Attack the Block

ATTACK THE BLOCK (Joe Cornish, 2011)

Despite keeping a watchful eye on her surroundings as she makes her way home to an apartment in a public housing complex, Sam (Jodie Whittaker) runs into five teenage delinquents on a night of revelry in London in ATTACK THE BLOCK. As they’re stealing her phone and ring, a meteorite crashes into a nearby car, causing a distraction that lets Sam get away shaken but unharmed. Moses (John Boyega) starts rooting through the car for anything worth taking when a creature scratches him and runs away. The boys chase after the small hairless alien, and Moses corners and kills it.

They take the body to the drug dealer who lives on the top floor of their tower block until they can figure out what to do with it. From the high vantage point they can see all of the other meteorites falling around the city unnoticed among the fireworks. Moses and his crew go out to do some more alien hunting, but the next ones they encounter are bigger, like a cross of a gorilla and a dog with glowing teeth and without eyes, and relentless in chasing the teens. While running from them, they cross paths with Sam riding along with the police. Although Moses is handcuffed and locked up in the back of their van, the aliens make quick work of the cops. Sam gets away from the teenagers again, but knowing that she’s a nurse, they track her down in the tower to help when one of them is bitten by an alien. Like it or not, she is stuck with them if she’s to survive the aliens attacking the building.

With its mix of science fiction, comedy, horror, and action, ATTACK THE BLOCK has the makings of a cult hit. Writer-director Joe Cornish’s film is too slim in character and story to deserve elevation to word-of-mouth classic status--it’s more minor than major--but it is an entertaining romp that benefits from maintaining a local focus. The world could be coming to an end with this invasion, but for these characters that encircles the borders of their neighborhood, not the entire globe. Although they don’t have much on this block, they’re going fight for what little is theirs.

The spirit of ATTACK THE BLOCK is freewheeling fun, yet Cornish struggles to establish that tone by setting up teenage muggers as the points of identification. He’s aiming for an antihero in the vein of John Carpenter’s films. Moses and his associates are hard to cheer on, though, when their introduction is robbing a vulnerable woman and being unrepentant about it. Their criminal activity seems to be indulged out of a sense of boredom or fun, just kids being kids, than desperate need. That doesn’t sit particularly well for a long time and can hardly be dismissed even when the usual sops are thrown in to explain why Moses is the way he is. Cornish has more success in softening the toughness of Moses and the other boys through comedy that undermines the poses they are adopting. The influence of Edgar Wright, one of the executive producers, is readily apparent in ATTACK THE BLOCK’s humor regarding its self-destructive characters; it could just stand to have more of it earlier in the film.

Cornish has room for improvement in developing his characters and the thin premise, but ATTACK THE BLOCK boasts enough cleverness for it to satisfy on a basic level. The alien’s teeth, which can initially be mistaken for eyes, are a nice design flourish. The action demonstrates the ability to employ modest means to craft excitement. The humor and elements of surprise bolster the anything-goes spirit. ATTACK THE BLOCK is infused with the brashness of youth, a quality that gives it a spark and leads to some less desirable choices.

Grade: B-

From Up on Poppy Hill (Kokuriko-zaka kara)

FROM UP ON POPPY HILL (KOKURIKO-ZAKA KARA) (Goro Miyazaki, 2011)

“Was ist das Leben ohne Liebesglanz?”, a quotation from Friedrich Schiller’s WALLENSTEIN’S TOD, is scribbled on a clubhouse wall in the foreground of a late scene in FROM UP ON POPPY HILL (KOKURIKO-ZAKA KARA).  The passage translates as “What is life without the light of love?”  Although the rhetorical question goes uninterpreted on-screen, the sentiment within it informs every moment of the animated romantic drama.  

Each morning outside her family’s hilltop boarding house Umi Matsuzaki (Masami Nagasawa) raises signal flags in memory of her father, a captain whose supply ship sank during the Korean War.  The high school junior’s messages aren’t intended for any of the boats in the harbor, but someone passing by on a tugboat notices and publishes a poem about Umi’s daily ritual in the school newspaper.  Needing to devote time outside of classes to maintaining the home for her siblings and lodgers, especially with her mother studying abroad, Umi isn’t used to having attention directed her way.  

To her surprise she begins bonding with classmate Shun Kazama (Jun’ichi Okada), who helps run the school paper.  At first she’s unimpressed with the stunt he pulls to draw attention to the pending demolition of the Latin Quarter clubhouse, but his respect for the past impresses her.  In 1963 Japan they stand in opposition to a cultural movement that seeks to move forward by ignoring history and, in some instances, tearing it down in preparation for the Tokyo Olympics.  Umi and Shun spearhead a plan to rally their fellow students to clean up the clubhouse and reveal the dusty, creaky building as a beautiful place worth preserving.

Love is eternal in FROM UP ON POPPY HILL.  It is represented not only in the attraction two people feel when together but also through a gesture intended for someone who has passed.  Love is progress that honors history and nature rather than spreading destruction in the name of advancement.  Dealing with themes familiar in the work of his father Hayao Miyazaki, who co-writes with Keiko Niwa, director Goro Miyazaki guides a sweet and delicate coming of age tale for the main characters and their country after World War II.  

The sweep of vintage melodrama is well-suited for the volatile feelings stirred up in teenage romance and a time of national transition, yet for all of the strong emotions elicited in FROM UP ON POPPY HILL, it adopts a determinedly practical mindset about confronting the plot’s obstacles.  Rather than minimizing the stakes, this logical approach enhances the potential tragedy in personal and cultural changes.

FROM UP ON POPPY HILL’s gorgeous animation is devoted to bringing out the subtlety in interactions instead of imagining elaborate setpieces.  Slight variations in expressions carry and expand the emotional current in a manner more associated with live-action films.  Miyazaki’s ability to coax such understated performances out of the drawings and voice acting stands as the film’s major achievement.  

Grade: A

(FROM UP ON POPPY HILL is now available in a Blu-ray and DVD combo pack that includes the original Japanese-language track and an English-language dub.)

Killer Joe

KILLER JOE (William Friedkin, 2011)

Chris Smith (Emile Hirsch) has little time remaining to repay six thousand bucks to some bad men or else he’ll be killed.  Desperate to remedy the matter, he approaches his similarly broke father Ansel (Thomas Haden Church) with a solution.  His mother Adele, Ansel’s ex-wife, has a $50,000 life insurance policy to which Chris’ younger sister Dottie (Juno Temple) is the sole beneficiary.  All they need to do to set their personal finances straight is hire Joe Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a Dallas Police Department detective who kills people on the side, to bump off Adele.

After agreeing to split the money four ways--Ansel insists his wife Sharla (Gina Gershon) gets a cut--they’re ready to put the plan in motion except for one minor problem.  They can’t pay Joe $25,000 for the service they want him to render until they get the claim check.  Joe is prepared to break off a business agreement with them, but he has his cold blue eyes fixed on Dottie and proposes they give her to him as a retainer.

The world according to KILLER JOE is a scuzzy Texas trailer park where the family plots to kill one member for a windfall and will pimp out another to make it possible.  The innocent in the middle is a weary girl already so jaded by what life’s dealt her that she signs off on her mother’s murder and embraces being sold to a contract killer because he shows interest in her.  The only person following a code is a moonlighting hit man. Say what you will about his ideas of right and wrong, but at least it’s an ethos.  

Transcending basic instincts is unimaginable when choices are guided entirely by the reptilian brain.  The stupid and venal characters in KILLER JOE cast fun house mirror reflections of a society seeking its best interests while excluding accepted principles. Director William Friedkin and screenwriter Tracy Letts, adapting his play, place the bad behavior in a dark comedy about the depths of depravity.  Like Wile E. Coyote assured that this time he’ll catch The Road Runner, Hirsch plays Chris as someone who thinks he’s smarter than he really is and has the bruises to show for his lack of good judgment. Church’s slack-jawed caricature of Ansel amuses as he serves as lunkheaded lackey to Chris’ would-be mastermind.  Gershon draws laughs with the brazen disrespect she shows her husband and stepson.

Temple interprets Dottie as a tarnished angel in seek of salvation however it may come. Acting younger and simpler than her character’s years would signify--her bed teems with stuffed animals, and the bedroom door is decorated with teen idol magazine headshots of Justin Bieber, 3RD ROCK FROM THE SUN-era Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and others--Temple reveals the glimmers of youthful goodness that, if permitted to flourish, might emerge from this hellhole.  There’s no tragedy in the other Smiths’ bumblings, but her light hasn’t been snuffed out entirely yet.

McConaughey is funny and fearsome in the title role, the devil holding the family accountable for their choices.  Despite Joe’s capacity for violence, McConaughey presents him as the pragmatic businessman and courtly gentleman.  When he drops the cool reserve and southern civility in the intense final act, KILLER JOE produces a reckoning to make the unbelieving wish for divine intervention.  Under the sun’s pounding rays and the night’s garish neon and fluorescent lights, there’s no hiding from one’s actions in this provocative and wickedly humorous film

Grade: B

The Deep Blue Sea

THE DEEP BLUE SEA (Terence Davies, 2011)

THE DEEP BLUE SEA opens with Hester Collyer (Rachel Weisz) reading the suicide note she’s left for her lover, Royal Air Force pilot Freddie Page (Tom Hiddleston).  While her passion for him is as intense as ever, she can no longer stand the imbalance in their feelings for one another.  Hester’s attempt is unsuccessful and does her no harm, but considering the place and time--London, around 1950--the act itself could get her in a great deal of trouble as attempted suicide is a crime.  Although Hester’s husband Sir William Collyer (Simon Russell Beale) was deeply hurt when she left him for his younger friend and refuses to grant her a divorce, he shows no indication of wishing to use her bid to end her life or his position as a judge to gain revenge.  

After being revived Hester lingers in a daze in her rented flat reflecting on the events that brought her to the point of preferring death to the pain of her unmatched fervency for Freddie.  She makes a desperate pitch to elicit the desired response she wants from him but is resigned to knowing she will always need him more.

As Hester tries to hold onto the ephemeral remains of what once existed in her relationships, THE DEEP BLUE SEA is lit so as to catch the dust in the air, the smoke from her cigarettes, and the breath on a chilly night.  While visible, those fleeting byproducts can never again return to what they were.  Florian Hoffmeister’s painterly cinematography wraps the film in a shroud.  What’s gone is gone, and Hester inhabits the wreckage of her choices just as Londoners get on with life among the destruction and ruins from World War II.  

Love becomes malignant when it is dampened or when it mutates into lust in writer-director Terence Davies’ adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s play.  Per William’s mother (Barbara Jefford) extolling the virtues of guarded enthusiasm over passion, his affection for Hester is kept at a polite remove.  Hester requires ardor in her relationships, even if it is not reciprocated, and is willing to chuck comfortable but cool certainty with William for the heat of carnal attraction to Freddie.  
         
Hester is trapped between a rock and a hard place.  Neither William nor Freddie can supply or share the acute emotion that sustains her.  Weisz’s sensitive and finely modulated embodiment of yearning and torment speaks of the internal decay that has taken root in Hester.  The character is a victim of her own decisions, but Weisz’s bruised performance in THE DEEP BLUE SEA yields empathy for being battered by doomed romanticism.

Grade: B+

360

360 (Fernando Meirelles, 2011)

360 is predicated on the idea that everyone is connected in the circle of modern life, but the shape it calls to mind is the triangle in a pyramid scheme. Above the title on the poster are a lauded director, screenwriter, and international cast to serve as the lure. What appears to be a worthy investment of time and money yields nothing but the realization of being hoodwinked.

The drama opens in Vienna with a Slovakian woman getting her profile photographs taken for a website offering high-end prostitutes. Mirka (Lucia Siposová) is looking to earn a lot of money in a short period of time and has decided that this is the best way to do so. Although her bookworm sister Anna (Gabriela Marcinkova) disapproves, she still accompanies Mirka on the bus rides from Bratislava to the Austrian capital when work beckons. Mirka’s first client is supposed to be London businessman Michael Daly (Jude Law), but before he can approach her, a fellow salesman (Moritz Bleibtreu) points out the woman of ill repute in the hotel bar.

In Paris a 36-year-old Algerian widower (Jamel Debbouze) stalks a woman in a red beret. He’s smitten with her but doesn’t dare share his feelings because she is a married co-worker. While he knows how he must act, the lovestruck man speaks to a psychologist and his imam about the dilemma.

In London Michael’s wife Rose (Rachel Weisz) breaks off an affair with Brazilian photographer Rui (Juliano Cazarré), who then learns his girlfriend Laura (Maria Flor) was wise to him cheating on her. Laura chooses to return to their native country. On a leg of her trip going to Denver she befriends an older man (Anthony Hopkins). With nasty weather delaying all outbound flights, they intend to meet up for dinner. Also at the airport is Tyler (Ben Foster), a newly released sex offender bound for a halfway house in Louisville.

Hopkins’ character travels on to Phoenix and ends up at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. There Valentina (Dinara Drukarova), who has come from Paris to visit her sister, shares her story and begins the film’s path back to the city where the whole thing started.

Most of the vignettes in 360 might have made compelling features on their own if expanded. Except for the lousy, weirdly resolved sections with Law and Weisz, the scenes don’t flounder in miniature but feel incomplete. It’s as though notable plot-divulging portions have been plucked from other films and linked by director Fernando Meirelles and screenwriter Peter Morgan making like the insistent drive-thru order taker in DUDE, WHERE’S MY CAR? And then? And then? And then?

Even when 360 happens upon some strong moments, like Hopkins and Flor’s sweet interactions as strangers and the pay-off for him, they are mucked up by another thread spliced into the proceedings. Interrupting their time together for the struggles of Foster’s ex-convict suggests the possibility that he could be responsible for Hopkins’ lingering pain. Luckily 360 doesn’t fall victim to the all-caps irony that such a development like that would be. Unfortunately it converges Foster and Flor’s storylines in a most thoroughly unconvincing fashion.

As much as these tales of injured souls are bungled, 360 holds some interest because it posits that the road less traveled doesn’t necessarily lead to better destinations. Falling for someone new and taking a particular risk could be big mistakes. 360 doesn’t possess the conviction to follow through all the way on such an anti-romantic notion. At best Meirelles and Morgan soft sell it, but the flirtation with the idea is contrary to the norm.

According to 360 the world is united in broken dreams and wounded hearts. It’s too bad that playing R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts” on a two-hour loop could have expressed the sentiment more effectively.

Grade: D+

TIFF11 schedule review, a year later

The time is upon me to set a wish list for my Toronto International Film Festival 2012 schedule. Of course it’s filled with many tough choices, a matter made all the worse because, like last year, I drew a lousy time in the lottery for getting my selections fulfilled. I got just eight of my fifteen first choices, a percentage I’d like to improve on this September. Nevertheless, it ended up working out fairly well in 2011. I saw most of the films that were top priorities for me.

In anticipation of learning what I’ll be able to secure tickets for and what vouchers I may have to parlay into desired picks, I thought it would be interesting to examine how I did last year in terms of seeing what films have been accessible to me between festivals. There’s no single correct way of choosing films, but for the expense involved, it makes the most sense to me to catch movies that won’t be showing up in local theaters in the following couple months, if not before the end of the year. After all, without accounting for travel and accommodations for those who don’t live in or around Toronto, festival ticket prices are higher than regular admissions.

To my surprise, a majority of what I viewed at TIFF11 have still not hit Columbus screens. Ten of the twenty-three films I saw in Toronto have opened here:

-MELANCHOLIA (December 2, 2011)
-CRAZY HORSE (February 17, 2012)
-INTO THE ABYSS: A TALE OF DEATH, A TALE OF LIFE (February 24, 2012)
-RAMPART (March 2, 2012)
-THIS IS NOT A FILM (IN FILM NIST) (March 30 & 31, 2012 only)
-THE RAID: REDEMPTION (SERBUAN MAUT) (April 13, 2012)
-DAMSELS IN DISTRESS (May 4, 2012)
-YOUR SISTER’S SISTER (June 29, 2012)
-I WISH (KISEKI) (July 27, 2012)
-KILLER JOE (August 24, 2012)

Of these ten, only one (THE RAID: REDEMPTION) enjoyed a wide local release. DAMSELS IN DISTRESS, KILLER JOE, and YOUR SISTER’S SISTER played on two screens at their peak. The others appeared on just one Columbus screen.

Here’s the status of the other thirteen films:

In limited release - no Columbus screenings scheduled
-GOODBYE FIRST LOVE (UN AMOUR DE JEUNESSE)
-OSLO, AUGUST 31ST (OSLO, 31. AUGUST)
-TRISHNA

Scheduled New York City/Los Angeles release date
-FROM UP ON POPPY HILL (KOKURIKO-ZAKA KARA) (2012 Academy Awards qualifying run; March 2013 - limited)
-GIRL MODEL (September 5, 2012 - limited)
-THE LONELIEST PLANET (October 26, 2012 - limited)

Unscheduled New York City/Los Angeles release
-OUTSIDE SATAN (HORS SATAN)
-TWIXT
-YOU’RE NEXT

Available on DVD
-LIFE WITHOUT PRINCIPLE (DYUT MENG GAM)
-MISS BALA

No U.S. distribution
-FAUST
-TWIGGY (LA BRINDILLE)

For comparison’s sake, here’s what happened with the first choices I didn’t get or received and traded in for something else:

Opened in Columbus
-MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE (November 11, 2011)
-LE HAVRE (January 13, 2012)
-A DANGEROUS METHOD (January 27, 2012)
-PINA (February 17, 2012)
-TAKE THIS WALTZ (July 13, 2012)

Scheduled Columbus opening
-360 (September 7, 2012)
-SAMSARA (October 12, 2012)

Available on DVD
-EXTRATERRESTRIAL (EXTRATERRESTRE)

I don’t suppose that knowing this will make missing out on something I really want to see at TIFF12 any easier, but it shows that not getting every top choice won’t ruin the festival experience either.

I Wish (Kiseki)

I WISH (KISEKI) (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2011)

Like many kids whose parents have separated, brothers Koichi (Koki Maeda) and Ryunosuke (Ohshirô Maeda) would like to reunite their family.  Twelve-year-old Koichi, the older and more serious of the siblings, believes he’s found the solution in I WISH (KISEKI).  He overhears classmates saying that whoever sees two high-speed trains pass each other for the first time will get their wishes granted.  New bullet trains are scheduled to begin service across the island of Kyushu in two months, so the boys work on plans to meet halfway in Kumamoto prefecture to get their dreams fulfilled.

Koichi, who lives with their mother Nozomi (Nene Ohtsuka) and her parents in the island’s southern prefecture Kagoshima, is pushed into action by hearing his mom being encouraged to move on.  She’s already taken a job as a cashier at a grocery store.  A boyfriend could soon follow.  Knowing the importance of the mission, Koichi prepares with an explorer’s thoroughness.  He and his friends examine maps to determine where the trains are most likely to pass, calculate a budget for the trip, and scrape together the money by looking for spare coins and selling some toys.

Ryunosuke doesn’t seem to mind the new arrangement as much as Koichi.  Certainly he would like for everyone to be together again, but he doesn’t worry about whether or not their parents will reconcile.  Since choosing to stay with their musician father Kenji (Joe Odagiri) in the island’s northern prefecture Fukuoka, he’s taken to tending a garden and surrounded himself with many friends.  For Ryunosuke the trip seems more like a chance to see his brother for the first time in six months and a fun day away from home with his pals.

As noisy as two trains passing each other at 160 miles per hour is, the disruption to the surrounding environment is fleeting.  The same can’t be said for the effects on children of divorce or a parent’s gambling problem, but in I WISH such disturbances don’t necessarily need to be ruinous either.  Writer-director Hirokazu Kore-eda studies the resiliency of children in the face of life transformations large and small.  He tracks these adaptations with plenty of charm and wit, making this observational look at the kids closer to Francois Truffaut’s SMALL CHANGE than his own harrowing NOBODY KNOWS.

The great pleasure of I WISH is Kore-eda capturing kids being kids instead of the little adults many films mistake children for.  Sometimes they can be very funny, like when they talk about crushes on teachers and what they would wish for if they could be guaranteed to have one dream made real .  At other points watching them can be heartbreaking.  For instance, Koichi is more tuned into his mother’s fragile emotional state than anyone else realizes.  I WISH excels at evoking a child-like state of mind in all of its wonders and concerns because of Kore-eda’s astuteness in following how kids make sense of the world and change their perspectives.

I WISH retains Kore-eda’s gift for empathetic scrutiny of daily life and ordinary people while also delivering miracles of a kind.  Hurl prayers for momentous change if one will, but don’t forget that answers and greatest blessings can come in the form of chance encounters and common pleasures.  I WISH feels slighter than Kore-eda’s best work, such as AFTER LIFE and STILL WALKING, but it’s a warm effort that finds through the tough times the kids can be, and often are, all right.

Grade: B+

Extraterrestrial (Extraterrestre)

EXTRATERRESTRIAL (EXTRATERRESTRE) (Nacho Vigalondo, 2011)

Julio (Julián Villagrán) wakes up in an unfamiliar apartment with little memory of the wild Saturday night he apparently had.  The flat belongs to Julia (Michelle Jenner), who is eager to send him on his way.  As they try to recall the previous evening and each others’ names, Julio and Julia become aware that the world to which they’ve awakened in EXTRATERRESTRIAL (EXTRATERRESTRE) is no longer ordinary.

The downtown Madrid streets are empty.  Neither cell phones nor landlines work. The television is not picking up any signals, and internet access is unavailable.  Then they notice that a massive flying saucer is hovering above the city.  Julio and Julia are able to tune in a radio broadcast to gain some information, although the news that most people have been evacuated and stragglers should remain inside is less than reassuring.

Among those still in the city is Julia’s stalkerish neighbor Ángel (Carlos Areces), who tells them that about thirty spaceships are reported over Spain and untold numbers have appeared all over the globe.  Carlos (Raúl Cimas), Julia’s longtime boyfriend, eventually turns up as well.  He doesn’t suspect Julia and Julio of doing anything improper and believes the story she contrives about spotting Julio on the street and inviting him in.  Carlos is so trusting he insists that Julio stays with them.  Julio and Julia fear that Ángel will tell Carlos the truth about how they know one another, so they convince Carlos that Ángel is really an alien posing as a human.

Although set during an alien occupation of Earth, the science fiction trappings function as a readily apparent misdirect for staging a romantic comedy/drama. Writer-director Nacho Vigalondo’s interest lays not in little green men attacking earthlings but in the disruptive effect an outsider can have on a couple.  The problem is that the interpersonal dynamics aren’t developed sufficiently or invested with high enough stakes for what Vigalondo wants to study to matter.

If EXTRATERRESTRIAL is to explore what might be called Third Wheel Syndrome, Vigalondo needed to bring greater tension to the romantic triangle than what exists.  The mere presence of Julio, the proverbial extraterrestrial, alters the environment, but circumstances have a convenient way of mitigating his culpability. In due time Julia reveals to Julio that she has been with Carlos since she was nineteen and that their relationship was distressed before the spacecrafts appeared. The implication is that the relationship had soured before Julio’s arrival and that he need not feel guilty for whatever is transpiring between him and Julia, regardless of Ángel’s attempts to expose what he views as a tawdry secret.  Meanwhile, Carlos seems oblivious to any potential hanky-panky between Julia and Julio and then, having broken the trio’s agreement never to go anywhere alone, makes it easy for them to ask him to go away.  Despite Vigalondo presenting Julio as the suffering romantic, the emotional burden he is carrying could be shrugged off with little effort. The noble decision facing Julio packs less of a wallop because it feels unnecessary.

EXTRATERRESTRIAL’s combination of romantic comedy and genre movie elements recall SHAUN OF THE DEAD while failing to blend them nearly as well as Edgar Wright’s feature.  Having confined the action to a pocket of the world, Vigalondo’s featherweight film relies on the small but affable cast to be its saving grace, a task they are capable of handling.  With Carlos behaving as though the invasion has drawn out his purpose in life, Cimas is funny kicking into survivalist mode at the expense of all rational thought. As the third wheel supplanted by Julio, Areces adds some amusing moments in his awkward interactions with the others and his bold bids to restore his position, not the least of which involves a tennis ball cannon.  Miguel Noguera gets laughs as a resistance fighter constantly feeling demeaned by the technical ineptitude of those helping him with a UHF broadcast. Villagrán and Jenner are good in their underwritten roles, but the end of life as the characters know it doesn’t feel at risk collectively or individually in EXTRATERRESTRIAL.  Lacking a sense of cataclysmic change in civilization or a couple thus sells short what could have made for a thrilling adventure or a potent metaphor for love.

Grade: C

Take This Waltz

TAKE THIS WALTZ (Sarah Polley, 2011)

28-year-old freelance writer Margot (Michelle Williams) is happily married in TAKE THIS WALTZ, or so she’s always thought until meeting Daniel (Luke Kirby) while on an assignment in Nova Scotia.  They become briefly acquainted when he embarrasses her a little at a tourist attraction and then encounter each other again on a return flight to Toronto.  While sharing a cab on their ways home, they discover that he lives a couple doors down the street from her, although she seemingly puts an end to their flirty interactions by informing him that she has a husband.

Margot and her cookbook-writing spouse Lou (Seth Rogen) have been married for five years and appear to be very much in love.  Nevertheless, Margot is increasingly preoccupied with her neighbor and takes extra efforts to see him leaving his place and to bump into him on the street.  Daniel welcomes Margot’s interest.  He calls her out on her actions but otherwise slow plays his seduction, letting her cozy up to him.  Daniel also makes it clear he’s available to her whenever she’s ready.  Regardless of if Margot will ever physically surrender to him, she is committing emotional infidelity.  She knows it isn’t right, yet she doesn’t want to give it up either.

Early on Margot confesses to Daniel that she is afraid of wondering if she’ll miss something.  Within the context of their conversation she’s talking about connecting flights, but her behavior indicates that her fear is rooted in insecurity in her long-term choices.  After the newness wears off anything, such as her marriage, Margot requires constant reassurance that she possesses what she wants.  She doesn’t hide her confusion--the vaguely heart-shaped birthmark on her left shoulder suggests she displays her feelings for all to see--but she fails to confront the questions troubling her. Margot is a selfish character, yet Williams’ marvelous performance generates empathy for her even as she potentially destroys a solid relationship.  The inner struggle registers on her face like wind across the water.  

TAKE THIS WALTZ vibrates with the anticipation and thrill of temptation.  In the film’s sexiest scene, Margot and Daniel are having drinks when she asks him to detail what he would do to her if they were to consummate their relationship.  They laugh off his vivid descriptions when he’s finished, but this pivotal moment confirms that something greater than a lightly considered fantasy exists between them.  That this adultery takes part in words rather than deeds cuts to the crux of Margot’s dilemma.  She is chasing the ideal of something out there that might be better without realizing how doing so is ruining an already good thing she owns.

Writer-director Sarah Polley lingers on the intimate communication between spouses, friends, and would-be lovers to fill in the broader views of the relationships.  The genuine affection between Margot and Lou comes through in their silly private moments and the most violently expressed sweet nothings since PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE.  The between-the-lines advice Margot is given by her alcoholic sister-in-law Geraldine (Sarah Silverman) addresses suspicions while avoiding accusations.  Polley excels at conveying who these people are through observation rather than exposition and sticks to that style by favoring low-key resolutions.  The emotional climax is a model of restraint, especially since it’s where other films typically deploy fireworks.  This tempered approach rings true to the individuals Williams and Rogen have fleshed out..

Having taken its title from a Leonard Cohen song, TAKE THIS WALTZ is dedicated to providing a serious look at what can lead to marital unfaithfulness.  Unlike the singer’s work, the film is afflicted with a case of being overly precious.  The amount of time devoted to Margot and Lou’s lovey-dovey play can be a bit much.  Margot pretends to have mobility issues at the airport so she can be pushed around in a wheelchair to make the connecting flights she fears missing.  Somehow Daniel earns a living as a rickshaw driver in addition to being a secret artist in his spare time.  It’s no single element that leads to twee overload but the entirety of them.  

As she demonstrated in her debut feature AWAY FROM HER and proves again with TAKE THIS WALTZ, Polley has a knack for writing about mature subjects and coaxing natural performances, which is what makes the excessive quirkiness here somewhat exasperating.  Even with it, TAKE THIS WALTZ is an achingly beautiful film in the longing its characters express and the sun-dappled Toronto cinematographer Luc Montpellier captures.

Grade: B

Goon

GOON (Michael Dowse, 2011)

A hockey team’s enforcer usually ranks among the most popular players with fans because they love the guy who pounds on opponents and isn’t afraid to leave some of his blood on the ice.  Other team sports feature their share of violent contact, but hockey stands alone in accepting fisticuffs among players as part of the game.  GOON, based on the true story of designated tough guy Doug “The Hammer” Smith, suggests that being a good fighter sometimes can be enough to make a living in hockey.  

Massachusetts bouncer Doug Glatt (Seann William Scott) never aspired to lace up the skates.  In fact, he can barely stay upright on them, but that doesn’t matter to the coach who spots him one night at the rink.  Doug is attending a minor league game when a shouting match with a player in the penalty box leads to a scuffle in the stands.  Doug absorbs the hits and lays out the furious member of the visiting team.  With those well-landed blows, Doug punches his ticket for a professional hockey career.  

Doug is of little use other than as a bruiser, but his singular talent attracts the affection of the fans and the interest of a farm team in Halifax.  The organization wants a protector for its high draft pick Xavier LaFlamme (Marc-André Grondin).  Since returning from a brutal hit, the offensive wunderkind is wary on the ice and out of control off it.  

Doug has finally found his calling, but all is not perfect.  He becomes a popular guy in his new club’s locker room but is resented by Xavier.  His brother Ira (David Paetkau) and best friend Pat (Jay Baruchel) support his newfound success, but his parents (Eugene Levy and Ellen David) express disdain for Doug being celebrated for violent behavior.  He meets and falls for a Eva (Alison Pill), a pretty Canadian local who reluctantly informs him after they’ve made out that she has a boyfriend.     

Unlike most sports movies, which tend to be overly reverent about their subjects, GOON puts on no airs.  The action on the ice isn’t a metaphor for life, and the players aren’t noble warriors.  Being a hockey player is just a job, albeit one that can benefit those like Doug who excel at beating the tar out of others.  The film’s sense of humor is just as blunt.  Liberally peppered with profanities and comedic hockey-related violence, GOON finds plenty to laugh at in the coarse words and antics of athletes.

Best known as Stifler in the AMERICAN PIE films, Scott has made his name playing insincere and overbearing characters.  GOON’s Doug could have easily come from the same mold, but in an inspired choice, Scott represents the protagonist as a nice, sweet guy despite his thuggish conduct on the ice.  Even at his most dim-witted, Doug’s innate sensitivity shines through, like when he asks an upset Eva if she just watched inspirational football film RUDY.  The contrast in his personality can be most amusing in his polite proposals to adversaries to drop gloves.  The professional rough-houser’s pride in having found his role is seen in the respect he grants legendary goon Ross Rhea (Liev Schreiber) and the confusion and disappointment from his parents disapproval.  Doug displays everything he thinks and feels on the surface, and Scott does solid work being funny and giving Doug emotional complexity.        

While GOON hails the underdog, it doesn’t oversell Doug’s abilities.  Take away his enforcer assignment and his contribution on the ice vanishes.  Essentially he’s a boxer on skates.  In seeing these players for what they are and avoiding sentimentality, GOON earns bigger laughs and likely provides a truer glimpse inside the sport than the reporters and screenwriters whose flowery prose tries to make these competitors respectable.    

Grade: B-

Bernie

BERNIE (Richard Linklater, 2011)

Assistant funeral director Bernie Tiede (Jack Black), subject of the true-crime comedy BERNIE, is one of the most popular people in the small east Texas town of Carthage.  He’s good at his job and goes beyond the call of duty in following up with new widows to see that they’re getting along OK.  He’s active in church, community theater, and civic organizations.  He’s generous in giving time, money, and knowledge to those requiring help.  

Bernie is so beloved that townsfolk refuse to believe he’s guilty of shooting Marjorie Nugent (Shirley MacLaine) four times in the back, storing her corpse in a deep freeze, and lying about her whereabouts for months even after he confesses.  If he did do it, she probably had it coming anyway.  Despite the evidence against Bernie, district attorney Danny Buck Davidson (Matthew McConaughey) is at a loss how he can get a conviction.

Why would the local populace consider Bernie blameless?  In addition to being the richest woman in town, Marjorie was probably the most disliked.  She had not been on speaking terms for a long time with a sister who lived in Carthage.  She communicated with her son on rare occasions.  People in the area had the impression that she thought she was better than everyone else.
       
Bernie and Marjorie were already the talk of the town before the 81-year-old widow’s death at her 39-year-old companion’s hands.  Although he was no stranger to visiting women who’d lost their husbands, Bernie showed extra attention to Marjorie.  She repaid him with gifts far more lavish than anyone thought her capable of giving.  Gossips speculated on who was seducing who.  Before long Bernie and Marjorie were going on trips to New York City and international destinations.  She gave him access to her finances and made him the sole heir to her vast estate.  For all of this Bernie was subject to Marjorie’s beck and call.

With facts that are stranger than fiction and a story surrounding a murder that is often played as dark comedy, BERNIE exists somewhere between an Errol Morris documentary and FARGO.  In lesser hands the resulting film might be terribly offensive, but director Richard Linklater, who co-wrote the screenplay with Skip Hollandsworth, walks a fine line that observes the absurdity around the crime without making light of its consequences.  Nothing’s funny about an old woman getting killed.  Plenty is about the community that gleefully speculates about what happened but willfully ignores what is known.

Linklater mixes the fictionalized recreation of events with documentary-like interviews of town residents to create a version of the story through their eyes.  Whether it’s their homespun stereotyping of parts of the state or judgments leapt to from rumors about personal actions, their perception of reality is so ingrained that nothing can persuade them that the truth is otherwise.  Since the people are sympathetic toward Bernie, the film tends to be as well.  Still, for all of the information that is on the record, the two individuals in the middle of all the chatter remain mysteries.

Black dials down his usual routine and turns in one of his best performances.  The part is a perfect fit in which he can play off his everyman likability and musical talents to build someone who enchants everyone with whom he comes in contact.  From what we’re permitted to see Bernie is not a complex character and purposefully so since he’s constructed from how everyone regards him.  To his credit, Black’s expert portrayal of this friendly naïf makes it hard to dislike Bernie even after he kills Marjorie.  Maybe Bernie is a virtuoso con man--one of his community theater roles is Harold Hill in THE MUSIC MAN--but the impulse is to want to give him some benefit of the doubt.      

McConaughey is a hoot as the showboating DA who provides the voice of reason amid the media carnival.  Wearing glasses, a cowboy hat, and a tie he sometimes uses to wipe his mouth, he plays up his salt of the earth credibility to cast suspicion on Bernie’s cultured ways.

Typically Linklater’s films find him operating in a philosophical mode that encourages contemplating why and how we know what we know.  With BERNIE he humorously explores what happens when those questions aren’t asked.  In the movies it’s funny when empirical belief becomes so rigid that first impressions can’t be altered.  It isn’t when justice is at stake.

Grade: B+

The Innkeepers

THE INNKEEPERS (Ti West, 2011)

The Yankee Pedlar Inn, first opened in 1891, prepares to shutter its doors for good after one final weekend of accommodating guests in THE INNKEEPERS.   For these last days Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy), the two remaining employees, have moved in to keep each other company while working twelve-hour shifts at the front desk and hunting for ghosts rumored to walk the hotel’s halls.  With a mother and child and washed up actress Leanne Rease-Jones (Kelly McGillis) the only ones checked in, they have plenty of time to search for the supernatural.

Luke maintains a primitive website about The Yankee Pedlar Inn, which is purported to be one of the most haunted hotels in New England.  Its notorious reputation stems from a story long ago of Madeline O’Malley, a guest who hung herself after her fiancé stood her up on her wedding day.  Wishing to avoid bad publicity, the owners hid her body in the wood cellar for three days.  The scandal eventually came to light, forcing the sale and long-term closure of the property and leading to talk of Madeline haunting the inn.

Although not up to the high standard of writer-director Ti West’s previous film THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, THE INNKEEPERS is another often chilling exercise in building mood and atmosphere.  In contrast to many of his contemporaries, West favors something that might be dubbed slow horror, which relies on spinning spooky tales and employing long takes and wide shots.  West isn’t concerned so much with what he shows to raise the tension but instead builds suggestibility.  The pleasure is found in the anticipation of something awful happening, not being jarred by specters popping out of unsuspected places.  Compared to films with more aggressive jolt delivery systems, West wrings greater suspense out of otherwise banal scenes of Claire inspecting a noise coming from the cellar and sitting in an empty room while listening over headphones to the shotgun microphone connected to a tape recorder. 

When THE INNKEEPERS does include jump moments, they’re usually played for laughs.  It is an uncommonly funny film within the framework of traditional horror, but it feels appropriate considering the lighthearted tone foregrounded in Claire and Luke’s complementary work relationship and easygoing friendship.  Paxton and Healy exhibit pleasing chemistry as their characters try to pass the uneventful hours on the job. While Claire is the one sensed to be in the most danger, Paxton turns in a delightful comedic performance rooted in her posture and overall comportment.  Her awkwardness witnessed in interactions with guests and hilariously dragging trash to the dumpster is what makes her so endearing and the most vulnerable to whatever malevolent forces may be present.

At the core of THE INNKEEPERS is the question of if it is preferable to be haunted by ghosts or the prospect of a dead end future.  Both fears are potentially magnified within one’s mind rather than being tangible threats and are likely to become overwhelming if fixated on.  The damage these worries cause are proportional to how suggestible one is to accepting them as fate.  It’s easy to be frightened of the invisible or interpret random events as menacing if uncertainty is automatically assigned negative attributes.  

Reflecting on the thematic thrust of THE INNKEEPERS helps to compensate for a generally lackluster ending that satisfies more as a metaphor than a conclusion to the story.  The apprehension that sends a surge of nervous energy through the lengthy build-up dissipates when an answer, no matter how terrible it might be, can’t meet expectations.  That minor disappointment aside, West again shows that he’s one of the more exciting filmmakers working in the genre.

Grade: B

Miss Bala

MISS BALA (Gerardo Naranjo, 2011)

Through no fault of her own Laura Guerrero (Stephanie Sigman) gets mixed up in the Mexican drug war in MISS BALA.  The young woman from the outskirts of Tijuana is in the city to sign up for the Miss Baja California pageant.  Later that night she and her friend Suzu (Lakshmi Picazo) are at a club when members of a criminal organization slip in and shoot up the place.

Laura escapes but loses track of Suzu in the melee.  While looking for her the next day, Laura again crosses paths with the drug gang known as La Estrella and its fearsome leader Lino Valdez (Noe Fernandez).  Rather than kill her, Lino forces Laura to participate in their illegal activities.

Statistics shown before the end credits claim more than 36,000 lives have been lost in Mexico during the drug war from 2006 to 2011 and that drug trafficking generates $25 billion annually there.  Director and co-writer Gerardo Naranjo’s film bristles with anger at the toll this situation is having upon the country and its ordinary citizens, and MISS BALA manifests the fury in its blunt dramatization of real life.  This impassioned political work aims to persuade through on-the-ground reporting about the rampant corruption and straw men in the war on drugs rather than with sloganeering.

The depicted events could easily be the basis for a slick Hollywood action film.  Instead Naranjo numbs sensation to make his points about the drug war’s damage to Mexico, turning MISS BALA into a thriller from the dissociative first person perspective.  Laura endures as though she’s having an out of body experience in a waking nightmare.  The mildly disorienting sound design emphasizes that everything she sees, does, and has done to her seems unreal and yet her experiences are horrifyingly all too real.  

Naranjo’s use of negative space in constructing the chaotic border town is MISS BALA’s greatest achievement.  Visually the unsettledness of a Tijuana ruled by criminals is conveyed with key information glimpsed in reflections, suggested beyond Laura’s view, and dropped into exceptionally composed long, unbroken shots.  The back of Laura’s head often faces the camera, yet even with a wide frame the world feels like it’s closing in on her.

Laura’s motivations aren’t always readable in Sigman’s performance, but the protagonist’s opinions are less essential than the one quality the actress ferociously exhibits.  Sigman invests Laura with a survival instinct that supersedes whatever objections she might possess as an unwilling participant in the gang’s dealings.  MISS BALA is loosely based on beauty pageant winner Laura Zúñiga, who was linked to a drug cartel and arrested and detained along with other members in 2008.  Just like beauty queens represent their countries, the film’s version of Laura stands in for the Mexican population.  Sigman is no mere symbol of those put-upon bystanders, though, but a specific reminder of the suffering innocents. 

MISS BALA delivers many aesthetic thrills, including the club ambush and a shootout under an overpass, but Naranjo is using the form to call attention to the harsh truth that the battles on view do not only exist in a movie.  It also proves to be a riveting way of telling the story and transmitting the message most effectively. 

Grade: B

Damsels in Distress

DAMSELS IN DISTRESS (Whit Stillman, 2011)

To refer to a film’s olfactory properties is ordinarily associated with expressing one’s displeasure, but to do so in regard to DAMSELS IN DISTRESS is to praise this cinematic aromatherapy’s mood-lifting qualities.  Its light, sweet notes provide a soothing atmosphere for writer-director Whit Stillman’s return after a thirteen-year absence.

DAMSELS’ soap-sniffing protagonist Violet (Greta Gerwig) would certainly approve of scent-related praise.  Violet and her friends Rose (Megalyn Echikunwoke) and Heather (Carrie MacLemore) are, depending who one asks, Seven Oaks University’s selfless suicide prevention center volunteers or the campus do-gooders.  These dutiful young women are vigilant in offering assistance in the form of coffee, donuts, and tap dancing to those in need, be they clinically depressed or merely malodorous.

At the beginning of a new academic year the trio pulls sophomore transfer student Lily (Analeigh Tipton) into their fold.  Violet, Rose, and Heather invite her to become their roommate and to join in their charitable work.  Lily is pleased to gain such nice and altruistic friends so quickly, although it soon becomes apparent that they require help as much as anyone.

British-accented Rose is quick to loose sharp, stinging assessments of the untoward motivations she assigns to the school’s male population.  Dimwitted Heather is hopelessly naïve.  Then there’s Violet, whose exceptional verbal dexterity and magnanimity mask a deep pathology.  She touts the virtues of dating losers, a renewable resource at Seven Oaks, and envisions her greatest possible achievement as creating an international dance craze.  Violet can be quite convincing in her convictions--never let it be said that she does not practice what she preaches--but cracks appear in her carefully maintained surface upon discovering doofus Roman-letter fraternity boyfriend Frank (Ryan Metcalf) cheating on her.

Stillman densely packs DAMSELS IN DISTRESS with trademark witticisms that dissect social constructs and challenge conventional wisdom.  Who else but the filmmaker who strived to rehabilitate the image of disco would have Violet vigorously defend topics as wide-ranging as the received wisdom in clichés and the civil, if not fundamental, gesture that is a stranger sending drinks to a table, let alone make the cases so eloquently?  Stillman likes to play with language and savor the art of conversation, yet he never leaves the impression that his zingers are merely tricks of forensics.  For his characters choosing the proper words can be as much of a moral act as the customs discussed.  Stillman’s polite, heady humor is given to wry smiles and low chuckles than explosive laughter, but the modesty of the jokes makes them no less funny than those more insistent in eliciting the desired reaction.

While the dialogue easily identifies DAMSELS IN DISTRESS as Stillman’s work, the broad humor and vaguely surreal tone mark it as something of a departure.  Undergrads often try on different personas because they’ve been afforded the freedom and because they’re searching to find what suits them.  Whether Stillman is likewise dabbling for the sake of dabbling or seeking to expand his repertoire, his inimitably refined take on the boisterous college comedy pays off not only with highbrow repartee but also with sight gags and lowbrow quips.  His facility with cultivated humor is to be expected.  That mentions of Catharism and lexical tiptoeing also manifest in what is probably the crudest joke in his oeuvre is not.

Gerwig delights to no end playing a character who is able to incorporate her peculiarities into a framework of propriety, service, piety, and delusion that is strangely functional for Violet and her circle.  She handles the dialogue with aplomb, rattling off Violet’s belief system as if reciting from a catechism in a conversational voice while bending the ideology as inconsistencies with her behavior are pointed out.  Gerwig’s guileless performance endears even as it reveals the disorder behind her naked sincerity.

Late in DAMSELS IN DISTRESS Violet says, “I adore optimism when it’s completely absurd, perhaps especially then.”  For all of the confused and stupid people inhabiting his film--everyone, in other words--the generosity of spirit Stillman displays for them is paramount.  Flawed though they are, their enthusiasm and resilience in the face of setbacks reflect their inherent decency and worthiness.  To be happy or optimistic is a choice, maybe one in opposition to the evidence.  DAMSELS IN DISTRESS sets its targets on lightness and hope and transfers those attributes to those receptive to the message.  Life may not be an extended dance scene from a 1930s Hollywood musical, but wouldn’t it be wonderful to find a partner, kick up one’s heels, and treat it as though it were?

Grade: A

The Kid with a Bike (Le gamin au vélo)

THE KID WITH A BIKE (LE GAMIN AU VÉLO) (Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne, 2011)

Eleven-year-old Cyril Catoul (Thomas Doret) wants two things: to be with his father and to get his bicycle.  In THE KID WITH A BIKE he’s better off investing his emotional attachment with the vehicle.

Cyril’s father Guy (Jérémie Renier) has entrusted him to a children’s home and leaves the boy believing that this will only be a temporary arrangement.  Despite all evidence--lack of contact, a disconnected phone number--Cyril refuses to accept that his dad has abandoned him.  

One day he escapes the institution to go to the apartment they once shared so he can be reunited with his parent.  The landlord insists no one occupies that unit any longer, but Cyril must see for himself.  Shortly after getting inside the building he is confronted by counselors who want to take him back to the home.  

Cyril eludes them and slips into the medical office downstairs.  The officials easily find him, but rather than going quietly and willingly, he causes a scene and tightly grasps Samantha (Cécile de France), a stranger in the waiting room.  Only after he is told that he can see the apartment does Cyril calm down.  When he enters it, there is no father waiting to embrace him.  The empty living space has been cleared of all possessions, including his bike.

The incident touches Samantha.  She buys back Cyril’s bike, which his father sold, and returns it to the boy.  At Cyril’s asking she also agrees to be his foster parent on weekends.  Samantha even arranges a meeting between Cyril and Guy.  When it is apparent that he will continue to give Cyril false hope of being together again, she forces the delinquent dad to be honest about the future and dedicates herself to the wounded child.

Writer-directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne possess an extraordinary talent for turning social issue dramas into tense and empathetic thrillers centered on The Golden Rule.  Their films are implicitly religious studies of the moral choices confronting us as individuals and societies, yet they are anything but tedious sermons overflowing with platitudes and simple answers, the likes of which often mark what passes for explicitly Christian cinema.  Instead the Dardennes make gritty modern parables calling for compassion and sacrifice when such support is not easily given by those providing assistance or earned, if it is merited at all, by the recipients.  Like contemporary Jonahs, the Dardennes’ characters are regularly called to do precisely what they would prefer to avoid.  That human struggle gives their films the urgency and heart missing in cozier dramas where paying it forward is as painless as dropping spare change in the Salvation Army’s red kettles.

For Samantha in THE KID WITH A BIKE, the test is what to do about a boy who desperately needs someone to love and care for him.  For little more than a moment Cyril enters her life at random, yet something compels her to reach out to him.  Her motivation is never explained.  Perhaps she couldn’t if she tried.  What matters is that she helps him, not why.  They are brought together at a critical time in his development, and her kindness and generosity, while often rejected, offer the protection Cyril won’t get elsewhere.

Samantha, a single hairdresser who may have taken on more than she anticipated, lives out 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7.  In a marvelous performance rooted in action instead of backstory, de France demonstrates the purity of love and delicately expresses the joy and pain experienced in giving it unconditionally.  Samantha is not transparent, yet de France grounds the character so that her doings seem natural and true to form.

Doret, making an exceptional film debut, is a bundle of restlessness and anger.  His small stature makes plain the unguarded exposure to his father’s harshness and disguises the coiled energy with which Cyril will strike when provoked.  Doret does well projecting and exhibiting toughness beyond his years, but he’s most affecting when revealed as a confused and hurt child. 

The Dardennes’ style resists cheap sentimentality, yet in THE KID WITH A BIKE it yields a deeply moving examination of love as a shield.  They put forth no guarantee that everything will work out.  The vulnerability in no expectations or certainties materializes in a harrowing portrait of an at-risk child and the woman who could be his salvation.  In the Dardennes’ films the grace issued by ordinary people supplants miracles but is no less of a wonder.

Grade: A-