The Vow

THE VOW (Michael Sucsy, 2012)

Leo (Channing Tatum) and Paige (Rachel McAdams) have been happy together for four years in THE VOW, but their lives are shattered when a car accident sends her through the windshield and into a coma.  Although she eventually awakens, Paige has no memory of Leo or their marriage.

Complicating matters further, she doesn’t recall a few years’ worth of major changes in her life.  Paige is surprised, and somewhat distressed, to learn that she gave up law school to become an artist.  She thinks she’s still engaged to the guy she dated before Leo.  Prior to the accident she hadn’t spoken with her parents for years, but as far as she can remember, they get along very well.  In fact, it takes a great deal of persuasion to get Paige to go home with her husband rather than leaving the hospital with mom and dad.

Although Paige makes some efforts to resume the life unknown to her, she feels more comfortable carrying on as though it’s more than four years earlier.  She moves back in with her parents and explores her feelings for the ex-boyfriend.  Meanwhile, Leo tries his best to be understanding and figure out how he can help his wife remember the great love they shared.

THE VOW presents some fascinating challenges for Leo and Paige, yet without fail the screenplay comes up short in allowing them to overcome the obstacles in their paths.  From Paige’s perspective, what must it be like to wake up and learn that practically everything you think you know about who you are has been upended?  How devastating it must be to be told that the lover, career, relationships, home, eating preferences, and possibly political views that you remember having are all different.  It’s no surprise that Paige retreats to what feels familiar than the reality of her pre-accident existence, but the lack of inquisitiveness about her mysterious recent history and the relatively easy manner with which she returns to her abandoned way of life drain the drama from the predicament.

From Leo’s vantage point, what does it feel like to have the person you love the most acknowledge you as a stranger and seem like one to you?  THE VOW does a better job of addressing Leo’s pain at not having his love reciprocated, although mostly this amounts to Tatum moping.  Granted, that’s a valid response, but THE VOW lacks feeling below surface level.  More disappointingly, THE VOW barely explores Leo’s emotional responses to post-accident Paige not being remotely the same woman he married.  After all, Paige isn’t the only one forced to do some major recalibration because of her brain injury.

Another big flaw in THE VOW is the lack of chemistry between Tatum and McAdams.  He’s called to carry the film’s emotional weight.  Simply put, he’s unable to shoulder that burden.  He shows some charm and sensitivity when Leo is actively wooing Paige, but otherwise Tatum often lumbers through the film as though he’s been overly medicated to avoid feeling much anguish.  You empathize for Leo but never sense that he’ll be a wreck if he and Paige can’t reconnect.  That quality must be found in Leo since Paige doesn’t know what she’s missing.  THE VOW aspires to the tragic romance of Nicholas Sparks books and their film adaptations but can’t match them.  Despite Paige’s accident and Leo’s metaphorically wounded heart, THE VOW hits a shallow bottom resulting in just a minor rebound.

Grade: C-

The Best Films of 2011

1. THE TREE OF LIFE (Terrence Malick, 2011)

Terrence Malick’s deeply felt THE TREE OF LIFE finds immense potency in its universal evocation of growing up. Malick and his editors expertly weave together the micro and macro strands into a stunning tapestry in praise of creation and natural and supernatural adoration. With its solemn tone and dominant use of hushed voiceover, THE TREE OF LIFE functions as a two-hour, eighteen minute prayer. Malick’s sacred depiction of eternal human conflict, both inward and outward, is one of the great achievements in cinema for this year and any other.

2. CERTIFIED COPY (COPIE CONFORME) (Abbas Kiarostami, 20xx)

CERTIFIED COPY is an endlessly rich study of a relationship as the platonic ideal versus its all too human form. Abbas Kiarostami utilizes Juliette Binoche and William Shimell as signifiers of their genders and worldviews, not necessarily as individuals, as he charts how two people are when a relationship originates and the versions of them that exist years later. This mind-blowing drama of intellectual rigor and emotional resonance uses reflective surfaces that allow CERTIFED COPY to look different every time you see it.

3. MARGARET (Kenneth Lonergan, 2011)

A New York teenager’s reactions to a bus accident serve as Kenneth Lonergan’s way of exploring the national response to 9/11 in this sprawling drama. MARGARET contains untold layers as it follows Anna Paquin’s Lisa lose her innocence in expecting the outside world to conform to her inner life and learning that it won’t. This highly ambitious film vibrates with rage and sorrow and yet also points toward the connections to ease the pain. MARGARET is a major achievement but has been difficult to see. For Columbus-area readers, it’s lone public screening in town takes place March 7 at the Wexner Center for the Arts.

4. TAKE SHELTER (Jeff Nichols, 2011)

TAKE SHELTER considers where the line is that separates a prophet from a madman. Jeff Nichols follows the progression of the protagonist’s mental dilemma and feels the strain that comes from agonizing over a man’s capacity to do right by his family. In an outstanding performance, Michael Shannon portrays such a conflict with great sensitivity and control.

5. SOURCE CODE (Duncan Jones, 2011)

This nimble science fiction-inflected thriller excites via the urgency of a soldier’s mission to stop a terrorist from blowing up a train while bringing compassion to the repeated scenario he cannot affect. SOURCE CODE hints at an intriguing moral question regarding utilitarian philosophy, but whether the film amounts to anything more than a highly entertaining thrill ride isn’t necessarily important.

6. SUPER 8 (J.J. Abrams, 2011)

Playing with his Steven Spielberg movie maker kit, J.J. Abrams fashions a retro blockbuster in SUPER 8 that’s part monster movie and part coming of age story. Many of my favorite films of the year dealt with coming to terms with loss and letting go of the past. SUPER 8 just happened to do so with large, impressive setpieces and tender and funny interactions between kids on the verge of adolescence.

7. MELANCHOLIA (Lars von Trier, 2011)

With MELANCHOLIA Lars von Trier crafts a bold, intensely felt vision of depression via the story of two sisters awaiting Earth’s obliteration by a newly discovered planet. While existence hangs in the balance, von Trier’s fatalistic embrace of impending doom is starkly beautiful and strangely reassuring. Without question Kirsten Dunst’s Justine is the director’s surrogate, someone who finds comfort in the awareness that years of despondency and anxiety were not for naught. Now that her worst possible fear can be confirmed, what else is there to do but submit to the inevitable? In a film full of strong images, its final one is most striking for what it says about accepting those things that cannot be changed.

8. TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (Tomas Alfredson, 2011)

The art of observation gets a fascinating showcase in TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY. The Cold War espionage thriller is a model of narrative minimalism. With nary an overblown James Bond setpiece in sight, director Tomas Alfredson displays marvelous precision in showing how an agent might do the difficult work, and Gary Oldman is the epitome of quiet cool as the investigating George Smiley. TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY is low key, which is only appropriate, but it is also electrifying when it cuts through the noise to the buried truth.

9. TABLOID (Errol Morris, 2010)

For TABLOID Errol Morris finds a bizarre true story from 1977 known as the Mormon sex in chains case. A former beauty queen was accused of following a man to England and then abducting, seducing, and raping him. How much any of it is to be trusted is left up to the viewer of this wildly entertaining documentary, but Morris suggests that the desire to impose a narrative, whether for personal or commercial reasons, overrules the truth.

10. 50/50 (Jonathan Levine, 2011)

Although the main character is diagnosed with cancer, 50/50 is less about the disease and more concerned with the struggle for loved ones to provide support and for the afflicted to allow them to help. This sharply written and performed dramedy tends toward the glossy side, yet it persuades with healthy doses of sincerity and decency.

(Author's note: Since it's a question I've fielded often enough, A SEPARATION [JODAEIYE NADER AZ SIMIN] is not included on this list or my Honorable Mentions for a very simple reason.  I haven't seen it.  It has not yet opened in Columbus nor been available to me. To date, the only chance I had to see it was at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival, but it wasn't on my schedule.)

2011 in Film: The Honorable Mentions

ARTHUR CHRISTMAS (Sarah Smith, 2011)

Packed with as many jokes as Santa’s bulging bag of gifts, ARTHUR CHRISTMAS treats viewers to a visually inventive, quick-witted dessert for holidays to come. While the 3D isn’t essential, ARTHUR CHRISTMAS uses the extra dimension better than its animated competition.

CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS (Werner Herzog, 2010)

Werner Herzog makes a case for 3D as an artistic tool as he employs it to convey the space in a place where few are likely to be permitted to visit. The documentary inspires a reverie in seeing and contemplating the prehistoric paintings in southern France’s Chauvet Cave. To enter into it via this film is to consider our species’ origin, marvel at what their lives must have been like, and become aware of how far we’ve come.

CONTAGION (Steven Soderbergh, 2011)

Steven Soderbergh’s thriller lays out a realistic and chilling scenario that shows how the world’s population could be threatened by what’s transmitted from a cough, a handshake, or a common bowl of nuts at a bar. If PSYCHO made people reconsider taking showers and JAWS forced second thoughts about going for swims in the ocean, CONTAGION could inspire obsessive hand-washing and stocking up on antibacterial sanitizers.

THE DESCENDANTS (Alexander Payne, 2011)

Director Alexander Payne takes a family on a sad, funny, and heartwarming journey as they discover what is truly important to them as individuals and as a group. Set in Hawaii, THE DESCENDANTS digs into the regular lives of people who can’t avoid problems and sorrow simply because they inhabit a place that looks like paradise on earth. The rocky mental landscapes are difficult to navigate even while surrounded by beautiful, lush terrain. Payne and his two co-screenwriters hit upon the core of emotion with startling clarity.

HANNA (Joe Wright, 2011)

The pleasantly strange HANNA examines womanhood by way of a Grimm fairy tale crossed with an action film. As a socially naive teenager with lethal survival skills, Saoirse Ronan continues to prove why she’s among the best young actresses around. Director Joe Wright dazzles with a colorful and delirious vision of modern life to an outsider’s eyes.

THE INTERRUPTERS (Steve James, 2011)

Steve James’s powerful documentary about the people trying to break the pattern of youth violence in Chicago gives a ride-along on an emotional roller coaster. THE INTERRUPTERS manages to be touching, frustrating, and uplifting as it depicts the depth of the problem without claiming to have a solution.

INTO THE ABYSS: A TALE OF DEATH, A TALE OF LIFE (Werner Herzog, 2011)

Werner Herzog makes clear his objection to capital punishment in this documentary, but the director isn’t interested in voicing a polemical argument. Instead, in speaking to two death row inmates, their family and friends, the victims’ relatives, and those tasked with carrying out executions, he uncovers the narratives people write for themselves to endure terrible experiences and hold onto their humanity.

MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE (Sean Durkin, 2011)

Director Sean Durkin and actress Elizabeth Olsen made two of the year’s finest debuts with the paranoid drama MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE. Durkin seamlessly blends the protagonist’s abusive past in a cult with the post-traumatic stress she feels while at the refuge of her sister’s home. Complementing the technique is Olsen’s affecting performance, which delineates the struggle to differentiate between past and present.

OF GODS AND MEN (DES HOMMES ET DES DIEUX) (Xavier Beauvois, 2010)

In OF GODS AND MEN a group of French monks in an Algerian community are forced to choose whether to stay and serve the locals or flee for safety from the encroaching civil war. The quiet and studied nature of the decisions these men make beautifully portrays the struggle of living according to a set of beliefs, especially when following a higher calling may risk one’s life.

PUTTY HILL (Matthew Porterfield, 2010)

Although PUTTY HILL tells a fictional story about a working class community outside Baltimore reeling from a young man’s drug overdose, what Matthew Porterfield captures is surely true to similar real life tales. Borrowing documentary techniques and employing a non-professional cast, the director makes this observation of life on society’s margins feel astonishingly familiar. Porterfield never condescends in creating a compelling and heartfelt film.

WAR HORSE (Steven Spielberg, 2011)

Steven Spielberg’s technically proficient study of war's dehumanization is rendered in a swooningly earnest style in WAR HORSE. The battles sequences are as thrilling and tragic as the World War II fighting in the director’s SAVING PRIVATE RYAN while WAR HORSE’s determinedly old-fashioned storytelling proves a suitable match for its consideration of the old and the modern converging.

The Worst Films of 2011

If you're wondering why THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE II (FULL SEQUENCE) isn't repeating its predecessor's achievement in topping my Worst of the Year list, the answer is that I had no desire to watch it.

1. BATTLE LOS ANGELES (Jonathan Liebesman, 2011)

Using rapid-fire edits and dispensing with a tripod have been action movie trends for some years, but BATTLE LOS ANGELES pushes these techniques to the limit in a film that is absolutely incomprehensible. No logic exists in how shots are juxtaposed. The nonstop noise and visual bombardment is so fatiguing that it practically induces blindness, as though the information overload shuts down one’s eyes for a few seconds at a time. Rather than entertaining with the military fending off an alien invasion, BATTLE LOS ANGELES assaults the viewer.

2. BELLFLOWER (Evan Glodell, 2011)

With its homemade flamethrowers and MAD MAX-inspired DIY car, BELLFLOWER arrives at the toxic intersection of indie film, fanboy sensibilities, and Etsy. This exceedingly dark plunge into wounded masculinity is merely an artier, Instagram-filtered version of the hypnotically awful cult film THE ROOM.

3. APOLLO 18 (Gonzalo López-Gallego, 2011)

Never mind that the overactive sound design and aggressive cutting in APOLLO 18 blows its found footage conceit. If it is what it purports to be--a document condensing leaked footage of the last manned mission to the moon--withholding secrets until late is pointless in this form, especially if what we’re seeing had previously been uploaded to the internet . While waiting for the filmmakers to reveal the supposedly shocking truths, this tedious fake documentary wanders aimlessly and abuses the Super 8 filter. Making APOLLO 18 in a standard form might not have resulted in a less stupid film, but it surely would have been a better one.

4. THE DARKEST HOUR (Chris Gorak, 2011)

A hot young cast, class of 2007, fills a feature film reminiscent of a lousy TV pilot when networks were churning out LOST clones. The alien invaders are usually invisible, which eases the strain on the FX budget but doesn’t do much for creating excitement while the bland survivors roam a deserted Moscow.

5. NEW YEAR’S EVE (Garry Marshall, 2011)

NEW YEAR’S EVE plays out as if it is an experiment in auto-generated screenplay writing and cast like one fills teams for a draft in fantasy sports leagues. Take a bunch of generic storylines, populate them with recognizable actors, fill a lot of the inconsequential roles with other familiar performers, and toss it all together to create a big pile of ambivalence. Nothing about it feels personal, funny, sad, romantic, or vital in the slightest way. It’s as revelatory as emptying one’s mind and staring at the wall for two hours.



6. JUST GO WITH IT (Dennis Dugan, 2011)  

JUST GO WITH IT features an extraordinarily bad match of star Adam Sandler and farcical material. Sandler has never been the most energetic screen presence, and this romantic comedy’s slack pace kills any potential humor found in the deceptions and misunderstandings. As with GROWN UPS, JUST GO WITH IT feels like a way for the actor to subsidize a vacation with friends under the guise of making a movie.

7. ZOOKEEPER (Frank Coraci, 2011)

If a thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters can produce Shakespeare, then ZOOKEEPER must have been banged out by one primate pecking away at a keyboard between sessions playing on a tire swing. This nearly laugh-free amalgamation of DOCTOR DOLITTLE and NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM spends far too much time on romantic comedy machinations and away from the talking animals that are presumably the film’s calling card.

8. THE ROOMMATE (Christian E. Christiansen, 2011)

Say what you will about the bad qualities of THE ROOMMATE, and there are many, but it is easy to watch garbage worth a few derisive laughs. This thriller, which might as well have been titled SINGLE WHITE FEMALE: THE COLLEGE YEARS, fails to nurture a sense of isolation or palpable fear. Then again, it’s hard to feel scared when stars Minka Kelly and Leighton Meester give such hilariously terrible performances.

9. BEASTLY (Daniel Barnz, 2011)

The Classics for Tweens adaptation BEASTLY bedazzles the oft-told BEAUTY AND THE BEAST story with smart phones, social media, tattoos, and Jujubes, but such contemporary things won’t keep kids from noticing how super lame it is. It’s a bad CW drama posing as a feature film and one undisguised as a Hollywood executive’s wish to horn in on that jackpot of sweet, sweet teen supernatural romance cash.

10. CONAN THE BARBARIAN (Marcus Nispel, 2011)

This remake is basically a gorier, bigger budgeted version of a basic cable or syndicated TV series. Lacking in personality and any narrative interest, it’s merely a repository for the gallons of digital blood spilled in the incessant battle sequences.

Chronicle

CHRONICLE (Josh Trank, 2012)

In CHRONICLE three high school students crawl into a hole in a field one night and find something otherworldly.  Soon thereafter the guys discover that they have developed telekinetic powers.  At first this newfound ability to move things with their minds is something they use on a small scale, like building things with Legos or turning on a leaf blower to blow up their female classmates’ skirts.  Their telekinetic skills increase as they use them, and it isn’t long before they’re moving cars or flying.

Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHaan) is arguably the most talented of the trio and the one who has benefited the most from acquiring superpowers.  With a dying mother and angry, alcoholic father at home and a spot at the bottom of the social ladder at school, Andrew was lonely and miserable.  He was videotaping everything as a way of distracting and protecting himself, even if doing so also brought unwanted attention. His recordings supply most of the “found footage” that comprise CHRONICLE.  In these documents it is easy to see that the intense bond Andrew forms with his cousin Matt Garetty (Alex Russell) and big man on campus Steve Montgomery (Michael B. Jordan) is as meaningful to him as their superhuman gifts.  The weak, unpopular one now feels strong and important.

As Voltaire wrote, and as another superhero film reminds us, with great power comes great responsibility.  Matt suggests that they need to establish some rules for how they use their powers, but Andrew for one has no desire to have any limitations placed on him.

The overwhelming number of superhero films of late and the seemingly limitless ability of CGI have taken some of the wonder out of displays of dazzling feats beyond ordinary human potential.  CHRONICLE restores that thrill through the actions and reactions of three teenage boys who behave like their real life counterparts might. Director Josh Trank and screenwriter Max Landis devote significant time to the guys goofing off.  Their prank-pulling and limit-pushing is not that far removed from what the JACKASS crew might attempt if they had the capability to control objects with their thoughts.

The acclimation to superpowers portion of CHRONICLE is good fun in a particularly adolescent male way, but without any boundaries or check on such power, the outcome is eventually bound to result in ugly consequences.  Andrew’s telekinetic talents greatly exceed his emotional maturity, so he channels his antisocial rage in harmful ways.  CHRONICLE echoes CARRIE and the Columbine shootings as the bullied evolves into the bully, culminating in a spectacular battle in and above downtown Seattle.

Trank employs the found footage construct more to provide a firsthand account than to suggest someone has unearthed and assembled the videos. The casual nature of the teens’ activities and their emotional extremes feel more immediate in this form.  Plus, since Andrew can control the camera with his mind, CHRONICLE can position it anywhere, giving the film the visual freedom that the characters enjoy.

Grade: B

The Iron Lady

THE IRON LADY (Phyllida Lloyd, 2011)

The Margaret Thatcher (Meryl Streep) seen at the opening of THE IRON LADY is anything but the tough and focused politician that comes to mind at the mention of her name.  She’s introduced as a confused old woman trying to remain self-sufficient despite being regularly engaged in conversation with the hallucination of her dead husband Denis (Jim Broadbent).  As she goes through their possessions, she remembers her humble beginning as a grocer’s daughter to her ascent to membership in Parliament and eleven and a half years as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

THE IRON LADY is akin to a procrastinating student’s hastily written term paper about Thatcher.  It’s poorly structured, free of context, and superficial.  There’s this lady who got sick, but she did a bunch of stuff leading Great Britain and here’s some of those things.

In a serious misstep, screenwriter Abi Morgan organizes this whirlwind tour of Thatcher’s life and career around the illness in her later years.  Whatever one thinks of Thatcher’s political achievements, they are what make this story worth telling, not her failing health.  Sporadic flashbacks break up THE IRON LADY’s first half hour, which wastes time looking at her current daily life.  This section and the recurring visits to present day are in service of making her a pitiable character.  Putting her declining mental acuity in the foreground has no dramatic value other than as a cheap ploy to enhance an already sympathetic biographical portrayal.

THE IRON LADY skims over a miniseries worth of events and crises in its timeline, particularly from Thatcher’s stint as Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990.  Without a foreknowledge of British politics much of it passes by as archival news footage and recreations in which Thatcher sticks to her guns and gets the results she wants.  Little effort is given to exploring what challenges she faces and how she arrives at her decisions.  (For the most part, it seems her guiding principles stem from a speech she heard her dad give long ago.)  In trying to treat the conservative leader fairly, THE IRON LADY largely avoids digging into the difficult issues or dissenting opinions.  It’s a matter of needing dramatic balance and narrative coloring rather than ideological evenness.  THE IRON LADY just assumes Thatcher is always correct and leaves it at that.       

Thatcher advances and triumphs because that’s what her biography states.  Streep delivers a fine technical performance, as is to be expected, but there’s only so much she can do with a role that’s as flimsy as a construction paper figure in an elementary school student’s diorama.  The barriers to winning a bigger role in the party and government are laid out in a scene with political strategists, yet what was presumably a defining period of time in her life is quickly smoothed over by Thatcher asserting that she must wear her pearls and taking a vocal lesson ripped from THE KING’S SPEECH.  With everything, including the most pivotal moments, rendered in shorthand, THE IRON LADY diminishes the accomplishments of the person whose story it tells and the actress working so hard to offer a well-rounded embodiment of her.

Grade: D+

Press Release: 2011 Central Ohio Film Critics Association awards

 

Drive cruises to top of 10th annual Central Ohio Film Critics Association awards

(Columbus, January 5, 2012) Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive was named Best Film in the Central Ohio Film Critics Association’s 10th annual awards, which recognize excellence in the film industry for 2011.  The film also won two other awards.  Winding Refn was honored for his work behind the camera with the Best Director and Breakthrough Film Artist prizes. 

Columbus-area critics recognized these screen performers: Best Actor Michael Shannon (Take Shelter); Best Actress Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene); Best Supporting Actor Christopher Plummer (Beginners); Best Supporting Actress Shailene Woodley (The Descendants); Actor of the Year Jessica Chastain for an exemplary body of work (Coriolanus, The Debt, The Help, Take Shelter, Texas Killing Fields, The Tree of Life); and the cast of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy for Best Ensemble.

Other winners include: The Tree of Life’s Emmanuel Lubezki for Best Cinematography; The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’s Steven Zaillian for Best Adapted Screenplay; Source Code’s Ben Ripley for Best Original Screenplay; Hanna’s The Chemical Brothers for Best Score; Best Documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams; Best Foreign Language Film Of Gods and Men (Des hommes et des dieux); Best Animated Film Arthur Christmas; and Margaret as Best Overlooked Film.

Founded in 2002, the Central Ohio Film Critics Association is comprised of film critics based in Columbus, Ohio and the surrounding areas. Its membership consists of more than 20 print, radio, television, and new media critics. COFCA's official website at www.cofca.org contains links to member reviews and past award winners.

Winners were announced at a private party on January 5.

A video announcing this year’s winners and runners-up can be seen at:

http://youtu.be/9Kc6JrnJa-A

Complete list of awards:

Best Film

1. Drive

2. Martha Marcy May Marlene

3. Take Shelter

4. Melancholia

5. The Descendants

6. Midnight in Paris

7. The Tree of Life

8. The Artist

9. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

10. Hugo

Best Director

-Nicolas Winding Refn, Drive

-Runner-up: Lars von Trier, Melancholia

Best Actor

-Michael Shannon, Take Shelter
            -Runner-up: Ryan Gosling, Drive

Best Actress

-Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene

-Runner-up: Charlize Theron, Young Adult

Best Supporting Actor

-Christopher Plummer, Beginners

-Runner-up: Albert Brooks, Drive

Best Supporting Actress

-Shailene Woodley, The Descendants

-Runner-up: Jessica Chastain, The Tree of Life

Best Ensemble

-Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

-Runner-up: The Descendants

Actor of the Year (for an exemplary body of work)

-Jessica Chastain, Coriolanus, The Debt, The Help, 
            Take Shelter, Texas Killing Fields,and The Tree of Life

-Runner-up: Ryan Gosling, Crazy, Stupid, Love., Drive, and
             The Ides of March

Breakthrough Film Artist

- Nicolas Winding Refn, Drive (for directing)
            -Runner-up: Jessica Chastain, Coriolanus, The Debt, The 
            Help, Take Shelter, Texas Killing Fields, and The Tree of 
            Life (for acting)

Best Cinematography

-Emmanuel Lubezki, The Tree of Life

-Runner-up: Manuel Alberto Claro, Melancholia

Best Adapted Screenplay

-Steven Zaillian, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
            -Runner-up: Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin, Moneyball

Best Original Screenplay

-Ben Ripley, Source Code

-Runner-up: Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris

Best Score

-The Chemical Brothers, Hanna

-Runner-up: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, The Girl with the
            Dragon Tattoo

Best Documentary

-Cave of Forgotten Dreams

-Runner-up: Project Nim

Best Foreign Language Film

-Of Gods and Men (Des hommes et des dieux)

-Runner-up: The Skin I Live In (La piel que habito)

Best Animated Film

-Arthur Christmas

-Runner-up: Winnie the Pooh

Best Overlooked Film

-Margaret

-Runner-up: Beginners

COFCA offers its congratulations to the winners.

Previous Best Film winners:

2002:  Punch-Drunk Love

2003:   Lost in Translation

2004:   Million Dollar Baby

2005:   A History of Violence

2006:   Children of Men

2007:  No Country for Old Men

2008:  WALL·E

2009:  Up in the Air

2010:  Inception

For more information about the Central Ohio Film Critics
Association, please visit www.cofca.org or e-mail info@cofca.org.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (Tomas Alfredson, 2011)

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY opens in the thick of the Cold War.  It is the early 1970s, and British intelligence, referred to as The Circus, has its upper level shaken up by a failed mission in Hungary in which one of their own is killed.  Agency head Control (John Hurt) is ushered out, as is his close colleague George Smiley (Gary Oldman).

It’s not long, though, until Smiley’s retirement is interrupted with a request to lead a secret investigation into another agent’s claim of a mole at the top of The Circus.  Could new chief Percy Alleline (Toby Jones) or his loyal men Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), Roy Bland (Ciaran Hinds), or Toby Esterhase (David Dencik) be double agents for the KGB?  
While Smiley interviews accusing agent Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy) and other former Circus employees, his trusted inside man Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch) acquires what he needs from headquarters and is his eyes and ears around the office.  

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY begins with a flurry of information that can be overwhelming to sort out at first, but director Tomas Alfredson encourages focus and patience as practiced by Smiley to make sense of it all.  The gloriously drab visuals, save for some splendid wallpaper and soundproofing, lay bare the difficult work of rooting out answers amid the ambiguity of the characters’ actions.  Yet the information in the frame is carefully ordered in verticals and horizontals, suggesting that while a pattern of rogue behavior may not stand out, it can be spotted with careful examination.

After all, TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY is concerned with the art of observation, especially when the stakes are high.  Being able to read people and relationships, catch glimpses in reflected surfaces, and pluck details from notes and audio tapes is critical to the task at hand.  Alfredson’s marvelous precision in showing how an agent might do difficult espionage work is as thrilling as any overblown James Bond setpiece.  Guillam’s plan to smuggle records out of intelligence headquarters doesn’t have him hanging off of buildings but dazzles with an elegant beauty and daring found in the simplicity with which the scheme is conceived and executed.  Whether the spies are functioning in realistic ways or not, their activities have the ring of truth to them, a quality likely indebted to the novel’s author John le Carre, which is the pen name of a former MI6 agent.

As Smiley, Oldman is the epitome of quiet cool.  He’s the studying man putting the pieces together because he can fade into the background.  He doesn’t say much, but his demeanor speaks volumes.  Peering out from his glasses, he sees and processes until the time to take action arrives.

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY conveys a lot with a little.  The exceptional concluding montage, which leaps between the past and present and features devastating match cuts of tears, reveals untold riches about the characters and the secretive lives they lead in the business of intelligence gathering.  TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY is low key, which is only appropriate, but it is also electrifying when it cuts through the noise to the buried truth.   

Grade: A-

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (David Fincher, 2011)

Swedish writer Stieg Larsson’s three posthumously published Millennium novels are an international sensation and already were made into a film trilogy in his native country.  Now comes the first in a presumed American remake trilogy with THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO.

Journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) has just lost a libel case and is likely on the verge of losing his magazine when wealthy Swedish industrialist Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) approaches him with a tantalizing offer.  Vanger will pay him a tidy sum and provide damaging information about the businessman who defeated Blomkvist in court.  In return Blomkvist will come to the Vanger family’s island estate under the guise of writing their history while his real work is investigating the disappearance of Henrik’s niece Harriet nearly forty years earlier.  Vanger believes a family member killed her and is continuing to taunt him by sending pressed flowers, which Harriet used to give him on his birthday.

Meanwhile, computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), who did the background check on Blomkvist, finds her well-being subject to the whims of a newly appointed guardian.   Although in her twenties, Lisbeth remains a ward of the state because of a diagnosis of mental incompetence.  She eventually teams up when Blomkvist needs a researcher and is directed to her.

Having seen the Swedish film version of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, it’s somewhat difficult to approach director David Fincher’s take on the pulpy mystery without recognizing how remarkably similar the two are.  Perhaps out of allegiance to the popular source material, both films are crammed with more plot than feels necessary and seem as though they always have just one more thing to wrap up.  The central mystery struggles to sustain interest because Blomqkvist and Salander are sorting through an information dump rather than mixing it up much with the suspects in the Vanger clan.  Nevertheless, Fincher directs the dickens out of scenes involving research with computers, archival records, photographs, and personal mementos.

The story is mostly the pits in both, but Fincher’s THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO fixes some of its predecessor’s problems and is clearly the superior of the two.  Although slightly longer than the other, this adaptation cuts through the narrative details like a hot knife through butter.  That it plays more efficiently while taking more time indicates editors Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall’s skill at keeping a brisk pace.

This time around Lisbeth is more of a person, and a highly damaged one at that, than the cartoon avenger she’s positioned as in the Swedish version.  Mara plays her as a feral animal taking tentative steps toward socialization.  Taking this angle on the character makes a big difference in explaining the dubious sexual relationship that develops between Lisbeth and Mikael.  Whereas Mikael’s irresistible magnetism in the Swedish film reeks of authorial wish fulfillment, Fincher’s THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO shows Lisbeth initiating this contact as her attempt to crack her shell while still asserting control.  Likewise, the suffering and revenge she experiences, while still horrific, are less exploitative under Fincher’s command.

Despite these improvements, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO can’t quite transcend its junk foundation or, at least for me, the familiar beats of the other adaptation.  Applying the sheen of cinematic quality to a lurid airport novel only goes so far when the cheap thrills have lost some luster because they’ve already been had.

Grade: C+

War Horse

WAR HORSE (Steven Spielberg, 2011)

The four-legged protagonist in WAR HORSE is born as a wild thoroughbred, sold at auction to a buyer who must use him to plow fields, resold to the British army, and ultimately serves on both sides in World War I.  The horse named Joey is not intended for working the fields, but that’s what he is needed for when drunken farmer Ted Narracott (Peter Mullan), in a fit of pique, bids up the cost unreasonably high so his landlord Lyons (David Thewlis) will not win the beast.

Ted’s wife Rose (Emily Watson) immediately recognizes the foolishness of such a purchase and insists that he take the horse back.  Their teenage son Albert (Jeremy Irvine) loves the horse and pledges to train Joey to do whatever he must to help the family farm.  Since Ted refuses to back down from his reckless decision, it’s up to Albert and Joey to ready a rocky Devon field for turnips.

Boy and horse succeed when no on expects them to, but their happy time together comes to an end when Ted sells Joey to the British army at the onset of World War I. The officer promises to take good care of the horse, and a tearful Joey vows to see him again.  For Joey, this is merely the beginning of an adventure that will have him charging into battle for the British and pulling artillery for the Germans.

WAR HORSE director Steven Spielberg turns to the films of John Ford for inspiration in looking at war’s devastating and dehumanizing effects.  He adopts the swooningly earnest style in all of its broad emotional sweep, camera placement, and widescreen Technicolor cinematography.  While made with great technical proficiency, WAR HORSE is determinedly old-fashioned in how Spielberg tells the story, which is a fitting creative strategy considering that the film studies the convergence of the old and the modern.

The battle sequences are as thrillingly directed as the World War II fighting Spielberg thrust viewers into during SAVING PRIVATE RYAN and just as tragic in depicting the great loss of life.  A British charge on horseback into a German camp becomes a slaughter at the edge of the woods, where man and animal are no match for machines.  Spilling out of the trenches for combat in no man’s land is a near certain death sentence no matter which side one enters from.  The men’s lives may be more valued, but they’re protected with little more care than the horses that are literally worked to death.  None of this is as a graphic as in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. Rather, it’s more in line with the standards in the 1940s and ‘50s, yet the impact in observing this wasteful sacrifice is no less powerful.

Charges of sentimentalism are lobbed freely at Spielberg.  There’s no question that the director works to yield big emotional payoffs, especially in this traditional melodramatic form.  Still, WAR HORSE’s ostensibly happy ending comes with the knowledge that the boy and the horse have witnessed many atrocities that may haunt them in the years to come just as Ted is stalked by his memories from military service.  The deep red sky hanging over the Narracott homestead and drenching everything under it in its color is a stark contrast to the blue heaven and green landscape they once knew.  Man and horse have been forced to act contrary to their nature.  Like the donkey in Robert Bresson’s AU HASARD BALTHAZAR, the beast suffers for humanity’s failings.  While Albert and Joey have survived, some stains, like the looming color above and around them, cannot be escaped.

Grade: B+

Press release: 2011 Central Ohio Film Critics Association awards nominees

Nominees announced for the 10th annual Central Ohio Film Critics Association awards

(Columbus, January 1, 2012)

The Central Ohio Film Critics Association is pleased to announce the nominees for its 10th annual awards. Winners will be announced on the evening of January 5th.

Notes on the nominees:
-Ties in the nomination round produced more than ten nominees in the Best Film category and more than five nominees in the Best Actress and Best Ensemble categories.
-Although fifteen films are nominated for Best Film, the list will be limited to the Top 10 after final voting.

The 2011 Central Ohio Film Critics Association awards nominees are:

Best Film
-The Artist
-The Descendants
-Drive
-The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
-Hugo
-The Ides of March
-Margin Call
-Martha Marcy May Marlene
-Melancholia
-Midnight in Paris
-Moneyball
-Super 8
-Take Shelter
-The Tree of Life
-Win Win

Best Director
-David Fincher, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
-Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
-Nicolas Winding Refn, Drive
-Martin Scorsese, Hugo
-Lars von Trier, Melancholia

Best Actor -George Clooney, The Descendants
-Jean Dujardin, The Artist
-Michael Fassbender, Shame
-Ryan Gosling, Drive
-Michael Shannon, Take Shelter

Best Actress
-Viola Davis, The Help
-Kirsten Dunst, Melancholia
-Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene
-Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
-Charlize Theron, Young Adult
-Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn

Best Supporting Actor
-Albert Brooks, Drive
-John Hawkes, Martha Marcy May Marlene
-Patton Oswalt, Young Adult
-Brad Pitt, The Tree of Life
-Christopher Plummer, Beginners

Best Supporting Actress
-Jessica Chastain, The Help
-Jessica Chastain, The Tree of Life
-Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
-Carey Mulligan, Shame
-Shailene Woodley, The Descendants

Best Ensemble
-Bridesmaids
-The Descendants
-The Help
-The Ides of March
-Margin Call
-Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
-The Tree of Life

Actor of the Year (for an exemplary body of work)
-Jessica Chastain, Coriolanus, The Debt, The Help, Take Shelter, Texas Killing Fields, and The Tree of Life
-George Clooney, The Descendants and The Ides of March
-Michael Fassbender, A Dangerous Method, Jane Eyre, Shame, and X-Men: First Class
-Ryan Gosling, Crazy, Stupid, Love., Drive, and The Ides of March
-Brad Pitt, Happy Feet Two, Moneyball, and The Tree of Life

Breakthrough Film Artist
-Jessica Chastain, Coriolanus, The Debt, The Help, Take Shelter, Texas Killing Fields, and The Tree of Life - (for acting)
-Sean Durkin, Martha Marcy May Marlene - (for directing and screenwriting)
-Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene - (for acting)
-Nicolas Winding Refn, Drive - (for directing)
-Shailene Woodley, The Descendants - (for acting)

Best Cinematography
-Manuel Alberto Claro, Melancholia
-Janusz Kaminski, War Horse
-Emmanuel Lubezki, The Tree of Life
-Robert Richardson, Hugo
-Newton Thomas Sigel, Drive

Best Adapted Screenplay
-Hossein Amini, Drive
-George Clooney, Grant Heslov, and Beau Willimon, The Ides of March
-Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, and Jim Rash, The Descendants
-Steven Zaillian, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
-Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin, Moneyball

Best Original Screenplay
-Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
-Diablo Cody, Young Adult
-Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
-Jeff Nichols, Take Shelter
-Ben Ripley, Source Code

Best Score
-The Chemical Brothers, Hanna
-Alexandre Desplat, The Tree of Life
-Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
-Howard Shore, Hugo
-John Williams, War Horse

Best Documentary
-African Cats
-Cave of Forgotten Dreams
-POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold
-Project Nim
-Tabloid

Best Foreign Language Film
-13 Assassins (Jûsan-nin no shikaku)
-Certified Copy (Copie conforme)
-I Saw the Devil (Akmareul boatda)
-Of Gods and Men (Des hommes et des dieux)
-The Skin I Live In (La piel que habito)

Best Animated Film
-The Adventures of Tintin
-Arthur Christmas
-Kung Fu Panda 2
-Rango
-Winnie the Pooh

Best Overlooked Film
-Attack the Block
-Beginners
-Higher Ground
-Margaret
-Of Gods and Men (Des hommes et des dieux)

Previous Best Film winners:

2002: Punch-Drunk Love
2003: Lost in Translation
2004: Million Dollar Baby
2005: A History of Violence
2006: Children of Men
2007: No Country for Old Men
2008: WALL·E
2009: Up in the Air
2010: Inception

Ranked 2012 film list

Welcome to the third consecutive year I'm keeping a ranked list of every film I see from January 1 to December 31.  (Here are the 2010 and 2011 ranked lists.)

I use the A-F scale on the television show and for my reviews on this site.  Those will remain as "official" grades/evaluations, but I have found the 100-point scale to be a helpful way of keeping track of what I see.  Whether it's made me stingier in assessing higher grades is up for debate.

For what it's worth, 60 points equals the lowest total that still equates to a positive review.

A range=80-100, B range=60-79, C range=40-59, D range=20-39, F=0-19

Unrated means either that I felt I was too tired during the viewing (and may have dozed off) or that I did a sloppy job of record keeping and don't have a number available.

Last update: February 1, 2012 
Total features: 30 (2012 qualifiers: 12) 
Total shorts: 3

2012 Films

Haywire - 73
Contraband - 66
The Grey - 64
Players - 60

Joffrey: Mavericks of American Dance - 56
Red Tails - 52
Chico & Rita - 48
Man on a Ledge - 47
One for the Money - 45

Joyful Noise - 36
Underworld: Awakening (3D) - 32

The Devil Inside - 16

Festival films (undistributed/to-be-distributed) 

Shorts (2012)

Tangled Ever After - 75

Older Films 

Beauty and the Beast (3D) (1991) - 91
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) - 82

Le Havre (2011) - 72
House of Pleasures [L'Apollonide (Souvenirs de la maison close)] (2011) - 68
Weekend (1967) - 67
13 Assassins (Jûsan-nin no shikaku) (2010) - 66
Carnage (2011) - 66

The Artist (2011) - 59
Santo the Silver Mask vs. the Martian Invasion (Santo el Enmascarado de Plata vs 'La invasión de los marcianos') (1967) - 51
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011) - 50
The Philadelphia Experiment (1984) - 46
Albert Nobbs (2011) - 44
Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (2011) - 43
A Dangerous Method (2011) - 43
Shame (2011) - 41

The Iron Lady (2011) - 39
The Heir Apparent: Largo Winch (Largo Winch) (2008) - 38
Creator (1985) - 37

Shorts

Scrat's Continental Crack-Up: Part 2 (2011) - 57

Chevelle (2011) - unrated

Melancholia

MELANCHOLIA (Lars von Trier, 2011)

If ever there was a director prepared to make a film about depression and the end of the world, Danish provocateur Lars von Trier would be the one.  His well-publicized battles with depression informed his notorious previous effort, ANTICHRIST, and pervade his latest, MELANCHOLIA.  

After a prologue that beautifully envisions a terrible end, MELANCHOLIA splits into two halves, each devoting attention to the sisters Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg).  Justine has wrestled with depression for a long time, and not even her wedding day, which comprises the film’s first half, can keep her in high spirits.  

The title is also the name of a massive, newly discovered planet that had been hiding behind the sun.  Scientists expect its orbit to pass by close to Earth, but in MELANCHOLIA’s second half Claire fears that this heavenly body will smash our planet to bits.  

Words associated with depression, like dreary, bleak, and sluggish, aren’t applicable to MELANCHOLIA.  Manuel Alberto Claro’s gorgeous cinematography produces slick, saturated colors in the prologue; warm, deep browns and yellows at the reception; and light and hazy blues and white in the second half.  

Considering its subject matter, MELANCHOLIA is quite funny, especially during the wedding reception.  Von Trier, who is likely riffing on fellow Dogme 95 filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg’s THE CELEBRATION, has great fun observing a festive ceremony fall apart.  Udo Kier’s fussy wedding planner, Charlotte Rampling’s grouchy mother of the bride, and a peeved Kiefer Sutherland, who never fails to remind the necessary parties that he’s paying for it all, highlight the prickly humor around this supposedly happy occasion.

While existence hangs in the balance in MELANCHOLIA, von Trier’s fatalistic embrace of impending doom is starkly beautiful and strangely reassuring.  Without question Justine is the director’s surrogate, someone who finds comfort in the awareness that years of despondency and anxiety were not for naught.  Dunst’s remarkable performance conveys the emotional swings and physical effects from her long, internal struggle and the peace she makes with it.  Now that her worst possible fear can be confirmed, what else is there to do but submit to the inevitable?  In a film full of strong images, its final one is most striking for what it says about accepting those things that cannot be changed.  

Grade: A-

Jack and Jill

JACK AND JILL (Dennis Dugan, 2011)

In the comedy JACK AND JILL Adam Sandler pulls double duty starring as Los Angeles advertising executive Jack and his insecure, Bronx-dwelling twin sister Jill.  Even before Jill’s plane has landed in California for her Thanksgiving visit, Jack is counting the hours until she is on a return flight to New York.  He loves his sister, but she gets on his nerves.

To Jack’s exasperation, Jill decides to extend her stay with his family through Hanukkah.  Desperate to get her out of the house and back to the East Coast, Jack figures that the best way to hasten her departure is to find a boyfriend for his sad, single sister.  Luckily and bewilderingly, Al Pacino is smitten with Jill.  This appears to be a coup for Jack, as he might have found a boyfriend for Jill and now has the chance to persuade the actor to star in his pitch for a Dunkin’ Donuts commercial.  Jill, though, is less than impressed with Pacino’s fame, fortune, and affection.  

I’ve rarely liked Sandler’s films, especially when he’s working with someone from his stable of directors.  His laziness and worst impulses are left unchecked, allowing the films to disintegrate into formless and laughless vehicles for product placement, ego stroking, and paid vacation.  This year’s Sandler-starring, Dennis Dugan-directed JUST GO WITH IT is a shoo-in for my worst of 2011 list.  With JACK AND JILL bringing the star and director together again, everything was aligned for me to hate it as well. Strangely, I don’t.

JACK AND JILL certainly suffers from the problems that plague his other movies. Dugan’s filmmaking demonstrates a basic level of formal competence, which is an improvement in this instance.  The corporate contributors are so nakedly integrated that Sandler might as well just pause to show commercials at the act breaks.  At this point it’d be less insulting.  (That said, JACK AND JILL basically does this near the end.)  The immense neediness Sandler’s characters possess gets shifted to him in Jill’s clothes rather than as “himself”, which at least makes it less alienating.  Still, the underlying message remains unconcealed: love me for and in spite of all of these things I hate about myself.  

Yet JACK AND JILL yielded more laughs from me than any of his films have in the last seven years.  Is Pacino’s utterly weird performance captivating because he’s debasing himself or giving it his all?  Maybe I’ve finally been worn down, but Jill’s grotesque characterization goes in one end as deeply unfunny and comes out the other as relatively amusing and, dare I say it, charming.  Her enthusiastic requests for twin time with Jack and general cluelessness let Sandler play up the lowbrow comedy he favors without being as mean or angry as he can be.

The charge is leveled at Jack that he’s bitter and cynical, which seems like a pointed self-critique for Sandler to acknowledge.  Like the actor’s least ambitious films, JACK AND JILL’s lack of energy disguises contempt, but here he’s working through his issues in a more compelling way than usual.

Grade:  C

J. Edgar

J. EDGAR (Clint Eastwood, 2011)

In the biographical picture J. EDGAR director Clint Eastwood and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black track the career of the longtime Federal Bureau of Investigation director.  Leonardo DiCaprio stars as J. Edgar Hoover, a morally certain man who improved and expanded the once-Bureau of Investigation’s ability to fight crime, although not without amassing his share of detractors.  

Hoover rose to the top in 1924, saw the agency become federal in 1935, and stayed until his 1972 death.  The legality of his methods, not to mention his secret files, made him powerful and controversial.

Framed by the head G-Man dictating his memoir, J. EDGAR has a lot of territory to cover and does so swiftly.  The Palmer raids, the Lindbergh baby abduction, and the relentless pursuit of gangsters and political subversives are tied together in a fleet, often exhilarating yarn of a righteous man who will not rest until he has stamped out all criminal and radical elements.  Hoover is clear and authoritative when recounting his accomplishments, yet J. EDGAR questions how reliable of a narrator he is and at what cost such unyielding professional striving did to the individual and the nation.

The successful but petty and vindictive man at the center of J. EDGAR is as much a mystery as what he kept in his confidential files.  Eastwood and Black give Hoover credit where it’s due, especially in the admiration for his organizational rigor and faith in scientific evidence as a valuable tool.  The speculative private life they give him, in which he and associate director Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer) share a closeted and presumably unconsummated relationship, goes a long way in humanizing a man who would ride roughshod over the livelihoods of his subordinates and perceived enemies.

DiCaprio does marvelous work portraying a man who, frankly, seems like he would have been unpleasant company, even to those long loyal to him.  Hoover’s magnetism derives from his intellect, certainty, power, and sense for myth-making, and DiCaprio bears that out with a performance of a man who himself may be constantly performing as though he has nothing to hide.  Hammer’s Tolson seems in awe of and puzzled by his friend and co-worker.  Hoover’s longtime secretary Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts) demonstrates great respect and empathy even as she appears not to understand this man she’s know for decades.  Something must have earned their dedication.  That mystery is what encourages looking even closer at this blank slate of a person.

Grade: B

Take Shelter

TAKE SHELTER (Jeff Nichols, 2011)

Where is the line that separates a prophet from a madman?  For Curtis (Michael Shannon) in TAKE SHELTER, his vivid delusions and hallucinations of an impending storm have him struggling to ascertain if he is foreseeing danger or losing his mind.  Now in his mid-30s, the Elyria, Ohio construction worker is at the age when his mother was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.  While he takes steps to address the potential onset of mental illness, Curtis doesn’t discount his dreams either.

Curtis doesn’t want to worry his wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain) with the burden of what he is seeing, not when she already has their hearing-impaired daughter Hannah (Tova Stewart) to care for and a house to keep.  For a time his actions don’t suggest anything significant is wrong, but she can’t overlook his gradually strange behavior and fixation on the backyard storm shelter.

For a husband and a father the needs to provide and protect are paramount.  Curtis’s visions motivate him to fulfill the role he has been capably serving, but the nightmares also put at risk his ability to be in the family.  If he is experiencing an emotional disorder’s blossoming, then he is speeding toward the ruination he is working so hard to prevent.

In an outstanding performance, Shannon portrays this conflict with great sensitivity and control.  He’s played his share of characters with some faulty wiring, but this role is more down to earth than the colorfully disturbed individuals he’s been in BUG, REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, and MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE.  In TAKE SHELTER Shannon conveys the quiet torment that prods Curtis’s worst fears while he does his damnedest to keep it together for those he loves. When the pressure can no longer be contained, the slow boil of a performance explodes in a spectacular scene at a Lions Club fish fry in which he releases what are either the ravings of an ill person or the impassioned warning of someone who spots trouble on the horizon.

TAKE SHELTER writer-director Jeff Nichols takes great care in detailing Curtis’s journey and surrounding him with concerned loved ones.  Chastain’s deeply empathetic work displays the anguish that a spouse goes through in supporting a partner who may not be well.  In his single scene Ray McKinnon makes an impression as Curtis’s older brother Kyle.  His visit to Curtis’s home and their subsequent conversation tiptoes around the main subject, as men will often do, but the message Kyle sends and what he observes shows genuine worry.

Nichols keeps the narrative taut by not tipping off whether the protagonist is rational or not until the very end, although the answer may be more oblique than it appears. What matters is following the progression of Curtis’s mental dilemma and feeling the strain that comes from agonizing over a man’s capacity to do right by his family.

Grade: A