Noah

NOAH (Darren Aronofsky, 2014)

At the center of the Biblical story of Noah is the kind of spectacular visual event suited for an effects-driven Hollywood production. A vengeful God floods the entire planet to eliminate all living beings from the land except one family and the pairs of creatures of the ground and air that the patriarch is instructed to collect in an ark. The basis for disaster films resides in the oral and written traditions through which the tale has survived. What’s not included, though, are the characterization, plot details, and dialogue that the feature-length cinematic form needs, leaving writer-director Darren Aronofsky and co-writer Ari Handel to fill in the gaps in NOAH. Although their version deviates from what is taught in Sunday school, they use artistic license for an often thrilling examination of Noah’s psychological challenges in carrying the burden of such a calling and the construction of a sense of the supernatural more prevalent at the time.

Descended from the line of Seth, Noah (Russell Crowe) is a righteous man living off the rocky land with his wife Naameh (Jennifer Connelly) and their young sons Ham, Shem, and Japheth. They try to avoid the descendants of Cain, who live in cities where all manner of evil is engaged in. Having received visions of a great flood to come, Noah and his family travel to consult his grandfather Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins) about what is being asked of him. Along the way they add a girl, Ila, to their numbers after finding her as the lone survivor of a slaughtered group.

Noah understands that God is angry with the corrupt humans and plans to drown every person and creature with a great flood. As Noah has found favor with the Creator, he is to build an ark to house his family and the males and females of every kind of animal and bird. After the waters subside, they will repopulate Earth. The Watchers, fallen angels encased in rock and mud, assist Noah and his clan with the years-long task of preparing for the floodwaters to come and protect it from the king Tubal-Cain (Ray Winstone) and the panicking masses trying to get aboard the ark.

The ancient world of NOAH is more connected to the mystical than contemporary mankind, so glowing stones, a magical snakeskin, and the interpretation of the Nephilim as rock monsters work within the film’s context. Through these enchanted means Aronofsky and Handel tell the allegorical tale in a way that might have seemed logical to early human generations. Although these aspects are likely to be the most contentious departures from the familiar source, creating an air of unreality helps to root NOAH in another time when more active spiritual intervention was assigned responsibility for what was happening. Incorporating fantastical elements also make the antediluvian period feel more real, as it corresponds to how those who followed may have understood the nature of things.

While NOAH excites and amazes by establishing a bygone era through THE LORD OF THE RINGS-like fantasy, it’s greatest power comes in empathizing with the person directed to carry out a divine mission. What is required of Noah is enough to lead one to madness. Crowe invests the character with steadfast faithfulness while also expressing the physical and mental strains of the task at hand. To the doomed Noah behaves like a villain in a horror film. When he seeks wives for his sons he witnesses the depravity in the city that will lead God to wipe all but the chosen few from existence. Noah believes this decision is just and thus must make horrifying choices, yet despite the outcome from his assent to God’s instructions, Noah is also a victim. Shot in close-up inside the ark, Noah listens to the wailing swirl around him as the wicked suffer horrible deaths that he could prevent if told to do otherwise. God is not given an audible voice in NOAH, which makes the protagonist’s struggle to see his job through all the difficult.

Adapting religious texts for popular entertainment will always be a dicey proposition. While there are a sufficient number of creative choices in NOAH to draw the objections of some, Aronofsky’s dynamic rendition of the flood finds room to respect the source while allowing for divergences that help to keep the story relevant.

Grade: B

Delivery Man

DELIVERY MAN (Ken Scott, 2013)

At a glance David Wozniak (Vince Vaughn) is no one’s idea of someone well-equipped for parenthood. He’s an irresponsible middle-aged man who can’t help but make bad decisions, which explains why he’s deeply in debt to a loan shark and is trying to come up with the cash by growing marijuana with hydroponics in his apartment. David has a steady job driving the delivery truck for the family meat market in Brooklyn, but he’s better at being liked by the clientele than making his drop-offs in a timely manner. His unreliability also affects his relationship with girlfriend Emma (Cobie Smulders). When he shows up at her place late one night, she informs him that she’s pregnant but isn’t sure she wants him involved with the child.

Although David begins to like the idea of being a dad, in DELIVERY MAN he soon finds out that he’s already the biological father to 533 children. From 1991 to 1994 he made nearly seven hundred donations to a fertility clinic while using the pseudonym Starbuck. His specimens proved to be potent and popular. Now many of the offspring want to know his identity and are filing a class-action suit against the clinic to break the confidentiality agreement.

A packet of his biological kids’ profiles is among the paperwork David receives regarding the case. His friend and lawyer Brett (Chris Pratt) advises against opening the envelope, but David’s curiosity gets the better of him. Reading the profiles become like eating potato chips: he can’t stop at just one. Although David doesn’t want to reveal who he is, he starts tracking down these previously unknown children and helping them as a guardian angel of sorts.

Although DELIVERY MAN director and co-writer Ken Scott is remaking his Canadian film STARBUCK, the material often feels half-formed than overworked. David’s qualities shift depending on how the film insists he is to be viewed rather than from him actually changing. He’s introduced as being a perpetually mistake-prone and inconsiderate man-child until he cottons to the idea of being a dad, yet information later comes to light of generosity and sweetness that his family has always acknowledged. Side characters appear and are dismissed without a second thought. Emma fades into the background until DELIVERY MAN needs an occasional reminder that David is also reproducing in a more traditional way. A subplot about toughs coming to claim the money David owes them is so haphazardly integrated that it might as well be excised. Brett’s situation with a household of four rambunctious little ones could use a bit more clarity, but Pratt’s amusing interactions with the kids distract from questions about his life’s vagueness.

Vaughn hits some nice notes, particularly in scenes with an institutionalized son, as he struggles with his fears for the well-being of all these kids he never knew he had and thrills at their successes. Although the process yields instant answers for David, the nervousness over what fate may hold for his children reflects any parent’s desires that everything will work out. With so many kids sharing his genes David’s brood covers the gamut, yet he learns that loving each one is more important than whether they fulfill his hopes and expectations.

DELIVERY MAN sets up as though it might be a farce yet resists the comedic possibilities in the David’s stalker-like activities to get closer to his unfamiliar children. Instead the film plays as a mostly sentimental portrait of imminent fatherhood. Still, for as much as DELIVERY MAN wishes to confirm that David has the makings of a good father, Scott often undermines such thinking. A poorly conceived scene mines for laughs as David vacillates over whether he should commit a junkie teenage daughter for care or sign for her release from the hospital. She says she can quit if she wants and claims to be starting a department store job the next morning, so she doesn’t need rehab to get her life in order. While the scenario has a happy ending, David’s decision demonstrates he’s far from the level-headed guy the film says he is and always has been.

Grade: C

Veronica Mars

VERONICA MARS (Rob Thomas, 2014)

Picking up nine years after the TV series ended, VERONICA MARS finds Kristen Bell’s titular character having left behind her sleuthing days in Neptune, California for an imminent legal career and stability with longtime boyfriend Piz (Chris Lowell) in New York City.  Her old flame, bad boy Logan Echolls (Jason Dohring), is also well in her past until he becomes the primary suspect in the death of his girlfriend, their former classmate turned pop star Bonnie De Ville (Andrea Estella).  Although she knows trouble may await her by getting involved, Veronica can’t deny Logan her help when he asks her to assist him in picking a lawyer.  She returns to her old hometown intending to perform this favor, meet up with a couple old friends, and visit her private eye dad Keith (Enrico Colantoni).  Try as she might, Veronica can’t help but get dragged into investigating the case and, even more regrettably, attending her tenth high school class reunion.

Canceled in 2007 after three seasons, VERONICA MARS was revived with a Kickstarter campaign in which fans contributed more than $5.7 million to get a movie made.  (In the spirit of disclosure, I am one of the more than 91-thousand project backers.)  All the key players in front of the camera and behind the scenes, most notably series creator and the film’s writer-director Rob Thomas and co-writer Diane Ruggiero, are involved, although that doesn’t keep at bay the strange sense that this work is like the novelizations or comic books that have kept other properties alive after the films or TV series ended.  Simultaneously released in theaters and video on demand services, VERONICA MARS is being treated as a film although the rhythms and visual style make it more like two merged television episodes or an extended pilot for the relaunch of the show.

Thomas’ execution exhibits some rust in bringing back this corrupt southern California town.  The murder mystery isn’t all that compelling as a whodunit, and the plotting has the tidiness distinct to episodic TV procedurals.  The mystery’s perfunctory nature can be attributed in part to the need to carve out screen time for all of the fan favorite characters and to build on past storylines, creative decisions that are a direct result of the film’s crowdfunding origin.  VERONICA MARS was made because of the fans, and Thomas works hard to give them what he believes they want.  One can’t fault him for thinking catering to the diehards is merited even if it might leave newcomers to VERONICA MARS on the outside looking in at particular moments and jokes.

Much of the appeal of the TV series and the VERONICA MARS film resides in Bell’s dryly funny and vulnerable performance.  WIth the proper touch of ironic knowingness she dispenses the snappy dialogue mimicking hard-boiled exchanges from the 1940s. While Bell has fun slinging Veronica’s wit at her loved ones and enemies, she’s also good at showing the wounds that have required her to develop a tough shell.  The relationship between father and daughter was the show’s real heart, not her on-again, off-again romance with Logan, and in her few scenes with Colantoni she reveals what it means to love and be loved unconditionally.  Keith and Veronica disagree and tease without harming the fundamental warmth they feel for each other, especially because it’s what they each need more than anything else.

While the film can be rightly criticized for indulging in fan service, Thomas also has words of caution about chasing what used to be.  It’s not that he’s hedging on whether he can deliver with the VERONICA MARS revival but rather that he’s reminding the series’ biggest supporters that nostalgia is seductive but not always healthy.  The hard-bitten sentiment is very much in keeping with the film noir styling.  Veronica couches her renewed attraction to Logan and detective work in terms of addiction and suggests that returning to both may bring about her downfall like alcohol ruined her mother.  The film’s conclusion satisfies with the rush of fulfilling what seems like a natural progression for the gumshoe, but it’s murkier whether this realization of destiny is a positive development.  The character will live on in paperback novels, but if this is the end of VERONICA MARS in films or a television series, Thomas manages to send her out in a way that seems like both a happy and potentially bitter finish.

Grade: B-

Ain't Them Bodies Saints

AIN’T THEM BODIES SAINTS (David Lowery, 2013)

The latest armed robbery by husband and wife Bob Muldoon (Casey Affleck) and Ruth Guthrie (Rooney Mara) goes south when it leads to them and their partner getting holed up in a shack shooting it out with the cops in Texas hill country.  In the exchange of gunfire their accomplice Freddy (Kentucker Audley), the son of their criminal mentor Skerritt (Keith Carradine), is killed while Ruth wounds police officer Patrick Wheeler (Ben Foster).  The outlaws have no choice but to surrender, and Bob accepts all of the blame to keep his pregnant wife from also going to the penitentiary.  Although they are being forced apart, he promises he’ll be with Ruth and their unborn child soon.

Nearly four years later Ruth and daughter Sylvie (Kennadie Smith and Jacklynn Smith) have something resembling a normal life in a small town.  She leaves her wild ways behind to support her kid.  Skerritt sees to it that they have a home next to his, although his charity may just as well be a means of keeping an eye out for Bob if he ever manages to break out of prison.  Indeed, on his sixth attempt, Bob escapes.  Based on the passionate letters he wrote to Ruth for the duration of his incarceration, their former associates and law enforcement expect him to turn up eventually at her door.

AIN’T THEM BODIES SAINTS is set in what looks to be the 1970s, and the style is reminiscent of that decade’s new Hollywood even if the scenario belongs to classic westerns taking place in the Old West a hundred years prior.  Through spare storytelling, magic hour cinematography, and naturalistic voiceover writer-director David Lowery’s film displays the influence of Terrence Malick, BADLANDS in particular.  Although Lowery zips through considerable plot, he’s far more interested in mood than narrative details.

AIN’T THEM BODIES SAINTS swells with regret and romantic longing.  Bob imagines a future with the woman he loves and the little girl he has yet to meet.  The intense singular focus undiminished by the circumstances bestows nobility on the character despite the shortcomings that led him and Ruth to be separated.  Affleck transforms Bob into a sympathetic figure by wearing his heart on his sleeve and seeming naive to the situation’s reality, yet his overwhelming passion is also a weapon for making a reunion with Ruth possible.

Ruth’s feelings for Bob are harder to discern, not because she has reason to love him less but because his presence will complicate the stability she needs to care for Sylvie. Mara maintains the film’s internal tension by being difficult to read as she processes what Bob’s escape means and how she needs to respond.  Ruth has made it through recent years by hiding the truth, so there’s suspense in determining her real motivation in entertaining Patrick’s shy flirtations and sadness in knowing she is probably stuck in a spot unresolved without at least one person suffering grievous injury.  

The characters in AIN’T THEM BODIES SAINTS receive sanctification of a sort through self-denial. They are permitted to express affection but only from a distance, for direct contact possesses too much mortal or emotional danger.  Lowery’s achingly beautiful film vibrates with the knowledge that sometimes love means depriving oneself from giving in to it.

Grade: B+

Divergent

DIVERGENT (Neil Burger, 2014)

After the war the survivors in Chicago construct a wall around their metropolis and maintain civilization by dividing the population according to five virtues.  This society’s groups are the intellectual (Erudite), the peaceful (Amity), the honest (Candor), the brave (Dauntless), and the selfless (Abnegation), plus a factionless caste that subsists largely on the mercy of Abnegation.  Each faction lives in its own part of the city and is assigned tasks that play to the class’s personality strengths.  For instance, Abnegation runs the government, Amity farms the land, and Dauntless protects the city.  

In DIVERGENT teenagers are tested to determine which faction suits them best, but ultimately they can choose to defect to one different from what they were born into and how they were assessed.  Beatrice Prior (Shailene Woodley) has been raised in Abnegation but hasn’t always felt as though she fit in there.  Still, selecting another faction means being separated from her parents (Tony Goldwyn and Ashley Judd) and brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort).  Beatrice’s test reveals that she is a good fit in Abnegation, Dauntless, and Erudite.  Her tester Tori (Maggie Q) stresses that she keep this result secret and stay with the faction she knows.  Being predisposed to multiple factions marks Beatrice as Divergent and thus viewed as a danger to those in power.

Despite the risks Beatrice decides to join Dauntless.  For Tris, which she now goes by, life in Dauntless proves to be daunting.  Eric (Jai Courtney), one of the Dauntless leaders, informs the new transfers that those who do not rate highly enough at the end of the initiation process will be banished to join the factionless.  Her instructor Four (Theo James) may perceive that there’s something unusual about the initiate under his command.

Based on the first novel in Veronica Roth’s best-selling series, DIVERGENT comes off as an indistinct combination of other young-adult literature adaptations.  With the isolated districts, dystopian America, and gifted but self-doubting heroine, it most closely resembles THE HUNGER GAMES, although these particular aspects are generic enough to cover a whole swath of fiction than resemble any one source specifically. The overly familiar nature of the material strains patience in going through a programmatic set of level completion and ground-laying for future installments.  Much of DIVERGENT focuses on Tris enduring the three stages of initiation, which would be all well and good if more characters jumped to the foreground.  Like others adapting a property with a passionate, established fanbase, it feels as though director Neil Burger and screenwriters Evan Daugherty and Vanessa Taylor had to treat the popular book as sacred text and thus depict everything.  Slash a half-hour out of this, and anything significant would likely not be missed.

DIVERGENT introduces some potentially worthwhile questions about the limitations society places on people, but this is not a film with much on its mind beyond hitting the repetitive plot points.  Basic information about how this particular world came to be accepted by all and what exists beyond the walls is withheld, presumably to be answered in the next film and more.  This delaying tactic is surely profitable for movie studios, but in narrative terms it keeps everything in a holding pattern that tests the viewer’s good will.  

Woodley is not wholly convincing as an action star, but she does well with the emotional nuances of Tris.  The camera often holds tight close-ups of her as, like in THE SPECTACULAR NOW, she conveys a regular girl’s struggles to make sense of new experiences and difficult choices.  It’s a role of discovery that Woodley approaches with gentleness and fearlessness.  She’s better than the film around her.  Maybe the sequel will realize that.

Grade: C

Twenty Feet from Stardom

TWENTY FEET FROM STARDOM (Morgan Neville, 2013)

No one dreams of growing up to be a backup singer, but for some skilled vocalists, standing behind or to the side of the star is as close as they come to the spotlight. While TWENTY FEET FROM STARDOM suggests that these supporting performers deserve greater solo success, it also contends that they should be proud of the careers they have made.  Those interviewed for the documentary have contributed to some of the biggest pop and rock hits of the last fifty-plus years and toured with many of the most popular entertainers.  Unlike many all-or-nothing showbiz stories, this one recognizes that it doesn’t take coming out on top to be valued in the industry and to find satisfaction in the work.

Director Morgan Neville talks to a lot of backup singers, many of them African-American women, in tracking the path of this particular kind of performer since the 1960s.  None of their stories are told in full, although four are granted a little more time to link their prospects through the decades.  Darlene Love, the best known of the bunch and one who eventually managed to cross over as a solo artist, speaks of her days in a session group that worked for producer Phil Spector on many of the time’s most memorable hits and the problems she encountered in trying to establish her name.  Merry Clayton tells of her time working with Ray Charles and how she came to provide backing vocals on rock classics such as “Sweet Home Alabama”.  Lisa Fischer released a Grammy-winning single in 1991 but has primarily worked as backup singer, most notably on tour with The Rolling Stones since 1989.  Judith Hill was preparing to tour with Michael Jackson when he died and aspires to solo career.

Neville incorporates a lot of great music and draws attention to the parts of the songs where his subjects made a difference.  Clayton’s isolated track from “Gimme Shelter” is still a stunner when separated from the rest of the recording.  Love’s stories about unwittingly ghosting hit songs and being limited by her contract reveal the injustices in a system where these performers lacked power.  These and other tales bring into greater focus the challenges of the job, but as TWENTY FEET FROM STARDOM floats among the backup singers without going deeper on anyone in particular, it feels like a hodgepodge of anecdotes.

Although TWENTY FEET FROM STARDOM doesn’t display a lot of range, Neville does well at pulling together the history and noting how the role of the backup singer has evolved.  The film makes a good point about how technological changes are having an adverse affect on these vocalists.  AutoTuning and home studio recording lead to less demand, even if such digital solutions make qualitative variations that some don’t feel improve the music.  While Neville doesn’t point out the increase of featured roles in songs, those parts seem like what would have been the domain of backups but now go to stars.

No one has a quick and easy answer as to why these women have trouble going from backup to lead.  It would’ve been interesting if TWENTY FEET FROM STARDOM explored that question more.  Nevertheless, it succeeds as a celebration of talents often unheralded by wider audiences.

Grade: B-

Non-Stop

NON-STOP (Jaume Collet-Serra, 2014)

In NON-STOP United States federal air marshal Bill Marks (Liam Neeson) faces an urgent situation when a terrorist on-board his New York-to-London flight threatens to kill someone every twenty minutes unless $150 million is placed in a secure account.  Bill can only communicate with the hijacker through text messages, so he has no way of knowing who among the 150 passengers and crew is putting everyone on the plane in danger.  

The tense group of fliers becomes more agitated as they object to Bill violating their civil rights in his search for the villain.  They also have reason to believe that he is really the bad guy.  Bill is already the prime suspect in the minds of those on the ground because the bank account is revealed to be in his name.  Like it or not, Bill has to trust others, including row mate Jen (Julianne Moore) and flight attendant Nancy (Michelle Dockery), to look for the responsible party even if he can’t be completely sure that they aren’t in on the plot.  

NON-STOP’s high concept premise delivers DIE HARD on a plane if it were written by Agatha Christie.  As he’s shown in his recent run of action films, Neeson makes a striking hero whose credibility is never in doubt here as he singlehandedly takes control of an anxious mass in a confined space.  If he needs to throat-punch everyone on the flight to subdue them, by God he’ll do it.  The cast is populated with several familiar faces that even if they’re not identifiable by name, enough plausible options for the perpetrator exist to keep the audience guessing.  In pure genre terms NON-STOP lives up to its name by combining the intensity of an action movie with the pleasures of a whodunit.     

Jaume Collet-Serra, who also directed Neeson in UNKNOWN, lays out the tight quarters well and has some fun visualizing the texts Bill gets.  Bill does a lot of communicating through a device. thus making it necessary to integrate the pop-up text and images with some extra flair.  So, when a device’s screen is smashed, the pop-up data gets glitchy.  Collet-Serra uses Neeson’s gruff presence and the film’s forward momentum to help to smooth over the increasingly implausible events.   

NON-STOP strives for some relevance regarding post-9/11 life.  The film works best as a demonstration of the security process and the aggravation and doubts many feel about it, even if incorporating more serious commentary can feel like the filmmakers are overreaching.  The latitude given to law enforcement, the lack of information provided to the public,and false positives create distrust between those sworn to protect and those under their watch.  Bill struggles to sort through a mass of data that can cast suspicion on the innocent.  The passengers and crew don’t have full confidence that this drunk with a badge is using the information appropriately.  NON-STOP makes its points less effectively when assigning motivation to whoever is orchestrating the terror.  The film’s subtext gives NON-STOP a bit of substance, but ultimately it’s most successful in creating a mystery and reveling in Neeson showing everyone who’s the boss.

Grade: B

Adult World

ADULT WORLD (Scott Coffey, 2013)

The glut of talent competition shows on television push the narrative that everyone is a potential superstar.  A glance at AMERICAN IDOL, THE VOICE, SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE, and the like reveals teens and young adults convinced that discovery is the only thing keeping them from fame and fortune.  Even when the judges and viewing public deny them passage to the next round, the aspiring performers often refuse to believe the rejections stem from not being good enough.  Some are surely right that evaluators are failing to recognize their skills, but a great many are incapable of accepting the hard truth that they aren’t as great as they think, especially when their self-esteems have been shielded from challenges.

ADULT WORLD’s would-be poet Amy Anderson (Emma Roberts) is one of those special little flowers.  She sails through Syracuse University with top grades and is told by everyone how terrific her writing is.  The economic prospects for a poet aren’t exactly numerous nowadays, but Amy eagerly submits to as many literary journals and contests as she can find with full confidence that something will come through.  Like many who have earned degrees but aren’t yet making a living, she stays at home with her parents in the suburbs.  They’re supportive of her dream but eventually have to insist that Amy starts bringing in some money in the meantime. She has $90,000 in college loans beginning to come due, and they can’t foot all of her expenses.

Amy’s specialized education and lack of retail experience do not make her an attractive candidate to those doing the hiring, so she’s desperate to find anyone who might provide an opportunity for a regular check.  Although the mom-and-pop porn shop Adult World isn’t where she envisioned herself working, the owners are willing to bring her on as a clerk.  Every small victory seems to come with a setback, though.  Shortly thereafter Amy has her car stolen and gets into an argument with her parents over her financial irresponsibility.  She runs away from home with nowhere to go but the place where transvestite acquaintance Rubia (Armando Riesco) is squatting.  She meets Rat Billings (John Cusack), a writer she idolizes, and wears him down into letting her be his assistant even though he has no interest in serving as her mentor.

Unlike AMERICAN IDOL, which derives pleasure in humiliating singers deluded about the level of their abilities, ADULT WORLD doesn’t intend to burst Amy’s bubble but to remove it gradually for her own benefit.  In reading verse aloud as if it were divine wisdom, Roberts plays up the insufferable nature of the self-identifying artiste.  She is funny in maintaining the sincerity of the character’s passion while displaying the clumsiness of her inexperience.  Amy’s hilarious attempted seduction of Rat typifies her actions as the caricatured motions and words of someone whose deepest interactions have been with art than people.

As Rat, Cusack demonstrates no patience for such obliviousness and optimism.  His wry performance carries the fatigue of someone famous who has long since lost any enjoyment in having admirers excitedly bare their souls and repeat favorite passages to him.  Films tend to depict the act of creation with great romance, but Cusack is here to yank those images aside to say that it can be a grind.

ADULT WORLD’s forced quirkiness overwhelms the good effort Roberts and Cusack give it.  Amy’s naiveté would be more credible if she had just finished high school.  The porn shop setting and what can uncharitably be described as a magical transvestite character come off as lazy attempts to try and make the film edgier without actually doing so.  In that way ADULT WORLD is not very different than Amy as it mistakes idiosyncrasy for cleverness and knowledge.

Grade: C

Cabin Boy

CABIN BOY (Adam Resnick, 1994)

CABIN BOY was a notorious commercial flop and critical failure during its 1994 release, not to mention the butt of jokes by David Letterman, who cameos as a sock monkey-selling old salt.  In retrospect the film’s lack of success should come as no surprise as star Chris Elliott’s comedic sensibilities are strange and often sour.  The weird humor he lent to his appearances on LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN and the sitcom GET A LIFE and continues to bring on The Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim oddity EAGLEHEART appeal to a narrow segment.  CABIN BOY was probably destined to be a cult film.  Those immune to its charms twenty years ago are still likely to resist it, yet for those tuned to Elliott’s wavelength, this seafaring comedy holds up well and seems ahead of its time.

Having completed his schooling as a fancy lad, Nathanial Mayweather (Chris Elliott) sets out for Hawaii to take over his father’s hotel chain.  On the way to the seaport the condescending young man irritates his driver so much that he’s left on the side of the road and forced to walk to his awaiting ship.  Nathanial takes a wrong turn that brings him to a village and aboard the fishing boat The FIlthy Whore rather than a luxury ocean liner.  He assumes the grotty accommodations are to part of the vessel’s ironic theme. Out at sea he discovers that he is on the wrong boat and will not be able to get where he wants to be any time soon.

Nathanial tricks cabin boy Kenny (Andy Richter) into changing their course, but the none-too-bright first mate actually redirects them toward Hell’s Bucket.  When Kenny goes overboard, Nathanial is made cabin boy and assigned to do all of the dirty tasks to earn his keep among the five-man crew.

CABIN BOY isn’t especially funny, at least not in the traditional sense.  Instead it finds amusement in surreal silliness and an alternative comedy style that draws from anti-humor.  It tends to be theoretically comical more than ha-ha funny.  Writer-director Adam Resnick and Elliott, who shares a story credit, riff on 1950s and ‘60s fantasy adventure films.  They express delight and laughs in miniatures, the old studio backlot look, and stop-motion animated creatures that recall the work of Ray Harryhausen. CABIN BOY’s respect for nostalgia highlights the inventiveness in a bygone era while also treating it irreverently and taking waggish pleasure in the tackiness.

Elliott’s prissy jerk in knee socks, short pants, and a wig resists softening even as he grows from a boy into a man.  The high, nasal voice Elliott uses can be annoying, and the character’s patronizing demeanor toward all, be it someone of comparable social rank or the scruffy fishermen, ensures that he is not made endearing in the slightest. Nathanial’s blithe indifference to others fuels this acerbically funny performance.  While Nathanial follows an arc from brattiness to maturity, his inherent loathesomeness serves as a rejoinder to any other story in which a loss of privilege leads to humility and personal betterment.  At just 80 minutes CABIN BOY stretches to reach feature length, yet the commitment to sheer weirdness is often enough to keep it afloat through the slow spots.  

Grade: B-

RoboCop

ROBOCOP (José Padilha, 2014)

OmniCorp is making a fortune using robotic law enforcement overseas, and CEO Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton) can’t wait to deploy it on the streets of the United States.  Sufficient Congressional and public resistance requires finding a solution to persuade the masses that his machines provide a safe method of policing.  The lack of a human element in decision-making is the sticking point for many, so the way to alleviate public fears is to enhance a wounded officer with the latest technological advancements.

With so much riding on the experiment, the perfect candidate is needed to inhabit the suit.  They find him in Detroit cop Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman), who is just a head, hands, and thorax after being targeted in a car bombing.  His grieving wife Clara (Abbie Cornish) consents to the procedure as a way of keeping him alive but fails to consider that doing so turns him into corporate property.  As Alex’s intellect and emotional capacity prove problematic in testing, leading OmniCorp scientist Dr. Dennett Norton (Gary Oldman) is instructed to program the human element out of him.

The 1987 ROBOCOP satirized corporate greed and questioned putting trust in technology.  Director José Padilha and screenwriter Joshua Zetumer’s ROBOCOP consigns the biting humor to segments with Samuel L. Jackson’s cable news blowhard stumping for the adoption of robotic security forces.  Reflecting the times, the challenge in this version isn’t whether such science should be used for law and order but who is controlling it and to what end.  For instance, in the near future drones are almost certain to become more widely employed, so the question becomes how they are incorporated without infringing on the rights and safety of citizens.  Other thematically relevant information is lobbed into the new ROBOCOP, but overall the film plays as though it lacks a point of view.  It seeks to get credit for providing food for thought without digesting.

The talented cast, which also includes Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Jennifer Ehle, and Jackie Earle Haley, add class to what has the potential to be savage material.  Like the new, shiny ROBOCOP with the latest special effects and slick production values, the actors are simply adornments.  Respected actors, snippets of sociopolitical commentary and flashy computer effects are collected badges to claim something vital is present.  It looks good but lacks the personality or depth.  

With more focus placed on the forces manipulating him behind the scenes and the family that misses what he was, it can seem like the RoboCop character is an afterthought in his own film.  Part of the appeal of Peter Weller’s version was seeing a cyborg lawman push around the city’s scumbags in ways a mere man would be incapable of doing.  Through no fault of Kinnaman’s, this RoboCop isn’t cleaning up the city so much as he’s trying to solve his own murder and get his emotions to override his programming.  What Murphy looks like when the suit is removed is a great and disgusting reveal, yet there’s little identification with what remains of the man who’s an unwilling tool of the powerful.

Grade: C

About Last Night

ABOUT LAST NIGHT (Steve Pink, 2014)

ABOUT LAST NIGHT strives to rise above romantic comedy clichés, but in its haste to push through every stage in a relationship it fails to let its primary couple just be.  Danny (Michael Ealy) and Debbie (Joy Bryant) experience the ups and downs of being together in moments akin to montages expanded with dialogue.  The course of them growing close and apart are like a collection of Instagram videos rather than full scenes.  These peeks at the dating life are long enough to get the basic idea across but feel rushed and incomplete.  

The remake of the 1986 Brat Pack film, itself an adaptation of a David Mamet play, relocates from Chicago to Los Angeles to follow friends and co-workers Bernie (Kevin Hart) and Danny and the main women in their lives, roommates Joan (Regina Hall) and Debbie.  Bernie and Joan are a combustible couple eager for their low-key friends to find someone special too.  Danny is still nursing his wounds a year after the end of his previous relationship.  Debbie isn’t in any rush either.  They hit it off, though, and while initially cautious about becoming seriously involved, they decide to share a place.  As the seasons change, so too do the temperatures in their connection.  

To its credit, ABOUT LAST NIGHT doesn’t contrive some nonsensical reason or easily resolved misunderstanding to instigate Danny and Debbie’s break-up.  If anything it pokes fun at such movie devices through Bernie and Joan’s manufactured excuses for splitting.  Still, director Steve Pink and screenwriter Leslye Headland are in such a hurry to get to that point that they skim over much of what would advance the main duo’s commitment to one another beyond the first level of intense physical attraction.  This might be understandable if ABOUT LAST NIGHT were commenting on how sexual chemistry can lead people to form deeper ties than they are prepared to accept, but the film seems convinced of their appropriateness for one another even if it fails to convey this.  Having laid a weak foundation for Danny and Debbie’s relationship, the disagreements and separation don’t mean as much when from the outset the mechanics to get them apart are visible.

Ealy and Bryant are never less than appealing as the sensitive and grounded characters, but the prescriptive nature of their arcs isn’t nearly as much fun as the passion and bickering between Hart and Hall.  Their playful and volatile relationship is meant to contrast with the stable one.  Instead it does a much better job of assuring that these are the two people in the film who really mean something to one another, even if sometimes they drive themselves crazy.  Hart is very funny as he vigorously recounts Bernie’s exploits and performs dating arithmetic so he maintains the upper hand.  Hall matches his energy and ruthlessness while holding onto some vulnerability.  Bernie and Joan’s pairing is a caricature, yet they feel like the ones with something at stake.    

ABOUT LAST NIGHT is more frank, especially out of the gate, in its descriptions regarding what goes on in private between men and women than many romantic comedies.  While some of that crudity comes across like it’s there for shock value in this genre, it helps to remind of the animalistic motivations underneath the social rituals. For a film that often doesn’t take the easy way out, it’s unfortunate that the larger share of screen time is devoted to the more conventional but less satisfying relationship.

Grade: C+

The Wind Rises (Kaze tachinu)

THE WIND RISES (KAZE TACHINU) (Hayao Miyazaki, 2013)

It is said that Alfred Nobel hoped he might bring about an end to war by inventing dynamite. The explosive would cause mutual destruction and thus deter combat. Nobel’s hypothesis, whether apocryphal or not, was proven grossly incorrect.  The unintended consequences of creation also come into play in THE WIND RISES, writer-director Hayao Miyazaki’s fictionalized and animated biography of Jiro Horikoshi, who designed Japan’s Zero fighter.

Airplanes captivate Jiro (Hideaki Anno) so much that he often imagines conversations with Italian plane designer Giovanni Battista Caproni.  Too nearsighted to be a pilot, he sets his focus on becoming an aeronautical engineer.  Jiro is single-minded in his work and becomes a golden boy at the Mitsubishi Internal Combustion Engine Co. between World Wars I and II.  He is given time to let his mind roam and sent to Germany to see the all-metal airframes that the Japanese hope to use as they develop new fighters. Although Jiro experiences setbacks, he continues to dream of the beautiful flying machine that he will bring into reality.

A verse from a Paul Valéry poem--”The wind is rising! We must try to live.”--begins the film, provides its title, and is mentioned regularly throughout.  The quotation describes Jiro’s mindset as he endures his country’s poverty, an earthquake, war, and a tragic romance with Naoko Satomi (Miori Takimoto).  Terrible things happen and are on the horizon, but there is beauty and wonder to behold as well.  Just as the wind can inflict destruction, so too can it spread life.  

For Jiro the plane he is trying to perfect embodies mathematically elegant design that enables sailing among the clouds like in his childhood visions.  In actuality his achievement becomes a killing machine.  THE WIND RISES suggests that Jiro is a dreamer who isn’t ignorant of what he is creating but is susceptible to going about his work with an idealized conception of its purpose.     To Miyazaki the great sorrow is in lovely inventions being perverted into agents of death and ruination.  Technological advances are not inherently moral or immoral.  The enormous challenge, one that is often failed, is to choose to use such discoveries for the good.

THE WIND RISES is purportedly Miyazaki’s final film.  If so, it presents a fitting summary of his loves and concerns.  It celebrates ingenuity and imagination, as when Jiro observes the curve of mackerel bones and applies natural design to make a better frame for his plane.  It bemoans how militarism and economic forces can harm the health of the people and the environment.  No villain exists in THE WIND RISES other than the destructive human instinct.  For all of his enthusiasm about the wonderful things humanity might dream up, Miyazaki worries to what end they will be employed. The bittersweet tone is not intended to discourage progress but to inspire mindfulness in how innovations are implemented.  The verse his film quotes implies that obstacles will always be in the way of happiness, yet it is worth striving to grasp whatever grace exists and resist the forces of doom.   

Grade: A

The Monuments Men

THE MONUMENTS MEN (George Clooney, 2014)

Dismayed at the immense amount of art the Germans are stealing during World War II and the historic sites being damaged in battles, Frank Stokes (George Clooney) gets approval to lead a platoon of art experts to minimize the cultural losses as much as possible.  The seven-man team in THE MONUMENTS MEN hunts for the missing treasures and gives advice to military commanders about significant buildings they hope will be unharmed in combat.  The motley crew of newly minted American soldiers includes New York museum curator James Granger (Matt Damon) and architect Richard Campbell (Bill Murray) as well as Donald Jeffries (Hugh Bonneville), a Brit with a drinking problem, and Jean Claude Clermont (Jean Dujardin), a Frenchman whose sight and hearing deficiencies prevent him from being a fighter pilot.

Intending to protect and locate as much art as possible, the unit is spread across the European theater.  Jeffries, Campbell, and Preston Savitz (Bob Balaban) head to Belgium, with the Brit going to Bruges to secure Michelangelo’s Madonna and Child and the other two tasked with protecting the Ghent Altarpiece.  Granger goes to newly liberated France where he tries to pry information from Parisian museum worker Claire Simone (Cate Blanchett).  Although suspected of being a collaborator, she kept a detailed list of the art that passed through a sorting house while the Nazis employed her. Claire is hesitant to share her records because she thinks that, like the Russians, the Americans will keep the pieces rather than return them to their original owners.  Sculptor Walter Garfield (John Goodman) and Clermont are dispatched to Germany.  The already difficult job of the Monuments Men takes on greater urgency when Hitler orders the destruction of all looted artwork if he dies or Germany falls.

Based on a fascinating true story, THE MONUMENTS MEN strives for grandeur but amounts to something ordinary under Clooney’s execution as director and co-writer with Grant Heslov.  The effort to recover and preserve millions of cultural objects is earnestly recounted.  The nobility of the mission isn’t in question, but relentless reminders of what is at stake feels like a failure to give audiences credit for understanding it.  Although the Monuments Men suffer casualties, precious little about their assignments feels urgent.

Clooney keeps the tone relatively light, almost as if this operation is a fast one that the Allies pull on Hitler, yet he resists indulging the comedically broad or darkly humorous. INGLORIOUS BASTERDS or a wartime OCEAN’S ELEVEN this isn’t.  The human cost of the war rests heavily on the proceedings often enough not to be forgotten.  One of the film’s best scenes comes when a record from home is played over the camp radio.  The touching moment reminds of what is left behind during wartime and how objects have value beyond their components’ worth, yet the melancholy it brings is an awkward fit with the overall weightlessness of the characters’ experiences.  The impulse not to be too jokey is understandable, but Clooney never quite gets a handle on balancing the mission between a lark and life-or-death matter.   

With members of the team working in various part of the continent, THE MONUMENTS MEN often feels scattered.  The individual stories unspool like a jumble of decent anecdotes that add up to less than their sum.  None of the Monuments Men define themselves beyond being slight variations of one another.  The underutilization of this cast stands as the film’s biggest disappointment.  THE MONUMENTS MEN plays well enough as an old-fashioned call to live according to lofty ideals, yet the fulfilling of this pursuit is more humdrum than spirited.

Grade: C+

Prince Avalanche

PRINCE AVALANCHE (David Gordon Green, 2013)

PRINCE AVALANCHE can easily be assigned a narrative marking it as a return to writer-director David Gordon Green’s roots.  After beginning his career with Terrence Malick-indebted independent films that include GEORGE WASHINGTON and ALL THE REAL GIRLS, Green shifted to making ’80s-reminiscent studio comedies like PINEAPPLE EXPRESS.  The departure from his early work and poor critical reception of THE SITTER and YOUR HIGHNESS fueled the conventional wisdom that Green had lost his way.  Following up those misfires with the small scale drama-comedy PRINCE AVALANCHE would seem to confirm such opinions, but the return to a lyrical style simply provides a better vessel for the weird sense of humor that runs through his work instead of Green’s confession of past creative waywardness.  

The mismatched road crew of Alvin (Paul Rudd) and Lance (Emile Hirsch) spend the summer of 1988 living and working in central Texas’ woods to fix the damage the previous year’s wildfires caused.  The work week requires staying in a tent in the middle of nowhere while performing repetitive tasks such as driving posts and putting stripes and reflectors on the road, but they’re free to make the long drive into town during the weekend.  

Alvin thrives in isolation.  He relishes the opportunity to better himself and to embrace a traditional concept of rugged masculinity that includes supporting his girlfriend and child back in the city.  Alvin carried out the work on his own in the spring and would have been content to keep it that way except he wanted to do his girlfriend a favor by employing her brother.  Lance is less enamored of the solitude, especially with the lack of female company.  When quitting time on Friday arrives, he takes off for civilization while Alvin sets up camp in their next spot.  As far away as they are from anyone, though, they’re still forced to confront their existential fears.  

The Sundance-friendly male bonding story, Tim Orr’s handsome cinematography of a scorched landscape, and Explosions in the Sky and David Wingo’s evocative score signal a serious film.  Alvin acts like he’s making a sacrifice even though he’s really doing what he wants and threatening a relationship he claims to hold dear.  For all of the signposts of solemnity, PRINCE AVALANCHE teases the mythopoetic men’s movement.  Alvin and Lance are outfitted to recall Nintendo’s Mario Bros., and when Lance bellows his co-worker’s name, it’s clearly intended as a reference to Alvin and the Chipmunks.  Like the ashes Lance smears on his face to simulate war paint, Alvin’s inflated pride in his survival skills and maybe even his bushy moustache are funny signifiers of what they think it means to be men.

While Green pokes fun at exaggerated masculine characteristics, PRINCE AVALANCHE still considers a man’s responsibility to others while feeling the tug for independence and adventure.  Rudd registers the confusion and pain of a good, caring person who thinks he needs to live up to a truck commercial’s version of manliness. Hirsch locates the soft spots in a character slowly awakening to the fact that he’s running up against the limitations of carrying on like a younger man.  The modest jousting between Alvin and Lance and the respect that builds gives them the chance to discover what manhood can be without having to save the world or get the woman.

Although Green adds poetic flourishes, like slow motion montages, PRINCE AVALANCHE works best when he focuses on direct, honest talk.  The most touching scene features Alvin’s conversation with a lady (Joyce Payne) sifting through the remains of her home.  Having lost everything she has in the fire, she wonders what evidence will remain of the life she has lived.  The answer for her, or for anyone, is the relationships shared and the memories passed along.  PRINCE AVALANCHE isn’t an inordinately profound film or close to Green’s best, but it integrates his indie origin and recent mainstream sensibilities in a mostly satisfying way.

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

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues

ANCHORMAN 2: THE LEGEND CONTINUES (Adam McKay, 2013)

The saying doesn’t go that the family that reads the news together stays together, but it ought to as far as Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) is concerned.  Ron and his wife Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) are living the dream as television news co-anchors at a New York City network affiliate in ANCHORMAN 2: THE LEGEND CONTINUES until she is selected over him to fill the opening on the six o’clock evening broadcast.  To make matters worse, Ron is fired.  For a man who places his self-worth in his occupation--OK, and his hair too--it’s more than he can take.  He abandons Veronica and their six-year-old son and returns to San Diego with the hope of reclaiming past glory.

Renewed fame and fortune aren’t awaiting him, sending Ron into a depression, but the big break he needs arrives in the nick of time.  Freddie Shapp (Dylan Baker) approaches with the offer of manning the desk at Global News Network, the first 24-hour cable news channel.  Ron tracks down former members of his news team Champ Kind (David Koechner), Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd), and Brick Tamland (Steve Carell) and goes back to New York to take his rightful place in front of the TelePrompter.  Relegated to the dead of night shift, Ron has no choice but to traffick in sensationalism.

Many Hollywood comedies, especially sequels, play it safe by giving audiences more of what they already approved.  Ferrell and co-writer and director Adam McKay certainly don’t skimp on repeating by slightly tweaking similar bits that fans loved in the original 2004 film.  They also acknowledge the fans by giving popular secondary characters showcase moments, although such inclusions can make ANCHORMAN 2 seem overstuffed.  In addition to the tried-and-true, they make room for a lot of new and strange comedic ideas.  Not all of the weird straying from the otherwise straightforward redemption story hits the mark.  Ron’s self-imposed isolation in a lighthouse after losing his sight takes things too far afield for too long without enough payoffs in laughs.  Still with something this ambitious the clunkers have to be taken with the good, of which there’s a sufficient amount.

ANCHORMAN 2 sets its satirical aim on the 24/7 news cycle, a fat and deserving target if ever there was one.  Anymore it seems as though Sidney Lumet’s NETWORK is being referenced as a how-to guide for ratings chasing above all than understood as a denouncement of it.  The absurd content that Ron and team favor to fill their news hole permits ANCHORMAN 2 to make its points humorously and effectively that the public gets the news it deserves when it chooses to reward bottom of the barrel reporting.  Ferrell and McKay aren’t letting the information gatekeepers off the hook, but their serious message couched in silly jokes is that infotainment and manufactured outrage are not in the best interest of viewers.

Although media criticism provides weight to ANCHORMAN 2, the escalation of jokes, obvious and obscure referential humor, and sheer number of oddball gags ensure that the film doesn’t forget that its primary purpose is to amuse.  Its hit-to-miss ratio can seem inconsistent, but that’s only because so much is thrown out there to determine what plays.  Ferrell has his share of duds on his filmography, a fact that holds true for anyone who works as often as he does and takes so many risks as an actor, screenwriter, and producer.  Nevertheless, as reflected in his overall body of work and ANCHORMAN 2, his comedic instincts are correct enough to make him worth trusting more than his contemporaries.

Grade: B

Inside Llewyn Davis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grade: A