7/15/15 (Part Two): We All Fall Down

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Adriana Barraza, Alma Martinez, anger issues, Anna Kendrick, Cake, Chris Messina, Christophe Beck, chronic pain, cinema, Daniel Barnz, divorced couple, dramas, Evan O'Toole, ex-husband, Felicity Huffman, film reviews, films, grieving mother, House M.D., Jennifer Aniston, letting go, Mamie Gummer, Movies, Patrick Tobin, Pepe Serna, pill addiction, Rachel Morrison, Rose Abdoo, Sam Worthington, single father, suicide, William H. Macy

With her world-weary cynicism, barbed sarcasm, constant physical pain and pill addiction, Claire Bennett doesn’t really look like any role Jennifer Aniston has taken on in her 20+ year career but that doesn’t mean that the character isn’t a little familiar. Change Claire’s gender, give her a lab coat, an even bigger chip on her shoulder and voila: paging Dr. Gregory House to the front lobby.

Reductive? Perhaps, although it’s certainly not meant as any kind of slight on Aniston’s abilities. The former Friends star underplays her part nobly, allowing the inherent anger, depression and hopelessness of her situation to bob to the surface, breaking the chilly serenity like so many jagged ice floes. The problem, as it turns out, is that Daniel Barnz’s Cake (2014) really doesn’t give her a whole lot to do. As Claire frowns, mopes, drops dry repartee and lashes out at the world around her, it becomes increasingly difficult not to think of the surrounding film as a kind of prison, a distressingly familiar, middle-of-the-road salvation story that hits every expected beat, yet constantly feels lesser than the sum of its parts.

We first meet Claire in a chronic-pain support group, where she displays her uncanny ability to be simultaneously charming, obnoxious, combative and exceptionally glum. One of Claire’s fellow group members, Nina (Anna Kendrick), has just committed suicide by jumping from a busy freeway overpass and, in lieu of focusing on her own issues, Claire has decided to figure out just what makes another person decide to kill themselves. Her interest, of course, is purely academic: Claire couldn’t really give two shits about anyone but focusing on her amateur “investigation” is as good as any a way to try to stay occupied.

What, exactly, is Claire’s problem? The film, itself, is pretty cagey about the whole thing, drawing out the revelation as if it were some sort of twist but we get the main elements early enough to draw our own conclusions: with all of her scars and healed injuries, chronic pain, constant mourning and divorce from her husband, Jason (Chris Messina), we know that Claire has been in an accident of some sort, an accident that’s claimed the life of her child and left her bitter, broken and impossibly angry at the world. We get a nice reminder of this when we listen in on a message that Jason leaves for Claire in which he expresses his desire to come claim the rest of his things when she’s not around: nothing in her life is easy, pleasant or positive.

As is wont in this kinds of films, however, a change is a brewin’: once Claire and her put-upon housekeeper/caretaker Silvana (Adriana Barraza) start to dig deep into the details of Nina’s life (and death), Claire begins to regain a tiny bit of her joie de vivre. Things pick up even further when she happens to meet Nina’s husband, Roy (Sam Worthington) and young son, Casey (Evan O’Toole). Like Claire, Roy has plenty of anger issues, most of which he reserves for his dead wife: Nina “abandoned” Roy and Casey and her husband hates her abjectly for it.

Birds of a feather do, indeed, flock together and soon, Claire and Roy are striking up a strictly platonic relationship (they both want “intimacy” but have no interest in “sex”) as they each try to lean on the other for support. There’s an awful lot of anger resting below the surface of Claire’s wit and sarcasm, however, the kind of anger that makes it impossible for anyone to just live their lives. As Claire (and the audience) get ever closer to learning all of the details of Nina’s passing (did I mention that Nina also “appears” to Claire, alternating between berating her, cajoling her and trying to steer her away from Roy? Well, she does.) and the accident that destroyed Claire’s life, as Claire gets ever closer to her own oblivion and Silvana seems helpless to affect any change, we’ll all learn a very important lesson: sometimes, life is just a series of small victories and that’s the best we can ever hope for.

As mentioned earlier, Aniston’s portrayal of Claire is rock-solid (she was even nominated for a Best Actress Golden Globe) but the rest of the film exists on much shakier ground. While the movie has a reliably sturdy, understated look that’s pretty much the definition of “indie drama” (cinematographer Rachel Morrison also shot Sound of My Voice (2011), Fruitvale Station (2013), Little Accidents (2014) and Dope (2015)), Patrick Tobin’s script ends up short-sheeting too many of the characters, giving the film a malnourished, under-developed feel.

We briefly meet Silvana’s daughter and out-of-work husband (the whole scene lasts maybe 2-3 minutes, tops) but that’s the extent of any character building with that character, unless one counts the even briefer scene where Claire and Silvana run into a couple of Silvana’s old “friends” in Tijuana. Despite being in a fair amount of the film, Worthington’s Roy never really amounts to anything more than a plot contrivance (he gives Claire more info on Nina, sort of like a gamer running around and talking to NPCs in a role-playing-game) and any romance between him and Claire seems pretty dead on arrival. Kendrick pops up constantly, as the “ghost” of Nina (I guess), but we never get much better sense of her character than “suicide victim.” There’s even an extremely odd, unexplained scene where Claire seems to have sex with some guy that climbs in through her window. Is he a friend? A prostitute? She seems to pay him with a box of toys so, if he’s a professional, I’m guessing that he’s not a particularly astute one.

And don’t even get me started on poor William H. Macy, who gets exactly one scene (essentially a cameo) as the guy who was, apparently, responsible for the death of Claire’s child. We never get any more explanation than that: he shows up at her door, begs forgiveness, gets yelled at, thrown out and then exits stage left, never to be seen (or heard from) again. Any opportunity to milk honest emotional resonance from the scene is rendered moot by the fact that it all happens so quickly and, seemingly, arbitrarily.

In the end, this lack of fleshing out becomes the film’s biggest Achilles’ heel. Even the title, Cake, is based on something that seems to be as disposable and insubstantial as possible: when Nina and Claire were discussing what they would do if they were pain-free, Nina responded that she would bake her kid a birthday cake, from scratch (Claire’s wish was to screw an entire soccer team, for what it’s worth). All well and good. This whole notion culminates in a thoroughly head-scratching bit, however, where Claire and Silvana pick up a young hitchhiker and pay her to make a cake from scratch. The girl bakes the cake, steals Claire’s purse and takes off. As with the aforementioned scenes, the whole incident is over so quickly and so under-developed that it really has no impact: cut the hitchhiker scenes (along with the explanation of the cake) and the film is no worse for the wear.

There’s also a decided lack of danger to the film, a feeling that the stakes are too low to really make any of us break a sweat. There’s never a sense of urgency to anything Claire does, never the notion that she’s ever in any real danger, even when her and Silvana get stopped at the border with their load of illegal scrips. Even the scene where Claire comes perilously close to following Nina into the great beyond is quickly set up and then hurried along to the next scene, almost as if the filmmakers were checking points off a list. I had a similar issue with another film about addiction issues, Why Stop Now? (2012): in both cases, it felt as if the filmmakers were taking a purely surface view of a much darker, deeper issue, pushing everything towards the kind of “it all works out” ending that, in reality, rarely happens.

Ultimately, the one thing that consistently works, as far as Cake is concerned, is Aniston’s performance. Despite the very obvious comparisons to Hugh Laurie’s cantankerous sawbones, Claire is a thoroughly multi-dimensional character and definitely marks a new high-water line in the actress’ career. While I didn’t think the performance was the best of its year (or even one of the best of the past several years), Aniston brings an understated, completely welcome sense of honesty and genuine pain that manages to shine over the rest of the film like a beacon.

In a better film (I’m thinking of something like the surprisingly great Life of Crime (2013)), Aniston has shown that she’s no slouch when it comes to the more dramatic side of the silver screen: despite being predominately cast in comedies, romances and rom-coms, I’d like to think that filmmakers will begin to realize that she’s a lot more versatile than she’s been given credit for. As it stands, though, Cake is a very serious, very well-meaning but, ultimately, rather shallow film. Everybody might love cake but this particular treat, unfortunately, falls a little flat.

6/28/15: Livin’ the Life

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based on a book, caper films, Charlie Tahan, cheating husbands, cinema, Clea Lewis, crime film, Daniel Schechter, dark comedies, double-crosses, Elmore Leonard, Eric Alan Edwards, film reviews, films, heist films, held for ransom, husband-wife relationship, Isla Fisher, Jennifer Aniston, John Hawkes, Kevin Corrigan, kidnapped wife, kidnapping, Life of Crime, literary adaptation, Mark Boone Junior, Mickey Dawson, mistress, Movies, partners in crime, ransoms, Supporting Characters, The Newton Brothers, The Switch, Tim Robbins, Will Forte, writer-director-editor, Yasiin Bey

A couple of criminals who don’t quite trust each other…a wealthy husband who doesn’t exactly want his kidnapped wife back…a kidnapped wife who doesn’t really want to go home…a Nazi-obsessed associate who’s not completely sane…a love-struck friend who’s almost an idiot…a conniving mistress who’s everything but an idiot…1970s Detroit…sounds like quite the predicament, eh? In the wrong hands, this many disparate elements and plot threads would be an easy recipe for disaster: good thing that all of the above was the handiwork of one Elmore Leonard, the patron saint of quirky crime fiction for over 50 years.

With a battalion of classics under his belt, Leonard’s novels have been a go-to for filmmakers for some time: indeed, one need only look at the tremendous box-office success of adaptations like Get Shorty (1995), Jackie Brown (1997) and Out of Sight (1998) to see what a perfect fit Leonard’s hardboiled, if tongue-in-cheek, prose and instantly memorable characters are for the silver screen. The latest Leonard adaptation, based on his 1978 novel The Switch, is writer-director Daniel Schechter’s Life of Crime (2013). Thanks to a pitch-perfect cast, a great script, exceptional production values and one of those patented twisty-turny Leonard plots, Life of Crime sits comfortably next to the aforementioned classics, proving that good writing never goes out of style.

Louis (John Hawkes) and Ordell (Yassin Bey, formerly known as Mos Def), a couple of small-time crooks plying their trade on the streets of late-’70s Detroit, think they’ve stumbled upon the perfect crime: they’re going to kidnap Mickey Dawson (Jennifer Aniston), the trophy wife of notorious drunk/golfer/real estate baron Frank Dawson (Tim Robbins) and hold her for a $1 million ransom. With the assistance of their Nazi-obsessed associate, Richard (Sons of Anarchy’s Mark Boone Junior), the pair pull off the kidnapping without a hitch, spiriting their captive away to Richard’s “safe house.”

The problem, of course, is that Frank is a real asshole: he’s currently canoodling with his mistress, Melanie (Isla Fisher), in the Bahamas, and could really give two shits about his wife’s situation. Even worse, he’s actually planning to divorce Mickey and marry Melanie: as such, Frank and Melanie decide to call Louis and Ordell’s “bluff” and refuse to pay for Mickey’s safe return. This, obviously, isn’t quite what they had in mind: after all, what use is a kidnappee if no one wants to pay for said person?

As Louis and Ordell try to figure a way out of their situation, complications arise exponentially. Creepy Richard develops an unhealthy interest in Mickey (he’s particularly fond of peeping on her via numerous hidden holes throughout his house), Frank and Mickey’s family friend, Marshall (Will Forte), is secretly in love with Mickey, blundering his way into the sticky situation and Melanie is working some angles on her own, constantly keeping an eye on the ultimate prize of lifelong financial security. To top it all off, Louis finds himself developing feelings for Mickey, who proves herself to be made of much steelier stuff than all of them put together. Will Louis and Ordell get their “just rewards?” Will Frank get the comeuppance that he so richly deserves? Will poor, pathetic Marshall ever get a clue? As our hardy group of oddballs knows, living a life of crime may not be easy but it sure as hell ain’t dull!

There are a lot of moving pieces to this particular game and, to Schechter’s immense credit, he manages to make the whole thing look rather easy. Working from his own script (he also edited the movie), Schechter proves a steady hand with not only the acting and dialogue (paramount to any Elmore Leonard adaptation) but also the film’s numerous setpieces: the opening scene where Ordell runs over a thug with his van, the kidnapping and Richard’s SWAT team stand-off are all top-notch action scenes, executed with a maximum of efficiency and a minimum of flashy nonsense. One of the film’s best moments is the fist-pumping scene where Marshall escapes from Richard, set to the tune of “Don’t Pull Your Love”: it’s a brilliantly executed, fun and endlessly thrilling scene, recalling nothing so much as the giddy heights of Tarantino’s trash-culture aesthetic.

Production-wise, the film looks and sounds fantastic: cinematographer Eric Alan Edwards gives everything a crisp, colorful burnish and the ’70s-era mis-en-scene is effortless, as far from gimmicky as a period piece can get. The score, courtesy of the Newton Brothers (who also did the score for Oculus (2013)) is equally great, accentuating the action scenes while keeping us right in the funky, swaggering heart of the 1978 Motor City.

As good as everything looks and sounds, however, the acting is what really vaults this particular production over the top. To put it bluntly: there isn’t a bad apple in the whole batch. Hawkes and Bey are absolutely fantastic as the untrustworthy partners, so symbiotic in their performances that they come across as a well-oiled, decades-in-the-making cinematic team. Aniston is extraordinary as the kidnapped wife, finding not only the vulnerability but the inherent strength of her character: the scene where she pokes a lit cigarette into Richard’s peeping eye isn’t just an awesome moment (which it certainly is) but it’s a perfect representation of Mickey’s growth as a character. Robbins and Fisher are equally great as the slimy philanderers, with Fisher bringing a miniature universe of subtle tics, quirks and facial expressions to her performance: it’s a role that could have been utterly thankless but, in Fisher’s hands, becomes something much more interesting.

On the supporting side, Boone Junior is a revelation as the kooky supremacist, finding the perfect balance between empty-headed animalism and a slightly sympathetic doofus: it’s nothing whatsoever like his role in Sons of Anarchy and makes me wish more filmmakers utilized him in better roles. Forte is typically great as the simpering, slightly confused friend who holds an unrequited torch for Mickey, showing that he slips into dramatic roles with the same ease that he does comedic ones. And, of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that one of my all-time favorite actors, Kevin Corrigan, even gets a bit part as a put-upon police detective: he may not get much screentime but he hits an absolute home-run with what he gets.

All in all, I was massively impressed with Schechter’s version of this particular Leonard story: not only does he hit all the right beats and tones (the film is actually much more serious than it at first seems, winding up in the same general tonal area as Tarantino’s Jackie Brown, rather than Sonnenfeld’s Get Shorty) but he really makes the material his own, no small feat when we’re talking about Leonard. When the film wants to make you laugh, it has no problem doing so: the interactions between Ordell, Louis and Richard are absolutely priceless, culminating in the fantastic scene where Mickey finally gets a wide-eyed look at Richard’s assorted Nazi paraphernalia, to which Louis deadpans, “What’s the matter: don’t you like history?” When the film wants to thrill you and keep you on the edge of your seat, it has no problem doing that, either: the actual kidnapping scene is one of the best I’ve seen in recent years.

As a filmmaker, Schechter has been on my radar ever since his low-key, clever treatise on film editors, Supporting Characters (2012), first crossed my path some years ago. At that time, the writer-director-editor definitely seemed like someone to keep an eye on: his latest film only confirms my original belief. Here’s to hoping that Daniel Schechter finally earns a spot at the Hollywood “big kids table”: in an age where multiplex action films are big, loud and dumb, Schechter’s brand of subtle, smart thrills sounds like the perfect antidote. At the very least, someone needs to get him funds for another Leonard adaptation: when the iron is this hot, you damn well better keep striking.