2/13/15: Old Habits Die Hard

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Aidan McArdle, alternate title, British films, British horror, Catholic church, Christianity vs paganism, cinema, Elliot Goldner, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, Final Prayer, foreign films, found-footage, found-footage films, Gordon Kennedy, haunted church, horror, horror films, horror movies, insanity, isolated estates, Luke Neal, mental illness, miracles, Movies, paganism, paranormal investigators, Patrick Godfrey, religious-themed horror, Robin Hill, suicide, The Borderlands, UK films, Vatican investigators, writer-director

Sometimes, it doesn’t take much to give a particular film a leg up on its competitors. Take writer-director Elliot Goldner’s feature-debut, The Borderlands (2014), for example. For the most part, Goldner’s film doesn’t do much different from the majority of other found-footage horror films on the market but it also doesn’t make many obvious mistakes, either. Add to this some effective performances, along with a creepy, fairly original main concept, and you end up with a pretty winning formula. While The Borderlands doesn’t raise the bar for these types of films, it’s still a suitably sturdy entry and should prove duly thought-provoking for patient horror aficionados.

Goldner’s debut deals with a small team of Vatican investigators who have been sent to a rural British church in order to check on claims of strange, miraculous occurrences. Our team consists of Deacon (Gordon Kennedy), the good-humored, gruff, hard-drinking veteran investigator; Mark (Aidan McArdle) the stick-in-the-mud, uptight, by-the-book priest who doesn’t actually seem to believe in anything; and their tech expert, Gray (Robin Hill), a studied non-believer who still seems more open to the concept of miracles than his religious-oriented cohorts. The group has been called to the small church in order to investigate the resident priest, Father Crellick (Luke Neal), whose claims of strange, unexplained happenings have set off alarm bells in Vatican City. While Deacon and Gray are used to debunking such claims, the case quickly proves itself to be a singularly odd one. For one thing, Crellick is a decidedly weird duck, given to strange proclamations and privy to “visions” that no one else seems to have. For another, the rural church is a ridiculously creepy place, less of a functional religious center than a hold-over from a much older, darker time: as a rule, folks in films should steer clear of anything built “on top” of anything else: suffice to say, it’s always bad news.

As the team continue to investigate, Deacon comes upon a journal, belonging to the church’s 1800s-era caretaker, which seems to hint at some sort of dark presence in the area. After a horrifying incident involving a flaming sheep, the group gets the distinct impression that the locals are a little less than welcoming of this intrusion into their land. Who (or what) is responsible for the mysterious, seemingly paranormal incidents at the church? Is eccentric Father Crellick somehow responsible? Is it all related to stories of ancient pagan ceremonies in the isolated valley? Is someone trying to chase the investigators away from an earth-bound conspiracy or is the reality something much darker and more sinister? As each of the men begins to experience their own strange events, Deacon and the others will be forced to face the unfathomable: if a “miraculous” event isn’t a miracle…what, exactly, is it?

For the most part, The Borderlands (given the unbelievably boring, generic alternate title of “Final Prayer” for American audiences, natch) is an assured, well-made and interesting film, albeit one that makes many of the same (inherent) missteps that most found-footage movies make. While nothing here is as obvious as the many Paranormal Activity (2007) sequels, we still get plenty of scenes that involves the audience intently peering at a static video image, waiting for something to move/jump/make a scary face/etc. Again, not terrible but so old hat, at this point, as to be almost risible. There are also plenty of strangely “unmotivated” camera shots, such as the lovely but out-of-place landscape exteriors, that pop up from time to time: like many found-footage films, the makers of The Borderlands don’t always have the tightest grasp on their “gimmick,” as it were, although this is hardly the sloppiest example of said issue.

Where Goldner’s film really sets itself apart from the found-footage pack is in the quality of its acting. Gordon Kennedy and Robin Hill are both pretty great and make nice foils for each other: there’s a level of shared respect between the two characters that’s nicely illustrated in the performances. Kennedy does the gruff “two-fisted man of God” schtick to a tee and Hill is nicely nerdy and kind of sweet as the tech wizard who only wants to believe, even though he really doesn’t. For his part, Aidan McArdle is appropriately assholish as the immovable Mark but, for some reason, I had the hardest time not seeing his character as a non-secular version of David Mitchell’s odious Mark character in Peep Show (2003-present). Jerks are jerks, however, and McArdle acquits himself nicely as the smug priest/bean-counter.

One of the biggest issues with found-footage films is always the endings: in most cases, they simply devolve into shaky camera-work, motion blurs and the all-important “drop the camera” bit, regardless of what came before. The Borderlands doesn’t (quite) go that route, opting for something quite a bit creepier and more bizarre. While the ending is certainly open for multiple interpretations, I’d like to think that the whole thing is a nod to Ken Russell’s batshit-crazy Lair of the White Worm (1988): it’s probably highly unlikely but who wouldn’t want to throw some props Russell’s way? Regardless of what it ultimately means, however, the ending is just different enough to warrant sitting through the entire film, especially if one is inclined to enjoy found-footage films.

For a debut-feature, The Borderlands is surprisingly good and makes an effective calling card for Goldner. By making good use of a rather unique location, a rarely-used religious angle, some rock-solid acting and a creepy, unexpected climax, Goldner and crew have come up with a film that looks a lot like its peers but has enough individuality and presence to stand on its own. It also features one of the single most disturbing, horrific and unforgettable scenes I’ve ever seen in a film (the burning sheep scene will haunt you, guaranteed), indicating that writer-director Goldner has no problems hanging out in the “dark side,” when necessary. Here’s to hoping that his next feature takes the good will he earned here and runs it in for the touch-down: The Borderlands may not be perfect but I’m willing to wager that Goldner has a pretty fascinating career ahead of him.

 

12/31/14 (Part Three): Bless Me Father, For You Have Sinned

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absentee father, Aidan Gillen, Best of 2014, Brendan Gleeson, Calvary, Catholic church, child molestation, Chris O'Dowd, Church sex scandal, cinema, dark comedies, David McSavage, David Wilmot, Domhnall Gleeson, dramas, Dylan Moran, estranged family, father-daughter relationships, favorite films, film reviews, films, foreign films, forgiveness, Gary Lydon, Irish films, Isaach de Bankole, John Michael McDonagh, Kelly Reilly, Killian Scott, Larry Smith, M. Emmet Walsh, Marie-Josee Croze, Movies, New World in the Morning, Orla O'Rourke, Owen Sharpe, Pat Shortt, Patrick Cassidy, revenge, Roger Whittaker, secrets, set in Ireland, sins of the fathers, small town life, The Guard, writer-director

In a small, dim confessional, Father James (Brendan Gleeson) is calmly told by one of his parishioners that he is to be “sacrificed” the following Sunday, made to die for the sexual abuse that the unknown man suffered at the hands of another priest when he was a boy. The offending priest has since died but the man isn’t interested in making a “bad” priest pay: he wants Father James, a “good” priest, to take a bullet, since the Church will feel his loss harder. “Nothing to say, Father?,” the mysterious man asks, when he’s finished passing his judgment. “I’m sure I’ll think of something in a week,” Father James sardonically replies.

The week leading up to that fateful Sunday forms the crux of Irish auteur John Michael McDonagh’s amazing Calvary (2014), the stunning follow-up to his masterful debut, The Guard (2011). During that time, Father James will reflect on his own life, his failings, his victories and his faith. He’ll spend the time wandering about his tiny, coastal town, making small-talk with the parishioners, these “friends” and neighbors who secretly wish him dead, despite their smiles and condescending good natures: after all, he immediately knows who the wannabe assassin is, even if we don’t…in a town that small, everyone knows everyone else, regardless of the supposed “anonymity” of the confessional window. Despite his knowledge, however, Father James will go through the motions, investigating each “lead” as if it were a Holmes-worthy clue, biding his time until that inevitable, fateful meeting on the beach. Despite his own innocence, Father James is more than willing to become a victim, a sacrificial goat, if that’s what his town needs to heal…to keep on with the drudgery of life under the age-old grip of the Church, Ireland’s bloody past and its uncertain future.

From the jump, McDonagh’s Calvary grabs a hold of you and never lets go: from the great opening quote, by St. Augustine, to the haunting, empty Irish landscape shots that play over the final credits, this is a film that is so exquisitely crafted that it’s almost a Swiss clock. There’s an overarching sadness to the film, a sense of fate and inevitability that cuts across any of the film’s many joyful moments (there are plenty) and underlines all of its most dramatic ones (likewise, plenty). Truth be told, Calvary is one of the saddest films I’ve ever seen, although its sorrow is a mechanical heart, beating deep within the film’s chest and nearly invisible to the naked eye.

There’s a lot going on in Calvary, although McDonagh’s excellent script manages to make everything fit, even if it doesn’t always tie it all together with a big, red bow: the estranged relationship between Father James and his grown daughter, Fiona (Kelly Reilly)…the way in which the entitlement of the upper-class continues to determine the fate of the poor working stiff, as embodied by Dylan Moran’s boozy lord, Michael Fitzgerald…the way in which the terrible economy and bad housing market have conspired to marginalize the middle class nearly to the point of extinction…the importance of forgiveness in a world that would rather focus on punishment…the way in which the Catholic church’s priest sex scandals continue to influence and change the complex relationship between the clergy and the common people, slowly turning blind devotion into something more closely resembling abject hatred…the necessity of sacrifice as a form of healing…despite this wealth of themes and big ideas, Calvary never feels weighted down or overly preachy (no pun intended).

One of the things that helps Calvary stay afloat when other films might have sunk under this much ambition is the way in which McDonagh subtly uses humor (sometimes bright and laugh-out-loud funny, other times so dark and mean-spirited as to be practically unrecognizable as such) as a means of guiding us through the dark. As previously mentioned, Calvary is an intensely sad, unrelenting film: the characters that haunt its halls are such twisted, wretched, damaged individuals that this streak of gallows’-humor is an absolute necessity. When one character melodramatically describes how his “whole life has been an affectation,” Father James quietly responds that “that’s one of those lines that sounds good but doesn’t make much sense.” We need to know that Father James is keeping his chin up and taking it all in stride because, otherwise, we would never be able to take this journey with him. At one point, Freddie (Domhnall Gleeson), one of James’ former students who’s now locked up for killing and cannibalizing a young girl, plaintively asks the priest: “God has to understand me because he made me, right?” After a beat, Father James replies, “If God can’t understand you, no one can.” The dark streak of humor functions in the same way, reassuring us that things in Father James’ world are never quite as grim as they seem to be, even when our heart tells us that they’re actually much worse.

As with The Guard, McDonagh populates his film with a host of impressively individualistic characters: stellar actors like Dylan Moran (of Black Books fame), Chris O’Dowd, David Wilmot, Aidan Gillen, Gary Lydon and even good, old M. Emmet Walsh (looking positively ancient but sounding just as great as ever) all show up and help weave the intricately intertwined tapestry that forms the fabric of the film. Kelly Reilly does some great work as James’ estranged daughter and I must admit to rather loving Killian Scot’s ridiculously over-the-top performance as Inspector Stanton’s gay, tough-guy lover: it’s a blustery, obnoxious performance with just enough underlying sadness and vulnerability to sell the whole thing, part and parcel.

Towering over everything like some sort of enormous, cassock-clad, bearded Colossus of Rhodes, however, is Brendan Gleeson. Easily one of the best actors working in film today, Gleeson seems to spit out amazing performances like this in his sleep: he’s like the male, Irish Meryl Streep, completely incapable of phoning anything in or giving any less than 1000%. Gleeson isn’t acting: he IS Father James, from head to foot, inhabiting the character so completely that any notion of mimicry goes out the window. There’s not one moment in Gleeson’s performance, one single iota, that ever hits as anything less than completely authentic and genuine. It’s a heartbreaking performance for a number of reasons but the main two are pretty simple: Father James seems like a genuinely nice person and Gleeson brings him to life in a way that makes us know and feel for him. We don’t need to take a side, one way or the other, to feel the tremendous tragedy, the complete unfairness of Father James’ fate: Gleeson makes us feel it because we don’t have a choice.

Craft-wise, Calvary looks and sounds amazing: cinematographer Larry Smith, who also shot Nicholas Winding Refn’s Bronson (2008) and Only God Forgives (2013), turns the emerald greens and azure blues of the Irish countryside into one of the film’s main characters. There’s an impressive sense of space and isolation that perfectly meshes with Father James’ own “man without a country” status in the town and some of the sweeping vistas are so gorgeous that they resemble something out of a travel program. The score and sound design are also expertly realized: one of my very favorite scenes, ever, has to be the one where Father James prepares to leave town, set to the tune of Roger Whittaker’s soaring “New World in the Morning.” The scene is such a perfect synthesis of song and visual, so emotionally wonderful, that it, literally, took my breath away…even thinking back on it now, I find myself getting a little emotional, which is surely the mark of an indelible moment.

All in all, Calvary stands as yet another absolute home-run for McDonagh, a filmmaker who has quickly established himself as one of the most formidable around. Truth be told, I still find it hard to believe that this is only his second film: quality like this should be the result of a lifetime spend honing one’s craft, not the span of four or five short years. From beginning to end, Calvary is a nearly flawless character study and one of the very finest films of this year (or many others, for that matter). For anyone lamenting the lack of quality, “adult” entertainment, look no further than Calvary: it just doesn’t get much better than this, folks.

10/4/14 (Part One): They Sin So You Don’t Have To

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31 Days of Halloween, Andre Royo, bad priests, based on a graphic novel, Catholic church, cinema, Clancy Brown, Clifton Collins Jr., Dan Fogler, dutiful heroes, elder gods, exorcists, Fallen, film reviews, films, Ghostbusters, Hellbenders, horror-comedies, J.T. Petty, Larry Fessenden, Last Supper, Macon Blair, Movies, religious-themed horror, Robyn Rikoon, S&man, sins, Soft For Digging, Stephen Gevedon, supernatural, Surtr, The Augustine Interfaith Order of Hellbound Saints, The Burrowers, writer-director

In an era where ideas (and films) seem to get recycled with as much ease as hand-me-down clothes, it’s more than refreshing to come across an original concept: it’s downright life-affirming. Writer/director J.T. Petty’s Hellbenders (2012) has one hell of an original concept, pun intended: six priests, all of various denominations, exist in a state of constant sin so that they may serve as the “nuclear option” for exorcisms. When there are demons that are too powerful for “regular” exorcists to handle, the team swoops in, invites the demons to possess them and then commit suicide, thereby dragging the demons straight back to hell with them. What this really is, of course, is a perfect excuse to witness priests swear, booze it up and engage in some very bad behavior, ranging from the slightly assholish to the downright blasphemous. It’s a great concept and almost guarantees an interesting film: even though the final product ends up a religious-themed Ghostbusters (1984) with a touch of Fallen (1998), there’s enough wicked good times here to make genre fans pay attention.

The film actually has a rather inauspicious beginning as we witness Angus (Clancy Brown), Larry (Clifton Collins, Jr.) and Det. Elrod (genre auteur Larry Fessenden) tromping around in some nondescript attic-area, lit only by flashlight. The scene recalls [REC] (2007), which seems like a strange point of reference, before jumping into some sloppy pseudo-mockumentary, talking-head-type footage. Just when things seemed to be taking a turn for the generic, however, the glorious opening credit sequence swooped in and saved the day: set to a swaggering, stomping tune, we see our six heroes arrayed around a table, Last Supper style, engaging in everything from excessive drinking to make grilled cheese sandwiches with a Jesus sandwich-press. It’s a silly, visually impressive and, most importantly, utterly badass intro and ends up setting an impossibly high bar for the rest of the film. For a time, however, the movie almost lives up to its potential.

Our resident exorcists are Angus, the de facto leader and oldest of the group; Larry, the second-in-command (fulfilling the Peter Venkman role); Elizabeth (Robyn Rikoon), the resident spitfire who casually sleeps around with Larry; Stephen (Andre Royo), the “accountant” of the group, who keep track of their ledger of sins; Eric (Dan Fogler), who not-so-secretly pines for Elizabeth and Macon (Macon Blair), the free-lovin’ Southern Baptist minister who’s obsessed with his pretty-boy looks. The group lives together, cracking wise and engaging in their various sins with gusto, living just like a parochial version of the Ghostbusters. Their antics may be necessary as far as keeping the world safe goes but they certainly don’t go over well with certain bureaucratic elements at the Vatican, as evidenced when holy pencil-pusher Clint (Stephen Gevedon) comes around to keep an eye on the wayward priests. He definitely approve of the drinking, drug use, fornicating and blasphemy but he seems to be even more irate over the inherent waste of funds: sinning be damned, the Hellbound Saints just don’t make good fiscal sense!

As with any film like this how, however, we know that our dutiful heroes will be needed even if their superiors don’t. They’re forced to spring into action when they get involved with one seriously badass demon, an elder god by the name of Surtr. It seems that Surtr is known as a “god-killer” and has roamed around eternity putting the snuff on other deities that it considers to be weaker. Surtr has now set his sets on the Judeo-Christian God and it’s up to Angus and his crew to stop it before all of Heaven is destroyed in the process. Things get complicated, however, when Elizabeth becomes possessed by Surtr but neglects to kill herself, giving the elder god an earthly vessel, as well as a convenient way to gain more followers (achieved via a noxious cloud of flies). Angus wants to kill Elizabeth in order to send Surtr to Hell. Larry, on the other hand, is in love with Elizabeth and would rather not see her suffer eternal damnation, despite it being pretty much her only job duty. With all of humanity on the line (or, at least, the Judeo-Christian portion), will love or duty win out?

For the first ten minutes or so of Hellbenders, I laughed so hard that I cried: no lie. The script is impossibly witty, choked with so much rapid-fire obscenity, bad behavior and juvenile attitude that it feels like one’s being pummeled by a prize-fighter armed with one-liners rather than fists. It’s a heady experience and, for a time, I was pretty sure this was going to be the funniest film I’d ever seen, hands down. And then, of course, the honeymoon was over and tedium began to set in: what was uproariously funny in a compressed ten minutes became wearing and tiresome over the sustained course of the film. This might sound like harsh criticism of the film and, in a way, I suppose that it is. It’s also, conversely, a big compliment: if you can stay on the film’s wavelength, it’s pretty much the apex of this type of movie. I ended up really liking the film but was disappointed, ultimately, because I didn’t love it: there was potential for so much more than was fully realized here and that kind of let me down.

Make no mistake, however: when Hellbenders is good, it’s pretty damn great. The acting is top-notch, from top to bottom, with Robyn Rikoon being particularly stellar as Elizabeth. It’s a great ensemble cast and they work together like a charm: in fact, the film really starts to come off the rails when it moves from the opening “bad priests hanging out” material into the more familiar “battling supernatural evil” territory. I’ve seen plenty of films that look exactly like the latter but precious few like the former: I really wish that we could have had a little more to get to know our priests before they were off butting heads with ancient evil in some rather clichéd fight scenes.

J.T. Petty directs the film based on his own graphic novel and there are plenty of points where the film actually feels like a big-screen comic book adaptation, not least of which is the odd moment where the film actually becomes a comic, complete with panels. That odd misstep aside, the film looks consistently great and features some pretty exemplary effects work. The film also ends up being pretty violent, which might seem like a given but is only odd when the majority of gore is loaded into the film’s conclusion: suffice to say that I was rather surprised to witness someone bite out another character’s eyes, although I was certainly forewarned when a nose was later chewed off in similar manner.

While I will freely admit that I disliked Petty’s debut feature, Soft For Digging (2001), with a zeal that I normally reserve for much shittier films, I’ve actually enjoyed the rest of his filmography quite a bit. In particular, I think that his 2008 horror-Western The Burrowers is an amazing, nearly perfect film that’s equal parts eulogy and nail-biting terror, although his found-footage experiment, S&man (2006), is an equally interesting, if substantially more flawed, production. Even though he’s never mentioned alongside the likes of current genre faves Ti West or Adam Wingard, I personally feel that Petty has the potential to be the best of the bunch, some day: The Burrowers is such a monumental achievement that I keep hoping it wasn’t his magnum opus.

Even though Hellbenders ends up in a much more familiar place than it begins, it’s still a ton of fun and seems perfect as a party/crowd film. There are plenty of glorious setpieces here, the overall storyline is pretty genius and the ensemble cast is superb, riffing off each other in near perfect synthesis. I wish that the film was able to sustain its gonzo tone longer than it does but I’m also reminded of the saying that the flame that burns twice as hot only burns half as long. Fair enough: Hellbenders is hot enough for most of its running time that I can forgive if it seems to fizzle out a bit before the conclusion. There appears to be hints at a sequel, however, which could easily take the film’s universe into some pretty awesome Hellboy-like territory. Sign me up! I may not have loved Petty’s Hellbenders but I liked it enough to anticipate the next installment. In the meantime, it’s good to know that we have people like Angus and his crew watching over us, keeping humanity safe one upraised middle finger at a time.

4/25/14: JGL Loves His Computer

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addicted to porn, Barbara Sugarman, Brie Larson, Catholic church, character dramas, cinema, Clint Eastwood, Don Jon, dramadies, dramas, eponymous characters, fantasy vs reality, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, Glenne Headly, internet porn, JGL, Jon Martello, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Julianne Moore, Movies, New Jersey, porn, pornography, relationships, Saturday Night Fever, Scarlett Johansson, sex addiction, Tony Danza, Tony Manero, voice-over narration, writer-director-actor

It’s always a dicey proposition when a beloved actor decides to makes his/her mark behind the camera. On one hand, who could possibly understand the methods and motivations necessary to elicit the best performances from actors than a fellow treader of the boards? There’s a special skill to directing actors, a skill that becomes even more impressive when one begins to take note of the numerous films, popular and otherwise, that feature serviceable (at best) acting. The modern Hollywood mode appears to be to distract from any basic flaws (storytelling, script, acting) by focusing on the showier, punchier details (special effects, fast-paced editing, bigger, better and louder everything). When a career actor throws his/her hat onto the directing chair, we usually (but not always) get films that focus on the characters and acting: a quick look through Clint Eastwood’s exemplary resume gives a good example of this. When current golden boy Joseph Gordon-Levitt made his directing/writing debut with Don Jon, a fairly modest little film about a porn-obsessed, body-building, mook looking for love in all the wrong places, I was hoping he would bring the same deft touch behind the scenes that he normally does before them. For the most part, JGL delivers the goods, even if the final result ends up being a little more “same-old-same-old” than I’d hoped.

A montage of highly sexualized female images from film, TV, cartoons and the internet jumps us head-first into JGL’s story about porn-addicted guys and the women who (try to) love them. A voice-over introduces us to the titular hero, one Jon Martello (JGL) who appears to have only four interests in life: masturbating to internet porn, picking up and screwing any living thing with lady parts, cleaning his house and lifting weights. That, as Porky Pig would stammer, is all folks. Frequent super-flashy cut-scenes and montages lay out Jon’s personal philosophy pretty clearly: real girls are great but they ain’t the real thing. You see, everything about porn is cooler to Jon than the actual act of sex: the positions are better, the people are hotter, the angles are better and nobody makes goofy “O” faces. Jon may pick up and bang a new club hottie every night but he always finishes the evening by slipping away from his snoozing conquest and spending a little one-on-one time with his fave XXX sites. As we come to see in pretty short order, Jon is obsessed with the ideal of everything over the reality: ideal sex, ideal body, ideal house, ideal everything. Real life, when compared to the air-brushed perfection of fantasy, just doesn’t rev Jon’s engine, as it were.

All of this, supposedly, changes when Jon lays eyes on Barbara Sugarman (Scarlett Johansson) in the club. She’s a “ten” in his book, even though his friends proclaim her to be “long game”: she’s way too “classy” for Jon and he ain’t getting her in the sack anytime soon. Not to worry, of course, because Jon has a little way to help keep his mind off of Barbara’s naughty parts. For a while, this seems like the best of both worlds, to Jon: he gets to romance Barbara as slow as she’d like while still indulging in his own pleasure on the side. Regular visits to the confessional help keep his conscience scrubbed clean (Hail Marys are all-purpose cleaners, it turns out) and Barbara even begins to insinuate herself into the rest of Jon’s life, getting him to enroll in night school and bring her home to meet his folks (Tony Danza and Glenne Headly). Thing’s just get better when Barbara decides that it’s finally time to take it all the way. Jon is thrilled but the sex ends up being just as unfulfilling as ever and he sneaks back to his laptop while Barbara snoozes. She ends up catching him in mid-act, however, which prompts a massive blow-up and promise from Jon that this was all a misunderstanding.

As Jon denies himself the self-gratification that he’s always relied on, however, he finds the rest of his life beginning to fall apart: he’s always pissed off, for one thing, which culminates in a nifty bit of road rage where he puts his fist through a car window. Big Jon may be trying to walk the straight and narrow but Lil’ Jon is the one who calls the shots and, in time, it’s inevitable that the whole flimsy structure will fall to the ground. After Jon learns about browser histories the hard way, he sets out on a journey of self-exploration that eventually leads to Esther (Julianne Moore), the older, philosophical, sexually-secure student in his night class who’s been interested in him for some time. In time, Jon will learn that sex without an emotional connection is just as empty as the internet porn he’s addicted to, forcing him to make some hard decisions. As Blink-182 once said: I guess this is growing up.

As a feature-film debut, Don Jon hits most of the right notes. The acting, as expected, is top-notch, with Tony Danza being a particular stand-out as Jon’s ultra-mook father, Jon, Sr. I’ve never been a fan of Scarlett Johansson, finding her to easily be one of the most irritating, over-rated non-actors in the business but I admit to really enjoying her as Barbara Sugarman. There’s an honesty and vulnerability to her performance that I’ve found lacking in everything else I’ve ever seen her in (with the possible exception of Lost in Translation) and it really helps to shore up the film’s (occasional) emotional disconnect. As always, JGL is a highly personable tour-de-force in the film but he doesn’t do much different with the role: this may be JGL as envisioned by the creators of Jersey Shore but it’s still noticeably JGL: good, old’ reliable JGL.

As a film, Don Jon is a bit more problematic. The quick-cut, fast-paced editing that makes an appearance at the beginning continues throughout the film and, to be honest, it gets old kinda fast. As a rule, I’m not a big fan of hyper-active editing unless it really fits the production (Fight Club and Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels being two of the best examples) and too much of the editing in Don Jon feels superfluous and unnecessarily flashy. The film also ends up being fairly predictable by the third act, mostly due to a softening of its core idea: despite all of the evidence to the contrary, Jon isn’t a porn addict…he just hasn’t found the right girl. While this may be fine and dandy for a stereotypical Hollywood happy ending, it seems to give short shrift to the film’s previous insights into addiction. In my opinion, it would have made for a much better, more powerful film if we could have truly seen Jon caught in the unhappy throes of his addiction, unable to pursue his own happiness due to his obsessions. As it stands, we get the equivalent of the nice guy who spends the entire film being unhappy with the popular girl only to find true love with the mousey librarian in the final scene. It may make for a “nicer” ending but seems to ring a bit false with everything that preceded it.

That being said, Don Jon is a good film with some genuinely interesting things to say (before it pulls its punches, that is). Some of Jon’s observations about the Catholic Church’s policies regarding confessions are both hilarious and spot-on (it seems to rely on a vague point system where masturbation and out-of-wedlock sex are each assigned different, seemingly arbitrary values) and there’s some great, messy energy to the home scenes involving his parents and (seemingly) mute sister. If some of this seems to unconsciously mimic similar scenes in Saturday Night Fever, it’s only because Jon Martello and Tony Manero are probably long-lost cousins. Julianne Moore, like JGL, is consistently good, although her character may have one quirk too many to be completely believable.

As a directorial debut, Don Jon is good but not great. While his focus on the acting results in some truly great performances, there’s a bit too much reliance on style and flash over substance which, combined with the overly conventional resolution, gives the whole production a bit of a “been there, done that feeling.” Nonetheless, I was a huge fan of JGL’s before watching the film and I don’t find my overall impression of him changed in the slightest: I still think he’s a hair’s breadth away from being a national treasure and I’ll eagerly await his sophomore effort.

 

4/20/14: A Mother Knows (Oscar Bait, Part 16)

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2013 Academy Awards, 86th Annual Academy Awards, Academy Award Nominee, Academy Awards, adoption, Barbara Jefford, based on a true story, BBC journalist, Best Actress nominee, Best Adapted Screenplay nominee, Best Original Score nominee, Best Picture nominee, Blue Jasmine, buddy films, Catholic church, character dramas, cinema, drama, film reviews, films, homosexuality, Judi Dench, Mare Winningham, Martin Sixsmith, Movies, multiple award nominee, nuns, Oscar nominee, Oscars, Peter Hermann, Philomena, road trips, Sean Mahon, Stephen Frears, Steve Coogan

In the hustle of bustle of awards season, when it seems that every film is bigger, more important and more prestigious than the next, it can be a refreshing break to sit down with something a little more modest, a bit quieter. The 2013 Oscar season was filled with lots of very big, very vibrant films, including American Hustle, 12 Years a Slave and The Wolf of Wall Street, but one multiple nominee stood out a little: the Steve Coogan/Judi Dench-starrer Philomena. Not only did Philomena tell a much smaller, more personal story than the other nominees, it managed to focus on character in a way that (in my highly biased opinion) was only matched by Nebraska and Dallas Buyer’s Club. It was also a bit of a David vs Goliath story, since everything about the film marked it as the scrappy underdog to the more established powerhouses helmed by Scorcese, Cuaron, McQueen and Payne. Like its subject matter, Philomena is the scrappy little newcomer that can – and does – get its day in the sun.

Ostensibly, Philomena is the true story of a woman looking for the son she gave up for adoption 50 years earlier. The woman, in this case, is Philomena (Judi Dench) and she’s forced to give her son Anthony up for adoption when he’s just an infant. Philomena, you see, has been sent to a nun-run home for wayward girls after her “indiscretion” with a local boy and the nuns make it plainly clear that it’s God’s will that the children be separated from their mothers as quickly as possible. Philomena’s best friend Kathleen (Charlie Murphy) loses her daughter, Mary, when the child is adopted and the nuns decide to make it a two-fer, throwing in young Anthony, as well. Philomena loses her son, without even getting to say goodbye, and spends the next 50 years wondering what became of him.

When Philomena’s grown daughter contacts disgraced former BBC journalist Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan) with the story, he initially blows her off. He doesn’t do human interest stories, after all, since he’s a serious journalist. Something about the story ends up resonating with him, however, and he sets off on a journey of discovery with Philomena, starting with the abbey in Ireland where it all began and ending in America, where they finally track down Philomena’s son. Revelations will abound, however, and the hot-headed Martin will gradually lose his patience with the frustrating “culture of silence” surrounding the Catholic church’s adoption practices of that era. In the end, however, this is Philomena’s story and she knows that forgiveness is the glue that really holds the world together. Will she ever find out the truth about her son? Will Martin ever land the big story that will put him back in the public eye? More importantly, will these two strangers be able to make a change in an unfair system?

As mentioned earlier, Philomena is definitely a labor of love: Coogan got the idea for the film after reading the original newspaper article and was involved in nearly every aspect of the film, including the Oscar-nominated screenplay. One of my favorite stories during this last awards season was the one where Coogan got the shocking phone call about his modest little film being nominated for multiple Oscars, including Best Picture. Stories like this, similar to the buzz that surrounded Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful, serve as a wonderful tonic to the usual entertainment industry propaganda machine, adding a little human element to everything.

It’s certainly surprising to see Coogan attached to something so heartfelt but he ends up being the real revelation of the film. As portrayed by Coogan, Sixsmith is an incredibly well-rounded character: a complete, churlish asshole, yet filled with righteous indignation and good intentions. He makes a wonderful foil for Dench and their relationship is the real foundation of the film. At its heart, Philomena is a buddy road movie and those always live or die by the believability of the central relationship: by this rubric, Philomena not only lives but thrives. There’s something almost elemental about Coogan snarking his way through the minefield of contemporary society while Dench projects the sweet, naive air of a child. She’s nice to everyone, regardless of how much they spit on her, while he can’t seem to find anything good to say about anybody, including her. In one of the film’s funniest scenes, Martin makes a condescending comment about Philomena’s good nature that ends up saying as much about her as it does about him: “She’s told four people that they’re one in a million…what are the odds of that?”

If Coogan’s performance is a big surprise in the film, Dench’s is pretty much business as usual. Over the course of some 100+ roles and almost 60 years in the business, Dench was become synonymous with impeccable performances and her turn in Philomena is no exception. I do feel that Dench has got a bit comfortable over the last several years, since most of her recent characterizations seem to follow pretty identical arcs (there’s not much difference in personality between Dench’s role here or her performance in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, to be honest) but there’s no denying how effortless she is. Dench is the kind of performer who can energize anything and she invests the film’s various emotional beats with a spunky sense of purpose.

Ultimately, however, Philomena suffers from something that’s distinctly a filmmaking issue: as a whole, it lacks dramatic tension. Despite the trials that Philomena and Martin go through, the stakes never seem to be high enough, lending everything the feel of a slightly bittersweet made-for-TV movie. None of the film’s revelations really affect anything and the one that potentially could, the revelation of Anthony’s lifelong homosexuality, is deflated almost instantly: Philomena always knew that her son was gay, even if no one else did, so this isn’t news to her, even if it is to the audience. Philomena is such a wonderful, understanding person that, ultimately, this particular revelation couldn’t have any affect on her: that’s just not how her mind (or world) works. Likewise, the banter between Philomena and Martin never reaches a critical boiling point, even though Martin frequently acts like a privileged jerk. Like its titular subject, Philomena is such a thoroughly easy-going, good-natured film that it doesn’t seem particularly interested in rocking any boats. After all, the final confrontation is handled not with the tongue-lashing that we know is well-deserved but with the act of forgiveness that might prove impossible for many watching. Like the battered nun in Bad Lieutenant, Philomena forgives her oppressors, allowing her soul the peace it needs but robbing the audience of the easy gratification of retribution. It’s a mature, reasoned way to handle things but it does tend to make for a fairly even, uneventful story arc.

Since I watched Philomena after the Oscar ceremony, I wasn’t able to really consider it as I watched the telecast but the other nominees were definitely front-and-center in my mind as I watched it. How does Philomena compare? In many ways, the film is the epitome of “good but not great.” While Dench’s performance was typically good, I certainly don’t think it was better than Cate Blanchett’s turn in Blue Jasmine. Similarly, while I thoroughly enjoyed the film, it had nowhere near the impact of Dallas Buyer’s Club, 12 Years a Slave or Nebraska. It’s a much smaller film, obviously, much more of a Little Miss Sunshine than an event picture. The script, while quite good, was also overshadowed by Woody Allen’s script for Blue Jasmine, one of his best in years. If anything, I firmly believe that Coogan was robbed of a Best Actor nomination, finding his performance to be much more nuanced and interesting than Christian Bale’s turn in American Hustle. Provided Coogan keeps at the dramatic roles, however, I see no reason why he won’t (someday) be able to take a statue home for his troubles.

In many ways, Philomena is an absolutely lovely film (the scene where Philomena, Martin and Anthony’s boyfriend sit down to watch home movies brought tears to my eyes in the best, most non-exploitative way possible), filled with wonderful performances, some nice cinematography and a fairly unobtrusive score (also Oscar-nominated, for some reason). There are a few too many obtrusive flashbacks for my liking and the aforementioned lack of narrative tension tends to sap much-needed drama from the proceedings but patient audiences will find much to like here. Philomena may not have been the best film of 2013 but it was certainly one of the nicest ones. At the end of the day, can we really ask for more?