7/5/15 (Part One): Home is Where the Haunt Is

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Barbara Niven, cinema, dead children, father-son relationships, film reviews, films, ghosts, grown children, haunted houses, horror-comedies, Housebound, Jack Plotnick, Jeffrey Combs, John Waters, Kat Dennings, Lucas Lee Graham, Mackenzie Phillips, Mark Bruner, Matthew Gray Gubler, McKenna Grace, Mel Rodriguez, Michl Britsch, Movies, multiple writers, Muse Watson, Odd Thomas, paranormal investigators, racists, Ray Santiago, Ray Wise, Richard Bates Jr., Ronnie Gene Blevins, Sally Kirkland, scatological humor, seances, seeing ghosts, Sibyl Gregory, silly films, Soska Sisters, Suburban Gothic, suburban homes, suburban life, suburbia, The Frighteners, Under the Bed, writer-director-producer

Ah, suburbia: endless rows of identical houses, with identical lawns, with identical Suburbans parked in identical carports, tended to by identical suburbanites as they go about their virtually identical lives. For many people, suburbia is the very picture of success: after all, what really says “You’ve made it” more than your own house, family, steady job and reliable source of transportation? For the outsider, misanthrope and loner, however, the very concept of suburbia can be a kind of hell on earth: the place where all dreams go to become pureed into easily digestible slop. As the Descendents so aptly put it: “I want to be stereotyped…I want to be classified…I want to be a clone…I want a suburban home.”

For filmmakers, the concept of the dark underbelly of suburbia is nothing new: after all, films like The Stepford Wives (1975), The Amityville Horror (1979), Neighbors (1981), Parents (1989), The ‘Burbs (1989),  American Beauty (1999) and Donnie Darko (2001) have been equating cookie-cutter neighborhoods with existential dread for decades now. To this storied tradition we can now add writer-director Richard Bates Jr’s Suburban Gothic (2014): proving that there’s nothing wrong with ambition, Bates Jr takes the aforementioned suburban angst films and throws in elements of “I see ghosts” films, ala The Frighteners (1996) and Odd Thomas (2013), as well as “grown children moving back home” films, such as the instantly classic Housebound (2014) and the less successful Under the Bed (2012). If Suburban Gothic never comes close to reaching the heady heights of Housebound, there’s still enough silly, funny and outrageous material here to give genre fans a grin from ear to ear. Plus, it’s got Ray Wise: any film with Ray Wise is, of course, automatically better than any film without him…that’s just basic math, amigo.

Poor Raymond (Criminal Minds’ Matthew Gray Gubler) is in a bit of a pickle, the same conundrum that might befall many twenty-to-thirty-somethings: he’s over-educated and under-employed. Despite having his MBA, Raymond must swallow the bitterest pill of all and move back in with his over-protective, smothering mother, Eve (Barbara Niven), and obnoxious, disapproving and casually racist father, Donald (Ray Wise, swinging for the rafters), an event which is sure to put a crimp in any attempt he can make to take control of his life.

You see, Raymond is a bit of a mess: bullied as a child about his weight and “gifted” with the ability to see ghosts, he escaped his one horse town as soon as he could, hoping to put as much distance between him and the past as possible. Given to wearing outrageously showy clothes (his bright, purple scarf is a definite highlight), Raymond couldn’t be more out-of-place in his old hometown, especially once he ends up back in the sights of former bully Pope (Ronnie Gene Blevins) and his small crew of miscreants. Everyone in town is glad to see that Raymond failed at life, since it (somehow) validates their own humble existences. Everyone, that is, except for Raymond’s former classmate, Becca (2 Broke Girls’ Kat Dennings), who now tends bar at the local watering hole. To her, Raymond was always the only interesting person in town and she’s mighty glad to have him back, even if she has a snarky way of showing it.

Just in time for his homecoming, however, some truly weird shit has started to happen, seemingly centered around the makeshift childs’ coffin that Donald’s gardeners have just dug up in the yard. Before he knows what’s going on, Raymond is experiencing the same ghostly visions that he used to have, this time involving a sinister little girl. As the occurrences become more pronounced, Raymond and Becca are convinced that a wayward spirit is in need of a peaceful journey into the light, while Donald and Eve are convinced that their son is losing his ever-lovin’ mind. As Raymond and Becca dig deeper into the history of the house, however, they begin to realize that the spirit in question might not be that of a little lost girl: it might just be something a bit more on the “extreme evil” side of things. Will Raymond and Becca be able to set it all to rights or will this humdrum slice of suburban life end up destroying them all?

My anticipation level for Suburban Gothic was pretty high, right out of the gate, for one very important reason: I pretty much adored writer-director Bates Jr’s debut, the outrageous Excision (2012), a slice of high school life that managed to combine Grand Guignol gore with fanciful dream sequences and arrived at a wholly unique, if often repugnant, place that wasn’t so far removed from what the Soska Sisters did with their stunning American Mary (2012). Excision was the kind of debut that puts a filmmaker firmly on my radar, which leads us directly to the sophomore film, Suburban Gothic. If his newest possessed a tenth of the gonzo energy of his first, this seemed like a pretty sure-fire no-brainer.

In reality, Suburban Gothic is a good full-step (certainly at least a half-step) down from Bates Jr’s debut, although it’s still a thoroughly enjoyable romp on its own terms. The big difference ends up being tonal: unlike Excision, which buried its blackly comic sensibilities under a lot of very unpleasant material, Suburban Gothic is a much sillier, goofier affair. Nowhere is this made more explicit than the impossibly silly scene where Raymond watches his toenails rise and fall to the tune of the old chestnut “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.” Shoddy CGI aside, the scene has the feel of something truly slapstick and goofy, perhaps closer to The ‘Burbs than anything in Bates Jr’s debut.

This “silly” elements end up seeping into almost every aspect of the film: John Waters shows up as the blow job-obsessed head of the local historical society, the medium’s daughter is named Zelda (et tu, Poltergeist (1982)?), Raymond and Becca dress up in the most ridiculous ghost costumes ever (think Charles Schultz), anonymous hands grab Raymond from every-which direction and there’s more mugging going on than a thug convention. In one of the film’s most notable bits, Raymond masturbates while checking out his favorite site, “Latina Booty,” as an overhead light slowly fills with “ghostly” semen: at the “appropriate” moment, the light shatters, showering poor Raymond in about fifty gallons of spooky spunk. Disgusting? You bet yer bottom dollar! Terrifying? Not quite.

The aforementioned example, however, is also a good example of Suburban Gothic’s ace-up-the-sleeve, as it were: for all of the film’s silliness and scatological humor (along with the jizz, we get a lovingly filmed vomiting scene and a nice, long shot of a turd in a toilet), there’s also genuine intelligence and love for the genre. The light gag might be an easy-shot gross-out joke but it’s always a subtle, kind of brilliant nod to Sam Raimi’s original Evil Dead (1981). There’s also a not-so subtle reference to del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), lots of visual ques for The Amityville Horror and Poltergeist and plenty of cameos by genre royalty (the legendary Jeffrey Combs gets to play a bugshit-crazy doctor (natch), while the Soska Sisters pop up in a crowd scene).

While the actual plot is nothing revolutionary, Suburban Gothic is such a good-natured, eager-to-please popcorn flick that it’s never painful to watch: the CGI is fairly well-integrated (save that rather dreadful toenail bit) and if the color-timing on the cinematography seems constantly off (the film has an odd red cast that’s pretty noticeable), cinematographer Lucas Lee Graham (who also shot the much more striking Excision) serves up plenty of nicely composed, evocative images.

On the acting side, Gubler is pitch-perfect as the sarcastic, quietly suffering schlub who must swallow his distaste for everything in order to save his (decidedly undeserving) childhood home. Gubler has a rare ability to mix wiseacre dialogue delivery with Stoogian physical comedy, an ability which serves him well here: one of the film’s easy highlights is the hilarious scene where Raymond accidentally drops an ice cream cake, over and over, until he finally stamps on the damn thing in an abject display of childish tantrums writ large.

While Dennings takes a little longer to get revved up (her early scenes have a rather distracting “I don’t give a shit” quality that’s off-putting), she fully comes into her own by the film’s final reel and her and Gubler make for a believable enough couple. Although she’s never as consistent as Gubler, Dennings shows enough steel, here, to make me interested in her next move: here’s to hoping she spends a little more time in the horror genre…we could use a few fresh faces!

While Niven is fun as Raymond’s mom, Wise really gets to run roughshod over the proceedings: whether he’s proclaiming that all of his Latin American workmen are “Mexicans,” telling his son to “take a knee” as he rolls up to him in a squeaky office chair or apologizing to his black football players for his lack of “grape pop,” Wise is an absolute blast. If anything, his performance as Donald makes a nice comparison to his role as Satan in Reaper, albeit tempered with more than a little lunk-headedness. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if there’s ever a Mount Rushmore for iconic genre personalities, Wise is guaranteed to be there.

Ultimately, Suburban Gothic is a thoroughly entertaining, amusing and mildly outrageous horror-comedy: fans of this particular style will find no end of delights, I’m willing to wager, although I still found myself slightly disappointed by the time the credits rolled (the less said about the ridiculously sunny coda, the better). Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by standout films like Housebound and The Frighteners, a pair of horror-comedies that are pretty much the first and last word on this particular subject…perhaps I was hoping for something with a little more bite, ala Excision. Whatever the reason, I have no problem whatsoever recommending Suburban Gothic (provided, of course, that potential viewers are prepared for the often rude humor), although it’s not quite the Richard Bates Jr joint that I hoped for.

I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that Bates Jr is going to become a force to reckon with in the next several years. If that doesn’t blow yer toenails back, pardner…well, I don’t know what will.

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6/11/14: Workin’ on Something Big

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abusive relationships, bad cops, Bitter Feast, character dramas, cinema, con-men, Dennis Farina, dignity, dramas, film reviews, films, Gary Cole, getting back in the game, growing old, grown children, Ian Barford, Jamie Anne Allman, Joe Maggio, Joe May, Matt DeCaro, Meredith Droeger, mobsters, Movies, old age, precocious kids, respect, short money con, sick characters, single mother, The Last Rites of Joe May, writer-director

And it wasn’t no way to carry on

It wasn’t no way to live

But he could put up with it for a little while

He was workin’ on something big.

“Something Big” — Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

At some point or another, everybody has felt that they were on the cusp of “making it big.” Some people are born with that feeling, the notion that the universe has something greater in store for them. Others come into that notion more organically: maybe you hear about a “can’t fail” money-making proposal…maybe you’ve got a line on a big con…maybe you’ve been promised a position of power and authority in exchange for unfailingly loyal service…maybe you’ve got the winning lottery ticket in your pocket, even though the numbers haven’t been drawn yet…regardless of the situation, we’ve all felt, at some point, like we were just one move away from winning the game. We may feel stuck right now but when that big break comes through…buddy, the sky’s the limit!

But what happens when you keep working on that “big break” your whole life and it never materializes? While we might all feel like we’re destined for more than Point A-to-Point B drudgery, the truth is probably a little less optimistic. Getting that “something big” might take self-confidence, sure, but it also takes hard work, dedication, drive, sacrifice, an innate ability to keep getting up after getting knocked down and more than a little luck. No one is guaranteed a big, important life, although those born into royalty and family dynasties might take issue with that. Sometimes, we can work on “something big” our whole lives and still come up empty. Writer/director Joe Maggio’s understated but powerful drama, The Last Rites of Joe May (2011), takes a long, hard look at just such a lost soul, a man who has spent so long trying to “make it” that he’s forgotten how to actually live.

Joe May (Dennis Farina), an aging small-time con man, has had better days: he’s just been released from the hospital after spending the past seven weeks recuperating from pneumonia, his only friend, Billy (Chelcie Ross), has just been moved to an assisted living facility and his only other “friend,” the neighborhood bartender (Matt DeCaro), lies about even knowing Joe was sick. As we see, Joe is pretty much all alone in this world but he seems to like it that way: he’s a tough, sardonic old bastard with a thick skin and a hair-trigger bullshit detector. As long as he still has a place to call home and another scam, Joe can make anything work. Life, however, has other plans for Joe: when he returns home to his apartment, Joe discovers that his sleazy landlord has rented his place out to a single-mother, Jenny (Jamie Anne Allman) and her precocious young daughter, Angelina (Meredith Droeger). He’s also thrown out all of Joe’s belongings, which leaves the guy homeless and with nothing to his name but the clothes on his back. As Joe tells Angelina on his way out the door, “Life sucks.” And it certainly can, although life still has a lot more in store for Joe.

After seeing Joe aimlessly riding the city bus, Jenny takes pity on him and invites him to spend the night: in a cruel twist of fate, Joe is now a guest in the home that he’s lived in for 40 years. Refusing any further “charity,” Joe hits the road but ends up right back on the same bus bench where Jenny finds him after another long day of work. She comes up with a solution: Joe can stay with her and Angelina if he pays them $100/week. Joe gets a place to stay, Jenny gets some extra money and Angelina gets a much-needed father figure…it’s a win/win/win situation. In no time, grumpy old Joe has become the most fascinating person in the world to young Angelina and, despite his constant exclamations that he hates kids, Joe really seems to be warming to the little rugrat and her mom. Jenny is a perpetual survivor, just like Joe, but she’s also saddled with an abusive, hateful, obnoxious shit of a boyfriend named Stan (Ian Barford). Stan just happens to be a cop, which gives him an unbearable God-complex to go with his flying fists. When Joe comes home drunk one night, Stan berates and slaps him, getting his kicks from bullying a helpless man who’s about 20 years his senior. Like Joe, Jenny seems to be trapped in a drab nightmare but, at the very least, she’s “working on something.” Aren’t we all?

Turns out Joe is “working on something,” too: he wants to get back into the short-money racket and goes to see his old friend, Lenny (Gary Cole), to see if the “organization” has anything for him. Turns out that Joe isn’t just a relic among the regular folk in the world: he’s also a relic among his own brotherhood of mobsters, con men and shadowy underworld figures. Joe is a throwback to an older, simpler time and Lenny decides to throw him a bone (literally) by having him pick up some “merchandise” from one of Lenny’s connections. If Joe can sell the product and get Lenny his cut, Lenny will get him something bigger next time…and on and on until Joe is “officially” back in the business. He’s only ever wanted to be a “big” guy and if it doesn’t happen until he’s in the final act of his life, who’s Joe to complain? When the “product” doesn’t end up being quite what Joe expected, however, in a scene that manages to be both heartbreaking and uproariously funny, Joe is right back at square one. At this point, everything looks stacked against him: no one seems to respect Joe, his health is getting worse, Stan is becoming more violent towards Jenny and a reunion with Joe’s estranged son, Scotty (Brian Boland), goes as poorly as possible. Don’t count ol’ Joe out just yet, however: even the oldest, mangiest hound can still bite, if backed into a corner, and Joe doesn’t plan to leave without sinking his teeth into something big.

In many ways, The Last Rites of Joe May is as much of an old-fashioned throwback as its titular subject. It purposefully seems to echo those gritty, small-scale, character-driven dramas from the ’70s and ’80s that featured actors like Walter Matthau, Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson. These were films where quietly strong, beaten-down loners were finally able to strike back at the world around them, trying desperately to carve out a place for themselves, usually resulting in bloodshed and heartbreak. While The Last Rites of Joe May isn’t quite as gritty as those films, it certainly comes from a similar mindset, which goes hand-in-hand with the film’s themes of being slightly out-of-step with the times.

While so much of The Last Rites of Joe May will seem familiar for different reasons, the film is actually pretty good at subverting expectations, setting up situations that seem “old hat” but having them pay off in unexpected ways. The film’s central male-female relationship seems to be building into a stereotypical “May-December” romance but takes a sharp turn down a different road. The mafia subplot about “getting back into the game” seems to be a tired bid for redemption but ends up bearing more bitter fruit. We’ve seen lots of films where a “white knight” tries to protect a “damsel in distress” from an abusive relationship but The Last Rites of Joe May is more interested in the pathology behind the abuse than any kind of ass-kicking revenge. Joe isn’t some kind of superhuman thug: he’s an old man who’s just getting over pneumonia, has a terrible cough and has been a survivor for almost 70 years. The climax could have played out in many different ways but, to its great credit, it feels authentic: there’s a bit of wish-fulfillment here but it’s tempered by some surprisingly bittersweet, but not cloying, emotional heft.

In many ways, the key to the film’s success is Dennis Farina. Over the course of some 33 years and 70-odd roles, Farina proved himself to be not only one of the most iconic actors of his generation but one of the best. While my favorite role of his will always be Mike Torello in Crime Story (1986-1988), I never actually saw Farina in anything where he wasn’t thoroughly impressive. Farina, like Newman and Matthau, was an actor’s actor, someone who submerged himself so completely in each role that no trace of the man behind the mask could be seen. Thanks to Farina’s innate skill, Joe May doesn’t come across as pathetic: we feel his pain and want him to succeed but we also see the steel and fortitude that enabled him to survive as long as he did. Farina may be playing an aged tough guy but he plays like him like a real person, not a caricature. This, in some ways, will always be Farina’s greatest legacy: his death in 2013 left a void that will, most likely, never be filled.

While the film belongs completely and totally to Farina, a more than capable supporting cast helps keep the material elevated, even during the rare moment where things become to soggy and predictable. Jamie Ann Allman is the perfect synthesis of vulnerable and tough as nails, while Meredith Droeger manages to prevent Angelina from straying into “ultra-precious poppet” territory, particularly as her friendship with Joe grows. Ian Barford is suitably despicable as the abusive Stan, one of those characters who seems to solely exist as a lightning rod for the audience’s negativity. Character-actor Gary Cole has a nice, if too-short, appearance as Lenny and manages to make the character impressively three-dimensional using as few brushstrokes as possible. Again, this was a character that could have been strictly “Screenwriting 101” but Lenny gets several nice moments, including a subtly powerful closing moment that manages to tie everything together.

While I’m not familiar with most of writer-director Joe Maggio’s filmography, I have seen the film that preceded The Last Rites of Joe May, Bitter Feast (2010), and found it to be a quite interesting, if ultimately disappointing, take on the torture-porn subgenre. Despite the film’s flaws, Bitter Feast had an exceptionally sharp script, which is something it shares with his most recent film. Maggio is good at setting a quiet, reserved mood, accented by moments of explosive violence, and The last Rites of Joe May utilizes this loud/quiet aesthetic much better than Bitter Feast did. While Maggio is not quite “there” yet, he’s definitely a filmmaker to keep your eyes on.

Ultimately, The Last Rites of Joe May ends up being a fairly old-fashioned movie about a pretty old-fashioned kind of guy. Joe May might be out of step with the modern-era and as “unhip” as they come but he’s also a principled, pragmatic, self-assured and undefeatable type of guy. Regardless of what the world throws at him, Joe pulls up his collar, digs his heels in and keeps fighting the good fight. Joe may have spent his whole life looking for his “big break” but the irony may be that he’d already found it: living your own life, under your own terms, for better or worse, may be the biggest break of them all. Joe might have been looking for something big but I’m willing to wager that you’ll remember The Last Rites of Joe May for all the little things.

2/26/14: When You’re Here, You’re Home (Oscar Bait, Part 10)

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2013 Academy Awards, 86th Annual Academy Awards, alcoholism, Alexander Payne, auteur theory, Best Actor nominee, Best Cinematography nominee, Best Director nominee, Best of 2013, Best Original Screenplay nominee, Best Picture nominee, Best Supporting Actress nominee, Bob Odenkirk, Boogie Nights, Bruce Dern, cinema, Citizen Ruth, dementia, Election, estranged family, Film, Film auteurs, film reviews, growing old, grown children, Heartland, indie comedies, indie dramas, June Squibb, Midwestern, Movies, Nebraska, old age, road movie, road trips, small town life, snubbed at the Oscars, Stacy Keach, sweepstakes, The Descendants, Will Forte, Woody Grant

Realistically, there’s no such thing as a “perfect” anything, much less a perfect film. After all: one person’s concept of “amazing” is always someone else’s notion of “played-out.” That perfect hamburger? How do you know? If it were truly perfect, would it ever actually end? Wouldn’t that perfect sunset just continue on into infinity? Can humans, inherently faulty as we are, ever actually make something perfect? Could robots? What does “perfect” even mean? Is it as meaningless as “awesome” and “epic” in the Aught Tens? I bring up these points for one simple reason: I consider Alexander Payne’s Nebraska to be, essentially, a perfect film. I believe this through and through, even though all of the evidence points to how impossible it is. There is nothing perfect, although Nebraska is as perfect as it comes. This makes absolutely no sense…and I’m totally okay with that.

Some films hit me on a more pure, elemental level then other films. One of the best examples of this I can think of is PT Anderson’s Boogie Nights. I’ll never forget seeing that for the first time, in the theater, and just sitting there in stunned silence. I felt like I couldn’t even process the film on the first viewing: I could only sit back and absorb it. Immediately afterward, I bought another ticket and stayed for the next showing. To this day, I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve seen Boogie Nights but it never fails to impress me and lift my spirits: the film is a complete masterpiece and was from opening night. My first experience with seeing Nebraska was nearly identical to my experience seeing Boogie Nights. I was immediately, completely and totally in love with the film from the jump and this impression gradually broadened and deepened into something approaching blind faith: I not only loved what I was currently seeing but I was positive I would love everything still to come. And I did.

Payne, one of modern filmmaking’s brightest talents, is no stranger to the prickly ways in which humans, particularly relatives, interact. His filmography may not be huge but it is ridiculously deep: Citizen Ruth, Election (another of my favorite films), About Schmidt, Sideways, the Descendants (another Oscar favorite) and Nebraska. Any of these would be a bright star in most writer/director careers but Payne’s CV is quite the embarrassment of riches. With Nebraska, however, he’s managed to hone the “Heartland shiv” of Election and Citizen Ruth into a merciless edge while adding in the richly textured familial issues of The Descendants. In the process, he’s crafted his best, most enduring film (thus far).

In a cinematic universe of “difficult” people, Woody Grant (Bruce Dern) might be their supreme leader. Hard-drinking, stubborn, suffering from the first pangs of dementia and brutally honest, Woody is the kind of person who seems to exist solely to vex his loved ones. And vex them, he does. His long-suffering wife, Kate (June Squibb), and grown sons David (Will Forte) and Ross (Bob Odenkirk) have had just about as much of them as they can take: Kate, in particular, has taken to treating Woody like a flop-eared hound that won’t quit piddling on the rug. The thing is: Woody is one genuinely difficult dude. Not just prickly, mind you: genuinely difficult. When he receives one of those ubiquitous “You may already be a winner!” sweepstakes notices, he decides to walk from his home in Montana all the way to Lincoln, Nebraska, to claim his “winnings.” Rather than have his father drop dead on the side of the road (and unable to convince him of the truth behind the sweepstakes), David decides to go with his dad and make it a father-son bonding trip. The stage is set for a sweet, nostalgic, heart-warming tale of reconciliation and family…except Woody couldn’t give two shits about his family and certainly doesn’t look forward to being stuck with his square son David. Tempers flare, hard truths are learned and David learns the most important lesson of all: You can’t always pick your fights and you can never pick your family. But, sometimes, that’s okay.

Picking out one individual aspect of Nebraska to laud is not only nearly impossible but unnecessarily reductive. The individual aspects of the film truly shine but it’s the sum of these parts that makes Nebraska an unmitigated classic. Right from the get-go, with the gorgeous black-and-white cinematography and the hauntingly simple but beautiful bluegrassy theme, the film felt timeless. Indeed, the film was so stunningly filmed that I was certain it would be a lock for cinematography, Gravity be damned. The camera-work in Gravity was flawless and head-scratching (how the hell DID they do that?) but the cinematography in Nebraska is beautifully evocative and so cinematic that it hurts. This was a film that looked as good as it “felt,” a perfect synthesis of form and function.

As is standard in Payne’s films, the acting is absolutely superb. In fact…here comes that word again…it’s pretty much perfect. Will Forte, so good as a comic, is a complete revelation as David. At once sympathetic, sweet and slightly pathetic, David is a fully realized, complex character, someone who all of us know (if we aren’t actually him, that is). Bob Odenkirk is marvelous as brother Ross, likewise reigning in his comedic tendencies to portray a character who’s equal parts fatigued snark and genuine compassion. It’s as far from Saul Goodman as possible and never less than 100% authentic. Stacy Keach has a terrific part as Woody’s former friend, Ed, a loutish civic leader who browbeats Woody mercilessly yet manages one of the most heartbreaking displays of emotion I’ve ever seen in a film: the part where he mockingly reads Woody’s letter to the bar is powerful stuff but the changing expression in his eyes as he realizes what he’s done to Woody is the stuff of legend. Keach has been far too scarce in films these days (I actually thought he was dead!) and it’s a tremendous shame: someone get this guy some more roles STAT!

In a cast this excellent, this perfect, however, there are still two standouts, two performers that brought completely indelible characters to life. June Squibb, as Kate, is a complete revelation, an actress so watchable, so absolutely compelling, that I find myself wondering why I never noticed her before. Kate is a real person: an honest-to-God flesh and blood creation. I know several people like Kate: many of them are also my family members. You know many people like Kate: some of them are likely your family, as well. As a character, she’s flawed, sometimes reveling in a level of nasty “honesty” that’s breathtaking in its cruelty. The scene where she visits the family cemetery with Woody and David is amazing, one of those scenes that film fans should remember in the same way that they do the “Hold it between your knees” scene from 5  Easy Pieces. As she walks about the graveyard, Kate keeps a constant running commentary about their interred relatives: this one was a slut, that one was an idiot, this other one always wanted to “get in her pants.” In the piece de resistance, however, Kate stops before the grave of a former beau, hikes up her skirt and stands before the tombstone: “See what you could have had if you didn’t talk about weed all the time?!” It’s a vulgar, hilarious, awesome moment, one of those bits that deserves to go down in cinematic history. While I was happy to see Nyong’o win Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars, Squibb was, hands-down, the best of the four performances I saw (sorry Julia: Osage was a bit hard to get ahold of).

And then, of course, there’s Bruce Dern. To be honest, I’m not sure how much acting Dern did for the film: perhaps that’s why he ended up losing to McConaughey (who also completely deserved the award, ironically). Perhaps this is how Dern really is. Perhaps he’s nothing like this. At the end of the day, there’s only one thing I knew: this was the single most perfect acting performance of the entire year. The whole thing. Better than McConaughey (who was astounding), better than Ejiofor. Better than anyone, actually. At no point in the film did it ever feel like Dern was acting. Nothing felt inauthentic, every beat and facial expression was well-earned and it was that rarest of modern acting performances: a stellar turn that did not revolve around flawless mimicry (sorry, Meryl). Perhaps it’s because of my own experiences with an elderly father but I completely identified with everything about both Woody and David: I experienced the same measure of heartwarming/breaking that I did in real life. If you have no experience with elderly parents, perhaps you won’t be affected as deeply. With acting this masterful, however, I’m betting you will.

So we have a great looking/sounding film and amazing performances. What else is there? Well, how about the funniest, freshest, funkiest script in ages? While Nebraska is anything but a joke-a-minute laughathon, it is shockingly funny, more so than any indie “dramedy” I’ve yet seen. Much of the humor definitely comes from the verisimilitude of the absurd situations (I laughed like an idiot during the scene where David’s yokel cousins mock him for taking so long to drive there, since I’ve had that exact same conversation with similar idiots in the past) but there’s just as many great one-liners and exchanges flying around. One of my favorite scenes has to be the one where Woody, Kate and David eat lunch in a small diner. Woody spends an inordinate amount of time studying the menu. When Kate asks him, “What are you having, old man?” he resolutely replies “Meatloaf.” Her exasperated comeback could have come straight from my childhood: “You’ve been staring at that menu for ten minutes…where does it say meatloaf?”At another point, David tells Woody that “All of your brothers are coming over.” “Some of them are dead.” David looks at Woody, for a beat, before replying: “The dead ones won’t be coming over.” Classic.

All of these various elements would be impressive enough but the one thing uniting them all is the most important: heart. Nebraska has a big heart, much bigger than the gently mean sarcasm would have you believe. You can see the genuine emotion creeping at the edge of every frame, sneaking into each scene like an insistent boom mic. The emotion isn’t always on the forefront but, when it is, the film burns with an almost palpable sense of pain. If you don’t feel something when Kate sits as Woody’s bedside, you probably don’t have much to feel. If you don’t tear up at the end, as David lets him father drive triumphantly through town, you’re probably already dead.

In the end, Nebraska is that most impossible of films: a scruffy, mean, hilarious, heartfelt celebration of the Heartland and all of the people who inhabit it. There are no characters here, only real people reacting with the same pain, humor, bias, hatred and love that we all do. Whereas every other film that I saw for Oscar season (including the otherwise incredible Dallas Buyers Club) struggled with notions of authenticity, Nebraska was the only one that I bought part and parcel. Like I said before: I know these people. I grew up with them. I probably love and hate them with equal fervor. If there were major flaws with the film, I couldn’t find them. If you can, I’m guessing we’ll probably never see completely eye to eye. That’s okay, though: there are no perfect films, so you, but Nebraska is just perfect enough for me.

2/16/14: You Can’t Pick Your Friends

Tags

aging, cinema, film reviews, films, Frank Langella, friendship, getting old, grown children, indie comedies, Jake Schreier, James Marsden, Jeremy Sisto, Liv Tyler, Moon, Movies, near future, Peter Sarsgaard, Robot and Frank, robots, sci-fi, Short Circuit, Spike Jonze, Susan Sarandon, technology

What, exactly, is friendship? Most, if not all, of us will have at least one friend: if you’re Lone Wolf McQuaid, you probably only have one; if you’re George Bailey, you’ve got at least a couple dozen. How much give-and-take is required for a relationship to be considered a “friendship?” Can the butler be friends with the lady-of-the-house? Can parents be friends with their children? What about non-human friends? Can humans be friends with animals? We know that children can be friends with aliens, thanks to ET and those darned Reese’s Pieces, and we know that Steve Guttenberg pals around with Number 5 but what about the rest of us: could we ever truly consider a robot to be one of our best buddies?

Robot and Frank, the feature-film debut of Jake Schreier, explores the subject of human-robot friendship in a way that manages to avoid both the easy sentimental notes and silly humor that usually capsizes films like this. The story, as many truly great stories are, is just about as simple as they come. In the near future (think video-phones and hovering cars), aging former cat burglar Frank (Frank Langella) is beginning to exhibit the first signs of dementia and his grown children Hunter (James Marsden) and Madison (Liv Tyler) are worried about him. Not worried enough to pause their fast-paced lives (Hunter is a corporate go-getter whereas Madison is a globe-trotting, socially-aware do-gooder) and actually spend time with him, mind you, but concerned enough to know that he needs a little extra help. Hunter, being the tech-savvy problem-solver that he is, decides to splurge and get his father a robot assistant (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard). At first, old-fashioned Frank views Robot as nothing more than a creepy talking tin-can, an automated nursemaid to help alleviate his absentee children’s’ guilt over his well-being. In time, however, Frank comes to see the amiable Robot as something more: a ready, if not necessarily willing, accomplish in Frank’s newest heist plans. Over time, however, Frank will come to see Robot as something more: a genuine friend.

On the surface, there’s about a million different ways that Robot and Frank could’ve become a chore to sit through. The film could have played up the disparity between Frank and Robot, making this one of those noxious buddy films that always seem to star Zach Galifianakis and some unfortunate “other.” You know the type: Frank keeps being old-fashioned and stubborn…Robot shakes his head and gives one of those “Oh, Frank!” looks…the same watered-down formula we’ve been receiving since the filmmakers decided to rip off The Odd Couple. On the other hand, this could have been played as a real tear-jerker, one of those films where you arrive with a box of Kleenex or you don’t show up at all. After all, Frank isn’t exactly a spring chicken and we definitely get plenty of reminders of his failing mental state throughout the film. It wouldn’t have been too much of a stretch to imagine a film where Frank lies on his dead bed and Robot tenderly holds him, weeping little tears of oil from his eye sockets: this isn’t that film, either.

Instead, Robot and Frank is one of those rare films: an utterly jubilant, funny and smart buddy comedy about aging, family, doing what makes you happy and flipping off the world while doing it. The writing is exceptionally sharp, making the relationship between Frank and Robot feel completely natural and right: there’s nothing that feels gimmicky about their scenes together. Chalk it up to the fact that Langella, 74 years old when the film was released, is one of the more rock-solid actors of his generation and that Sarsgaard manages to inject Robot with just enough pathos and humanity to be relateable.  Robot isn’t the cute ball of energy that was Short Circuit’s Number 5 but he’s also as far from the cold inhumanity of HAL as a robot can get. If anything, Robot (and Sarsgaard’s performance) reminds of Kevin Spacey’s performance as Gerty, the robotic intelligence in Moon: Sarsgaard’s deadpan delivery of such lines as “Frank, that cereal is for children: enjoy this grapefruit” and the amazing “I can’t promise that I’ll allow the actual burglary but I’m glad to see you so enthusiastic” are the wellsprings for much of the film’s funniest moments.

In fact, despite several indicators that Robot and Frank is of the distinct “indie dramedy” family (read: humor so depressing that you’ll chuckle solemnly while throwing yourself from a window), the film is actually very buoyant and quite funny. There’s a fresh, vibrant quality to Frank and Robot’s burgeoning friendship, a quality which permeates nearly every frame of the film. Even when things begin to get heavier in the back half, as Frank must contemplate wiping out Robot’s memory in order to hide his felonious activities from the police (Jeremy Sisto, in a rather odd cameo that feels cut-down from a more substantial role), the film manages to maintain a fleetness that makes it the furthest thing from a “feel-good-about-feeling-bad” film. The film never shies away from the reality of Frank’s situation but it never wallows in future misery, either: we know that this is, ostensibly, Frank’s last hurrah, as it were, and it’s nice that the film doesn’t condescend to him, even if some of the younger nitwit characters do.

From a craft standpoint, Robot and Frank is really quite beautifully made. The cinematography, by Matthew J. Lloyd, is a continual knockout, combining with the evocative “indie-ish” score to create a mood that most resembles Spike Jonze or Gondry-lite. A mentioned previously, the acting is exceptional across the board, with special attention merited by Langella’s outstanding, nuanced performance and Sarsgaard’s stellar voice-work. Susan Sarandon even shows up (is she contractually obligated to appear in every indie film from the past five years) as a kindly librarian who appears to be sweet on Frank: their relationship provides some genuinely nice emotional heft and a truly powerful latter-half revelation that manages to recast several events in a different light.

All in all, Robot and Frank is a truly moving, relatively cliche-free film that features a really neat friendship as its core. While other films might treat the concept of a human-robot friendship as a gimmick, Schreier’s film actually takes the concept seriously. These two don’t become buddies because the script tells them to: Robot and Frank become friends because, in the real world, that’s probably just what would happen. Minus the hover-cars, of course.