Goodbye Christopher Robin

GOODBYE CHRISTOPHER ROBIN (Simon Curtis, 2017)

Wrestling with how to appreciate a work of art when the artist’s actions range from objectionable to abhorrent is nothing new, but in light of the number of sexual misconduct and assault allegations emerging in creative communities, such a question seems particularly worthy of consideration right now. Because 2017 seems to be the year of explaining why we can’t have nice things, along comes GOODBYE CHRISTOPHER ROBIN to potentially ruin Winnie the Pooh. The author behind the beloved character didn’t do anything as horrid as what is dominating today’s entertainment news, but becoming aware of how he exploited his son in promoting the Pooh books introduces some acidity into the gentle mystique around them.

Years after serving during World War I, writer A.A. Milne (Domnhall Gleeson), who often goes by the nickname Blue, remains haunted by the experience. Blue wishes to get out of the city decides that he, his wife Daphne (Margot Robbie), and their eight-year-old son Christopher Robin (Will Tilston), who they call Billy Moon, will move from London to the countryside. The new home in Sussex isn’t the cure-all for what ails him, though. Frustrated with his inability to work, Daphne leaves and vows not to return until he writes again.

Neither Blue nor Daphne are the most active parent, leaving the child care to the nanny Olive (Kelly Macdonald), who Billy is attached to like a mother. When Olive needs to leave to care for her ill mother, Blue is left to watch over the boy for awhile. This time could have been yet another obstacle to his writing, but instead it inspires his most enduring work. Their walks in the woods and Billy’s play with stuffed animals, including a yellow teddy bear named Edward, generates a popular poem and then the Winnie the Pooh books. Daphne comes back home, and the works are massively successful. The public’s love for the books also prompts a keen interest in the real Christopher Robin. The Milnes eagerly involve Billy in the publicity cycle.

GOODBYE CHRISTOPHER ROBIN attempts to tell a rather acrid tale within a placid, storybook world. The prim and proper surface disguises the sourness of the material. It’s like taking a drink of what one thinks is light lemonade and discovering it is lemon concentrate. As directed by Simon Curtis, Gleeson and Robbie appear to be playing very loving and very emotionally distant parents. The actors aren’t at fault for the lack of consistency in which they interact with their screen son. Rather, Curtis seems to want to resist the truth as represented in the screenplay while achieving some measure of vindication on Billy’s behalf. Macdonald, playing a tender and concerned motherly stand-in, is the only one who comes across with any awareness of what is happening in this household.

It doesn’t help that GOODBYE CHRISTOPHER ROBIN lacks a perspective. This isn’t Milne’s reckoning of his shortcomings as a father. Nor is the film viewed from Billy’s side as a kid or an 18-year-old who resents how the books affected his life. Curtis sands off the rough edges and tries to be sympathetic to father and son, but it simply isn’t credible in the way he tells is, especially the especially phony-seeming ending.

Whether Curtis deserves all the blame or if some can be attributed to Frank Cottrell Boyce and Simon Vaughan’s screenplay is difficult to know, but it is easy to see how GOODBYE CHRISTOPHER ROBIN could have been much different in someone else’s hands. A hypothetical Terry Gilliam version might have played up the phantasmagoric fairy tale qualities of a child whose imagination is plundered for his father’s creative renewal and whose odyssey through the media circus denies his real self. Another director might have focused on how the trauma of war lingers long beyond the battlefield. Yet another might have zeroed in on the public’s weird fascination with child stars, made all the stranger here because Billy is the basis for a fictional book character. GOODBYE CHRISTOPHER ROBIN could have rich thematic layers, but Curtis settles on a bland, psychologically confused way of exploring them.

Grade: C-

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT (Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, 2015)

With its title conveyed in the NATO phonetic alphabet, WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT hints at the main character’s heedlessness in becoming a war correspondent and astonishment at what she finds to be normal in that environment. Kim Baker (Tina Fey) is tired of spinning her wheels writing lightweight scripts at a cable news channel, so when her employer seeks on-camera talent to cover the war in Afghanistan, she grabs the opportunity even though she’s not prepared for the inherent hardships and danger. She has a boyfriend who is often traveling but no kids, which frees her to accept the initial six-month assignment.

Beginning in 2003 Kim sets up her base in Kabul in a place akin to a ramshackle hostel for international journalists. Tanya Vanderpoel (Margot Robbie) gives her a crash course in the dynamics of the place, particularly in regard to her high desirability in a spot with few western women and many men. Scottish photojournalist Iain MacKelpie (Martin Freeman) becomes a friend who would like to get more familiar with Kim. Interpreter Fahim Ahmadzai (Christopher Abbott) tries to be protective of her even as she takes unadvised risks. Kim gets hooked on the thrill of reporting from a war zone while the public back home increasingly is losing interest.

In WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT Fey stays largely true to the persona she’s developed in films and TV shows but adapts it for a setting more serious than audiences are used to seeing her in. Once again she’s a clever, funny, fortysomething single woman with an unfulfilling personal and professional life, but in this situation there’s little time to spend fretting about her disappointments. Kim’s intelligence and sharp wit function as shields, if not weapons, in a hostile land. She is quick with withering remarks and crude rejoinders, in part because it’s what survival in the male-dominated culture demands, yet there’s a limit to how much her verbal assertiveness can protect her. Fey is good at showing how Kim mounts her defenses while remaining aware of her vulnerability. Her funny performance demonstrates that her character can drink and swear like one of the boys but still faces disadvantages because of her gender.

Kim rediscovers herself during her time in Afghanistan, but WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT, based on Kim Barker’s book about her experiences, resists being EAT PRAY LOVE goes to war. The film is Kim’s story of personal growth, but it also depicts the lack of change where she’s reporting from. Robert Carlock’s screenplay observes the absurdity and sadness in war-torn Afghanistan. It’s funny that Kim doesn’t recognize the scam of a boy crying over the broken eggs he was going to sell on the street and heartrending to realize that he’s out there doing it out of necessity. There’s humor in a local mistaking an African-American soldier’s presence as meaning that the Russians are now black, yet it points out the decades-long, unresolved conflict in the region.

Directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa maintain the tricky harmony of laughing at the strangeness of a war zone without demeaning those who endure bombings, searches, and gun battles. Alfred Molina’s portrayal of an upper Afghan official who drops thinly veiled come-ons to Kim is the one out-of-tune exception to WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT’s tonal balance. Molina’s performance contains menace as he implies receiving sex for secrets, but the threatening aspect of him is overshadowed by his clownish behavior. Otherwise WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT stays clear-eyed while taking an askew view inside the bubble of war.

Grade: B

Z for Zachariah

Z FOR ZACHARIAH (Craig Zobel, 2015)

After the apocalypse Ann (Margot Robbie) must fend for herself at the family’s apple farm in the valley. Her parents left to search for survivors. Eventually her thirteen-year-old brother departed to look for their mom and dad. Getting by day to day isn’t easy, especially without electricity and no companion but a dog, but Ann is resourceful and keeps the faith in a place the closest thing to Eden in Z FOR ZACHARIAH’s harsh, radioactive world.

One day she comes across the first person she’s seen in a year. John Loomis (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a civil contractor who was in a bunker a mile underground when the disaster occurred but becomes unwell from bathing in the poisonous water Ann finds him in. She nurses John back to health, and they become close, as might be expected of a man and a woman who may well be the only people around for a great expanse or anywhere. Although Ann shows desire for becoming physically intimate, John suggests they wait because it will change things.

Then Ann stumbles upon Caleb (Chris Pine), a miner who has traveled from fifty miles away and is planning to go south to the gulf where he believes others may be. Ann is glad to welcome more company, but John is suspicious of this newcomer. Caleb does not intend to stay long but grows comfortable there. He assists with John’s project to restore power to the house and bonds with Ann through their shared Christianity. While their situation has improved, a strained competition exists between the men for Ann’s affection.

Faith looms large in Z FOR ZACHARIAH. As the daughter of a minister who moved the family to this spot because he believed it would be protected, Ann has good reason to trust that God has a plan even in terrible times like this. Loneliness and winter’s coldness have made Ann question her will to continue, but her belief gives her the encouragement to press on. Despite the hardships, the land and tools available to her meet her needs. Ann recognizes that for all of the rewards promised in the Bible, the holy book never claims that life will be easy. Caleb’s view is less nuanced. He is convinced that they survived because they have faith, as though their convictions earn a kind of cosmic immunity, although his logic doesn’t account for a non-believing John.

There’s also a non-religious faith held by characters and the audience at work in Z FOR ZACHARIAH. Ann is the least guarded of the three, and thus there is no reason not to take her at her word. Robbie gives a strong performance in expressing the necessary toughness to endure this scenario while maintaining the youthful naiveté that may also be an asset to her mental well-being. The inclination is to rely on John’s story as being true while nurturing some skepticism about Caleb’s, at least at first. Ejiofor oozes decency and intelligence, yet he plays John as though an unspoken darkness gnaws at him. Pine challenges the first impression of Caleb, making him seem dangerous or authentic depending on the angle he’s seen from.

Director Craig Zobel’s previous film COMPLIANCE hinges on individuals accepting at face value what they’re being told and following through on it with horrible consequences. In Z FOR ZACHARIAH there is no way of knowing for certain if anyone is being honest, just the reliance on gut instincts. Zobel wrings tension from the scenario by toying with how actions might appear based on available information. John viewing Ann from a distance through a rifle’s scope brings his trustworthiness into question early on until we learn Ann suggested he watch her through it. Before their paths cross Caleb presumably is the one eavesdropping on Ann playing the organ, which, fairly or not, leads to a conclusion about his credibility. He also aims a gun near John while the two are out hunting, although he does so to hit his target, not his potential romantic rival.

For viewers the test of whether to believe the best or worst about Ann, John, and Caleb extends through Z FOR ZACHARIAH’s ending. Regardless of how the conclusion is interpreted, it seems to be an argument for giving people the benefit of the doubt. For the characters putting trust in each other may mean something as critical as the difference between living and dying or valuable as upholding social stability. In this extreme circumstance they have no one to place their faith in but one another. These are active players in determining their own fates. Whether their trust proves to be misplaced or not, they are likely better off giving than withholding it.

Grade: B

Focus

FOCUS (Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, 2015)

In FOCUS seasoned con artist Nicky (Will Smith) knows the tricks of the trade so well that he can easily spot the hustle Jess (Margot Robbie) and her partner try to pull on him in a Manhattan restaurant. Seeing an opportunity to better herself, Jess follows Nicky to New Orleans, where she works to convince him to let her join his den of thieves. After capably proving her skills in a packed French Quarter, Nicky takes her on as an intern with his thirty-person team stealing money, valuables, and identities during Super Bowl week there.

The pleasure of a film about con artists resides in how smoothly it can fool you when you’re already on guard for some narrative chicanery. FOCUS co-writer/directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa are adept in keeping attention on the scams at hand so that the bigger design isn’t glimpsed or considered. They do a slick job of tying everything together in a satisfying way without spoiling the surprises and retroactively correcting some third act issues.

Ficarra and Requa are also quite clever in how they use The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” as a cue on the soundtrack. When it first pops up, it seems like a lazy selection in terms of the classic rock song’s overuse and direct comment on the action at hand. A little later on, though, the employment of it is shown as being crucial to the scene in a way that’s essentially invisible to the audience the first time. Using such details in ornamental and pivotal ways provides regular gratification in this fizzy film.

As long as Nicky is grifting, Smith channels the suave movie stars of yesteryear. He’s also a good verbal sparrer with Robbie, but the romance and heat that is supposed to exist between Nicky and Jess isn’t especially convincing. Smith displays some of the Cary Grant comedic lightness called for in the part, but he seems too invested in work to get distracted by Robbie’s harder edged Grace Kelly. Robbie gives the more varied performance as she adapts to the situations. It’s a potentially star-making turn in a film that hasn’t enjoyed the kind of success to push her to that level.

Grade: B

The Wolf of Wall Street

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET (Martin Scorsese, 2013)

If THE GREAT GATSBY’s Nick Carraway arrived on Wall Street in the late 1980s and decided that the corruption and decadence was pretty awesome, he’d look something like Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) in THE WOLF OF WALL STREET.  Jordan starts out with notions of doing right by the clients while making money for his firm and himself, but his first day on the job he’s quickly disabused of such thinking.  As his boss Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey) makes clear, they’re playing with other people’s money.  The point is to keep the investors’ cash in the game so they can keep getting their share via commission.

Jordan finds himself out of a job after the October 1987 stock market crash, but his fortunes take a marked upturn when he begins pitching penny stocks in a strip mall boiler room in the suburbs.  He’s a gifted salesman who knows exactly what to say to convince blue collar types to risk their hard-earned cash on companies unlikely to produce the returns he implies are possible.  The commission percentages are much higher on the garbage he’s selling than on the blue chip stocks, so it isn’t long before Jordan is earning fat checks and striking out on his own.

Jordan’s brilliant idea is to open his own brokerage house that lures wealthy investors with familiar investment options and then pushes a bunch of the crap stocks on them.  Jordan perfects the script that he teaches to his right hand man Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill) and some old friends so they can land well-heeled clients.  The plan works like a charm.  Jordan rebrands the firm as the more legitimate-sounding Stratton Oakmont and moves them out of a former auto body shop on Long Island to offices in New York City’s financial district.    

For three hours director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Terence Winter present enough bad behavior and language to make a proverbial sailor blush, yet by and large the illegal business practices, heavy drug use, and degradation of women is rewarded and mostly consequence-free.  Jordan and crew achieve their warped vision of the American dream because on some level society deems this acceptable, even if the ugly truths may be hidden from view.  Jordan lives the high life in the land of get mine rather than the land of opportunity, and Scorsese makes it look like a blast to be able to be bombed out of your mind on cocaine and quaaludes and enjoy all that money can buy, whether it’s purchasing a mansion, yacht, helicopter, and sports car or trading up from mousy wife Teresa (Cristin Milioti) to lingerie-designing model Naomi (Margot Robbie).

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET has faced some criticism for making Jordan’s excessive and criminal lifestyle seem too attractive without condemning it, especially because this is based on a true story, but that’s precisely the point.  Jordan has what a lot of people want.  He’s just one of the few able to get it by exploiting get rich quick dreams.  It goes without saying that Jordan and associates are horrible people, but they’re the manifestation of a culture that confuses the pursuit of wealth with the pursuit of happiness.

Jordan and his employees are nothing more than con men operating under a more respectable banner. DiCaprio shines as a huckster whose disdain for his marks ignores the fact that he too has bought into the slick talk he uses to rip them off.  When Jordan gives savage inspirational speeches to his work force, DiCaprio comes off like a bright-eyed cult leader.  He’s very persuasive, yet his monologues seem designed to convince himself of the worthiness of his choices as much as they are to fire up the cold callers doing his bidding.  This puffery emerges in Jordan’s unreliable narration.  For instance, an amount of cash he claims was stolen from his Trump Tower apartment increases as he tells the story.  When Jordan is wrong or inconsistent with the details, it’s in service of building his own legend, which makes him more self-assured and more of an authority to those turning to him for guidance.

Jordan uses words to seduce, and DiCaprio relishes every one in his performance, whether he’s barking out motivational speeches or flirting with bribing an FBI agent.  DiCaprio hints at a wink behind everything Jordan says.  It’s as if he’s asking the rhetorical question “ain’t I a stinker” while beaming with pride at his ignoble accomplishments and actions.  DiCaprio also attacks the physical comedy with zest, particularly when Jordan crawls down a country club’s front steps to his car while incapacitated on powerful sedatives and engages in a slow motion chase of Donnie when he gets home.

Although THE WOLF OF WALL STREET places the spotlight on an unflattering portrait of individual and collective aspirations, Winter’s screenplay spots a lot of humor in the squalor and buffoonery.  All that’s missing is a laugh track to these men behaving badly.  The question is whether all that cackling is because of the idea that these slimeballs are to be envied and emulated or that there are so many suckers waiting to be bled dry.

Grade: A