Trippy And Engaging, Doctor Strange Is One Of Marvel Studios Best Films!

The Good: Decent performances, Engaging characters, Amazing effects, Good plot progression
The Bad: Less-developed supporting characters/villain, Creates some weird continuity issues with the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe
The Basics: Doctor Strange is one of the most impressive Marvel Cinematic Universe films, but it still has a few objective shortcomings that force the viewer to accept conceits over a concrete story.


One of the true joys of the current phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is that characters who have not appeared in volumes that I have read of the Marvel Comics source material are getting focused upon in the films. While Doctor Strange is apparently an incredibly popular and enduring character from Marvel Comics, when my wife turned to me during our viewing of Doctor Strange and asked, "Is that how magic is represented in the books?" I was suddenly forced to admit, "I have absolutely no clue!" There is something very refreshing about going into a Marvel Studios film with no preconceptions of what the film ought to be.

Being so unfettered by expectations at the outset, it was very easy to watch Doctor Strange as an objective viewer. Indeed, as one who is not overly wowed by spectacle, the early hype for the film being the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of Inception (reviewed here!) only made me wary of Doctor Strange. Fortunately, Doctor Strange manages to be its own entity and when it fails to do that, it is derivative of other Marvel Cinematic Universe films (and, oddly, Green Lantern, reviewed here!), not Inception.

A library filled with magical tomes is attacked by Kaecilius and his followers and while he is forced to retreat when The Ancient One appears, he manages to escape with a handful of key pages from an important volume in the library and his followers behead the librarian. In America, Doctor Stephen Strange is an acclaimed neurosurgeon who works in the same hospital as Christine Palmer, a doctor he once dated. After saving the life of a person who was shot and appeared dead to another doctor, Strange is headed to a speaking engagement when he gets in a horrible car accident. He awakens to discover that his hands have been almost completely destroyed and after several surgeries, he is still unable to reliably hold tools, much less do delicate work with them needed to continue to be a neurosurgeon. His physical therapist tells him about Jonathan Pangborn, a man once confined to a wheelchair who now not only walks, but is playing basketball when Strange tracks him down. Pangborn tells Stephen Strange about Kamar-Taj, a place he want in Nepal where he learned the mystic arts and recovered the use of his legs. So, Strange spends the last of his money to go there.

Rescued off the streets of Nepal by Mordo, Stephen Strange is taken to Kamar-Taj where he is introduced to The Ancient One. The Ancient One initially rejects teaching Strange how to overcome his injuries because he is arrogant and bound by a very literal, scientific view. But, after having some out-of-body, trans-dimensional and teleportation experiences, Stephen Strange throws himself into the study of the magical arts. While Mordo takes Strange under his wing, the new librarian, Wong, is more annoyed by the newcomer. But Wong tells Dr. Strange about Kaecilius and the book that Kaecilius desecrated. In exploring the magical artifacts of Kamar-Taj and learning about the three magical centers on Earth that are protecting the planet from transdimensional attacks, Doctor Strange develops his ability and learns of the true threat that Kaecilius, as a devotee of the dark lord Dormammu, represents. As Kaecilius attempts to pull Earth into the dark dimension ruled by Dormammu, Strange, The Ancient One, Wong, and Mordo must stop them!

Doctor Strange officially brings the supernatural into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a way that plays lip service to the supernatural being a different form of science (which is how Thor described his abilities to Jane). As one still watching Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., there was momentary delight in noticing that one book was missing in the library's chained section (presumably the Dark Hold, which has appeared on the television series!), but while Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been belaboring explaining what the Dark Hold contains, Doctor Strange asks viewers to accept its premise, rather than spending a ton of time explaining it. So, while Strange questions such things as being able to read what The Ancient One describes as the source code of the universe and he accurately points out that reading about it would still leave him waving his hands in the air with nothing happening, Doctor Strange quickly transitions into the Doctor opening portals with ease in the library of Kamar-Taj.

Despite the abruptness of the development of his skills (personally, I think it would have been interesting to being Stephen Strange's narrative earlier and illustrate him studying intensively for his medical degrees to play off how he applies himself to learn the mystical arts later), Doctor Stephen Strange develops in a surprisingly compelling way over the course of Doctor Strange. Strange is smart enough to make his abilities seem plausible once he gives up his preconceptions of what he has been trained to accept. Strange learns fast, questions a lot and retains an ethical core that makes him rightly heroic, without being stale to watch.

The Ancient One is compelling and well-embodied by Tilda Swinton and she is a delight in each scene she is in. While Rachel McAdams does fine as Christine Palmer, she is not given enough to do to make the viewer feel that Palmer is a well-rounded and compelling character. That is a bit of a disappointment, as the Marvel Cinematic Universe did something similar already with Natalie Portman's character in the Thor corner of the universe. In a similar way, Mads Mikkelsen does an adequate job of playing Kaecilius, but the more one considers his character, the less satisfying (and more generic) his role is in Doctor Strange. Kaecilius is looking to tap into power from the dark realm controlled by Dormammu based on a nebulous trauma that brought him to The Ancient One in the past. Doctor Strange does a poor job of selling that idea that only Dormammu has the power to prolong life, that a traumatized guy like Kaecilius would want to live as an immortal instead of either rewrite time or be put out of his misery, and/or that Dormammu would want to share any of his powers with Kaecilius.

Without knowing any of the source material, the post-credit defection of one of the film's main characters seemed both abrupt and sloppy. As well, it was one of the few derivative elements in Doctor Strange. For those who saw Green Lantern and enjoyed it, one of the enduring issues with the film was that Sinestro made a compelling argument that the Guardians ought to fight Parallax with the power it drew upon; fear. The post-credit sequence of Green Lantern had, after all of the conflict had passed, Sinestro making the transition into a Yellow Lantern with no context, no threat, and an entirely inorganic sense of character motion based on where the film had left him. In a virtually identical way, the second post-credit scene to Doctor Strange does a lot to completely undermine and redefine one of the most likable characters in the movie.

That said, Doctor Strange has a lot going for it. Stephen Strange is an interesting character . . . even if his incredible skill makes viewers who love the Marvel Cinematic Universe films ask "If he is such a gifted neurosurgeon, why didn't Tony Stark call upon him to remove the shrapnel menacing his heart right after Iron Man?!" Strange is snarky, brilliant and has a wit that makes his love of trivia seem more playful than annoying. Stephen Strange is one of Benedict Cumberbatch's best roles. Perhaps the highest compliment one might pay about Cumberbatch is that, despite there being numerous similarities between Stephen Strange and Cumberbatch's rendition of Sherlock Holmes, one never feels like they are watching Cumberbatch play his Sherlock character in Doctor Strange.

The rest of the cast does great work supporting the protagonist's journey. Rachel McAdams plays surprise, shock, and the remnants of love well for Palmer, Tilda Swinton is both mysterious and convincing as The Ancient One. Mads Mikkelsen is off to a good start for the final Quarter of 2016 as Kaecilius and both Benedict Wong and Chiwetel Ejiofor make their supporting sorcerer roles memorable; far more than guys delivering excessive exposition.

And director Scott Derrickson makes Doctor Strange look suitably amazing and he moves the film at a pace that keeps it engaging the entire run. The result is an overwhelmingly satisfying Marvel Cinematic Universe film that gets great work out of its principles and turns the franchise in a very different, but mostly incredible and enjoyable, direction.

For other movies currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
Oasis: Supersonic
The Accountant
My Blind Brother
Cardboard Boxer
The Whole Truth

8.5/10

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.
| | |

Spotlight Is Another Film Where The Effects Are More Disappointing Than The Movie!

The Good: Pacing, Plot development, Decent performances
The Bad: Light on character development
The Basics: Impressive and worthwhile, Spotlight is difficult to watch more because the viewer will know it did not destroy the Catholic Church as opposed to any flaws within the film!


Today, I'm watching my last Best Picture nominee (I'm foregoing Mad Max: Fury Road because genre films and sequels have virtually no representation in Best Picture Oscar winners and Bridge Of Spies because it seems more like a courtesy nomination to Steven Spielberg than a genuine contender for the big prize): Spotlight. Spotlight is this year's big issue-based controversy nominee, following in the footsteps of movies like Doubt and Selma (reviewed here!). The film has one of the best-nominated casts of the year and it has a simplistic plot (for a film) that follows in the cinematic history of films like All The President's Men (reviewed here!).

Spotlight is based on how the reporters at the Boston Globe did investigative work to expose the conspiracy within the local Catholic Church whereby it silenced complainants from molestation victims. While Spotlight is based upon real and historical events, it is a film. It is important to note that; that when I refer to characters in the film - and judge them - it is only the film's characters I am talking about, not the historic personas upon which the film is based.

Opening in a prison in Boston, Massachussets in 1975, a desk sergeant and a cop discuss a suspect and the complainant they have in a room. The beat cop is outside and surprised when the priest and the bishop walk out and there will be no arraignment. At the Boston Globe in 2001, Walter Robinson meets with the new editor, Marty Baron. Robinson works on the Spotlight team, a special investigative group that breaks controversial stories that take up to a year to investigate and break. At his first writer's meeting, Baron reacts to a column on the "Geoghan case," a three year-old priest molestation case, where it appears that the Cardinal and local Catholic church knew about a Boston priest molested eighty children going back at least fifteen years. Robinson and his team investigate the Church.

Reporter Mike Rezendes interviews lawyer Mitchell Garabedian about the cases (84 of them) involving Catholic priests who molested children. Garabedian is almost paranoid about the Church and the way it has hounded him since he first started representing molestation victims. As the Spotlight team begins to investigate, they discover how much blowback there is from the Church and the community. The team quickly realizes that the pattern that the support group leader told them about might actually be real. After interviewing molestation victims, clergy and lawyers, the team fights to break the story. When an analyst investigating the psychological phenomenon since the 1960s implies that the paper's number of 13 bad priests in Boston should be (statistically) 90, the Spotlight team realizes that they might have a much bigger story.

Spotlight accurately portrays and recreates the effects and stories of molestation victims. It is difficult to hear their stories, but viewers have to acknowledge that it must have been far more difficult to actually be a molestation victim. Spotlight expertly details how the abusive priests act as predators to children of low-income families. When the clues point in the direction of a vastly higher number, the investigative reporting aspect of the story takes priority in the film.

In addition to accurately giving voice to victims of sexual abuse, Spotlight illustrates how a tenacious team of reporters actually works. Much of the magic of the story of Spotlight is that the characters care and they fight to ask the important questions. As the story that the Spotlight team is working on is derailed by the September 11, 2001 attacks, its members become passionate about breaking the story. The characters are tenacious and they ask questions and fight to expose the truth.

Mike Rezendes, Walter Robinson, Sacha Pfeiffer, Matt Carroll, and Marty Baron are not overly complicated characters; they share many of the same traits. Garabedian and Macleish are bound by professional ethics, but still made attempts in their past to break the story - but no one listened to them. Carroll has children he is afraid might encounter one of the priests, Pfeiffer loses her faith and Robinson discovers that his Catholic school had priests who victimized people he knew.

While Spotlight is very much an ensemble piece, Mike Rezendes and Robinson dominate the character aspect of the narrative. Rezendes lost his faith long ago, but he always thought he might go back to church. Rezendes, as played by Mark Ruffalo, presents a level of anger that the audience feels long before he exhibits it. Robinson quickly realizes how the "code of silence" and the mechanisms of keeping people silent worked. The characters are generally focused and intense and their commitment to getting the story right is only momentarily trumped by the desire not to get scooped by another Boston newspaper.

The cast of Spotlight is predictably amazing. If there is any, even minor supporting, role that Stanley Tucci cannot absolutely rock, I don't yet know it. Tucci is amazing is impressive in his conflicted role of Mitchell Garabedian. Liev Schreiber might quietly growl his way through all of his lines in ways that are very familiar for the performer, but he makes the role of Marty Baron magnetic to watch. Brian D'Arcy James, John Slattery, Billy Crudup, Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, and Michael Keaton are all wonderful in their very straightforward roles.

Spotlight is a film based on an issue and an investigation even more than the characters involved in it, so it is a triumph how captivating the film is when its results are already known to almost all viewers. The extent of the sexual abuse problem in the Catholic Church is presented as completely stunning and it is astonishing that the 2002 story the Boston Globe broke did not lead to massive systemic changes. Like The Big Short (reviewed here!), Spotlight explores a massive problem that was exposed and had the potential to change the world . . . but didn't.

Director Tom McCarthy directs Spotlight well, but the story is not a particularly flashy or cinematic one. Spotlight is like a play on screen, but McCarthy and the performers make it work well enough to be an engaging and enduring film.

For other works with Len Cariou, please visit my reviews of:
"Coda" - Star Trek: Voyager
Thirteen Days
About Schmidt

9/10

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.
| | |

A Worthwhile Addition To The Richard Curtis Library, About Time Is Much More Than The Time Traveler’s Wife 2.0

The Good: Acting, Characters, Direction, Plot development
The Bad: Somewhat derivative
The Basics: About Time is funny and heartwarming and is arguably the very best alternative to the big, special effects-driven blockbusters this autumn!


When it comes to films, there are few that I will go back to and re-evaluate after my first viewing. I think that the purpose of a review is to give thoughtful analysis of the movie one is presented and to consider it for exactly what one sees on-screen. The only weakness of such an evaluation process is that it does not take into account how a film ages upon multiple viewings (unless one watches it multiple times before reviewing it). One of the few films I have gone back to and re-rated and found I appreciated it more upon subsequent viewings was the Richard Curtis masterpiece Love Actually (reviewed here!). Because I felt I had been too harsh on the movie the first time around, my enthusiasm for Richard Curtis’s new film, About Time was tempered with a reasonable fear that I might be too lenient in evaluating it. However, as the weeks passed and I struggled to get out to the movie theater to take in new movies, I was surprised to discover that the movie I was pining to see (having learned about it only a week before its U.S. release and having watched no trailers for the film) was About Time. After the brief, but intense, anticipation, I finally managed to get to a theater playing the film.

And it’s good.

Actually, About Time is great on a number of levels and the one that is most germane to me is this: it made me feel something. As a movie critic who has watched, literally, thousands of films with a critical eye, it takes a lot for a movie these days to get me to feel something. The ones that have the most difficult time evoking an emotional reaction are the movies that are romances. Romantic comedies are formulaic and romantic dramas are usually designed to tug on the heartstrings, so it is a tough sell for me because I come into the movie expecting the play on my emotions and I remain guarded against it for the sake of objectivity. With About Time, emotional barriers do not work; the film is smart and legitimately charming, without trying so hard. In fact, some of the best moments of the movie work because there is an effortless quality to the characters and the film’s direction that leads the viewer to witness and experience (what appears to be) genuine emotion and react accordingly.

The other big concern for me when going into About Time was that the plot seemed incredibly derivative of The Time Traveler’s Wife (reviewed here!), which also starred Rachel McAdams. Fortunately, writer and director Richard Curtis is aptly able to manage not making a cheap retread of the popular novel/film and he creates something legitimately smart on his own. Instead of belaboring the time-travel aspect in About Time, Curtis focuses on the human aspect and the way people relate. The film has a very brief lesson on the conceit before exploring the effects of how the protagonist, Tim, deals with having the ability to travel in time.

On New Year’s Eve, Tim goes through the usual routine with his family, which for that day includes a terrible party. At it, Tim knocks over some drinks while being rushed by his friend to the living room and then shakes the hand of the girl who clearly wants to kiss him. The next morning, his father – who mysteriously retired at age fifty and is always available to Tim for conversations and table tennis – reveals to him the big family secret: the men in the family have the ability to travel in time. They can only go back in time, to their own life, to make changes. Tim immediately tests this theory and is amazed when it works; he goes back to the prior night, misses the glasses and kisses the girl. The following summer, he spends attracted to his sister’s visiting friend, Charlotte. Through that incident, he learns that love does not change just because he can go back to influence events.

Moving out to London, Tim moves in with a playwright (Harry) who knew his father and one fateful night, he has a date in a blackened restaurant where he meets an amazing woman. Meeting Mary out on the street after the date, Tim and Mary hit it off and he gets her phone number. Upon returning home, though, he learns that Harry’s play was an utter disaster and, in fixing things for Harry, Tim and Mary never meet. Recalling that Mary is a big fan of Kate Moss, Tim spends the summer hanging out at London’s art museum where there is a Kate Moss photo exhibit. When she finally passes through the exhibit, he learns she has a boyfriend she met about a month before and he goes back in time to stop them from meeting so he might meet her instead. Having managed to finally meet Mary and get her interested in him, Tim and Mary develop a real relationship going forward. Though their love grows, Tim finds complications in marrying, having a child (which becomes a fixed point he cannot travel back before, lest he unmake his daughter), and tragedies surrounding his impetuous sister and loving father.

About Time is one of those films where one knows almost immediately that the two top-billed actors in the film are going to end up together. Fans who recognize Rachel McAdams’s voice will know the first time Mary speaks in the dark that Domhnall Gleason’s Tim has met the woman he will be with and the magic of the film is in how the two actually come together and then the effects their being together have on the other people in their lives. Tim sets of a potentially catastrophic series of events in motion when he tries to save his sister, Kit Kat, and rectifying his temporal mistakes is glossed over (does he simply fix the mistakes of traveling back before fixed points by then willing himself to not make the disastrous time travel attempt? It’s not clear). Instead of worrying about much in the way of temporal mechanics, Richard Curtis smartly remains focused on the human element.

The love story in About Time works in large measure because Rachel McAdams and Domhnall Gleason have great on-screen chemistry. While there seems to be a wink and a nudge to the audience from McAdams in her describing Mary as “plain” when she’s a Hollywood-beautiful actress, the somewhat goofy and very real-looking Gleason compliments her look marvelously. The two sparkle on screen and they interact like a realistic, viable couple which entirely sells the realism of the fantastic elements.

The supporting cast, which includes the ever-magnificent Bill Nighy and versatile Lindsay Duncan and Tom Hollander, makes About Time seem much more realistic, as opposed to larger-than-life. Richard Curtis, in addition to delivering a mostly-solid script with a lot of charming lines, directs About Time wonderfully. He uses music as an auditory cue in several of the time travel scenes and when he defies that convention while using recognizable music, that plays well to the audience that is trying to anticipate the film’s next move.

Curtis is also smart enough to not bombard the viewer with clichés, as well. When Tim runs into Charlotte after having a pretty magnificent run with Mary, he neither blows the relationship with Mary, nor takes the cheap opportunity to have sex with Charlotte and then go back and “fix” the infidelity. Instead, it leads to a deeper character revelation for Tim and that plays as remarkably fresh.

Ultimately, About Time succeeds where so many romantic films fail: by creating viable characters and putting them in a situation where it reminds the viewer of the delights of love in our complicated world.

For other films featuring time travel, please check out my reviews of:
The Back To The Future Trilogy
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Men In Black III

8.5/10

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.
| | |

More Wall Street Than A Lesbian Love Masterpiece, Passion Is Engaging, But Erratic.

The Good: Noomi Rapace’s performance, Visual appealing, Moments of plot and tension, Strong ending!
The Bad: Some very clunky line deliveries, Abrupt transition in the type of film it is.
The Basics: Passion starts as a corporate drama but changes jarringly into a psychological thriller that mortgages its major villain for a far less compelling one.


More often than not, it takes something quite a bit more significant than a movie poster to get me interested in watching a movie. Still, the advertisers for Passion did their work well with their initial movie poster; two glossy pink, feminine lips facing each other so close that one can almost feel the breath between them was not a bad sales pitch. In fact, given that the two actresses named above the lips were Rachel McAdams and Noomi Rapace. Noomi Rapace might have a big international following (which is why it has taken so long for Passion to premiere in the U.S. while elsewhere it is already out on DVD), but thus far I had only seen her in Prometheus (reviewed here!). Still, the chance to see her in something new and to see what direction McAdams is going in now was worth getting excited about, regardless of the effective movie poster.

The new poster, which features full head shots of Rapace and McAdams looking anything but passionate much more accurately captures the actual content of Passion. Passion is not like Bound (reviewed here!), it’s more analogous to Wall Street (reviewed here!) where people manipulate one another for their own gains. Passion was made very much on the celebrity of Brian De Palma, who wrote and directed the film. While the movie has its moments, it does not represent De Palma’s greatest success as either a writer or a director.

On the writing front, there are several clunky lines that do not sound realistic for the way people actually talk. On the directing front, some of the deliveries are unfortunately stiff. Very early on in Passion, when Rachel McAdams as Christine is interacting with Isabelle during a business meeting, her transition from the professional to the deeply personal is not just an awkward shift; her lines are delivered so stiffly that one has to wonder why De Palma did not insist on a second (or third or however many more takes it needed to get it right) take. Passion quickly evolves from a film with vague sexual titillation and flirtations into a story about workplace manipulations.

Working together on a cell phone project, Isabelle and Christine run into a mental block. When Dirk returns to Christine’s home, Isabelle leaves, obviously uncomfortable. But, in the middle of the night, Isabelle has a brainstorm and with her friend/assistant Dani, she develops Asscam, an app that allows women to see how men on the street react to their walking away. Isabelle goes to London on Christine’s behalf and pitches the app, which Christine then takes credit for (which almost balances out the fact that Isabelle sleeps with Dirk in London and then afterward). With Christine needing revenue and more accounts to cover a risky scheme Dirk created (and needs bailing out of), she pushes for a move to New York and pushes both Dirk and Isabelle away.

Angered at how Christine is manipulating her and Dirk, she puts her advertisement for the Omniphone online and it goes viral. Christine’s move to New York is cut when Isabelle is offered the same opportunity by the corporate partners that the three work for. Dirk tries to warn Isabelle about how dangerous Christine is, but it is not until Christine humiliates Isabelle in front of the company and extorts her with a damning e-mail she claims came from her computer, which leads Isabelle to prepare retaliation. What follows is a game of cat and mouse between Isabelle and Christine where they exert control over one another and their most damning secrets. When Christine is murdered, Isabelle is the prime suspect and she works to exonerate herself and find the true culprit.

The writing in Passion creates an obvious situation where Isabelle is being manipulated by Christine. When Isabelle gets an ally in Dirk, though, she fails to ask a number of key questions that would illustrate she is smart and able to keep up with her boss’s machinations. For example, when Dirk tells Isabelle that Christine does not have a sister (after Christine has told her a sob story about her dead twin sister), she does not ask if Isabelle ever had a sister, she just accepts the truth from Dirk (which is the same version Christine gave her before) that Isabelle does not have a sister. Moreover, Isabelle seems surprisingly dim. She works on a smartphone account, developing a camera-based app and yet seems completely oblivious to Dirk using his cameraphone to make a video of their liaison in London.

Despite her few awkward line deliveries, Rachel McAdams has moments where she is entirely credible as a leader of a powerful and successful advertising firm. But she plays even more effectively as a woman scorned and angered by the corporate and personal stresses she encounters. When she coldly sets out to humiliate Isabelle and her employees, she plays cold and deliciously evil amazingly. She is backed by a number of effective background performers who look uncomfortable at the circumstances in the most realistic way possible. In that way, De Palma creates a very realistic sense of place and characters who react in a compelling way to their challenges and manipulations. McAdams is all kinds of evil as Christine, like the way she kisses Isabelle harder in front of Dani, who has obvious affections for Isabelle.

Noomi Rapace is exceptional as Isabelle. Rapace is able to emote exceptionally well with only her eyes. De Palma smartly manages to capture her expressions. When Christine humiliates Isabelle at the company party, Rapace says so much without any lines and De Palma captures her performance exceptionally well. Similarly, as Isabelle sits in Inspector Bach’s office, Rapace looks haggard and horrible and De Palma gets every nuanced moment amazingly well. (Annoyingly, Bach and Dirk are cast remarkably similarly, which adds to the confusion as the psychological horror of the movie deepens.)

Ultimately, though, Passion degenerates into a weird reality-bending mindfuck of a movie more akin to Black Swan (reviewed here!) than anything truly passionate and the abruptness of the transition from a flirtatious corporate drama to a psychological thriller is jarring. While that can work in a movie to play to the stress of the protagonist, in Passion it just seems more erratic. The result is a film that is more inconsistent than it is cleverly constructed.

For other films with two women in a relationship, please check out my reviews of:
Compulsion
The Incredibly True Adventure Of Two Girls In Love
Concussion

6/10

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

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

You Know You're On A Crappy Flight When The In-Flight Movie Is Red Eye

The Good: Acting, Plot concept
The Bad: Predictable characters arcs, Fails to evoke tension, DVD extras are lame, Short!
The Basics: Despite a good start, Red Eye mortgages the ability to create a compelling thriller for a cheap, predictable set of lines and resolution.


Cillian Murphy jumped into my attention with 28 Days Later, which he was fabulous in. He was underused in Batman Begins, but I had good cause to trust he would be good in Red Eye, a horror movie specifically tailored for our current political paranoia. This was the first movie I had seen with rising star Rachel McAdams.

Hotel desk clerk Lisa Reisert is traveling home from her grandmother's funeral when her flight is delayed. While waiting for her new flight, she meets Jackson Rippner, who is attentive and charming with her, though he is giving off a pretty creepy vibe the whole time. Lisa boards her plane to discover Jackson has the seat next to her. They begin to talk and soon Jackson reveals that he is on the plane for Lisa. He wants Lisa to change the room assignment of a Homeland Security officer at the hotel where Lisa works. If Lisa does not comply, Jackson has someone who will kill her father. As the flight goes on, Lisa struggles to beat the terrorist and Jackson becomes more insistent about her need to comply.

This is Wes Craven's take on the Julia Roberts movie Sleeping With The Enemy and his direction of the movie bears a striking resemblance to that, down to some of the shots near the end. Fortunately, neither Carl Ellsworth nor Dan Foos - who wrote Red Eye - were associated with Sleeping With The Enemy, making them derivative and not one trick ponies.

Red Eye is a thriller, supposedly, but it does very little in the way of thrilling. The film tries to make everything into a moment of tension, from the music in the opening credits, to the plane taking off, so by the time the conflict between Jackson and Lisa actually becomes something, it's past the point where the audience feels able to care or feel tense. Instead, it is predictable in all of the worst ways, once the premise is established. Sadly, Wes Craven has squeezed himself into the same safe box as far too many other directors following the September 11 attacks, so while Red Eye features a plot that is reacting to the attacks, it is not bold in any way about the statement it makes. And that's disappointing.

Moreover, this is a very "male" movie for a film with a female protagonist. Lisa is strong, but when it comes to the critical moments, it is the men who do the heavy lifting. Lisa and her coworker in the hotel, Cynthia, risk their lives to protect the homeland security officer, Charles Keefe. And they do it all for, a pat on the back. The men here are the real protectors; Keefe is protecting the nation and his family, Lisa's father Joe protects her. To be fair, all the men are villains here, too, so they are portrayed as both the villains and protectors. Women, including Lisa, are merely accessories, pawns in their games.

This is especially bothersome on the character level. Red Eye's latter third hinges on Lisa being a strong woman who is able to kick some serious butt. The moment - early in the film - that she sees a scar on her chest in the mirror, her character is completely explained to almost anyone with a brain who understands the world we live in. The problem is, because this is such an obvious character tell, in order to do anything that we don't expect, well, the movie would have to do something truly different. Instead, Lisa says exactly what one would expect about being a woman in her position the second before she begins to truly fight Jackson.

Again, it's very safe in this p.c. age to show women kicking the crap out of men and to its credit, Red Eye establishes two characters who are on fairly even footing (at least by the time they are actually locked in combat). The problem with this type of conflict is that is has become passe. In almost every such conflict, the viewer pretty much knows who will win (so, for example, in Alias, it does not matter the size of the man Sydney Bristow is up against, odds are good she'll win). Somehow, it's become perfectly all right for us to show men pounding the crap out of women, so long as the woman triumphs in the end. In most cases, I'm fine with that. In Red Eye, I was hoping for ANYTHING that might be surprising. Anything.

Those who want to watch Red Eye hoping for a real horror movie are likely to leave disappointed. This is, at best, a psychological horror, one man toying with one woman to get what he wants from her. The broader text of this movie is a political thriller. Jackson is the new face of terrorism, sent to make a statement to Homeland Security by assisting in an endeavor to take out one of their public faces.

The problem, then, is that Jack does not work. We are meant to believe that he has the resolve and determination of a terrorist, yet he makes amateur mistakes like not knowing when to cut his losses. We are made to believe that his personal vengeance trumps either his desire to make a political statement or his desire to survive in the underworld long enough to be hired for another job that will bring him money. Jackson makes no real sense, so while Lisa is the cliche of the now-strong survivor, Jackson is a parody of a terrorist that only an audience under 17 could believe in.

Cillian Murphy, however, is wonderful. Murphy's acting creates Jackson as a reasonable gun-for-hire and his ability to alternate charm and menace is wonderful. Murphy expresses more with his eyes than some actors get out with a whole page of dialogue. He is cold, calculating and wonderful in his performance. It's a shame that he was not given a better (more sensibly written) villain to play.

Rachel McAdams is the real winner of Red Eye. Despite playing one of the most predictable roles in recent memory, she did it well. She was essentially human throughout and strong and determined and she was believable. Sometimes that's the most one may hope for. The best thing to come out of my watching Red Eye was in looking McAdams up on the IMDB, I learned she's in talks to play Claire Abshire in the film adaptation of The Time Traveler's Wife, my favorite recent read (reviewed here!). Now I have to think if she'd be as good as Claire . . .

This is a "PG-13" movie and it barely deserves that high a rating. The DVD extras include one of the lamest "gag reels" I've ever seen and a commentary track that does not make the movie any more interesting. All in all, this is a disappointment. Cillian Murphy is in better movies and I'm sure Rachel McAdams is, too. As for Wes Craven . . . if you can't make a movie that's over 90 minutes, maybe it's time to get out of the business.

For other works with Cillian Murphy, please check out my reviews of:
The Dark Knight Rises
Tron: Legacy
Inception
The Dark Knight
Batman Begins
28 Days Later

3.5/10

For other movie reviews, be sure to visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

The Princess Bride Without The Fantasy; Nothing Noteworthy Written In This Romantic Drama

The Good: Decent acting, Resolution, Moments of character
The Bad: Most of the character progression is obvious, Plot is very predictable
The Basics: In a predictable disappointment of a romantic drama, a senior citizen tells another senior a story of young love throughout a significant day.


[Note: This was originally written before Rachel McAdams had her big break into mainstream pop culture. Enjoy!]

When I watched The Lake House (reviewed here!) and was pleasantly surprised, my mother instantly recommended The Notebook, which she claimed was 1,000,000 times better. She then thrust her copy upon me and sent me on my way. After a few days of letting it sit around, I noticed that Rachel McAdams was in The Notebook. McAdams was in Red Eye and I had been excited to learn that she was in talks to play the female lead in the film version of The Time Traveler's Wife (reviewed here!), which was the best book I've read in a while. So, I sat down to watch The Notebook as my own casting check to see if McAdams would live up to my idea of Claire Abshire and because my mother so thoroughly endorsed this film. I'm not allowed to borrow any more of her DVDs, she says, because my reaction to the film was to shrug and say "meh."

Duke is a senior citizen living in an assisted living facility. He wanders down the hall to the room of Allie Calhoun, sits down and begins reading to her. Duke begins to tell her the story of Noah and how he met, fell in love with and won the heart of a young woman named Allie. As the elder Calhoun listens to the story, she becomes engrossed by the ups and downs in the relationship between Noah and Allie. Duke tells her about how Allie's parents disapproved of their summer romance, Allie left Noah brokenhearted and how they went their separate ways. Of course, fate throws Noah and Allie back together before Allie married a man who her parents do approve of and Calhoun is completely enchanted by Duke's story.

The Notebook is based upon a novel by Nicholas Sparks and I've not read the book and this is not a review of the book. What appeared on screen was one of the most predictable, unremarkable romances I've ever seen. The Notebook is framed like The Princess Bride, but it has none of that movie's charm or character. Instead, everything falls along remarkably predictable lines.

I'll hide an insult in a compliment now; part of the reason the movie fails from one of the first frames is the fault of actress Gena Rowlands. Rowlands plays Allie Calhoun and from the moment she first appears on screen, its obvious that she is suffering from an age-related memory condition. Rowlands plays Calhoun with a detachment in the eyes that is instantly noticeable and she is emoting through minimalist actions through the entire movie. Long before we are told what she suffers from, Rowland is effectively portraying it. The Notebook, then is effectively showing the audience what it wants to convey, so much so that the plot then becomes cheap.

What I mean by that is simple; Rowlands is so effectively emoting and presenting a woman whose mental state is in decline that the viewer instantly gets it. And yet, for the bulk of the film, the relationship between Duke and Calhoun is kept guarded. The viewer is expected to be surprised in the latter half of the movie to learn what has been obvious from the first scenes.

Similarly, the only way the character of Duke makes any sense to anyone with more than a quarter of a brain to evaluate such things is if his identity is who we expect him to be. Duke's character, like Calhoun's is plagued by great acting to embody the character. Duke is played by James Garner and long before anyone says anything, Garner is emoting affection and quiet love. Garner acts exactly like a man who loves someone would act when they have to work around a disability.

And if director Nick Cassavetes wanted to keep a secret about Duke and Calhoun, he should have gone with a much, much worse casting director. The person who cast the primary actors in The Notebook did everything right. To wit, when Duke's children come to visit him in the afternoon, one of Duke's daughters looks like Duke. She also looks like . . .

Yeah, I'm not going to say it. You're smart enough to read between the lines here.

Ryan Gosling plays Noah and he's plagued with playing a character who is not well-developed at all. Noah is portrayed through much of the movie as more obsessive than loving and that's annoying. It's also annoying to watch a character who listens as the mother of the woman he loves calls him trash behind a closed door later assume that that same mother who despises him would make sure she got the letters he sent. Noah seemed smarter than that. Or more obsessive. Gosling is good in his scenes with Rachel McAdams, though. The two have decent on-screen chemistry and he looks like he's having a genuinely good time in the scenes where they are being spontaneous and in love.

Rachel McAdams plays Allie and Allie is fairly well-defined (though she makes the same mistakes as Noah as far as her mother is concerned) and that gives McAdams a lot to work with. She embodies Allie well as a society girl who sheds her pretenses and comes to love Noah quite a bit. McAdams is at her best, though, when she must present Allie agonizing over her decisions. McAdams screws her face up in anguish to be wonderfully emotive.

Sadly, though, The Notebook is full of debilitatingly predictable plot and character twists. In addition to the big "surprise" over how Duke and Calhoun relate to one another, the character reversals are unsurprising. So, for example, Allie's mother hates Noah, hates him, hates him, hates him to the point of committing a felony (postal theft is a big "no no" kiddies!), hates him, hates him, loves the new guy in Allie's life, hates Noah, eh, suddenly decides to let Allie live her own life. Gee, I know I did not see that coming.

Ultimately, The Notebook is a mix of The Princess Bride (sans fantasy) and 50 First Dates (sans comedy) and it fails as a movie. Already I am dreading the movie of The Time Traveler's Wife, not because of McAdams (I'm warming up to her as the cinematic version of Claire), but for the simple fact that 500 pages to create characters does not (often) translate into 120 pages (123 minutes) to create characters on screen. The Notebook might be a fabulous book, but it's a movie I've seen a hundred times and there is nothing truly distinctive in this incarnation that makes me want to see it again.

And I cannot recommend it.

For other works with Ryan Gosling, be sure to visit my reviews of:
The Idea Of March
Crazy, Stupid, Love.
Drive

4.5/10

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, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Morning Glory Is The Best, Most Insufferably Predictable, Workplace Dramedy In Years!

The Good: Interesting characters, Decent development and structure, Wonderful acting, Decent DVD bonus features.
The Bad: Utterly predictable on all fronts.
The Basics: Despite being painfully predictable, Morning Glory is a worthwhile and fun film focusing on one plucky producer’s attempt to save a morning television news program, despite her lead anchor’s resistance!


The longer one watches and reviews movies (or television, I suppose), the harder it is to surprise them. For sure, not everything can be innovative, fresh and new, which might be why so many major studios continue to revamp old franchises rather than being accused of making something that would be panned as “derivative.” With romantic comedies and lighter workplace dramas, there have been so many cinematic stories told that it truly is difficult to amaze viewers now. Thus, the success of those types of movies often comes down to the quality of the cast and acting and the quirks that come in the writing from the writer’s sense of style and eloquence.

Morning Glory succeeds for only that reason. Were it not for an impressive cast acting incredibly well and moments where the writing felt fresh (Mike Pomeroy being defined as the third worst person on the planet, for example), Morning Glory would simply be a formulaic nightmare that lacked any charm, originality or reason to watch. As it is, though, Morning Glory has enough going for it, so much so that it is easy to see why Harrison Ford wanted to be a part of it. However, the entirely formulaic nature of the film helps make it clear why so few critics were wowed by the movie.

Becky Fuller works for a small New Jersey television station where she works on the morning show. When she thinks she is being promoted, she is in fact fired and that throws her off track entirely. Despite her mother’s discouragements, Becky continues to pursue a position as a producer and after weeks of trying, she finally lands an interview at IBS. Hired to take over the struggling show “Daybreak,” Becky is hampered by outdated technology and a lecherous, egotistical anchor. After firing her anchor, she determines that the newscaster for whom she has always had respect is still under contract with the network and using a clause in his contract that leverages the balance of his contract against him, Becky manages to get Mike Pomeroy to come do “Daybreak.”

Unfortunately for Becky and Mike’s co-anchor, Colleen, Mike refuses to adapt to the format of morning television. Unwilling to do any piece that he feels is below him, Mike pushes to report real news. But when one of Becky’s stunts involving the weatherman, Ernie, actually shows a tiny ratings bump, Becky sees that the key to getting the audience is sensationalism. As she uses Ernie and Colleen to bring entertaining programming to the morning show, Mike continues to resist, focusing instead on his own quest for a breaking news story. As Becky works to save the show, she tries to balance “Daybreak” with her new relationship with Adam, a man who knows Mike Pomeroy’s eccentricities all too well.

Morning Glory is one of those movies that it is hard for me to start an objective discussion about because I start going into all the things that feel familiar and trite about it – mostly pertaining to the plot and character structure of the film. So, sufficed to say, the film is not only predictable, but it has a very “assembled” feel to it. In other words, the film has very little in the way of frills; the elements that are put into play very early in Morning Glory all come back later on to be paid off. So, for example, Becky’s mother makes a crack in her first scene about how Becky has just been working on the hope that someday, an important executive will call her up and offer her a producing position on the biggest morning show on the air. So, when Becky is called by NBC late in the film, that bit of foreshadowing is played out.

But the problem with being so very critical about how the film is assembled is that some of it, much of it, actually works. Adam’s knowledge of Mike Pomeroy’s drinking habits is not only useful to Becky, it makes sense that he would have become familiar with them in his tenure working with Mike. The scene where Mike Pomeroy cooks a frittata before work not only serves to humanize him to Becky, but it is pretty much meaningless without the callback to it late in the film. As a result, much of Morning Glory feels like a set-up in the first half and the second half is all about paying off the threads laid down. It’s a formula, but it is hard to complain when part of that formula results in people putting down their smartphones and spending more real time together.

Part of the success of Morning Glory (because it does work quite a bit more than it ever fails) comes from the film’s cast and the fact that director Roger Mitchell uses them all in an excellent fashion. Matt Malloy makes Ernie credible in all the ways his character is tormented and Michell uses Ty Burrell for a brief, hilarious, role before getting him off camera before Burrell can change the entire tenor of the film. John Pankow has great physical performances in Morning Glory and one of my new favorites over the past three years, Patrick Wilson, manages to be entirely credible as Adam. He is, in fact, far more believable as an awkward, lovestruck yet frumpy guy than Rachel McAdams is as a woman so busy she doesn’t possibly notice that she is drop-dead gorgeous. Jeff Goldblum is efficient and smart in his scenes as Jerry.

Diana Keaton pretty much reinvented herself in Morning Glory. As Colleen Peck, she plays a journalist who understands how the game is played and works for a fourth place show. Instead of complaining about it, Colleen shows up, does her job and waits for a producer to come along who believes in the concept of “Daybreak” and who might actually want to be there. When Becky Fuller arrives, Colleen quickly realizes that she is the real deal. This leads Keaton to some of her most memorable moments on film as she raps with 50 Cent, plays with animals and is put in a giant sumo costume to go up against a real sumo wrestler. And Keaton plays Colleen as credibly smart and emotionally connected enough to hold her own against Harrison Ford’s Mike Pomeroy.

Well before he played a cranky old man in Cowboys And Aliens (reviewed here!), Harrison Ford played Mike Pomeroy and the role is an exceptionally good one to illustrate Ford’s talents. Harrison Ford does not play Pomeroy as dashing, debonair, or charismatic, which are traits that Ford is usually associated with. Instead, he slouches, scowls and grunts his way through the role and he is so convincing in his grumpy persona that viewers are almost unlikely to buy that he is smart enough, when viewing the promos for Pomeroy joining “Daybreak,” to quip, “What’s in the briefcase? Where am I running to?!” Ford pulls it off, though, and he makes a good arc of Pomeroy’s many barriers peeling away.

Rachel McAdams, however, sells Morning Glory. It is largely her job to convince the viewers that Becky is smart and driven enough to make “Daybreak” work and over the course of the film, she succeeds. She has great on-screen chemistry with both Patrick Wilson and Harrison Ford. Rachel McAdams makes Fuller seem determined and righteous enough to be completely believable.

On DVD and Blu-Ray, Morning Glory has quite a bit to offer viewers. In addition to deleted scenes, there is a rich commentary track with director Roger Michell and the film’s author. The featurettes are entertaining and there are enough bonus features to make viewers feel they are getting a value with the disc.

Ultimately, Morning Glory may not be the most original film, but it presents the known quantities well and is well worth watching for the entertainment of it; Morning Glory is enduringly entertaining and holds up over multiple viewings.

For other works with Rachel McAdams, be sure to check out my reviews of:
The Vow
Sherlock Holmes
The Time Traveler’s Wife
Married Life
The Family Stone
Mean Girls

7/10

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

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

Say What You Will About It, Mean Girls Is Close-Enough To Perfect To Rave About!

The Good: Funny, Good character development, Decent directoral style, Generally good acting, Social commentary
The Bad: Minutia
The Basics: Funny and near-perfect, Mean Girls lives up to its hype as a wonderful comedy about high school cliques and those who challenge them.


For those who do not read my many movie reviews, it takes a lot for me to rate a film a ten out of ten, but there are occasional films that might not be absolutely perfect that get very close to that rating. Mean Girls is one of those films.

Truth be told, I had been hearing positive hype about Mean Girls for years. Had I known it was directed by Mark Waters, who bored me with one of the worst films in recent years, Ghost Of Girlfriends Past (reviewed here!) and left me underwhelmed with Just Like Heaven, I probably would not have been as excited about taking in the movie, regardless of the hype. Fortunately, while going through my wife's DVD collection to find a movie we could watch for the night, I was psyched to find she had Mean Girls! And watching it, Waters redeemed himself for his other movies. Mean Girls lives up to its hype as a wonderful comedy with actual social commentary, making its points well with humor and style.

Cady Heron was homeschooled by her parents, as she was raised in the wilds of Africa and at age sixteen is sent off to public high school in the midwest. There, Cady is befriended by the outcast Janis Ian and her gay friend, Damian. Janis tries to help Cady navigate the cliques, but despite her best efforts, Cady is noticed by the Plastics. The Plastics are the junior girls who represent the most popular, elite and mean clique at the school. When Regina George allows Cady into the Plastics, Janis encourages her so that Janis can get the dirt on the Plastics and break up the powerful Junior trio.

This plan appeals to Cady when she finds herself instantly attracted to Aaron, who is Regina's ex-boyfriend. Dating ex's of the clique members is strictly prohibited, a fact which leaves Cady disappointed and willing to scheme against Regina. To stop Cady, Regina begins making moves on Aaron - while cheating on him - and Cady tries to win over Aaron, destroy Regina and avoid being a mathlete. Regina, however, soon learns of Cady's duplicity when Aaron breaks up with her and seeks to ruin Cady.

What Mean Girls does so well is capture the look, feel and tensions of high school, while making commentaries that are more adult than childish. Peripheral characters, like Regina's mother who tries desperately to be a part of her daughter's clique, garner a great number of laughs which makes for a much richer movie; not all of the pressure is on Cady to get the laughs. In fact, Cady plays the straightman to virtually every other character and as a result, it is easy to empathize with her. She, like the older viewers, is detached from the society of the high school. As a result, she is the ideal vehicle for the fish-out-of-water type comedy that makes up Mean Girls.

This is done quite creatively when Waters and writers Rosalind Wiseman and Tina Fey illustrate Cady's viewpoint; she juxtaposes animal behavior she witnessed in Africa with behavior she sees in the high school. These occasional flights of fancy throughout the movie might cause viewers to recall Ally McBeal and the analogy is not a bad one, as there is at least one moment where Cady imagines something that is taken back seconds after it happens that is not the result of any sense of social commentary. Still, watching the performers in the film suddenly begin prowling around like wild animals and leap upon one another shakes up the movie when it finds itself in danger of slowing down.

In addition, the writers shake up the traditional high school teen movie by defying some of the paradigms, most notably in how Cady eliminates the competition with Regina as leader of the Plastics. Cady seeks to simple take Regina down a peg without realizing what effect that is most likely to have and there is a wonderful moment where Cady ends up as the new alpha and because the character has become so corrupted by her plan at that point, this does not phase her (her friend, Janis, makes this explicit and it works wonderfully in the film).

What works as well is the way Janis Ian and Cady play off one another; Janis is motivated by her own desire for revenge for a past incident and she uses Cady much the way Regina uses Aaron. Ironically, both Janis and Regina react similarly when their pawns (Cady and Aaron, respectively) rebel. As well, while young people might instantly see the Plastics as antagonists (or desirable, for those so programmed), older viewers are likely to see the high school layout and see that this is just one clique among many and not be as judgmental in the way the writers and directors hope we will be.

But what fans are equally likely to enjoy is the fact that the movie is genuinely funny. The dialogue is wonderful and both captures the young dialect and comments on it. Near the very beginning there is a great moment when Cady and Regina are talking and Regina uses "shut up!" as a reactive colloquialism and Cady stares at her blank-faced and says, "I didn't say anything." It's funny and well-timed.

Mean Girls is arguably known best as a Lindsay Lohan vehicle and this film does give the bright-eyed young woman her chance to shine. She rises to the occasion and delivers a performance that is surprisingly mature and also able to keep a fresh sense of comic timing to it. She is able to deliver an appropriately quizzical look that sells her character perfectly and her pauses and deadpan deliveries keep the movie funny.

Lohan is not the only talent in the movie, though. Amanda Seyfried has one of the best deliveries as the dimwitted Plastic, Karen. She plays the fool perfectly and she plays off Lacey Chabert's Gretchen wonderfully. Lizzie Caplan plays her usual outsider character as Janis Ian, but she is unrelenting in Mean Girls, giving her performance a darker edge than many of her other roles. And Rachel McAdam's performance as Regina is so good that it made it clear how she was cast for The Time Traveler's Wife (reviewed here!)!

The adult cast is led by Saturday Night Live alums Tina Fey, Tim Meadows, and Amy Poehler, which makes sense as this is a Lorne Michael production. Poehler gets to do her usual over-the-top schtick as Regina's mother and her sense of physical comedy is wonderful. By contrast, Meadows carries a great deal of his humor with deadpan, more subtle deliveries. Fey mixes a more serious role as Cady's teacher, Ms. Norbury, with a few out-of-school scenes where she is able to play the social-awkward card.

The mix is wonderful and the result is a strong comedy that has great repeatability for teens and adults alike. When it is not making social comedy, it is funny and when the humor fades, it actually makes one care about the characters on screen. What more could one ask for?

For other works with Lizzy Caplan, be sure to visit my reviews of:
New Girl - Season 1
Hot Tub Time Machine
True Blood - Season 1
Cloverfield
Orange County
Freaks And Geeks

9/10

Check out other film reviews by me at my Movie Review Index Page!

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

Kissing The Stone Of Mediocrity: The Family Stone

The Good: Decent acting, Fair plot
The Bad: Unlikable or inconsistent characters, Builds too much on unpleasantness before getting good
The Basics: When the Stone Family reunites, it is an annoying girlfriend to one of the sons that dominates the story and ruins the experience for family and viewer alike.


I cannot remember the last time a movie had an emotional resonance with me, where it succeeded in bringing a tear to my eye at moments, that I did not then recommend. Ultimately, and I suppose to skip to the end, The Family Stone is not a movie I'm willing to recommend because by the time it gets to the deeply emotional stuff, it has mortgaged its enjoyability. That is to say, by the time the story tells us to care about the characters, we already do not. And what is most likely to bring a tear to one's eyes is obvious. Writer/director Thomas Bezucha goes for the obvious tear-jerker moments, so the viewer is more likely to feel manipulated at the conclusion to the movie than satisfied.

The Stone family is getting together for Christmas. This year, Everett is bringing his new girlfriend, Meredith Morton, home with him. She is uptight, somewhat obnoxious and pretty glued to her cellphone. She has trouble unwinding, insists on sleeping apart from Everett and feels pressure to fit in with his family.

The family, diverse to the point of cliche, is setup to not like her, though patriarch Kelly insists they give her a fair chance. Sybil, the matriarch, is feeling anxiety over her suspicion that Everett is going to ask her for a promised ring to propose to Meredith. Everett is, in fact, prepared to propose to Meredith and finds himself in conflict with his family over his choice of spouse. Younger sister Amy is feeling persecuted and put out by Meredith, Ben is giving everyone a chance, deaf son Thad and his Black gay partner Patrick are planning to adopt and see this as a chance to be with their family to float the idea and Susannah - with her daughter - is waiting for her absent husband to show up for the holiday.

The problem here is twofold. The first problem is Meredith. While actress Sarah Jessica Parker does not get top billing for The Family Stone, Meredith is the central character during the first half of the movie. And she's unlikable. We're not supposed to like her. Bezucha sees to that. From the first moment she appears on screen talking incessantly into her cell phone, Meredith is portrayed as an uptight pain in the butt. In her first scene with Everett, his action is to simply take away her cell phone and close it, undermining any insinuation of chemistry between the pair. Meredith is unlikable and she is supposed to be. But she is so unlikable and so much time at the beginning of the movie is spent on her that the Stone family - and their assorted stories - simply act as an accessory to her story. And, frankly, we just spend the first part of the movie hoping something unlikely will happen like an alien will abduct her or a car will just crash into the house and take her out. No such luck.

The other problem is the Stone family. This is a collection of direct, progressive people who are generally likable. They are immediately accepting of their family members. All of the members of the family sign for Thad, no one has a problem with his homosexuality or his partner's presence in their family. Thus, after such an establishment, it reads as significantly off that only Ben would give Meredith a chance. Meredith enters the house and is immediately stiff. The family, which seems to be caring and flexible, goes out of their way to make her uncomfortable, flaunting her problems as opposed to helping her through them.

So, the viewer stops caring about Meredith, we side with Sybil and her view that Meredith is not right for Everett. Sybil's issues become a side note and used to jerk the audience around. But more than that, the same lack of attention to detail or caring that marks the Stone family's problem above comes into the writing. There is a line of dialogue that Meredith delivers to Everett early on after arriving at the house. She basically says she doesn't want Everett to feel like he jumped into something and committed too soon and then got stuck. Because he hasn't proposed or anything remotely like that, there's a subtext that perhaps she is pregnant. That subtext - and more importantly, the emotional insecurities which created it - are almost instantly disappeared.

And the problem here is not in the acting or even in the characters. This is not a case of quality actors being placed in roles that don't work. This is an instance of quality actors playing interesting, defined enough, characters who simply don't act like how they are defined after a while. So, for example, Amy gives up her room to accommodate Meredith. She is the rebellious youngest member of the family and it seems odd that she is so thrown by being asked to make so small a sacrifice.

Amy is played by Rachel McAdams and her performance is delightful and Diane Keaton gives another performance worthy of her caliber. Luke Wilson, somewhat disappointingly, plays the same essential character we've seen him as before, which he plays well. Wilson is Ben, an educated and extremely casual guy who more or less surfs through the movie simply dealing with what comes up. In a similar way, Dermot Mulroney fails to wow us as Everett. The actor who surprised me most in The Family Stone was Craig T. Nelson. Nelson plays Kelley and it's a mature, quiet role that requires strength, subtlety and intelligence and Nelson nails the role. He might not have a lot of lines in the movie, but he owns the ones he has and in the final scenes of the film he connotes a great deal with his eyes and expressions.

But it is Sarah Jessica Parker who dominates much of the beginning of the movie as Meredith and her performance creates a character that is so unrelentingly unlikable as to be difficult to watch. Parker walks around the screen and one can see she is visibly clenched, creating a tone that is unsettling, uncomfortable and unenjoyable.

Those are three words that are the death knell to any romantic, family comedy or most dramadies. A hard drama, like Magnolia manages to be unsettling and at times uncomfortable, without being unenjoyable. The Family Stone fails on that front. Ultimately, as I said before, by the time The Family Stone becomes noteworthy, the viewer already has stopped caring about the family and their predicaments and foibles.

For other works with Elizabeth Reaser, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Breaking Dawn, Part I
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
New Moon
Twilight
Twilight trading cards P-8 Elizabeth Reaser costume card

4.5/10

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

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Married Life: All The Steps Necessary To Kill Your Wife/Take A Lover In The 1950s!

The Good: Decent acting, Interesting enough characters
The Bad: Unlikable characters, Pacing
The Basics: Good actors are wasted on dull characters in Ira Sachs' period piece Married Life wherein one man plans to murder his wife so he can be with his mistress.


You know you've just sat through a thoroughly average film when you're willing to let a coin toss determine whether or not you recommend it. That is, however, exactly where I find myself after viewing Married Life on DVD. It truly is a take-it or leave-it drama set in the 1950s and populated by a number of actors I enjoy. And yet . . . "meh."

Indeed, I do not think I have ever seen Chris Cooper act poorly (though he has played characters I have not much cared about one way or another, he always seems to play them well). Similarly, Pierce Brosnan is good in almost every role he has been in and while she is far less well-known, Patricia Clarkson always holds her own. And Rachel McAdams is perfectly Hollywood beautiful in this piece, so if anything I was biased toward Married Life going in. Truth be told, I picked this one up because the DVD cover looked intriguing. Let that be a lesson.

Harry Allen is unhappily married to Pat and he confides in his good friend Richard that he is planning on leaving her. Despite the fact that Harry believes Pat is completely devoted to him and has no other real options, Harry plans to leave her because he has fallen in love with Kay Nesbitt, a much younger woman and a widow. As if to garner his approval, Harry has his bachelor friend Richard meet Kay and he makes the case for leaving Pat for Kay.

Jaded and happy to remain unmarried for his life, Richard is struck by Kay's beauty and her poise. Richard begins to spend more time with Kay while Harry strikes up a plan to kill his wife by swapping her digestive powder with a lethal toxin. As Harry makes his plan and his inevitable move, Richard begins to covet Kay.

Unfortunately, Kay is not so much given a say in the film (pardon the terrible rhyme, it was unintentional). The film is told from the perspective of Richard using annoying and pointless voiceovers. I'm not a huge fan of voiceovers and my basic thought is that in almost every context, a well-created film will show what the voiceover says. It is a poor use of the visual medium to have a narrator tell the story. That's the director's job and most of the best works - in my experience - do not include a narrator or voiceovers from the protagonist. There are exceptions, but in the last couple of years, writers and directors seem to have gotten much more lazy and use the voiceovers left and right.

Married Life is such a simple story, nothing is particularly lacking from the movie to have it presented without voiceovers. The story is very straightforward: a married man who has been married for quite some time has a midlife crisis and craves a new, younger woman. Dog. Married Life is not showing us anything we have not seen before. It certainly is not showing us anything we have not seen done better before.

Married Life suffers from its remarkable averageness. I've just flipped a coin, which has determined that I am not recommending this movie, so I might as well pan it. There are no quirks in this movie, nothing that makes it special or distinct in the plot, characters or performances. Indeed, the only element that surprised me at all was that Kay Nesbitt is given a decent amount of screentime to tell Richard about her husband who went missing in the war and after that rather weighty scene, I expected him to pop up at some point to ruin the affairs of Harry and Richard. He does not show up.

But even as Harry is cheating on Pat, Pat is having an affair of her own, which Richard walks in on. The only even remotely impressive philosophical concept in this whole arrangement is the idea that Pat truly does love Harry and she stays with him because she believes absolutely that he would be lost without her. One suspects that Pat having the superior and demanding sex drive was intended to shock the audience and make them think, but instead it seemed normal and obvious. Moreover, because Pat reveals ridiculously early in the movie that she has powerful sexual needs that Harry is not meeting, it becomes utterly unsurprising that she is having an affair. (That David Wenham, who played the white-bread Faramir in the last two Lord Of The Rings films pulls off being a more active and likable lover for Pat, is much more of a surprise!)

So, the film sets itself up with a remarkably few potentials: Harry will either leave his wife or he will not, Harry and Kay will either end up together or they will not. And the moment Harry decides to kill his wife, he either will succeed or he will not. Truth be told, it is pretty difficult to care and as the movie plods along, it becomes increasingly difficult to care.

This is largely because the characters are either unlikable or complete nonentities. For the most part, the characters are nonentities. Every character has more going for them than Richard and that's saying something considering that Richard is played by Pierce Brosnan, who usually steals the scenes he is in and dominates a movie. Despite his character narrating throughout the film, he is essentially telling Harry's story and his scenes with Kay are largely giving her a chance to speak her mind.

Indeed, after a few hours of marinating with Married Life in my mind, all I can recall about Brosnan's performance or Richard's character was that he smoked an awful lot of cigarettes. I get that, too; it was very much a function of the time. But Richard smokes a LOT in this movie.

Harry seems more annoyingly discontent than actually likable or overly affectionate for Kay. Sure, he buys her things like a television set, but when they are together, he does not appear to come alibe any more than he does when he is at the office. This is not for a lack of the viewer rooting for the middle-aged man, either. One supposes that it is pretty much the American Dream to get a woman like Kay and the viewer has no problem wanting Harry to be happy, we just cannot fathom what it is Kay sees in Harry.

Kay and Pat are far more interesting characters than either of the men and in this fashion, Clarkson lives up to the consistency of her performances. As pat, Patricia Clarkson gives an empathetic performance of a woman who is both loving and less loved than she deserves. She has a wonderful sense of body language to portray a woman who has been married for a long time. To wit, at one point Harry comes to bed and Pat, in her sleep, begins to make a move on him. Clarkson makes the movement seem instinctive and rote and that adds a strong sense of realism to that scene.

But it is Kay who is the object of affection for the men of the movie and as Married Life is largely Harry's story, much of the attention is on Rachel McAdams as Kay. McAdams certainly has the look of the time and she is instantly appealing as Kay. But it's pretty much a gimmie for McAdams: you show up looking like she does, you have the role down pat. There is little substance to Kay, at least the way she is portrayed in this film and so it seems like a pretty easy stint for McAdams and, unfortunately, not one of her more memorable roles.

Co-writer and director Ira Sachs makes Married Life look good and despite some pacing problems (it is very slow getting started and it only truly picks up in the last fifteen minutes) he makes a film that is not thoroughly without merit. The problem is, he is simply using performers who are known for their greatness and gravitas with the likes of Clarkson, Brosnan and, especially, Chris Cooper. Unfortunately, he seems to expect that their showing up will carry the work and it fails to work out quite that way.

Those who like period dramas will enjoy the look and feel of Married Life, but actually wanting to sit through the end and buying it on DVD, not a chance.

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

5/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the films I have reviewed!

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