Movie Review: Unsane

Unsane **** / *****

Directed by: Steven Soderbergh.

Written by: Jonathan Bernstein & James Greer.

Starring: Claire Foy (Sawyer Valentini), Joshua Leonard (David), Jay Pharoah (Nate Hoffman), Juno Temple (Violet), Amy Irving (Angela Valentini), Sarah Stiles (Jill), Polly McKie (Nurse Boles), Raul Costillo (Jacob), Gibson Frazier (Dr. Hawtorne), Erin Wilhelmi (Hayley), Aimee Mullins (Ashley Brighterhouse).

 

I think we all knew that Steven Soderbergh was never going to stay “retired” when he announced that was what he was doing after Side Effects and Behind the Candelabra in 2013. He was far too young and far too prolific and far too experimental to just stop. Since his “retirement” he has directed 20 episodes of the TV show The Knack, 7 episodes of another series Mosaic, which also added content for iPhones, acted as the cinematographer on Magic Mike XXL, the sequel to a film he did direct, and yes, two films in the last two years, and has more projects on the go. He never retired, just like Steven King never retired, despite having announced he was going to – and in both cases, we are richer for it.

 

Unsane is Soderbergh’s latest film – and it’s a terrific thriller, and a relevant one for the #MeToo moment we are currently in. Part of the reason Soderbergh was able to make this film so quickly is because he shot it on an iPhone in an aspect ratio of 1.56:1, a boxier ratio than most, and one that works tremendously well for a narrative about a woman who is trapped – or “boxed in” if you will. It works as a straight ahead thriller – with a terrific lead performance by Claire Foy – but there are undercurrents that make it more relevant than most.

 

Foy plays Sawyer Valentini, a very smart financial analyst, who just started a new job in a new city that she describes as being an opportunity “too good to pass up” but which we immediately sense is beneath her. He has to deal with the veiled come-ons of her new boss (nothing too overt that he couldn’t pass it all off as innocent if need be), and goes out on a date to a bar with someone she met on Tinder. Early in the date she tells her date that “this going to go exactly the way you want it to” – the only catch is that he is to never call or contact her again after tonight. When they go back to her place it’s safe to say that no, it doesn’t go the way he wants it to.

 

Sawyer will seek help from a counselor at the local hospital – dealing with the trauma of having a stalker, which is why she fled Boston in the first place. Everything seems to be going well – and when the session is over, she just has to fill out some forms. She soon finds herself being committed to the psyche ward – having apparently signed a voluntary agreement for a 24 hour hold, that when she gets violent, gets extended to a 7 day hold. Has she really gone crazy? What’s worse, she is convinced that one of the orderlies (Joshua Leonard) – is really her stalker, David, who has found a way to keep her locked up.

 

Unsane is a little too overly plotted – there are subplots about an insurance scam for instance that doesn’t add much, and some of the patients on the ward just seem to be there for window dresses, and to become convenient foils later in the plot. The exception is Nate (Jay Pharoah) who is apparently there on a 4 week opioid rehab stint, who helps Sawyer navigate the chaos she finds herself in. Strangely, the movie resolves the issue of whether Sawyer has lost her mind or not fairly soon into the narrative – and then becomes something altogether creepier. The already justly lauded “Blue Room” sequence is among the best work Soderbergh has ever done.

 

The film works for the #MeToo era not just because of its stalker storyline – although that is a big part of it. Her stalker isn’t an ex-boyfriend or anything, but a sad, pathetic man who built up an entire life for “them” because she was kind to her dying father, and by extension to him. He is the prototypical “nice guy”, who doesn’t understand when women are all attracted to jerks, and never give guys like him a chance. He understands Sawyer so much better than anyone else ever could you see – loves her more than anyone else ever could, and knows that she would love him too, if only she would give him a chance. It also works on a much subtler level as well however – as throughout the film, no one really seems to take Sawyer – or other women – seriously, when they say something is wrong. They are dismissed and diminished.

 

Foy anchors it all with her terrific lead performance. Having not seen The Crown (and not like Breathe), I finally understand the praise for Foy – she is absolutely terrific here, keeping the movie going. Sometimes, people concentrate too much on Soderbergh’s innovations – and less on his storytelling and the films themselves. He isn’t the first to shoot on an iPhone, but here, it really does work terrifically well.

 

The final act has a couple of weak moments that overall don’t quite do the film that preceded it justice – it really is all downhill after the Blue Room, so while the end is effective, it doesn’t hit you quite as hard as perhaps it should. That is a relatively minor flaw though in what I think is one of Soderbergh’s better films. We need someone like him to keep pushing boundaries – and doing so with movies that are worth it for more than those pushed boundaries.

Read more »

Movie Review: Thoroughbreds

Thoroughbreds **** / *****

Directed by: Cory Finley.

Written by: Cory Finley.

Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy (Lily), Olivia Cooke (Amanda), Anton Yelchin (Tim), Paul Sparks (Mark), Kaili Vernoff (Karen).

 

Thoroughbreds is a thrilling about a couple of affluent, perhaps sociopathic teenage girls that was written and directed by Cory Finley – who is amazingly making his directorial debut. Finley knows his material well, and doesn’t make the mistake that many first timers do in terms of trying to do too much or overloading on style for style’s sake. Make no mistake, Thoroughbreds is a very stylish film – but it’s one that is keenly attuned to its characters and themes. This is a cold, calculating thriller, punched up initially with witty banter, which only makes what follows all the more disturbing.

 

The film is set in a very affluent area of Connecticut, largely within the walls of mansion where Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy) lives with her mother and stepfather, Mark (Paul Sparks). We first enter this home to see her tutoring Amanda (Olivia Cooke) – and they two girls are as different as can be in appearance and demeanor. Lily is put together prim and proper, and Amanda looks like a mess. Amanda is direct in a way that’s initially off-putting for Lily, who finds her weird. The two girls were once close friends, but have gone their own ways in recent years. They are getting back together, because Lily is so perfect that she graduated her prep school early, and returned home, while Amanda is awaiting trial for a disturbing incident involving her horse. Their friendship sparks when Amanda witnesses Lily interact with Mark for a few seconds of seemingly innocuous conversation, and immediately senses (correctly) that Lily hates her stepfather with a passion. Eventually, the pair decide the best thing to do would be to kill him. But how?

 

The film is split up into chapters – complete with title cards (they’re not really necessary, but do break up the action). The opening scenes are the two girls feeling each other out. This is probably where the comparisons some have made to Heathers comes from – because these exchanges can be witty and funny – especially when Cooke is delivering direct, acid tongued one-liners, which she does brilliantly. In these scenes, Lily seems to be the more normal of the two – but she’s sizing everything up. While we sense from the get go that Amanda may be a sociopath – she says early on she has no feelings at all (other than hungry or tired), but has become gifted at faking them (something psychopaths excel at). Lily suffers from something else – but certainly something – and is just as gifted at reading others as Amanda is, and better able to manipulate them that her “weird” friend.

 

The friendship between the two of the make up the bulk of the movie. There is a lengthy subplot involving them trying to enlist Tim (the late, great Anton Yelchin), a drug dealer, with a statutory rape conviction, who nonetheless is still hanging out and selling pot to the teenagers in the area. Tim is undeniably sleaze, but in Yelchin’s hands he becomes an oddly endearing character – a pathetic guy, with delusions of grandeur, trying to act tougher than he is. He may not be the smartest character in the world – but he’s smart enough to know when he’s outmatched. For sparks, in the other major role as the stepdad, it’s the best work I’ve seen from him (that’s not saying much – he’s awful in House of Cards) – but he’s essentially playing a rich asshole, who gets to keeping being an asshole because he’s rich. The regular rules don’t apply to him – which is true of the girls to, who have grown up in this affluent area.

 

You pick a few nits in Thoroughbreds if you wanted to. There’s nothing overly original about the observation that even in houses that look like that, there can still be this level of malevolence and violence (there is a hint of Michael Haneke to the film, except these characters aren’t as blind to their horrific nature as his characters are). While the climax of the film is brilliantly staged, I do think it comes on a little too quickly, and I’m not entirely sure I buy the reasons behind Amanda’s actions.

 

Yet, those are relatively minor quibbles – ones that only bother me a little in retrospect, not in the moment. Overall, Thoroughbreds is a chilling thriller – one that has more in common with Hitchcock than Heathers, and one that announces a major new talent in Finley.

Read more »

Movie Review: Red Sparrow

Red Sparrow ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Francis Lawrence.

Written by: Justin Haythe based on the novel by Jason Matthews.

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence (Dominika Egorova), Joel Edgerton (Nathaniel Nash), Matthias Schoenaerts (Vanya Egorov), Charlotte Rampling (Matron), Mary-Louise Parker (Stephanie Boucher), Ciarán Hinds (Zakharov), Joely Richardson (Nina), Bill Camp (Marty Gable), Jeremy Irons (Korchnoi), Thekla Retuen (Marta), Douglas Hodge (Maxim Volontov), Sakina Jaffrey (Trish Forsythe).

 

The fundamental problem that Red Sparrow is never able to overcome is that it is a movie entirely about its plot, and yet its plot doesn’t really matter. You never really feel that all that much is at stake during the runtime, because the movie never really tells you what exactly is at stake. All we really know is a Russian spy, Dominika (Jennifer Lawrence) has been assigned to go to Budapest to cozy up to an American spy, Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton) to find out who Nash’s mole inside Russian intelligence is. Since we don’t know what this mole does, or what information he is providing, we never really know what will happen if the mole is exposed. In theory, it shouldn’t matter – it should be a classic McGuffin, in which it doesn’t matter to the audience why it matters to the characters, just that we know it does. Yet, it’s hard to find anything else to hold onto in the movie. It’s a movie that wants to keep you guessing as to whether or not Lawrence’s character is going to sell out her country for America, or whether she’s playing the American spy for Mother Russia. It jerks you around so much that you end up not caring at all. What’s worse, the movie has little in the way of action or suspense set pieces, and with a runtime over two hours, it’s more than a little bit of a grueling slog.

 

Before we even get to all that spy craft, we first have to watch as Lawrence’s Dominika is molded and degraded into becoming a spy in the first place. She is, as the film opens, a prima ballerina for the Bolshoi Ballet – but a horrific injury ends her career. With a dead father, sick mother, and no other job skills – she has no choice but to accept the offer of her Uncle Vanya (Matthias Schoenaerts – it’s been a while since I’ve seen a version of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya so I won’t go delve into why the film felt the need to have such an obvious character name) when he enlists her to do a job for him. He’s a high ranking intelligence officer, and wants to get close to a very rich man – who had eyes for Dominika as a dancer. All she has to do is get close, and get his phone. Things, of course, don’t play out that way – and she’s given another impossible choice – take a bullet in the back of the head, or go to Sparrow School – which she will call (not incorrectly) Whore School – to learn how to seduce anyone. Find their weak spots, and exploit them. She is apparently so good at this that she’s pulled out early to be sent to Budapest.

 

Red Sparrow is an odd movie. In many ways, it feels like an exploitation movie – this is a movie in which Lawrence is raped, tortured, beaten, stripped and engages in consensual sexual activity as well. The film takes itself so seriously though that all these scenes feel cruel. The elements of the film that could have been made into an erotic thriller a la Brian DePalma featuring Lawrence and Edgerton don’t really work either – as talented as both of them as actors, they share almost zero chemistry. The major sex scenes between the two of them is over is about as much time as the one in Lady Bird – that was the joke in Lady Bird, that the teenage boy finished so quickly – I don’t know what it says in Red Sparrow.

 

What almost saves the movie is the supporting cast more than the leads. I’d watch an entire movie about Mary Louise Parker’s character – the Chief of Staff of a US Senator, who is selling sensitive information. She is drunk the entire time, and a hell of a lot of fun, and the entire extended sequence involving her is easily the best in the movie – the one time when the suspense of the film is truly humming at the level it should. Charlotte Rampling also comes and goes too quickly as Matron – the head of Sparrow School, who emotionlessly tells them that “your bodies belong to the state”. Jeremy Irons and Ciaran Hinds show up as well, so you expect them to do more than they do – but are fine when they’re there. I liked Matthias Schoenaerts’ performance as Uncle Vanya as well, even if his character makes little to no sense.

 

The director of the film is Francis Lawrence, who directed Jennifer Lawrence in the last three Hunger Games movies, and the two clearly have a trusting relationship between director and star. Here, though, they don’t really find the right material. The story goes on too long, and because Lawrence (the director) has decided to direct the whole movie in the muted, depressing tones of a cold war spy movie, with none of the excitement, the film just kind of goes through the motions. Lawrence, the actress, really commits to the role (if not the accent, entirely, which comes and goes). There’s just not much here to make it all worthwhile.   

Read more »

Movie Review: Murder on the Orient Express

Murder on the Orient Express ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Kenneth Branagh.

Written by: Michael Green based upon the novel by Agatha Christie.

Starring: Kenneth Branagh (Hercule Poirot), Penélope Cruz (Pilar Estravados), Willem Dafoe (Gerhard Hardman), Judi Dench (Princess Dragomiroff), Johnny Depp (Edward Ratchett), Josh Gad (Hector MacQueen), Derek Jacobi (Edward Henry Masterman), Leslie Odom Jr. (Dr. Arbuthnot), Michelle Pfeiffer (Caroline Hubbard), Daisy Ridley (Mary Debenham), Marwan Kenzari (Pierre Michel), Olivia Colman (Hildegarde Schmidt), Lucy Boynton (Countess Elena Andrenyi), Manuel Garcia-Rulfo (Biniamino Marquez), Sergei Polunin (Count Rudolph Andrenyi), Tom Bateman (Bouc).

 

The best thing about the new version of Murder on the Orient Express is Kenneth Branagh’s performance as Agatha Christie’s infamous detective Hercule Poirot. Sporting the best mustache I have ever seen, Branagh somehow finds new dimensions to play in Poirot – even for those of us who have seen Albert Finney’s Oscar nominated turn in the 1974 original film, and who had a mother who watched a lot of David Suchet as Poirot, and as such, watched a lot himself. Branagh’s Poirot is almost a tragic figure – he certainly is a sad one – pining over his lost love, and admitting that his curse is that he can only “see things the way they ought to be”, so when something is amiss, it sticks out. This makes much of his life miserable – but makes him a great detective. But despite being this sad figure, it’s still a joy to watch Branagh in this role – he’s funny and clever, and has Branagh swinging for the fences again, in a role a worthy of him, for the first time in I’m not sure how long (yes, he’s very good in Dunkirk – but that’s a different kind of performance). If they announced tomorrow, a new movie or television series with Branagh as Poirot, I’d be enthused.

 

The problem with the new version of Murder on the Orient Express however is that Branagh, the director, doesn’t seem to put as much care into the storytelling as he does in crafting his own performance – or growing that mustache (please tell me it was real). After a crackerjack start at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem the film never really finds it footing again once we are on board the titular train. Part of the problem is that there are so many character (this version even combines two together to help) – but with 15 other major characters, played by one of the best ensembles you can hope for, the result is that most of the cast is underutilized. Essentially, they all get introduced with one character trait, and stay that way. It isn’t that some of them aren’t having fun – Michelle Pfeiffer is a man hungry widow certainly seems to be having a blast, as does Judi Dench as an elder Princess, but the movie does a poor job of keeping the characters sorted out. Every time Manuel Garcia-Rulfo’s Marquez shows up, you wonder who the hell he is for example – and for a long stretch of the movie, you forget that there is even a Count and Countess on the train. Other great performers are barely utilized – poor Olivia Colman and Willem Dafoe – and some are given little to work with other than their costumes – to be fair, Daisy Ridley and Leslie Odom Jr. both look amazing in those costumes, but you wish there was more there. There’s a problem in your Murder on the Orient Express adaptation when Johnny Depp’s Ratchett has more screen time that practically anyone note named Hercule.

 

Perhaps some of these flaws could be forgiven in an overall better film. After all, you have a great Poirot here, the costumes and art direction are superb, and Branagh and cinematographer Harris Zambarloukos do what they can to try and open up the story a little – hard to do when the story is confined to a train, and that train is stopped in its tracks alongside a mountain. But the biggest problem with the film is that it screws up precisely the part of the movie where you cannot screw up – the finale, the “solution” to the murder – which is stories like this is always the key moment, and always takes a long time, because the plot is so elaborate that Poirot needs to explain it for a good 15 minutes or so. First of all, the way he even comes to figure everything out is never really explained – he’s putting pieces together that the audience didn’t have, which doesn’t seem fair – and second, his big long explanation is muddled and confusing. It leaves you scratching your head – and I knew the solution before I saw the movie.

 

Branagh is a talented filmmaker, who has had to change with the times over his 30 year career. Despite the fact that he’s directed some of the best Shakespeare movies of all time – I’ll take his 1996, 4 hour Hamlet over any other version of that play – no one much seems interested in financing those anymore. So he directs a Jack Ryan movie, he directs Thor for Marvel, he directs Cinderella for Disney – and all of those, he brings something of himself to the film. He does so here as well – but this time, it never quite comes together. The movie hints as a sequel – Death on the Nile – and I would love to see it. Although, I think I’d replace Branagh as director, and just let him and his glorious mustache take over the screen.

Read more »