Logan Lucky

LOGAN LUCKY (Steven Soderbergh, 2017)

LOGAN LUCKY is an oxymoron of a title that describes a West Virginia family for whom things seem to go south every time it looks like they’ve caught a break. Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum) was on the path to a professional football career until an injury ended that possibility. Clyde Logan (Adam Driver) served in Iraq without incident, only to lose his left hand and part of the forearm in an explosion as he was on his way out of the country at the end of his tour. Their sister Mellie (Riley Keough) doesn’t put as much stock in the so-called curse, but Clyde more than makes up for her skepticism as he recounts family history that provides evidence for its reality.

When Jimmy loses a construction job at the Charlotte Motor Speedway through no fault of his own, he decides to apply the knowledge he gained there to improve his lot by illegal means. Jimmy concocts a scheme to steal the money the racetrack brings in from concession sales and convinces his brother and sister to assist. They know an explosives expert with the perfect skillset, except the right man for the job, the appropriately named Joe Bang (Daniel Craig), is in prison. Jimmy has an elaborate plan in mind for breaking him out and getting him back behind bars without notice, but he needs to add Joe’s dimwit brothers Fish (Jack Quaid) and Sam (Brian Gleeson) to the crew to get Joe on board. As thoroughly as Jimmy has prepared, everything becomes riskier when they need to execute the heist earlier than intended.

Director Steven Soderbergh ends his short-lived retirement from filmmaking with a hillbilly variation on his OCEAN’S trilogy. Rebecca Blunt, a first-time screenwriter suspected of being a Soderbergh or his wife’s pseudonym, accounts for all of the questions that might arise in LOGAN LUCKY’s unlikely and intricately plotted robbery. The wide frame and Soderbergh’s open compositions provide room to appreciate how big of an undertaking the heist is and the teamwork necessary to pull it off. The implementation of Jimmy’s plan delivers pleasure because of its finely tooled nature. Sure, this brazen theft is improbable, but the degree to which it has been thought out highlights the structural beauty.

While LOGAN LUCKY hits all the right spots as a heist movie, it’s equally adept as a comedy. The relaxed scenes unwind with amusement at the situations that develop in unexpected ways. A staged prison riot results in a funny negotiation between the convicts and the exasperated warden played by Dwight Yoakam. Joe Bang’s tricks of the trade provoke skepticism until he explains the chemistry and gets the desired result. Mellie’s verbal undermining of the husband of Jimmy’s ex-wife highlights the difference between knowledge and position as the beautician is better acquainted with cars than the auto dealer. The film delights in tweaking expectations.

It seems like accusations of mockery surface any time a film comedically portrays people from the heartland, but LOGAN LUCKY manifests a great deal of warmth for its characters. They may do ridiculous things or have silly ideas, but the film laughs at the frailties in the human condition, not because it’s gawking at self-proclaimed rednecks. The opening scene with Jimmy and his daughter conveys the great affection between the two as he works on his truck and she hands him the requested tools. This relationship informs everything that transpires in the film and is indicative of the generosity the main characters show one another. The emotional peak is reached at a children’s beauty pageant with the singing of John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” a scene that could have been mawkish but instead is quite affecting in getting to the heart of what motivates proud, put-upon people like Jimmy and his family. The hijinks and humor conceal the economic subtext, a familiar subject in Soderbergh’s films, but LOGAN LUCKY makes sure to remind that these ornery people are trying to exploit an opportunity just like those who profit off of them.

Grade: A-

Silence

SILENCE (Martin Scorsese, 2016)

In SILENCE Japanese authorities are persecuting priests and their Christian converts. Particularly distressing to those outside the country is the disappearance of Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson), who has not been heard from in years and is rumored to have apostatized. Jesuit priests Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Garupe (Adam Driver) are convinced that their mentor would have never denied his faith in public and set out on a mission in 1639 to find their missing colleague.

Their guide into the hostile land is Kichijiro (Yôsuke Kubozuka). Although his manner causes them to question his honesty, he is their only option for sneaking into Japan, which has banned Christianity. Kichijiro brings them to a community of secret Christians that they minister to as possible until the villagers fall under suspicion of the inquisitor Inoue (Issei Ogata). Rodrigues and Garupe go their separate ways to protect the people and to continue their search for Ferreira.

SILENCE has been a longtime passion project for director Martin Scorsese, who co-wrote the adaptation of the Shûsaku Endô novel with Jay Cocks. It is sort of the inverse of the filmmaker’s THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, which sought to understand Jesus as a human. In SILENCE Scorsese tackles the impossible struggle of a person to live according to the model of the divine. The trials and tribulations Rodrigues experiences are at first an affirmation of what he believes and bring him closer to God. He is following the example set for him and takes glory in being able to live and prove his beliefs in such an immediate way. The more he strives to be an imitation of Christ, especially as the challenges increase, the more he realizes that he is incapable of enduring such burdens.

Scorsese doesn’t shy away from depicting the horrible executions and torture of avowed believers, but for Rodrigues and the other priests the Japanese are abusing, the mental and spiritual suffering is as bad, if not worse. If God’s love is real, why would he allow such awful things to be heaped on those who worship him? Rodrigues is also faced with the question of whether it would be so unforgivable to make a public demonstration of rejecting Christianity by trampling a fumie if it means avoiding death or severe punishment. Is placing one’s foot upon a carving of Jesus or the Virgin Mary while under extreme duress something God cannot pardon, especially if humans were created as fallible? Rodrigues decides that it is OK for the Japanese Christians to deny their faith if it means saving themselves, yet his refusal to do the same means that miseries will be visited upon all of the people he sees himself as serving. Is he not exhibiting the sin of pride by not apostatizing and thus perpetuating the persecution?

Scorsese uses the sound of crickets and its absence to suggest something all around us whether it can be seen or not. The silence does not necessarily indicate something is not present, but it also doesn’t mean that it is there. For those who apostatize, they have acted in a way that says one thing, yet it is not possible to know what exists in their hearts. SILENCE studies religious commitment as a personal matter, one between a believer and the deity, regardless of the declarations in the square or the temple. Certainly such demonstrations cannot be discounted, but are they the only things that matter? Scorsese has made a monumental work of faith that defies easy answers to theological questions yet cuts to the quick of what it means to believe.

Grade: A

While We're Young

WHILE WE’RE YOUNG (Noah Baumbach, 2014)

Each generation tends to look at the next one with some suspicion that they don’t live up to the standards they hold dear. As the saying goes, youth is wasted on the young. With Generation X in middle age, the time has come for them--us, in my case--to judge the habits, interests, and attitudes of millenials. In WHILE WE’RE YOUNG 44-year-old documentarian Josh (Ben Stiller) and his 43-year-old producer wife Cornelia (Naomi Watts) strike up a friendship with 25-year-old couple Jamie (Adam Driver) and Darby (Amanda Seyfried). Josh and Cornelia are childless and feeling increasingly alienated from their friends because of it, so they are drawn to the burgeoning filmmaker husband and his ice cream-making wife. Josh is especially taken with Jamie’s relentless optimism, DIY ethos, and unconstrained tastes and tries them on for size.

Writer-director Noah Baumbach opens WHILE WE’RE YOUNG with a passage from Ibsen’s THE MASTER BUILDER about being fearful of young people outside but encouraged to open the door followed by James Murphy’s toy box-sounding cover of David Bowie’s “Golden Years”. The film ends with the Bowie original and Wings’ “Let ‘Em In” on the soundtrack. The quotation and songs provide mirror bookends representing the aspirations Josh and Cornelia examine when faced with younger adults’ ways. Are they serious and cultured or sentimental and domesticized? When discussing their lives early in the film, Josh says, “Maybe the point is we have the freedom. What we do with it isn’t so important.” The pointed comedy of the comment is that the freedom they profess to cherish is really just a wasted resource they cling to rather than admit they’ve entered another time in their lives.

Baumbach mines the humor in the resistance to adapting to a new life stage, the foolishness of trying to act younger, and the perceived ridiculousness of how millenials assert their independence and preferences. Editor Jennifer Lame cuts Cornelia attending a mommy and me music class as if she’s entered a house of horrors. Josh suffers the indignity of looking older than he is by borrowing today’s youth fashion as if it suits him. WHILE WE’RE YOUNG practically drips contempt for what twentysomethings consider cool. Baumbach obliterates some easy targets, but the film is no less funny because of it.

Driver’s embodiment of a stereotypical hipster is a consistent source of jokes. After Josh’s infatuation with Jamie has ended, he describes his counterpart as imitating a sincere person he once saw. Baumbach doesn’t withhold any criticism of a younger generation he thinks can be vacuous and disingenuous, yet he doesn’t spare those in middle age. Where Jamie lacks boundaries and hides his careerism, Josh prizes the purist notion of not selling out and retaining authenticity, which are fine ideals until they become stifling to the point of inaction. WHILE WE’RE YOUNG soaks in the bitter comedy that comes in realizing that everyone is searching for answers.

Grade: B+

What If

WHAT IF (Michael Dowse, 2013)

In WHAT IF medical school dropout Wallace (Daniel Radcliffe) is still brooding over the break-up of his last relationship more than a year ago when he meets animator Chantry (Zoe Kazan) at a party thrown by his college roommate and her cousin Allan (Adam Driver). Wallace and Chantry hit it off immediately, but after accompanying her home and getting her number, he learns that she has a longtime boyfriend. Although Wallace says that he’s happy to be friends, this bit of news kills his desire to contact her again.

After running into each other alone after a movie they talk some more and decide that they can have a relationship without romance entering into the equation. The situation becomes more complicated when Ben (Rafe Spall), her boyfriend of five years, gets a job opportunity that requires him to move from Toronto to Dublin for six months minimum. While Ben is in Ireland, Wallace and Chantry build a closer friendship. Although nothing untoward happens between them to jeopardize what she has with Ben, Chantry’s loneliness and Wallace’s unspoken attraction to her complicate their interactions. Making things even messier, Chantry’s sister Dalia (Megan Park) has her eyes on Wallace.

WHAT IF bears some natural comparisons to WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, but the the issue here is less a question of if men and women can just be friends but how to be friends when romantic love is felt but must be suppressed. Wallace and Chantry are two fundamentally decent and compatible people who, in different circumstances, may have become a happy couple in no time flat. As it stands their timing is inopportune with Chantry committed to her boyfriend and Wallace adamant about not scheming to split them up. Relationships are challenging enough to maintain without contriving excuses to test them. WHAT IF generally resists such romantic comedy machinations, although when it succumbs, the developments and actions appear mostly true to the characters.

Whether Radcliffe and Kazan are spending time together on screen or hashing out their problems separately, they’re a joy to be around. Obviously the film has designs on uniting them in the end, but even if romance is not in the cards, their friendship has a nice, relaxed feel to it in spite of what either one may be dealing with internally. As far as that goes, director Michael Dowse also gets friends and siblings in WHAT IF to treat one another with ease, familiarity, and love. The performances speak of characters who know and care deeply for each other, and this goes a long way in selling their behaviors and decisions.

Kazan gets the best part in WHAT IF because her character has more to process. What Chantry feels evolves according to the conditions she encounters, and Kazan softly but assertively expresses the conflict and loss she feels being suspended in relationship limbo. By finding the happy middle between impossibly sensitive doormat and hormonally raging bro Radcliffe plays the regular guy with charisma. Elan Mastai’s screenplay, based on a play by T.J. Dawe and Michael Rinaldi, teases out how people can make things more difficult for themselves with a great deal of sympathy. Whether they act on it or not, Wallace and Chantry recognize that they’ve found the complete package in one another. WHAT IF demonstrates that a romantic comedy can have it all too. It’s a funny, moving, and smart film.

Grade: A-

Inside Llewyn Davis

INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, 2013)

When Bud Grossman (F. Murray Abraham) tells Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) that he doesn’t connect with people, the manager of influential Chicago folk music club Gate of Horn is evaluating him as a performer.  The assessment could just as well apply to the singer’s interpersonal relationships, though. Llewyn tends to approach the world as if it owes him for gracing everyone with his presence and talent.  He’s perpetually in need of a couch to crash on, and he doesn’t think twice about asking his friend Jim (Justin Timberlake) to lend him money to terminate another pregnancy he may be responsible for.  Never mind that the unnamed woman wanting an abortion is Jim’s girlfriend Jean (Carey Mulligan).

Despite his sour disposition and frequent impositions,  Llewyn continues to be treated generously, which suggests people believe he deserves their help even if he takes it for granted and risks alienating his friends and acquaintances in the Greenwich Village folk scene.  Perhaps it means that while he behaves like a jerk now, he didn’t always, or not to this degree.  His current career struggles and the way his musical partnership was severed explain why he’s mired in a funk and why people may be willing to cut him some slack.  Set during a blustery February 1961, INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS externalizes Llewyn’s depression.  Cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel swabs the singer’s environment in gray and often suggests occupying a dark space for enduring Job-like trials.  

Co-writers and directors Joel and Ethan Coen merge O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? and A SERIOUS MAN into INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS’ bleak but comic musical journey with an impeccable soundtrack.  Structured like a song in the round, Llewyn’s odyssey takes a circular shape with which he’s out of sync.  He doesn’t come in at the proper place and stumbles to find the appropriate exit point to break the cycle and rejoin where he should.  Although he can anticipate what’s coming, Llewyn is doomed to remain in the loop at the wrong measure.

Isaac isn’t pressed to mold Llewyn into someone appealing to have around, yet his apparent neediness attracts empathy despite his surly and defeated bearing.  Misery loves company, and he’s the kind of person who can be comforting to have around when everyone is having a rough time of it.  If and when others in Llewyn’s circle break through, something that is likely closer than the characters suspect, he’s also one they’ll leave behind because his unfulfilled high self-regard and standards will make him intolerable to be near.  Llewyn isn’t chasing professional success as much as he’s trying to escape himself, and he’d rather decry what he perceives as selling out than to compromise the integrity of his art.

The cool emotional tone of INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS benefits from the humor the supporting cast generates.  Adam Driver’s gut-busting backing vocals to novelty song “Please Mr. Kennedy” represent everything Llewyn resists.  John Goodman’s scornful jazz man, who derides the inferiority of a suicidal man’s leaping spot, indicates what Llewyn’s future could be if he doesn’t change course.  Mulligan’s brittleness and seething anger toward Llewyn produce a funny inversion of the sweet harmonizer she is on stage with her boyfriend.  Timberlake doesn’t play his moments for laughs but does well displaying the decency and heart that Llewyn resists in himself.

Although the protagonist appears unable to tap any reserves of affection, the Coens present his story as a common, tragic tale with a lot of compassion.  For filmmakers often accused (and wrongly so) of being snide, this prickly comedy-drama demonstrates that there’s more below than surface to discover if one’s willing to take a closer look.

Grade: A