8/16/15 (Part Two): Two Against the World

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A Most Violent Year, Abel Morales, Albert Brooks, Alessandro Nivola, Alex Ebert, All Is Lost, American Dream, Ben Rosenfield, Bradford Young, capitalism, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Christopher Abbott, cinema, corruption, David Margulies, David Oyelowo, dramas, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Elyes Gabel, family business, film reviews, films, Giselle Eisenberg, heating oil, heists, hijacking, husband-wife relationship, husband-wife team, immigrants, J.C. Chandor, Jason Ralph, Jerry Adler, Jessica Chastain, John Procaccino, Margin Call, Movies, New York City, oil industry, organized crime, Orthodox Jews, Oscar Isaac, period-piece, personal codes, Peter Gerety, Pico Alexander, Quinn Meyers, Ron Patane, set in New York City, set in the 1980's, snubbed at the Oscars, suicide, the American Dream, writer-director

While most people will freely admit to having some sort of unalterable moral code, the reality is much less black and white: I’m willing to wager that we’ve all compromised our personal codes, from time to time…that’s just what life is about. Perhaps you’ve tolerated prejudicial beliefs from an otherwise beloved relative. Perhaps you’re an environmentalist who’s taken a soul-killing corporate job with a King Kong-sized carbon footprint in order to pay the bills. When faced with the choice between suffering for our “code” or bending our beliefs in order to achieve some measure of happiness, it’s tempting to say that we would all be able to stand firm in the face of adversity. It’s tempting, sure…but is it true?

Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac), one half of the married couple that stands at the exact center of writer/director J.C. Chandor’s A Most Violent Year (2014), is a man with one of those aforementioned “unalterable moral codes,” an individual who prides himself on always taking “the path that is most right.” Abel is a man with principles, with drive, ambition and an internal compass that always keeps him oriented towards true north…or, as it turns out, his own personal notion of true north. When his world begins to collapse around him, however, Abel will be forced into a rather unenviable position: greet his massing enemies with the violence and corruption that they’ve shown him or stick to his code and, quite possibly, become nothing more than a minor footnote in someone else’s story. As Pink Floyd so eloquently put it: “a walk-on part in the war or a lead role in a cage”…Abel can have either one but he can’t have both.

Kicking off in the Big Apple during the titular “violent year” (also known as 1981), Chandor’s newest opus concerns Abel and his wife, Anna (an absolutely ferocious Jessica Chastain), as they try to carve out their own piece of the American Dream. They own a heating oil company and have just started the process to acquire a prime piece of seafront real estate, all the better to bring in their own shipments directly and cut out the middle man. While Abel tries to pull together the $1.5 million that he’ll need for the deal, he also must deal with a raft of other problems including his mercenary competitors, a nearly non-stop barrage of violent fuel hijacking and an overly zealous district attorney (David Oyelowo) who’s been investigating the Morales’ company for several years.

After another series of thefts, including one where one of Abel’s drivers, Julian (Elyes Gabel), gets his jaw broken, the head of the teamsters (Peter Gerety) insists that all of Abel’s drivers be issued handguns: he refuses to put his men into any more unsafe situations, despite Abel’s protests that faked gun permits are only going to add to his legal woes. As this is going on, Abel surprises an intruder in his home, a shady individual who drops a gun as he flees. Anna, putting two and two together, realizes that the attempted invasion might not be part of the year’s “crime wave” but actually related to their current problems with the company. The message is clear: the Morales’ aren’t safe anywhere, including their own home.

As Abel watches his carefully constructed plan fall apart, piece by piece, he’s goaded by his loose-cannon wife to take more drastic, unsavory measures: she’s the daughter of a mobster, after all, and those guys always know how to take care of business. Abel has that aforementioned “personal code,” however, and he’s determined to do everything on the up-and-up, even if it means putting his family and business through the wringer. When Julian gets attacked again and takes matters into his own hands, however, it forces Abel to scramble and try to put all the pieces back together before his time runs out on the real estate deal. Will Abel stick to his code or will he give in to the violence around him and respond in kind? Will he become the monster that he fears in order to get the life that he deserves?

Extremely stylish, beautifully shot and as cold as an iceberg, A Most Violent Year packs plenty of punch but still manages to fall short (to this viewer, at least) of Chandor’s previous film, the “Redford on a boat” mini-epic, All is Lost (2013). There’s plenty to like and respect here, no doubt: Chandor is a sure-hand as both writer and director, displaying an admirable ability to cut the fat and get right to the meat of the situation. That being said, A Most Violent Year feels too long and bloated for the relatively simple story beats involved: the structure and pacing feel off, leaving too much “dead air” and sapping some of the film’s forward momentum.

One aspect of the film that manages to shoot for the moon and score brilliantly, however, is the extraordinary performances. Front to back, A Most Violent Year is loaded with so many memorable performances and masterfully acted scenes that he handily establishes itself as a real actors’ showcase. The supporting cast, alone, would make the film worth a watch under any other circumstances: Albert Brooks turns in another great, weary performance as Abel’s lawyer/confidant; Oyelowo is solid as a rock as the dogged D.A.; Gabel offers up some genuine anguish as the conflicted Julian (the parallels between his failure and Abel’s success are one of the film’s most subtle motifs) and Jerry Adler (perhaps best known for his recurring roles as Hesh in The Sopranos) brings a surprisingly gentle, paternal quality to his performance as the Orthodox Jewish owner of the property that Abel and Anna are trying to buy.

The real stars of the show, however, are undoubtedly Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain. For his part, Isaac downplays the character of Abel masterfully, allowing all of the anger, frustration and fear to bubble and boil just below the surface until it finally explodes skyward in a truly volcanic display. He’s a case study in restraint and chilly resolve and Isaac works wonders with nothing so much as a soft word and piercing glare.

Chastain, on the other hand, is a completely unrestrained force of nature, the raging hurricane that tosses the rest of the cast around like so much flying junk. To not put too fine a point on it, she’s absolutely astounding in the film: it’s impossible to look away whenever she’s onscreen. From the stunning showpiece where she blows away the wounded deer to the fist-raising moment where she tells Oyelowo’s D.A. just where he can shove it, Chastain’s Anna is, easily, one of the most memorable modern cinematic creations.

Less Kay Corleone than Ma Barker, Anna is the true power behind the throne and Chastain tears into the role with absolute gusto. The fact that she wasn’t nominated for an Oscar only goes to show how vapid that particular process is: the fact that her performance was considered a “supporting” role in other nominations only goes to show how flawed that rationale is. Quite plainly, Chastain is as much a part of A Most Violent Year as Isaac is…perhaps more so, to be honest.

Despite the top-shelf performances, gorgeous cinematography (Bradford Young also shot Selma (2014), giving him two prestige pictures in the same year), great score (despite not caring for Alex Ebert’s main gig in Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, his score is absolutely perfect) and effective mise en scene, I still found myself slightly let down by the whole thing. Perhaps it speaks more to personal choice than any major flaws in the film (short of really trite ending to Julian’s arc, there aren’t many major missteps) but A Most Violent Year never quite struck me as “essential,” merely very well-made.

In truth, short of two chase scenes (one decent, the other a real showstopper), the whole film ends up being rather uneventful. Sure, Abel and Anna are faced with a seemingly insurmountable array of problems but each issue ends up being resolved a bit too casually to provide much tension. The resolution of the Julian storyline, the resolution of the fuel hijacking, the resolution of the property deal…in each case, it feels as if Abel and Anna are plucked from the stew-pot just as the water begins to get nice and hot. One of the things that really struck me about the chase scene between Abel and the hijackers is how unhinged and dangerous it felt: for that brief time period, I really found myself questioning the outcome. Were that overriding sense of danger more present throughout the film, perhaps it might have gripped me a little tighter.

Ultimately, A Most Violent Year is a film that deserves no small amount of praise: the performances, alone, are enough to make this a must-watch. That being said, it’s also a film that never quite sunk its claws into me, never quite demanded my complete adoration. Perhaps, in the end, A Most Violent Year is a perfect case of “different strokes for different folks”: extremely well-made and quite evocative, there’s nothing overtly wrong with the film, yet it never quit kicks like it’s supposed to.

That’s quite alright, however: I’ll keep looking forward to Chandor’s films just like I have ever since All is Lost proved him to be a modern master. In an age where “bigger, louder, dumber” seems to rule the box-office, we could always use more films like A Most Violent Year. Essential? Not quite. Worth your time? Without a shadow of a doubt.

3/11/14: The Anti-Pleasure Cruise (Oscar Bait, Part 14)

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2013 Academy Awards, 86th Annual Academy Awards, All Is Lost, Best Sound Editing nominee, disaster at sea, drama, J.C. Chandor, lost at sea, nameless protagonist, one-man shows, Oscar nominee, Oscars, Robert Redford, sailboat, sinking ship, snubbed at the Oscars

Although we often single out particular performances in a film above others, the unspoken understanding is that all performances and actors, to one extent or another, help contribute to the overall quality of a piece. This is obviously true of ensemble films, which live or die by their assembled cast but the same is true of pretty much any film, with one notable exception: those rare productions that involve only one actor/actress. In these instances, rare as they are, the entire dramatic weight of the story can rest on only one pair of shoulders, narrow or broad as they may be. Similar to stage plays, one-actor showcases can be dicey affairs: with the right performer, we have an unprecedented opportunity to peer inside a particular character. With the wrong actor, we become trapped in a kind of purgatory, spending an entire film with someone we detest, with no opportunity for “rescue,” as it were. When single-actor films are well-done (Moon, 127 Hours, Silent Running, Buried, Gravity, Cast Away), they can be truly special: J.C. Chandor’s newest film, the Robert Redford-starring All is Lost, is definitely one of the exceptional ones.

In many ways, All is Lost is so simple as to become almost symbolic: a man (Redford, named only as “Our Man” in the cast list) wakes up on his sailboat and realizes that a free-floating shipping container has punched a hole in his boat. The ship is taking on water slowly but surely and Our Man must do everything he can to stay alive. Period. That’s pretty much it, folks. In fact, the whole film unfolds in something that would feel like real-time if we had a week to spend with our protagonist. There are no other actors on-screen, no other voices heard off-screen. The movie opens with Redford’s voice-over saying, “All is lost now…I will miss you…I’m sorry.” And, for almost two hours, those are the only words we hear.

You see, unlike similar films like Cast Away, Moon or Gravity, however, we don’t get lots of scenes where the solo protagonist talks endlessly to themselves. Not on this boat. Rather, we get things just the way they would really happen: Our Man grunts, huffs, puffs, occasionally curses and puts his nose to the grindstone but he does not engage in soliloquies. In certain ways, Our Man is almost like a modern update of Eastwood’s Man With No Name: he’s rugged, individualistic, no-nonsense, take-charge and probably leaving the world the same way he came in – alone.

All is Lost, in many ways, is a perfect model of efficiency. As Our Man’s trials continue, Chandor slowly but resolutely continues to increase the pressure and find new ways to up the tension. Just when things look hopeful, a terrible storm comes out of nowhere… Our Man escapes from his sailboat with plenty of time, only to need to return at the last moment to grab something…a signal fire turns from helpful to potentially lethal…a successful fishing attempt turns into an introduction to several sharks…at any given point, Our Man reacts calmly, rationally and adeptly, only to have the universe throw yet another problem in his face. Rather than whine, pout or complain it, however, Our Man just sighs, sticks his chin out and moves on to Plan J. In a world where decisive “men-of-action” seem to be a thing of the past, Our Man’s tough resolution is both quaint and necessary.

As with any one-actor showcase, All is Lost is almost completely dependent on that actor. To that end, Chandor hedged his bets and went with Redford, still one of the finest actors around at the ripe old age of almost 80. Redford is such a masterful actor that he ends up doing more with his eyebrows than most actors do with a monologue. He looks old, to be frankly honest, but he never seems frail: if anything, this is one old guy who could (and probably would) administer one severe ass-whupping. It’s to the film’s great credit that nothing comes across as far-fetched or unlikely: Our Man, thanks to Redford, seems exactly like the kind of ornery cuss that would react in just this manner to just this situation. While it’s unlikely that a lead role with only a small handful of speaking lines would ever be nominated for, much less win, a Best Actor Oscar, it still feels like Redford was unduly snubbed this year.

Aside from the phenomenal acting by Redford, All is Lost looks gorgeous, making excellent use of both the deep-sea and stage sets to create a nearly seamless illusion: perhaps I could find the seams if I looked harder but only common sense really let me know what scene was filmed where. The sound design, in particular, is extraordinary: each creak of the mast, each slap of water against the ship’s side, is delivered in crystal clarity and aid immeasurably in the all-engulfing feel of the film. As someone who can’t swim, this was about as close to be being stranded at sea as I could ever see myself getting and I’m pretty okay with that.

At the end of the day, All is Lost is quite simple but completely effective. If you’re looking for a thrilling tale of man vs nature, look no further. Turn off the lights, turn up the sound and remember: all may be lost but in the best way possible.

2/25/14: Lost in Space (Oscar Bait, Part 9)

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2013 Academy Awards, 86th Annual Academy Awards, Academy Award Nominee, Alfonso Cuaron, All Is Lost, astronauts, auteur theory, Best Actress nominee, Best Cinematography winner, Best Director nominee, Best Film Editing winner, Best Original Score winner, Best Picture nominee, Best Sound Editing winner, Best Sound Mixing winner, Best Visual Effects winner, Children of Men, cinema, disaster films, Ed Harris, Emmanuel Lubezki, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, George Clooney, Gravity, lost in space, marooned, Movies, multiple Oscar winner, outer space, rescue mission, Sandra Bullock, sci-fi, space shuttle, special-effects extravaganza, thriller, trapped in space

My Oscar-prep viewing for the last week of February continued with Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity. Of all of the nominees, I was probably (initially) most excited to see this one, since I’m a huge fan of Cuaron’s previous film, the wonderfully dystopic Children of Men. After waiting seven years for a follow-up, how would Gravity stack up? And did it really earn all ten of its Oscar nominations? Read on, gentle readers…read on.

As a boy, my twin loves (above and beyond anything else that I loved) were dinosaurs and outer space. If there was a book about the subject(s), I read it. if there was a show or movie, I watched it. I’ve always been fascinated by huge, open expanses but my inability to swim has always rendered the deep-sea about as terrifying as diving into an active volcano. Space, however, was a different story. As frightening as the notion of all of that vast emptiness was, I never ceased to be fascinated and drawn to it. As time went on and I got older, my former obsession with dinosaurs gradually faded into my childhood, although I remember being fairly agog when I first saw Jurassic Park in the theater. My obsession with space, however, has never waned. If anything, I find myself more fascinated by it now then I ever was: we truly live in a glorious time for anyone who’s ever wondered about what might be “up there,” since we seem to get word of astounding new galactic discoveries on a fairly regular basis. If there’s one thing me and my boyhood self would agree on, it’s this: outer space is pretty damn amazing.

Interestingly enough, however, my lifelong love of space hasn’t really translated into a love of sci-fi films. I’ve found many, over the years, that I really enjoy and a few that I even love: 2001; Alien; The Black Hole; Event Horizon, to name a few. For the most part, however, I’m not really drawn to the space shoot-em-ups of stuff like Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica. I’m much more interested in low-key, intellectual films like Moon, Europa Report, 2001 and Solaris. Part of the appeal of space, to me, has always been the inherent mystery of it: the best sci-fi films manage to preserve this sense of mystery while still giving something to thrill along to.

Gravity could certainly be said to exist in the same company as the aforementioned “intelligent” sci-fi films, but it’s not quite the same thing. There is nothing lunk-headed or especially clumsy about the film but its heart is definitely more interested in action (sometimes so non-stop as to almost seem real-time) than it is in wonder or inquiry. There’s nothing wrong with this, mind you, but it immediately puts Gravity into a slightly different category and is one of the reasons why I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed after the whole thing was over.

Story-wise, Gravity is simplicity itself: Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) and Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) are American astronauts on a routine spacewalk when disaster strikes. The Russians have accidentally bombed one of their own satellites, which has caused deadly space debris to travel into the Americans’ vicinity. Too late to avoid the bombardment, Stone and Kowalski find themselves adrift in space, no contact with Earth and only their connecting tether keeping them from spinning away into the vastness of forever. Using every ounce of their strength, courage and cautious optimism, the two must do everything they can to make it back home, lest the far reaches of space become their frigid tomb.

In a nutshell, that’s pretty much it: just slightly over 90 minutes of Bullock trying desperately to get back home. In many respects, Gravity and All Is Lost (Redford stuck at sea on a sinking sailboat) are kindred spirits. Both are claustrophobic, quick-paced thrill rides that feature one protagonist (it’s no spoiler to say that Bullock spends the majority of the film alone), almost no supporting characters or additional actors and minimal locations. While I heartily enjoyed Gravity, I’ll have to give the edge here to All Is Lost for one very important reason: it didn’t dilute its impact with unnecessary emotional baggage. In All Is Lost, we end up knowing as little about Redford’s character as possible: he doesn’t even get a name. This isn’t to say that there’s no character information whatsoever: through a few small, subtle scenes, we find out enough about Redford’s character (wife and kids back home, well-to-do older man) to become invested in his struggle. At no time, however, does the film wring unnecessary mileage out of the emotional beats: they’re just there to humanize the character.

In Gravity, however, Ryan’s back-story directly influences her actions in the film and, at times, is used as the sole emotional ballast. For my money, this wasn’t the best way to humanize the character and, to be honest, had a bit of the opposite effect for me. At times, I found myself questioning Ryan’s actions: she would be unthinkingly swift and decisive one moment, curled in a fetal position and looking “lost” the next. While this might be a natural reaction for any normal person caught in the situation, it still had the effect of dragging down the film and injecting a maudlin, overly emotional tone that was at odds with the film’s more clinical inclinations. It’s almost as if Cuaron was unsure if the audience would be fully invested in the actual things happening to Bullock’s character (who the hell wouldn’t find being lost in space terrifying and thrilling?!), so he decided to hedge his bets by piling on a tragic back-story for her to overcome. It’s a reductive measure and, effectively, boils down Ryan’s entire experience in space to “overcoming personal adversity.” It’s equivalent to Ripley coming at the Mother Alien with the robot suit only to end up shaking hands and hugging it out. This is particularly puzzling since, aside from the too obvious back-story and some beats with Clooney’s character, there isn’t anything obvious about the actual film. This was a pretty big disappointment for me, since it seemed like a concession to what modern audiences expect from films, not what filmmakers actually intend. I keep wondering how amazing this film would have been as a non-stop, tightly-shot, A-B-C thriller and it makes the final product even more disappointing.

But, let’s be absolutely frank here: most people going to see Gravity won’t be going for the character development, the writing or anything of that nature: they’ll be going to experience a huge, eye-popping visual smorgasbord. And on that count, Gravity absolutely does not disappoint. In fact, I daresay that I really have no appropriate words to describe how utterly, sumptuously amazing the film looks. There isn’t one frame that didn’t look meticulously composed and I still have no idea whatsoever how many of the shots were achieved. As far as I can tell, Cuaron took a small crew into deep space and filmed: that’s about the best explanation I have for a lot of the film. The SFX are seamless, the space visuals are so stunning that I got teary-eyed (really) and the sound effects put you right in the thick of everything. If there’s one part of the filmmaking I didn’t care for, however, it would definitely have to be Steven Price’s intrusive, too-obvious score. Something more minimalist and  moody would have helped the film but I felt like the score tried to be too leading: I’m not a fan of hand-holding between filmmakers and the audience and the score was definitely that. As far as the technical awards and the Best Cinematography statue, however? There was simply no other film in the running after this one: even discussing other films’ effects as being equitable is absolutely ridiculous.

At the end of the day, perhaps my own unreasonable expectations led me to be disappointed by Gravity. Don’t get me wrong: I enjoyed most of the film as I was watching it (save for the overly emotional bits referenced above). I was even stunned at several points, especially that jaw-dropping opening. It was a fun, exquisitely crafted film with a rock-solid performance by Bullock (not Oscar worthy, IMHO, but damn close), a very Clooney-esque performance by George C and a totally awesome reference to my favorite scene in Jaws. It was also, unfortunately, a rather slight film, almost more of an effects exercise then anything else. I remember how much I found myself pondering and returning to Children of Men after I first saw it. After watching Gravity, my only thought was, “Damn: shoulda seen it in the theaters.” While Gravity was a good Cuaron film, it looks like I might have to wait another seven years for a great Cuaron film.