Passengers

PASSENGERS (Morten Tyldum, 2016)

Everyone aboard the spaceship Avalon in PASSENGERS is to be in a state of hypersleep for most of the 120-year journey to Homestead II. Unfortunately for Jim Preston (Chris Pratt), he is accidentally awakened about thirty years into the voyage, meaning that if he can’t get back in that suspended state, he will live the rest of his life and die before anyone else comes out of their hibernation chambers. Jim has his run of the spacecraft, for the most part, but the company of just humanoid bartender Arthur (Michael Sheen) and the servant robots.

For a year Jim studies and works to no avail to figure out how he might save himself. Inconsolably lonely, he becomes enchanted with Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence), a writer and fellow passenger he learns everything about. Finally Jim decides to awaken her so that he will have someone to share this doomed time with. Aurora doesn’t know that he is responsible for what has happened to her. She and Jim don’t become close right away, but considering the circumstances, their bond naturally becomes tighter, with Jim’s secret just waiting to be exposed and ruin everything.

The early section of PASSENGERS with Jim on his own cuts to the humor and terror in his predicament. He is relieved to send a message to someone who might be able to help, but the punchline is that it will take decades for his distress call to reach anyone. Jim essentially has his run of the ship, but he’s still at the mercy of the automated access provided by the price level at which he booked his ticket. Everything is so close and yet so far away in this TWILIGHT ZONE-like scenario.

That Jim would choose to subject someone else to the same fate is understandable even if it is a morally indefensible choice. Desperation can make fools of us all, and his situation would be enough to push anyone to the edge. The problem for PASSENGERS is not the decision Jim makes but how it deals with the repercussions of his actions. Morten Tyldum’s direction and Jon Spaihts’ screenplay view Jim as a romantic hero. They allow Aurora to have her time to feel angry and betrayed, but ultimately the film treats Jim as Adam if he didn’t need God’s intervention to provide him with a companion. PASSENGERS implicitly states that Jim deserves Aurora, an aspect that gets magnified with Pratt’s puppy dog charms.

PASSENGERS also bungles the ending. Even being exceedingly generous in allowing how Aurora might come to reevaluate the state of things, what she decides rings false. On a dramatic level it also clanks because the opportunity for Jim to atone for his sins is dismissed in favor of rewarding him. PASSENGERS’ tone deafness mistakes feelings of male entitlement for romance. The saying goes that all’s fair in love and war, but that sentiment can justify horrors. If the film were capable of viewing the story through Aurora’s lens, PASSENGERS might have succeeded. Instead it doesn’t notice the warped perspective.

Grade: C

X-Men: Days of Future Past

X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST (Bryan Singer, 2014)

It looks like the mutants’ time is up in X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST. A sentinel program with a genetic guidance system targets the biologically aberrant heroes and is on the verge of wiping them out if something isn’t done soon. Their only hope is to send Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back to 1973 to keep Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from killing Dr. Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), who experimented on mutants to develop the weapons.

Things aren’t looking so great for mutants decades earlier, though. Wolverine finds the Institute for Gifted Youngsters closed and Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) depressed and reliant on a serum that returns function to his legs but suppresses his telepathic abilities. Erik Lehnsherr, otherwise known as Magneto (Michael Fassbender), is imprisoned deep below the Pentagon. After breaking Charles out of his funk and Magneto out of his cell, the team of X-Men, which also includes Beast (Nicholas Hoult), head to the Paris Peace Accords to stop Raven from completing her mission and dooming their future.

The X-MEN films have the biggest cast of characters among comic book adaptations, yet DAYS OF FUTURE PAST never gets bogged down trying to devote sufficient time to each of them. The follow-up to X-MEN: FIRST CLASS is mainly Wolverine, Charles Xavier, and Magneto’s show. Jackman is the anchor, bringing the gruff humor and brute force he’s lent to the role six other times. McAvoy and Fassbender harness the tension between Charles’ idealism and Erik’s cynicism. Still, DAYS OF FUTURE PAST finds showcase moments for other mutants too. Quicksilver (Evan Peters) receives an amusing introduction to the franchise in a funny, slow-motion confrontation that stands as the film’s most memorable scene. Blink (Fan Bingbing) uses portals to enliven the future’s actions sequences, particularly the opening one.

Despite two concurrent time periods and various locations to manage, director Bryan Singer and writer Simon Kinberg keep events clear-cut. The path may be a little complicated to follow, but it’s all conveyed in a straightforward manner that doesn’t require audiences to have brushed up on the events of previous films to understand the importance of what’s happening now. The threat and actions needed to overcome it are more firmly defined than the world-at-risk scenario that has become the default blockbuster setting. While DAYS OF FUTURE PAST doesn’t lack for spectacle, such as Magneto ripping RFK Stadium from the ground and dropping it on the front lawn of the White House, it has the good taste not to use anonymous mass casualties as a cheap way of raising the stakes.

DAYS OF FUTURE PAST isn’t lacking seriousness or long-form episodic storytelling that fuels these superhero series, but Singer never loses sight that this should be fun too. Like FIRST CLASS, the ‘70s setting gives a unique look to this one over other X-MEN and comic book entries. DAYS OF FUTURE PAST takes pleasure in showing off the variety of powers its characters’ possess and retains a sense of humor about X-MEN history and the inherent silliness in these adventures.

Grade: B

Silver Linings Playbook

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK (David O. Russell, 2012)

Pat Solitano (Bradley Cooper) has resided at a Baltimore psychiatric facility for eight months when his mother Dolores (Jacki Weaver) arrives to see that he is discharged in SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK.  Diagnosed with a bipolar disorder after beating the stuffing out of a man having an affair with his wife Nikki (Brea Bee), Pat is better than he was before being admitted.  He’s lost a lot of weight and talks about having a positive mental attitude, but his improvements cover up the fact that he’s still struggling to control his explosive anger.

Pat moves into the attic of his parents’ Philadelphia home eager to fix what his violent outburst ruined.  Although Pat is laser focused on repairing his marriage with Nikki, everyone else doesn’t seem to think it’s such a good idea.  For one, she has a restraining order, so Pat isn’t supposed to communicate with her.  His friend Ronnie (John Ortiz) tries to set him up with Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), an emotionally damaged widow, but Pat thinks she’s even more messed up than he is.  He reconsiders getting to know Tiffany when his therapist points out that helping her as a friend would be good for him too.  Also, Tiffany says she can get a letter to Nikki for him.  The catch is that in return Pat must be her partner in a dance competition.

On the surface SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK is a raucous romantic comedy, but its real interests are superstition and delusion.  In a world that can be senseless and cruel, dealing with pain and disappointment through irrational beliefs or rituals can provide comfort and order.  Pat puts his trust in the self-improvement system and psychotherapy.  His father Pat Sr. (Robert De Niro), running books to make ends meet since he was laid off, casts his lot with obsessive-compulsive behavior and sports and combines them when it comes to rooting on the Eagles.  Donning a favorite team’s jersey doesn’t help them win, and wearing black while in mourning won’t bring back a loved one. Religion isn’t explicitly mentioned, although both Pats wear necklaces bearing the face of Christ.  Dressing in these ways can give relief, though.  

Whether or not one sees putting faith in any of these spots as silly or meaningless, they aren’t necessarily problematic unless they harm others or cause self-incapacitation.  Of course, that’s where the delusion comes in and the source of these characters’ struggles.  Pat can’t fully recover until he accepts that his wife may not want anything to do with him again and that he ought to stay on his meds.  Serial flings won’t grant Tiffany the freedom to shed her grief.  The tension and confusion pinging inside these characters’ brains have them poised on the knife’s edge.  Writer-director David O. Russell emphasizes their jittery mindsets and boundary issues through editing and camera placement and movements that indicate manic depression.

From the taboo scenario in SPANKING THE MONKEY to the protagonist’s combative family in THE FIGHTER, Russell’s films feed on chaos and relationship dysfunction. The humor in SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK flows from unfiltered words and deeds. Cooper and Lawrence’s scenes crackle with their blunt and hilarious assessments of each other’s neuroses.  Both give excellent comedic performances that avoid playing mental illness as a colorful quirk.  While there’s a lot of brutal truth telling in their exchanges, tenderness and vulnerability underline the sharpness.  

The romantic comedy formula often contends that people being horrid to one another masks a deep, abiding affection that will eventually emerge.  It’s a crock but nevertheless that’s what gets stressed time and again.  The difference in SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK is that presenting abrasive personalities is a distancing technique for scared people struggling to recognize their willingness to love and be loved.

Grade: B+