo's apartment selling lemonade and Tallulah's van getting ticketed and ultimately booted seem like things that the police - who are looking for her - would notice.

Similarly, there's a pretty ridiculous conceit in that Tallulah abandons Madison one night in the apartment, robs Margo blind and after they are reunited, Margo does not call out the young lady on being a thief . . . even after Margo goes shopping for baby supplies and, by necessity, goes into her purse. Unlike Carolyn, Margo seems both intelligent and connected to reality in most ways, so her failing to address this is either a huge character issue or a very poor directoral/editing problem with Tallulah.

Tallulah is unfortunately predictable in many ways. As I watched the film, my wife was nearby doing her own thing; she called the next plot event on three separate occasions.

The moment Uzo Aduba appears on screen, she steals focus and is more than enough to pull viewers who love her on Orange Is The New Black out of the narrative. Aduba does fine in her brief role as a Child Protective Services officer, but given her Orange Is The New Black character's awkward relationship with children, it is tough to watch her make the leap (considering both parts are on Netflix, it feels almost like stunt casting for Tallulah).

That said, the acting in Tallulah is the redeeming quality of the film. Aduba is professional and empathetic as the CPS Detective and Zachary Quinto makes the most out his bit role in a part that allows him to loosen up and just play a normal human, which is pretty delightful to see. Having met Quinto in person, albeit briefly, at a Star Trek convention, it's cool to see him play a character who is just kind and loving and in no way superhuman, where it is a performance clearly different from his off-screen persona. In other words, Tallulah illustrates that Quinto can act - and not simply by having him play insane superpowered villains or an emotionless half-Vulcan. Tammy Blanchard has a decent emotional transition as Carolyn, making the initially unlikable character even remotely empathetic.

The two leads, Ellen Page and Allison Janney, are good in Tallulah. They have excellent chemistry with one another and there was no point in Tallulah where the viewer feels like they are watching outtakes from scenes the pair shot for Juno (reviewed here!). But, on their own, neither Page, nor Janney shows us anything outside what we would expect of actors of their caliber - much like how David Zayas's role as Detective Richards is utterly unsurprising given viewers have seen him play essentially the same character on Dexter. All three of these actors are wonderful, but in Tallulah they play well within expectations.

Tallulah is a marginally likable protagonist - she does something horrible, but she tries to take care of the child after she lies her way into Margo's home. That is somewhat interesting as a premise and director Sian Heder enhances Tallulah's character by creating flashbacks and hallucinations for the protagonist that visually implies her mental illness. Even using the hallucinations becomes problematic from the direction when it comes to the film's final scene.

Ultimately, Tallulah asks viewers to hang in with watching a long con and be entertained or empathize with how it all falls apart and it fails to captivate.

For other Netflix exclusives, please check out my reviews of:
House Of Cards - Season 1
Orange Is The New Black - Season 3
Daredevil - Season 2
Jessica Jones - Season 1
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt - Season 2
Grace And Frankie - Season 1
Sense8 - Season 1
Arrested Development - Season 4
Stranger Things - Season 1

3/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Marvel Finally Gets Its Perfect Film With X-Men: Days Of Future Past!

The Good: Acting, Character work, Plot, Special effects
The Bad: Minutiae
The Basics: Mixing all of the best elements of the franchise, X-Men: Days Of Future Past resets the mutant section of the Marvel Universe with unparalleled success.


For all of the complaints that some might have with films based on DC Comics properties, the writers and directors of films from that comic book company have managed to succeed where Marvel Enterprises has failed. Twice. Those adapting DC Comics properties have managed to make two perfect films, which is a rarity and an exceptionally hard thing to do for action-adventure/science fiction/comic book genre films. And yet, for all the issues with making a movie that tends to rely upon trying to balance a story fans will love with creating a self-contained film that holds up independent of allusions to other films or books, to date, DC Comics properties had yielded the best results with The Dark Knight (reviewed here!) and Watchmen (reviewed here!). With the release of X-Men: Days Of Future Past, Marvel Enterprises finally scores a film that is damn near flawless, is thoroughly entertaining, and provides a compelling dose of character development and larger thematic elements to make a statement worth experiencing again and again.

To be fair to Marvel, the X-Men films have been some of the most consistently wonderful films based upon comic books; from Bryan Singer’s first dalliance in the universe fourteen years ago, the characters became a platform for discussing broader themes of alienation, prejudice, and fear. Perhaps one of the most fascinating aspects of X-Men: Days Of Future Past is how the film is constructed as a time-travel movie that is remarkably devoid of temporal problems and makes some of the most successful and rewarding allusions to prior films in the franchise. Is X-Men: Days Of Future Past dependent upon all of the X-Men films that preceded it? Yes and no. Yes, if one wants to get the richest possible experience out of viewing the film; no, in that the film ultimately acts much like Star Trek (reviewed here!) did to reboot that franchise. For the Star Trek franchise, there is a Universe 1.0 and a Universe 2.0. In a similar way, X-Men: Days Of Future Past ultimately introduces the X-Men Universe 2.0 to viewers. It is worth noting that X-Men: Days Of Future Past is loosely based upon the graphic novel Days Of Future Past, which I have not read; this review is purely one of the film.

Opening in a bleak future in Moscow where a small band of surviving mutants are hunted by Sentinels (robotic/organic killing machines that absorb the abilities of the mutants they fight to learn how to better kill mutants), the world has become a dark and desperate place. Most of humanity is dead (as the Sentinels zealously killed the humans who carried the genes that could give rise to future mutants) and mutants like Storm, Blink, Colossus, Bishop, Warpath, Sunspot, Kitty Pryde, Wolverine, Magneto and Professor X represent some of the last of mutantkind. After what appears to be a losing battle in which only Kitty Pryde and Bishop escape, the surviving mutants rendezvous in China a short time earlier. Kitty reveals to Logan just how they accomplished their “escape;” during the battle, she sends Bishop’s consciousness back in time a week or two in order to let their small band know where the Sentinels will hit them and when and they manage to evade the Sentinels by using Blink’s portals to simply not be there. Xavier and Magneto, hearing this and seeing its success, realize that this same technique has the potential to prevent the rise of the sentinels in the first place. To that end, they want to send a consciousness of a mutant back to their earlier body to stop Mystique from getting captured by Bolivar Trask, the inventor of the Sentinels, so he can never develop the adaptive technology that leads to the new wave of Sentinels. Unfortunately, Kitty is fairly certain that Xavier’s mind would never survive the trip back in time because of the mental torsion that comes with her technique. Logan, however, with his incredible healing power, could survive the trip, so he volunteers to be sent back to 1972 to try to save the world. The two catches: his body must be kept alive in the future long enough for him to succeed in his mission and he has to reunite the younger Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr.

Arriving back in the early 1970s where he is shocked to discover that the technique worked, Logan sets about to finding Xavier. While Logan heads to Xavier’s estate turned school for gifted youngsters, Mystique breaks a team of American mutants being used by the U.S. military out of Vietnam, where they were being sent home to be experimented upon by Trask. Trask, for his part, tries to sell the U.S. government on his nascent Sentinel program, but finds the Congressional leadership unwilling to spend money to create a weapon to use against American citizens. Logan finds that Xavier is disillusioned and is living at the school with only Hank McCoy. Having lost everything, Xavier is little more than a drug addict, as he has started to use one of McCoy’s treatments which allows him to walk, but at the cost of his telepathic abilities. Logan details his plan to try to save the future and even comes up with the means to get Erik out of his maximum security prison far underground at the Pentagon. After managing to convince Logan and Xavier, the trio picks up a mutant (Quicksilver) and they spring Magneto. Magneto quickly becomes game to find Mystique and in France, at the peace conference that would end the Vietnam War, Logan’s team encounters both Trask and Mystique. The stakes are raised in the past as the attempt to stop Mystique goes sideways and Trask gets a sample of what he needs, which breaks apart the alliance between Eric and Charles, while in the future, the team protecting Logan’s body is besieged by Sentinels!

There were several points in X-Men: Days Of Future Past where I found myself wondering if Bryan Singer and the writing team could pull off the concepts they were trying to present. For a time-travel film, the movie has remarkably few issues with temporal mechanics. In fact, it even has a built-in safety that is never addressed within the movie; if the first attempt to send Logan back fails, Kitty could send Logan’s consciousness to a few weeks earlier and try again! But three things stood out as potential sore spots that the writing team and Bryan Singer manage to adeptly pull off. First, from the moment the meeting in France falls apart, the characters are stuck in a clusterfuck of mistakes. Team members turn on one another, Trask gets a blood sample, and Logan’s consciousness slips back out of his body. The amazing thing is, even as all of the plans in the past go horribly awry, the film manages not to feel like a huge mistake. Instead, the characters keep pressing forward and innovating to adapt to their new circumstances and the brilliance of that is that it makes what could be a comedy of errors into a film intensely motivated by the characters. On the character front, X-Men: Days Of Future Past takes a turn that is reminiscent of the cave scene in The Empire Strikes Back (reviewed here!) when it stops all of the action dead and moves for a philosophical conversation between the two Xaviers. The right turn in tone manages to work because the character’s journey is finally rectified in a sufficient way; Xavier can only rise to the heroic heights he needs to with help from himself and the infusion of personal strength plays out in an innovative way. Finally, the moment Magneto starts using his massive power to lift a stadium into the air, my stomach sank with the feeling that the entire sequence was going to be a pointless digression only to serve the needs of fans of extreme special effects. But there again, Bryan Singer pulls the sequence off (and I’m proud to say I figured out the purpose of the sequence moments before it was revealed!).

One of the problems with films based upon the X-Men has always been that there are so many characters to service and fans are bound to feel that some characters they might care about are getting the short end of the story. Cinematically, the X-Men films have largely (smartly) focused on Logan (Wolverine), Charles, and Erik (Magneto) above all the others. X-Men: Days Of Future Past is much the same, save that Magneto’s part is minimized in favor of adding more Mystique. For sure, Magneto is present, but much of his part in the film is to battle for Raven’s soul. Mystique has an actual character arc, fighting like an underground resistance fighter to an outright terrorist/assassin to a hero for her cause for which she is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. The character balance in X-Men: Days Of Future Past is sufficient to make for strong arcs for the main characters, though there are some elements that are hard not to miss. Most notable of those is the character of Rogue, whose footage was excised from the film months ago in order to get into the action earlier. Sadly, we shall have to wait months for the DVD/Blu-Ray release to confirm the theory that the body that a young scavenger finds in a pile in New York at the film’s outset is, in fact, Rogue’s (Rogue dying in the film’s early moments would justify the implicit relationship that Kitty Pryde now has with Iceman). Nicholas Hoult as the young Beast is given a truncated arc that makes him mostly into Xavier’s sidekick (without the chance for him to have any reflective, emotive, moments with Mystique). Most of the thrill in X-Men: Days Of Future Past on the character front comes in the form of cameos of X-Men past and present (even Emma Frost is given a nod if one watches the special effects closely as one of the final Sentinels seems to have her abilities!).

That said, the character journey of Charles Xavier roots all of the fantastic elements of X-Men: Days Of Future Past in a profoundly human journey. Xavier is essentially experiencing the holocaust that Erik Lehnsherr always warned him about and that Magneto fought to prevent. That Xavier’s only chance to help save the future and prevent that holocaust means that Wolverine must appeal to him at a time when he was the least hopeful makes for a compelling story in which a disillusioned man must learn to feel hope again. Amid all of the wicked cool special effects sequences and character turns, the story of Charles Xavier’s hope being rekindled grounds the film incredibly well.

By contrast, Wolverine’s journey in X-Men: Days Of Future Past is largely only appreciated by fans of the franchise. Wolverine is essentially a plot tool in X-Men: Days Of Future Past, but the climax of his journey is one that completely justifies the faith viewers have in the franchise. In that regard, X-Men: Days Of Future Past truly rewards fans of the franchise with payoffs to little moments seeded in earlier films. Magneto’s final line in X-Men: The Last Stand might have been paid off by the mid-credits scene in The Wolverine, but it entirely justifies his place in the future scenes of X-Men: Days Of Future Past as a full ally of Xavier’s. One of the few niggling continuity issues (in franchise, as opposed to in-film) is how Wolverine got his adamantium claws back (he lost them in The Wolverine and the mid-credits scene in that film pointedly illustrated that he did not get them back).

On the acting front, X-Men: Days Of Future Past is exactly what one would hope for. The cameos are wonderful and returning cast members do amazing jobs of reclaiming the roles they are known for. Omar Sy and Bingbing Fan are nice additions to the mutant mix as Bishop and Blink, though they are not given much to do – Kitty Pryde works on Bishop and Fan’s presence is nowhere near as impressive as the special effects used to illustrate Blink’s powers. Quicksilver is cool and he is performed with the film’s most comic presence by Evan Peters. And while Bolivar Trask might be presented with something of a monolithic façade, Peter Dinklage makes him entirely watchable. Even Josh Helman brings enough moments of suspicious eye movements and calculated tone to his deliveries to sell the menace of Stryker in his younger form.

The real moments given to the performers are given to James McAvoy (Charles Xavier in 1972) and Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique) to pull off. And they do. McAvoy plays Xavier with a tormented quality that we have not seen from Professor X before and yet, he manages to make the character feel like the same one that was introduced in X-Men: First Class. There are few films that so successfully find a previously likable and empowered protagonist wrestling with such crippling defeat and pulling it off the way McAvoy does as Xavier in X-Men: Days Of Future Past. He does this with a slouch and stare that sell the lost man who is essentially an addict and he plays it well.

Jennifer Lawrence plays Raven and whether she is in full blue make-up or essentially herself, she is given some of the key emotional moments in X-Men: Days Of Future Past and she knocks them out of the park. Lawrence plays Raven as strong and internally motivated with great posture and a sense of dignity that radiates from her. She embodies the “mutant and proud” slogan her character mocked in the prior film. But the key for her range comes in a scene that could simply seem to be an answer to plot questions fans of the franchise had. When Mystique learns the fates of the mutants who accompanied her and Erik after the Cuba incident, Lawrence plays shock and sadness wonderfully and Mystique is shaken to her core without the actress delivering any lines.

Some have said that X-Men: Days Of Future Past is inaccessible to non-fans, but the film is strong enough on context clues to answer all of the questions new viewers might have. Just as the film does not make explicit what Bishop’s mutant power is - it can be inferred enough through what happens to him to allow the viewer to enjoy his brief time in the film – the key elements of Charles’s lost nature, Logan’s pining for Jean Grey and even Erik’s rage are presented in a clear enough way that their characters make sense. Ultimately, X-Men: Days Of Future Past uses its broad canvas to tell a story that burns through its two hour, ten minute runtime at a lightning pace and makes viewers pine for more. Hopefully there will be a Director’s Cut that restores more footage to X-Men: Days Of Future Past; between that potential and the promise of the next sequel on the heels of one of the best franchise-ending scenes in all science fiction film history, fans have much to be excited about for the future of the X-Men franchise. But in the wake of a time travel movie that looks back and intimates about the future, X-Men: Days Of Future Past reminds us to enjoy the now and this is just the film to enjoy now with!
For other movies based upon the Marvel comic books, please check out my reviews of:
Guardians Of The Galaxy
The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro
The Wolverine
The Avengers
Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance
Captain America: The First Avenger
X-Men: First Class
Thor
Iron Man 2
The Incredible Hulk
Spider-Man 3
Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer
Blade: Trinity
Elektra
Daredevil

10/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Somewhat Blasé Revolution: The East Is Good, Not Mindblowing.

The Good: Decent acting, Good message
The Bad: Character development is rushed, Lack of zest/spark
The Basics: The East is an engaging exploration of domestic environmental terrorism in the United States that makes its point early and does not sufficiently develop beyond it to be a timeless work.


As I catch up on the films from earlier this year I missed, I have also been using my free time (limited as it is) to rewatch The West Wing (reviewed here!). The last script I wrote was for a very political film, so I have been very interested in political and economic issues of late. So, between Ellen Page being in it and having a love of political and economic films, The East was a movie I have been eager to watch. Having finally sat down to watch it, I was enthusiastic when it began, but the longer it went on, the less impressed I was by it. I suppose watching The West Wing for hours a day as I type, I have come to expect all my political film and television to have some zest and character. The East lacks both.

That is not to say The East is bad. It is not at all bad and it even had a few moments that genuinely surprised me. But, fundamentally, The East is hampered by the fact that it makes its point in the first five minutes and does not truly ratchet home anything genuinely new after that. The East takes a stance that extreme environmentalists commit acts of terrorism against corporations and those corporations hire secret intelligence agencies to protect their assets. But the film does not debate that and it only slightly argues the methods the environmental terrorists use.

After the home of a CEO of an oil company is vandalized, the private security firm Hiller Brood is hired to infiltrate the environmental terrorist organization, The East. Sarah is an agent for Hiller Brood tasked to join The East and report back to her boss and handler, Sharon. Tailing a federal agent after getting beaten for hopping a train, Sarah cuts her own wrists to get brought in. After a short time living in the woods with Benji, Izzy, and the rest of the East, Sarah manages to replace one of the operatives on a mission to a party hosted by a prominent pharmaceutical company’s CEO. Suspecting Benji of poisoning the champagne at the event with the company’s own drug, Sarah tries to expose Benji, but Sharon will not blow her cover because that company is not her client.

Sarah returns to The East house to spy on the group while they plan the two subsequent attacks the group has announced. Sharon wants to thwart the operations so Hiller Brood can pick up two new clients and enter the big leagues of corporate spying. While Sarah gets closer to Benji and Izzy, she finds herself less able to live with her boyfriend away from the East House. When Izzy’s operation takes the East to a business – run by her own father – that poisons the water supply of nearby cities, Sarah’s perceptions change drastically and she finds herself forced to decide whether to stand by her principles or her employer.

The East loses some of its punch in that it, like so many films that focus on extremists of any type, makes the revolutionary group into something of a cult. The East House is run very much like a cult with all of the characters eating food that has been thrown out, doing trust exercises (in this case spin the bottle and bathing Sarah as a group activity), and compartmentalizing assignments to reduce the risk of operations getting botched.

That said, The East makes a vivid point in exploring the righteousness of extreme environmentalists. While many people might argue with their methods, the “eco terrorists” have a real indignation about real life and death issues that are neglected by the government and media. Their crusades are real and compelling and there is a realism to the way Sarah becomes intrigued enough to plausibly consider Benji’s cause worthwhile.

The most subtle and interesting aspect of The East is how Sarah essentially works for a company much like those that The East House’s residents are targeting. Sharon illustrates a complete indifference for human life; she does not make any attempt to save the lives of the McCabe executives because they are not her clients and it is more useful to her to turn over the perpetrators of the crime after the fact to get McCabe as clients than to prevent the crime from happening. Sharon’s indifference is matched by the indifference of the executives of the companies The East is targeting.

On the acting front, The East showcases well the talents of Alexander Skarsgard and Ellen Page. Skarsgard has a pretty impressive emotional range he presents on True Blood and he brings his a-game to The East. Ellen Page is fine, but she essentially replays her role from Mouth To Mouth (reviewed here!), so her fans will not see anything new in The East. Patricia Clarkson is suitably impressive as Sharon and given how educated but goofy many of her characters in recent films have been, that she can credibly pull off efficient and corporate proves she still has incredible range left to plumb.

The East is the first work I’ve seen with Brit Marling, who also co-wrote the film. Marling is adequate as Sarah, but the role does not require a lot of emotional range. As a result, the role of Sarah comes across as fairly flat (Hillary Baack’s Eve has more on-screen emotional range). In fact, Marling’s performance makes it seem like Sarah is not at all an impressive agent. She seems emotionally detached initially and as she gets to know The East without ever truly coming alive to present something emotionally complicated enough to make the viewer actually give a damn about Sarah. Marling is outshined by Ellen Page when Page is given the chance to rule near the film’s climax.

Beyond that, The East lacks nuance and subtlety. It is unlikely to convince those who do not already sympathize with the cause The East stands for. That makes it more of a failure than a success, but even hearing the message is uncommon these days, so the film has some merit.

For other works with Patricia Clarkson, be sure to visit my reviews of:
One Day
Friends With Benefits
Easy A
Shutter Island
Lars And The Real Girl
Six Feet Under
Frasier - Season Nine
Frasier - Season Eight
Jumanji
The Untouchables

5.5/10

For other film reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Stupid Kids Doing Stupid Shit, Why Mouth To Mouth Is An Easy-To-Overlook Ellen Page Film.

The Good: Generally decent acting
The Bad: Handheld camerawork is irksome, Entirely unlikable characters, Oppressive mood, Boring
The Basics: Ellen Page plays a young woman who joins a cult in Mouth To Mouth, one of her few films that is more difficult to watch because it sucks than because of the subject matter.


If Mouth To Mouth had been released after The Master (reviewed here!), I probably would have called it derivative of that new film about what is essentially a cult. Instead, given that it precedes P.T. Anderson’s nightmarish new film, Mouth To Mouth is easily likened to Havoc (reviewed here!). Like Havoc, I only sat down to watch the film because one of my favorite performers was in it. With Havoc, it was Anne Hathaway; Mouth To Mouth was one of the last films starring Ellen Page I had yet to see.

It was not worth hunting down. Ellen Page has a penchant for playing characters in difficult situations or settings. Usually, it is easy to empathize with the characters she plays, but with Sherry, I found the character (not the performance) lacking. Sherry is arguably the least likable character Ellen Page has ever played and the setting us utterly unpleasant to watch.

Sherry is a disaffected girl who is skipping out of school one day when she runs into Tiger, who gives her a pamphlet about Spark. She attends one of their meetings and learns that Spark is trying to make life for homeless people better, including teaching them how to do first aid and challenging the established order of things. Initially irked by how her possessions are divided up among the others in the group and how the members of S.P.A.R.K. (Street People Armed with Radical Knowledge) scrounge for food and supplies by dumpster diving, Sherry soon acclimates to the group. More driven than some of the other girls in the group, she travels across Europe with SPARK hoping to make a difference.

When one of the youngest members of the group dies while dumpster diving, the members of SPARK are shocked and Sherry is shaken enough to call her mother. At the wild concert SPARK attends, Sherry meets up with her mother and, despite a conflict between them, they both end up at the vineyard compound of SPARK together. There, Sherry is disciplined by Harry and she and her mother, Rose, are seduced by the seductive cult leader.

Harry’s group, it does not take long to realize, is a very classic cult. While the group does some good things – like getting its members off drugs and trying to educate homeless people – Harry enforces his will using humiliation, sleep deprivation, and other classic methods of control. At the vineyard, the SPARK members work tirelessly and Sherry is punished almost the moment after Harry sexually uses her and Rose leaves for a short time. While Sherry is initially drawn to the cause, Nancy is clearly just a dumb kid who is bored.

Unfortunately, Sherry is in a similar situation. Rose is never shown to be a particularly terrible mother (stupid, sure, especially for jumping right into the same cult as her daughter), but not characterized as a bad. So, Sherry’s pre-cult life doesn’t seem so bad and it is not clear why she would be so easily swayed into the cult’s lifestyle.

Mouth To Mouth opens boring and drags on into the thoroughly droll and unpleasant. Max Ax, a scrawny drugged-out man who latches onto the youngest member of the group, is even more lost than Sherry. But he is also characterized as one of the most instantly resistant characters to the concept of the cult. Yet, he lets himself be humiliated, controlled, and vomited upon without raising a fuss.

Mouth To Mouth is also notable in that it includes the important element of an accomplice for how cults survive. The nurse witnesses things like Nancy and Sherry being urinated on when they are trapped in the well, by Harry, but does not speak up. Her complicity is horrifying, but like so many elements of Mouth To Mouth, entirely familiar to those who are familiar with how cults operate.

Despite the constant oppressive or boring mood and the characters who lack a strong sensibility to be at all compelling, Mouth To Mouth has decent acting. Ellen Page plays a character who I was not at all attracted to or interested in, which takes quite a bit (she is such an intriguing performer, for her to play a thoroughly unlikable character is an actual performance!). Eric Thal, whose only other work I am familiar with is Robert A. Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters (reviewed here!) is exceptional in the contrasting performance he delivers in Mouth To Mouth. Far from the intellectual, efficient, and likable agent in that other film, in Mouth To Mouth Thal plays the ripped, shirtless brute of a cult leader with enough charisma to sell the role and enough power to make the endurance of the cult seem viable and real.

Despite the performances, Mouth To Mouth is further plagued by shaky hand-held camerawork that is distracting and annoying. Much of the film is shot underlit and there is a grainy quality to the film that feels more sloppy than artistic. These are, however, some of the most minor problems for a film where the characters are so unlikable and the plot structure too familiar.

For other films with Maxwell McCabe-Lokos, please visit my reviews of:
Max Payne
The Incredible Hulk
The Tracey Fragments
The Sentinel

2.5/10

For other movies, check out my Movie Review Index Page where films are organized from best to worst!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Ellen Page Naked (Or As Close As She Gets) In The Tracey Fragments!

The Good: Interesting characters, Very well-acted, Well-shot/visually interesting
The Bad: Plot/resolution
The Basics: The Tracey Fragments may barely (by the running time) be a movie, but what is here is disturbing, well-assembled and cause for a lot of analysis!


I've been on an Ellen Page kick for a while now. In fact, since I saw Juno, I've been hunting down and/or rewatching Page's works and for my money moviegoers have a lot to be thrilled about between the physical beauty and acting prowess of Page, Anna Paquin and Anne Hathaway. It's a good time to get juicy roles as a young woman with substance in the movies, apparently. Page is easily the most problematic of the bunch in that she takes: 1. roles that are exceptionally difficult to watch, 2. roles where her character is a minor, and 3. roles where her character is the subject or manipulator of unspeakable acts. Hathaway may choose her roles based on her beliefs and based upon what she believes will be best for her career, but Page clearly takes the tough roles with meat that have established her as an actress willing to take some true challenges and risks on film.

The latest of those that I have managed to track down it The Tracey Fragments, a film that came close to being added to my list of "movies so good at what they do they don't need to be watched again." This is a twisted character study that is best analogized as a cross between Running With Scissors (reviewed here!) and Mulholland Drive (reviewed here!). And for those sucked in by the title to this review, what kind of sicko are you?! Ellen Page is playing a fifteen year-old girl! And all of the nudity comes in the context of violence upon her character, so this is not a film to sit down to with expectations of fun Ellen Page nudity time.

Tracey Berkowitz is a fifteen year-old girl who has suffered a psychotic break. As she rides the bus, wrapped only in a sheet, she tries to piece together the last few days, the days of anticipation of a blizzard in her area. In the immediate past, a new boy has come to school, which has caught Tracey's attention, she has lost her kid brother, begun seeing a shrink, run away from home and been taken in by a drug dealer who is welching to his distributor.

Or perhaps not. Tracey's life is filled with fantasies, especially pertaining to her and the boy who may or may not be named Billy Zero. She has been grounded by her father, probably for wearing an outfit intended to get Billy's attention. She appears to have hypnotized her younger brother, Sonny, into believing he is a dog. It appears he followed her when she skipped out on her house arrest by her father. She was tossing a ball to him at the Conservatory when he got lost. Her psychotherapist may or may not be a transvestite.

Yeah, the plot is a tough one to figure out. The story is not told in a linear fashion and as a result, there is some question as to the order of things. The main character break that doesn't jive actually comes chronologically early in the movie. Tracey runs away from home after Sonny is lost and as a result, she ends up with Lance (from Toronto). The fight Tracey puts up during the attempted rape by Lance's associate is strangely incongruent with how lost she otherwise is at that point (if events had been put in chronological order). Having been cast aside after being used by the guy she is hot for, having lost her brother and having run away from home, the amount of fight she suddenly displays is astonishing. This is not to say that there is ever truly a time where it "reads" as "right" for a character to let themself get raped, but taken out of order, her vehemence - this one thing she actually cares about when she has stopped caring about anything else, including living or dying (as evidenced by her willingness to freeze to death) - makes sense in the context of protecting her virginity for Billy Zero.

It is hard not to respect Bruce McDonald for his visual ambition and the dreadfully short running time of The Tracey Fragments actually works to McDonald's advantage. The movie is unencumbered by tangent subplots and there is no real filler. Instead, the movie is only the essentials and it is confusing enough as it stands. McDonald has created a masterpiece of style and substance where the visual style shows the story that Tracey is telling.

The Tracey Fragments is packed with visual images. At the average moment in the movie, there are four different windows showing different angles, different characters, and/or different perspectives. At times there are dozens of images, like the slamming of a door, going off in rapid succession all over the screen. It is a visually confusing concept, but it works rather powerfully for the story being told.

I cannot recall the last film that inspired me to read the book upon which it was based, but The Tracey Fragments just might break that trend. Maureen Medved wrote both the novel and the screenplay for this film, so one assumes the screenplay at least was the story she wanted the movie to tell. There is enough to intrigue a reader and moviegoer like myself if for no other reason than to try to piece together better what happened and in what order.

Actually, The Tracey Fragments is almost insulting in the way it fits so nicely together. It is very easy to write out a chronology of exactly what events happen and when in this movie (I cannot do it in the reviews, as it would ruin several aspects of seeing the movie firsthand). The problem, though, comes with the viewer determining not what happened when, but rather what is real and what is not. There are obvious fantasy sequences, dreams Tracey has of her and Billy Zero together.

But there is so much in the movie that is cause for questioning the reality of the story. Is Lance real? Most viewers will say "yes," simply because it is from the altercation at Lance's house that Tracey ends up in the sheet. But how did she get on the bus without money and wrapped only in a sheet? Did Tracey truly hypnotize Sonny to make him think he was a dog? If so, why is this integral event not shown? Certainly, it's not for time. Is the birthday party with the clown real? It's hard to say after we see Tracey reading a book about a happy clown earlier in the movie . . .

The point here is that this is a great film to watch and debate upon and there is enough latitude to do that, despite there being enough literal events repeated frequently enough to reasonably assemble the story in a cause/effect way. It's easy to see why Medved and McDonald did not, though; this film shows much better than it tells.

Ellen Page is the actress that holds the whole movie together and for a young woman who is quite a bit older than fifteen, she does a disturbingly good job at playing a fifteen year-old girl. Page has absolutely no sexual chemistry on screen with co-star Slim Twig (I couldn't go the whole review without mentioning her character's love interest's actor's name!), but that works perfectly for an infatuation of a girl that age. Page creates another disturbing character (see Hard Candy) that is a treat to watch just to see some real potential in a member of the younger generation. Her body language and especially the way she is able to carry on a girly monologue with herself work phenomenally to sell the character.

On DVD, The Tracey Fragments does not come with a commentary track, which is a bit of a disappointment. Instead, there is a behind the scenes interview with director Bruce McDonald and star Ellen Page, but the interview does not answer most of the questions viewers are likely to have. There is a recut - of sorts - of the movie which was part of an on-line contest and that has some mild intrigue to it. There is also a slideshow of on-set images, but largely this is just the feature film.

For other works with Ellen Page, please visit my reviews of:
Super
Inception
Whip It
Smart People
Juno
An American Crime
X-Men III: The Last Stand
Hard Candy

6/10

For other film reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Not Quite Smart Enough, Smart People Is A Lame Vision Of Miserable People

The Good: Good cast utilized fairly well, Moments of risk taking
The Bad: Woefully misrepresents people of intellect, Nothing exciting in bonus features, Moments of poor editing.
The Basics: When Lawrence Wetherhold begins dating and trying to take over the English department at the college he works at, the viewer discovers even the "smartest" people may be idiots.


Let's talk about stereotypes. Stereotypes are based upon prejudice and misinformation, judging entire groups based upon a limited idea of a very limited number of people from that group. Almost all the time, stereotypes are prejudicial and derogatory and are fairly transparent for what they are. So, for example, if someone were to characterize a black man as virile, watermelon-eating, fast-running illiterate, virtually everyone reading such a statement would recognize it as a series of stereotypes and it would likely reflect worse upon the person making such generalizations than upon the character in question.

Why, then, does our society consistently devalue people of intelligence and articulation and stereotype them? There seems to be a pretty fair open season on intellectuals where they are characterized as asocial, pompous jerks who are utterly incapable of getting along with another human being. They are characterized as intelligent in a test-taking way, but completely idiotic when it comes to interacting with people. Nowhere in my recent experiences has this been more true than in the film Smart People. Smart People stands as a monument to the viewpoint lauded and celebrated by people who are afraid of and prejudiced against people of intelligence.

Lawrence Wetherhold is a quiet English professor who is struggling to get a book published, raise his daughter and find some measure of peace in a world that seems content to surround him with obstacles he does not quite understand. Thwarted by a disgruntled student working the campus impound lot, Lawrence is wounded when he falls over the impound lot fence and finds himself in the care of another former student, Dr. Janet Hartigan. Unable to drive for six months, Lawrence turns to his slacker brother, Chuck, for help.

While Vanessa - Lawrence's daughter - makes moves on her adopted uncle, Lawrence begins dating Janet, who used to have a crush on him when she was a student. Unfortunately, Janet discovers Lawrence is a painful bore who has little going for him and as she works to extricate herself from a relationship with him, Lawrence resolves to become more accessible. In addition to allowing an editor to hatchet his book, he begins to pursue the position of chair of the English department, along the way discovering he is a truly miserable human being.

It is a rare thing for me to sit and enjoy a movie where the characters are almost universally miserable and in that regard, Smart People is most like Friends With Money (reviewed here!) in terms of its tone. It is fairly consistent in its oppressive mood where Lawrence mopes through his day. Like Friends With Money, there is little catharsis and it is hard to muster up a lot of empathy for most of the characters.

This might be even more true because the title of Smart People is woefully misleading. Outside Janet, none of the characters seem exceptionally intelligent. Instead, Lawrence seems to be bluffing his way through academia, Vanessa is snotty with few actual displays of intelligence (though she does get a 1600 on her SATs and manages to get into Stanford), and even Janet is so ridiculously out of touch with her emotional self that she altered her entire life over a paper that Wetherhold gave her a C on. The two black sheep of the family, neglected son James and the incompetent businessman Chuck, are given the trappings of greater intelligence in this skewed stereotype. So, for example, James - who is characterized by the other members of the family as the dim one - gets a poem published in The New Yorker. And Chuck, who drinks, gets Vanessa drunk and is so slovenly he never manages to show up for an appointment on time, is the family liberal. Only in the mind of one so grossly prejudiced against intelligencia would these traits be construed as the trappings of being smart. It does not require much in the way of deconstructing Smart People to realize that this film has an absolute disdain for the appearance of intellect.

Unfortunately, any sense of satire that might come from the presentation of Janet and the Wetherholds is undermined by the fact that anyone who has ever been around anyone of genuine intelligence will see this as a weak collection of obvious stereotypes. In other words, just like our parody of stereotypes at the beginning, the asocial, mumbling lecturer who doesn't notice how unsatisfied his date is and is raising a young Republican, reads as a collection of the most inane misconceptions about intellectuals.

As a result, it is hard to judge the characters in Smart People. Lawrence is so miserable, but he never strikes the viewer as particularly intelligent, either. Instead, whenever Janet states something and poses the question, "You knew that, right?" he simple nods and says "Of course." As a result, Lawrence is - at best - a poseur and one only wonders what negative experiences director Noam Murro and writer Mike Poirier had in academia that makes them think such a poseur could survive in a university setting so long.

Similarly, Vanessa - played by Ellen Page and the whole reason I picked up Smart People to watch - is more bratty than most young intellectuals and she does not so much learn anything in the course of the movie. Instead, she simply begins to emulate and hit on Uncle Chuck, then stupidly wonders why he would be avoiding her.

Murro goes for the cheapest of laughs with Chuck, featuring multiple shots of him sleeping with his bare buttocks exposed. It's amazing what passes for humor these days and if the first instance of this is juvenile, the second occurrence is just brain-numbingly insipid. Just as the supposedly smart people are treated as idiots, the audience is supposed to understand Chuck is somehow intellectually inferior because his butt ends up exposed while he sleeps. There is only so much insulting of the audience one might be expected to endure.

I've been on an Ellen Page kick of late and Smart People gives her a role different from the others I have seen her in. Unfortunately, it puts her in a role that is disturbingly lowbrow for her. Some of her roles have put her playing people who act young because they are young, but as Vanessa, she is forced to play somewhat mindlessly bratty without any real finesse that illustrates there is anything truly empathetic about her character.

Similarly, Thomas Haden Church is unfortunately utilized in a role that seems awfully familiar for those who have seen the actor in other things. And I'm not a fan of Sarah Jessica Parker's acting in general and Smart People does not give her a role that is meaty or interesting enough in any way that makes the viewer rethink their position on her.

In fact, of the main cast, the only one who does a decent job is Dennis Quaid. The last work of Quaid's I enjoyed was his role in American Dreamz (reviewed here!) and his characterization of Lawrence is a strikingly different performance. Not just the beard, but his whole body language is transformed into a sullen, slouching lecturer who is able to drone without any real affect. Quaid - who is often charismatic - plays this astonishingly well and makes Lawrence largely unlikable.

On DVD, Smart People looks and sounds fine - though there are some moments where the editing was noticeably choppy. There is a commentary track, blooper reel and deleted scenes, none of which made the movie any better. The featurettes repeat a bit of the information from the commentary track and add little in the way of real insight.

I went into Smart People ready to be stimulated and to laugh and when it was over, I just felt cheated. There are much better movies out there.

For other works with Ellen Page, please visit my reviews of:
Super
Inception
Whip It
Juno
An American Crime
X-Men III: The Last Stand
Hard Candy

5/10

For other film review, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

DVD Extras Knock Juno Up Into Close-Enough-To-Perfect Territory!

The Good: Great acting, Wonderful story, Interesting characters, Good DVD extras, Fun, Funny, Soundtrack.
The Bad: A little underdeveloped on the love story.
The Basics: Juno impresses the viewer as a romantic dramedy about a pregnant sixteen year-old who is carrying her baby to term for another family and the struggles that entails.


I have absolutely no problem with admitting when I have seen an actor or actress who intrigues me. Sure, I've been known to look up the works of Anna Paquin and after Get Smart (reviewed here!), I'm pretty much bound to catch some more movies with Anne Hathaway. Since seeing X-Men 3: The Last Stand I have been looking forward to seeing Ellen Page in more films. So, when I finally was able to catch Juno on DVD, I was excited. I was eager to see Juno and not just because of a potential very little crush on Ellen Page, the film's star.

In fact, the only thing that kept me from seeing Juno when it was in theaters (other than being poor) was I had read numerous reviews that compared Juno to Napoleon Dynamite (reviewed here!). I was not a fan of Napoleon Dynamite and, if anything, I went into that movie biased in favor of it. So, with Juno, I wanted to go into it and be happy and excited, but I had trepidation based on other reviews. For those who might share the same trepidations, the only things Napoleon Dynamite and Juno have in common are titles based on the lead character's name, limited budgets, similar layouts of the movie poster and the way young people seemed to have latched onto the films. The truth is, Juno is funny, witty and wonderful in all of the ways that Napoleon Dynamite failed to be.

And on DVD, Juno is even better.

Juno MacGuff is a sixteen year old who makes love with her boyfriend, Paulie Bleeker and finds herself pregnant. Intimidated by the prospect of getting an abortion, Juno decides to carry the child to term and she finds a couple who are looking to adopt a baby. As Juno and Paulie become estranged from one another, Juno finds herself visiting Mark and Vanessa Loring more often with updates on the baby that will be theirs. While Juno's parents are remarkably supportive and her best friend Leah sticks by her, Paulie drifts away from her.

But soon, Mark and Juno's friendship opens Mark up to the memories of the life he wanted and his trepidations about being a father begin to override his marital vows. As Juno's pregnancy progresses, she experiences the solitary life of being a teenage girl carrying a baby and works to figure out who she is.

Juno works on so very many levels that it seems best for me to start with what doesn't work. Juno quickly becomes a movie that is a subtle love story. It's all about discovering love after the sex and it is clever and smart in that regard. The problem with Juno is only in that it does not devote nearly enough time to the relationship between Juno and Paulie. In other words, while the movie works exceptionally well at defining Juno and exploring the nature and struggles of being an unwed teenage mother-to-be, it falls down when it comes to developing the relationship between Paulie and Juno. Their relationship is strained but what genuinely brings them back together is not clear or well-defined in the film.

Fortunately, we have DVD. In the deleted scenes, there are more scenes wherein Juno describes her feelings for Paulie and that works exceptionally well. Lacking that, I have to admit Juno is not a perfect movie. On DVD, it is close enough. As an avid cinephile who watches an obscene amount of television and movies for edification and review, it has been such a long, long time since I even had the pleasure of debating whether or not a movie was perfect or a near miss. Juno makes that a damn good debate.

What makes Juno work so well is that it is smart and unsimple. The plot is one that has not been overdone for theatrical films. Young woman gets pregnant might be a common soap opera conceit, but it is not one that has been translated to cinema with any frequency. So, it is fresh in that regard. But perhaps as important, the fact that the surrogate family and the pregnant girl develop a relationship is - to my knowledge - unique in films of the new millennium.

The realism with which the circumstances are presented is enhanced by the vivid and unique characters that populate the Minnesota town where Juno lives. Juno is a disaffected teenager who is brash and quite happy to do her own thing. She fearlessly calls up a clinic "to schedule a hasty abortion" and while it generates an easy laugh, it cleverly defines a girl who - despite being in transition - has a strong sense of self. Indeed, one of the hallmark concepts of Juno is that the title character admits to not knowing just what kind of person she actually is. What she is, though, largely, is actualized enough to not worry about others' perceptions of her and instead focus on figuring herself out. While that might seem dry and only worthy of small, independent films like Juno, it actually works in a very cinematic way.

Director Jason Reitman, who also directed the satirical and clever Thank You For Smoking (reviewed here!), presents Juno as a fearless character who parts the sea of students at her high school in scenes that work for more than just the movie trailer. Moreover, Reitman has a great eye for directing Diablo Cody's ideas from the most simple - like driving a toy car over her enlarged abdomen - to the fast and complex dialogue. Scenes like Juno getting an ultrasound with her stepmother and best friend are instantly memorable, as is a very simple scene wherein Juno's father Mac tells her his notions of love. Juno looks good and has a sense of movement to it that tells the story in a simple, straightforward and refreshingly romantic way.

The relationship between Vanessa and Mark is as well-defined as it can be given how few scenes take the camera off Juno. The thing is, it becomes instantly clear that Vanessa is the driving force in the young couple's desire to have a child. Mark - from his first scene - seems much more lukewarm about the concept. The reality of the strain having a child puts on a relationship is beautifully and entertainingly transposed for the viewers.

Moreover, the budding relationship between Juno and Mark keeps a sense of tension to the movie, which might otherwise seem slower than many would like. Cody's script infuses a sense of tension between the two characters that is vivid and is effortlessly brought out by Reitman and the cast.

On that subject, Juno is an easy winner for viewers. This is a movie that not only has an exceptional cast, but it knows how to use it very well. For example, Allison Janney, who established her dramatic presence on television's The West Wing (reviewed here!) with a sense of consistency appears in Juno is a role that is very different. She is allowed to be much more expressive and that range that she illustrates from her opening moments will please those who are fans. It's always refreshing to see actors and actresses we know do things in a way that they have not before.

Conversely, it becomes clear from his opening scenes that Jason Bateman was cast based on his work from Arrested Development (reviewed here!). Bateman does not so much wow us with anything he has not done before, as he impresses viewers once again with the notion that he is a master of the deadpan and portraying irony. Bateman is a cool, sly performer and his performance in Juno makes Mark memorable for a man who misses being part of the cool crowd. It is Bateman who defines that undertone to the character and it works beautifully, especially playing off Page's Juno.

The other noteworthy performance - outside the star - comes from Jennifer Garner. Garner reminds the viewer that she has range. Just as in Catch And Release (reviewed here!), Garner plays a woman who is struggling with complex emotions and Garner's ability to act, even without saying a word, defines her character beautifully. As Vanessa, there are scenes where Garner does such simple things as look into a wine glass while Mark is talking to her and it speaks volumes. Garner is impressive and Juno adds to her repertoire of memorable performances.

But it is, in fact, Ellen Page who is forced to carry much of Juno and Page is brilliant. As a young actress, there is often a push to be active and more sensual than anything else. Page devotes her time on screen to emoting with her eyes, delivering her lines with genuine wit and convincing the viewer that she is actually pregnant. She does all of these things magnificently. She makes the comedic aspects funny and she keeps the dramatic moments real. Despite my problem with the love story between Juno and Paulie being underdeveloped, the scenes where Page interacts with Michael Cera's Paulie are completely convincing. When Page delivers lines about her character's feelings she is absolutely real and she deserves every nomination and award she won for her performance as Juno.

On DVD, Juno appears packed with extras. The commentary track featuring Reitman and Cody is insightful, funny and worth listening to more than once. The deleted scenes are entertaining and the commentary that accompanies them to tell the reasons for their exclusion are engaging and worthwhile. There are enough bonuses on the DVD that make the viewer want to celebrate the movie and be satisfied with it as a work worth owning and rewatching over and over again.

Who could ask for more?

For once, it's easy to say I'm satisfied.

For other works with Ellen Page, please visit my reviews of:
Super
Inception
Whip It
An American Crime
X-Men III: The Last Stand
Hard Candy

9.5/10

For other film reviews, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the movies I have reviewed!

© 2012, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

"The Little Canadian," Ellen Page, Doesn't Want You To Watch Her Movies: An American Crime!

The Good: Well-acted, Good mood, Necessary message
The Bad: Thoroughly uncomfortable, No DVD bonus features, Unlikable characters
The Basics: When Gertie takes in two girls into her full house,she uses Sylvia as an excuse to take out her vengeance by tying her up in the basement and torturing her.


Those who read my reviews know that I've been on something of an Ellen Page kick lately. Every now and then, I play into the hive mind and accept that one of the up and comers is actually all they are cracked up to be and Ellen Page seems to have enough talent to be the next Meryl Streep (though I think, officially, Anne Hathaway has already been dubbed "the next Meryl Streep”). Page has range, a talent for comedy and drama and I've been getting everything of hers I could find. Admittedly, I slowed down after Hard Candy (reviewed here!) because that movie just creeped me out. When I picked up An American Crime, I had a pretty good feeling I would be creeped out again.

And, having watched it, I am, but not as much as I suspected I would be. I have a sensitivity about watching abuse on screen and what ultimately led me to pick up An American Crime (outside the presence of Ellen Page) was the participation of John Wells. While Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme get most all of the credit for The West Wing (reviewed here!), most forget that it actually John Wells who was the executive producer with them and after they left. Having recently rewatched the final two seasons of that series, I felt it was time I gave him his due and watch something else he was an executive producer on. And there it was, An American Crime.

In the mid-1960s in Indiana, the estranged Lester and Betty Likens seek to reconnect with one another and earn their living with a traveling carnival. Rather than take their two teenage daughters on the road with them, Lester leaves Sylvia and Jennifer in the care of Gertie Baniszewski, a mother of six who could use the twenty dollars every two weeks promised by the Likens for care of their daughters. Given that Sylvia and Gertie's daughter, Paula, get along, it seems like a good fit and the girls move in eagerly and everything seems fine.

Soon, however, things take a turn for the demented. When the twenty dollar check is late, Gertie takes Sylvia and Jennie into the basement and whips them with a belt. Paula confides in Sylvia that her married boyfriend has gotten her pregnant and while out one night with mutual friends, Sylvia witnesses him about to rape her. To protect Paula, she disarms the young man by telling him she is pregnant and to get off her. Saved, but now the subject of scandalous rumors, Paula tells Gertie that Sylvia is spreading lies. As punishment, Sylvia is taken into the basement where she is tied up, beaten, burned with cigarettes, etc. while Jennie lives terrorized by the fear that she might be next.

An American Crime is based upon a true story, assembled from court transcripts and eyewitness accounts, but that does not exactly make the movie any more pleasant. There is a pretty long build-up, but after a point, the viewer is simply a witness to the victimization of Sylvia and anyone with a sensitivity to that sort of thing (which, one hopes, is everyone reading this), the film is fairly graphic in its depiction of the abuse, especially in the psychological elements of it.

Still, it wasn't as graphic as it could have been. Director Tommy O'Haver cheats any number of shots and he's good enough to telegraph the film in such a way that anyone who has seen any movies on child abuse can pretty much figure what is coming next. So, for example, the final incident of abuse in the living room before Sylvia is tossed into the basement, involves a Coke bottle. O'Haver establishes a shot with the bottle and anyone who has seen Sybil knows exactly there the bottle is going by that point in the movie and while it is horrifying, it could have been even more unpleasant and graphic. It is graphic enough to be disgusting and unpleasant to watch.

Perhaps most horrifying in An American Crime is not the apathy with which the daughters of Gertie and the neighbors join in on torturing Sylvia, but rather the way the young boy, Johnny eagerly joins in on burning Sylvia. The herd mentality of the kids who come into the basement to witness Sylvia is terrible, as is the cult mentality of the daughters of Gertie in simply accepting and going along with beating the bound girl, but it is Johnny's eagerness to beat and burn the captive girl repeatedly that is most frightening and truly demented. In fact, while the final voice-over tells the fates of each of the characters following the outcome of the trial that frames the film, the fate of Johnny is easily the least satisfying to hear. Yes, at that point in the movie, even pacifists want some measure of vengeance against the little bastard.

The thing is, An American Crime falls into a category of well-done movies or television episodes that are easily classifiable as great at what they do but so unpleasant and difficult that it becomes almost impossible for me to recommend. In this case, I recommend everyone see An American Crime; Sylvia Likens deserves her story told and seeing the complacency of neighbors and family members might just shock some people into speaking up when they suspect such things out here in reality. But it's too tough a sell for the buy. Yes, there is merit to the work and it is frightening and it has a message that is worth absorbing, but it is hard to believe this movie is one anyone would truly want to return to more than once. In other words, it is good enough at what it does that we get it on the first pass.

Perhaps that is why the movie appears on DVD without a commentary track, no one really needs the movie explained to them. On DVD there are only advertisements for other DVDs from "First Look Films."

What An American Crime does have that is fairly impressive is a blend of young and more mature actors. Young performers Hayley McFarland (Jennie), Ari Graynor (Paula), and Tristan Jarred (Johnny) easily hold their own with the likes of James Franco (who plays one of Gertie's lovers) and Bradley Whitford (who plays the prosecutor in the court case that sets up the story). Despite the disappointment the viewer might feel in Jennie for not standing up to anyone to try to aid her sister, McFarland completely sells the audience on her character's fear. Indeed, long before she says the words, it is easy from McFarland's performance to tell that Jennie is paralyzed by the terror that she will be abused next.

Ellen Page gives a strangely mediocre performance as Sylvia. Page has the range to play girls much younger than herself and she does that well in An American Crime but the demand of this role is that she be less animated or cute than she appears in any of her other works. She does that only once the torture begins and then the shots of her are often with her unmoving and crumpled over, which - while great for mood - is not much of a performance. Page, however, comes through masterfully in the bottle scene. When one considers that this is a movie and Page as Sylvia is not truly being sodomized with a Coke bottle, the performance Page gives with her eyes and face is extraordinary and heartbreaking.

But it is Catherine Keener who knocks it out of the park with the acting in An American Crime. She was nominated for a Primetime Emmy and she deserved it. Keener plays Gertie and while there are plenty of overt moments where Gertie is villainous and despicable, it is the quiet moments that Keener earns her keep on. Keener has a subtle twitch when men leave her. She plays Gertie with an undertone of lonely desperation that informs the viewer that Gertie is carrying on a long tradition of abuse, which she is passing on to her children now. This is one of her most distinctive and best-performed rolls.

Still, it is a tough sell for the "recommend" and while I can see the quality of the movie easily, I ultimately decided that the quality is enough to rate it high, but it's not worth buying. Yes, it ought to be watched at least once, but it's so unpleasant to watch that it's tough to see who would want to rewatch it.

For other works with Ari Graynor, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Fringe - Season 1
Fringe - Season 2
Date Night
Whip It
Nick And Norah’s Infinite Playlist

8/10 (Not recommended)

For other movie reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the movie reviews I have written by clicking here!

© 2012, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Conviction Before Trial, The Slow Execution Of "Justice" In Hard Candy.

The Good: Good DVD extras, Exceptional acting, Well-written and directed
The Bad: Not at all entertaining, Deeply disturbing, Utterly gruesome
The Basics: Terrifying but exceptionally well-made, Hard Candy is a tough depiction of torture that does not need to be viewed, certainly there is no entertainment value here.


Every now and then, I encounter something as a reviewer that I find so horrific and grotesque that my kneejerk reaction is to pan it into oblivion and strongly recommend against seeing it. The thing is, there are some works which are terrible and gruesome that objectively viewed are absolutely brilliant. In other words, there are movies that are well-assembled and set out to be disturbing in their themes and structure, but are so well put together, so well accomplish what they do that they become something other than the entertainment they claim to be. The best example I have of this is Requiem For A Dream, which does what it sets out to do with a high level of quality, but is so over-the-top as to be utterly without value or need to see. There are some things we understand, but we don't need to subject ourselves to and as conscientious reviewers, I try to help steer people away from.

Tonight, I add Hard Candy to that list. Much like The Passion Of The Christ, Hard Candy is created with a simple premise and illustrates graphically torture. But where Mel Gibson used flails and blood, writer Brian Nelson and director David Slade use psychology and innuendo to torment a man and the audience for the better part of ninety-five minutes. I am bouncing between a high and an average rating because qualitatively, Hard Candy has much going for it, but I know I will not recommend it and hopefully, those reading this review will decide not to subject themselves to this film.

Hayley Stark is a fourteen year-old girl who meets photographer Jeff Kohlver on the Internet. After chatting on-line for three weeks, they meet together in the daytime at a coffee house. Jeff, who is thirty-two, is clearly intrigued by Hayley but seems committed to remaining on the right side of the law in his dealings with her. However, Hayley essentially invites herself over to his house under the guise of listening to a bootleg recording from a concert she wanted to go to. Against his better judgment, Jeff brings Hayley home with him.

At Jeff's house, Hayley begins to assert her control more, fixing the pair screwdrivers and putting her music on. When Jeff prepares to take photographs of Hayley, he falls unconscious. Jeff wakes up tied to a chair. Hayley seems unnaturally sober and admits to drugging him. Confused, Jeff begins to try to figure out what is going on while Hayley begins to ask questions about the girls that Jeff has taken photographs of. After she accuses him of being a pedophile, Jeff realizes Hayley is not playing and soon her interrogation turns violent as she realizes that Jeff will not confess to the wrongs she believes he has done.

What follows is essentially a fourteen year-old girl preaching, interrogating and castrating a 32 year-old man as she administers justice, believing he has killed a local girl who has gone missing.

The plot pretty much says it all because there is no moral to Hard Candy. Instead, this is a character study of two antagonists. It is a collection of brilliant lines and amazing artistry and a cold sense of brutality that is disguised as righteousness. And it is agonizing for its length and all of the pauses and the fixed stares.

Hayley is quickly established as a girl who is in control and she sees the world in very black and white terms, as is appropriate for a fourteen year-old. She has judged Jeff guilty before they meet in person and every moment she is on screen, she is acting so that by the end, the viewer has to ask themselves just what truths she might have let slip amid the stories, potential lies, and accusations. She is a vigilante and a girl with a vindictive streak.

Jeff, sadly, comes across strangely human and part of what Hard Candy does exceptionally well is raise questions without answering them. But in watching Jeff get tormented by Hayley, the viewer has to seriously ask themselves whether or not there is a crime Jeff could be guilty of that deserves the torment he is suffering. In other words, in a civilized nation where most people can acknowledge that nothing justifies torture and was founded on a principle of abhorring cruel and unusual punishment, how can we find such acts at all entertaining?! Only a monolithic fourteen year-old living in a world of binary logic would believe that somehow tormenting an alleged (not even accused) pedophile somehow balances the scales of justice for the crimes he allegedly perpetrated. Jeff often seems far more human than Hayley does.

In fact, in Hard Candy, the only crime we witness Jeff make (though I refuse to say anything about the last half hour of the film) is transporting a minor (without parental permission) and the crime of stupidity. The stupidity comes in bringing a fourteen year-old into his house (which is not, technically, a crime). Jeff makes a mistake in bringing a minor home, but even that is not illegal (just somewhat witless). It remains believable and in character because Jeff is moderately famous for photographing teenage girls in somewhat risque positions.

The point, though, is that while audiences might be polarized about Hard Candy and be tempted to side with either Hayley (the vigilante) or Jeff (the victim in this context, even if he is potentially a victimizer), the struggle is far from entertaining. It is quickly executed as a psychologically devastating battle between a girl in far too much control over a helpless man. So, unlike something like the masterful hour of television "Duet" (reviewed here!), which involves a man being interrogated for an hour, Hard Candy is not so much an interrogation, but an outright depiction of torture and psychological torment. And it lacks a social message, so instead of being especially clever, it is just cruel.

That said, the acting is absolutely amazing. Ellen Page is brilliant and cold as Hayley Stark. She has a masterful ability to present long speeches and voice the cold, logical voice of righteous vengeance. And in the opening moments of the film, she is brilliant at playing shy and mousy. She telegraphs a few of the reversals, but in the lone scene where her character is out of control, she is spot-on. Moreover, in moments when Jeff breaks loose and there is a physical altercation, Page is amazing at displaying pain and exertion. And whenever her character is lost, Page plays is with her full body and eyes. She is haunting and truly great.

And she plays off Patrick Wilson perfectly. Wilson spends most of the film tied to a chair or a metal table. Yet, even so confined he gives a performance that is active, terrifying and deeply empathetic. Wilson makes us believe completely in Jeff's reality as he is tormented and waits for Hayley to kill him.

On DVD, Hard Candy comes with two commentary tracks and honestly, the only reason I even have a debate in how to rate Hard Candy is that I watched the film three times. After the first time, I told myself, "I will not subject myself to that again!" But, I decided, I would do some work and put the commentary track on, so I didn't have to watch it, but I could listen to people talk about it. The commentary track with Slade and Nelson is informative and insightful and actually discusses the ambiguity and technical aspects of making Hard Candy. The commentary track with Page and Wilson is pleasantly lighthearted and in fact contains the best comment that can be made on the film. When Hayley knocks Jeff unconscious to transfer him from the chair to the table in order to perform surgery on him, actress Ellen Page says, "Why don't we stop now, I don't want to watch more." Everyone involved in the film knew they made something controversial and disturbing and I appreciated Page admitting she didn't want to see what came next. There are deleted scenes and featurettes on the making of the film and its controversy, but they add little that the commentary tracks did not already cover (the only thing the commentary tracks do not answer is how old Ellen Page was when Hard Candy was shot).

Hard Candy is a brutal film without catharsis and while I can live with that, there is a cruelty depicted on screen that is not entertainment. We are lessened by watching it and trying to experience it as such and for that reason I cannot stress enough that this film ought to be avoided.

For other works with Ellen Page, please visit my reviews of:
Super
Inception
Whip It
X-Men III: The Last Stand

8.5/10 (NOT Recommended!)

For other film reviews, please be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the movies I have reviewed!

© 2012, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |