Stalled Democracy: House Of Cards Season Five Reflects Reality.

The Good: Good performances, especially by Robin Wright
The Bad: Tone, Unfortunately meandering plot, A bevy of unlikable characters
The Basics: The fifth season of House Of Cards has a glimmer of true intrigue and showcases wonderful actors, but continues to lose footing as President Frank Underwood strongarms his way back into the Presidency.


One of the consequences of being a long-running television show is that it is hard to maintain the fanbase and interest over years and years of production. In the case of House Of Cards, it is difficult to get excited about the fifth season of the show, which aired today on Netflix because the series is a dark look at American politics. House Of Cards was once a cautionary tale of what could go absolutely wrong with a self-serving villain at the top of the U.S. government; now, it is competing with reality. In some ways, the fifth season of House Of Cards suffers for that; the writers and executive producers did not seem to have a clear idea of what to do with the show after the hole they wrote themselves into tat the end of the prior season and what has happened in American politics since.

Ironically, the fifth season of House Of Cards begins at a position that should have a lot of inherent interest for the fans. At the climax of House Of Cards season four (reviewed here!), Francis Underwood's crimes were laid bare by Tom Hammerschmidt and the U.S. was dealing with a domestic terrorism situation that President and Claire Underwood were looking to exploit. How President Underwood could possibly survive the events of the first season (reviewed here!) becoming public is inherently intriguing. House Of Cards Season 5, despite potentially having less of a "hook" to it, begins at a place that has a lot of potential to it, but the season has to maintain and progress the story through the inevitable election storyline and then create a new hook for the sixth season.

In order to give the season any real dramatic tension surrounding the election of Francis Underwood to the Presidency, House Of Cards essentially neglects the bombshell of the past revelation and plays out a whole new level of political conspiracies. The fifth season of House Of Cards delays the results of the Presidential election and creates a crisis that is initially resolved using the Constitution . . . which allows Claire Underwood to temporarily assume the powers of the President.

Two weeks before the Presidential election, Claire Underwood is taping P.S.A.s for Homeland Security when President Underwood addresses Congress directly by appearing within the House Of Representatives. There, Underwood demands war be declared on ICO and the U.S. The Conway Campaign struggles to maintain momentum, while Hannah Conway makes a statement that could be construed as sympathetic to the domestic terrorists. After the funeral for the American who was killed, Claire Underwood has a conversation with the mother of the surviving domestic terrorist. Claire appeals to the terrorist's mother to have her son turn himself in.

Of course, Underwood has already caught Josh and when his usefulness expires, he has the FBI stage a death during "capture." As the investigation into Frank Underwood picks up prior to the election, Underwood has to influence the governors of swing states, including former Vice President Matthews. Claire is in New York when one of Frank's old classmates from the Sentinel lets her know that Tim has gone missing. Claire begins to worry that Ken might run off his mouth about Frank and Tim's relationship back in the day, while Seth Greyson offers to flip Stamper to the Congressional committee.

As Election Day looms, Underwood's staff begins to suspect that Conway's military heroism was manufactured. On Election Day, a terrorist threat is manufactured in Tennessee after low voter turnout is predicted in all of the polls. When Ohio also suspends its voting, the results of the election remain undecided for weeks. In the interim, Conway and Underwood work hard to influence Senators and House members in order to ratify the President and Vice Presidential elections. Ironically, Leann is able to deliver the votes that make Claire Underwood Vice President. With the Presidential contest unresolved, Claire Underwood is made temporary President.

But the election in House Of Cards is essentially over by the fifth episode of Season Five, which leaves nine episodes for the season to develop its next main plotline. While there are a few episodes in the middle of the season that explore a period of limbo which put Claire Underwood in the office of the President while Conway comes unhinged and his Vice Presidential running mate is essentially promised the post and uses his military contacts to orchestrate an attempt to influence the election. Ultimately, the fifth season of House Of Cards brings new adversaries into the political arena to combat the new Underwood Administration.

The latter half of the fifth season of House Of Cards finds the Underwoods dealing with a hostile Democrat who wants to replace Womack as Whip, an up and coming reporter who is slowly wooing Seth Grayson, and Conway's final campaign manager and a businesswoman who has assets and agendas all around the world. Jane Davis is introduced as a new major adversary who is playing political games on the level of the Underwoods with an agenda that appears to be motivated entirely by her own desire for profit.

House Of Cards has a tough tone for Season Five. More than in any prior season, it is obvious that the two lead protagonists in House Of Cards - Frank and Claire Underwood - have no friends. In the fifth season of House Of Cards everyone who surrounds the Underwoods is restless or flat-out hostile. While the show does an excellent job of illustrating why Frank Underwood is actually a better choice than Will Conway, who starts to come seriously unhinged and volatile, the only truly joyful portion of the season is the brief episodes while Claire Underwood is President. In fact, the ideal selling point for the sixth season would be to have a time leap in the story to eight years out as Claire Underwood prepares to assume the Presidency on her own.

In fact, tone is the real killer in the fifth season of House Of Cards. Unlike something like The West Wing (reviewed here!), where the characters are always working to build something, the characters in House Of Cards in the fifth season never seem to actually be working toward any agenda other than the maintenance of their own power. Seriously, when my business slowed, I mentioned to my wife that I thought it was time for me to apply for the Rural Internet Access program. That program was one that was part of The West Wing, but it was written in such a compelling way and with such clarity that for a time, I mistook it for something in reality. There is no analogous program or even idea in House Of Cards, something which becomes highlighted when ex-President Garrett Walker makes a reappearance and actually comments on how he wanted to do great things for the United States.

As a result, House Of Cards drags some through its fifth season. The show fails to hit and truly compelling notes; Claire does not assert her authority and independence in the brief time she is President to help make the de facto argument that women can handle the role for a U.S. audience and the Underwoods seem like a broken couple yet again. House Of Cards is most interesting when Frank and Claire work as a team together; in Season Five, Frank is just back to doing his own thing without ever listening to Claire's good advice. So, the fifth season of House Of Cards is very unsatisfying.

In the fifth season of House Of Cards, the essential characters are:

Francis Underwood – President of the United States, he is beseiged on all sides as he fights for re-election. When voter turnout risks his chances of being elected, he manufactures a crisis in order to delay the results. He wins his first election for President by getting damning quotes from his opponents. But as soon as he is inaugurated, he has to wrangle a new upstart Democrat and fend off constant attacks by Tom Hammerschmidt. He stops listening to Claire Underwood and in ignoring her advice, he inadvertantly sets Garrett Walker off,

Claire Underwood – Polling better as Vice President than the President is, she manages to get confirmed before it becomes clear Congress will not elect a Presidential candidate. She assumes the Presidency during the uncertain time and she turns to Tom for companionship when Francis is distant from her. She is approached by Jane Davis during a crisis manufactured by a powerful General. She tries to both advise Frank Underwood and secure her political future,

Katherine Durant – The Secretary Of State, she has reservations about the President's declaration of war against ICO and his attempt to make more radical travel restrictions. She is made deeply uncomfortable by Underwood's actions, especially when there is a new Middle Eastern situation brewing (thanks to Jane Davis) that can actually be prevented. Against all odds, she remains loyal to the Underwoods during the most trying times,

Thomas Yates - Speechwriter for the Underwoods and Claire's paramour, he starts to get sloppy and restless. After having an affair on Claire with the White House tour guide, he struggles to find his place with Claire. He wants to write and seems tired of having to keep his relationship with Claire Underwood entirely under wraps,

Doug Stamper – Having an on-again, off-again relationship with the widow of the man who died so the President could get a liver donation, he frequently feels marginalized. He is still the most loyal member of Frank's staff. He drinks on Election night when it looks like Underwood might lose the election. He does not trust Seth Grayson and he works to keep Rachel Posner from resurfacing as an issue. He finally comes clean to the widow and gets an unexpected response,

Leann Harvey – She acts as intermediary with Aiden and has strong feelings for MacAllen. She fights and negotiates for Claire to get the Vice Presidency. She works to protect the Underwood Administration, but when MacAllen goes on the run, she is pushed out of the Administration's staff. When MacAllen sends her sensitive information, she comes back on Stamper's radar,

Aidan MacAllen - Very nervous about the NSA taking his algorithms, he is convinced by Leann to infiltrate the NSA to alter his algorithms and use the NSA to disseminate new information. He creates a massive cyberattack in order to destroy his algorithm. Terrified by how his work has been used, on election night, he jumps ship and goes into hiding. He ends up in Indonesia before being captured by the Russians. His return becomes a priority for President Claire Underwood, but his extraction is delayed until later. Upon returning to the U.S., he is unable to live with all he has done,

Conway – Experiencing tension with his wife, the Republican Governor of New York and the Presidential candidate for the Republican Party, he starts to crack. When his Vice Presidential runningmate references his war record, he has to use his military experience to carry his campaign. He does a twenty-four hour live-stream in order to try to differentiate himself from the Underwoods. When the election results are delayed, he becomes twitchy and starts to illustrate that he is not cut out for the Presidency,

Jane Davis - A businesswoman with contacts in every part of the world, including in places where the U.S. has no functional presence, she manages to get herself into a government bunker during a key crisis to get President Claire Underwood's ear. She wants Claire as President and is part of conspiracies worldwide intended to advance her causes and bring her profit,

Tom Hammerschmidt - The former editor of The Washington Herald debates with Claire Underwood on Charlie Rose. He continues to run a specialized team of reporters at the Herald, which now seems dedicated to trying to bring down the Underwood Administration. When his efforts fail to keep Frank Underwood from getting elected, he starts getting flash drives packed with damning information on Underwood's schemes,

Mark Usher - A Republican political operative, he joins Conway's campaign at the very end. When he starts to see that Conway is unfit for duty, he prepares to prop Conway's Vice Presidential candidate up to take over. When Underwood learns of that plan, Usher jumps ship and helps Frank win back the Presidency. He joins the Underwood Administration as a senior advisor, though he is playing Romero and Davis against the Underwoods as well,

and Alex Romero – An upstart Democratic congressman leading a progressive block, he has no love of Frank Underwood. He worked with Mark Usher in the past, but does not respect Usher or Romero. His ambitions lead him to make a deal with Underwood and, when he is betrayed, he leaves the Democratic party.

House Of Cards features an exceptional cast. Kevin Spacey, Michael Kelly, and Neve Campbell all give good performances. Colm Feore is criminally underused in House Of Cards Season 5. Patricia Clarkson erupts into the fifth season in a role that might be the first one I've ever seen her play where I did not like the character she was playing. Clarkson's Jane Davis is slimy as they come and Clarkson is masterful in the role.

Robin Wright and Jayne Atkinson rule the performances in House Of Cards Season Five. Wright is incredibly presidential as Claire Underwood. Atkinson manages to play both skittish and competent in ways that most actors could not manage.

Ultimately, their performances are not enough to make the dreary fifth season of House Of Cards enjoyable to watch. Yet another season of House Of Cards passes where none of the characters are likable and nothing actually happens save that the tenuous political administration it details desperately maintains power.

For other works from the 2016 – 2017 television season, please check out my reviews of:
"The Return Part 4" - Twin Peaks
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt - Season 3
Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 4
Sense8 - Season 2
Dear White People - Season 1
Legends Of Tomorrow - Season 2
"The Pyramid " - Doctor Who
The Walking Dead - Season 7
Thirteen Reasons Why - Season 1
Grace And Frankie - Season 3
Iron Fist - Season 1
Love - Season 2
Santa Clarita Diet - Season 1
A Series Of Unfortunate Events - Season 1
One Day At A Time - Season 1
Travelers - Season 1
The OA - Season 1
Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life
"Invasion!" - Arrow
"Finish Line" - The Flash
"Nevertheless, She Persisted" - Supergirl
Luke Cage - Season 1
Stranger Things - Season 1

3.5/10

For other television reviews, please be sure to check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Utterly Without Investment Potential: Why The Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials Flops!

The Good: Cinematography?
The Bad: Characters, Acting, Plot, Much of the direction
The Basics: The Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials continues in an absolutely unimpressive way as Thomas and his Maze survivors struggle to survive in the post-Flare world.


I was over the whole "teen lit being made into blockbuster films" well before I saw The Maze Runner (reviewed here!). I'm decades past teen lit being my target demographic and while some adults have been wowed by the books or films they are based on, the skeptic in me is just not sold by the thinly-drawn characters, the senseless dystopias and the films that seem to highlight inexperienced talent in front of and behind the camera. So, I went into The Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials with no particular enthusiasm for it. In fact, all I honestly remembered about The Maze Runner was split between excitement to see more of Patricia Clarkson in the sequel and thinking that actress Kaya Scodelario had had less screen presence than Kristen Stewart in The Twilight Saga (reviewed here!).

Sadly, The Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials lived down to my lack of anticipation for it. After half an hour of waiting for anything truly significant to happen, the film transitions into a second-rate rebellion film with so little investment in the characters that I'm not sure the director bothered to have all the characters say their names this time around. Outside Thomas, Teresa, Aris, Dr. Paige, and Janson, most of the character's names slipped from my mind long before the characters left the screen. That is because much of the movie is teenage boys running around sweaty from people who are essentially zombies and none develop enough to actually truly give a damn about them.

After a flashback of being saved as a child by WCKD and Dr. Paige, Thomas finds himself in the present being brought to a facility, having been rescued from the Maze. At the facility, the young men and Teresa from the Maze meet Janson. Janson tells the youths that they have been rescued from WCKD and are safe at the waystation, where they will stay until they can be relocated to a safe location. Thomas's group is there with many other young people who were in other Mazes and the one who has been there the longest, Aris, quickly realizes that Thomas is suspicious of the facility as well. Aris shows Thomas a secret room in the facility and after Thomas steals a badge from a guard, he and Aris are able to gain entry. They discover that this group is engineering some of the creatures used in the Maze and is harvesting something from the young people brought there. When Janson enters, they see him in communication with Dr. Paige and realize that they are just in a different WCKD facility.

After rescuing Teresa, the young men flee the facility and end up nearby in an abandoned mall where they get enough supplies to survive before they are attacked by Cranks (the infected humans who did not survive the effects of the solar flares). After losing one of their own to an infection, the group discovers a small band of survivors and they work to be put in touch with the Resistance. But WCKD is not through with them and they begin a relentless hunt for the young people and the Right Arm and Thomas's group discovers there is a traitor in their midst.

And after two hours, I still didn't care.

Director Wes Ball does not let the shots linger on the Cranks long enough to truly appreciate what is happening with them and just how dangerous they are. The Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials oscillates between long, boring stretches where people we don't care about try to piece together the world they are just now encountering and meeting people who have lived in it and deliver lots of exposition to them and fast, senseless chases with people running in places they have never been and somehow getting to exactly where they need to go. The world of The Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials is faux-exciting; it is not overly exciting, but things move fast enough (when they do) so viewers forget for a few moments how little they care about the people being chased or the conceits of the world they are in.

Thomas is not a particularly interesting character and he is overshadowed the moment Jorge and then Vince appear on screen. In fact, after Jorge pops up, Thomas could be killed and the story might have progressed in a more interesting way. The Right Arm resists WCKD and for someone who has been betrayed rather recently - multiple times - Thomas leaps right in to trusting them.

The Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials lacks performers with real screen presence used well. Wes Ball, sadly, needs to learn that you can't just throw Patricia Clarkson and Giancarlo Esposito on screen with lousy material and expect them to make it better. Amid a number of amateurs, Esposito and Clarkson stand out, but they seem out of place beside the cast that appears more lost than engaged. There is a large chunk of the film where Kaya Scodelario does not have lines, but is seen behind the guys mouthing things. I'm still not sure why directors of young women seem to give the universal note "never let the audience see you with your mouth fully closed."

The wasteland of The Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials is mirrored by a lack of a compelling story, a dull series of characters and actors who are either unprofessional or unable to deliver their usual caliber of performance in the material they are given.

For other works with Aiden Gillen, please check out my reviews of:
Game Of Thrones - Season Four
Game Of Thrones - Season Three
Game Of Thrones - Season Two
Game Of Thrones - Season One
The Dark Knight Rises

2/10

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

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Will Gluck Goes 2-2 With His Problematic Rendition Of Annie

The Good: Decent performances, Good (enough) story
The Bad: Direction/editing, Character types
The Basics: Annie is an ill-executed modernized version of the classic orphan story.


I am a fan of the works of Will Gluck. Gluck directed two films that get shown quite a lot around my household to visitors - Easy A (reviewed here!) and Friends With Benefits (reviewed here!). Gluck is a competent, entertaining writer-director who has something to say with his films and is already garnering a loyal cadre of actors who eagerly appear in his films, even as cameos. But until the Olive Bridge logo came up on Annie, I had no idea that Gluck was affiliated with the new film, which has been plugged at a ton of films I’ve seen this year. Olive Bridge is a reference to his protagonist from Easy A and was the name of the headhunting agency Mila Kunis’s character worked for in Friends With Benefits, so when the Olive Bridge logo came up, I was suddenly excited about a film that I otherwise had no real interest in seeing.

That excitement did not last long and, unfortunately, Will Gluck and/or the editor of Annie, Tia Nolan, are to blame. Annie is one of the rare films where the assembly of the film robs the viewer of much of the enjoyment of watching it. Will Gluck’s rendition of Annie is an obvious attempt for Gluck to get what he has long-deserved; mainstream recognition and a legitimate blockbuster. The near-Christmas release is a family film that is designed to compete against the final The Hobbit film by drawing younger audiences and black audiences (who have not, traditionally, been driving up the grosses on the Middle Earth movies) to the theaters the same weekend. But the Jamie Foxx/Cameron Diaz vehicle, which follows Gluck’s pattern of mocking the style of film he is presenting (in this case, musical), is put together in a way that does not allow any of the performers to truly showcase their talents, nor give the audience moments of catharsis for the character’s reactions.

Annie tells the familiar story of an orphaned girl – in this case, a ten year-old in foster care – who is taken in by a rich benefactor. Annie lives with four other girls in the home of Hannigan, an alcoholic who takes in foster girls just for the $157 the State pays her a month. Will Stacks is the CEO of Stacks Mobile, a cell phone company that is built upon the precedent of never dropping a call (which he delivers upon by hiding cell phone “towers” in plain sight on buildings all around New York City). Stacks has been encouraged by his right-hand man, Guy, to run for Mayor of New York City, but his campaign gets off to a rough start when his attempt to feed the homeless results in a viral video of him spitting out mashed potatoes at a homeless man. One day, when Annie is trying to protect a dog from two hooligans who are harassing it, Stacks rescues Annie from getting hit by a car. The resulting viral video gives Stacks a bump in the polls.

Guy recommends that Stacks take Annie in to help him win the race against Mayor Harold Gray. After a lunch meeting, Annie agrees to help Stacks (Hannigan was going to kick her out anyway after the social worker visited and Annie extorted her for a trip to the library). While Stacks’s assistant, Grace, has reservations about using Annie, she begins to bond with Annie. As the campaign goes on, Guy sees the only way to win the race is by jettisoning Annie after her part leads to a plateau within striking distance of Gray. Guy conspires with Hannigan to have Annie’s “parents” find her, but Annie feels like she has finally found her family and when she learns the truth, she assumes that Stacks never truly loved her or wanted her for his family.

Annie is a musical that attempts to exist in the real-world and it exists there in a murky, troubling, way. Initially, it is unclear how the film will tread; Annie’s first song is a distraction for a school assignment. But, she and her musical foster-sisters are called out by Hannigan when they sing while they clean. So, this is supposed to be the real world where it is very much an anomaly when people break into song and dance routines. Gluck manages to pull off the narrative aspect of the songs popping up well-enough (Annie often sings to herself or sings publicly to Stacks’s crowd), until late in the film. Hannigan and (especially) Guy are not creative people, so when they break into song (even if Hannigan acknowledges it) it just does not work. Equally troubling is the helicopter ride that results in Annie and Stacks singing to one another in which Annie does a little dance move before it is even clear they are singing!

But the bulk of the problem with the musical aspect of this incarnation of Annie is in the directing or editing. My affection for the works of Will Gluck, which often have moments that involve song/dance/decent cutting that has a visual rhythm to the scenes, makes me want to blame editor Tia Nolan (though Gluck, presumably, signed off on her editing). From the second song (“Hard Knocks Life”) on, the songs are almost universally cut in such a way that the singing and dancing of the subjects of the scenes is not well-showcased. For example, in “Hard Knocks Life,” the foster girls are tossing plates to one another in rhythm. The shots are cut in such a way that the rhythm is not established or maintained long enough to be enjoyable. In other words, by the time a plate is caught or thrown, the shot changes angle so it has an assembled look that does not showcase the talents of those putting a rhythm to the exchange. The best analogy for this would be a stunt fighter whose stunts were cut so that one sees them about to take a hit, then falling, then getting up (i.e. not having the hit appear to connect, nor have them hitting the ground, etc.). That type of gap does not allow one to appreciate the dance moves, scope or simple sense of motion of the big song and dance numbers throughout the film.

At least as troubling is how Gluck and Nolan rob the film of the big emotional moment for Stacks. At a museum fundraiser, Stacks uses Annie as a prop and when she sings to his crowd of potential donor, Stacks realizes that Annie has grown attached to him and that she is emotionally invested in the potential future he offered her. The only way viewers know what Stacks is going through is by the performance of Jamie Foxx. Foxx watches Quvenzhane Wallis’s Annie and he undergoes an emotional transformation without a word, only with subtle changes to his facial expression. The problem here is that the scene is cut in such a way that the viewer is not treated to the full transformation. The camera does not stay on Foxx’s face long enough for him to make the emotional statement he intends. This is sloppy and undermines the impact of the entire scene.

The song and dance numbers are further diminished by conceits that make no sense in a real world where people in the scenes are breaking into song and dance. Most notably, in one song where Cameron Diaz’s Hannigan is singing on her own, she is clearly accompanied by back-up singers and production elements that change her vocal quality. Of course, Diaz’s entire character is out-of-place in a modern adaptation of Annie. Hannigan as rendered in this version of Annie is a cruel has-been (more accurately, would-have-been – she got fired before actually dancing with C&C Music Factory) who is using the foster children for the monetary stipend they provide. But this version of Hannigan does not ring true in our modern world. Hannigan makes sense if she has a vice – to go dark, if she had been a drug abuser –, a goal (she needed the money to better herself, like by going to college or funding a small business, which could have been a cool twist if she was essentially using foster children as slave labor), or was just lazy (she is far too actively angry to be truly lazy or credibly as alcoholic as the characters around her claim). Instead, Hannigan seems more like an anachronism than a truly vital or viable character.

That said, Annie gives Rose Byrne a high point to end the year on. Byrne exploded to prominence this year with her role in Neighbors (reviewed here!) and Annie showcases a wider range of her talents. She sings and dances well (though her big song with Wallis wherein she is showing the girl Stacks’s penthouse apartment is notably robbed of flow and continuity of scope) and she provides a human connection that allows the viewer to believe that Annie might be happy with Stacks for more than just materialistic reasons.

Foxx and Wallis are fine in their roles of Will Stacks and Annie, though neither is given the chance to mine very deep for their characters. Foxx’s Stacks is unremarkable and seems to have less ambition than Bobby Canavale’s Guy. Annie is presented by Wallis with such resilience that Hannigan’s threat that she’ll end up in a group home does not seem like it would set her back and that the character’s literacy issue that comes up late in the film seems entirely unrealistic; she is smart, sassy and driven – how she has never sought out someone to help her read seems unrealistic. Cameron Diaz is over-the-top as Hannigan. Both David Zayas and Adewale Akinnoye-Agbaje are welcome additions to the cast, but are placed in fairly understated roles.

Ultimately, Annie is a film that suffers because its well-established, oft-rendered story means that the writer-directors of the project have to rely upon twists to the known and/or style to sell the new rendition. But Will Gluck’s Annie is put together in such a way that its stylistic flairs fall short and the film’s full impact can be achieved simply through watching the trailer.

For other films currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
To Write Love On Her Arms
The Seventh Son
Vice
Paddington
Inherent Vice
Selma
Still Alice
Predestination
The Interview
The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies
Expelled
Comet
Horrible Bosses 2
10,000 Days
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1
Interstellar
The Mule
Hit By Lightning
Horns
Stonehearst Asylum
Birdman

4/10

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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Lackluster Labyrinth: Why It’s Hard To Care About The Maze Runner!

The Good: Eventually turns into an interesting concept . . .
The Bad: . . . it takes SO long to get there, Mediocre characters, Uninspired acting
The Basics: The Maze Runner fails to thrill as young men (and a single girl) try to escape mechanized bugs and a maze that is testing something about them.


Last weekend, my wife and I were on vacation and we took a day to watch some movies in the theater. Neither of us got to see our first choice (she wanted to watch The Maze Runner, but did not want to be around people; I wanted to see The Zero Theorem, but had no idea how to get to the one art theater in the city that was showing it). So, it took us an additional week to take in The Maze Runner. My wife wanted to see The Maze Runner because she had read the novel series upon which the film was based. At this point, following the lackluster Divergent (reviewed here!) and the equally unimpressive Vampire Academy film (reviewed here!), I was pretty much tapped out for any interest in films based on young adult science fiction.

My indifference to The Maze Runner did not diminish as the film began. One of the difficult aspects of being dropped into a setting with new characters is developing any regard for the characters. The first duty of the writer/director is to get viewers to care about the characters in their new, fantastic setting. In The Maze Runner, the protagonist is Thomas and he lacks any initially distinctive quality to make the viewer care about who he is or what he is going through. Even Katniss Everdeen had more of a hook when she exhibited a willingness to perform acts of self-sacrifice at the outset of The Hunger Games than Thomas does in the first third of The Maze Runner.

A young man finds himself in an elevator, remembering nothing about his life before, nor even his name. He is trapped in a field, surrounded by massive walls and other young men and boys. The one opening in the wall, he is told, leads into a giant maze, from which there appears to be no escape. Alby and Newt explain to the new arrival how once a month, a new young man is sent into the glade and the group lives there. Each day a few boys go into the maze to chart it, but they live in fear of staying in the maze at night (after the doors close) because Grievers sting anyone in the maze at night, leading to insanity and death.

After a particularly poignant display of what happens when someone is stung by a Griever – namely a stung boy viciously attacking Thomas (as he has come to remember his name) – Thomas enters the maze when Alby and Minho are not able to make it out of the maze before the doors close for the night. With Alby wounded, Thomas and Minho string him up with vines for the night before they are chased by a Griever. Thomas manages to kill the Griever, but it leads to another boy, Gally, getting gravely concerned about the changes in the environment. To punctuate his fear, the elevator arrives again, this time with a girl from Thomas’s dreams. As Thomas learns more about the nature of the maze and the outer sections of it, he and Teresa discover they are tied together by more than just Thomas’s dreams. As they investigate the dead Griever and the nature of the venom, Alby is cured and his memories seem to trigger a Griever attack on the village. In struggling to survive the maze, Thomas, Teresa and the other survivors in the glade become aware of the nature of the test they are in and how it fits into a larger, wounded, world.

The Maze Runner is like The Lord Of The Flies without the shipwreck and it does not truly begin to get going in a compelling way until just over the one hour mark when Thomas enters the maz with Minho as a maze runner (mapper of the maze). When the part of the Griever they recovered begins clicking, it is the first moment in The Maze Runner that actually intrigued me enough to actually care. Given that is the third day of Thomas’s stay in the glade, it was hard to care at that point in the movie.

To be fair to The Maze Runner, from the moment sector 7 and the blades are introduced, director Wes Ball manages to create a creepy and tense film. From the shifting of the maze to the Griever attack on the glade, The Maze Runner picks up and becomes watchable. The special effects team on The Maze Runner makes the Grievers awesome to watch – though they seem like a mechanized version of the Alien 3 xenomorph – and the movie works itself to a climax that actually made me want to know where the series would go, but objectively the film stretches far too long before it gets to its point.

The Maze Runner has some gaping holes – like why the Grievers stop their assault on the boys in the glade when they seem to be pretty efficient at wiping the young people out – and its lack of interesting or likable characters makes the movie drag for the majority of the film. Thomas is not an impressive protagonist and the plot-heavy story does not pop because the characters are not easy to get invested in.

None of the performances in The Maze Runner are particularly compelling. While Patricia Clarkson appears for a few key scenes, she is not in The Maze Runner enough to justify seeing it for her. The usually talented Thomas Brodie-Sangster is similarly relegated to a minor supporting role that does not make use of his talents and Will Poulter is pigeonholed into yet another role where he plays an asshole that viewers are just going to hate. The young cast is led by Dylan O’Brian who plays Thomas with such a lack of spark that one has to wonder what the casting criteria was and who he beat for the part. The unimpressive performances make it hard to emotionally invest in characters who are only minimally defined.

The result is another film franchise with a stunted beginning that entirely hinges on the base of fans from the book turning up in droves to boost its grosses. That is the only audience that will likely find The Maze Runnera worthwhile film on its own.

For other films currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
10,000 Days
Interstellar
Hit By Lightning
Horns
John Wick
Listen Up Philip
The Best Of Me
The Judge
Dracula Untold
The Equalizer
This Is Where I Leave You
The Giver
The Expendables 3
The Zero Theorem

3.5/10

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

5.5/10

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

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Ryan Gosling Remakes Punch-Drunk Love With Lars And The Real Girl!

The Good: Engaging plot, Decent characters, Good acting
The Bad: Not entirely original, Pacing
The Basics: Ryan Gosling illustrates his acting chops early in Lars And The Real Girl where he plays an awkward man in love with a life-sized doll.


It is a rare thing that my wife and I agree upon a movie’s quality. Yet, as soon as we finished Lars And The Real Girl we turned to one another and began talking about the film. We discussed what the movie meant and how it we thought the performers in it performed. She asked me what I would rate the film and I was pretty surprised when we both thought it came out at a seven out of ten. That seldom happens.

For my part, I was impressed to see Ryan Gosling in one of the earliest roles. I was a little disappointed that Lars And The Real Girl resembled the feeling and some of the character aspects/performance quirks of Punch-Drunk Love (reviewed here!). Ryan Gosling is exceptional as Lars and he shows a range that I had not seen from him before. Even so, there are a number of aspects of Gosling’s performance that were incredibly similar to Adam Sandler’s performance in Punch-Drunk Love.

In a small Wisconsin town, Lars Lindstrom lives in the garage of his dead father’s house while his older brother, Gus, and Gus’s wife Karin live in the main house. Karin pressures Lars to join the pair for dinner, even tackling him to insist that he come into the house to eat with them. Karin and Gus want to share the good news with the exceptionally awkward Lars that Karin is pregnant. Already unsettled at work by Margo, who works several cubicles away, Gus begins to stress and feel some serious and complex emotions. His cubiclemate shows him a website with made-to-order lifelike sex dolls (which Lars does not quite understand). Lars orders Bianca, a missionary from overseas and he introduces her to his family.

Fearing he has gone crazy, Gus insists Lars go to Dr. Dagmar. While Karin thinks Lars is all right, Gus worries that Lars might actually be mentally ill and need to be institutionalized. Dagmar convinces Lars to bring Bianca in weekly and when he does, Dagmar “treats” her for a condition that requires them to sit together. Dagmar discovers that Lars still feels guilty about the death of his mother (she died giving birth to him) and he has incredible fears about Karin’s pregnancy. Soon, though, the people sympathetic to Lars come out of the woodwork and they embrace Bianca. Bianca has a social network (she gets a job as a store mannequin), people who want to be around her, and people who take her off Lars’ hands, freeing him up for human interactions (like with Margo). As he becomes more socialized, Bianca’s health takes a turn for the worse and the entire community is affected.

Lars And The Real Girl is a masterwork of awkward humor, but the power of the film is that Lars And The Real Girl is not depressing or oppressive in its tone. While the plot is somewhat predictable, Lars And The Real Girl does not feel like it is beating the viewer down. Perhaps this is because Lars And The Real Girl features a protagonist who is awkward and lost in the world, but the world does not beat him down. Unlike Punch-Drunk Love, Lars is not consistently betrayed by those around him to create his social awkwardness.

Instead, Lars is a man feeling guilty and fearing abandonment because his life has been a long pageant of abandonments and when his brother returned home following their father’s death, Lars moved into the garage. His fear is understandable in that he has never resolved his feelings that he missed out on having a mother. He is lost and his story is one that resonates on a deeply human level because Ryan Gosling is able to perfectly emote a deep level of sadness even when he says nothing.

The character magic in Lars And The Real Girl comes from the townspeople around Lars. Their acceptance of Bianca and willingness to help Lars by working hard to not shatter his delusion makes potentially awkward events like Lars bringing Bianca to a company party into a memorably heartwarming scene. The way Bianca becomes a person in their minds – someone with whm they want to spend time and would elect to the school board – brings an uncommon charm to Lars And The Real Girl.

The supporting performances in Lars And The Real Girl are generally good as well. While Gosling bears the brunt of having to perform opposite an inanimate object, many of the others have to work with Bianca for a scene or two and they all pull those scenes off just fine, making the viewer believe that their characters are making an effort to treat the life-size doll as an actual person. But the acting is far from homogenously great. Emily Mortimer’s accent changes constantly in Lars And The Real Girl, which is irksome in general and downright disturbing at times.

But more than that, director Craig Gillespie does not the best possible work from Kelli Garner. A key scene in Lars’ development has him bowling with Garner’s Margo. Clearly part of the purpose – thematically – of the bowling scene is to illustrate how alive, vibrant, and mobile Margo is to Lars. And yet, watching the scene, the way Garner is constantly in motion, wiggling all the time, made it seem like Gillespie was right off screen yelling, “More Kelli! More! I don’t want anyone who sees this to miss what we’re doing here!” Outside that, Garner plays Margo with clearly restrained attraction for Gosling’s Lars and she performs the role well.

Lars And The Real Girl is a tour de force for Ryan Gosling and anyone who thinks he has only gotten so far in his career due to his good looks should watch the movie. Bloated and with his shirt on all the time (usually in some pretty hideous sweaters), Gosling is the emotional heartthrob, not the physical one. While it might not be perfect, it is not the stereotypical psychologically horrifying work most independent films become, which makes Lars And The Real Girl a must-watch movie for its originality, memorable characters, compelling character struggles and most of the performances.

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

7/10

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.
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Wooden Acting Almost Kills A Political Marvel With All The King’s Men

The Good: Generally good acting, story and character
The Bad: Dilution of main story by focus on Jack Burden, pacing
The Basics: When Jude Law's acting and his character's story begin to dominate All The King’s Men, the film goes from a promising political drama to a murky romantic mystery.


Whenever I write a movie review, I load up the IMDB to be sure I'm getting character and actor names correct. I was somewhat surprised - mostly from not having paid enough attention to the opening credits, I suppose - to see that Kate Winslet and Mark Ruffalo were portraying Anne and Adam Stanton for the latest movie I was watching. Winslet only recently appeared on my radar and my first movie with Mark Ruffalo did not impress me with him. All The King’s Men, which opens to a powerful soundtrack by James Horner, continues my rut where actor Jude Law fails to impress me. Here it is his portrayal of Jack Burden along with writer and director Steven Zaillian and novelist Robert Penn Warren's emphasis on Burden that almost sinks this movie.

Willie Stark is a populist advocate working in county politics in Louisiana when he is opposed by the powers that be in the political world. A government contract is given to a company that makes a schoolhouse that has inadequate fire escapes, leading to the death of three children. This inspires mobster Tiny Duffy to use Stark as a chance to effectively take the Governor's mansion of Louisiana, which in the late 40s, early 50s, is quite a big deal. Stark begins a campaign based on winning over the poor of the state and wins in a landslide. Once in power as Louisiana's governor, he finds himself blocked by the state senate and threatened with impeachment.

Mirroring Stark's rise to power is Jack Burden's journey as a reporter to a spin doctor for the governor. Burden's journey becomes a loop between his past and present as one of the advocates for impeachment is an incredibly powerful judge who happens to be Burden's (non-biological) father. As well, Stark becomes closely involved with the Stanton family, peers of Jack's who have integrity and social standing and who could potentially elevate Stark's political populism and activism to a respectable level.

The problem here is from the beginning the viewer wants this to be Willie Stark's story. Stark is intriguing as a character. The moment he casts off the mob influence and becomes a charismatic politician combining the progressive activism with the evangelical salesmanship by simply telling the truth as he sees it, Stark is a powerful character to watch. Whenever the movie is focused on his quest against the powers that be, All The King’s Men is engaging, intriguing and worthwhile.

The problem is that the film too infrequently focuses on Stark. While the first hour is all about Stark coming to power and his views and ambitions, the last hour plus of All The King’s Men degenerates into a convoluted tale of Jack Burden's trials as he seeks to aid Stark and resolve long unresolved romantic feelings.

As a political story, All The King’s Men succeeds. The problem is, Jack Burden's story is barely political. Burden becomes a detective, digging into the life of Judge Irwin to find any dirt he can to bring Irwin down to alleviate the impeachment pressure on Stark. As this is going on, Stark is busy fighting to get a hospital built for poor people in Louisiana, which needs the appearance of legitimacy. That comes from Dr. Adam Stanton who Stark - via Burden - influences to become a part of the project. The proximity of Adam, a childhood friend of Burden's, and the reappearance of his sister Anne, perhaps his great lost love, cause Burden to relive his past.

And Burden's past is not terribly interesting. Or perhaps it is, but this is not the venue for it. I don't care about Burden's lost love, it's a distraction from the Willie Stark story. Arguably, Burden's story could be all about what a man will do to maintain political power, but it's not nearly as compelling as watching Stark do his thing.

Willie Stark is played with electrifying precision by Sean Penn, one of those actors who suddenly came into legitimacy a few years back and has been a dramatic powerhouse since. Penn is surprisingly charismatic as Stark, manipulating his voice and body language with persuasive movement that make it convincing that Stark could work the crowds we see in the movie. This is one of Penn's best works and he steals every scene he is in.

Conversely, Jude Law is wooden as Jack Burden. "Wooden" describes Law's acting in almost every role and here it is not appropriate for Burden to be so . . . listless, stiff. Law's performance puts Burden at a distance to the viewer, making one care less about his journey and personality and instead causing the viewer to beg for the return of Penn's Stark to the screen.

All The King’s Men is supported by a decent cast including Sir Anthony Hopkins, Kate Winslet, Mark Ruffalo, Patricia Clarkson, and James Gandolfini. Gandolfini seems typecast into the role of Tiny, but otherwise the supporting players are fine and they perform well with what they are given to do in this film.

Who will like All The King's Men? Certainly those frustrated with today's current political state. But they are less likely to enjoy this than The American President (reviewed here!) or reruns of The West Wing (reviewed here!). This movie is more suited to those who like murky romantic mysteries with a political edge. All of the important plot aspects turn on love and that's a fine motivation and makes for a decent story. Unfortunately, this story is not that one, not the way it is set up from the beginning and established in the opening parts of the film.

At least Mark Ruffalo and Kate Winslet did well.

For other works with James Gandolfini, check out my reviews of:
Where The Wild Things Are
In The Loop

6/10

For other film 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.

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Only Reservations About No Reservations, An Obvious, Sub-par Romantic Comedy

The Good: Looks good, Decent cast
The Bad: Poor use of good acting talent, Predictable story and character arcs, Not funny, Pacing.
The Basics: A surprisingly disappointing outing with cooking and Aaron Eckhart (two things that biased me TOWARD the movie), No Reservations sinks.


I watch a lot of movies, more since I started reviewing, but before that I used to watch movies for fun. I used to also enjoy watching a lot of television series' on DVD . . . before becoming a reviewer. In film and television, I have noticed, there are very few works that actually deal with cooking. In the movies, there are films set in places where cooking takes place, like Clerks II (reviewed here!), but remarkably few movies where people spend time cooking. The world of professional chefs has been glossed over in the short-lived television series' Kitchen Confidential and Chef! (reviewed here!). So, when I had the opportunity to watch No Reservations recently, I was pretty psyched because I heard that it was a romantic comedy about cooks.

If anything, I went into No Reservations with a bias for the work. The film starred Catherine Zeta-Jones who is pretty easy on the eyes and the immensely talented Aaron Eckhart who has not been praised nearly enough for his work in The Dark Knight (reviewed here!). But then, I watched No Reservations and it has taken me days to get up the enthusiasm to write about the experience because it was such a standard romantic comedy. Anyone who has seen a lot of movies and who loves films has seen this before. A lot.

Kate is a high-strung chef at one of New York City's most trendy and expensive restaurants. She is obsessive compulsive and cooking is her life, which makes her ideal for the elite cooking marketplace. Unfortunately for her, when her sister and niece are driving to see her for a visit, they are in a terrible accident and Kate's sister is killed and she becomes the guardian of Zoe. Zoe is young, misses her mother, and Kate is hardly in a place (emotionally) to raise her.

After taking the minimum amount of time her boss demands she take off following the death of her sister, Kate returns to work to discover Nick is working her job in the kitchen. Nick is talented and qualified, but his style is more laid back (he has music on in the kitchen!) and about the experience of cooking, as opposed to simply the results. Nick and Zoe bond almost immediately, much to Kate's chagrin and soon Kate is finding Nick's merit as a chef and lover.

No Reservations is exactly as it sounds: a romantic comedy where the child becomes the reason two people hook up. As a result, there are contrived concepts that have been done to death in the movies, like Zoe creating situations for Nick and Kate to spend time together and the inevitable "Zoe runs away, leaving Nick and Kate to find her" scene that seems like a standard the moment one has a young person trying to get two adults together.

The thing that doesn't make much sense is the character of Zoe. The argument can be made that she is striving to get Kate and Nick together to recreate the ideal family of mother, father and her. The thing is, she never had that. Her father split long ago according to the earliest scenes and so on some level she ought to be used to the single mother routine, even more than Kate would be. So, Zoe's seeming dependence upon Kate and Nick ending up together for her happiness seems far-fetched and problematic. One could argue that this represents the greatest opportunity for Zoe as far as wish fulfillment for a "normal," stable family, but it does not come across that way in No Reservations. Instead, it just seems sloppy and generic characterization and Zoe comes across more as a brat than traumatized.

No Reservations is not, truly, a cooking movie, though it does feature people cooking at various points in the film, as well as people eating. For those who love food, there is something to be said for the direction in the film. Scott Hicks directs the film well and presents a very sensual looking film. The food throughout looks edible and sumptuous and it's an easy film to watch in terms of the look of the movie.

Unfortunately, that's the best I've got for it. No Reservations is boring and its characters are hardly as mature or well-developed as one might want. Instead, this is a film trading on casting and it is an unfortunate use for virtually everyone involved. Patricia Clarkson is decent as Paula and Bob Balaban is stuck in the role of therapist playing it like we have seen him play so many other (similar) roles. And Abigail Breslin embodies Zoe, clearly trading on her popularity as a child actor in a very tight market at what might well be her peak years. Her performance is not the best one we've seen from her.

In addition to making all of the food and locations look good, director Scott Hicks deserves some real credit: he has the ability to make Aaron Eckhart bland. Eckhart's performance is the most dull I've ever seen from him. He was cast for his smile, no doubt, but the spark that defines his energy is completely lacking in No Reservations. It is almost like he knew he was stuck in a romantic comedy that had been done to death and he was playing an archetype as opposed to a character.

At least Eckhart had some talent to seriously compromise. Catherine Zeta-Jones might - most of the roles I have seen her in she is used for her physicality more than her Thespian qualities. In No Reservations, her part is pretty much relegated to pouting and staring blankly at the screen in shock as a vague expression of her character being lost. It flops horribly for her. Zeta-Jones fails to make an emotional connection with the audience before she begins these dazed looks and it further slows down the pacing of the film. If Eckhart is bland as Nick, Zeta-Jones is whatever state of uber-boring is beyond that as Kate.

The end result is a film that is not funny enough to be a comedy, not romantic enough to be a romance and too predictable to have any real dramatic tension. This was a surprise to me; unfortunately, not a pleasant one.

For other films with Abigail Breslin, please check out my reviews of:
Zombieland
Definitely, Maybe
The Princess Diaries 2: A Royal Engagement
Signs

3.5/10

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

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