Stonehearst Asylum Makes Poe Work On The Big Screen!

The Good: Decent acting, Good plot progression
The Bad: Mediocre character development
The Basics: Stonehearst Asylum is a typical, if well-executed “lunatics running the asylum” story.


Autumn is a good time for independent cinema and I try to give the non-Oscarbait films as much attention as I give to the mainstream releases. As a result, I was pretty surprised to discover that I had missed a more-indie release in the form of Stonehearst Asylum, a film instantly notable for its impressive cast. While Stonehearst Asylum was released in late October as part of the traditional October horror movie push, the film diverts from the usual schlock by merit of having an impressive cast and being based upon a work by Edgar Allen Poe. When the likes of Michael Caine, David Thewlis, Brendan Gleeson and Sir Ben Kingsley appear in a film that is swept under the rug, it is cause for concern.

Stonehearst Asylum’s cast is led by Kate Beckingsale and Jim Sturgess and is a period piece, which might well be why the American theaters did not embrace it (or promote it). As noted, Stonehearst Asylum is based upon a short story by Edgar Allen Poe and it is worth mentioning that it is not one of Poe’s works that I recall reading.

Opening at Oxford University, 1899, where a roomful of men study hysteria in women, Eliza Graves is introduced as a madwoman that the alienist keeps on heroin to keep her calm. Edward Newgate arrives at Stonehearst Lunatic Asylum on Christmas Eve where he intends to complete his study as an alienist. Newgate meets Dr. Lamb, who runs Stonehearst. Lamb shows Newgate around, illustrating how most of the residents of this particular asylum are relatives of affluent, well-bred members of the aristocracy. Despite wanting to learn the profession to help people, Newgate sees Eliza Graves playing the piano (as Lamb’s treatment for her hysteria) and he is instantly smitten. Lamb’s egalitarian view on patients and doctors mixing affords Newgate the opportunity to interact with Graves (and embarrass himself at dinner).

Eliza rescues Newgate from drinking Mickey Finn’s elixir and advises him to get out of Stonehearst immediately. That night, Newgate hears knocking on the air vents and he follows the pipes to the boiler room. There, Newgate finds Dr. Salt and the true managers of Stonehearst imprisoned in the basement. Trying to rescue Eliza Graves, Newgate bides his time in an attempt to wrestle control of Stonehearst from Lamb. Given directions on how to find Lamb’s secret case history, Newgate struggles to overcome Lamb and save Graves, Salt and the other imprisoned staff, despite how Graves raises questions in his mind as to how she was treated before the overthrow.

Stonehearst Asylum seems at its outset to be Hysteria (reviewed here!) meets Shutter Island (reviewed here!). The latter film’s similarity is no doubt intended; Sir Ben Kingsley is placed in essentially the same role in Stonehearst Asylum as he was granted in Shutter Island! Kingsley is unsettling to watch in his role of Dr. Lamb in Stonehearst Asylum; he plays the role in such a way that Lamb is undeniably smart and yet shattered. Kingsley and Michael Caine play off one another in the exposition scenes with equal gravitas and it is unsurprising that Lamb is shellshocked. Kingsley and Caine are playing characters who are essentially playing foil characters engaged in a psychological chess match. When Kingsley has to progress beyond the disturbed elements of Lamb’s character to play him as smart, delivering social and medical commentary, Kingsley is entirely convincing.

Newgate is almost instantly characterized as a caring man who earnestly wants to help people. He arrives at the asylum naïve and genuine. Over the course of Stonehearst Asylum, he proves that he is sincere in his respect for the essential humanity of all the patients in the asylum. Newgate manages to treat one of the forlorn victims of Stonehearst and his willingness to connect with the patients is compelling. It is also the source of the social commentary throughout Stonehearst Asylum. Newgate sees the injustices against the mentally ill and wants to cure them . . . he is just caught up in a horrific circumstance that prevents him from doing the most absolute good.

The cast of Stonehearst Asylum is universally good in their roles. Kate Beckinsale is competent as Eliza Graves, but the focus on Newgate makes it completely understandable why Icon changed the title to Stonehearst Asylum (it was originally Eliza Graves). Jim Sturgess plays Newgate as increasingly tormented by his surroundings and he manages the character’s transformation from obvious hero to victim of the manipulative Lamb wonderfully. Sturgess is such a good performer that one almost forgets that his character is intent on pursuing a married woman when she is at her most vulnerable, which is pretty disturbing.

Of the supporting cast, David Thewlis is given the most to do as the rapey, murderous Mickey Finn.  This is arguably his darkest role and Thewlis leaps into it with a commitment that makes him unsettling to watch in every one of his scenes.

In all, though, the strong cast and social commentary of Stonehearst Asylum are not enough to strongly recommend the film. Stonehearst Asylum is unsettling and good, but like most horror/thriller pieces, it hinges more on mood than character and that brings it down a bit.

For other films currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
To Write Love On Her Arms
Paddington
Selma
Still Alice
Predestination
The Interview
The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies
Expelled
Annie
Comet
Horrible Bosses 2
10,000 Days
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1

6/10

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.
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Art, Automatons, Loneliness, Nudity: The Best Offer Is Worth Watching, But Hard To Get Excited For Watching Again!

The Good: Decent acting, Wonderful directing, Interesting characters
The Bad: Slow build-up to a stark resolution
The Basics: The Best Offer is a smart film that builds up to a reversal in the final fifteen minutes that makes perfect sense, but still feels surprisingly unsatisfying for all that precedes it.


As the new year begins, I find myself starting the year with independent cinema, as opposed to the current blockbusters. I’m not sure what I expected when I sat down to watch The Best Offer, I suppose I was secretly hoping to discover this year’s The Red Violin (reviewed here!), but what I found was very much the archetype of a foreign independent film. Indie films tend to be broken down (by me, at least) into two groups: professionally-made movies that have an decidedly artistic bent whereby they work to make a statement using the full artistry of film or small films by virtually unknown producers/directors/actors/writers that are produced inexpensively and illustrate the gumption and fortitude of those involved by bucking the studio system without any real hope of breakout success. The Best Offer is certainly the former; it is a beautifully-shot, well-acted movie, but one that has very limited appeal and is geared toward those who enjoy thought-provoking works, mood and style, as opposed to those looking for a story where events occur in a timely manner.

From the outset, the conceits in The Best Offer, which is a moody drama from writer/director Giuseppe Tornatore, are evident: Oldman is superstitious and loathes mobile phones. How those conceits will play out when the film’s protagonist is revealed to be a scammer and as he begins developing a relationship with the reclusive Claire Ibitsen makes the film engaging enough to stick with, despite the tone and how long it takes for the mysteries in the movie to actually get established.

Virgil Oldman is an appraiser and auctioneer, the owner of the Oldman’s auction house. Aging and lonely, he is very superstitious and on his birthday has to take the first call of the day he receives. That puts Claire directly in contact with the reclusive auctioneer and Oldman makes an uncharacteristic trip out to visit her parent’s estate to appraise their furniture. Oldman is not entirely above board; he uses his friend Whistler to buy seemingly worthless pieces through the auction house when Oldman recognizes them as lost greats. In that fashion, he has assembled a significant private gallery of portraits. Investigating the run-down Ibbetson Estate, Virgil meets with Fred the housekeeper, and inspects the mansion full of relics.

After bribing Fred for information on Claire and having discovered some intriguing mechanical pieces at the Ibbetson Villa, Virgil is surprised when Claire withdraws her willingness to have Oldman appraise her parents’ estate. When Whistler falls down on a bid and Robert, the mechanical genius who appraises and restores some of Oldman’s finds for him, discovers that gears that Oldman found at the Villa belong to an 18th Century android, Virgil is drawn into the mystery of who Claire is and what her house possesses.

Virgil Oldman is almost instantly characterized as extremely observant and that makes The Best Offer full of intrigue from the outset, despite not much actually happening. Thus, Oldman’s noticing gears around the Villa and stealthily removing them, creates a sense of mystery long before Robert and Virgil realize what they are building. Like so many independent films, The Best Offer is much more concerned with mood and character than with plot development, so the slow unfolding of the relationship between Virgil and Claire is much more what the film is about than the work of Robert (restoring the automaton) or the scams Virgil and Whistler run on Oldman’s clients.

Much of The Best Offer becomes a waiting game for the revelation of what Claire actually looks like and in the process, the movie treads toward the unfortunately familiar. When Virgil breaks down and activates the mobile phone that was gifted to him, the dialogue is very on-the-nose. Oldman is metaconscious in a way that works more from those evaluating the piece, as opposed to coming from a character. Virgil describing himself as rusty and broken is not presented as realistic dialogue.

As well, the smart viewer continues to watch The Best Offer waiting for how the revelation will come and wondering why Virgil Oldman does not get there first. Oldman scours the Ibbetson Villa for pieces of the Automaton and it becomes clear very early on that Claire is leaving the pieces scattered around the Villa to find them. Throughout the process of appraising the objects in the Villa, Claire is leaving the objects for him to find, while Oldman delivers her papers to sign and asks her to trust him. So, Claire and the viewer know Oldman is untrustworthy, but he seems surprised when she resists getting closer to him and trusting his professional opinions after a point.

Geoffrey Rush is characteristically brilliant as Virgil Oldman. When he is not simply reprising his role from The King’s Speech (reviewed here!), Rush is delightfully withdrawn and standoffish. When Oldman becomes stressed enough to start sweating and actually removes his gloves, the performance is unlike anything Rush has done in recent memory. When Rush and Sylvia Hoeks (Claire) have their first inevitable onscreen meeting, Tornatore captures the moment brilliantly. Tornatore uses space brilliantly in the subsequent scene; Claire is treated as another object Oldman covets and the remainder of the film has Rush evolving Oldman into a more human character who struggles to relate to Hoeks’s Claire. Rush is smart enough to make the evolution take enough time to be realistic. He slowly softens his body language and the expressiveness of his eyes.

One of the surprises for me in The Best Offer was Jim Sturgess. Sturgess plays Robert as a smart, creative restoration artist who is completely credible. The supporting role is nowhere near as dynamic as, for example, his role in One Day (reviewed here!), but he still has a strong screen presence and makes his scenes seem instantly significant. Sturgess has a greater role than Donald Sutherland and in The Best Offer he uses the time he has on screen to make the character so many orders more significant than Sutherland, completely stealing the more established actor’s thunder in the movie. In fact, it is Sturgess who pounds home one of the film’s most important lines by delivering it with much more subtlety than one might expect when Robert asks Oldman which he would choose: Claire or the automaton.

The Best Offer is the first film I have seen with Sylvia Hoeks and she is good as Claire. She has the tough task of creating a viable character with her voice alone, as opposed to with any physical presence. Hoeks does a good job and when she is brought on-screen, she manages to be more than just a pretty face. Hoeks has enough gravitas on screen that when Claire goes missing, there is a powerful feeling of loss in the movie; the viewer listens desperately for a hint of her voice and that plays out well under the direction of Tornatore.

Guiseppe Tornatore is an impressive writer and director and The Best Offer looks wonderful, even when it feels slow. The film is characterized by beautiful sets, crisp contrasts in colors (especially black on the stark white European restaurants at the film’s outset) and impressive sound design. But Tornatore keeps shifting what the movie is, which makes it harder to keep engaged. The film builds as a character drama while dabbling in various mysteries, without any one of the conspiratorial elements truly landing. Is the movie building up to a betrayal by Whistler or Robert? How will Claire react to Oldman’s deception in having the automaton rebuilt? The divergence with Claire going missing, all of these fail to have a strong sense of cohesion, despite the fact that The Best Offer maintains a very tight focus on Virgil Oldman.

Ultimately, The Best Offer is good – well acted, intriguing enough, beautifully shot – but it does not resonate after one is done watching it. Having spent two hours with Virgil Oldman on his weird adventure with antiquities and romance, that’s enough; it’s hard to want to rewatch the film, no matter how masterfully it was created and presented.

For other works with Donald Sutherland, please check out my reviews of:
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
The Hunger Games
Horrible Bosses
Reign Over Me
Ask The Dust
Pride & Prejudice
Cold Mountain
Robert A. Heinlein's The Puppet Masters
Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Ordinary People

7.5/10

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

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Living Up To The Hype: Cloud Atlas Is Smart And Complex!

The Good: Wonderful acting, Great make-up and effects, Creative concept, Decent plots
The Bad: Misses some important events/deliberately obscure at points.
The Basics: Told in six distinct time periods, Cloud Atlas follows the reincarnated variations of several characters who interact to change and save the world or humanity through their actions, beliefs, or art.


When I miss a movie in theaters these days, there are remarkably few I pine for and make an immediate effort to see when they are released on DVD; it’s the nature of being a reviewer, there is always something new to see, review, and promote. So, when I missed Cloud Atlas theatrically, it says something about my level of interest that I managed to get it in to watch so soon after its DVD release. The truth is, it was a film I wanted very much to see and given how many preview trailers I saw of it, I was pleasantly surprised how much of the film there still was to be seen (it’s a long movie). In fact, my only gripe with the promotions for the film was that the key voiceovers that explain much of the thematic points and narrative structure were included in the trailers.

Cloud Atlas is based upon a novel that I have not read and thus this is a very pure review of the film alone. With Cloud Atlas, the Wachowskis have now redeemed themselves for Speed Racer (reviewed here!) and they once again prove they have the magic touch for making films that are visually incredible and tell stories about humans overcoming amazing odds and all forms of oppression. The film, however, is long and gory with a climax that sees the demise of so many of the characters that when I, in a moment of wonder at the movie, exclaimed, “How the hell did this movie ever lose money?!” my wife glared at me pretty heavily.

Cloud Atlas is a rare film that is not easy to discuss without giving away major spoilers. However, in defying my usual format, I won’t spoil virtually anything in the film by foregoing the usual plot summary. Cloud Atlas has an interwoven narrative structure that leaps very abruptly between six different time periods. As a result, there is little point trying to discuss any single narrative at length because one of the fundamental points of Cloud Atlas is that many of the main characters are related and interact as different incarnations of themselves in each of the different generations.

Told from the perspective of a man in the distant future, Cloud Atlas flashes back to and meanders through the intertwined stories of a lawyer who is part of a slaving mission and is being poisoned by the ship’s doctor on his way back home, a young composer studying at the feet of an aged composer who is not nearly as talented as he is, an investigative reporter digging into a story on a nuclear reactor in 1973 and all the corporate forces working to stop her from exposing the dangers of the facility, a publisher who is on the run from murderous hooligans when his previously unsuccessful author gains overnight success after killing a book critic, a cloned worked in the future who is given the chance to becomes something much more than she is when her “programming” fails, and a primitive man living on an island after what is essentially the apocalypse who must help a civilized woman reach the nearby ruins of the long-lost civilization, while avoiding cannibals and his own inner demons. Laced between the threads is a musical work that many of the characters create/remember/dream of or otherwise share and the themes of humans in oppressive situations fighting to overcome the political and social conditions that keep themselves and others enslaved.

Cloud Atlas is a film that demands to be watched as it is packed with details (like the idea that the clone in the future story is the deity worshipped in the most distant future timeline!) and the directors bounce between time periods assuming the viewers are keeping up. I liked how each time period had its own dialect and while that frustrated my wife, I found it engaging to sit and mentally translate the concepts both past and future. Cloud Atlas does not slow down to explain itself, but almost all of the keys one needs to understand the film are present on screen. In fact, the only glaring omission for me was that the disaster in the future that led to the technological reversion in the most distant time period was not shown.

What makes Cloud Atlas worth watching is simple; while it plays to the same old themes the Wachowskis (who co-wrote – or adapted – and directed Cloud Atlas with Tom Tykwer) are known for, they make the struggle for freedom and dignity feel fresh again. Visually, the film is a marvel with seamless CG animals, amazing sound effects and make-up that should have won many, many more awards than it did (never have so many great actors worked so hard to be utterly unrecognizable and not trade at all on their celebrity!). Cloud Atlas lives up to the heights one expects from the Wachowskis when it comes to the quality of making big, bold, films.

The real story of why to watch Cloud Atlas is in the way the directors get amazing performances out of the entire cast. While greatness is expected of Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent and Hugo Weaving, younger cast members like Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, James D’Arcy and Ben Whishaw hold their own with an apparently effortless ability. The cast is incredible and well-utilized (though poor Hugo Weaving needs to appear in a Wachowski film as something other than a villain!) and they are so engrossing in their performances that even for the recognizable actors, it is very easy to get drawn into their characters and forget anything outside the world of Cloud Atlas.

Ultimately, Cloud Atlas is engaging, clever and utilizes the film medium exceptionally well, making it well worth watching . . . more than once!

For other films with Jim Broadbent, be sure to check out my takes on:
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Part 2
Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince
Inkheart
Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull
The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe
Nicholas Nickleby
Gangs Of New York
Bridget Jones’s Diary
Smilla’s Sense Of Snow
Blackadder’s Christmas Carol
Brazil

8/10

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.
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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.
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Across The Universe: One Long, Decent Series Of Music Videos

The Good: Great direction, Nice performances, Moments (what there are) of character, Concept, Moments of plot
The Bad: Not much plot or character
The Basics: With a strong sense of surrealism, Julie Taymor directs a series of connected music videos to create a story of love and growth in the Vietnam Era in Across The Universe.


I’m not known for being a big fan of concept films, films that hinge on special effects, musicals or art films for the sake of being art films. I tend to enjoy things that make sense, have a balance between plot, character, and acting and are enhanced by special effects. So, when something stands out to me as a film that is one generally out of balance, and I find myself truly enjoying it, it says quite a lot. Across The Universe is one such film.

Jude, a British working stiff, journeys to the United States in the mid-1960s in search of his father. Instead, he finds the college-prankster Max and Max’s sister, Lucy. Lucy, a young idealist who has a boyfriend who is shipped over to Vietnam, hits it off with Jude. When Max drops out of college, he and Jude head to New York City and become part of the art and music scene. Lucy, whose high school sweetheart is killed, follows soon after graduating from high school and the trio finds themselves falling in with musicians Sadie and Jojo and the longing Prudence. Together they explore art, love, and an anti-war sentiment as the Vietnam War and the world spiral out of control.

All this is done, of course, to the music of the Beatles. Or rather, all of the action occurs with the characters expressing themselves with Beatles’ songs. Yes, it’s a musical of sorts, but with its creative direction, meandering story and infrequency of dialogue and actual character development, the resulting film feels like a string of music videos loosely sewn together. In that way, it’s very difficult to evaluate Across The Universe. Like many music video collections, there is a hit or miss quality to the film’s parts that makes it difficult to look back at the whole experience and evaluate it as a single body.

But I liked it and I actually liked it that way. I saw a preview for Across The Universe months ago when watching a DVD for a vastly inferior film. The preview was filled with surreal images, cut together with a wonderful speed and sense of pacing. In fact, my only problems with the preview were that it showed virtually the entire film (as far as plot goes) and it invoked trepidation within me as to the film that was being advertised. I didn’t necessarily believe that the film that was represented by the trailer could be as surreal, well-cut, or visually interesting and clever as what was shown in the preview. Had I made the association before between Julie Taymor, who directed Across The Universe and her prior film, Frida, I think I would have lost the nervous feeling that this film could not be pulled off like the trailer.

And therein lies the strength and weakness of Across The Universe; it is almost exactly like a movie trailer. It’s longer, to be sure, but the sense of movement, style and content is very similar to what one gets from an average movie trailer. It is not an exaggeration to say that the film truly does feel like a series of music videos strung together over a loose story of one man’s interest in a young woman and a young woman’s awakening into a violent, changing (and music-filled) world.

What makes Across The Universe work, more than simply the sheer visual spectacle of it (the choreographers sure earned their paychecks for this one!), is the character elements that are presented. The story of Lucy is an intriguing and fairly timeless coming-of-age story, despite how important the setting of the 1960s is to the film. Lucy is your archetypal suburban, white girl who suddenly gets a vision of the larger world and the injustices that reign right outside her door. With the loss of her boyfriend and the drafting of her brother, she is taken on an emotional journey from naivet?through loss to empowerment. She comes to believe in her own strength and the power of her own voice and as she begins to join the peace movement, she fights the powers that be to change the world while retaining her youthful idealism.

She accomplishes the latter part, in part, through her romance with Jude, which soon grows into the focal point of Across The Universe. Set opposite the slightly more mature and professionally entangled Jojo and Sadie, Lucy and Jude fall in with the Walrus (Dr. Robert), Mr. Kite and increasingly radical students at Columbia University who are fighting against the war more and more extremely.

But it is arguably Lucy’s brother Max who has one of the best parts in the film. Dropping out of college removes Max’s immunity from the draft and he soon finds himself mired in the jungles of Vietnam. Easily one of the most compelling sequences in the film is Max’s induction into the Army set to “I Want You.“ His story is the most brutal in many ways and while it does lead to one of the few serious questions about direction (umm . . . Ms. Taymor, why is his arm missing in the VA hospital and then back by the end of the number, are we truly supposed to believe that the power of music restores warfare’s lost limbs?), he remains one of the most interesting characters.

The other interesting character that I found myself instantly drawn to is also the most poorly used: Prudence. Opening her erratic part in the film with a longing rendition of “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” where she harbors a clear desire for another cheerleader, Prudence loves, but never seems to get to truly express it. Instead, she is neglected, pops in and out of the film with no genuine pattern and her eventual satisfaction (if it even lasts) is a one-line footnote between much bigger scenes involving other characters.

The Jojo and Sadie storyline worked best when the two were singing. Indeed, one of the true proofs of how well-told the story is without the need for extensive dialogue comes in one of the clearest scenes where the two break-up while singing on stage. It is a powerful bit of acting and it works without either character breaking out of their song or stage presence.

While Across The Universe may be light on character and plot, it is not light on acting and great performances. With a mostly young cast (looking the principle characters up on the IMDB, most of them are cited with this as their first major project), it is astonishing how good the acting and the musical performances are. Amid cameos from Bono, Joe Cocker, and Eddie Izzard, Dana Fuchs, T.V. Carpio, Martin Luther McCoy, and Joe Anderson give memorable performances using mostly song as opposed to dialogue.

Jim Sturgess plays Jude and he is effective in making the transition between working class guy to love interest to strung-out artist. He has a wonderful sense of body language and his subtle changes in posture throughout the movie help easily and expressively define his character’s emotional state.

The film is headlined by Rachel Evan Woods as Lucy and it’s about time she got a lead role! I first got a load of Evan Rachel Woods’ pipes in the second season finale to Once And Again (Season 1 reviewed here!) and it has only improved since then. Her voice carries much of the film and she has a wide-eyed, wholesome quality that brings Lucy instant credibility. Her transformation into an educated antiwar activist is the essential character growth of the film and it works through her performance. She loses the shine in her eyes and replaces it with a fierce determination. Wood has that ability and she uses that.

Now on DVD, Across The Universe is presented such that it almost makes it worth seeing despite not being on the big screen any longer! The DVD features an extensive and interesting commentary track with Julie Taymor and her music producer Elliot Goldenthal. As well, there are deleted scenes and extensive featurettes featuring behind-the-scenes information. Still, it helps to see this film on the biggest screen possible!

Director Julie Taymor makes another winner with Across The Universe, though it is not for everyone. This film requires a less linear and literal sense to enjoy it. It is artistic, but it manages to tell a story and do that well. The visual effects and sense of surrealism make it seem like a trip through some of the best music videos featuring lyrics by the Beatles ever. It’s a great way to spend an evening and it’s a strong recommend to see it while it’s on the big screen; anyone looking for something truly imaginative and visually impressive will be glad they did!

For other musicals, please check out my reviews of:
The Phantom Of The Opera
Chicago
The Lion King

7/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2008, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Say It's Not So! My Wife Liked An Anne Hathaway Movie More Than I Did! One Day

The Good: Character development, Acting, Plot structure/development, Direction
The Bad: Pacing issues
The Basics: One Day follows two young people in London around the turn of the millennium as they grow apart and together in a (mostly) satisfying romantic drama.


One does not have to read too many of my reviews before it becomes very apparent that I am a fan of Anne Hathaway's films. I have found her to be a talented actress who has great range and she tends to pick projects that are smart and better than most. My wife, on the other hand, is not a fan and tends to object to my collection of Hathaway's films. But tonight, in probably the nicest show of love, my wife took me out to see One Day, which I was eager to see. And for the first time ever, we came away from the new Anne Hathaway movie with my wife enjoying it more than I did.

The truth is, I spent most of One Day wondering if I was even enjoying the film, but when we began to talk about the movie afterward, I began to enjoy it more and more. The truth is, the pacing is a little off and I was waiting for the movie to pop. It does, but it comes very late. It is worth noting that One Day is based upon a book I have not read, but bears some narrative resemblance to my novel Living In The Wakes (reviewed here!). So, this is a very true review of just the film One Day and offers no comparisons to the novel.

Emma is biking in London on Saint Swithen's Day (July 15, 2006) looking somewhat upset and then the film flashes back to July 15, 1988. There, Emma is graduating from college with Dexter and while their friends go hook up, the two of them go back to Emma's flat where they do not have sex and, instead, fall asleep together with Emma asking if they can spend the day together when they awaken. This begins a friendship that spans the decades until the viewer is reunited with Emma in 2006 and the movie progresses from that moment.

The story is told with glimpses into the lives of Emma and Dexter only on July 15th of each year. Dexter gets a career in television with a late-night talk show that panders to the lowest common denominator while Emma sublimates her dreams of becoming a writer to work at a local Mexican restaurant. Working with Ian, an aspiring comedian, Emma begins to squander her potential, which Dexter notices and encourages her to move on. Ironically, Dexter is drowning in booze and drugs at the time and when Emma confronts him, their friendship takes a hit.

One Day works, more often than it fails to, because the acting is wonderful, the characters are interesting (though not always sensible), and the direction is phenomenal. The plot has good progression with so much information being given in each scene after the date stamp comes up that the viewer feels the weight of the intervening year. Even so, the mood is often stifling and to say that Emma and Dexter have a turbulent relationship is something of an understatement. The middle feels longer at points and the pacing there is a little off.

What is never off is the direction. Director Lone Scherfig made an absolutely beautiful film in One Day. Scherfig has a great ability to capture the subtleties of facial movements and body language. The movie looks good and Scherfig actually manages one of the best special effects of the summer in a scene that comes near the film's climax. Moreover, the narrative structure that Scherfig allows makes the end of the film remarkably satisfying.

My problem with the characters is limited to only one aspect. Emma and Dexter are very distinctive and different and while the youthful passion Emma had for Dexter and the blandness of her relationship with Ian make it somewhat realistic that Emma would want Dexter for the whole long struggle of their relationship, when it comes to the specifics it doesn't work. Emma is smart and she recognizes that Dexter is on drugs when she is at her lowest point, but even then she does not quit him in a final way. While this is satisfying to the viewer, it makes little sense for the character and some (admittedly probably jaded) part of me found that lack of resolve unsatisfying. In my own life, I know there have been people I have thought the world of and when they got involved with drugs, after trying to help them, I exited their downward spirals permanently. Emma seemed that strong, but the film has a pretty classic dialectic to it that has worked since the 18th Century, so . . .

As for the acting, Rafe Spall, Patricia Clarkson and Ken Stott each give decent supporting performances that allow them to truly rule a key scene each. But most of the work comes down to Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess. Hathaway and Sturgess have decent on-screen chemistry - really committing to their kisses and having looser body language around one another. Hathaway only slips from her British accent once, which is impressive in its own right, especially considering how mousy she makes Emma at the film's outset and how tormented she appears in the movie's opening frames. Hathaway has yet another memorable role to wow audiences for years with as Emma.

Sturgess, whom I had only seen before in Across The Universe, successfully wowed me late in the film. Sturgess plays the carefree bad boy very well (his most memorable line, alas, was robbed for the trailer, which I managed not to see until a week before the film was released) but that is hardly a barometer for a young, good-looking actor like him. He truly ruled when his character had to be serious and earnest and he landed it.

The result is a romantic drama that is hardly satisfying, but is deeply real and captures the complexities of a lifelong love astonishingly well. Considering how hard that is to do in 108 minutes, One Day is a conceptual success. Every year, there is one weekend where I make a plea for readers to see a film that I know has no real chance at the weekly box office race. Considering that on its debut night (typically Friday being a date night in America) this date movie had eight people in the local theater, One Day is going to get buried at the box office. It doesn't deserve to. Smarter than Conan, family-friendly enough to take mature, intelligent children to (so you can forego Spy Kids 4) and more original than Fright Night, One Day deserves your attention this weekend; it will have you thinking well into next weekend.

For works featuring Anne Hathaway, please check out my reviews of:
Anne Hathaway For Wonder Woman!
Rio
Love And Other Drugs
Family Guy Presents: It's A Trap!
Alice In Wonderland
Valentine's Day
Twelfth Night Soundtrack
Bride Wars
Rachel Getting Married
Passengers
Get Smart
The Devil Wears Prada
Hoodwinked!
Brokeback Mountain
The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement
Ella Enchanted
Nicholas Nickleby
The Princess Diaries

8/10

For other film reviews, please be sure to visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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