Colossal

COLOSSAL (Nacho Vigalondo, 2016)

In COLOSSAL unemployed writer Gloria (Anne Hathaway) moves from New York City back to her parents’ empty house after her self-destructive ways become too much for her boyfriend Tim (Dan Stevens). Gloria catches a break when she runs into Oscar (Jason Sudeikis), an elementary school friend with whom she’s long lost touch. He’s eager to help her out, including giving her a part-time job at his bar, although that may not be for the best considering her troubled relationship with alcohol.

Life gets much more complicated for Gloria when, twenty-five years after first appearing in Seoul, a giant monster again manifests out of thin air in the South Korean capital. The significance of this isn’t immediately apparent, but Gloria comes to realize that somehow she is connected to the kaiju. If she sets foot within a playground’s boundaries at the right time, the creature materializes a continent away and follows her movements. Not only is this supremely strange, it also gives Gloria reason to be remorseful for the inadvertent damage she wreaks as this monster.

Gloria’s bond with the beast functions as an inventive allegory for problematic drinking, although that perspective has a limit. Whether in her blacked-out stupor or monstrous self-projection, she has a habit of causing harm to those around her. Hathaway avoids giving a mannered performance, favoring instead a more casual way of acting that highlights the character’s ability to function while noticeably in need of a healthier lifestyle and self-image. COLOSSAL skirts the question of if Gloria is an alcoholic, in part because that subject is not what is of primary interest.

While the film looks like it may view the Hathaway-starring drama RACHEL GETTING MARRIED or Billy Wilder’s THE LOST WEEKEND through a contemporary genre lens, writer-director Nacho Vigalondo has a different target in its sight. To reveal in depth what’s really being explored would spoil the pleasure of discovering it for oneself. Suffice it to say that it seems deliberate for Vigalondo to hide the pill inside a film likely with the most surface appeal for a young male audience. The purpose of the trick is to evoke empathy in those who might be more resistant if Vigalondo was more direct about what he wants to address.

COLOSSAL could get to the point faster than it does and would benefit from smoothing a pivotal character shift that seems rather abrupt even if, in retrospect, the revealed qualities were there all along. The sarcasm Sudeikis often brings to roles can make him seem insincere, but that trait serves him well in a character whose motivations are submerged. The film’s humor lightens the heavier thematic components and provides a great exclamation point. Although COLOSSAL is a bit ungainly, this unusual comedic mash-up of monster and message movie profits from its ambition.

Grade: B

The Guest

THE GUEST (Adam Wingard, 2014)

The Peterson household is still reeling from the death of their enlisted son Caleb when David (Dan Stevens) turns up at their door out of the blue in THE GUEST. He tells Laura (Sheila Kelley) that he and Caleb were good friends. Now that he’s been discharged from the army David is checking on the Petersons to fulfill the request his deceased fellow soldier made. Laura invites David to stay with the family for the time being and allows him to stay in Caleb’s untouched room.

David’s presence in their home becomes therapeutic for each of the family members. Laura’s husband (Leland Orser) can knock back beers with him and rant about how he’s been passed over at work. The Petersons’ 20-year-old daughter Anna (Maika Monroe) entertains the notion of him as a mature boyfriend to move onto while their son Luke (Brendan Meyer) finds a protective big brother who will defend him from the bullies at high school. Still, there’s something off about the unfailingly polite and even-tempered David.

Director Adam Wingard uses triangles as a visual motif in THE GUEST, suggesting that there are two people or sides fighting for the same thing. In this case David is defending a family in mourning and possibly all of those who have lost or could lose loved ones in military service, but his specific motivations and who he’s resisting are unclear for a substantial amount of the film. When the primary mystery is dropped, it still leaves more questions than answers. The lack of details is only an issue in terms of the social commentary, which seems integrated in a slapdash manner. Otherwise Wingard and screenwriter Simon Barrett milk David’s unpredictability and the expectations surrounding his character type from other movies for tension and humor.

With David’s cool exterior, there’s the prevailing anticipation for him to snap. Shots of him alone staring dead-eyed at nothing certainly support the suspicion that all is not as well as he tries to make it seem. Steve Moore’s synthesizer score reflects David’s mental state in its control. The skittering notes suggest a mind in a constant state of calculation while maintaining the appearance of composure. Stevens is playing a familiar outsider role, the tough guy with an unknown background, and Wingard and Barrett have him toy with the preconceptions audiences bring. When David is using a knife around the house and calling out a guy at a party who says he supports the troops, Stevens wears an air of danger about him, perhaps even more when he’s messing with someone. To some extent Stevens is giving a comedic performance. His embodiment of a ruthless killer is often arch. The hilarious thumbs up that he gives, while possibly a reference to TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY, encapsulates the funny sensibility riding shotgun in this thriller.

THE GUEST isn’t entirely satisfying in telling a story but makes up for some narrative shortcomings by virtue of delivering well-crafted genre cinema. The climactic sequence inside and outside of a maze for the Halloween dance mixes anxiety and laughs in nearly equal measures. The exclaimed ending stresses that it is not to be taken too seriously. It may not provide a conventional sense of closure, but THE GUEST strives for good, bloody fun while being sure not to overstay its welcome.

Grade: B-

A Walk Among the Tombstones

A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES (Scott Frank, 2014)

In A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES it’s been eight years after Matt Scudder (Liam Neeson) was involved in fatal shootings as an off-duty detective for the New York City police, but the former cop still seems haunted by that day in 1991. Although he was honored for his service, Scudder chose to retire from the force and get sober. Now working as an unlicensed private investigator, he’s found no peace in the intervening years but has lost all fear, which comes in handy for his line of work.

His latest job offer comes via fellow Alcoholics Anonymous attendee Peter Kristo (Boyd Holbrook), whose drug-trafficking brother Kenny (Dan Stevens) requires Scudder’s particular set of skills and anonymity. Kenny’s wife was abducted the day before. Her captors demanded a million dollars, a price determined by what she would be worth if her weight translated to the same value of Kenny’s drugs. Kenny tells them that $400-thousand is the best he can do and pays up, but he gets her back in pieces in neatly bundled packages as though she were product. As Scudder looks into the case, he discovers a pattern that indicates some men are killing women with ties to the drug world and won’t be stopping any time soon.

The new millennium looms like storm clouds on the horizon in A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES. A newspaper headline warns of increased gun sales in anticipation of societal breakdown when Y2K arrives. Scudder rejects learning new technology. Instead he sticks to pay phones and microfilm as though he expects the world will be abandoning mobile communications and computers just a few short months from now. The film’s brown and gray visual palette casts a funereal air over the city as Scudder dutifully searches for the perpetrators in these heinous crimes. The gloomy lighting suits a character who does not see himself as brave or righteous but rather someone burdened with atoning each day for his own shortcomings.

Neeson has enjoyed renewed success playing unsparing tough guys. Unlike the limbs-snapping enforcers that have become his stock in trade, Scudder soldiers on as a world-weary detective who will plant a knife in someone’s neck if necessary but would rather not if all things are equal. Neeson wears Scudder’s guilt and transgressions as a hair shirt. He brings determination and resigned joylessness to the hard-boiled character adapted from Lawrence Block’s novels. The grim investigation threatens to become more complicated than necessary for a film in which reasons for the killing are largely irrelevant, but Scudder remains a compelling central figure trying to brighten the world a little even if he’s convinced his life remains in the shadows.

Whether accounting for films or television, popular culture has no shortage of entertainment that hinges on villains torturing and murdering women. A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES mostly avoids going into graphic detail and exploiting the horrible crimes exacted on women yet in doing so brings the heinousness of such actions into clearer view. The opening credits sequence

Grade: B