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A Hardy effort

Title: “Capone”

Release date: On disc/streaming May 12, 2020

Starring: Tom Hardy, Linda Cardellini, Kyle MacLachlan, Jack Lowden, Matt Dillon, Noel Fisher, Al Sapienza, Kathrine Narducci, Tilda Del Toro, Wayne Pere, Gino Cafarrelli, Josh Trank, Edgar Arreola, Mason Guccione

Directed by: Josh Trank

Run time: 1 hour, 43 minutes

Rated: R

What it’s about: Notorious gangster Al “Scarface” Capone, his body and mind ravaged by neurosyphilis and dementia, lives out his final year at his Florida estate as the government keeps tabs on him.  

How I saw it: The purpose of director/writer/editor Josh Trank’s film about gangster Alphonse “Scarface” Capone’s final year, “Capone,” seems to boil down to this: provide a showy, over-the-top, cartoonish, Oscar-bait type of role to Tom Hardy. Beyond that, the film – a largely incomprehensible mess, and not an engaging one, that swirls around Hardy’s scene-chewing performance – wouldn’t appear to have a reason to exist. Is there still an eager audience in 2020 for the retelling of stories about Prohibition era gangsters?

In this version of Capone’s story (whether it sticks closely to the known facts would seem to matter little, given Trank’s treatment), Capone (Hardy) smokes a lot of fat cigars, soils himself (and his bed) and unknowingly urinates on the furniture, talks nonsense (when he isn’t grunting), experiences frequent bouts of paranoia, goes incognito by dressing as a woman, shoots an alligator from a boat with a shotgun, sings and dances along with the Cowardly Lion during an at-home screening of “The Wizard of Oz,” has hallucinatory flashbacks about his vicious past (ones that apparently don’t produce any remorse) and goes berserk with a gold-plated Tommy gun while chewing on an unsliced carrot (his doctor having taken away his cigars) while he’s wearing an open robe and adult diaper. That last part really happens in the movie.

The plot? Trank doesn’t give us much of one, other than Capone getting gradually more ill and then dying. The closest “Capone” comes to drama is a side plot about the gangster supposedly having buried about $10 million (that’s almost $150 million in today’s dollars) but forgetting where it is, and federal agents trying every trick in the book to get Capone to reveal the location. The obligatory summarizing printed words just before the credits tell us Capone’s money was never found. The film also includes a storyline about a teenage son who Capone doesn’t acknowledge trying to talk to his father on the phone (as federal agents listen), but it’s neither here nor there because it goes unresolved; the scenes mostly serve as an intermission to the Hardy-as-Capone craziness.

And Hardy’s Capone is plenty crazy. Say what you will about the film, but the 42-year-old British actor (he is playing a 47-going-on-87 Capone) goes all in for his roles, and for this one he most definitely is all in. He is only recognizable through his eyes. Hardy wears prosthetics to recreate Capone’s garish face scars and is given a balding head, and he’s dumpier than usual; his physique looks nothing like it did when he played Bane in the Batman movie “The Dark Knight Rises.” Speaking of Bane, Hardy’s Capone voice is nearly as comically bad and every bit as difficult to understand (must be all those cigars). Thankfully, viewing at home allows for the use of captioning. That way you know Capone is saying mostly “ehhh” and “mmmm.” The supporting cast is solid – especially Linda Cardellini as Capone’s wife Mae, Jack Lowden as a young FBI agent who must convince his superiors Capone still is relevant in 1947, and Matt Dillon as Johnny, an acquaintance of Capone – but takes such a backseat to the central figure that it matters little who plays the other characters.

“Capone” seems jumbled because it bounces between reality (we think) and Capone’s dreamlike consciousness. In one scene that seems to go on forever, Capone (though still the gravely ill version) walks through the crowd in a ballroom and joins Louis Armstrong on stage for a duet of “Blueberry Hill.” In another flashback, Capone is present for the brutal murder of a masked snitch, as one of his associates, Gino (Gino Cafarelli), stabs the man’s neck more than a dozen times while screaming f-bombs. Hardy’s Capone is at times funny, sometimes unintentionally, but if that was supposed to be the tone, the effort is undermined by what amounts to exploitation of a character with elderly traits even though he hadn’t yet reached 50. Watching a grown man soil himself while being interviewed by federal agents is far more sad and gross than humorous or entertaining.

By the end of the plodding movie, it isn’t clear if Trank was trying to paint a sympathetic picture of a prematurely dying man or making a statement about people like Capone getting their comeuppance, or something straight down the middle. “Capone” doesn’t work as any of those options, even with Hardy giving it his all.

My score: 33 out of 100

Should you watch it? Not necessarily, unless you are fascinated by old-timey American gangsters and/or a diehard fan of Hardy.

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Plant life

Title: “Little Joe”

Release date: In theaters Dec. 6, 2019; on disc/streaming March 10, 2020

Starring: Emily Beecham, Ben Whishaw, Kerry Fox, Kit Connor, Leanne Best, Phenix Brossard, Sebastian Hulk, Andrew Rajan, David Wilmot, Yana Yanezic, Lindsay Duncan

Directed by: Jessica Hausner

Run time: 1 hour, 40 minutes

Rated: NR

What it’s about: A plant breeder engineers a flower that makes humans feel happy, but at what cost?

How I saw it: “Little Joe,” the story of a flower engineered to make people feel contented, gives viewers much to think about – and plenty of time to ponder. The pace of Jessica Hausner’s brainy, Kubrick-esque science fiction film can best be described as sssslllllooooooowwwww. Cameras pan back and forth with all the urgency of glaciers. The story just kind of lies there, waiting to go somewhere. The film has all the entertainment value of hanging out in a lab where botanists develop new hybrids of plants. Which is to say, this ain’t no party.

But talk about depth: “Little Joe” is an allegory for coping with life through mood-altering prescription drugs. It also could be an allegory for self-medicating with recreational drugs and/or a veiled take on religion, if that’s what you choose to make of it. It also addresses such weighty matters as the illusion of happiness, one’s ability to choose their own reality, the need for love and intimacy, corporate greed, the hunger for fame, the way the mentally ill are treated, hurdles faced by women in the workplace, workplace relationships, workplace romances, the struggle to balance home life with work, life as a single mom, mother/son relationships and … well, isn’t that enough? “Little Joe” might not seem to have much going on to the casual viewer, but it will give you plenty to chew on if you dig a little.

Emily Beecham stars as Alice Woodard, a single mom who heads a project to develop a new strain of flowers at a lab that presumably is in England. She is also a single mom with a boy (Joe, played by Kit Connor) in his early teens at home, but Alice spends more time at work than with her son. Her flowers are engineered to make their caretakers happy by releasing oxytocin, described in the film as the “mothering” hormone. Going against protocol, Alice takes one of the flowers – she calls them “Little Joes” in honor of her son – home, telling the human Joe, “You have to take good care of it, keep it warm, talk to it. It’s a living being. It needs attention. And affection.” And if you think that makes the flower seem like a human, that’s precisely the point.

But, as with drugs, there’s a tradeoff for Little Joe’s therapeutic qualities. The plant, because it was engineered to be sterile, releases a ridiculous amount of pollen in an effort to reproduce. The pollen includes the oxytocin, which instantly changes any human exposed to it. They become happy, but not doing cartwheels happy; more like the flatlining, brainwashed happiness produced by a drug like Xanax. When Joe is exposed to Little Joe’s oxytocin, the changes (not all of them good) are noticeable. But they are explained away by Alice��s co-workers – especially Chris (Ben Whishaw, who plays Q in the most recent James Bond movies), who has befriended Joe and has a romantic interest in his mother – and her therapist (Lindsay Duncan) as the normal maturing of a teenager. Alice also blames herself for neglecting her mothering duties.

Alice starts to notice strange behavior among her co-workers, especially Chris. Also noticing is her rival at the lab, Bella (Kerry Fox), whose efforts to develop a flower that needs little care have failed. Bella tries to warn Alice of her flowers’ negative consequences, but those warnings are dismissed because, as Chris explains, Bella had to take a year off to deal with mental health issues. Eventually Alice recognizes the problems, but will she stop production of the Little Joes? Her plant, if ready in time for an upcoming flower fair, could bring her lab fame and fortune (at least by botanist standards), but it also is likely to adversely alter mankind. The Little Joes are practically surrogate kids to Alice, which means she could have trouble seeing their faults because of her love for them.

Beecham is exceptional as Alice (she earned the Best Actress award at Cannes for her efforts), a woman who is fighting for respect at work (male co-workers accuse her of breaking the rules to develop her flowers) and for the love and respect of her son. She is a gifted botanist but struggles to accept even the most pedestrian of compliments. She wants to believe in the accuracy of her work, but she wants to be socially responsible, too. Beecham manages to capture Alice’s inner turmoil and her human need for love, both as a giver and receiver. The supporting cast is strong, especially Fox. Connor also stands out as Joe. A scene in which he and his girlfriend, both exposed to Little Joe’s pollen, team up to convince his mother to try it sounds a lot like people who are high urging someone at a party to join them, while also seeming like a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses doggedly attempting to convert a non-believer.

The lab in which Alice works is suitably creepy, sterile and spacious but locked behind glass doors and walls. Light green (the official color of science fiction) is prominent throughout (not unlike in Guillermo del Toro’s 2017 Oscar winner “The Shape of Water”), but it is dotted with splashes of color, most prominently Little Joe’s crimson pedals and Alice’s red-orange hair. The avant-garde, Japanese-inspired score, by Teiji Ito and Markus Binder, is mostly a mix of flute and odd noises, including a high-pitched squeal, crashing sounds and what seems like a pack of angry dogs. It works wonderfully at first, but about halfway through it seems obtrusive. Some of the scenes seem like they would be just as disturbing, maybe even more so, if played over silence.

“Little Joe” doesn’t build to a big, dramatic payoff, though the final line of dialogue is absolutely creepy. Its strength isn’t in its suspense but in its layers of sophistication and in the questions it raises along the way. It’s too strange to be accessible. But it is a rewarding film for the thinking moviegoer.

My score: 78 out of 100

Should you watch it? Yes, unless weird, thought-provoking movies just don’t appeal to you.

[thisguyatthemovies]

A man and his ‘Killdozer’

“Tread” (documentary; in theaters and on disc/streaming Feb. 28, 2020; not rated; directed by Paul Solet; run time 1 hours, 29 minutes) is the real-life story of Marvin Heemeyer, who – depending on your perspective and a variety of other factors, like how you feel about guns, government and religion – was either a hero or a delusional sociopath. Director Paul Solet doesn’t make that decision for us. Instead he lays out both sides of the “this actually happened?” story, through Heemeyer’s manifesto cassette tapes, recent interviews with those involved, and home footage/photos and dramatic recreations of the events that transpired. Heemeyer was a military veteran and accomplished welder who moved from South Dakota to Granby, Colorado in the early 1990s. Those who knew him, including a woman he was romantically involved with, described him as a likable guy, a man’s man who enjoyed classic muscle cars, snowmobiles and guns. His former girlfriend says he was larger than life and that she felt safe with him. That would change. Heemeyer, wanting to open his own muffler shop, purchased industrial land in Granby for $40,000 at an auction. According to him, that rankled a man who was wanting the lot for a concrete batch plant. The man, Cody Docheff, had connections with the most powerful men in the small (population less than 2,000) town. What ensued was a drawn-out feud with officials over zoning decisions, one that escalated when Docheff purchased an adjoining tract and built his concrete plant. At each turn, Heemeyer felt victimized and denied his God-given rights. He says, on one of his tapes, that he had an epiphany one night while sitting alone in his hot tub – God wanted him to get revenge on those who had wronged him. God’s plan was for Heemeyer to purchase a behemoth of a bulldozer at an auction in California, bring it back to Granby and spend about 18 months turning it into a tank (later dubbed “Killdozer” in the media), fortified with thick steel and concrete and equipped with high-powered rifles and a camera system so he could see out of the thing. Heemeyer was convinced this was what God wanted because the tank fit through his garage door by mere inches. On June 4, 2004, Heemeyer didn’t use that garage door to exit the building with his monstrosity – he plowed right through the walls. He then went on a well-planned rampage of destruction, starting with Docheff’s plant. Other targets includes businesses owned by town board members and town hall, which just so happened to be above the library, where kids were enjoying activities before local law enforcement was able to evacuate the building (a tank covered in steel and concrete doesn’t move quickly). Remarkably, no one died, though Heemeyer fired upon police officers and tried to shoot large propane tanks. His bulldozer, as it was starting to overheat, got stuck on the edge of the basement at the town’s hardware store. Heemeyer killed himself inside his contraption. The scenes of the bulldozer plowing through anything in its path are chilling. You can feel the frustration, even 16 years later, in the voices of police officers who were given the impossible task of trying to disable Heemeyer’s tank. Much of the movie is about what transpired leading up to that June day, and it’s sad to listen to Heemeyer descend into what most would consider madness, though among certain groups of people he is seen as heroic even today. His targets try to paint themselves as innocent victims in their interviews, and collectively they seem believable, but even if they aren’t, were Heemeyer’s actions justified? The entire situation seems like a pointless fight to be the alpha male, waged by big fishes in a little pond, and Heemeyer was convinced God wanted him to be the biggest fish. Heemeyer had a chance to sell his property for $400,000, but he decided this time it was personal. One wishes a voice of reason had gotten inside his head. “Tread” ends rather abruptly, only a few minutes after the story of the rampage ends with Heemeyer’s suicide. I wanted to see more about how the incident changed the town, or some input from a mental health expert or local religious leader. Solet’s film does a solid job of telling a remarkable story. He tells it without judgement, though he leaves that as a possibility for his audience. My rating: 79 out of 100.

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Hard act to swallow

Title: “Swallow”

Release date: In theaters and streaming March 6, 2020

Starring: Haley Bennett, Austin Stowell, Elizabeth Marvel, David Rasche, Denis O’Hare, Laith Nakli, Zabrina Guevara

Directed by: Carlo Mirabella-Davis

Run time: 1 hour, 38 minutes

Rated: R

What it’s about: A young wife with a seemingly perfect life starts swallowing inedible items and then must confront her past.  

How I saw it: It’s hard to say, really, what aspect of writer/director Carlo Mirabella-Davis’ psychological drama “Swallow” is the most difficult to digest. Is it?

·        The phony smile that wealthy homemaker Hunter Conrad (Haley Bennett) forces herself to wear, one that doesn’t begin to cover up her deep sense of turmoil and sadness.

·        The way her husband (Austin Stowell as Richie Conrad), father-in-law (David Rasche as Michael Conrad) and mother-in-law (Elizabeth Marvel as Katherine Conrad) minimalize Hunter, reducing her to trophy wife status. The men don’t let her finish her sentences. Katherine Conrad reminds Hunter how fortunate she is to have married into money.

·        How her husband pretends to be the perfect spouse and then turns on Hunter whenever it fits his needs. He tells her she can’t make mistakes even if she tries. A moment later, he is belittling her for having damaged one of his silk ties with an iron.

·        The way Hunter can’t or won’t stand up for herself and express her own needs.

·        A painful-to-watch scene in which Hunter confronts her past and her estranged biological father.

·        The final, sad, remarkably casual and divisive final scene.

·        And, oh yes, watching and (worst of all) listening to Hunter swallow a marble, pushpin, battery, pages from a book, potting soil and … I’ll save the worst for later.

Hunter, a timid woman who busies herself by picking out drapes, preparing Instagram-worthy meals and cleaning out the pool at her and her husband’s elegant home overlooking the Hudson River in upstate New York, suffers from pica, a psychological disorder characterized by an urge to eat indigestible items. Pica is linked to emotional trauma, family issues and pregnancy (Hunter learns she is with child early in “Swallow”). Those afflicted with pica are believed to be seeking comfort and control over their lives. Hunter thoroughly enjoys eating inedible items; she seems contented, and her smile is more sincere. She also takes great pride in retrieving the items from her bowel movements, cleaning them and putting them on display. Yes, that happens.

Her husband finds out about her disorder when Hunter is rushed into emergency surgery after a battery she swallowed is discovered during an ultrasound. He, of course, reacts with anger and virtually no understanding. His family hires a therapist (who is expected to relay everything Hunter tells her to her husband) and a nurse/babysitter, Luay (Laith Nakli), a burly man who fled Syria after tiring of war and believes part of Hunter’s problem is she has too much time to think because she isn’t dodging bullets.

Hunter is resentful of Luay at first, but the two form a bond. And they share easily the most tender moment in “Swallow.” When Hunter becomes violently ill after eating potting soil, she crawls under her bed. Luay finds her there, slides under the bed and tells her “you are safe here” while holding her hand. Unfortunately, Luay falls asleep. When he awakes, Luay finds Hunter in excruciating pain after she swallows a … wait for it. Richie and his parents try to get Hunter to voluntarily enter a psychiatric hospital, threatening her with divorce. But with Luay’s help, she escapes to the freedom she has been longing for and eventually finds the control missing from her life.

Bennett (“The Girl on the Train,” “The Magnificent Seven,” “Music and Lyrics”) does a superb job of tackling a multidimensional character. She is convincing as the compliant wife, the tortured soul and the liberated young woman. The inclusion of Nakli as Luay was a brilliant call by Mirabella-Davis. Nakli provides the only moments to even border on comical, and he adds warmth to a film that otherwise would have none. Stowell, Rasche and Marvel do what they can with their stereotyped rich jerks roles.

Suffice to say “Swallow” is not the most pleasant of films. The sound of someone swallowing metal objects is, even though it is being faked in a movie, excruciating. Mirabella-Davis, in his narrative feature film debut, deserves credit for tackling such a challenging topic. “Swallow” is high-risk filmmaking. It hits a lot of familiar notes in the current spate of feminism films (Richie Conrad is, of course, suitably over-the-top misogynistic), which most often seem to take place among people of wealth and privilege because, apparently, we enjoy watching people like that have problems. The ending represents a freeing moment for Hunter, though not everyone will be cheering. But “Swallow” is at the least an interesting film, one that can be, in a twisted sort of way, enjoyed if you have the stomach for it.

My score: 82 out of 100

Should you watch it? Perhaps. How do you feel about watching (and hearing) someone swallow a miniature screwdriver?

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Austen done right

Title: “Emma”

Release date: In theaters Feb. 21, 2020; on disc/streaming March 20, 2020

Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy, Johnny Flynn, Bill Nighy, Mia Goth, Miranda Hart, Josh O’Connor, Callum Turner, Rupert Graves, Gemma Whalen, Amber Anderson, Tanya Reynolds, Connor Swindells, Chloe Pirrie, Oliver Chris

Directed by: Autumn de Wilde

Run time: 2 hours, 2 minutes

Rated: PG

What it’s about: Based on the 1815 novel of the same name by Jane Austen, a young, well-to-do woman in early 19th century England meddles in the romantic lives of her friends but, saying she is not interested in marrying, can’t see love right in front of her.

How I saw it: “Emma” is short on originality in the story department but long on just about everything else that matters. Director Autumn de Wilde and screenwriter Eleanor Catton mine familiar source material. Jane Austen’s 1815 novel of the same name has been adapted into more than a dozen movie, TV and stage versions, including the hit 1995 cinematic teen comedy “Clueless.” Catton and de Wilde don’t stray far from Austen’s snappy, humorous, multi-layered satirical take on love, manners and the class system in early 19th century England. They breathe new life into it, however, through glowing cinematography, gorgeous period piece costumes and, most of all, perfect casting and spot-on performances from actors who seem like they are having the time of their lives. “Emma” must have been fun to make because it’s so much fun to watch.

In case you haven’t read the book or caught any of the previous adaptations: “Emma” centers on Emma Woodhouse (Anya Taylor-Joy, “Split,” “The VVitch”), a young woman who is “handsome, clever and rich.” She is the lady of the house at Hartfield, an estate in the fictional small country village of Highbury, where she lives with her widowed father, Mr. Woodhouse (Bill Nighy). Emma, because she introduced her governess, Miss Taylor (Gemma Whelan), to the man she is marrying (Mr. Weston, played by Rupert Graves), fancies herself a matchmaker. She is not as good as it as she thinks, however, and her meddling and the nature of romance cause much chaos among the townspeople. Emma has proclaimed herself not ready to get married, though she has a brief flirtation with a wealthy young man who has returned to the village for a visit (Callum Turner as Frank Churchill) and though an older neighbor and estate owner (Johnny Flynn as George Knightley) clearly has a thing for Emma even as he is critical of her.

Austen wove a tangled web of love, and it’s fascinating to watch the story take so many twists and turns that you might need a chart to keep track. Just as an example, take Philip Elton (Josh O’Connor), a young, good-looking vicar who is unmarried early in the story. He seems to be interested in Harriet Smith (Mia Goth), an unsophisticated teenage girl Emma has befriended who has an offer of marriage from Robert Martin (Connor Swindells), a well-to-do 24-year-old farmer. But it is Emma who Mr. Elton wants (he also wants her money), and when he makes a pass at her and is rejected, he goes away and comes back with a bride, Augusta Elton (Tanya Reynolds), a pretentious woman short on manners.

There’s much more where that came from, but the romance bubbling under it all is the one that Emma is too stubborn to see. In the novel, Mr. Knightley is nearly old enough to be Emma’s father, which makes it understandable why he does a lot of what we now call “mansplaining.” Here, Emma and Mr. Knightley seem closer in age (though Flynn is 11 years the senior of Taylor-Joy), and even when Mr. Knightley is being critical of Emma, it is clear that he feels a sense of remorse afterward and is more drawn to her each time.

Their romance blossoms after the centerpiece scene, when most of the main characters go on a picnic. A bored Frank Churchill urges those in attendance to play a game to amuse Emma, who uses the opportunity to insult Miss Bates (Miranda Hart), a talkative, busybody of a woman who came from money but is now living in poverty. Everyone becomes angry with Emma, and Mr. Knightley lectures Emma on her lack of decorum. Emma, perhaps seeing her own shortcomings for the first time, visits Miss Bates to apologize, and that impresses Mr. Knightley. They end up together – as we all knew they would -- and they live happily ever after.

The cast is dazzling from top to bottom. They deliver a witty script with impeccable comedic timing. “Emma” is dialogue heavy (especially, of course, with Miss Bates, and Hart is a hoot playing her), but even when it isn’t, so much of the tone is set through the expressions and body movements of the actors. Little glances, a quick tilt of the head and smirks mean a lot. We also start to get a sense of what is about to happen between Emma and Mr. Knightley during a beautifully filmed and acted dance scene. When the two are wrapping up a dance, the camera moves in on the couple holding hands rested against Emma’s hip. When Mr. Knightley starts to pull away, Emma’s hand reaches for his for just a second, as if she is not ready to let go. It’s a special moment in a film full of them if you pay attention to the details.

“Emma,” because of its engaging story and depth of character across numerous major players, is the type of film that will become only more rewarding with repeated views. And no doubt you’ll want to view it more than once.

My score: 93 out of 100

Should you watch it? Yes. You will enjoy this film even if you aren’t into period pieces and romantic comedies.

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Father dearest

Title: “Come to Daddy”

Release date: In theaters Feb. 7, 2020; on disc/streaming March 24, 2020

Starring: Elijah Wood, Stephen McHattie, Martin Donovan, Michael Smiley, Madeleine Sami, Simon Chin, Ona Grauer, Garfield Wilson, Ryan Beil

Directed by: Ant Timpson

Run time: 1 hour, 33 minutes

Rated: R

What it’s about: A privileged man visits his estranged father after 30 years, setting off a series of strange and increasingly violent events at the father’s remote coastal cabin.  

How I saw it: The laughs – of the morbid, “should I be laughing at this?” variety – keep on coming from start to finish in New Zealand filmmaker Ant Timpson’s dark comedy/horror/suspense story “Come to Daddy.” Fortunately, the violence and gore do take a break from time to time, but only briefly, just long enough for viewers to catch their breath and remove their palms from over their eyes. Timpson’s movie has a couple “I just can’t look” moments, though by the time you decide you can’t stomach what you are about to see, you already know what is going to happen.

“Come to Daddy” stars a barely recognizable Elijah Wood as Norval, a middle-aged man (with a ridiculous porn ‘stache) who has been estranged from his father for 30 years. Norval lives a life of privilege in Beverly Hills, and he counts himself a music producer/deejay/beatmaker, though when he starts dropping names, it’s apparent he isn’t as big a part of the music scene as he likes to think. When the story begins, Norval is on his way to his father’s coastal cabin, having received an invitation to visit and a map for getting there through rocky oceanside terrain.

He doesn’t really know the man he meets there, Gordon (Stephen McHattie), as Norval was a young boy the last time he saw his father. The reunion is awkward. Norval finds him to be strange and a bit of a jerk. Gordon is skeptical of Norval and seems disappointed in how he turned out, and Gordon is more interested in whether Norval’s mom has asked about him over the years. Gordon becomes increasingly agitated with Norval, and Norval tires of Gordon’s behavior, until … well, giving much else away would spoil the fun. And, if nothing else, “Come to Daddy” is loads of fun to those not easily disgusted.

Unless you are one of those people who prides themselves on outwitting every movie they watch, the story, by screenwriter Toby Harvard, never goes where you think it’s going. Harvard and Timpson throw a lot of twists and misdirection (and one serious case of mistaken identity) the audience’s way, but they never seem forced or unfathomable (though the entire movie is full of absurdity). Think you are about to see a car chase? Think again. Think you have seen the bloodiest moment in the crisp 93-minute film? No, you haven’t. Think this brand of humor will wear thin well before the title credits? No way.

Wood, who teamed with Timpson as producers of the Timpson-directed 2016 movie “The Greasy Strangler” (yes, it’s about a strangler who likes to oil himself up), is a riot as Norval. His life of privilege has not prepared him for what is about to take place at his father’s place, but he surprises himself, his father and the audience with what he is capable of doing when his hand is forced. McHattie, Martin Donovan (as Brian) and Michael Smiley (as Jethro) are outstanding in meaty, up-front roles. All the main characters seem to know the situation and their characters are over-the-top ridiculous, and they’re just milking it for as much fun as they can. What makes “Come to Daddy” great, however, are a handful of bit parts – Garfield Wilson as Ronald Plum, a police officer who tells Norval he is trustworthy because he doesn’t have “raisin eyes”; Ryan Beil as a man running a motel desk while reading a porn magazine whom Norval distracts by saying there is a woman in front of one of the rooms who would have to shop for DD-cup bras; and Madeleine Sami as Gladys, the local coroner whose kindness Norval mistakes as an invitation to romance.

“Come to Daddy” would be just another bloodier, lesser “Fargo”-type dark comedy about bad people doing bad things if it weren’t for the clever script, the committed performances (and direction) and the near-perfect combination of blood and laughs. Timpson’s film strikes just the right tone, never getting too heavy, never straying from its intent and, most of all, never taking itself seriously.

My score: 89 out of 100

Should you watch it? Yes, if you aren’t squeamish and easily offended.  

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Watery fun

Title: “Underwater”

Release date: In theaters Jan. 10, 2020; on disc/streaming April 14, 2020

Starring: Kristen Stewart, Vincent Cassell, Jessica Henwick, John Gallagher Jr., Mamoudou Athie, T.J. Miller, Gunner Wright

Directed by: William Eubank

Run time: 1 hour, 35 minutes

Rated: PG-13

What it’s about: A crew of underwater researchers must leave their station and walk along the ocean floor after what is thought to be an earthquake hits, but they discover something much more menacing during their journey.

How I saw it: “Underwater” wears its influences on its sleeves and does so enthusiastically. “Alien,” “The Abyss,” “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” “The Poseidon Adventure,” “Godzilla,” H.P. Lovecraft, “Alice in Wonderland” – they’re all there in plain sight. “Underwater” was not made to reinvent the watery disaster/sci-fi monster movie. Instead, it serves up pure, visually stylistic, familiar, easily digested and quickly forgotten entertainment.

Kristen Stewart stars as Norah Price, a young woman who presumably has lived in an underwater station, the Kepler, for many years – though we are told that all sense of time disappears in a place as dark as the bottom of the ocean. She is the facility’s mechanical engineer and is carrying a heavy heart, having lost her fiancé in an underwater accident. She spends much of the movie working while wearing undergarments.

William Eubank, a veteran cinematographer directing his third feature film, wastes no time introducing the action in “Underwater.” Price has just finished, in voiceover narrative, telling us what life is like underwater and is preparing for another routine day when the station springs a leak -- not good given the immense pressure six miles below the ocean’s surface. Soon the station is imploding, and Price and colleague Rodrigo Nagenda (Mamoudou Athie) race to a safe place, then embark on a mission to find other survivors. Turns out four others besides themselves have lived, and they are stock movie characters – Athie’s Nagenda is the sensitive, calming presence; Vincent Cassell plays the captain, who is tough but fair; Jessica Henwick is Emily Haversham, a biologist’s assistant who seems overwhelmed and scared; John Gallagher Jr. is Liam Smith, a tough-guy engineer who is romantically involved with Haversham; and T.J. Miller is Paul Abel, who is the requisite comic relief in movies like this and carries with him a stuffed bunny (one of many “Alice in Wonderland” references).

Despite being given too-familiar characters to work with, the cast is strong, especially as the action amps up. The captain convinces them their only chance of survival is to leave the station, go all the way to the ocean floor and walk along a pipeline that will lead to the headquarters of oil drilling operation, the Roebuck. Their biggest concern, at least at first, is having enough oxygen to make the journey. As they soon learn (it was already obvious to the audience), it was more than an earthquake that rocked the Kepler. Underwater creatures, apparently riled up by humans destroying their habitat, stand in their way. The nature of the film is such that we know not all (if any) of the crew will make it to their destination alive.

Though it can be difficult to decipher what is happening at times in the murky waters, the action clearly is the strong suit in “Underwater.” Eubank and cinematographer Bojan Bazelli filmed it on dry land, in a former grocery store in New Orleans. Water was added digitally afterwards. The actors got help recreating the slowed movements underwater by wearing suits that reportedly weighed 100 pounds each. We are introduced to the creatures slowly; we don’t get a good look at a fully grown one until an hour into the film, and we don’t see the alpha creature (based on H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu) until the climactic scene. While the visuals are impressive, so too is the sound, which helps build the terror when it is not visually apparent.

The weak part of “Underwater” is the dialogue, though that is to be expected in a film like this. No one watches a sci-fi movie to hear Shakespearean prose. It is chock full of clichés and catch phrases, of course. Since the action starts immediately, the audience is slowly given bits of characters’ backstories; some of it connects, much of it does not. Haversham gives the prerequisite speech about man upsetting nature, and we have heard it all before many times over in the “Godzilla” movies. Haversham is the strongest character, though, because she realizes during the journey that she is capable of much more than she thought. She and Price, as the females in the group, form a strong bond during their quest. Miller is an acquired taste, to put it lightly. Most of his lines here don’t land (his style worked much better in the “Deadpool” movies), and they are either just quick toss-of profanity (like “f**k our lives”) or weirdly awkward (like when he calls Stewart’s character a “sweet, flat-chested elven creature”). It’s hard to imagine that latter line having been in the script, especially given reported accusations of inappropriate behavior by Miller in real life.

“Underwater” lasts just a shade over 90 minutes, making it more economical than similar movies. It is decent enough entertainment, derivative but mostly engaging, with some suitably scary creatures. It’s not Oscars material, but if you don’t ask too much of “Underwater,” you might not be let down.

My score: 59 out of 100

Should you watch it? It and some popcorn would suffice for a night of decent fun at home.

[thisguyatthemovies]

Going to the dogs

Title: “Barking Dogs Never Bite”

Release date: In theaters Feb. 19, 2000; on disc/streaming July 20, 2010 (currently available on Hulu)

Starring: Lee Sung-jae, Bae Doo-na, Byun Hee-bong, Kim Ho-jung, Go Soo-hee, Kim Roi-ha, Kim Jin-goo

Directed by: Bong Joon-ho

Run time: 1 hour, 48 minutes

Rated: Not rated

What it’s about: In this South Korean film, an unemployed man is annoyed by a barking dog in his high-rise apartment building and takes matters into his own hands.

How I saw it: “Barking Dogs Never Bite,” the 2000 directorial debut for reigning Best Director Oscars winner Bong Joon-ho, is not a great movie, but it becomes a more interesting movie given the filmmaker’s current popularity. Though not as refined, especially in the storytelling department, as Bong’s Best Picture winner from last year, “Parasite,” “Barking Dogs Never Bite” nevertheless is clearly the product of a gifted, young (Bong was 30 when it was made) director with an eye for social commentary and dark (even black) humor, and a knack for mixing genres and melding sudden tonal shifts. “Parasite” is the better, more mature film by a lot, but that’s to be expected for two movies by the same director 19 years apart.

“Barking Dogs Never Bite” is about a young unemployed academic, Ko Yun-ju (Lee Sung-jae), who lives with his pregnant wife (Kim Ho-jung as Eun-sil) in a large South Korean apartment building. Yun-ju, who is unhappy in his marriage and wonders if it will take bribery for him to become a college professor, is annoyed by a barking dog in his apartment building, where no dogs are allowed but few tenants seem to observe the rule. He finds an unattended Shih Tzu, takes the dog and tries to drop it off the top of the building before being observed by an older lady (Kim Jin-goo) who is on the roof to dry radishes. Yun-ju instead takes the dog to the basement of the building and tries to hang it before settling for locking away the canine in a closet.

Wait right there, you might be thinking. He was going to drop the dog off a tall building? He was going to hang the dog? He locked the dog in a closet in the basement of a large building, where it is almost certain not to be discovered before it starves to death? Yes, yes and yes. And here’s where Bong’s film might lose some of you. Dogs, though they obviously are central to the story of “Barking Dogs Never Bite,” do not fare well in this movie. And without going into detail, it gets worse than this. If you are at all squeamish or offended by cruelty or even implied cruelty to dogs (a disclaimer before the film reminds the viewer that no real dogs were hurt during the filming), you’ll want to take a pass. You likely won’t be able to make the leap from “this would be the worst thing ever in real life” to “it’s black comedy in a movie from a part of the world that doesn’t always see dogs as humanlike family members but is OK with eating them.” And that’s OK.

Yun-ju has an encounter with a second dog, and he is observed handling the situation (so to speak) by Park Hyun-nam (Bae Doo-na), an incompetent maintenance worker and bookkeeper for the apartment building; and her friend, Yoon Jang-mi (Go Soo-hee), a toy store owner. Hyun-nam dreams of instant celebrity (and this is in the time before social media) by performing some heroic act. She had already noticed tenants coming to the office to make flyers for missing dogs and decided to get involved in finding them. Her encounter with Yun-ju does not go as planned, though.

Yun-ju’s situation gets worse (at least in his eyes) when his wife comes home with a dog of their own. She is concerned that Yun-ju will bring harm to the pet, and when the dog goes missing, she suspects the worse. Yun-ju then solicits the help of Hyun-nam to find the dog.

Bong has a way of getting the best out of an ensemble cast (“Parasite” won Best Picture despite being shut out of the acting categories), and that’s the case here. He asks much of the talent, and they must be nimble enough to handle tones that turn on a dime. Doo-na is especially strong here as a young, largely unremarkable women who knows what she wants but does not know how to get it. She wants to do good, but she wants to be noticed for it.

In addition to how dogs are mistreated, “Barking Dogs Don’t Bite” makes the jump from dark comedy to just dark on several occasions. But because of the underlying comedic tone (and a jazzy soundtrack that is reminiscent of the old “Peanuts” TV shows), it never feels morbid or heavy. It is at times laugh-out-loud funny but doesn’t consistently aim for laughs. This being a Bong film, it comments on Korean society (here it touches on the longing for fame, the cutthroat nature of trying to move up the socioeconomic ladder, the way women are treated in the working world and, of course, where dogs stand in South Korean society) by being more observant than preachy.

Whether or not you get those messages or even enjoy “Barking Dogs Don’t Bite” as mere entertainment will depend largely on your ability to, in respect to the film’s depiction of Koreans’ treatment of dogs, go to the dark side and then come back to the real world unscathed.

My score: 78 out of 100

Should you watch it? Yes, but only if you can tolerate cruelty toward dogs in the context of dark comedy.

[thisguyatthemovies]

A movie in search of itself

Title: “Where’d You Go, Bernadette”

Release date: In theaters Aug. 16, 2019; on disc/streaming Nov. 19, 2019

Starring: Cate Blanchett, Billy Crudup, Kristen Wiig, Emma Nelson, James Urbaniak, Judy Greer, Trojan Bellisario, Zoe Chao, Laurence Fishburne

Directed by: Richard Linklater

Run time: 1 hour, 44 minutes

Rated: PG-13

What it’s about: An award-winning architect who is on hiatus battles depression and social anxieties before leaving home and her family to rediscover herself and her motivation.  

How I saw it: Director/co-writer Richard Linklater asks the near-impossible of his audience with “Where’d You Go, Bernadette” – have sympathy for a wealthy woman, with an even wealthier husband and a boarding school-bound teen daughter, who gets most anything she wants and treats everyone around her poorly. The ability to do that will go a long way toward determining whether you find Linklater’s film, which jumbles tones as it heads toward a largely implausible ending and wastes a predictably solid performance from Cate Blanchett in the title role, mildly entertaining or a frustrating mess.

“Where’d You Go, Bernadette” is based on the best-selling 2012 comedy novel of the same name by Maria Semple. Linklater (the brilliant “Before” trilogy, “Boyhood,” “Dazed and Confused”) has said turning the book into a movie was challenging, and it shows. The novel was written as a series of documents (including emails) and told from the point of view of Bernadette’s 15-year-old daughter Bee. The movie changes the story into narrative form, and it puts more of the focus on Bernadette and her issues, with the occasional narration by Bee (Emma Nelson). As is typical of Linklater films, it is heavy on the dialogue. But that dialogue bounces around haphazardly between melodrama, comedic moments and sentimentality. Like its lead character, “Where’d You Go, Bernadette” is a film in search of itself.

Bernadette Fox (as we mostly learn in a YouTube video about her career) is an architect whose work in a field largely dominated by men is hailed as brilliant. But after her pet project, the 20 Mile House (thus named because all of the materials had to come from within a 20-mile radius), was sold and turned into overflow parking, she and her husband (Billy Crudup as Elgie Branch), a Microsoft engineer, leave Los Angeles for Seattle. Bernadette, especially after Bee’s birth, becomes agoraphobic. She is condescending toward everyone, especially the other parents at Bee’s school, including next-door neighbor Audrey (Kristen Wiig). She relies heavily on personal assistant, someone named Manjula in India, to do everything, constantly dictating commands via email. The family lives in a massive old home that, despite their wealth, is only half remodeled; its roof leaks during frequent Seattle rains, and vines are growing through its floors.

So much of the early part of “Where’d You Go, Bernadette” is spent on Bernadette’s disdain for everyone that it’s difficult to feel for her when it is gradually revealed she has serious mental health issues. Her world falls totally apart when her husband arranges for an intervention led by an overzealous analyst (Judy Greer), an FBI agent (James Urbaniak) who reveals that Manjula is not on the up-and-up and, oddly, Elgie’s attractive new assistant (Trojan Bellisario). Bernadette escapes out a bathroom window and eventually heads for Antarctica, where the entire family had planned to go because Bee was studying the continent at her private school. It just so happens that the land of penguins holds the key to Bernadette getting her groove (and her career) back.

Blanchett does what she can with what she is given to work with. Her character might not be likable (though the ending tries mightily to let her off the hook), but Blanchett wonderfully captures Bernadette’s many moods. She has fun with the character when she is being nasty, she lets loose when Bernadette is having near-manic episodes and ranting about Seattle’s design choices, and she brings just the right touch of vulnerability when her character seems at her lowest. Wiig has some funny moments as an over-the-top privileged busybody, and Urbaniak is briefly hilarious as an FBI agent who seems to have seen one too many TV shows about his profession.

Crudup doesn’t fare as well. He seems overwhelmed by Blanchett or perhaps disinterested (or maybe just seems disinterested in comparison to Blanchett’s all-in performance). In his defense, his character is a movie trope – the workaholic father who must be shown the error in his ways by his children. Bernadette and Bee clearly have formed a sisterhood (Bee is more friend than daughter to her mother) that frequently teams up against Elgie. Bee is not happy that her father has tried to get his wife help, and she is critical of her dad at almost every turn. But he makes Bee happy, however, when he leaves his job (the most frequent movie solution for the always-at-work dad). Lucky for him (and the family) that he no doubt already has banked millions in Microsoft money and is married to a woman who is ready to restart her lucrative career. Elgie also, somehow, takes responsibility for his wife’s boorish behavior and sidetracked career and is apologetic for trying to get her help because, well, a husband is supposed to do that sort of thing.

“Where’d You Go, Bernadette” isn’t a terrible movie, but it threatens to become that in the final act, which comes dangerously close to totally jumping the shark. Apparently, people of great wealth can pull off the type of feats that Bernadette, her husband and daughter are capable of while on separate cruise ships in the vast, frigid Antarctic (Greenland, in reality) and somehow pull it all together for an unlikely happy ending. It’s a testament to Blanchett’s star power and Linklater’s moviemaking skills that “Where’d You Go, Bernadette” isn’t the total disaster it could have been and nearly ended up being.

My score: 40 out of 100

Should you watch it? Not unless you are a diehard fan of the book, Blanchett or Linklater’s films.

[thisguyatthemovies]

Sew and sew

After Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Phantom Thread” hit theaters on Christmas Day 2017, the awards nominations rolled in. It was a contender for Best Picture, Best Actor (Daniel Day-Lewis, who had already earned that Oscar three times), Best Supporting Actress (Lesley Manville), Best Director (Anderson) and Best Costume Design (Mark Bridges). Of those, it took home the top honor only in the latter category. That can be chalked up to stiff competition (it lost out to “The Shape of Water” for Best Picture, and Day-Lewis was topped by Gary Oldman’s remarkable metamorphosis into Winston Churchill in “Darkest Hour”).

But “Phantom Thread” also was hurt by a bit of a backlash and ill timing. Most Oscar-nominated films are picked apart from the time the field is set until the honors are handed out. That just goes with the territory. But “Phantom Thread” was particularly scrutinized because it is the story of a man (Day-Lewis’ Reynolds Woodcock) with misogynistic tendencies who likes to be in charge and is lauded as a genius in a line of work (dressmaking) that just so happens to stress the physical appearance of women while employing women exclusively to do the dirty work behind the scenes. That it was released just as the #MeToo movement was picking up steam and feminists were eager to attach the term “toxic masculinity” to nearly everything male was a double whammy.

That’s unfortunate, because “Phantom Thread” is a great film, one of the best of the past five years. The performances by Day-Lewis, Manville (as Woodcock’s domineering sister Cyril) and Vicky Krieps (as Woodcock’s stubborn love interest Alma Elson) are remarkable. Anderson’s script gives them much to play with, as the exchanges between Woodcock and Alma and sometimes between Woodcock and Alma and Cyril are as fascinating as they are toxic and fun in a trashy way. The film is as beautifully stylish as you would expect a story about haute couture in 1950s England to be, and the score by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, which almost never rests underneath the dialogue, perfectly enhances that beauty.

“Phantom Thread” also is among the most misunderstood films of recent times. Actress Jennifer Lawrence famously said she got through only the first three minutes of the movie before Woodcock’s behavior “hit too close to home.” The New Yorker published a piece titled “Why ‘Phantom Thread’ is Propaganda for Toxic Masculinity.” HuffPost cited the movie in an article, “Women Aren’t ‘Mysteries’ – And They Don’t Need to be Solved.”  

Granted, Woodcock is not nice to women. In an early scene, he aggressively ignores his current squeeze, who (according to Woodcock and his sister) has worn out her stay at “the House of Woodcock.” After meeting Alma when she takes his order at a small countryside café, Woodcock notes her lack of breasts while sizing her up for one of his dresses. He then promises the dress will “give her breasts,” before Cyril notes that Alma has a bit of a belly, a feature that her brother finds appealing. Woodcock treats Alma horribly once she is living with and working for the dressmaker, criticizing everything from how loudly she eats her breakfast to her interrupting his work to do something nice like bring him tea. “The tea is leaving, but the interruption is staying right here with me,” he tells her. Woodcock is not only misogynist, he is a petulant man-child, one who demands support and attention while also wanting to be left alone when he needs time to think and work.

What critics miss is that Alma is every bit his match. She goes toe-to-toe with Woodcock no matter how vile he becomes – and he and his sister, with whom he has an almost incestuous relationship, become wickedly vile as Alma continues to exert herself. Alma at first models Woodcock’s creations (which are falling out of fashion) but finds herself increasingly pushed into the background as a seamstress. Sensing she might be shown the door like so many of Woodcock’s muses before her, and jealous of the attention Woodcock shows a young princess who has come to him for a wedding dress, Alma concocts a plan to keep the moody dressmaker in check. She uses wild mushrooms to poison Woodcock, but not enough to kill him. When he emerges from his illness (and after seeing a vision of his late mother), he has gained perspective and suddenly pronounces his love of (and desire to marry) Alma. Old habits die hard, and when Woodcock becomes his old self again (and has his own bout of jealousy), Alma cooks up another batch of mushrooms. She does so, she says in one of the great exchanges in cinematic history, because she wants to control him (instead of the other way around) and wants to be the only one he can turn to when he needs help. “Kiss me, my girl, before I am sick,” Woodcock tells Alma, having realized she is poisoning him. It’s a fittingly messed-up moment in a messed-up relationship in a deceptively messed-up movie.

Alma eventually realizes her toughness is what Woodcock really covets. His tantrums are a façade. It might seem he uses women for his purposes (mostly to make his dresses look good) and then disposes of them. But he talks of an unease, of being unsatisfied, of wanting to be pushed. It also is apparent he wants to put distance between himself and Cyril, who he refers to as “his old so-and-so,” though he frequently leans on his sister, especially when it comes to dress design and business decisions (and even, it would seem, Woodcock’s choices of love interests). Alma also would like to usurp Cyril’s power, and while “Phantom Thread” is mostly about the power struggle between Woodcock and Alma, the triangular dynamics of how Woodcock, Cyril and Alma get along (or don’t) pushes the film into another realm.

Krieps has described “Phantom Thread” as a feminist movie, though it might not be feminist in the way feminists would like. Woodcock is given plenty of freedom for displaying questionable behavior toward women (no doubt more representative of the way things were in the 1950s), and Alma never gets to slice Woodcock’s throat or kick him in the genitals, seemingly the gold standard for feminist movies these days. Though she endures much harsh treatment from Woodcock, she never backs down (unlike previous women in Woodcock’s life), and she ultimately gains control over their relationship. She resorts to using poison mushrooms to do so, but where’s the harm in that if he willingly eats them?

[thisguyatthemovies]

Life through a window

All of a sudden many of us know what L.B. Jefferies feels like.

Jefferies is Jimmy Stewart’s wheelchair-bound lead character in Alfred Hitchcock’s masterful 1954 film “Rear Window.” Jefferies is holed up inside his apartment after breaking a leg while taking photos of a crash during an auto race. He can’t leave his apartment and has just a few regular visitors – the spunky Stella (Thelma Ritter), an insurance company nurse who cares for “Jeff” and dispenses life philosophy; Lisa Carol Fremont (Grace Kelly), a glamourous fashion model and dress designer who is Jeff’s love interest and is becoming frustrated by his unwillingness to commit; and Det. Lt. Tom Doyle (Wendell Corey), a sarcastic NYPD investigator who was Jeff’s flying partner in the military and is skeptical of his story about a murder possibly having taken place across the courtyard from Jeff’s window.

“Rear Window” is a timeless murder mystery and was a bit of a technical miracle when it was made. Those aren’t New York City apartment buildings but a set on a Hollywood sound stage, with Jeff’s second-floor apartment on ground level and the first-floor apartments being part of the sound stage basement. But Hitchcock’s film was ahead of its time thematically as it was technically.

Hitchcock’s film has remained timely because of its wry observations, most notably that we were, even in 1954, becoming a “race of Peeping Toms,” as Stella puts it. Hitchcock, who was born in 1899 (before TV, radio, telephones, even filmmaking) already had seen a society disconnecting from each other by the middle of the 20th century. Imagine how he would have felt had he lived to see social media, where we stay connected largely by avoiding real connectedness. Stewart’s Jeff is content to watch his neighbors’ lives play out in their windows, just like we scroll through our Facebook news feeds; he has little interest in being involved in their lives (except perhaps for Miss Torso’s). He likes to watch, and examining others’ day-to-day existence gives him a convenient excuse for not examining his own behavior. Sound familiar?

Jeff’s cool separation from people within view of his eyes and camera lens seems even more contemporary given the coronavirus pandemic and a term that will someday be so 2020, social distancing. Jeff keeps his distance, whether its emotionally from his girlfriend, who is frequently kissing him and practically begging him to pay attention to her (stunning given Kelly’s Lisa is one of the most beautiful women in movie history); or physically from his neighbors, who he will gladly monitor for hours on end but then slips back into the shadows of his own apartment when he believes he is being watched back. When he does come into close contact with a neighbor, the seemingly sinister Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr), it ends poorly for Jeff, at least momentarily. Camera flashbulbs are effective weapons for only so long.

When we meet Jeff, he has been sidelined for about six weeks. He doesn’t have the option of leaving his apartment, at least not under his own power, and that fuels his obsession with being a voyeur into his neighbors’ lives. He has resigned himself to being involved from afar because he has little other choice. We assume Jeff, especially when he starts piecing together bits of visual information and comes up with a murder story, is a bit stir crazy. Is what he saw murder or just his idle mind playing tricks on him? Most of us know now, having seen the movie, but Hitchcock originally planted enough doubt about Jeff’s mental state that we were prepared for about anything.

During life in the time of coronavirus, most of us (at least for now) still have the option of getting out and going to the grocery, to pharmacies, to carryout restaurants. Life is a bit inconvenient, but few of us are stuck indoors unless we have opted to self-quarantine. Much has changed in the 66 years since Hitchcock made “Rear Window,” and we have many more options to keep us occupied until the coronavirus threat runs its course (if that indeed will happen). Jeff had little technology at his disposal, save a landline phone. We – with cellphones, laptops, social media, online video games, video chat capabilities and streaming TV/movies – presumably won’t resort to spying on our neighbors with a camera and long-range lens for entertainment value.

But, as our society slows to a near-standstill, much of what we will do is no different than what Jeff was doing in “Rear Window.” We will become, even more so than we already were, spectators to life, keeping an eye on others through their social media posts, online videos, streaming live performances, etc. We are, like Jeff, on the inside looking out. The means by which we do so has changed immensely since 1954. But the desire to connect superficially while also maintaining our distance, to know what is going in others’ lives while not being immersed in them, hasn’t changed one iota since Jeff held up his camera and looked outward but never inward.

[thisguyatthemovies]

New look at an old story

Title: “Queen & Slim”

Release date: In theaters Nov. 27, 2019; on disc/streaming March 3, 2020

Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, Jodie Turner-Smith, Bokeem Woodbine, Chloe Sevigny, Flea, Sturgill Simpson, Indya Moore, Benito Martinez, Jahi Di’Allo Winston, Bryant Tardy

Directed by: Melina Matsoukas

Run time: 2 hours, 13 minutes

Rated: R

What it’s about: A black man and woman on a Tinder date become reluctant fugitives and folk heroes when, during a traffic stop, the man shoots a racist police officer in self-defense.

How I saw it: It would be easy to dismiss or embrace “Queen & Slim” as the blackening of the legend of Bonnie and Clyde. But music video director Melina Matsoukas’ feature-film debut, with screenplay by Lena Waithe, does far more than just add a different race to the tale of the notorious 1930s bank robbers. And to pigeonhole “Queen & Slim” as simply a Bonnie and Clyde tale would be selling it short. The similarities are there, most notably the story of doomed lovers on the run from the law who become counterculture folk heroes. But so are differences aplenty.

Queen (newcomer Jodie Turner-Smith) is a standoffish, sometimes combative defense lawyer. Slim (Daniel Kaluuya, an Oscar nominee for his role in “Get Out”) is warmer but living life without direction. He is a religious man (Queen is an atheist) who works at a Costco. They meet in a diner on a Tinder date (Queen is only there because she had a bad day and had no one to talk to), and it’s clear this is likely to be their only get-together.

But on the drive home, Slim is pulled over for failure to signal and erratic driving. The white police officer is aggressive and condescending, even though Queen and Slim are cooperating. When the officer pulls a gun on Slim, Queen gets out of the car and peppers the officer with questions about his authority. When she reaches for her cellphone to record the situation, he shoots and wounds her leg. Slim and the officer scuffle, and Slim grabs the officer’s gun and accidentally shoots and kills him.

They (Queen mostly, based on how her black clients have been treated by the legal system) decide to toss their cellphones and flee Ohio. Now a couple who seemingly had nothing in common are bonded by a situation neither of them are prepared for. They make plans on the fly, ultimately deciding their best bet is to get to Florida and somehow make it to Cuba. Whether they get there is almost inconsequential. “Queen & Slim” is a journey, not a destination. And while Queen and Slim are chasing freedom they almost certainly will not find, they also are chasing their own legend. They are creating a legacy neither of them planned to leave.

That journey is part road story, part love story, part social commentary. Kaluuya and Turner-Smith have nice chemistry, though it is obvious at times that he is the more experienced actor. Their love story might be a familiar one (two people who don’t seem to have much in common or even like each other almost always fall in love in the movies), but here it feels fresh. Part of their process of falling in love is their trip. They first start going down the path of becoming a couple when they stay at the home of Queen’s uncle (Bokeem Woodbine as Earl), who helps them with money, clothes and a car. They stop at a field full of horses so that Slim can ride for the first time. They visit a black blues bar so they can share a dance and glass of bourbon. They first make love in their getaway car.

Where “Queen & Slim” varies most from Bonnie and Clyde is in their reluctance to celebrate what they have done. Whereas Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker went looking for trouble and were ruthless criminals, trouble found Queen and Slim; they didn’t set out to kill a police officer and become fugitives. Bonnie and Clyde became folk heroes with the help of the white press, which often embellished their deeds. The media in “Queen & Slim” label them cop killers, even after a video of the traffic stop goes viral and much of the public (especially the black part of it) sides with them and even idolizes them. Queen and Slim seem uncomfortable with their folk hero status; they just want their old lives back, knowing full well that cannot happen.

Whether you see Queen and Slim (we don’t learn their real names until the end of the film, and we don’t really learn much about them) as heroic might depend largely on your race, socioeconomic status and political leanings. While Matsoukas and Waithe have made a story about the American black experience from a black perspective, it doesn’t always fall along racial lines. Queen and Slim encounter an older black mechanic who tells them he would have just taken his ticket and gone on after the traffic stop. The couple are betrayed by a black man who appeared to be helping them. They get help from a white couple (Flea and Chloe Sevigny) who operate a modern-day Underground Railroad station. Early in their journey, Queen and Slim are helped by an off-duty Hispanic sheriff’s deputy, but they are forced to deal with him when he learns they are fugitives. But a black police officer who comes face-to-face with the couple lets them go when his white fellow officers aren’t around. And a black restaurant owner congratulates them as “cop killers” and wants to know if they are part of the new Black Panthers.

“Queen & Slim” takes its time, especially as the story gets well into the road trip, but the pace isn’t an issue until the length starts to add up (2 hours and 12 minutes). One scene is troubling and perhaps not necessary. A young black man (Jahi Di’Allo Winston as Junior) idolizes the couple and attends a protest in which participants chant about freeing the couple (even though they haven’t been arrested). Junior confronts a black police officer, who calmly asks him to leave the area. But Junior pulls out a gun and shoots the officer dead. Queen and Slim seem indifferent upon hearing of the shooting; they had not encouraged anyone to use violence, except inadvertently through their actions. It’s not clear why Junior killed the officer, other than maybe he just wanted to kill a cop, black or white.

“Queen & Slim” is a gorgeous film, thanks to cinematographer Tat Radcliffe; many of its scenes could be framed and hung in a gallery. The colors and lighting, and some impressive set pieces, are reminders that while this might be a socially relevant crime drama that is at times violent and unnerving, it is, at its core, a love story. And it’s a love story that can stand on its own despite the too-easy comparisons to a similar story from another time, place and race.

My score: 79 out of 100

Should you see it? Yes, it can be an uncomfortable watch and it goes on for too long, but it makes a bold statement about racial tensions between blacks and law enforcement and is bound to incite discussion.

[thisguyatthemovies]

A masterpiece?

Title: “Portrait of a Lady on Fire”

Release date: In theaters (wide U.S. release) Feb 14, 2020

Starring: Noemie Merlant, Adele Haenel, Luana Bajrami, Valeria Golino

Directed by: Celine Sciamma

Run time: 1 hour, 59 minutes

Rated: R

What it’s about: In late 18th century France, a female artist is sent to the island home of a wealthy young woman to paint her wedding portrait, and the two embark on a forbidden romantic relationship.

How I saw it: The word “masterpiece” is applied to a lot of movies these days, which means one of two things:

·        We are living in the definitive golden age of filmmaking

·        Social media has made us prone to hyperbole because using exaggerated terms is the easiest way to get noticed online.

Plenty of critics and moviegoers have labeled Celine Sciamma’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” a masterpiece, and it isn’t difficult to understand why. The French film (with English subtitles in the U.S.) about a forbidden lesbian love affair in the late 18th century is exemplary art. The cinematography (by Claire Mathon) is sublime, the performances (especially by leads Noemie Merlant and Adele Haenel) are stunning, the script (by Sciamma) is smart, precise, powerful storytelling.

But what if all the ingredients of a great film are there but the sum is less than the total of the parts? And what if the film seems like it should be the stuff of masterpieces but fails to be emotionally engaging? Realizing that I’m in the minority here, that’s how I felt after watching “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” I was unable to make an emotional connection to an otherwise beautiful piece of art. I liked what I saw; I just wasn’t moved by it the way myriad critics and moviegoers apparently were. I cry during many a movie, but I was nowhere near tears with this movie, not even during the final scene, which is supposed to be one of the most devastatingly sad moments in movie history.

“Portrait of a Lady on Fire” is the story of Marianne (Merlant), an artist who is commissioned to do a wedding portrait of a wealthy young woman, Heloise (Haenel), who is about to be given away to an Italian man in an arranged marriage. Heloise does not want her image painted because she does not want to be married. Heloise’s mother (Valeria Golino) instructs Marianne to work secretly and to pretend she is at the family’s island home to accompany Heloise on walks along the beach.

The film is at its best at this point, as tension builds not only as Marianne tries to paint the portrait by memory but as she and Heloise fall for each other. Heloise eventually figures out what is going on and agrees to pose for her portrait, and she is observing the artist as much as the artist is observing her. “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” has some real moments of magic here, particularly from Merlant, who we often observe close-up as she is studying Heloise and coming to grips with how she feels. She frequently must catch her breath after being moved by Heloise’s beauty.

The buildup is better than the inevitable romantic awakening and what follows. Sciamma gives her couple some beautiful moments, and the film never veers into soft porn territory (though it does include some nudity). The tension is mostly gone after the two women become lovers. And we know what the outcome is going to be. This is the late 18th century, and we know two female lovers aren’t going to sail off into the sunset and live happily ever after. This is, after all, forbidden love.

Men, not surprisingly, are scarce in “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” Men in a rowboat take Marianne to her destination, and we briefly see Heloise’s unkempt (no Prince Charming here) fiancé when he picks up his portrait of his bride-to-be (a custom at the time). But their restrictive patriarchy is apparent throughout. Both Marianne and Heloise are rebelling against the male-imposed standards of the time. That’s what makes their affair so intoxicating, so intriguing. They also form a sisterhood with a young maid, Sophie (Luana Bajrami), who they help get an abortion (they even recreate a moment in the procedure so Marianne can make a painting of it). And they attend an all-female bonfire gathering that includes a haunting a cappella song that makes it seem like a gathering of witches.

“Portrait of a Lady on Fire” is as beautiful as you would hope a movie about art would be. The color isn’t explosive or oversaturated but is rich, with lighting and shadows used to bring the color out the way they would be in a painting. Mathon has said that Sciamma choreographed even the long shots in the film down to the finest detail, making sure Marianne and Heloise were in just the right position in relation to each other. “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” isn’t just about how love inspires art, but how art inspires love.

Sciamma’s film is deliberate. Her script is economical; each word seems to have weight. But the dialogue is so sluggish (and slowly and softly spoken) and sparse, and so much time is allowed between thoughts, that maintaining interest will be challenging for some viewers. And perhaps that is where it lost me emotionally. I love a good, slow, quiet movie. But I need to be engaged with what is happening, and with “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” I was not emotionally involved for much of its nearly two-hour running time. I understand what Sciamma was going for, a study of the female gaze, with words not always necessary. But that wasn’t enough to pull me in; I felt like I was watching people watch people. Judging by the praise being heaped upon this film, that could just be me. Your results may vary. You might just think it’s a masterpiece.

My score: 80 of 100

Should you see it? Yes, but only if you think you can appreciate foreign-language, period-piece, slow, artsy films. Steer clear if you require any actual action in your movies.

[thisguyatthemovies]

Deserving of a better film

Title: “Hell on the Border”

Release date: On disc/streaming Feb. 11, 2020

Starring: David Gyasi, Frank Grillo, Randy Wayne, Ron Perlman, Zahn McClarnon, Jaqueline Fleming, Leslie Sides, Marshall Teague, Alexander Kane, Manu Intiraymi, Gianni Capaldi

Directed by: Wes Miller

Run time: 1 hour, 50 minutes

Rated: R

What it’s about: Based on the true story of Bass Reeves, a freed slave who became the first black deputy U.S. marshal west of the Mississippi, a lawman and a converted criminal track down outlaw Bob Dozier in Indian Territory west of Arkansas in the 1870s.

How I saw it: Writer/director Wes Miller informs us that his historical Western “Hell on the Border” is important stuff with a message before any credits or action take place. The message reads, “We didn’t write the books. We didn’t produce the movies. So, we were politely deleted. There is a conspicuous absence of the black cowboy recorded in the history of America.” The quote is from a 2010 book, “Black Cowboys of the Old West: True, Sensational and Little-Known Stories from History” by Tricia Martineau Wagner. Bass Reeves’ is among those untold stories. Born into slavery, he escaped during the Civil War and headed west into Arkansas, and he became the first black deputy U.S. marshal west of the Mississippi. Reeves (1838-1910) worked for 32 years as a federal peace officer in the Indian Territory and claimed to have arrested more than 3,000 felons and shot and killed 14 outlaws. Some believe him to be the inspiration for the Lone Ranger.

Just based on those bits of information, the story of Reeves would seem like a decent start to a good movie. Unfortunately, “Hell on the Border” isn’t a good movie, nor is it sufficient as documentation of or tribute to Reeves’ life. The low-budget effort plays like a simplistic, melodramatic, below average made-for-TV film that, despite the opening message, did not take its subject matter seriously enough to do it justice. It opts for standard-issue Western instead of must-see historical drama.

We meet Reeves (David Gyasi) as he is working for low pay as a posseman. At the suggestion of his assistant, federal judge Isaac Parker (the white savior in this story) wants to promote Reeves to deputy marshal. Reeves declines but then shoots men who were threatening to kill the judge, including white men, and Parker hatches a plan to promote Reeves retroactively so that Reeves is not tried (and almost certainly hanged) for the killings.

When notorious outlaw Bob Dozier (Frank Grillo) sends Parker the severed head of a federal marshal sent into the Indian Territory to apprehend Dozier, Parker sends Reeves and captured outlaw Charlie Storm (Ron Perlman, the biggest name among the cast) to bring in Dozier, a seemingly impossible mission. To this point, “Hell on the Border” had been mundane. When Reeves and Storm set out on their journey, the film veers into the ridiculous. For a time, it becomes a sort-of buddy cops movie, with two (of course) ridiculously mismatched partners at first hating each other (in this case, Storm frequently uses the n-word to address Reeves) but then growing to like and respect each other.

As their pursuit of Dozier continues, Reeves seems to develop superpowers. In one scene, he stands behind a wooden door as about a dozen outlaws fire into it, each of their shots somehow missing the deputy marshal. Miller gives us two fake endings. Reeves, inside a house when Dozier tosses in sticks of dynamite, is presumed dead but – wait! – he isn’t. When Reeves goes one-on-one with Dozier in the climactic scene, he is wounded and seems on the verge of passing out. Then Dozier shoots him, and Reeves is dead but – wait! – he isn’t. As in real-life history, Reeves gets his man and the glory (otherwise this movie would not have happened), and Storm is pardoned of his wrongdoings. Reeves reportedly was a skilled shooter in real life, but in this movie, he can shoot many armed outlaws at the same time without even trying.

“Hell on the Border” tells us little about Reeves, other than he was born into slavery, that he can’t read and that he has a wife and a lot of kids (the real-life Reeves and his wife had 11 children). More of the movie should have been devoted to his story instead of the one about the pursuit of Dozier. Gyasi is solid as Reeves, a man of great integrity who let his actions talk louder than his words. Grillo is suitably fun as the bad guy Dozier.

The cinematography is mostly of TV quality, though from time to time a shaky camera, strange-looking slow motion and grainy images are incorporated for no apparent reason; the movie seems to have been hastily edited. The music is notably intrusive, a jumbled mess of classic Western film music, rap, soul gospel and rock; at times the score is overly dramatic underneath scenes in which no real drama is taking place, and one of the scenes is straight out of a musical.

Telling Reeves’ story must have seemed like a good idea during the development of “Hell on the Border.” The intentions here are good; more stories like Reeves’ need to be told. But they deserve to be told in better movies than this one.  

My score: 27 out of 100

Should you see it? Not unless you could find some entertainment value in any Western movie that comes along.

[thisguyatthemovies]

Now you see him ...

Title: “The Invisible Man”

Release date: In theaters Feb. 28, 2020

Starring: Elisabeth Moss, Aldis Hodge, Storm Reid, Harriet Dyer, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Michael Dorman, Benedict Hardie

Directed by: Leigh Whannell

Run time: 1 hour, 50 minutes

Rated: R

What it’s about: A woman escapes from a relationship with an abusive boyfriend but believes she is being stalked by him despite his apparent death by suicide.

How I saw it: It’s too bad “The Invisible Man” couldn’t keep its secrets while being promoted. But that would have been nearly impossible to do. The trailer in the months leading up to its Feb. 28 release gave much, but not all, away because there wasn’t much choice. The title alone implies that an invisible guy is involved somehow, and anyone familiar with the title could guess it had at least one character in common with the 1897 H.G. Wells novel and the related film series that dates to 1933. The trailer only confirmed what we could have guessed – a man that people can’t see is indeed a part of this movie.

Knowing that could have ruined a so-so movie, and in this cinematic version of “The Invisible Man,” it takes away much of the intended suspense in the first 30 minutes. We already know the invisible man isn’t just a figment of someone’s imagination (or paranoia). Still, writer/director Leigh Whannell’s modern reimagining of “The Invisible Man” is a must-see, a stylish and unsettling horror story that is well-acted, well-made and a film that says much about the time period in which it has been produced. Whannell’s invisible man isn’t just scary because we fear what we can’t see. He’s scary because he has planted doubts in the mind of his target and those who would be able to help if they only believed what seems to be unbelievable.

In this case, that target is Cecilia Kass (played with palpable intensity by Elisabeth Moss). She is trapped in an abusive relationship with a narcissistic scientist, Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), whose genius, wealth and high-tech modern mansion make him not unlike Marvel’s Tony Stark/Iron Man. Cecilia decides to leave Adrian in the middle of the night and seeks shelter with an old high-school friend, James Lanier (Aldis Hodge), and his teenage daughter, Sydney (Storm Reid). But Cecilia is having trouble getting over the relationship. And when she insists Adrian is stalking her, even though she has been told he has taken his own life, James thinks she is having a mental breakdown. Complicating matters: Adrian’s lawyer brother, Tom Griffin (Michael Dorman), is prepared to give Cecilia $5 million of Adrian’s fortune (tax-free, somehow) if she is not arrested or ruled mentally incompetent.

To give much more away would spoil the fun, though you can make an educated guess how this goes. Whannell throws in a twist or two, but they are not wholly unexpected. And this being an overt #MeToo statement about abusive men and the importance of believing and supporting their victims, you know how this is going to end.

Moss is outstanding in a challenging role. She must play a woman on the edge, but not over the edge; she must seem possibly crazy while also being plausibly sane. This was a physically demanding role, and if you have seen the trailer you will know why. The rest of the cast also is up to the task, especially Dorman, whose Tom Griffin seems to go through chilling wild mood swings just seconds apart; and Harriet Dyer as Emily Kass, a tough, no-nonsense woman who enjoys being a jerk to males because, well, that’s what tough men do to females, so why not her?

“The Invisible Man” has visible plot holes aplenty. It might be difficult for some to empathize with a character who stands to make a lot of money if she can keep it together. Can Cecilia’s stated goal, to be truly free of her abuser and their past, possibly be accomplished by her final actions? And does the movie’s message make it OK for a woman to be mentally tortured and physically abused for, at least in part, entertainment value?

Once “The Invisible Man” hits its stride after a slow start, the suspense is of the on-the-edge-of-your-seat variety. The gore, though not pervasive throughout, is tough to stomach in a couple of spots. The real horror, though, is in seeing Moss’ Cecilia being tormented and having no one believe her, and then the audience realizing there are plenty of women like her in the real world whose stories are doubted even when their abusers and the abuse are in plain sight. Many of those stories will go untold and unresolved in a 110-minute feature film or a too-revealing three-minute movie trailer.

My score: 81 out of 100

Should you see it? Yes. It can be enjoyed (if that’s the right word for a suspenseful and scary horror story about abuse) as straight-up entertainment or for its contemporary social commentary – or both.

[thisguyatthemovies]

The wrong story

Title: “Seberg”

Release date: In theaters Feb. 21, 2020

Starring: Kristen Stewart, Anthony Mackie, Jack O’Connell, Stephen Root, Colm Meaney, Margaret Qualley, Vince Vaughn, Zazie Beetz, Yvan Attal

Directed by: Benedict Andrews

Run time: 1 hour, 43 minutes

Rated: R

What it’s about: Actress Jean Seberg is targeted by the FBI after she starts supporting the Black Panthers in the late 1960s.

How I saw it: The film is titled “Seberg,” and it features Kristen Stewart in a mesmerizing performance as the title character, actress Jean Seberg. But what if I told you the film “Seberg” isn’t so much about the iconic actress as much as it’s about the FBI and its efforts to discredit her? And it’s at least as much about a morally conflicted FBI agent (who’s not even a real person from Seberg’s life) as it is about a performer who became a symbol of the French New Wave with her role in the groundbreaking 1960 French film “A bout de souffle” (“Breathless”)?

The failure to put the focus where it belonged is the most frustrating aspect of director Benedict Andrews’ “Seberg,” in which Stewart’s performance and a stellar supporting cast take a misguided story and too-on-point dialogue as far as they can.

A little history lesson (though the movie takes some liberties with the presumed facts): Seberg was discovered at age 17 by veteran director Otto Preminger, who cast her in the lead role of 1957’s “Saint Joan.” The movie and Seberg’s performance were widely panned, and Preminger’s reported dictatorial style and an on-set fire that got out of control left Seberg with scars, physical and emotional. She went to Paris, where Jean-Luc Godard cast her in a role that would make her a star – as Patricia Franchini, an American in Paris who has a tumultuous relationship with a French petty thug. Seberg became known as much for her look (especially her blonde pixie hairstyle) as her acting.

She bounced back and forth between the U.S. and France, and she married a Frenchman and had a child with him. “Seberg” picks up her story in the late 1960s, when she returned to Hollywood to consider a role in the disastrous Western musical “Paint Your Wagon.” During this time, Seberg became involved with the Black Panther Party and reportedly developed friendships and/or had affairs with members of the group, most notably Hakim Jamal (Anthony Mackie). This put her on the radar of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, which considered the Black Panthers a threat to the American way of life.

The FBI began observing and listening in on Seberg, especially when she visited Jamal’s home. After she started making sizable financial contributions to the Black Panthers and hosted a fundraising party for them at her Hollywood home, the FBI turned up the pressure. Their harassment reached the point of planting a false story that Seberg, who was pregnant in 1970, was having the child of a Black Panther member (Jamal in the movie; it was a different member in real life). The baby girl died two days after birth, and Seberg’s mental health spiraled downward. On Sept. 8, 1979, nine days after she had gone missing, Seberg’s decomposing body was found wrapped in a blanket in the back seat of her car. She was 40. Her death was ruled a “probable suicide,” but it, like much in Seberg’s life, remains shrouded in mystery.

And it will remain that way after this movie. Granted, the FBI’s bullying of her is an important story and a cautionary tale of intrusive government. But Andrews and writers Anna Waterhouse and Joe Shrapnel get more than the focus wrong. They decided to create a character, young FBI agent Jack Solomon (Jack O’Connell), who starts to suspect something is wrong with the way Seberg is being harassed. Solomon seems to exist solely to give the story a moral compass, but his presence adversely affects “Seberg” in two ways – he siphons away some of the attention and empathy that should go to Seberg, and he is an effort to get the FBI at least a little off the hook for its horrific actions.

At least O’Connell is strong in the role, as is his partner, Vince Vaughn as agent Carl Kowalski, an overbearing bigot. Mackie as Jamal, Zazie Beetz as Jamal’s wife Dorothy, Margaret Qualley as Solomon’s wife Linette, Stephen Root as Seberg’s agent and Yvan Attal as Seberg’s husband Romain Gary all get brief moments to shine.

But “Seberg” belongs to Stewart’s Seberg. Hers is a fully committed performance, and she perfectly captures Seberg’s combination of vulnerability and edginess, toughness and fragility. Stewart’s acting is much maligned on social media; she still seems to be paying the price for having starred in the “Twilight” series. But she long ago came into her own as an actress, and if you need proof, check out her work on two French films, 2015’s “Clouds of Sils Maria” and 2016’s “Personal Shopper.” That Stewart seems to be more beloved in France than in her native land makes her perfect to play Seberg.

Her performance is nearly wasted in “Seberg,” but that isn’t Stewart’s fault; the full breadth of her character’s story just isn’t explored here. In one scene, a reporter is interviewing Seberg in her dressing room. He asks, “Who is Jean Seberg?” Unfortunately, after seeing this film, audiences won’t have much of an answer.

My score: 57 out of 100

Should you see it? Yes. Though it isn’t a great film, Stewart’s performance alone makes this worthy of your time.

[thisguyatthemovies]

A day in a toxic workplace

Title: “The Assistant”

Release date: Feb. 20, 2020

Starring: Julia Garner, Matthew Macfadyen, Makenzie Leigh, Kristine Froseth, Jonny Orsini, Noah Robbins

Directed by: Kitty Green

Run time: 1 hour, 27 minutes

Rated: R

What it’s about: A recent college graduate, who aspires to be a film producer, takes a job as a junior assistant to a powerful entertainment mogul, and during a routine workday she realizes she has entered a toxic work culture.

How I saw it: A movie is bleak when the brightest, most colorful scene is a close-up of a bowl of Froot Loops. And there isn’t much going on in a film when that same stationary bowl of cereal is about as intense as the action gets, especially when the milk is poured on it. Whoa! Such is “The Assistant,” the first theatrical release about the Harvey Weinstein situation that isn’t explicitly about the Harvey Weinstein situation and doesn’t even have a character named Harvey Weinstein.

“The Assistant” presents an important, even necessary message about the toxic work environment created by men in power (or at least the men in power like Weinstein) and how easy it is to get trapped in the surrounding complicity when jobs and careers are at stake. The movie features a standout performance by Julia Garner in the leading role, one in which she is on screen almost all the time but only sporadically saying anything. Mainstream audiences aren’t likely to get the writer/director Kitty Green’s message, though, because they will have few compelling reasons to see an indie film that seems to dare moviegoers not to like it.

Garner (best known for her role as Ruth Langmore in the Netflix series “Ozark”) plays Jane (she’s so generic that her name is never uttered in the movie), a recent college graduate who aspires to be a movie producer and has taken a job as a junior assistant for a powerful movie executive in New York City. “The Assistant” takes place over the course of one of Jane’s workdays, and her daily tasks are as mundane as you might imagine. Much of the film’s 87-minute running time is dedicated to watching Jane take calls, make copies, type emails and clean up messes. She has been on the job only five weeks, but you can practically see her soul exiting her body.

Jane’s primary responsibility is to make life easy for her boss, who we never see except briefly from behind. We mostly hear him throw temper tantrums over the phone or muffled by office walls, and we hear his creepy laughter when he is entertaining young women. The movie executive disappears for long periods of time and keeps his appointments hanging. When he is supposed to be on a plane to Los Angeles, his assistances are left waiting in the street near a luxury SUV while the boss is busy with a young woman who can’t be more than a few minutes out of college.

Jane, who is the first to arrive and last to leave the office, starts to notice signs that something’s not right. She finds an earring in the floor of her boss’ office. She cleans stains off a sofa in the office. She is told to write the dollar amount on checks but to leave the rest of them blank. She must cover for her boss when his angry wife calls wanting to know his whereabouts. The tipping point, however, is when a teenage-looking girl (Kristine Froseth) arrives in town from Idaho because she says the movie executive offered her a job as an assistant. She is not qualified for the role (she was a waitress when “discovered”) but has been hired and is taken immediately to a luxury hotel, where she will consult with the boss, so to speak. Jane is concerned about the girl, so she takes her case to human resources, but she is in for a rude awakening. She finds herself torn between wanting to do what is right by reporting the apparent abuse and degradation but also needs to hang on to her job and advance her career. It’s a familiar conundrum for upwardly mobile young workers, and not just in the movie business.

The scene in the HR office is far and away the most compelling in the film. Jane has mustered the strength to take on the powers that be, and then she is reduced to tears. She is gaslighted and accused of being jealous. Worse, as she leaves the meeting, she is told she has nothing to worry about. “You’re not his type,” the male human resources director (played by Matthew Macfadyen) tells her, in effect saying she isn’t attractive enough to be concerned about a hotel rendezvous with the boss.  

This is Green’s first narrative feature; her background is in documentary films about the marginalization of women, and it shows. “The Assistant” is definitive no-frills moviemaking. It is music-free until the final scene. It often opts for (sometimes awkward) silence. The executive’s office is remarkably sparse for someone with such power; the rest of the workplace looks like it could be in the low-rent district of some Eastern European city. Most of the cinematography is straight-forward. It is rare these days that a movie’s story unfolds linearly, though the pacing is so slow that it seems to play out in real time.

“The Assistant” will have a ring of familiarity to it for too many people. The oppression is palpable in an office run by an executive with unquestioned power, one in which employees find themselves frequently apologizing to the boss and searching for new ways to cover for the unethical behavior. At its core, “The Assistant” is an insightful study of what happens when a powerful man doesn’t face consequences (at least not right away, as the real-life Weinstein is learning). It’s a topic worthy of examination and discussion, and Green’s film rightly focuses on the victims of the abuses instead of the abuser (having him off screen is a shrewd move). It’s a story that deserves to be seen and heard. It’s just unfortunate that it’s presented in the type of film that won’t be on the radar of your average moviegoer.  

My score: 72 out of 100

Should you see it? You should. But whether you will want to is entirely another matter.