4/23/15: One Family’s Trash, Everyone’s Treasure

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cinema, coming of age, dramadies, dramas, dysfunctional family, Eva Birthistle, family in crisis, film reviews, films, Fionnula Flanagan, foreign films, grandmothers, independent films, Irish films, Kelly Thornton, Lance Daly, Lesley Conroy, Life's a Breeze, lost money, low-key, media circus, Movies, Pat Shortt, Philip Judge, set in Ireland, Willie Higgins, writer-director-cinematographer-editor

As far as problems go, Nan (Fionnula Flanagan) has quite a few on her plate: she’s just about to turn 80; her pie-in-the-sky son, Colm (Pat Shortt), is habitually unemployed; her daughters, Margaret (Eva Birthistle) and Annie (Lesley Conroy), don’t understand her; her granddaughter, Emma (Kelly Thornton), doesn’t want to spend time with her; and her little Irish town is just about as economically depressed as one place can get. And she’s just had her life savings accidentally sent to the landfill by her well-meaning but hopelessly inept family: you know…no big deal.

The loss of Nan’s fortune (she was quite the thrifty saver!) is, of course, only the catalyst of writer-director Lance Daly’s low-key Life’s a Breeze (2013): the meat of the matter is the way in which her dysfunctional family must pull together in order to undo their own colossal blunder, during which they’ll heal old wounds, create new friendships and actually become a family. As the motley group races around town, desperately seeking the tossed-out mattress that holds just south of a million euros, they’ll learn the most important lesson of all: family may drive you crazy but, when the chips are down, they’re also the only people you can ever really rely on.

Story-wise, Life’s a Breeze (which takes its name from the logo on a prominent air freshener, in but one of many sly sight gags) is pretty standard-issue, independent film dramady but it’s elevated exponentially by a truly great cast. As always, Fionnula Flanagan is a complete treasure, one of those actors who is so immensely entertaining that she can carry just about production on her shoulders. In this case, however, the heavy-lifting is alleviated by the presence of Pat Shortt (equally outstanding in The Guard (2011) and Calvary (2014)), Eva Birthistle and Lesley Conroy as Nan’s constantly feuding children. The chemistry between the family is pitch-perfect, leading to some deliciously on-the-nose bickering, all tempered by a genuine sense that these misfits actually love each other.

If Life’s a Breeze has a secret weapon (besides Flanagan, of course), it definitely lies with Kelly Thornton. This is her debut and, to be honest, she’s nothing short of astounding. Emma’s coming-of-age journey from petulant teen to strong, confident young woman is never less than riveting and Thornton very nearly steals any scene that she’s in. With her ever-present knit cap (complete with ears), Emma often reminds of a life-action version of the incomparable Louise Belcher and I mean that in the absolute best way possible. Suffice to say that I hope (and expect) to see much more of Thornton in the future: everything about her performance suggests that she’s just beginning what promises to be a must-see career.

Ultimately, Life’s a Breeze is an agreeable, surprisingly serious and incredibly well-acted (if overly familiar) entry in the “dysfunctional family” subgroup of independent films. Fans of Fionnula Flanagan (and, let’s be honest, who isn’t?) will definitely want to check this out but I suspect that Kelly Thornton’s Emma will be the one that stays on most audience member’s minds well after the credits roll. At the end of the day, Daly’s film is really about the passing of the torch from the older generation to the younger and I can’t think of anyone more deserving of receiving that prestigious flaming honor than Thornton.

4/1/15: Who You Callin’ Dummy, Dummy?

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Adrien Brody, Arrested Development, awkward films, best friends, brother-sister relationships, cinema, crazy fiancees, delayed adolescence, dramadies, Dummy, dysfunctional family, Edgar Bergen, film reviews, films, Greg Pritikin, Horacio Marquinez, Illeana Douglas, independent films, indie comedies, indie dramas, Jared Harris, Jessica Walter, loneliness, Milla Jovovich, Movies, outsiders, Paul Wallfisch, romances, Ron Leibman, stalkers, Todd Solondz, ventriloquist, ventriloquist dummies, Vera Farmiga, wedding planners, writer-director

Home, as they say, is where the heart is. It can also, of course, be the place where the freaks and losers come to roost, as we’ve seen in any number of dysfunctional family dramedies over the years. From the cringe-worthy misanthropes that populate Todd Solondz’s best films to the more likable, if no less fractured, outsiders who inhabit Wes Anderson’s candy-colored universe, odd, sparring relatives have been a staple in indie films for decades, now, and the trend shows no sign of declining anytime soon. Think of it as “Cops” syndrome: no matter how screwed up our own families might be, there’s always a more screwed up bunch of folks waiting for us on the silver screen.

Writer-director Greg Pritikin’s Dummy (2002) is so well-ensconced within the “lovable outsider/screwed-up family” subgenre that an overriding sense of deja vu imbues every frame: you might not have seen this particular film before but it’ll probably feel like you have. This sense of familiarity ends up working both for and against the film: just like found-footage enthusiasts and zombie film aficionados have come to find, the “if you’ve seen one…” argument handily applies here. If quirky, combative families and sweetly “weird” loners are your thing, there’s plenty to tide you over until you get your next fix. If, however, you’re looking for a little more individuality from your films, I have a sneaking suspicion that Dummy will prove to be a largely forgettable experience, the cinematic equivalent of eating a three-course meal composed entirely of cotton candy.

In this particular instance, our awkward, outsider “hero” is Steven (Adrien Brody), a ventriloquism enthusiast who still lives at home, even as he inches ever closer to his third decade on the planet. His family is the kind of loud, brash, dysfunctional clan who should be immediately familiar to anyone who’s seen an indie drama-comedy in the past 15 years: mother, Fern (Arrested Development’s Jessica Walter), is a hyper-critical nitpicker; father, Lou (Ron Leibman), spends every minute of his begrudged retirement building model boats and ignoring his family and sister, Heidi (Illeana Douglas), is a wedding planner whose own romantic relationship could best be described as “hideous” and who takes more casual emotional abuse from her parents than Family Guy’s Meg.

When Steven loses his anonymous job at an equally anonymous electronics company, he ends up at the unemployment office, where he decides to pursue his “dream job”: he wants to be a master ventriloquist, just like his old hero, Edgar Bergen. The only problem, of course, is that Steven just isn’t very good: even his own dummy (which he never bothers to name) knows this beyond a shadow of a doubt. As Steven strikes up an awkward, tentative romance with Lorena (Vera Farmiga), the unassuming employment agent who tries to help him realize his life-long dream, he also has to deal with Fangora (Milla Jovovich), his obnoxious, brash, loud-mouthed best friend and Michael (Mad Men’s Jared Harris), his sister’s pathetic, unstable, stalkery ex-fiancee. It all culminates in a disastrous wedding where Steven must finally make the decision to come out from behind his dummy and actually live his life…or lose it!

Aside from the great cast, there’s little about Dummy that really differentiates it from any number of similar indie dramedies. Shy, unassuming but ultimately wise protagonist with a “weird” quirk? Check. Snarky, cynical sibling with a bad relationship? Yup. Bickering parents who micromanage their grown children’s’ lives? Goofball, antisocial best friend who causes chaos wherever they go? Double check. Every expected beat is present and accounted for, every necessary trope and cliché checked off the master list. There’s an overriding sense of awkward mortification that underscores everything, sure, but that’s not exactly revolutionary for this particular type of film.

If the story and writing behind Dummy is decidedly old hat and corny, the film features enough good performances to make it worth a watch, especially for fans of the cast. Adrien Brody is one of those chameleonic actors who always manages to shine, regardless of the production, and Dummy is no exception: there’s a tender vulnerability to his performance that makes us pull for Steven regardless of how pathetic he often seems. Vera Farmiga, currently turning heads as Norman’s overbearing mother on TV’s Bates Motel, is equally great (and under-stated) as his love interest and the couple have genuine chemistry that starts at “meet cute” but ends in territory closer to real life. Illeana Douglas nearly steals the whole show as Steven’s neurotic sister in a role that could easily come across as humiliating (see the aforementioned Meg Griffin reference) but manages to locate itself just south of “tortured nobility.” She’s always been a formidable presence, on-screen, but Dummy is easily one of very best, most self-assured performances: the scene where she, finally, smashes her dad’s stupid model boat is unbelievably satisfying.

We also get great turns from Jessica Walter (does anyone do “bitchy mom” better than Mrs. Bluth/Archer?) and Ron Leibman as the ‘rents and Jared Harris as the pathetic ex. Only Milla Jovovich ends up disappointing as Steven’s ridiculously high-maintenance best friend: blame it on the way the character is written or the actual performance but everything about Fangora is insufferable and obnoxious. Throughout the entire film, my one, overriding thought was “Why the hell doesn’t Steven play hide-and-go-seek” with her and run for the hills as soon as her eyes are closed?

I’m also happy to pour a healthy helping of derision on the ridiculously sappy “singer-songwriter”-esque songs that rear their ugly heads, from time to time. I’m not sure if the tunes are meant as subtle (or not so) commentary on the proceedings or are just impossibly on-the-nose but they never failed to pull me right out of the film. Self-referential songs can move a film forward (see Cat Ballou (1965) for a good example) or stop it cold in its tracks and it’s not difficult to judge which direction I felt Dummy erred on. Suffice to say that any element of a film that calls undue attention to itself is, ultimately, unsuccessful and Dummy’s silly score proves that by a country mile.

Ultimately, Dummy isn’t a terrible film but it is a terribly predictable one. There are enough good performances here (particularly Brody and Farmiga) to make this worth a watch on a lazy Sunday but nothing else really stands out. Most tellingly, Dummy is the kind of film that seems slavishly devoted to pleasing its audience, at the risk of any real tension or stakes: the overly sunny finale manages to snatch a traditionally happy ending from the clutches of a much braver (if still clichéd) possibility. Like Steven’s dummy, Pritikin’s Dummy is a largely inert force that manages to come to life, at times, but never really achieves the vitality that it deserves. Pinocchio might have become a real boy, in the end, but Dummy never quite becomes that animated.

 

2/1/15 (Part Two): Nobody Likes a Quitter

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addiction, alcohol abuse, alcoholism, audition, based on a short, cinema, co-directors, co-writers, comedies, dramadies, dramas, drug abuse, drug dealers, dysfunctional family, Emma Rayne Lyle, family obligations, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, indie films, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Jesse Eisenberg, Melissa Leo, mother-son relationships, Movies, musical prodigy, Paul Calderon, Phil Dorling, piano player, Predisposed, puppets, rehab, responsibilities, Revolutionary War reenactment, Ron Nyswaner, Sarah Ramos, single mother, Stephanie March, The Prince of Philadelphia, Tracy Morgan, voice-over narration, Why Stop Now, writer-director

As anyone who’s ever dealt with drug or alcohol addiction knows, cessation, treatment and sobriety can all be difficult, life-long challenges. Regardless of how an addict gets clean (support groups, medical programs, cold turkey, psychotherapy, hypnosis or prison), the very first step must always be their own, genuine desire to get clean. Until a junkie, any junkie, can actually look themselves in the mirror and express that desire, no process or procedure, short of death, will have any lasting effect. Friends, family and authority figures may all want the very best for an addict but, in the end, the only voice that will really make a difference is their own. Once that decision has been reached, for lack of any less schmaltzy way to put it, the actual healing can begin.

Why Stop Now (2012), the feature-film debut of co-writers/directors Phil Dorling and Ron Nyswaner, deals with the issue of addicts deciding to get help, although the film’s main focus ends up being the fractured relationship between a perpetually fucked-up mother and her increasingly frustrated, jaded son. Despite a worthwhile subject and some solid performances, however, Why Stop Now ends up fading into the “indie dramedy background,” failing to do much to distinguish it from any of a bakers’ dozen of similarly “heartfelt” message films. A pity, to be sure, since casting Melissa Leo as the dysfunctional mom would seem to guarantee a real firecracker of a film: in the end, however, Why Stop Now is more fizzle than sizzle, a spark that never manages to fully catch fire.

Eli Bloom (Jesse Eisenberg) is a young man with a lot going for him: he’s smart, independent, a piano prodigy and has just been offered an audition for a coveted spot at a prestigious music conservatory. Everything, it seems, is coming up Milhouse for the guy. The other half of the coin, however, doesn’t look quite as shiny: Eli is also confrontational, has a tendency to get ridiculously drunk at parties and puke everywhere (sometimes while playing the piano, for added spice), works a shitty job as a bag-boy and has a home-life that could best be described as “difficult,” with a side of “complicated.” His mother, Penny (Melissa Leo), is a “whatta ya got” kind of drug addict and has spent years in a chemical haze, leaving Eli to care for his younger sister, Nicole (Emma Rayne Lyle), who appears to be a high-functioning autistic, albeit one who communicates via a sarcastic, obnoxious and mean-spirited hand puppet named “Julio.” The Brady Bunch, it ain’t.

While Penny has never been able to get her shit together, the situation has just become critical: the music conservatory is in Boston, meaning Eli would be away from home, out-of-state, for over a year. Since he can’t be in two places at the same time, however, enrolling in the academy will leave his single mom as the sole caretaker for his sister, a role that she’s never been able to handle. In preparation for this, Eli needs to get Penny into a rehab facility post-haste, a necessity which she, naturally, fights at every step of the way. When he finally gets her to agree, however, fate steps in and backhands him once again: Penny has been sober just long enough to pass a drug test which, combined with her lack of insurance, means that she’s not eligible for the rehab facility. When one of the doctors “helpfully” suggests that Penny go cop, in order to fail her test and get admitted, Eli knows what he has to do: get his mom blitzed in order to help her get sober.

Nothing is ever that easy, however, as Eli discovers when it’s time to go score some dope. Seems that Penny owes quite a bit of change to her usual dealer, Sprinkles (Tracy Morgan), and is a little afraid to show her face. While attempting to negotiate with Sprinkles and his partner, Black (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), they discover that Eli can speak Spanish. This ends up coming in handy, since Sprinkles and Black need to make a buy from their source and don’t speak his language (leading astute viewers to wonder how, exactly, they managed to do this before Eli came along…Pictures? An English to Spanish dictionary? An intern?). The two agree to hook Eli (and Penny) up in exchange for his acting as translator. This, of course, leads to a series of minor adventures that culminates in Eli injuring one of his highly valued hands. With his audition in two hours, the sand is rapidly slipping through the hourglass. Will Eli be able to get his mother squared away in time to make his audition? Will he even be able to play with an injured hand? Will Eli finally gather up his nerve and ask out the cute Revolutionary War reenacter (Sarah Ramos) who’s been showing an obvious interest in him for the entire film? Will the two drug dealers ever get tired of hanging around with a piano prodigy, his puppet-sporting little sister and addict mom? If you’re not able to guess the answer to any and all of these questions, Why Stop Now may very well surprise…but I seriously doubt it.

The biggest issue with Why Stop Now, aside from its rather blah cinematography (the blown-out, constantly shaky cam gets old almost immediately) is how familiar everything is. Minutes into the film, I thought to myself: “This is where Eli’s voiceover comes in” and, lo and behold, there it was, right on cue. I assumed that Sprinkles would have some sort of “quirky” secret and he does. The part where Eli finally gathers up his courage and pursues Chloe is right where it’s supposed to be, as is the scene where Eli finally loses it and reads the riot act to everyone, including his little sister. We get the obligatory audition scene. Hell, we even get one of those “let’s see how happy everyone is” montages, just like the rule-book states.

There are just no surprises here, whatsoever. For some movies, that might not be an issue but when your film slavishly checks “requirements” off a list, you better have at least a few twists up your sleeve. In this case, however, Dorling and Nyswaner just go through the motions and give us what’s expected. There are plenty of solid performances here but nothing that we haven’t seen from these actors before, with the possible exception of Tracy Morgan: with only shades of his Tracy Jordan persona, Morgan is much more serious than expected and extremely effective. Eisenberg and Leo do nothing unique (or particularly interesting) whatsoever and Sarah Ramos might as well be playing her character from TV’s Parenthood. The only real stand-out is child actor Lyle, who makes the character of Nicole completely empathetic, if slightly otherworldly. As only her fifth (listed) acting role, Lyle promises to be an actor to watch in the next several years: perhaps we’re in on the ground-floor of the next Chloe Grace Moretz?

Another problem I had with the film is how relatively low-stakes it feels: while there’s an element of “race against time” for part of the film’s running time, that element goes out the window as soon as Eli gets injured. From that point on, it’s no longer about getting there in time so much as “will he be able to play” and we already know that answer, long before Eli does. The film also seems to fracture at the conclusion, with all of the characters meandering off into a multitude of directions and no unifying sense of cohesion: rather than coming to a definitive conclusion, everything just kind of peters out, like a car running on fumes.

Despite my above concerns, Why Stop Now isn’t a terrible film: it’s just a thoroughly pedestrian, run-of-the-mill one. I can certainly appreciate some of what the film has to say about addiction and recovery (the bit where Penny advises her son to keep an eye on his own alcohol issues is particularly sharp and powerful), although a lot of it falls into the realm of feel-good, pop psychology. There’s also an ironic core to the film that almost comes across as one, long, sustained set-up for a punchline: Penny can’t turn down drugs until she actually needs to get high, at which point she learns that she doesn’t want to do them anymore, yet must…sustained trumpet wah-wah. Again, I can appreciate the irony but the film’s message gets conflicted and confused, in the process. When all of the elements come together, such as the very funny scene where Eli tries to start his car while Sprinkles, Black and Penny provide non-stop “armchair-quarterbacking,” Why Stop Now is a fun, if decidedly non-essential, way to pass some time. Anyone looking for any real insight into either drug addiction or dysfunctional families, however, would be better served elsewhere. Why Stop Now is perfectly non-offensive, no two ways about it, but it really is a film that could have (and should have) got its hands just a little bit dirty.

12/26/14 (Part Two): Woody the Pimp

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best friends, cinema, dramadies, Fading Gigolo, Film, film reviews, gigolos, indie dramas, John Turturro, Liev Schrieber, low-key, male friendships, Movies, New York City, Orthodox Jews, pimps, rabbis, romances, Sharon Stone, Sofia Vargera, Vanessa Paradis, Woody Allen, writer-director-actor

If you were asked to come up with a list of actors who would seem like natural fits to play a pimp, I’m willing to wager that actor-director Woody Allen is probably the very last person you would think of: hell, there are probably dead people that would seem more appropriate for that kind of role. Allen, the patron saint of nebbishy, fidgety, neurotic indie-film characters since the mid-’60s, may be many things but a pimp? C’mon, already. For better or worse, however, that’s exactly the roll that Allen’s Murray fulfills in writer-director-actor John Turturro’s Fading Gigolo (2013), a modest little film that often feels like “Woody Allen-lite,” even as it approaches the material from a decidedly more earthy direction than Allen’s own films.

Murray (Woody Allen) and Fioravante (John Turturro) are best friends who also seem to be the two most low-key, laid-back guys in New York: Murray runs the dusty old bookstore that he inherited from his father (who inherited it from his father, before him), while Fioravante works a few hours a week in a little flower shop. After Murray has to close his shop, however, they take a look at their respective bank accounts and realize that they’re each uncomfortably close to the poor house, a prospect that causes the aging friends no end of worry.

After being approached by a doctor friend (Sharon Stone), however, Murray comes up with a new business strategy: he’s going to set his buddy Fioravante up with local women in need of some “adult” companionship. That’s right: Woody wants to pimp out his buddy to New York’s cougar population. Although initially hesitant, Fioravante quickly agrees, even adopting the nom de plume “Virgil Howard” as a way to keep both halves of his life separate. In short order, Fioravante is a very, very busy man and Murray is becoming a very wealthy one, as we find out in one of those montages that’s pretty de rigueur for this type of thing. Complications arise, however, when Murray sets Fioravante up with Avigal (Vanessa Paradis), a local Orthodox Jewish widow. This ends up raising the ire of Dovi (Liev Schreiber), one of the Orthodox neighborhood’s resident “patrolmen” and the poor schmuck who’s been admiring Avigal from afar for years. As Fioravante and Avigal appear to be falling for each other, Dovi conspires to uncover the truth about Murray’s activities, with the goal of hauling him before the neighborhood’s Orthodox rabbinate. And let’s not forget Dr. Parker and her friend, Selima (Sofia Vargera), whose only goal in life appears to be roping Fioravante into a threesome. What’s a nice, Italian boy to do when everybody, including his best friend, wants a piece of him? Why, keep smiling, that’s what!

For the most past, Fading Gigolo is the kind of modest, low-key film that doesn’t make much of an impact, even if there’s nothing especially wrong with it. The acting is solid, with Allen and Turturro reasonably convincing as friends and Stone and Vargera quite fun as the hot-to-trot cougars. The film is reasonably well made, with a great score, although the overly muddy color contrast is a bit of a bummer. The whole thing moves fairly quickly, although some of the machinations involving Schreiber’s character tend to make the film unnecessarily confusing and cluttered in the final third. For the most part, Fading Gigolo hits all of the required beats, even of most of them come and go without much fanfare.

This, then, is kind of the rub: while pleasant enough, little of Turturro’s film makes much of an impact…the whole thing is so breezy and lightweight as to be almost completely inconsequential. The subplot with Avigal and Fioravante never quite pans out as promised, making the whole thing feel a little extraneous, and there’s something a little too convenient about the way that Stone and Vargera’s ravenous characters are completely tamed in the presence of Turturro’s kind-hearted lover-man: this is a film where true love beats all because…well, just because.

While I’ve always been a huge fan of Turturro’s acting (I think he’s easily one of the most criminally under-rated actors around), this was actually my first experience with him as a writer-director and I must admit to being slightly underwhelmed: again, there’s nothing critically wrong with Fading Gigolo (aside from the inherently silly storyline, that is) but there’s also not a whole lot that sticks to the ribs, either. For the most part, Fading Gigolo comes and goes without making too much of a ripple, which might be some sort of parallelism regarding the two main characters but is, more than likely, just the mark of a film that’s decent enough but hardly relevatory.

4/27/14: It Takes a Village to Raise a Curtis

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Aaron Jungels, Adele Parker, awkward kids, based on a true story, bohemian lifestyle, Breakfast with Curtis, cinema, coming of age, Curtis, David A. Parker, dramadies, eccentric people, feuding neighbors, film reviews, films, independent films, indie comedies, Jonah Parker, Laura Colella, Movies, Syd, Theo Green, Virginia Laffey, writer-director-actor, Yvonne Parker

Unless you happen to live atop a flag pole or at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, chances are good that you’ve had neighbors at some point in the past. Whether you tend to fall more on the Flintstones’ side (love thy neighbor) or the Sawyers’ side (brain thy neighbor with a mallet) is completely up to you, of course: personally, I tend to be Team Sawyer, so you’d best have an invite if you come knocking. For many folks, however, interacting with and getting to know their neighbors is an integral part of what it means to be a good citizen, a way of bringing humanity closer while strengthening the necessary social bonds that help us all pull together in times of crises. I get that…I really do. It’s always a good idea to know who lives nearby, especially if you’re the kind of person who relies on the kindness of strangers for things like lawn mowers, cups of sugar and hedge clippers. What if, however, your next-door-neighbors are a bunch of hippy-dippy pains-in-the-asses? In that case, you might very well end up with a situation like Breakfast with Curtis (2012), writer/director/actor Laura Colella’s most recent film.

The film begins “five years ago,” with the inciting incident that touches off the neighborly feud: young Curtis (Gideon Parker) throws a rock at his neighbor’s cat. Said neighbor, Syd (Theo Green) is a bit of a hippy hothead and threatens to crush Curtis’ skull. Needless to say, Curtis’ father, Simon (David A. Parker), isn’t thrilled with this plan and comes around to tell Syd and his wife, Pirate (Adele Parker) to stay the hell away from him and his family. Five years later, Curtis (Jonah Parker) is now 14 and he’s one of those stereotypically unhappy movie kids that never speaks, preferring to communicate by a complicated series of sighs and disappointed glances. He seems to be completely withdrawn from his family (and life in general, it seems) but this all changes (of course) when Syd has a change of heart and decides to try to bring Curtis into the fold via a videography project. As Curtis and Syd begin to spend more and more time together, the boy begins to come out of his shell and even (gasp!) smiles at one point…he’s cured! In the meantime, as Curtis is getting his life on track, Simon and his wife, Sylvie (Virginia Laffey), try to reconcile their former friendship with Syd, Pirate and their quirky housemates, Frenchy (Aaron Jungels), Paola (Colella) and Sadie (Yvonne Parker). Will Curtis be able to navigate the stormy seas of adolescence? Will Simon and Sylvie ever be able to recapture those fabled “Tequila Summers” of yore? Will Syd ever shut up?

Right off the bat, it helps to know a few things about the film. For one thing, the movie was shot in Colella’s own house and the characters are actually based on her own housemates and their (apparently) once contentious relationship with their own next-door neighbors. The cast is made up of a mixture of non-actors and professionals (at least to the extent that they’ve appeared in Colella’s other independent features), although the actual actors are playing different roles than their real-life counterparts. As such, the performances in the film tend to be a mixed-bag. Theo Green is a force of nature as Syd, resembling a slightly older, more disheveled Weird Al Yankovic but he’s pretty inconsistent: there are times when he’s able to bulldoze the audience into submission although, just as frequently, his delivery is awkward and halting. Jonah Parker isn’t given much to do, as Curtis, but there’s nothing particularly wrong with his performance: we’ve seen a hundred characters like this in indie comedies/dramas/dramadies over the past 15 years and Parker does no worse (or necessarily better) than the others. The rest of the cast, including director Colella, acquit themselves just fine, with one glaring exception: Yvonne Parker is absolutely painful as Sadie. Her dialogue tends to be trite and her delivery/performance is irritating and tedious, exemplifying the very worst aspects of non-actors in professional productions. While the other performances may be a bit unpolished, from time to time, Parker is consistently terrible.

Uneven performances notwithstanding, my biggest issue with Breakfast with Curtis tends to be its relative lack of focus and, occasionally, confusing story elements. For much of the film’s running time, it’s exceptionally difficult to get any real sense for who these characters are and how they’re all connected together. It wasn’t made clear until much later in the film, for example, that the people living in Syd’s house are actually several different groups: for a while, I assumed they were all related, which made some of the (assumed) sexual pairings come across as a little confusing, to say the least. I don’t mean to imply that a genealogy chart is required, of course, but the film seems to assume that we’re all on the same page from the jump, when I obviously wasn’t.

There are also story elements that seem rather undeveloped, sometimes to confusing effect. In one instance, a female visitor shows up at Syd’s house, is treated like a long-lost relative and seems to engage in a threesome with Frenchy and Paola, yet is never introduced or affects the film in any noticeable way. There’s also some unnecessary vagueness regarding the nature of Simon and Sylvie’s former friendship with Syd and the others: at one point, there seems to be a strong inference that they were all swingers. Were they? Does that actually have any bearing on the plot? Should it? As someone who not only strives to pay pretty close attention while watching films but also takes notes, I’m particularly confused by my inability to answer these questions. The only conclusion I can reach is that the answers were never provided. Small issues, perhaps, but the more time I spend confused, the less time I spent invested in the actual film.

Which, ultimately, is a bit of a shame, since the movie isn’t bad, even if it is rough. Everything has an amiable, shaggy-dog quality that makes it eminently watchable, even when it begins to come off the wheels. It would have been nice to have Syd say something profound, at some point (at any point, really), but Theo Green is charismatic enough that the character comes across as eccentric rather than haranguing.  Jungels and Colella have good chemistry together and there are plenty of charming scenes to be found (the “ladies-only” birthday party, where Frenchy dresses in drag, is a particular highlight and a really lovely scene, in general). I was also a big fan of the film’s color palette, finding the warm and primary color choices to be good ones, bringing a vibrancy to the proceedings that are sometimes lost in other indie films that favor drab tones and colors.

At no point, however, does the film ever seem to have any real forward momentum: the stakes are consistently low and there never seems to be any sense of “danger” whatsoever. Even the conflict between the neighbors seems to be largely forgotten after the opening: when Curtis’ parents find out that Syd wants him to help with his project, they both think it’s a great idea and encourage him to go for it. The Hatfields and the McCoys, they ain’t. In a cinematic landscape where these kind of coming-of-age dramadies are as numerous as grains of sand on the beach (I must have seen at least two dozen over the past three or four years), Breakfast with Curtis just doesn’t do enough to stand out from the crowd. It’s amiable and easy-going, sure, with a nice message and a good heart. Sometimes, however, that’s just not quite good enough.

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.

 

4/1/14: Only the Lonely

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Bobby Cannavale, cinema, drama, dramadies, dwarfism, film festival favorite, film reviews, films, food truck, friends, friendship, independent films, indie comedies, John Slattery, loneliness, low-budget films, low-key, Michelle Williams, Movies, Patricia Clarkson, Paul Benjamin, Peter Dinklage, Raven Goodwin, small town life, The Station Agent, Tom McCarthy, train depot, train-chasing, trains, writer-director

Some folks are just slightly out of step with the rest of the world, despite the best efforts of the rest of the world to bring them back into line. Humans are social creatures, we’re told, and companionship is necessary for our survivals (and mental health). The best way to succeed in life is through a positive outlook and cheery disposition: like attracts like, after all, and grim, unpleasant people will lead grim, unpleasant lives. In order to succeed, you must constantly push ahead, remaining endlessly active: idle hands and all that, you know. These are all truisms, little global facts that will help us all become better people…if we’d just listen and get in line, of course. What about those individuals who don’t “play nice,” however? The people who would rather go it alone than hang out with the crowd? Those folks who don’t find a smile to be their resting expression but something closer to a resigned grimace? Are the dour and serious-minded among us fit only to be reformed, devoid of any societal use on their own? Tom McCarthy’s low-key, dour independent film The Station Agent takes a good look at one such “unfriendly” individual and comes up a similar conclusion: even loners need companionship…even if they don’t realize it at the time.

Finbar McBride (Peter Dinklage) runs a model train store with Henry Styles (Paul Benjamin): the two live together and appear to be each other’s only friends, enjoying a quiet, tranquil existence filled with lots of comfortable silences and humble meals in their tiny kitchen. Nothing can remain forever, however, and Fin’s life is upended when his only friend suddenly drops dead. Henry has sold off his store, leaving Fin unemployed, but he’s also bequeathed his friend some land with an abandoned train station on it. Fin pulls up stakes and moves into the train station, making it his home. Once there, he meets his new neighbors: Joe (Bobby Cannavale), a boisterous, out-going, talkative food-truck owner and Olivia (Patricia Clarkson), a rather odd, high-strung artist. Joe has a tendency to park his food truck right outside Fin’s new doorstep, making him something of a mobile next-door-neighbor.

At first, Fin wants nothing more than to run down the clock of his life in peace, away from any other human contact. Bobby, however, takes a real shine to Fin and seems determined to become friends with him, even if it means wearing down his resistance with a constant, never-ending stream of good-humored chatter. Along the way, other people end up in Fin’s orbit, people like young Cleo (Raven Goodwin), local librarian Emily (Michelle Williams) and Olivia’s rather bewildered ex-husband David (Mad Men’s John Slattery). Despite his best intentions, Fin ends up interacting with all of them, to one extent or another, and each one brings him one small step closer to rejoining the rest of humanity. Will Fin ever embrace the friendship around him or will he continue to sequester himself away from the world, greeting everything with downcast eyes and a sigh? Will romance bloom in surprising ways? Or will long-held secrets and Fin’s naturally stand-offish demeanor doom him to a life alone?

One of the charges frequently leveled against indie films is that they have a tendency to be unrelentingly dour and po-faced: this certainly isn’t anything that The Station Agent works particularly hard to disavow. If anything, the film may stand as one of the most serious “comedies” I’ve ever seen, although most indie comedies from the past decade tend to be a bit of a misnomer. There are certainly funny, upbeat moments in the film (almost all courtesy of Bobby Cannavale) but the overall mood is definitely one of serious pensiveness. Peter Dinklage mopes about the film with an expression that seems more befitting of Wuthering Heights than anything with the descriptor “comedy” and Olivia’s backstory (and subsequent breakdown) keep the story in some pretty dark territory. There’s also the notion that only Olivia, Joe and Cleo (and possibly Emily) ever treat Fin with anything approaching warmth or humanity: everyone else he comes across is content to mock him, snap photos on the sly or gawk as if he were a three-headed space alien.

Since the film is so serious, and Fin is set up as so stand-offish and unpleasant, there’s frequently a disconnect between the characters. I can’t count the number of times that I visibly cringed whenever Joe said something to Fin: Joe was always so sweet and happy, while Fin was always so dismissive and curt that I really just wanted to grab Fin and shake the shit out of him. It’s certainly not fair to make Fin responsible for “babysitting” Joe, as it were, and being friendly to him. On the other hand, however, Joe does absolutely nothing derogatory to Fin, yet often gets a big, heaping helping of nothing, in return. Once Fin warms up, a genuinely sweet, touching friendship develops. Even then, however, there’s still a sense of distance and disconnect: you get the feeling that Fin stops smiling the moment his “friends” can no longer see his expression.

Despite Fin’s rather churlish attitude, however, The Station Agent is still able to make some nice points about friendship and companionship. Deep in the heart of the film is the idea that real friends, the kind that stick around for a lifetime, never require any more of us than our presence in their lives. There’s real power to the moment where Fin finally lets Joe sit and read with him: even if Joe can’t quite keep his end of the “complete silence” deal, this feels like a real breakthrough moment for both. Equally powerful is the scene where we see Fin, Olivia and Joe sitting quietly together, staring off into the distance, drinking wine and smoking a joint. No one says anything but there’s nothing uncomfortable about the silence. This, the filmmakers seem to be saying, is the real definition of friendship: real friends don’t need to talk…real friends would be just as content to sit there, listening to the buzz of mosquitoes in the warm summer air, enjoying their time together on earth.

The Station Agent may seem to be about a man who just wants the world to leave him alone but it’s actually much more: it’s about a man who just wants the world to meet on his own terms, in his own backyard and on his own two feet. Finbar doesn’t want anything less than respect from the world at large: can any of us ask for less?