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eyesaremosaics · 6 years

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Surrealist Photographer Dora Maar Was More Than Picasso’s Muse:

By some accounts, the beginning of Dora Maar’s relationship with Pablo Picasso marked the end of her artistic career.

When the young photographer took up with the older, celebrated artist in 1936, she was a rising star in Surrealist circles. Her photograph Père Ubu (1936) had become an emblem for the movement after it was exhibited in London at the International Surrealist Exhibition.

But, under Picasso’s influence, she eventually gave up photography for painting. (Picasso had always considered the medium inferior, insisting that “inside every photographer is a painter trying to get out.”) And invariably, paired with such a giant of art history, Maar’s story was bound to be overshadowed. For years she was remembered solely as the muse who inspired Picasso’s iconic series of “Weeping Women.”

In fact, it wasn't until her death in 1997 that art historians were finally able to examine Maar’s masterful body of work in full. Following her breakup with Picasso in 1946, she had begun to withdraw from public life; by the time she passed away, Maar had been largely forgotten.

Her early days in Paris, however, gave no indication of the reclusive woman she would become. Daughter to a French mother and a Croatian-born father, who was an architect, she was raised between Paris and Buenos Aires. In 1926, at age 19, Maar’s family settled in the French capital. There, she began to study art seriously—at André Lhote’s atelier, alongside Henri Cartier-Bresson, as well as at the École de Photographie de la Ville de Paris, the Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs, and the Académie Julian. Although she initially split her time between painting and photography, by the 1930s, she had devoted herself to the latter.

In 1931, she established herself as a professional photographer alongside young designer Pierre Kéfer. (By this time, she had changed her name—born Henriette Theodora Markovitch, she had long gone by Dora and eventually shortened Markovitch to Maar.) Together with Kéfer, she tackled a number of commercial projects, infusing the images with a healthy dose of Surrealism. In one advertisement, a bottle of Pétrole Hahn hair oil lays on its side—but instead of oil, out spills a tangle of long, wavy locks.

Soon, Maar was deeply embedded in the Parisian avant-garde. Striking and dark-haired, she modeled for both Man Ray and Jean Cocteau; André Breton named his surrealist gallery, Gradiva, partly in her honor; and her affair with the writer Georges Bataille, famously fixated on eroticism, sparked endless rumors.

Her photographic practice was not limited to commercial work, either. Alongside a burgeoning focus on surrealist imagery—hands emerging from snail shells, warped and dreamlike stairwells—Maar traveled to Barcelona and London to capture street life and served as an on-set movie photographer. It was during the filming of Jean Renoir’s Le Crime de Monsieur Lange (1936) that she first laid eyes on Picasso. Although she was instantly intrigued by the 54-year-old painter, he did not remember that encounter. It wasn’t until a second, much more dramatic, run-in that she piqued his interest.

Maar, knowing that Picasso often frequented the Café Les Deux Magots, had concocted a plan. The journalist Jean-Paul Crespelle, sitting at a nearby table that day, recalled her “serious face, lit up by pale blue eyes which looked all the paler because of her thick eyebrows; a sensitive uneasy face, with light and shade passing alternately over it. She kept driving a small pointed penknife between her fingers into the wood of the table. Sometimes she missed and a drop of blood appeared between the roses embroidered on her black gloves.”

Picasso later told Françoise Gilot that Maar’s dramatic display “was what made up his mind to interest himself in her.”

The two soon became lovers. Picasso liked that she spoke Spanish—from her days in Argentina—and admired her fierce intellect and commitment to her work. She was also one of his most influential models, sitting for a number of now-famous portraits that most frequently show her in distress. “For me she’s the weeping woman,” Picasso said. “For years I’ve painted her in tortured forms, not through sadism, and not with pleasure, either; just obeying a vision that forced itself on me. It was a deep reality, not a superficial one.”

Maar also took it upon herself to serve as Picasso’s official photographer during the 36-day period in which he painted Guernica. John Richardson writes that “Dora’s expertise would prove immensely useful; she was able to make the first photographic record of the creation of a modern artwork from start to finish.” It’s clear from these images that the light bulb at the center of his canvas was inspired by one of her photographic lamps—one of the many pieces of equipment Maar moved into his studio a year after they began their affair.

Throughout this time, Picasso continued to see Marie-Thérèse Walter—his other mistress, with whom he had a child. Maar never reconciled herself with the situation, a tension that intensified in 1943 when Picasso began associating with the even younger Gilot. In 1945, Maar had a mental breakdown and was admitted to a psychiatric clinic. Although she continued to see Picasso intermittently, it was just a year before he broke the relationship off entirely.

Instead, Maar turned to religion. She became increasingly devoted to Catholic mysticism, particularly during the final two decades of her life. She’d given up photography entirely following the Guernica series, instead painting still lifes and landscapes that were less successful than her early experiments with the camera. Although she continued to make work, for some 25 years she refused to exhibit.

A 1990 show at Paris’s Galerie 1900-2000 reintroduced her practice to a world that had largely forgotten about Picasso’s most private mistress. And since her death, Maar’s work has become increasingly well known. She’s the subject of a book out this year by Rizzoli, and will be the centerpiece of a 2019 show at the Pompidou.

Picasso once remarked “I could never see her, never imagine her, except crying.” But in recent years, it’s become clear that Maar was always more than her tears.

Original article from: ARTSY EDITORIAL

BY ABIGAIL CAIN

#1930s #surrealism #female artists #female creatives #female surrealists #dora maar #pablo picasso

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weekendwarriorblog · 3 years

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The Weekend Warrior 5/28/21: A QUIET PLACE PART II, CRUELLA, CLIFF WALKERS, FUNHOUSE, MOBY DOC and More

It’s Memorial Day weekend, and yes, I’m fully aware that I completely missed last week’s column.

Did you see what came out in wide release?! Basically, Bleecker Street’s Dream Horse in about 1,200 theaters where it made less than a million. Warner Bros. released its animated film SCOOB for the first time into about 2,500 theaters, and THAT made more than Dream Horse despite being available On Demand for over a year. (I’m not quite sure if that will end up on HBO Max fairly soon, but I guess they’re giving back to the theaters by giving them something new to show on a VERY slow weekend.)

Anyway, as mentioned before, this is Memorial Day weekend and the first REAL weekend of summer, so of course, we’re all hoping that the hoary days of the past year might magically be over, and we’re back to the $100 million opening days of the summer of 2019. Nope. Not happening, but at least two movies will give it the old college try.

Before we get to this week’s new wide releases, box office and everything else, a couple of weekends ago, I caught up with Zhang Yimou’s latest film, CLIFF WALKERS (CDC Entertainment), a terrific period spy thriller that’s really unlike any of the master’s other films. I ended up going to see this at the IFC Center, because my screener expired, and I really wanted to see it. Zimou has previously covered the war between Japan and China in the 1930s that eventually led to World War II, and the horrors that took place.

This one is a bonafide spy thriller as four individuals are sent into China to try to get information about the Japanese plans in a certain region. I’ll admit that it took me a little while to figure out exactly what was going on, because the characters were wearing heavy winter coats when first introduced, so I had no idea who some of them were once wearing regular clothes. But this is just a terrifically stylish film that also has a good share of ‘30s action, and it really shook me up in a way not unlike a film from Director Zhang in a long time.

I’m not sure if Cliff Walkers is still playing in theaters, but definitely keep an eye out for it, since it’s one of the master’s best movies in quite a while.

The biggest wide release of the weekend is John Krasinski’s A QUIET PLACE PART II, which is the first movie released theatrically by Paramount Pictures in over a year, having dumped much of its 2020 line-up to Amazon and Netflix for some quick cash. It once again stars Emily Blunt as now a single mother trying to survive an invasion by murderous alien creatures that detect their prey via sound. This time, her family meets an old family friend, played by Cillian Murphy, and her daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds) goes off on her own adventure to try to put an end to the creatures.

I reviewed the movie at Below the Line and will have an interview with Composer Marco Beltrani sometime soon, and I won’t have much to say about the movie in that sense. I will say that I did like the movie even more than the first one, but basically that’s been all over the place in terms of people liking it more, some people not liking it much, yadda yadda yadda.

But let’s look at some box office history, shall we? Krasikinski’s A Quiet Place came out on April 6, 2018, and it was kind of a breakthrough, because it opened a time when Marvel Studios’ Black Panther had been dominating the box office for months, Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One had opened a week earlier and was already a close to $100 million i.e. it was the “before times.” The movie opened with $50.2 million and was one of those huge-buzz PG-13 horror movies that people were talking about and going to see to the point where it ended up grossing $188 million domestically. Although it dropped to #2 in its second weekend against Rampage (remember that movie?), it was back at #1 the week after that and was one of the big buzz genre movies of the year. It got an Oscar nomination for sound and Blunt won herself a SAG Award for her performance.

But again, that’s the before times, and we’re now looking at a movie that was supposed to come out over a year ago that was delayed by COVID, a theatrical wasteland with many theaters still closed, most of the others still doing limited capacity, a lot of the country vaccinated but not enough to make people completely comfortable sitting in a theater with strangers (though that’s getting better), and one wonders what a popular movie that grossed $188 million in 2018 can do in the new world of 2021. I mean, we already saw what happened to Wonder Woman 1984 when it tried to open over Christmas, only with an HBO Max screening component, but then we saw Godzilla vs. Kong open big, but it STILL hasn’t grossed $100 million domestically.

Sure, there are more theaters open now, except for in a lot of Canada, and we’ll have to see how many theaters above 3,000 that Paramount can get, but I can definitely see this opening in the $45 to 50 million range. It should also be able to stick around a while, because there aren’t a ton of big movies opening in coming weeks. I’m gonna stay on the moderate side of things just because we’re not quite there yet, so I think this will probably creep its way to $150 or 160 million but will eventually have to give up theaters/screens for F9 next month.

The other big release of this Memorial Day weekend is CRUELLA (Disney), starring Emma Stone and Emma Thompson, which as might be determined from the title, is a prequel to the evil villain from the 101 Dalmations, Cruella de Ville. She was famously played by Glenn Close in the 1996 Disney hit that grossed $136 million domestically after a $33 million Thanksgiving weekend opening. That kind of money in 1996 is pretty damn good, because it’s before all of those $90 to 100 million plus openings we’d be getting in a few years or the $400 plus domestic grossers that became the norm. The movie is directed by Craig GIllespie, best known for directing I, Tonya and a slew of other movies over the years that most people forgot like Lars and the Real Girl and the Fright Night remake and Million Dollar Arm. (Remember that one?)

Obviously, a key to the movie’s success is the popularity of Stone in the Amazing Spider-Man movies, the musical La La Land (for which she won an Oscar) and The Favourite (for which she got another nomination). Stone benefits from having been acting for over 14 years with early hits like Superbad and Zombieland and The Help leading to a place where can she be considered an A-lister. Cruella is Stone’s first live action movie since 2019’s Zombieland: Double Tap, although she could be seen last year as a voice in The Croods: A New Age, a relatively big COVID hit with the $58 million it made domestically.

One also can’t neglect the popularity of Thompson, also a beloved Oscar-nominated actress, who has been appearing in popular and beloved movies for over thirty years on both sides of the pond, and she’s absolutely great in the movie. I think even the most negative reviews of the movie will point that out.

The thing is that we also can’t completely ignore the fact that Cruella can be seen on DIsney+ for a $30 premium fee, which when you have a whole family wanting to see the movie over the holiday weekend, that’s looking a lot better than the $100 to 150 that it would cost to take a family of five to a movie theater. Hey, don’t yell at me, but that’s reality.

I think some have been saying that Cruella might be able to make $35 to 40 million over Memorial Day weekend, but I think that’s not taking into account a lot of the factors I’ve mentioned, and because of those, I think it will end up more in the $28 million range for the four-day holiday. I write this without having seen how reviews panned out, but as you can see from my review below, I was mixed on the movie, and I’m guessing that reviews won’t all be positive despite the raves from #FilmTwitter.

Mini-Review: I didn’t go into Cruella with much in terms of expectations and only a little more knowledge. I remember hearing for a long while that this might get dumped to the Disney+ streamer and only part of that happened, but just cause it’s the Emmas, I was already in.

We meet Stone's Estella as a scampish young girl (not played by Stone) living in poverty in ‘60s London with her mother, who is suddenly killed while visiting a posh gala to try to get money from a mysterious woman. Now orphaned, Estella makes friends with two fellow orphans, Jasper and Horace, and over the next few years, they help each other while masterminding thievery plots. At the same time, Estella proves to be quite a good seamstress and fashion designer, and she ends up getting a job working for Emma Thompson’s Baroness, the height of a fashion icon but also a horrible person, especially to her employees. Eventually, Estella’s two thieving friends (played as adults by Stephen Fry and Paul Walter House) come up with a scheme to rob the Baroness of a keepsake that belonged to Estella’s mother. To do this, Estella creates an alter ego named Cruella, who hopes to beat the Baroness at her own game, unwittingly becoming a fashion icon in her own right.

That’s all the plot I’m going to get into, because there are a lot of twists in Cruella that I won’t reveal, but it’s also a movie with so many tonal and pacing issues, starting from the very beginning with all the kids’ capers. It then shifts into this dark, dark comedy that’s punctuated by pratfall humor that is definitely better when done by Fry and Houser, but it’s still a tone that is constantly shifting and drifting trying to find where to settle... and it never does.

I thought Stone was just fine in what is essentially a dual role, but it’s when she transforms into Cruella with half white and half black hair and an even more ridiculous British accent than her normal one where things start going sideways. It’s especially bad when you see Thompson crushing it as the Baroness, who is almost better as a villain then Glenn Close was in 101 Dalmations.

People have been raving about the Cruella soundtrack, and this is where I have to passionately disagree, because as much as I love the classic songs of the ‘60s and ‘70s played, not all the needle drop choices work. Many of them just seem shoehorned in to distract the viewers from the weak writing. When you have an amazing composer like Nicholas Britell (Moonlight, Succession), why on earth would you not USE him to do what he does?

One of the things that might bother me the most is that this is definitely a PG-13 movie, and when you’re taking a character from G-rated Disney animated movies and PG-rated Disney movies, sure, you can assume that fans of those movies will be older, but it also feels that it should be something that can be watched by your kids. I’m sure that some young girls will enjoy this, and it’s not like the sort of cattiness on display isn’t something they might experience in their own real-life classrooms, but it’s also kind of nasty in a similar way as I, Tonya, which I was never that crazy about either.

Cruella is just a disjointed mess that shows off a lot of beautiful costumes, and sure, Emma Thompson is a lot of fun, too, but ultimately, the whole thing just fell flat for me.

Rating: 6/10

Jason William Lee’s horror film FUNHOUSE (Magnet) is the kind of movie that I absolutely hate. How’s that for a preview? Yeah, this is a movie about a guy who kidnaps obnoxious reality stars to put them through their paces and kill them off one-by-one in grisly ways. If you know that is the premise, and you think, “That movie sounds like it’s for me!”... well, then, good luck with it. I mean, it starts with a woman hacking a guy’s heart for money, so I probably should have guessed that it was going to continue down the torture porn route, and sure enough... We’re soon introduced to a group of obnoxious and pretentious faux celebrities from YouTube and reality TV who are pitted against each other in a Big Brother-like popularity contest called “Furcas’ House of Fun” where the contestants with the least votes have to fight it out to eliminate one of them. The winner and survivor of this show gets $5 million. It pretty much goes exactly where expected, and I could barely get through most of it, because it just seems like the filmmaker watched the “Saw” movies too many times and just got the wrong thing out of them. I honestly think that critics who trashed the recent Spiral, which wasn’t bad, should be forced to sit through this one, as I feel that’s an apt punishment.

I was kind of interested in Rob Gordon Bralver’s MOBY DOC (Greenwich Entertainment), which debuts in theaters and digital platforms, when I first heard about it. I have a weird history and relationship with Moby, as I first saw this nerdy guy giving a DJ demonstration at the New Music Seminar in the late 80s and then by the early ‘90s, he was this huge superstar. I actually enjoy a lot of his records from the time so as not to take anything away from his success, but there’s something quite pretentious about the way he portrays himself in this talking heads movies where he’s the one mostly doing the talking. I’m sure anyone who is a bigger Moby fan than I am might find it interesting, but I just remembered how annoying he was in the '80s and '90s and could barely get through it.

Opening in theaters Friday and then on digital and demand June 1 is Danielle Lessovitz’s PORT AUTHORITY (Momentum Pictures) starring Leyna Bloom from the show Pose on FX, Fionn Whitehead and McCaul Lombardi. Whitehead plays Paul, who arrives at NYC’s Port Authority bus depot after being kicked out of his home in Pennsylvania. He has an encounter with Bloom’s Wye, a trans woman of color and falls in love with her, but as they get to know each other, she learns more about his false narrative and the double life he’s been living.

Also opening this week is Lynn Roth’s SHEPHERD: THE STORY OF A JEWISH DOG, a typical boy and dog movie set in 1930s Germany at a time when the Nuremberg Laws forbid Jews to own pets, so German Shepherd Kaleb is separated from his 10-year-old master Joshua (August Maturo) and becomes a street dog. Kaleb is eventually captured and adopted by an SS dog trainer (Ken Duken) at a Nazi work camp. As the son of German Jews, I really have to be in the right mood to watch a movie like this, and I just haven’t been in that mood lately.

Also launching on Disney+ this Friday are the LAUNCHPAD SHORTS, a series of live action short films by filmmakers from underserved backgrounds, which I probably will watch eventually but didn’t have time to do so before writing this column.

Other movies out this week include:

SWIMMING OUT TILL THE SEA TURNS BLUE (Cinema Guild)

BLUE MIRACLE (Netflix)

AHEAD OF THE CURVE (WolfeVideo.com )

That’s it for this week! Next week, a new month with a new Conjuring movie, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, and another horse movie with DreamWorks Animation’s Spirit Untamed.

#Movies #Reviews #TheWeekendWarrior #A Quiet Place Part II #Cruella #Funhouse #MobyDoc #cliff walkers

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randomrichards · 5 years

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OSCAR 2019 PREDICTIONS PART 4: THE ACTING AWARDS

BEST ACTOR:

· Antonio Banderas as Salvador Mallo, an aging director who confronts his past before his film’s anniversary screening in PAIN & GLORY

· Leonardo DiCaprio as Rick “F#$%ing” Dalton, an insecure aging tv actor who fears his star is fading in ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD

· Adam Driver as Charlie, a New York stage director facing an ugly divorce in MARRIAGE STORY

· Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck, a mentally unstable and abused comedian who becomes the iconic villain in JOKER

· Jonathan Pryce as Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, a progressive catholic Cardinal who would become Pope Francis in THE TWO POPES

Who Will Win?

Joaquin Phoenix’s ready to take the Oscar for playing one of the most iconic comic book villains of all time. Whether they love or hate the movie, everyone agrees he gave a powerful performance.

His version couldn’t be more different from Heath’s Ledger’s performance. Ledger’s was a calculating embodiment of chaos longing to watch the world burn. Phoenix’s version is a way more grounded performance.

Phoenix’s performance reminds me of Charlize Theron’s Oscar winning performance. Both performances reveal the humanity within monstrous characters, showcasing how their circumstances have left them unable to adjust to normal life. At the same time, the performances don’t back away from the disturbing aspects of their character’s personality.

A unique element to Phoenix’ performance is his physicality. He starts out as an average, raggedy schlub. As he descends into madness, he becomes so skinny you can see his ribs. Then he seems to contort his body, like his bones are trying to escape his body.

But his career highpoint comes in the climax when he appears on Murray Franklin’s (Robert De Niro) late night talk show. By now, he’s lost touch with reality, telling perverted jokes on national television and letting all his deep seeded resentment out in a furious rant.

He delivers big time.

BEST ACTRESS:

· Cynthia Erivo as Harriet Tubman, a former slave turned freedom fighter who led many slaves through the underground railroad in HARRIET

· Scarlett Johansson as Nicole, an actress facing an ugly divorce in MARRIAGE STORY

· Saoirse Ronan as Jo March, a fiercely independent up and coming writer in LITTLE WOMEN

· Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly, the real life former Fox News host who helped blow the whistle on Roger Ailes’ sexual misconduct in BOMBSHELL

· Renee Zellweger as Judy Garland, a struggling actress who struggles with drug addiction and personal demons during a tour in England in JUDY

Who Will Win?

Renee Zellweger is the clear winner for embodying the immortal who died too soon.

One look at her and you see no sign of Zellweger. What you see is the most iconic actress/singer to ever come out of Hollywood. From the black curly hair to her sad doe eyes, Zellweger perfectly captures Garland’s look.

Well, the only element she couldn’t capture is Garland’s iconic voice. You still hear Zellweger’s voice when she talks or sings. But you soon forget about it because Zellweger’s still an excellent singer, especially when she sings Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

The Garland we meet is at her lowest point, desperate for any job after she’s burned too many bridges with the Hollywood that has psychologically damaged her. Her tour in London is her last chance for a comeback. You feel so bad for her as she tries to maintain a stable living for her children while battling her demons. It’s hard to watch her deal with cruel hecklers. At the same time, you can’t help but be frustrated by herself destructive behavior as she downs pills, behaves unprofessionally and being so out of it during performances. It’s clear she’s struggling with mental illness brought on by a cruel childhood and needs the counselling no one is providing.

Zellweger breaks through the shallow image to reveal Judy Garland’s nuanced humanity.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:

· Tom Hanks as Mr. Fred Rogers, the iconic children’s tv show host who offers a sympathetic ear to a troubled journalist (Matthew Rhys) in A BEATIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD

· Sir Anthony Hopkins as Pope Benedict, a disgraced Pope who resigns from his position in THE TWO POPES

· Al Pacino as Jimmy Hoffa, the bombastic real life Union Boss who would mysteriously disappear in THE IRISHMAN

· Joe Pesci as Russell Bufalion, the cool, friendly mobster who takes the title character (Robert De Niro) under his win in THE IRISHMAN

· Brad Pitt as Cliff Booth, Rick Dalton’s stuntman and the embodiment of cool in ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD

Who Will Win?

Brad Pitt finally gets an acting award playing the coolest guy in film history.

Tarantino always seems determined to make Pitt look as cool as possible in his movies. First, he made Pitt the ultimate American Matinee Hero in Inglorious Basterds and how he’s has Pitt playing one awesome stuntman. He succeeded because never has Brad Pitt been more awesome. With his Hawaiian shirt, Blue Jeans and Cadillac Coupe de Ville, Cliff Booth is for Stuntmen what the Dude is for hippies. You wish you could be like Cliff Booth or at least have him as a friend.

Which is no small feat considering how bad his life is. While his friend Rick Dalton’s living in luxury, Cliff lives in a rundown trailer behind a drive-in theatre, eating kraft dinner with his pit-bull. He also has a hard time getting jobs because of a rumor that he killed his wife.[1] Despite this, you’d still rather be him and his whiny friend Rick.

While he’s gives a great performance, I feel the actor more deserving of this award is Joe Pesci. His character couldn’t be more different than his Oscar winning role of Tommy De Vito (Goodfellas). While Tommy is a volatile powder keg you avoid at all costs, Russel is an easygoing boss you’d love to have a beer with or a friend you go on cross country trips with.

But you come to realize underneath the demeanor is a cold hearted businessman. Nowhere is this truer than when he casually orders the death of Jimmy Hoffa like he’s firing an employee.

But it looks like Pitt’s taking home the trophy

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

· Kathy Bates as Bob Jewel, a desperate mother who finds her son (Paul Walter Hauser) falsely accused of causing the 1996 Atlanta Bombings in RICHARD JEWELL

· Laura Dern as Nora Fanshaw, the attorney who represents Nicole in MARRIAGE STORY

· Scarlett Johansson as Rosie, JoJo’s (Roman Griffin Davis) compassionate mother who’s hiding a Jewish girl (Tomasin McKenzie) in JOJO RABBIT

· Florence Pugh as Amy March, a bratty kid who becomes a practical painter after some hard learned wisdom in LITTLE WOMEN

· Margot Robbie as Kayla Pospisil, an eager up and coming Fox News Executive subjected to sexual harassment by Roger Ailes (John Lithgow) in BOMBSHELL

Who Will Win?

Laura Dern takes the lead for her supporting performance. It’s all thanks to her first appearance.

When she first meets Nicole, Nora approaches her like high school friends at a sleep over; putting her feet on the couch and letting Nicole air her grievances. I’m surprised she didn’t pull out the ice cream. In another scene, she delivers an excellent monologue about the unrealistic standards society places on Mothers, especially during Divorce cases. Dern brings a lot of personality to her character into what little screen time she has.

Dern also shines in the courtroom scenes as she brushes off Ray Liotta’s rebuttals. While Liotta’s loud and blunt, Dern’s a cool assassin who uses Nicole’s anecdotes as weapons against Charlie.

[1] And one flashback scene strongly implies he did.

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