Movie Review: Roxanne Roxanne

Roxanne Roxanne *** / *****

Directed by: Michael Larnell.

Written by: Michael Larnell.

Starring: Chanté Adams (Roxanne Shanté), Mahershala Ali (Cross), Nia Long (Ms. Peggy Gooden), Elvis Nolasco (Ray), Kevin Phillips (Marley), Shenell Edmonds (Ranita), Arnstar (MC Shan), Nigel A. Fullerton (Biz Markie), Tremaine Brown Jr. (Nasir), Cheryse Dyllan (Sparky Dee), Taliyah Whitaker (Young Roxanne Shanté), Charlie Hudson III (Mr. Magic), Mitchell Edwards (Tone).

Roxanne Roxanne is a rap biopic about Roxanne Shante – someone who I had never heard of before this movie, but did make a big impact on female MC’s during her brief time as a top MC. Michael Larnell’s biopic does an admirable job trying to avoid the clichés of the musical biopic – the rise from humble beginnings, often followed by a fall, and then a rise again – mainly because he doesn’t seem nearly as interested in Shante’s music career as he is in her life. If you head over to her Wikipedia page, you’ll see a lot of information of the Juice Crew, the Roxanne wars, KRS-One, etc. – and the film isn’t really interested in that. It takes about a half hour before we even hear Shante rap at all.

It’s the 1980s in Queensbridge – a rough era in New York – and the rap battle champion is a 14 year old girl – Shante (Chante Adams). She is living a tough life though – no father in the picture, a mother (Nia Long) sliding into alcoholism and depression, and Shante who is having to do a lot of the heavy lifting raising her three younger sisters. She shoplifts for extra money – and does those rap battles. The movie covers a long period of time – too long really – in Shante’s life, as she goes from a poor kid, to going on a tour for her career, and eventually to an abusive relationship with a much older drug dealer (Mahershala Ali).

While the movie does avoid many of the clichés of the musical biopic, that’s not always for the best. The film does try and cover too much – and it’s often the expense of more nuance characters. Nia Long is very good as Shante’s mother – but what starts out as a more fleshed out character – a woman gets tired of being beat down by life, by having men let her down, etc. – eventually does end up in fairly well-trod paths, complete with a scene of “redemption” at the end between mother and daughter, that doesn’t ring true. In the case of Cross, Ali does a remarkable job taking this character and making him more nuanced than he is in the script – it’s clear he’s grooming Shante in the beginning, and eventually he will become a one-dimensional bad guy – but it’s still interesting to see Ali work – and how similar in some ways he is here as he is in Moonlight – and how a few subtle changes can impact the entire character.

Still, even if Roxanne Roxanne isn’t always successful, it’s always interesting – thanks in large part to a wonderful performance by newcomer Chante Adams in the lead role. Hers is the most complex character in the film – and we see her make mistakes, get a big head, and be brought low again – but never get defeated, never give up. The rap scenes are actually quite good as well – capturing the charisma of Shante – and why she became a star in the first place. She keeps the movie interesting – even when you know where the film is going.

I do kind of wish more biopics would take a similar approach – skipping the parts of the life of famous person people know, and focusing instead of what shaped them – what made them who they were in the first place. Roxanne Roxanne doesn’t always get things right – but it has the right idea.

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Movie Review: The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches

The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches **** / *****

Directed by: Simon Lavoie.

Written by: Simon Lavoie based on the novel by Gaétan Soucy.

Starring: Marine Johnson (Ali / Alice), Antoine L'Écuyer (Frère), Jean-François Casabonne (Père), Alex Godbout (Paul-Marie), Laurie Babin (Juste).

 

The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches is a bleak, black and white drama from Quebec. It is a film that starts out mysteriously, and has those mysteries deepen over the majority of its runtime. Yes, it basically wraps everything up by the end – a little too neatly for my taste – but overall, this is a challenging film about sexual oppression, religion, misogyny and its lasting impact. It is also a stunning film to look at – shot in stark black and white, the film can be brutal and hard-to-watch, but it never crosses the line into exploitation.

 

Set in 1930s, rural Quebec, the film centers of Ali (Marine Johnson), a teenage girl, being raised by her father (Jean-Francois Casabonne), shuttered away from the outside world alongside her brother (Antoine L'Écuyer). They are so sheltered, that their father is able to raise Ali as a boy – telling her penis just fell off as a child, along with cutting her hair short, and binding her breasts. But the outside world can only stay outside for so long – as is set in motion when her brother rapes her one day in the woods (I honestly don’t know what to make of the rape scene in the film – it’s quick, and non-exploitive, but I’m not quite sure what to make of the “how” it came about. It almost seems more like it was necessary to the plot, and not overly thought out). When her father examines her one night, and figures out she’s pregnant, that’s when he loses it. He will end up hanging himself, naked, in their house – his body becoming a source of fascination to both teenagers (Frere wonders if his penis is where they came from). And I haven’t even mentioned the strange, Gollum like person chained in the barn that the father refers to as Just Punishment, which Ali will shorten to Juste.

 

The first act of The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches is mysterious, as it locks us into Ali’s perspective, so we only figure things out as she does. Obviously, we know a few things before she does – namely, that she’s a girl (because we have eyes) – and also that her father’s behavior is not normal – from the way he chases off outsiders, to the bizarre religious rituals, to Juste out on the barn, we are far more concerned about his behavior that Ali is – who sees this as normal.

 

His death really is the catalyst for the rest of the story – that will unfold from them, piling on one revelation after another. Johnson is great in the lead role. Her performance is urgent and animalistic, without going over-the-top. She maintains our sympathy, even as more secrets spill out. L'Écuyer is fine as Frere as well – although he perhaps goes a little too far as the film spirals towards it climax, and he tries with increasing desperation to fill his father’s shoes.

 

The film was adapted (apparently liberally, since you cannot hide Ali being a girl in a film like you can in a book) by Simon Lavoie, from Gaétan Soucy’s novel. Like Lavoie’s last film – Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves (that one was co-directed by Marc Denis) – it is a bold, stylistic film, although in a much different style (that film called back to the Godard films of the 1960s with its use of color). Here, he has gone for something much more stark and unrelenting in his use of black and white, and handheld camera work. It gives the film a raw, animalistic feel that perfectly matches its content.

 

I do wish that the film didn’t quite feel the end to tie up every loose end. I was enjoying the ambiguity of the film as it progressed, and I don’t think that wrapping it up with a neat bow was really the only way to go here. On the other hand, the story certainly isn’t over when the film ends – and its anyone’s guess as to what comes next. Overall, I think The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches confirms the potential that Lavoie showed in Those Who Dig Their Own Graves, which is a film I liked, but at nearly three hours was WAY too long, considering it had no real story. Both are provocative and daring stories about Quebec’s past – and moving into the future. Canadian film needs some new blood to in it – and Lavoie has the potential to be great.

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Movie Review: Loveless

Loveless **** ½ / *****

Directed by: Andrey Zvyagintsev.

Written by: Oleg Negin and Andrey Zvyagintsev.

Starring: Maryana Spivak (Zhenya), Aleksey Rozin (Boris), Matvey Novikov (Alyosha), Marina Vasileva (Masha), Andris Keiss (Anton), Aleksey Fateev (Ivan), Artyom Zhigulin (Kuznetsov), Natalya Potapova (Mat Zheni), Anna Gulyarenko (Mat Mashi).

 

Loveless, the new film by Russian master Andrey Zvyagintsev (whose last film Leviathan was even better) is many things at once. It is a film that deepens as it goes along, and becomes a portrait of modernity and technology and parenting, but also of a modern Russian society that is fully of apathy. The government institutions in the film are useless and uncaring – but then again, so are the parents. The film takes place mostly in 2012 – and the annexation of Crimea, and the rising tensions with Ukraine, play out in the background – on news reports, and TV – where they go half listened to or ignored. On one side there is an increasingly intolerant religious beliefs being forced down upon people, and on another side there is status and social climbing. All of these are contributing factor when a child goes missing.

 

That child is Alyosha, and his parents Zhenya (Maryana Spivak) and Boris (Aleksey Rozin) are the main characters in the film. Their marriage is all but over when the film begins – they’re trying to sell their apartment, and cannot wait to move on with their lives apart from each other. She’s found an older, richer boyfriend, and wants to move up the social ladder. He’s found a younger, more docile woman, who he has already got pregnant. They argue – loudly – because neither one of them want to take Alyosha – he’d be an inconvenience to them in their new lives, and would just get in the way. Zhenya is openly cruel to her son – saying he cries all the time to strangers looking at the apartment. IF Boris talks with him at all, we don’t see it. Alyosha knows very well he’s not wanted. When he does go missing, neither of his parents notice for two days – they’re busy off in their new lives, and forget about their old one. The police are no help at all, so they reach out to a group of civilian volunteers, who conduct the investigation themselves. This involves a lot of searches of cold apartment buildings, the surrounding forest, and an abandoned Soviet facility that has fallen into disrepair.

 

When the film opens, you think that both Zhenya and Boris are monsters – and to be honest, my opinion of them didn’t really grow more favorable throughout the film. Yet, what Zvyagintsev and his actors have done is to make more human throughout the film. The film doesn’t forgive their actions – but it does show how perhaps they became the people they have become. Boris works for a tech firm, in which he will be fired if anyone discovers he has had a divorce, so he is hoping that a quick divorce, and replacement of one wife and child with another will help. Zhenya is rarely without her phone, and takes many selfies throughout the film (she is hardly alone), and is in a world in which a woman’s primary economic power is still her body – which she uses for own security with her new partner, a rich, lonely man who tags along after her. When we meet her mother (played by Natalya Potapova in a memorable one scene performance), we understand even more why she married Boris in the first place.

 

Loveless is a heavy film – it is an emotional gut punch at times, including one of the most unforgettable shots of the year, where we see just how much Alyosha knows about his parents. It doesn’t get lighter throughout the film (there is only one minor moment of humor - a conversation about a fake wife Boris has with a co-worker). The rest of the film is a document of suffering – much like Leviathan was – and how easy it is for that suffering to go unnoticed, lessons unlearned, and for people to go back to their lives. The end of the film doesn’t off much in the way of way of hope for the future, or that anyone learned from the past. It is a film that once again confirms just how good Zvyagintsev is as a filmmaker – he’s one of the best around at combining the personal and the politic – with devastating results.

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Movie Review: The 15:17 to Paris

The 15:17 to Paris ** / ***** 

Directed by: Clint Eastwood   

Written by: Dorothy Blyskal based on the book by Anthony Sadler and Alek Skarlatos and Spencer Stone and Jeffrey E. Stern.

Starring: Spencer Stone (Airman Spencer Stone), Anthony Sadler (Anthony Sadler), Alek Skarlatos (Specialist Alek Skarlatos), Jenna Fischer (Heidi Skarlatos), Judy Greer (Joyce Eskel), Cole Eichenberger (Young Spencer Stone), Paul-Mikél Williams (Young Anthony Sadler), Bryce Gheisar (Young Alek Skarlatos), Ray Corasani (Ayoub El-Khazzani), Thomas Lennon (School Principal), Jaleel White (Garrett Walden), Tony Hale (Gym Teacher), P.J. Byrne (Mr. Henry - Hallway Monitor).

 

It’s easy to see what drew 87 year old icon Clint Eastwood to the story of three young Americans, two of them in the armed forces, who happened to be a train from Amsterdam to Paris when a terrorist, armed with an assault rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, tried to carry out a deadly attack – only to be foiled by those three men, with the assistance of others on board the train. It is a story of everyday heroism and how violence is sometimes necessary to prevent even worse violence. But Eastwood never really finds his way into the material here, never really figures out what he’s trying to say with the film. Eastwood’s films have always been about violence – its causes and its effects, and while his films often argue violence is necessary, they also usually argue that it comes with some sort of cost. This film never gets that chance, as it climaxes with the violence, and then has a hasty reconstructed ceremony honoring the heroes, and then just ends. The attack itself is handled very well by Eastwood – most of what leads up to it is horribly awkward.

 

Part, but not all, of that awkwardness comes from the fact that Eastwood cast the real life people – Spencer Stone, Anthony Sadler and Alek Skarlatos – to play themselves. There are directors who excel at working with non-professionals, and drawing great performances out of them – but Eastwood is not one of them (I cannot help but think that Eastwood’s famous quick shooting style of only liking one or two takes cannot help amateurs, who clearly don’t know what they’re doing). All three performances are awkward – although at a certain point, they also become somewhat charming. Perhaps it’s because the dialogue for some the pros is so brutally awful, that they don’t come across any better (poor Jenna Fischer and Judy Greer can do absolutely nothing with their roles). The film spends an absurd amount of time on the three young men in high school (middle school?) as all three of them get into trouble, but find each other as friends – and remain so, even when circumstances force them apart. This segment has a whole lot of wonderful actors – Thomas Lennon, Jaleel White, Tony Hale, P.J. Bryne – show up for a scene or two, and then disappear having not done very much.

 

The rest of the movie is about the trio as they travel through Europe – Italy, Berlin, and Amsterdam- on a collision course with that train we know they will eventually get on. Eastwood has many gifts as a director – making a casual, hangout film isn’t one of them (I would love to see behind the scenes footage of Eastwood at that club in Amsterdam though if some exists).

 

What’s most disappointing to me about The 15:17 to Paris though is how simple Eastwood makes this all seem – how straight forward. Eastwood is a conservative filmmaker to be sure, but over the years, his films have taken more pointed shots at violence, patriotism and heroism than most liberal filmmakers have. He has rarely depicted even violence as one sided (the criticism that drove me nuts about American Sniper is that Eastwood had made a career of “white hats” and “black hats” – clearly defined characters of good and evil, which make me wonder if those saying that had seen any of his films at all). His last truly great films – Flags of Our Father and Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) were two sides of the same coin – showing both the American and Japanese version of that battle, the American version really questioning how America identifies and celebrate war heroes, and the Japanese side showing honor of America’s enemy. The blind spot for Eastwood here is Islamic extremism – a subject he has now tackled twice in American Sniper and The 15:17 to Paris. I didn’t mind that he didn’t have any Iraqis as real characters in American Sniper – that was a film that honed in on the perspective of a man who experienced the war through a sniper rifle, at a distance, when the enemies would have been faceless. There is no such excuse in The 15:17 to Paris – where the heroes get up close and personal with the terrorist. He is as faceless as the enemies in American Sniper – we have no idea what led him to that train or why. Eastwood, it seems, doesn’t care.

 

I really do hope that Eastwood sticks around for a while longer, and directs some more films. When he goes, he will leave a hole in Hollywood that will be impossible to fill. Having said that, it’s pretty hard to argue that The 15:17 to Paris is one of the worst films Eastwood has ever directed – a misjudged film, made a filmmaker without the skillset to pull it off. You want to admire it for all sorts of reasons, but it just isn’t very good.

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Movie Review: Blame

Blame *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Quinn Shephard.

Written by: Laurie Shephard & Quinn Shephard.

Starring: Quinn Shephard (Abigail Grey), Nadia Alexander (Melissa Bowman), Chris Messina (Jeremy Woods), Trieste Kelly Dunn (Jennifer), Tate Donovan (Robert McCarthy), Owen Campbell (TJ), Geneva Carr (Mrs. Howell), Tessa Albertson (Ellie Redgrave), Luke Slattery (Eric), Sarah Mezzanotte (Sophie Grant).

 

Blame was written and directed by, as well as starring, Quinn Shephard, who was only 22 when she made the film, and younger than that when she wrote it. It does suffer from some of the same flaws as many debut filmmakers do – in that Shephard tries to cram everything she ever wanted to say about high school and teenagers into one movie – and yet it’s still a fairly remarkable debut. Whatever problems the screenplay has, Shephard’s direction more than makes up for – the film get more dreamlike as it goes along, and yet Shephard is able to get a mounting sense of dread throughout. I wasn’t thrilled with the ending, but given the various ways things could have gone, its better than it could have been.

 

In the film, Shephard plays Abigail Grey – a young woman entering her senior year in high school. During her junior year, she had some mental issues, and was institutionalized for them – but her parents are convinced she is ready to come back to class. She is, of course, mocked and made fun of – called Sybil by her peers, after the book and TV show from the 1970s (this may be stretching credibility here – I’m not sure people in my high school 20 years ago would have gotten that reference). She makes a one connection in her school – with the new drama teacher, Jeremy Woods (Chris Messina). Woods, a failed actor, loves the theater, and looks forward to putting on play. He puts aside what he’s supposed to be working on – The Glass Menagerie (another touchstone for the Abigail character) and instead decides to do The Crucible – casting Abigail as her namesake, and eventually taking on the role of John Proctor himself (this is a horrible idea, for many reasons that should have been apparent to everyone). Their relationship becomes much too close.

 

The other major character is Melissa (Nadia Alexander), the head of the popular cheerleader crowd (although she’s kind of a goth cheerleader, which seems like a contradiction, but some works). She leads the torment against Abigail, and steps it up more than a little bit when Abigail gets the role she wanted. She’s also drinking, partying, betraying her friends, and fighting with her father (Tate Donovan). She is clearly messed up, and spiraling out of control.

 

As you can tell, Shephard’s film is jammed packed with the issues she’s trying to tackle – mental illness, bullying, peer pressure, teacher-student relationships, pedophilia, etc, etc. A better, more confident film may have just focused on a few of these aspects. In particular, I was struck by how Shephard is able to show the competition between teen girls, how they put each other down, how they compete for the same boys, and look to them to get a sense of self-worth, that can easily be destroyed. It’s a sad, destructive cycle, and it’s one Shephard gets right. The relationship between Jeremy and Abigail is strong as well – what she doesn’t know about him is that he is a weak, somewhat pathetic guy, who cannot resist the admiration she stares at him with. Messina still makes him real though – and although I think the film finds him too sympathetic, it’s a fascinating performance.

 

The screenplay for the film is too obvious – it wears its inspirations on its sleeve, and draws its lines a little too neatly. Yet the direction really does shine here – Shephard isn’t showing off in her more stylistic moments, but she is showing just how what an eye she has for capturing interesting moments, and visuals. She is also able to get strong performances out of her whole cast – including herself. In short, while I don’t think Blame is a great movie – it is a great debut. The fact that Shephard did it all when was just 22 shows her skill, and potential, to make something truly great one day.

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Movie Review: Thelma

Thelma **** / *****

Directed by: Joachim Trier.

Written by: Eskil Vogt & Joachim Trier.

Starring: Eili Harboe (Thelma), Kaya Wilkins (Anja), Ellen Dorrit Petersen (Unni), Henrik Rafaelsen (Trond), Grethe Eltervåg (Young Thelma).

 

If you can imagine Stephen King’s Carrie directed by Ingmar Bergman, who can get close to seeing what Joachim Trier is going for with his film Thelma. This is a horror story, about a teenage girl with psychic powers in the first throes of love and lust, and who naturally loses control over everything, without really realizing it. The first scene in the film sets things up so we know this isn’t going to be a typical story, as a father and daughter (around 6) go plodding through the snowy forest. The father sites a deer and raises his rifle – his daughter is transfixed by the deer – and doesn’t realize that her father has changed his aim, and is now pointing the gun at the back of her head. Eventually, we will figure out why.

 

But most of the action takes place in the present – where Thelma is a college freshman, away from her parents for the first time. We assume that they are just a little strict – they get nervous if she doesn’t immediately answer their phone calls, and know her class schedule better than she does – and even comes down to stay with her, in her apartment, on a weekend. The whole family is religious, and while it doesn’t seem to be the fire and brimstone type Christianity of Carrie, it is quietly strict. Things seem to be going okay with Thelma – she’s lonely, but smart – until she becomes friends – and then more – with Anja (Kaya Wilkins). Whatever has been lying dormant in Thelma is suddenly not dormant anymore.

 

On the surface, Thelma is a genre film – a horror film going over some well-worn terrain, combining the coming-of-age, sexual awakening of a teenage girl, and unleashing of her power upon those around her. Trier, however, takes this story seriously (perhaps a touch too seriously – I’ll get to that), making a film that really does look at this young woman, her faith, her sexuality, her family, her past and letting it play out as naturally and realistically as it can, given Thelma’s powers. None of the deaths or action is played for thrills at all. The film ends up, perhaps, where you expect it to, but it takes a different, more serious route there.

 

This approach mostly works for me – but left a few nagging complaints for me. For one, I don’t think Trier needs to spend as much as he does showing Thelma playing detective looking into her family history – savvy audience members will get there before the film even starts, so move it along. As well, it always bugs me a little – just a little – when filmmakers making a genre film seem to think that theirs is “above” the genre, and therefore doesn’t want to offer any of the baser pleasures of the genre. Carrie is a masterpiece of its kind, has a lot to say about its subject – but doesn’t hold itself above the genre. Same with Raw. Thelma wants to cloak some of those genre trappings behind a prestige sheen.

 

Still, that’s a minor complaint – and something that didn’t bother me much when watching the film. This is an engrossing film, and one that is expertly directed by Trier – more than making up for his thuddingly dull English language debut Louder Than Bombs a few years ago. Eili Harboe is terrific in the lead role as well, delivering a sympathetic performance, even as the film goes along, and she starts making increasingly questionable choices. She slowly reels you in, as does the film. I just wish Trier had loosened the reigns just a little bit – and let the genre loose.

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Movie Review: My Friend Dahmer

My Friend Dahmer *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Marc Meyers.

Written by: Marc Meyers based on the book by Derf Backderf.

Starring: Ross Lynch (Jeffrey Dahmer), Alex Wolff (John "Derf" Backderf), Anne Heche (Joyce Dahmer), Dallas Roberts (Lionel Dahmer), Vincent Kartheiser (Dr. Matthews), Tommy Nelson (Neil), Harrison Holzer (Mike).

 

As almost any film about Jeffrey Dahmer would have to be, My Friend Dahmer is not an easy movie to watch. This is a movie that ends with Dahmer still at the age of 18 – a few weeks after high school ended - his first victim just getting into his car. He would claim 16 more victims in the next 12 years, before he was arrested – his crimes, because of their brutality, and because they involved cannibalism, and perhaps because they involved homosexuality (something that may allowed them to go undetected, as the police didn’t seem to care much about that community in the 1980s). There is not a lot of violence in My Friend Dahmer – he does some icky things with roadkill, but it’s not graphic, and he kills a fish, but again, it’s not really graphic. The film is hard to watch mainly because we in the audience know just how deeply disturbed this teenager is – and no one else in the film seems to notice. They think he’s weird or strange, but they mainly ignore him – so lost in their own worlds, and own problems to notice this kid. You could barely call him an outcast at school – he was more like a ghost no one really noticed. The film is mainly about his senior year in high school – the brief friendship he had with another student, who years later would go on to make a graphic novel about that time, that would be adapted into this movie.

 

Ross Lynch (probably in an effort to distance himself from his Disney show Austin & Ally) plays Dahmer as a lanky, silent, unknowable kid. If he’s not being picked on in school, no one notices him as he silently plods down the hallways at school, not unlike Frankenstein. At home, his parents don’t have much more time for him. His mother, Joyce (Anne Heche), clearly has a mental illness herself, and his downtrodden father Lionel (Dallas Roberts) is exhausted from dealing with her, and his job. He is the only one who realizes something isn’t quite right about Jeffrey, but just thinks its shyness – not anything more than that. Perhaps in a desperate, last ditch effort for some sort of attention, Dahmer starts acting out at school – throwing “fits” – acting like he’s having seizures, or just yelping and making noise. This draws the attention of Derf (Alex Wolff) and his friends – who take Dahmer as their “mascot”. They think he’s hilarious – only gradually realizing he’s more damaged than they thought. Then, it’s not so funny.

 

The movie, smartly, doesn’t make the case that any of these things are the reason why Dahmer became the serial killer he would become – although it does make the case that it didn’t really help. Dahmer is suffering from whatever he would always suffer from at the outset of the movie, and while it gets worse throughout the film – as does his burgeoning alcoholism – it’s not really the reason any of this happens. The movie drops in some hints and reference from those of us who know more of the details about what Dahmer would do (like the scene where Dallas Roberts, in a sad attempt to bond with his son, gives him the barbells he will use to kill his first victim).

 

Ross is very good as Dahmer – even if the performance is a little one note by design. Dahmer, like all psychopaths, lack the ability to feel empathy or sympathy, or really much of anything – and here at least, he hasn’t really learned how to fake it. He is hardly a charming psychopath – everyone thinks he’s weird – but he flat and emotionless more than anything. Wolff is quite good as Derf as well – a typical, idiot teenager who thinks stupid, and to be honest downright mean and cruel, things are funny, without registering them as that way. A turning point for him may well a scene at the mall – where he has taken up a collection to get Jeffrey to “Do a Dahmer” – and he takes it so far that all of a sudden it doesn’t seem to so funny anymore. If you think you’re laughing with someone, and not at them, make sure they’re laughing too.

 

More than anything, My Friend Dahmer is a sad movie. The production design captures the depressing side of suburban 1970s – full of dull browns and faded colors. It presents a world in which no one really notices a kid who is clearly damaged – except for the other kids, who cannot put into words what is bothering them, so instead, they simply walk away.

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Movie Review: On Body and Soul

On Body and Soul *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Ildikó Enyedi.

Written by: Ildikó Enyedi.

Starring: Géza Morcsányi (Endre), Alexandra Borbély (Mária), Zoltán Schneider (Jenö), Ervin Nagy (Sanyi), Tamás Jordán (Mária's doctor), Zsuzsa Járó (Zsuzsa), Réka Tenki (Klára), Júlia Nyakó (Rózsi).

 

On Body and Soul is a strange film – certainly one of the strangest to be nominated for a Foreign Language Film Oscar in the last few years. The Academy often appreciates foreign films that feel like Hollywood films, just in another language (this year’s The Insult is very much like that) – but On Body and Soul, from Hungary’s Ildikó Enyedi is one of the odder films you’ll see this. The film takes some weird tonal and narrative shifts as it shifts gears through its nearly two hour run time – not all of them work, admittedly – but you admire the effort that went into them anyway.

 

The film takes place at a Budapest slaughterhouse. Endre (Géza Morcsányi) is the de facto boss, although he’s really just an equivalent to a CFO for the place. When they hire a new quality control supervisor, Maria (Alexandra Borbély), he is drawn to her – she is a beautiful blonde woman after all – but so is so painfully shy and introverted that their conversations don’t go anywhere. But when some drugs are stolen, and it’s clear an inside job, the cops suggest they hire a psychologist to interview all the employees. The psychologist (Reka Tenki) discovers that both Endre and Maria are having the same dreams – that they are the pair of deers we’ve been seeing throughout – and thinks the two are mocking her. They aren’t however – they are somehow sharing their strange dreams.

 

I won’t go on more about the plot – it does some odd twists and turns throughout the runtime, not all of them convincing. In particular, I wish that Maria was a little bit more well-rounded than she turns out being – she gets off to an interesting start here, but in the last act in particular, the film tries to “explain” her issues more than it needs to, and makes her less interesting as a result.

 

But even if I wasn’t always sold on the narrative, you have to admire the filmmaking through, which is exceptional. This is Ildikó Enyedi’s return to feature filmmaking after an 18-year absence, but she has lost none of her chops in that time. The camera is slow moving, or stationary throughout the film, but doesn’t look away at anything that happens. The film does take place in a slaughterhouse, and if you don’t want to see cows being killed there, then this isn’t your movie (the end credits say that while animals were harmed during filming, none of them were harmed because of the film – meaning essentially, they were just allowed to film cows that were already going to be killed anyway. I’m not quite sure these scenes were necessary – they are there to shock after all, but it’s been nearly 70 years since Georges Franju’s infamous documentary short Le sang des betes (1949), and many other films in that time have showed basically the same thing. It’s still disturbing to watch sure, and it offers a contrast to the more subdued story, but still.

 

The film, is many ways, a rather subtle, subdued love story. Like Phantom Thread, it is about two damaged people, who make not make sense without anyone except each other – but adds in an interesting question if these two are right for each other only in their dreams. Ultimately, I’m not quite sure where all this ends up in the film – it almost feels like Enyedi writes herself into a corner, and can’t quite figure a way out. Still, the film is beautifully film, and very well-acted – and one of the stranger films of the year. Movies don’t need to answer all the questions they raised – they’re often better that way.

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Movie Review: Professor Marston and the Wonder Women

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Angela Robinson.

Written by: Angela Robinson.

Starring: Luke Evans (William Moulton Marston), Rebecca Hall (Elizabeth Marston), Bella Heathcote (Olive Byrne), Connie Britton (Josette Frank), Monica Giordano (Mary), JJ Feild (Charles Guyette), Chris Conroy (Brant Gregory), Oliver Platt (M.C. Gaines).

 

It’s somewhat interesting that the reason why people will be interested in William Moulton Marston and his two loves – his wife Elizabeth, and their girlfriend Olive – is because he is the creator of Wonder Woman, and those two women and their relationship inspired him – is really almost an afterthought in the film Professor Marston and the Wonder Women. Afterthought may be a bit harsh, but it certainly is more beneath the surface than you would expect. If it wasn’t for the frustrating narrative device used throughout the film – and cutting back and forth between 1945, and the years preceding it, Wonder Woman wouldn’t come at all until very late in the film. That’s not a bad thing at all in this case, because it allows you see Wonder Woman emerge slowly out of this relationship. Too much of the rest of the film is too on the nose to be a truly great film, but I appreciated this part.

 

The film takes place in the years between 1928 and 1945. When it opens, William Marston (Luke Evans) is a Professor of Psychology at Radcliffe, trying to get his own theory – DISC (Dominance, Inducement, Submission and Compliance) to take (it never really does). His wife, Elizabeth (Rebecca Hall) is smarter than her husband, but has the handicap of being a woman – meaning even though she has done all the same work, she cannot get a PhD – and is basically stuck assisting her husband’s work. Between the two of them though, they make a great team – he’s charming and funny, she is more serious and smart. They do great work together. Into their lives enters Olive (Bella Heathcote), a young student who becomes their teaching assistant – helping them in their research. It’s clear from the start that William is attracted to her, but it becomes clear that all of them are attracted to each other. Eventually, they start living the type of life that many would still look down on today – and certainly would have at that time.

 

What makes the movie is the chemistry between the three leads. The film works best when it leaves them alone enough to engage in various flirtations, conversations – and eventually, sex scenes, that become gradually more kinky. The best scenes are probably the earlier ones, involving an early prototype of the lie detector machine. The trio use it to expose various truths about each other, in scenes that tense and erotic at the same time. These scenes are almost more sexual than the actual sex scenes when they come around.

 

The film is far from perfect. For the most part, I’m tired of the biopic cliché in which we flash back and forth in time – especially when the main subject of the film is in some sort of interview or interrogation looking back on their life (it worked in Phantom Thread, in part because it wasn’t a biopic, and in larger part, because they’ basically serve to make everything more idiosyncratic). Here, William is being interrogated by Josette Frank (Connie Britton) who wants to shut down Wonder Woman, because of all the sexuality and bondage in the seemingly innocent comic book character. It adds nothing to the film overall, and I think underlines everything about the relationship too much. The dialogue also is a little too on the nose as well – Evans at one point is about one step away from saying together, Olive and Rebecca ARE Wonder Woman.

 

And yet, overall, director Angela Robinson does a fine job exploring this unconventional relationship, and how it led to the creation of one of the most iconic and beloved of all superheroes. The film is also fun, funny, incredibly sexy, has three great performances, and looks great. What more do you want?

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Movie Review: BPM (Beats Per Minute)

BPM (Beats Per Minute) **** / *****

Directed by: Robin Campillo.

Written by: Robin Campillo and Philippe Mangeot.

Starring: Nahuel Pérez Biscayart (Sean Dalmazo), Arnaud Valois (Nathan), Adèle Haenel (Sophie), Antoine Reinartz (Thibault), Ariel Borenstein (Jérémie), Félix Maritaud (Max), Aloïse Sauvage (Eva), Simon Bourgade (Luc), Médhi Touré (Germain), Simon Guélat (Markus), Coralie Russier (Muriel), Catherine Vinatier (Hélène), Théophile Ray (Marco), Saadia Bentaïeb (Mère de Sean).

 

The French film BPM (Beats Per Minute) combines the political and the personal in a way that reminds viewer that the two are forever intertwined, and we should expect nothing different. The film takes place in the early 1990s, and focuses on the Paris chapter of ACT UP – the AIDS organization that, through various means, put pressure on governments and pharmaceutical companies to get treatment to the many people living with HIV, and dying when they got AIDS as a result.

 

The film starts out in macro, showing us the group as a whole, first at a protest when they storm the stage of a government spokesperson, and then in the weekly ACT UP meeting, where the various people involved dissect what happened, and disagree about its effectiveness. It’s clear from these scenes that not everyone agrees on what to do, or how to proceed. Various people start to stand out in the crowd. The group’s de facto leader is Thibault (Antoine Reinartz), who wants to take a more diplomatic approach – reaching agreements with the government and pharma companies in a non-confrontational way. Sean (Nahuel Perez Biscayart) is almost the exact opposite – wanting to push these groups buttons, and force them to do something, and rub their nose in the effects that their policies are having on real people. Sophie (Adele Haenel) is somewhere in between – seeing the value in both positions, but definitely willing to get her hands dirty. While most in the group are gay men – many living with the disease – that isn’t true of everyone. Among the groups other few female members is Helene (Catherine Vinatier), who is there for her 16-year-old who has the disease, which he got through a blood transfusion.

 

A new face, Nathan (Arnaud Valois) shows up, and will change the course of the movie. He gets more and more involved in the group sure – and has a voice – but at first he is relatively quiet. He isn’t HIV positive, which draws some suspicion, but he gradually gets closer to the action. He also falls in love with Sean, and the two men’s relationship forms the emotional core of the film. The last act basically abandons ACT UP to focus on their relationship, as Sean gets sicker and sicker.

 

The film is incredibly dense in terms of its dialogue – particularly in the beginning – and it takes a while to really find your footing in the film, to get to know the characters, and get on the films wavelength. In the earlier going, the film is built around the various meetings – most of which will grow contentious, and arguments are common – and the various actions the group takes. It’s quite impressive how co-writer/director Robin Campillo, navigates these scenes so that you’re not lost in them. I actually liked this part of the film more than the final act. When the focus on the movie switches to the relationship between Sean and Nathan, the film still works, but it’s also more conventional. The point here is to show that the politics in the film are personal – and have real consequences to those involved. It works, but it also feels like other films we’ve seen before – while the first two acts felt like something different, and more complex.

 

Still, BPM never feels any less than vital and important, and although the film runs nearly two-and-a-half hours, it never grows dull or repetitive – it earns that runtime throughout, and makes an important statement – not just about the past, but also the present.

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Movie Review: Happy End

Happy End **** / *****

Directed by: Michael Haneke.

Written by: Michael Haneke.

Starring: Isabelle Huppert (Anne Laurent), Jean-Louis Trintignant (Georges Laurent), Mathieu Kassovitz (Thomas Laurent), Fantine Harduin (Eve Laurent), Franz Rogowski (Pierre Laurent), Laura Verlinden (Anaïs), Aurélia Petit (Nathalie), Toby Jones (Lawrence Bradshaw), Hassam Ghancy (Rachid), Nabiha Akkari (Jamila). 

 

Austrian director Michael Haneke may bristle at the suggestion that his latest film – Happy End – is a kind of “greatest hits” package of his career – but it’s certainly easy to see why many critics have said something along those lines. There are elements here of films like Benny’s Video, Amour, Code Unknown, The Piano Teacher and The White Ribbon. I say this not as a criticism of the film – like some have – but rather an acknowledgment that Haneke is still addressing his pet themes, and doing it all in one, strange package. While Happy End doesn’t join the ranks of his masterworks (including The Piano Teacher, The White Ribbon, Amour and his best film, Cache) – the suggestion that it’s somehow a bad film from the filmmaker is silly. He is still trying to, and succeeding in, provoking a response from his audience – and technically, the film is quite different from what he has done before – simpler, more pared down and without the beauty that often accompanies his images. He has made a film for the Snapchat generation, and done so using the same kind of style – and odd for a 75 year old, he does it without coming across as embarrassingly out of touch (something the much younger Jason Reitman wasn’t able to do in Men, Women and Children).

 

The film revolves around the wealthy Laurent family who runs a construction business is Calais. The company has seen better days financially – and to top it off, Anne (Isabelle Huppert), who now runs it, has to deal with the fallout of an accident that killed one of her workers, which may have been caused by the negligence of her son, Pierre (Franz Rogowski), who she put in charge of the site. Her father, George (Jean-Louis Trintignant) used to run the company, but is now 85, and started to lose his mind to dementia – and his determined to die before that happens. His son, Thomas (Mathieu Kassovitz), is one his second wife – the painfully shy and quiet Anais (Laura Verlinden) – and they have an infant son, although he is cheating on his wife with an older woman – who we meet through her lengthy chats with him on Facebook – which are kinky to say the least. All of these people are already fairly messed up – and that’s before Eve (Fantine Harduin) re-enters their lives. She is Thomas’ 13-year-old daughter from her first marriage, who hasn’t been around in recent years. She has been living with her mother – who we see in the film’s opening scenes, in videos that Eve herself shoots on her phone. First, it’s just her mother going through her bedtime routine – but then it becomes darker, as she stumbles around, and Eve admits, in voiceover, to poisoning her mother with pills. Whether she meant to just make her sick, or kill her the film never states – but she does end up in a coma, and Eve comes to live with Thomas.

 

Happy End is a film that refuses to draw the lines between the dots that Haneke is placing throughout the film – you are left in the audience to do that, even more than in Haneke’s other films. None of these characters are innocent – but they are all completely self-involved. Their motivations are often obscured in the film (like, for instance, why Huppert’s Anne is marrying a British banker, played by the short, balding Toby Jones).

 

The film jumps around a lot – it’s not quite a series of vignettes like previous Haneke films Code Unknown or 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance, but it feels like that at times. All the characters are interesting, but the best performances belong to the youngest and oldest of the cast members. The great Trintgnant, now in his late 80s, plays a character very much like his one in Amour (we don’t realize just how much until late in the film). The film examines how someone like him can deal with the things he has done – and he is now looking for someone to essentially do the same thing for him. In Harduin, Haneke has made a real discovery, as Eve is the most complex character in the film. At first, you may feel that she is essentially a female version of the main character from Benny’s Video – a little psychopath, using technology as a way to keep a distance from the things she has done. But as the film progresses, it gets messier than that – she becomes a more complex character, whose motivations are not so clear cut. She would likely fit in with the kids in The White Ribbon, or even the son in Cache, who know the sins of their parents, and punish them for those sins.

 

Happy End has a fairly blunt visual look for a Haneke film – he almost shot it like a TV movie in many respects, from the aspect ratio, to the lighting. There are a few of his great long takes, he is going for something more direct this time. It works for this film, even if I hope he goes from something more akin to some of his other work in the future. Not everything in the film works as well as it should – Haneke’s ultimate point here seems to be that we are all so self-obsessed we do not see the larger suffering in the world, and to make his point, he uses the current refugee crisis. This comes to a head in a climaxing scene – but it doesn’t really work that well. Haneke’s point is stronger when it’s more focused in Happy End – after all, the individual Laurent family members are not just blind to the suffering in the wider world – they’re blind to the suffering within their own family.

 

Ultimately, if Happy End is a disappointment from Haneke it’s only because we’ve become accustomed to him making masterpieces more often than not over the past 20 years. Happy End isn’t that, but even lesser Haneke is better than most filmmakers at their very best.

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Movie Review: A Polka King

The Polka King *** / *****

Directed by: Maya Forbes.

Written by: Maya Forbes & Wallace Wolodarsky.

Starring: Jack Black (Jan Lewan), Jenny Slate (Marla Lewan), Jason Schwartzman (Mickey Pizzazz), Jacki Weaver (Barb), Vanessa Bayer (Binki Bear), J. B. Smoove (Ron Edwards), Robert Capron (David Lewan).

 

The story The Polka King tells won’t be surprising to anyone who has seen as many episodes of American Greed as I have (whether they did one on this story or not, I don’t know – but its right up their ally). A seemingly nice guy starts taking donations from elderly people he knows, promising high interest returns on their money. Then, of course, he has to start taking in more and more money from more and more investors in order to keep the scheme going. It’s a classic Ponzi scheme, and those all come crashing down eventually, because they must. A few things make the Ponzi scheme perpetrated by Jan Lewan different – first, he was a Polish immigrant, second he seems like a legitimately nice guy, third he didn’t spend money on a lavish lifestyle for himself, and fourth, he was a well-known figure in Pennsylvania because of his Polka music. He really wanted the American dream – he just couldn’t get it the legal way.

 

The movie detailing his story is more than a little bit of a tonal free-for-all, and seems to be lacking in some very basic details about what Lewan did, and how (the biggest may well how he really did get his tour group to meet the Pope). It is buoyed by a number of energetic performances however, that keep the film from ever getting boring. Front and center is Jack Black as Jan Lewan himself – a big goofy smile plastered on his face, as he fronts his Polka band, and basically while he does everything else in his life. He is a devoted husband to Marla (Jenny Slate), who loves him, and has delusions of grandeur to match him, and father to their son David. Everyone it seems like Jan, except his mother-in-law Barb (Jacki Weaver) – going even more over-the-top than anyone else in the film (which is saying something) – who doesn’t trust him for a minute. Even the government agent who shuts down Lewan’s initial scheme (JB Smoove), likes the guy – and basically forgets about for years, after Jan convinces him he shut down his illegal investing business. Jan has that effect on people – you really be a criminal.

 

The film is directed by Maya Forbes, who struggles a little bit with the tone of the film, which is more often than not as big and broad as Black’s Jan Lewan himself. Mostly, that works, but the film takes some darker twists as it moves along – as it must – and Forbes struggles to find the right notes there. The last act of the movie is a mess in many ways – not least because it doesn’t feel like anyone is all that concerned with the details of what Lewan did.

 

Still, the film is mostly an interesting watch for the performances alone. Black is capable of doing this type of character in his sleep – Lewan fits in nicely alongside a performance like the one he gave in Richard Linklater’s Bernie (his career best work) – but he goes all in, as does Slate, especially as she tries to become a beauty queen, and Weaver. Jason Schwartzman is a nice counterbalancing performance – everyone else goes big, so he goes small – even as he explains how he wants to change his name to Mickey Pizzazz.

 

The Polka King does succeed in telling an odd story that you probably wouldn’t believe if someone made it up. It’s weird and strange, and while I don’t think it’s altogether successful, it’s an entertaining attempt at making a Polka version of The Wolf of Wall Street – and you probably aren’t getting that anywhere else.

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Movie Review: The Post

The Post **** / *****

Directed by: Steven Spielberg.

Written by: Liz Hannah and Josh Singer.

Starring: Meryl Streep (Kay Graham), Tom Hanks (Ben Bradlee), Sarah Paulson (Tony Bradlee), Bob Odenkirk (Ben Bagdikian), Tracy Letts (Fritz Beebe), Bradley Whitford (Arthur Parsons), Bruce Greenwood (Robert McNamara), Matthew Rhys (Daniel Ellsberg), Alison Brie (Lally Graham), Carrie Coon (Meg Greenfield), Jesse Plemons (Roger Clark), David Cross (Howard Simons), Zach Woods (Anthony Essaye), Pat Healy (Phil Geyelin), Michael Stuhlbarg (Abe Rosenthal).

 

The Post is a good example of why Steven Spielberg is arguably the most successful filmmaker in history – he makes everything he does look effortless. The Post is a film that could very well get mired in prestige movie cliché, and there are times when it seems like it’s about to slip down that slope and get there – and every time Spielberg and company pull it out. The movie moves at a brisk pace for not quite two hours, and makes exciting a story that is basically people in rooms talking, based on a true story in which we all already know the result. Yes, the screenplay by Liz Hannah and Josh Singer occasionally strains for contemporary resonance a little too much – the film wants you to think about current President Donald Trump as much as the President at the time in the movie, Richard Nixon, and isn’t overly subtle about it. But it’s all wrapped up in such an entertaining package, you hardly care.

 

The film is about the Pentagon Papers – those Top Secret documents, that Daniel Ellsberg smuggled out to try and get to the public so they could know the truth about the Vietnam War – essentially, that the government knew in 1965 the war was unwinnable, but they kept right on sending troops to fight and die anyway for years, because no one wanted to be at the helm when they had to admit America lost a war. The New York Times started publishing stories based on these papers, and then were barred by a court awaiting final decision. This movie is about The Washington Post – who get their hands on the same papers, after the Times is barred, and has to decide whether or not to publish. Doing so could result in the Washington Post being shut down, and criminal charges for those involved.

 

The movie focuses on two characters. The first Kay Graham (Meryl Streep), the publisher of the Washington Post, who has had to take the job over after her husband’s suicide, and feels tremendous weight to keep the paper her father founded running. The second is Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks), the now infamous Editor of the Post, whose goal is to publish, to uphold the First Amendment, and keep Nixon’s feet to the fire. Between them is an army of reports and lawyers and advisers, pushing and pulling them in different directions.

 

This is Streep’s best performance in years. I’ve been struck over the years that although Streep is undeniably one of the greatest actresses of all time, she hasn’t always been in great films, or worked with great directors. Part of this is undeniably the sexist nature of Hollywood – the biggest directors are men, who make films about men, so Streep is stuck either being a supporting player to inferior men, or the lead in somewhat lesser films. Part of it is Streep though – she loves to do these larger than life roles – and sometimes that results in her sucking all the air of a film for herself – the movie becomes about the Streep performance more than the film itself. Here, she gives a quieter, more nuanced performance – as a woman who is unsure of herself, in large part, because she is surrounded by men, all of whom think they clearly know better than she does how to run her business. She has to trust her own judgment when nobody else does. She’s a strong woman, no less so because of the vulnerability she brings to the character.

 

Hanks isn’t quite as good as Bradlee – but he’s close. Normally Hanks plays good guys – and Ben Bradlee is one too – although he’s also more of a stubborn asshole than Hanks normally plays (the fact that he’s right doesn’t make him less of an asshole). There aren’t as many notes for Hanks to play as Streep gets – and he doesn’t come close to topping Jason Robards in All the President’s Men in terms of the ultimate Bradlee performance – but it’s more solid work from Hanks, who like his director here, specializes in making things look effortless. The two are supported by a great cast – Bob Odenkirk, David Cross (Mr. Show reunion!), Tracy Letts, Carrie Coon, Matthew Rhys, Jesse Plemons, Bradley Whitford, and on and on – there isn’t a weak performance in the cast. My favorite of these small roles may just be Sarah Paulson – who for much of the film looks like she is not going to get to do anything except be Bradlee’s supportive wife, who gets to make sandwiches when the reports come to her home – and isn’t that a waste to get someone of Paulson’s talent to do that. But then she delivers a short monologue to Bradlee that makes him see Graham in a different light – and really, all women at the time. No, it’s not Michael Stuhlbarg in Call Me By Your Name – but it justifies the casting of the great Paulson.

 

Yes, the movie can feel too on the nose at times – the last few scenes are way too heavy handed, and the few depictions of protests on the streets feel like we’re watching narcs in hippie costumes, not legitimate protests. But The Post is the type of Hollywood movie that no one seems to remember how to make anymore. Spielberg, Streep and Hanks do though – and they pull off a really excellent, entertaining piece of mainstream cinema for adults. That’s one of the rarest things in Hollywood these days.

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"Classic" Movie Review: Yourself & Yours

Yourself & Yours *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Sang-soo Hong.

Written by: Sang-soo Hong 

Starring: You-young Lee (Minjung), Kim Ju-Hyuck (Youngsoo).

 

The more films I see by Korean director Sang-soo Hong, the more I like his films. His last film, Right Now Wrong Then, is my favorite of his work so far – a film that he basically makes twice, with slight differences that completely changes our view on the characters and the events. To follow-up that film, he has made Yourself & Yours, a fascinating, amusing film that at first I thought was simply Hong playing around and having fun – and yet in the days since seeing the film, it has stuck with me more than I thought it would. It is a film that doesn’t really answer the question at its core – and is oddly stronger for it. That question is this: just how many Minjung’s are there in the film? 1, 2 or 3? And does the answer ultimately matter?

 

Like all of Hong’s film, it has a romantic (sometimes would be romantic) couple at its core. This time it’s Younsoo (Kim Ju-Hyuck), a young man who seems completely in love with his girlfriend, Minjung (You-young Lee) – until he starts to hear rumors about her. His friend tells him that he’s heard from others than Minjung likes to go out drinking with him – and when she does, she draws a lot of attention from other men. This information sends Youngsoo into a rage – and when he confronts Minjung with this information, she does not deny it forcefully enough to convince him. She storms out of his apartment, and tell him not to call her for a while. The film then follows the two lead actors after their separation – with Youngsoo regretting his actions, and trying to get back with Minjung - who seems to have disappeared, as he can never find her at work or home, and Minjung, as she seems to validate all those rumors about herself, as we do see her out drinking, numerous times, with different men. Yet, if she is ever confronted by anyone who knows Youngsoo – she acts as if she doesn’t know who they are, and that her name isn’t Minjung. Then late in the film, the first man we saw this Minjung with confronts another Minjung with another man (a filmmaker, of course, this being Hong someone has to be a filmmaker) – and again, she acts as if she doesn’t know him. It is this Minjung who will eventually come back to Youngsoo – but is she the same Minjung who left him in the first place?

 

The film is amusing to watch, as Minjung takes control of the narrative, and in many ways is the most honest character in the film – even if she is blatantly lying at times (if she is just one person, she lies constantly). Yet, the thesis of the movie may well be her line she tells to one of her boyfriend’s “I’ve never met a truly impressive man”. The line draws a laugh when she says – as does that entire scene, as she is breaking up with him so honestly and brightly that it almost seems cruel. Yet, by the end of the film, she may have found that man in Youngsoo – who because of their time apart actually has grown, and become, at least less of a fool than when the movie begins. The film may ultimately be about how we can never really know another person – that what makes them themselves is something that is only known to themselves alone – but at the end of the film, Youngsoo is smart enough to at least realize this.

 

Ultimately, I’m not sure Yourself & Yours rises to the level of Hong’s best work – I still prefer Right Now, Wrong Then and The Day He Arrives (although, admittedly, Hong has been one of the most prolific directors in world cinema, and he has a large back catalogue of films I haven’t seen) – but it’s more impressive than it first appeared to be. It’s made with his trademark style – lots of long, unmoving, unbroken shots, frequent zoom-ins, and lots of drinking (although, this time it’s beer not soju – the significance of the difference, and I’m sure there is one, is lost on me). Yet he pushes the film into some very interesting territory. The more films of his I see, the more films I want to see.

 

Note: I saw this film at TIFF 2016 and wrote this review then. The film still hasn’t come out in North America since – and at this point, probably won’t, so rather than sit on the review, I thought I’d post it.

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