Movie Review: Phantom Thread

Phantom Thread ***** / *****

Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson.

Written by: Paul Thomas Anderson.

Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis (Reynolds Woodcock), Vicky Krieps (Alma), Lesley Manville (Cyril), Richard Graham (George Riley), Camilla Rutherford (Johanna), Harriet Sansom Harris (Barbara Rose), Brian Gleeson (Dr. Robert Hardy), Julia Davis (Lady Baltimore), Nicholas Mander (Lord Baltimore), Lujza Richter (Princess Mona Braganza), Gina McKee (Countess Henrietta Harding), Philip Franks (Peter Martin), Phyllis MacMahon (Tippy), Silas Carson (Rubio Gurrerro), Martin Dew (John Evans), Jane Perry (Mrs. Vaughan).

 

One of the reasons why Paul Thomas Anderson has been the most exciting filmmaker of his generation is because he seems to be constantly reinventing himself, and his films. His latest film, Phantom Thread, is unlike anything he has done before – it’s kind of a perverse take on the Merchant Ivory prestige film that dominated art houses in the 1980s and 1990s – except one directed by an unholy alliance of Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock and Max Ophuls. It’s the type of film that keeps you on edge, not because it’s a thriller, but because you can never be quite sure what will happen next. The film snaps into focus in the closing moments – but not because there is a twist ending per se – but rather because of something deeper – you understand the central relationship more than you did before - but not completely.

 

The film opens on Alma (Vicky Krieps), who face is bathed in firelight, as she talks about Reynolds – and him making her dreams come true. The film then flashes to Reynolds sometime in the recent past – over breakfast with his sister Cyril (Lesley Manville) – and whoever his current girlfriend is, who it is clear will not be in that position for very long. We then witness the first meeting between Reynolds and Alma – she a waitress in a café near Reynolds’ country home – and him a customer, who gives an absurdly large order, as a means of seduction. They then go to dinner that night – and he brings her home, and continues the seduction – this time, by measuring her for a dress. Reynolds Woodcock is, after all, one of the most famous fashion designers in the world. Cyril comes home, and sees what is going on – and in her way, puts (or tries to anyway) Alma in her place. “You’re perfect” she observes to Alma – “He likes a little belly”.

 

The performances by the three leads are impeccable – as almost all performances are in Anderson’s films. If this really is to be Day-Lewis’ swan song, he has picked a great film to go out on. His Reynolds Woodcock is the first time in years he has played a British character in years (decades, really) – and he slides into the role effortlessly. He is an exacting artist, and someone who needs everything to be perfect, or else it’s useless. He has his routines – and you better not mess with them. In many ways, he is the toxic male artist we’ve heard so much about this year – then again, that’s just the surface level. On the surface level again, Lesley Manville is a delight, essentially playing a Mrs. Danvers like role – quietly looking on from the sidelines, with constant disapproval and judgment. One of the comedic highlights of the film is to always find her in the background – and what she looks like. And yet, that too, doesn’t do full justice to Manville’s Cyril, who isn’t just there, nervous about being replaced. When she tells Reynolds, when his relationship with Alma is in danger of waning, that she likes Alma – she really means it. Relative newcomer Krieps has, in many ways, the hardest role of the trio – as Alma is the most enigmatic character. She has an accent, but no one identities where it’s from (Germany, I guess, but a comment about Jews and visas makes you wonder what her backstory is even more). For much of the film, you wonder about Alma – and her motivations. Is it simply that Reynolds is rich, and she was just a waitress before? Is that why she stays, even as his cruelty towards her increases? There is a turning point, involving mushrooms, where you think everything starts to make more sense – but it’s really the second incident with those mushrooms that does that.

 

The film is impeccably made, as you expect from Anderson. He acted as his own cinematographer this time, and does something rather remarkable with the look of the film – that really does recall the feel of those old Merchant Ivory films. The camera moves more fluidly though than those films at times recalling the tracking shots that made Max Ophuls famous, and at times slowing things down more, like Kubrick. He is aided greatly by the score by Jonny Greenwood – once again doing phenomenal work for Anderson (as he has done for his last four films. There is barely a scene without music underneath (an Anderson trademark) – and it works greatly to help.

 

I find I don’t want to say more about Phantom Thread – if for no other reason than I went in fresh, and was glad for it. The film twists itself several times, but it never feels like a cheat. The ending is the most important part – as it has been in many of Anderson’s films, putting what came before in a different light. On the surface, the film doesn’t seem quite as challenging as The Master or Inherent Vice – and yet, by the end, you realize it’s perhaps even more so – even more enigmatic, in a way that is thrilling, not frustrating. This is the best film of 2017.

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Movie Review: The Insult

The Insult ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Ziad Doueiri.

Written by: Ziad Doueiri & Joelle Touma.

Starring: Adel Karam (Toni Georges), Kamel El Basha (Yasser Abdallah Salame), Camille Salameh, Diamand Bou Abboud, Rita Hayek, Talal Jurdi, Christine Choueiri, Julia Kassar, Rifaat Torbey, Carlos Chahine.

 

The Insult is a movie that takes place in Lebanon, and is about the fallout from a seeming minor conflict between a member of the Christian party, and a Palestinian refugee. The Palestinian – Yasser (Kamel El Basha) has been hired as a construction foreman, and is supposed to fix all the building code violations in the neighborhood. The Christian, Toni (Adel Karam), has one such violation with a leaking drain pipe. Yasser goes to fix it, Toni doesn’t want him to – words are exchanged, and eventually Yasser calls Toni a “fucking prick”. While Yasser’s boss tries to broker peace, he ends up telling Yasser in no uncertain terms that if it comes to it, he will have to apologize to Toni – yet when that meeting is setup, Toni ratchets up the tension saying something insulting and incendiary – and Yasser punches him. Soon, a lawsuit is filed, and what start as a minor conflict, is now national news – a debate over who is right, who is wrong- not just in this argument, but on a grander scale.

 

The film was co-written and directed by Ziad Doueiri, whose last film, The Attack, took place in Israel, and was about a secular Palestinian doctor, who finds out that his Christian wife has become a suicide bomber. Like The Attack, his new film tries to look at things from all sides, and see that things are not as simple as they appear on the surface – there is years of outrage and victimization on both side, that feed into the actions everyone takes. Unlike The Attack however, The Insult doesn’t really work. The problem with The Insult is that it withholds too much information from the audience for too long, just so it can spring it on you at moments designed to shock you. Most of those shock moments don’t work because they either feel unnecessary (like the real identity of the two lawyers battling it out in the lawsuit) or come too late in the film to truly feel like things have been played fair up until that point (the revelation of an incident in Toni’s past). I also do not think that the film is quite as neutral as it pretends to be – while Toni is a fairly complex character, full of both positive and negative qualities, this isn’t extended to Yasser – who is portrayed far more one dimensionally good for most of the movie (really, almost everything after he punches Toni). While it’s certainly easier to sympathize with Yasser – making him a little less of a black and white good guy, could have helped.

 

Yet, while I do think this flaws eventually become too much for the movie to bare, I will say that the film remains an entertaining bad film from beginning to end. There is something comforting about an old school courtroom drama, full of the kind of pyrotechnics and shocks that Law & Order wouldn’t even try and pull off. The performances remain good as well. The whole subplot involving Toni’s pregnant wife lays it on way too thick – but even that has its moments. I can see The Insult becoming an art house hit – it’s the type of foreign language film that people who don’t really like foreign language films will enjoy – essentially, a Hollywood style film, in another language.

 

I do appreciate Doueiri’s approach to his films – trying to find the humanity on both sides – the villains and the heroes, finding they are often the same people. If the approach doesn’t work though, you ending up making the Lebanese equivalent of Crash – and that’s pretty much what happened here. You’re better off watching The Attack than this – far too few of you did when it was released anyway.

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Movie Review: Molly's Game

Molly's Game **** / *****

Directed by: Aaron Sorkin.

Written by: Aaron Sorkin based on the book by Molly Bloom.

Starring: Jessica Chastain (Molly Bloom), Idris Elba (Charlie Jaffey), Kevin Costner (Larry Bloom), Michael Cera (Player X), Jeremy Strong (Dean Keith), Chris O'Dowd (Douglas Downey), J.C. MacKenzie (Harrison Wellstone), Brian d'Arcy James (Brad), Bill Camp (Harlan Eustice), Graham Greene (Judge Foxman).

 

The pleasures of Molly’s Game are almost all surface level – but they are so great, that you likely won’t care that the film isn’t all that deep. This is a two hour and twenty minute, that is almost all dialogue driven – as we would expect from Aaron Sorkin – yet the film still moves like gangbusters, showing us how the title character – Molly Bloom (Jessica Chastain) – once an Olympic hopeful in skiing, ended up building a multi-million dollar poker empire, only to see it all come crashing down when the FBI comes in. The film is so entertaining, that it’s really only at the end of the film that you realize that even though the film is based on a book by the real Bloom – and Sorkin has her narrate the film – that you still don’t really understand her – what makes her tick, or why she did what she did. Yeah, her psychiatrist father (Kevin Costner) diagnoses her late in the film, but it’s only half convincing. Still, that surface is so good, you may not even notice this until you leave the theater.

 

As Molly, Chastain is the best she has been in years (probably since Zero Dark Thirty, which should have won her an Oscar) in a role that seems to be custom made for her. The actress, and the character, knows just how attractive she is, and uses that for all its worth. There is rarely a scene in the film in which Chastain isn’t showing ample cleavage. She knows what she’s selling when she’s selling these high stakes, private poker games filled with celebrities – she’s selling fantasy for overgrown man children. Like in Zero Dark Thirty though, Chastain excels her as somehow who is always the smartest person in the room – a woman, in a man’s world, who completely and totally dominates them. It’s just that this time, she has to let these idiot men think they are in control. She delivers Sorkin’s rapid fire, whip smart dialogue perfectly.

 

She is aided by a couple of fine supporting performances. Best of all is Idris Elba as Charlie Jaffey – the high priced defense lawyer she somehow convinces to take her case, even though she’s broke at the time. Every Sorkin character needs a sparring partner, and that is essentially what Elba provides for Chastain – and does it well. Michael Cera as Player X – a movie star, based on Tobey Maguire – once again twists his nice guy image into one of an entitled asshole, and does it well. Kevin Costner’s role as Molly’s father is somewhat strange – even a little creepy – but he does a fine job with it anyway, once again showing Costner is a better character actor than he ever was a movie star.

 

The film marks Sorkin’s directorial debut – and for the most part, he does the job well behind the camera. The direction is flashy, but not too flashy, it keeps the action moving along briskly, while not stepping on the dialogue. He hasn’t quite figured out the trick that David Fincher did with The Social Network – that is, to craft a more complete movie that isn’t just a showcase for the dialogue – but he comes close enough that I’d like to see him keep directing. It’s also nice to see to him write a movie about a woman for once – he hasn’t had much use for them in most of his films, and while I don’t think he quite cracks into her head like he did with say Mark Zuckerberg (or even Steve Jobs) – he comes close enough.

 

Overall, Molly’s Game is whip smart fun – a supremely intelligent, audience pleaser for adults. It’s not quite a great film, but so much about it is great, that you’ll certainly have a blast watching it.

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Movie Review: Downsizing

Downsizing *** / *****

Directed by: Alexander Payne.

Written by: Alexander Payne & Jim Taylor. 

Starring: Matt Damon (Paul Safranek), Christoph Waltz (Dusan Mirkovic), Hong Chau (Ngoc Lan Tran), Kristen Wiig (Audrey Safranek), Rolf Lassgård (Dr. Jorgen Asbjørnsen), Ingjerd Egeberg (Anne-Helene Asbjørnsen), Udo Kier (Konrad), Søren Pilmark (Dr. Andreas Jacobsen), Jason Sudeikis (Dave Johnson), Maribeth Monroe (Carol Johnson), Neil Patrick Harris (Jeff Lonowski), Laura Dern (Laura Lonowski), Niecy Nash (Leisureland Salesperson), Margo Martindale (Woman on Shuttle), Kerri Kenney (Single Mom Kristen). 

 

Up until Downsizing, director Alexander Payne has mainly specialized in small, intimate comedies – often about lonely people on the sidelines, just trying to get in. Films like Citizen Ruth, Election, About Schmidt, Sideways, The Descendants and Nebraska. With Downsizing, Payne tries to expand that formula – make it bigger, and more all-encompassing than ever before. This is a film so full of ideas that you have to admire it for its sheer ambition. And yet, a lot of this doesn’t work. There are too many ideas floating around in the film, and none of them are really explored in any detail. The film also takes some weird turns as it moves along, and gets more confused as it does so.

 

The basic premise of the film is that in the near future, scientists will discover a way to shrink people down, to about the size of mice. Those who choose to shrink are doing a favor to the environment – they produce far less waste – and get to live like kings, since their money goes a lot farther. Paul Safranek (Matt Damon), lives and works in Omaha, Nebraska (of course), as an occupational therapist, and is married to Audrey (Kristen Wiig). They decide to downsize – but after Paul get the (irreversible) process done, he finds out Audrey backed out at the last minute. He was miserable in his old life, and now even more so in this one. Eventually he will meet two people that make him see things differently – his upstairs neighbor, Dusan (Christoph Waltz), and a cleaning lady, Ngoc Lan Tran (Hong Chau), who was a Vietnamese dissident, who underwent the downsizing procedure as punishment for her political actions.

 

In many ways, Paul is a classic Alexander Payne character. He’s a white, middle aged guy from Nebraska, who feels stuck and unhappy in his life. That could describe Matthew Broderick in Election or Will Forte in Nebraska, and hey if you ignore either the location or age Paul Giamatti in Sideways or George Clooney in The Descendants or Jack Nicholson in About Schmidt. Yes, Alexander Payne loves his sad sack white guys. Damon is more than capable to play one of these characters – part of Damon’s appeal is his blandness and normalcy. Yet, here, unfortunately Payne gives him both too much and too little to do. Damon has to drift from one scene to the next, and oftentimes, it feels like he’s in a different movie in each of those scenes. Yet, his character remains stubbornly bland. This may well work if those around him were more colorful, but other than Waltz, Chau and (briefly) Udo Kier, no one really makes an impression. Waltz and Kier are great fun as wealthy, Eurotrash (although in the third act when they all of a sudden have a conscience, I was confused) – but there’s not much else to them other than that.

 

Then there is Hong Chau as Ngoc Lan Tran. On one level, hers is the best performance in the film and the most interesting character. On the other, she is basically there to help the white guy along his path to self-realization, and speaks with a pretty offensive accent the whole way through. Enough shines through so that you can see just how talented Hong Chau is – and she really makes the character work a lot better than it has any right to – but it still remains rather offensive at times.

 

Through the course of Downsizing, Alexander Payne and company essentially throw everything at the wall, and see what will stick. To their credit, the film runs well over two hours, and I was never once bored by it. It has so many ideas, how could you be? And Payne, who is often criticized for not being the most visually inventive of directors, really does do some great things here. And yet, the film never really comes together, never coheres into anything. It’s a weird mishmash of everything that never quite works, even if you admire the effort.

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Movie Review: All the Money in the World

All the Money in the World *** / *****

Directed by: Ridley Scott.

Written by: David Scarpa based on the book by John Pearson.

Starring: Mark Wahlberg (Fletcher Chase), Michelle Williams (Gail Harris), Charlie Plummer (John Paul Getty III), Christopher Plummer (J. Paul Getty), Stacy Martin (Secretary), Andrew Buchan (John Paul Getty II), Timothy Hutton (Oswald Hinge), Romain Duris (Cinquanta).

 

You have to hand it to Ridley Scott. When he heard about the awful things Kevin Spacey was accused of – and knowing damn well that those allegations would likely kill the prospects of All the Money in the World, just two months before release, he didn’t ignore them. He didn’t give the standard statement those in Hollywood have given about those they’ve worked with accused of doing horrible things. He basically said, fuck that guy, recast his key role in the film with Christopher Plummer (who, apparently, he wanted in the first place, but the studio wanted a bigger star), reshot all of Spacey’s scenes, and released the film on schedule. That took not just guts, but skill – and Scott pulled it off brilliantly. Christopher Plummer is far and away the best thing about All the Money in the World. Unfortunately, other than him – and a fine performance by Michelle Williams – I’m not really sure the film works all that well. It’s a kidnapping thriller, yet it’s not really much of a thriller. It’s a drama about the super-rich – but I don’t think it really delves down deep enough there to make it truly insightful. I was never bored by the film – Scott is nothing if not a constant professional who knows what he’s doing, but I’m not really sure what the point behind this one was.

 

It is the early 1970s, and J. Paul Getty (Plummer) is the richest man in the world – and yet, still one of the cheapest. He is an oil magnate, who loves the power that comes with money, and things it can buy. He hasn’t had much time for his family – so little in fact, he doesn’t even know his grandkids that his son has fathered with his wife, Gail Harris (Williams). But his son is unemployed, and comes to his dad for a job – and gets it. But he’s a screw-up and a drunk, and soon a drug addict. He divorces Gail, who gets custody of the kids – even if the elder Getty had started to take a liking to John Paul the third (Charlie Plummer). A few years later, when this Getty is still a teenager, and roaming around Rome on his own, he is kidnapped. The kidnappers want $17 million. Gail doesn’t have even a fraction of that – but her ex-father-in-law does. But he’s cheap, and doesn’t want to pay a cent. What he does do is direct a former CIA agent in his employ, Fletcher Chase (Mark Wahlberg) to help Gail get her son back.

 

Christopher Plummer clearly is the best thing in this movie. His J. Paul Getty is a petty man to be sure, but he does it all with a gleam in his eye. He’s having a blast screwing over anyone and everyone he can – knowing that because he has the money, they’ll keep coming back. He lives like Charles Foster Kane in his huge estates, with art on the walls – but he has no scruples, no morals, no nothing. He likes to win, and he does all the time. The only thing that keeps Plummer from completely walking away with the movie is Williams, who is nearly his equal as Gail Harris. She grew up rich, but her family doesn’t have their money anymore – but she does know her way around this world. She does a great job putting up a tough face whenever she needs to, and is the only one who can go toe-to-toe with her father in law and win – and that’s because she’s the only one who doesn’t care for his money.

 

This movie really should be better than it is – it certainly sounds better in that last paragraph, and when you factor in gunfights with kidnaps, and Mark Wahlberg as a CIA agent, it should be fun, right? But the kidnapping part of things never really goes anywhere. They try and establish a bond between the younger Getty and one of the kidnappers – but it doesn’t really work. Wahlberg seems out of place for most of the movie – he doesn’t get to punch anyone after all (I don’t know who first observed this – but it’s true – it seems more like Wahlberg was the one edited into this movie at the last minute, not Plummer – as I spent the movie wondering what exactly he was doing there).

 

Overall, the film works, when it’s concentrated on Plummer or Williams, and not really if it’s one anyone or anything else. True, Scott knows how to direct this type of movie well – and he does a good job here as well. And yet, the film just kind of runs its course, and never quite reaches takeoff altitude. You have to admire it for pulling off what it did – and yet, still be slightly disappointed it didn’t pull off even more.

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Movie Review: Breathe

Breathe * ½ / *****

Directed by: Andy Serkis.

Written by: William Nicholson.

Starring: Andrew Garfield (Robin Cavendish), Claire Foy (Diana Cavendish), Hugh Bonneville (Teddy Hall), Ed Speleers (Colin Campbell), Tom Hollander (Bloggs/David Blacker), Ben Lloyd-Hughes (Dr. Don McQueen), Miranada Raison (Mary Dawney), Camilla Rutherford (Katherine Robertson).

 

At the risk of sounding like a heartless asshole, I have to admit that my least favorite genre of movies is probably the inspirational biopic about the person who lived with a disability, and fought hard anyway – accomplishing more in their life despite their disability, than most of us ever will. Even the best film the genre has ever produced – probably Jim Sheridan’s My Left Foot, with its Oscar winning performances by Daniel Day-Lewis and Brenda Fricker – is merely a film I really like, rather than love. That film made the daring choice to portray its main character as an asshole – and yet, you still root for him regardless of that. Most of the films though are more like Breathe – a dull British biopic about Robin Cavendish, who in the late 1950s was struck down with polio, but bravely fought the disease for decades – only dying in the early 1990s. During his life, he was a tireless advocate for disabled rights – helping to invent wheelchairs to allow them to go outside of hospitals, and advocating not locking them up like prisoners.

 

In the film, Cavendish is played by Andrew Garfield – a fine actor, who has really come into his own in the past few years, but who is mainly undone by a role that forces him to be so damn noble for most of the runtime. His ever supportive wife, Diana, is played by Claire Foy – who refuses to give up on her husband, and keeps on pushing him and pushing him to get better, until he relents, and goes along with her. Foy is fine in the role, although there isn’t much there other than determination.

 

Not much happens in Breathe. I kept kind of waiting for the movie to start, for the story to kick in, but it never really happens. Robin is struck down very early in the film, and after about 20 minutes of him wanting to die, he reverses course, and becomes the advocate he would be the rest of his life. It climaxes with a big speech at a conference for the disabled in the early 1970s – where Robin was the only disabled person there – but then the film keeps on chugging along for another 20 minutes or so, grimly following him towards death. I suppose that was a somewhat daring choice – most of these movies don’t like to address the final moments, but this one does. It doesn’t add much though.

 

The film is the directorial debut of Andy Serkis – one of the few actors who can legitimately claim to have changed onscreen acting forever with his work in The Lord of the Rings, King Kong and Planet of the Apes movies. As a filmmaker, he plays everything safe here, filming everything in soft light, and avoiding any kind of conflict or drama. That choice is deadly to a film already in a deadly dull genre. It’s hard to be too mad at Breathe – it lulls you to sleep more than riles your blood.

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Movie Review: Victoria & Abdul

Victoria & Abdul ** / *****

Directed by: Stephen Frears.

Written by: Lee Hall based on the book by Shrabani Basu.

Starring: Judi Dench (Queen Victoria), Ali Fazal (Abdul Karim), Tim Pigott-Smith (Sir Henry Ponsonby), Eddie Izzard (Bertie, Prince of Wales), Adeel Akhtar (Mohammed), Michael Gambon (Lord Salisbury), Paul Higgins (Dr. Reid), Olivia Williams (Lady Churchill).

 

Dame Judi Dench deserves better movies than she has been given in the last few years. True, there are not many actresses in their 80s, who can still say that they have movies built around them at all, so I suppose we should be thankful they decide to give her work at all. And yet, when I see her in films like Philomena (2013), it shows that she still has it – she can still carry a movie, and still stretch her acting wings a little bit. So when she gets plonked into a lazy art house film aimed at the senior crowd like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (or its sequel) – or sadly, Victoria & Abdul, it’s more than a little depressing. The film returns Dench to the role that got her the first of now 7 Oscar nominations 20 years ago. That film. Mrs. Brown, was about Queen Victoria strange relationship with her Scottish servant, John Brown (Billy Connelly). Victoria and Abdul finds Queen Victoria older – now without even John Brown to keep her company – who, you guessed it, develops another unorthodox relationship that raises the ire of those in British high society, and her family. This time though, it’s a young man from India named Abdul (Ali Fazal).

 

The film proceeds pretty much exactly how you think it will from the outset. When it begins, the Queen is old, depressed and essentially waiting for death. There is very little that brings her joy anymore, and she can barely find a reason to keep going. Abdul arrives for her Golden Jubilee – a clerk, there to present her something from India, and their friendship grows from there. Through him, she starts to see the world in a new light – and the British Empire’s role in India in a different light as well. Of course, this doesn’t sit well with anyone – who prefer the status quo. Everyone is basically waiting for her to die so that her son Bertie (Eddie Izzard) can take over – because they know he’s not going to rock the boat.

 

To be fair the film – and especially Dench – the great Dame is hardly phoning it in for the movie, which she almost certainly could do at this point. She is fun and funny in the film, and at times surprisingly touching. She basically runs laps around everyone else in the movie (who, sadly, do seem to be phoning it in). As the other title character, I don’t think Ali Fazal has much of a chance to keep up with Dench. His role is strangely written, as the film presents him as honest and straight forward – and does so even after one embarrassing “omitted” truth after another comes out about him. He remains a thinly drawn character that you never really get to know. There is a little more of a conman in him that the film would like to pretend there is. While racial and class bigotry certainly play the biggest role in those around the Queen hating him – it’s not the only reason.

 

The film was directed by Stephen Frears – a solid director, who has made some great films in the past (The Grifters, High Fidelity, The Queen, Dirty Pretty Things, My Beautiful Launderette, Price Up Your Ears, Dangerous Liaisons), who has mainly stuck to this kind of fuddy duddy prestige drama in recent years. He knows what he’s doing in them, and he does it well. But Victoria & Abdul is the type of film that you watch it, suspecting you’ve already seen it before. There is nothing to distinguish it, nothing to make it stand out, and nothing to make it memorable. It’s pleasant enough certainly, but doesn’t go anywhere. Dame Judi Dench deserves better,

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Movie Review: The Wound

The Wound *** ½ / *****

Directed by: John Trengove.

Written by: Malusi Bengu & Thando Mgqolozana & John Trengove.

Starring: Nakhane Toure (Xolani), Bongile Mantsai (Vija), Niza Jay (Kwanda), Thobani Mseleni (Babalo).

 

The most difficult sequence to watch in The Wound comes right near the beginning. The film is set in rural South Africa, among the Xhosa community, whose young men undergo ritual circumcision when they are teenagers. They are taken into the mountains, where one after another, they are circumcised, and then spend weeks out there, with some elders, having the ideals of masculinity drilled into their heads. You don’t see much during the circumcisions themselves – but you hear it, and it’s a difficult sequence to sit through. But that’s only the beginning.

 

The film basically centers on three characters. Xolani (Nakhane Toure) is one of the “caregivers” – older members of the community, who help to oversee the boys in the weeks after the circumcision. He doesn’t much care for this ritual anymore, but he spends the weeks there every year, because it allows him to spend time with Vija (Bongile Mantsai), another caregiver. The two have a longstanding sexual relationship that happens every year – and Xolani wants it to be more than that. Vija does a better job at presenting the masculine ideal they are teaching, and doesn’t see Xolani the same way. He’s married, with kids, and does little more than use Xolani every year. The third character is Kwanda (Niza Jay), one of the boys undergoing the ritual. He’s from Johannesburg, and his father has brought him out here because he fears Kwanda is going soft. Even he doesn’t suspect that his son is gay – the worst thing he can be in this community. It doesn’t take Kwanda, who is the smartest of the boys out there, to read the situation, and figure out what is happening between Xolani and Vija. Kwanda wants to be more open in his identity – but it scares Xolani.

 

The tension in the film steadily builds, as the secrets and lies eventually start coming out. The film is about the damage these secrets do to those keeping them – and how a culture of toxic masculinity and homophobia, poisons everything it touches. You get to know, like and understand Xolani – you feel for him, because he’s trapped, and doesn’t see a way out. You don’t really like Vija – who is a user and hypocrite, or even really Kwanda – you admire him a little for his willingness to try and burn this system to the ground, but he’s also more than a little bit of a whiner.

 

The film builds to an unexpected but shattering climax – the kind you don’t see coming, but makes perfect sense when it does. This marks the feature directing debut of John Trengove – a white man, but one who has obviously immersed himself in this culture, and understands it from the outside in. The film is perhaps too obvious at points – too on the nose – but overall, it’s a fascinating glimpse inside a community we don’t see onscreen very often – and yet one whose themes are universal.   

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"Classic" Movie Review: Never Ever

Never Ever

Directed by: Benoît Jacquot.

Written by: Julia Roy based on the novel by Don DeLillo.

Starring: Mathieu Amalric (Jacques Rey), Julia Roy (Laura), Jeanne Balibar (Isabelle).

 

I have not read Don DeLillo’s The Body Artist – the short novel that was adapted by Julia Roy and director by Benoit Jacquot into the film Never Ever – but I can say seeing the film that there are some novels that just were not made to become movies. DeLillo’s book is said to contain a running internal monologue of the main character, which the movie completely forgoes – which doesn’t work at all in the film, because the main character is a complete blank in the movie. If we do not understand her, we cannot understand the rest of the movie – which is unfortunately what happens here, as Never Ever becomes a dull mess of a film.

 

The film opens with Jacques Rey (Mathieu Amalric) as a famed director, presenting his latest film in an art gallery. Having a few hours to kill until it ends and he has to do a Q&A, he wanders through the exhibits in the museum, before coming across Laura (Julia Roy) – a “Body Artist” doing her routine, which essentially seems to be moving her body slowly, drawing attention to different parts of her body. I, admittedly, know nothing about what being a “body artist” entails – and this film doesn’t really help clarify that much – because almost as soon as the routine is over, Jacques convinces Laura to run off with him on his motorcycle – abandoning the q&a and his longtime girlfriend/star. Isabelle (Jeanne Balibar) and whisking Laura off to his isolated, rented home. The two are quickly in love, and get married – even though there are already some strange noises in the house. Jacques abandons everything in his life – but after meeting with Isabelle one last time, he kills himself (or appears to) in a motorcycle “accident”. Most of the rest of the movie is spent with Laura in that isolated house – now with more noises – as Jacques either returns and haunts her, or as she slips into insanity, depending on how you choose to read things.

 

There are numerous problems with the movie that fatally hurt it – the biggest single one however is that there seems to be no real chemistry between Jacques and Laura while he is alive. Their relationship honestly plays like the kind of delusional fantasy older men often write stories about – where the older man falls in love with a young woman and is re-energized as a result. But even that reading would require there be some sort of deeper connection between Jacques and Laura that simply doesn’t exist – if he is draw to her youth and beauty, what precisely is it about him that draws her? Does Jacques have unfinished business with her, and that’s why he appears before her after he dies, or is she so in love with him that she cannot bear to not have him in her life, so she creates a delusional version of him for herself? If the movie knows the answer to this question, it isn’t saying – and it’s not in an ambiguous, open too many interpretations way – the main character played by Roy is such a blank slate for the entire movie, it’s impossible to get any read at all on her, or her feelings.

 

The film is pretty to look at. The house where most of the action takes place in one of the beautiful, older, rundown homes out in the French countryside, and Jacquot’s camera glides through it wonderfully. Yet, there’s a giant whole in the center of the film – and that is precisely who this lead character is, and why we’re spending so much time with her? What is she going through, and why are we watching it? The film never comes up with an answer to this question – so the movie just kind of sits there on screen, and we sit in the audience, bored.

 

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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Movie Review: Call Me By Your Name

Call Me by Your Name **** ½ / *****

Directed by: Luca Guadagnino.

Written by: James Ivory based on the novel by André Aciman.

Starring: Timothée Chalamet (Elio), Armie Hammer (Oliver), Michael Stuhlbarg (Mr. Perlman), Amira Casar (Annella), Esther Garrel (Marzia), Victoire Du Bois (Chiara), Vanda Capriolo (Mafalda). 

 

It’s the summer of 1983, in Northern Italy, and there really isn’t much to do. 17 year-old Elio (Timothée Chalamet), is at his large family estate there, with his father, a Professor (Michael Stuhlbarg) and his mother (Amira Casar), and basically wasting his days, reading, playing music, swimming and sleeping. Every summer Professor Perlman welcomes a student to stay with them, help with his work, and this year, that student is American Oliver (Armie Hammer). There is something between Elio and Oliver from the start – some sort of electricity, a spark – and you feel it every time they are onscreen together, even if for the first hour or so of the movie, outwardly they don’t seem to like each other. But that just intensifies things even more.

 

There is probably no better director for this material than Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, who is that rare filmmaker who has the capability to make anything seem erotic. His film from last year, A Bigger Splash, simmered with sexual tension in its every interaction, no matter what two of the four characters were speaking to each other, or what they were speaking about. Call Me By Your Name is probably the most erotic, sexually charged film of 2017 – and that charge is greater in the first half, when the two of them are circling each other, rather in the second half, when they finally do give in to what they both have wanted all along.

 

Much of this has to do with the performances surely – and newcomer Chalamet and Hammer have the most chemistry of any screen couple this year. Newcomer Chalamet (who I have apparently seen before in Interstellar and Men, Women and Children – but don’t remember – I do remember him, obviously, from Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird from a month ago) really does some remarkable acting in this film, and almost all of it is under the surface. It’s a subtle performance, a quiet one as he has to keep up appearances on one level, while he aches with desire on another. Hammer at first seems more surface level than Chalamet – but gradually, he deepens as well, and their connection is real between them. They are aided great by the great soundtrack – including two songs by Sufjan Stevens, which will become instantly iconic, and double use of Love My Way, by The Psychedelic Furs, which plays two completely different ways at different times in the movie. They are also aided by the beauty of their surroundings, captured in wonderful cinematography by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom. The slow, languid pace also works in the films favor – although the movie does run nearly two hours and twenty minutes, and starts to feel it late in the runtime (there is a trip Elio and Oliver take together, that I’m not sure quite works).

 

This is a story of first love – and perhaps great love. What Elio and Oliver have together cannot last – even if they were to stay together, eventually, it would mature into something else – perhaps better, perhaps worse. But what they do share is profound. Late in the film, Michael Stuhlbarg delivers one of the most stirring yet subtle monologues I have ever seen in a film – it’s quietly shattering, and devastating true. You would think the film couldn’t top that moment – and I don’t think it quite does – yet the final shot of the movie is nearly as brilliant. This is a quiet, slow movie – but also a wise and deceptively simple one.

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Classic Movie Review: Woyzeck (1979)

Woyzeck (1979)

Directed by: Werner Herzog.

Written by: Werner Herzog based on the play by Georg Büchner.

Starring: Klaus Kinski (Woyzeck), Eva Mattes (Marie), Wolfgang Reichmann (Captain), Willy Semmelrogge (Doctor), Josef Bierbichler (Drum Major), Paul Burian (Andres), Volker Prechtel (Handwerksbursche), Dieter Augustin (Marktschreier), Irm Hermann (Margret).

 

One of the reasons why almost all of Werner Herzog’s best films of the last 30 years are documentaries is because when he lost Klaus Kinski, he lost one of the only actors who was able to match the level of insanity that Herzog needed in his fiction films (the one exception is of course Nicolas Cage in Bad Lieutenant:: Port of Call, New Orleans). The pair of them made five films together – of which Woyzeck was the third, and far and away the least, of these collaborations. There just isn’t very much here in this sleight film, about a man beaten down by life until he ends up murdering his wife. These two combined to make two of the all-time great portraits of madness – Aguirre the Wrath of God and Fitzcaraldo – but Woyzeck never comes close to matching them, and I cannot help but think that perhaps Kinski is even miscast.

 

In the film, Kinski plays the title character – a put upon soldier, tormented by those above him in the army, for reasons the movie never really tries to explain (he is on an all pea diet for example, but no one will say why). He is pushed around, abused, beaten and disrespected – but it isn’t until his wife cheats on him with a drum major that he really, truly loses it – leading to a slow motion climax, which is just about the only thing in the film that works.

 

Kinski was, of course, brilliant at playing insane characters – perhaps because he was kind of nuts himself (Herzog’s documentary on him – My Best Fiend is a better use of your time than this, and documents their relationship). Here though, his Woyzeck seems insane at the start of the film, so his descent into madness doesn’t really mean much – he’s already there. If Woyzeck is supposed to be an everyman, driven insane by the system, pushing down on the common man, than the film fails – because Kinski never really seems normal here.

 

Herzog is adapting a play by George Buchner, but his screenplay is odd, as many scenes play out without much in the way of dialogue, making the action confusing, and Woyzeck’s motivations unknowable. The film was made in the immediate aftermath of Herzog and Kinski’s other (and better) 1979 film, Nosferatu – Kinski using the fatigue of that film to his advantage here. Yet the film never really comes together. It’s only 82 minutes long, and that slow motion climax really is something to behold – yet the film is more of interest to Herzog/Kinski completest than anyone else. You’d be better off watching anything else the pair did together than this one though.

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Movie Review: The Disaster Artist

The Disaster Artist **** / *****

Directed by: James Franco.

Written by: Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber based on the book by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell.

Starring: James Franco (Tommy Wiseau), Dave Franco (Greg Sestero), Seth Rogen (Sandy Schklair), Alison Brie (Amber), Ari Graynor (Juliette Danielle), Josh Hutcherson (Philip Haldiman), Jacki Weaver (Carolyn Minnott), Zac Efron (Dan Janjigian), Hannibal Buress (Bill Meurer), Nathan Fielder (Kyle Vogt), Sharon Stone (Iris Burton), Melanie Griffith (Jean Shelton), Paul Scheer (Raphael Smadja), Jason Mantzoukas (Peter Anway), Megan Mullally (Mrs. Sestero), Casey Wilson (Casting Director), Randall Park (Male Actor), Jerrod Carmichael (Actor Friend), Bob Odenkirk (Stanislavsky Teacher), Charlyne Yi (Safoya), Bryan Cranston (Bryan Cranston), Judd Apatow (Judd Apatow).

 

It is entirely possible that had The Disaster Artist never been made that I would have spent my life never have seen Tommy Wiseau’s The Room. I, of course, long ago heard about Wiseau’s 2003 film – now legendary as the worst film ever made, a cult hit at midnight screenings, etc. – but I have never been one of those people who watch movies that “so bad, they’re good”. For the most part, I just think those movies are bad – and I don’t much enjoy watching them, nor do I particularly like watching something while holding myself deliberately above it – as if I am better than the film being watched. Yes, it could also be because I don’t much like midnight screenings in general and my days of getting drunk and watching movies with friends to laugh at them are long behind me. But because of The Disaster Artist – which got great reviews out of TIFF – a couple of months ago, I did sit down to watch The Room one night. Yes, it was past midnight, but I was alone in my basement, and stone cold sober. It really was horrible, and I really didn’t have any fun watching it. It was painful – as I knew it would be. Still, now having seen – and thoroughly enjoyed The Disaster Artist – I can safely say that I am glad I saw The Room – and also safely say I don’t think I’ll ever watch it again. The Disaster Artist though – I may well watch that again.

 

The film, directed by and starring James Franco as Wiseau, is similar to another film about the supposed worst film ever made – Tim Burton’s Ed Wood (1994) – which mainly centered on the title character as he made Plan 9 From Outer Space. Both films certainly have a fair amount of fun at their protagonist’s expense – yet the reason why both films works is that mainly the films have a genuine affection for them as well. The films they made were horrible – but dammit all, these guys went for it, and delivered, well, something anyway.

 

As Wiseau, Franco gives his best performance since Spring Breakers. It doesn’t matter that he’s too young to play Wiseau (or maybe, he isn’t, since Wiseau never does say how old he is) he completely nails the strange, Eastern European accent Wiseau claims is from New Orleans, the weird mannerisms and body language, etc. He also gets into Wiseau’s head, and is brilliant at portraying a man with complete and utter lack of self-awareness. How utterly out of it do you have to be to make a film like The Room – and do it completely straight, as if you really are making a dramatic masterpiece to rival Tennessee Williams?

 

Franco casts his brother Dave as Greg Sestero – the other lead in The Room, and Wiseau’s friend. This makes it a little weird, since there is barely subdued homoerotic subtext between Wiseau and Sestero (all one way), but Dave Franco excels at playing this bland, handsome everyman – who goes along for the ride, even if he kind of knows it’s leading nowhere. The supporting cast is filled with famous faces perhaps too filled, although I don’t know who I’d cut. The movie charts the making of The Room – a disaster in itself, and is out and out hilarious for the most part. The movie really only gets dark in one scene – a sex scene, where director/actor Wiseau goes too far.

 

The film really is a delicate balancing act. Go too far, and the film may just come across as a bunch of famous people mocking the guy who made this legendary disaster. Go too soft, and it feels like you’re pulling your punches. I haven’t like Franco the director before – but I think he, his cast and the excellent script walk that fine line just about perfectly. This film in the end will do nothing except bolster the reputation of Wiseau, and The Room – which is really all he ever wanted.

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Movie Review: Wonder Wheel

Wonder Wheel ** / *****

Directed by: Woody Allen.

Written by: Woody Allen.

Starring: Kate Winslet (Ginny), Justin Timberlake (Mickey), Jim Belushi (Humpty), Juno Temple (Carolina), Jack Gore (Richie), David Krumholtz (Jake).

 

For the most part, I have been on the side of “separate the art from the artist” whenever things come up – about Roman Polanski, Nate Parker, or of course, Woody Allen. The #MeToo movement that has sprung up recently is a great thing, and I do believe we are all better off with men who abuse their power exposed to the world. Yet, I’m still basically saying the same thing – separate the art from the artist, because once you go down that road, where do you draw the line? In the case of Woody Allen’s Wonder Wheel, I really do wish I could do that – separate the man Allen is, from the film he made – but I really, really can’t this time. Allen has made a film about a washed up actress (Kate Winslet), well on her way to destroying her second marriage because of her infidelity, who when she finds out her current lover would rather have her step daughter than herself, does something horrible to exact her revenge. Somehow, by the end of this thing, the dude who wants to leave Winslet for her stepdaughter has the moral high ground! I mean, Allen has to be trolling us here, right?

 

But I digress. Even if you are able to separate Allen from his work this time around, the sad truth is that Wonder Wheel is another of those late Allen films that feels half baked. There are some nice moments delivered by Winslet – especially in the final act, when she really goes off the deep end, and the cinematography by Vittorio Storaro (who also made Allen’s last film, Café Society, look spectacular) really is wonderful. The dialogue doesn’t even have as many tin eared clunkers as recent Allen films, and the story is relatively streamlined – cutting out a lot of the distracting subplots recent Allen films have had. As the Allen surrogate, Justin Timberlake has a charm all his own – he isn’t trying to “do” an Allen impersonation – which is mainly a good thing (it worked wonders for Owen Wilson in Midnight in Paris).

 

And yet, the movie really just kind of sits there for an hour, waiting for the fireworks of the last act. As Ginny, the overworked waitress/mother/wife to Humpty (Jim Belushi), Winslet really is quite good. The role isn’t that far off from Cate Blanchett’s in Blue Jasmine – and Winslet shows enough here to make you wish her role was half as good as Blanchett’s was. As Humpty, Belushi really is quite bad – no matter how dark the movie gets, he seems to be playing everything for laughs – like he’s part of a 1950s sitcom or something. I did like that Timberlake doesn’t try to do an Allen impression, but he doesn’t have all that much to do at times here, and his motivations shift from scene to scene for no reason. Juno Temple is a delight as Carolina, the stepdaughter, although a little bit more depth would have helped – so she hasn’t just playing the sweet ingénue.

 

Allen making a disappointing film is nothing new. He’s been hit or miss since the late 1990s, even as he maintains his one a year pace. But Allen making a film that Wonder Wheel somehow feels more disappointing than he has in the past. Part of it, yes, is that you sit there and cannot believe that Allen has essentially made a film about how he’s the wronged party. But it’s also because he wastes so much good stuff here – Winslet, Storaro in particular – which is used to make nothing more than this testament to his own self-delusion.

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Movie Review: Princess Cyd

Princess Cyd *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Stephen Cone.

Written by: Stephen Cone.

Starring: Rebecca Spence (Miranda Ruth), Jessie Pinnick (Cyd Loughlin), Malic White (Katie Sauter), James Vincent Meredith (Anthony James), Tyler Ross (Tab), Matthew Quattrocki (Ridley).

 

Not a whole lot happens in the sweet, subtle coming of age film Princess Cyd, and for the most part, that works in the films favor. In fact, the few instances when the film attempts some heavier dramatic moments are the moments when the film stumbles – as if writer/director Stephen Cone is straining for a sense of importance – something to make Princess Cyd something other than a low-key coming of age film. But that is precisely what Princess Cyd is, and precisely what it’s best at. No, it isn’t going to supplant Lady Bird as the year’s best female coming-of-age film, but it appeals to the same audience, and has the drama factor dialed further back.

 

In the film, Jessie Pinnick stars as Cyd – a 16-year old girl, living in South Carolina with her dad. All we know of her mom is that she is dead – although a 911 call that plays over the opening credits hints at dark reasons for that – ones that will eventually be revealed late in the film. As a 16 year old is wont to do – she is clashing with her dad right now, who thinks that perhaps it would be for the best to get away from each other for a few weeks. And this is how Cyd ends up in Chicago, staying with her writer Aunt Miranda (Rebecca Spence) – her mom’s sister – who she hasn’t seen since the funeral, 8 years ago. Miranda lives a happy, but solitary life – no love life to speak of, but she does have close friends, and of course, her work. She and Cyd are very different in many ways – not least of which because Cyd doesn’t read anything not on her phone. Cyd is also direct in that way that teenagers can be – she says things that pop into her head, without thinking how they will sound.

 

The movie is really about how these two women negotiate the space around each other, their boundaries, and each change each other in quiet, subtle ways. There is a love story of sorts in it, when Cyd meets Katie (Malic White), and is drawn to her. She hasn’t been with a girl before – and she resists any sort of label now, but she and Katie really do like each other. There is no secret about what is happening, and one of the ways the film is refreshing is that Miranda never really gives Cyd a lecture about sex – or show that much concern. She knows that Cyd is going to experiment anyway, so why fight it that hard? This also means the one moment when Miranda does lecture Cyd – about Miranda’s choices in her life that Cyd sees as making her incomplete but Miranda does not – it hits all the harder.

 

Princess Cyd is one of those odd movies that as you watch it, you kind of want more to happen in it – this is certainly a movie where some will complain “nothing happens” – and yet, when things do happen, it feels off. The big monologue at the end of the movie explaining what happened to Cyd’s mom feels out-of-place – it’s believable, sure, but I don’t think it really adds anything to film as it comes out of left field, then isn’t mentioned again. A potential sexual assault on Katie by her brothers friend also feels strangely out-of-sync – a plot device to get Katie to stay at Miranda’s for a while, and not a natural part of the story.

 

Besides, as the movie moves along, the accumulation of details about these women – and their slowly flowering relationship is really all that is needed. This is a lovely, low-key indie film – it doesn’t push too hard for effect, which is exactly why it has the effect that it does.

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Movie Review: My Happy Family

My Happy Family **** / *****

Directed by: Nana Ekvtimishvili & Simon Gross.  

Written by: Nana Ekvtimishvili.

Starring: Ia Shugliashvili (Manana), Merab Ninidze (Soso), Berta Khapava (Lamara), Tsisia Qumsishvili (Nino), Giorgi Khurtsilava (Vakho), Goven Cheishvili (Otar), Dimitri Oragvelidze (Rezo), Mariam Bokeria (Kitsi), Lika Babluani (Tatia Chigogidze).

 

Nothing plays out exactly how you expect it to in My Happy Family – a new film from Georgia (the country, not the state) in which a woman in her 50s, Manana (Ia Shugliashvili) decides to leave her family. We first meet her when her decision as already been made – although she hasn’t told anyone yet. She’s looking for a small rental apartment, and finds one. When she tells her family – including her husband Soso (Merab Ninidze), two grown kids and her parents (all of whom live in the same apartment), they are shocked. Over the course of the films, extended family and friends will all talk to Manana, and try and figure out why she did what she did. Was Soso abusive? A drunk? Did he cheat on her? No to all of these. It appears more than anything that after spending the first 50 years of her life as part of a large, loud family, always in each other’s faces that all she wants now is quiet and solitude.

 

If this were an American film, you could write the beats of this film by heart. Manana would have a new man by act two – probably someone kind, charming and good looking, and free from the shackles of an oppressive marriage, Manana would slowly start to shine. But that isn’t this film. Manana really doesn’t have any big plans for her life, and no new love interest enters her life. She also isn’t free from her family completely – she’s drawn back in for family occasions, and all this leads to more questions and accusations. Strangely, it is her husband Soso who appears most on her side than anyone – and it isn’t precisely because he wanted out of the marriage either. While Manana may have harboring this secret desire to get the hell out for years, he is harboring his own secrets as well. Like hers, they aren’t the kind of explosive ones you usually build a movie around – but the kind of melancholy, sad ones that we all have.

 

The film is directed by Nana Ekvtimishvili & Simon Gross (with a screenplay by Ekvtimishvili). The filmmaking on display is low-key, but in the best way – it doesn’t draw attention to itself, but the camera is always in the right spot, and flows naturally from room to room, place to place. The screenplay and the acting does the same thing. The film really is a gradual accumulation of details that builds to a powerful conclusion – not because anything is resolved, but because by then, you know everything there is to know about this family, and their lives.

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Movie Review: The Circle

The Circle * ½ / *****

Directed by: James Ponsoldt.

Written by: James Ponsoldt & David Eggers based on the novel by Eggers.

Starring: Emma Watson (Mae Holland), Tom Hanks (Bailey), Karen Gillan (Annie), John Boyega (Ty), Patton Oswalt (Stenton), Eller Coltrane (Mercer), Glenne Headley (Bonnie), Bill Paxton (Vinnie), Nate Corddry (Dan).

 

The best thing about The Circle is Tom Hanks’ performance as the villain of the movie, especially his decision to not play the role as a villain, but just as another Tom Hanks character. It’s this decision that makes the performance work, because it makes the role all the creepier, and all that much easier to swallow. Hanks’ character is essentially a version of Steve Jobs – who works at an internet company that essentially controls almost everything, and wants to take over that little bit that they don’t. He’s so likable, so affable – so Tom Hanks – which he makes even the most insidious things he says seem reasonable – something we could all agree with. That makes it all the more chilling.

 

The worst thing about The Circle is, well, pretty much everything else. This movie, based on a novel by David Eggers, doesn’t capture the same feeling of paranoia that the novel did, streamlines the plot too much, and ends on a confusing note. The novel was a dystopia – but I don’t know what the hell the movie is. True enough, the novel had its share of issues – but generally it worked by taking our modern world, and going just a step or two beyond where we’re already at. The movie tries something similar, but because the film never finds the right tone the result is a bland, flavorless movie.

 

The film stars Emma Watson as Mae Holland – who is excited to start work at The Circle – an internet company, that has essentially found a way to combine everything we do online – from social media to banking, and everything in between – into one account. They are a monolithic company – more powerful than the government. Mae starts in customer service – but works her way up – rather suddenly – when she comes to the attention of Bailey (Hanks) – the CEO of the company. Soon, she is being used as a model for everyone in the company – and indeed in the world – and this formerly smart, opinionated young woman starts sounding more and more like a member of a cult.

 

Or, at least, that’s what I think they are trying for here. I’m not sure Watson is the right actress for this role – she has an innate intelligence to her that comes through in every scene – so you never really believe the brainwashing. The movie also changes the ending of the book – to make it more triumphant – but it really only makes it all the more confusing. The other actors in the film – however talented they may be – cannot do much with the dialogue they are given. Only Patton Oswalt – as another Circle executive – shows you what he could have done had his role been better written (Oswalt is scarier here than I’ve seen him before – but they don’t anything with that).

 

The film was directed by James Ponsoldt, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Eggers. He isn’t a good choice for the material. His previous films include very good films like The Spectacular Now, Smashed and The End of the Tour – which were modest, character driven films. Here, saddled with a narrative with a lot going on, and the necessity of building tension and fear, he really never finds his footing. The film feels like it takes forever getting started, and then just kind of fizzles out.

 

Personally, I do hope that we get more of Hanks in bad guy roles in the future. I don’t think we’d buy him as an out-and-out psychopath – but in this kind of role, he could be brilliant. He already is, in a way, here. It’s just that no one else working on the film figured out what to do.

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