5/28/15: Paved With Good Intentions

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Bottled Up, cinema, dramas, drug addiction, drug smuggling, dysfunctional family, enabling, Enid Zentelis, environmentalists, film reviews, films, Fredric Lehne, independent films, indie films, Jamie Harrold, Josh Hamilton, Marin Ireland, Melissa Leo, mother-daughter relationships, Movies, Nelson Landrieu, parent-child relationships, pill addiction, romances, Sam Retzer, Tibor Feldman, Tim Boland, writer-director

In an era when so many films seem to fulfill no greater need than increasing some conglomerate’s bottom line, it’s always refreshing to run across movies that actually have something to say, regardless of whether they have the expense account to say it loudly enough to get noticed. As someone who wearies of the “bigger, louder, dumber” mantra that rules the multiplex, I make a point to seek out the quieter, more modest choices whenever possible. After all: which type of film could really use more support…the billion-dollar tentpole flick or the indie that was probably made for a third of the former’s catering budget?

This, of course, ends up being quite the over-simplification but it helps put us in the proper mind to discuss writer-director Enid Zentelis’ Bottled Up (2013). Zentelis’ drug addiction drama, the follow-up to her debut, Evergreen (2004), is just the aforementioned kind of modest indie drama that normally fits my sensibilities like a glove. It’s the kind of film that I normally have no problem championing, usually over the top of something with a much larger advertising budget. In this case, however, I find myself in a bit of a pickle: you see, Bottled Up has its heart in the right place but the film is so fundamentally awkward that it’s difficult to ever become fully invested. That being said, I’ll gladly take a dozen well-intentioned films like this over much of the soulless superhero drivel and remakes that currently glut the multiplexes.

At its heart, Bottled Up is the story of Fay (Melissa Leo) and her adult daughter, Sylvie (Marin Ireland). Sylvie is a pill addict, supposedly the result of a car accident that screwed up her back, while her mother officially holds the title of “world-class enabler.” While Fay is a hard-working, responsible and caring individual, Sylvie is a complete wreck: manic, an habitual liar, an unrepentant thief and constantly in search of her next fix, Sylvie is like a human-shaped albatross perpetually affixed to her poor mother’s neck. Despite being “in control” of her daughter’s pain pills, Fay really isn’t in control of anything: whenever Sylvie feels like it, she just steals more money or hocks more shit, keeping her sleazy dealer, Jerry (Jamie Harrold), on speed-dial the whole while.

Just when things seem to be at their bleakest for Fay, she strikes up a friendship with Becket (Josh Hamilton), the spacey environmental activist who works at the local organic grocery store. Becket recycles, he composts, he takes samples of the local lake water and sends them to the government for testing and, most importantly, he seems to be swooning over Fay. Despite some obvious chemistry between the activist and the mom, however, Fay actually has different plans for Becket: believing that all Sylvie needs to “fix” her is the love of a good man, Fay does her damnedest to set the two up, despite her daughter’s near pathological desire to fuck it all up. As Fay keeps trying to “weld” Becket and Sylvie together, despite their overwhelmingly awkward interactions, she must also fight down her own growing feelings for the sensitive treehugger.

As is often the case, balance becomes a problem: how does one live their own life when they’re also living someone else’s? Fay continues to negotiate this precarious tightrope act, all while the local doctors get wise to Sylvie’s abuse issues and begin to make life even more difficult for the put-upon mother. Add one all-too-eager drug dealer, a spontaneous trip to Canada and growing self-awareness to the mix and you have yourself the recipe for some cathartic, if painful, personal growth. Will Fay finally discover who she really is or will Sylvie’s addiction wind up destroying everyone around her?

All of the elements are in place for Bottled Up to do exactly what it seems to set out to do. Yet, for various reasons, the film ends up feeling oddly flat and rather awkward. All of the principals – Melissa Leo, Marin Ireland and Josh Hamilton – have been responsible for some excellent performances in the past (Leo, in particular). Here, however, none of them seem to gel together, making much of the romantic angle feel forced and, at times, a little creepy. The ways in which Fay tries to push Becket and Sylvie together have a kind of whimsical “meet-cute” feel, at first, but quickly give way to something more awkward and cringe-worthy. Likewise Becket’s romancing of Fay: while it sometimes hits genuinely “sweet” moments, it all too often feels forced and out-of-place.

While Leo manages to get several very nice scenes and emotional moments (despite being saddled with an unfortunate haircut that spends the majority of the film obscuring her face), Ireland’s performance is almost uniformly awkward and strange. I get that Sylvie is a drug addict, many of whom are known to be rather squirrely individuals. Ireland’s performance is so erratic and wild, however, that it’s often difficult to figure out what which of the traits are the character’s and which are the actor’s. At numerous points, a sly look from Sylvie would seem to telegraph something only to amount to nothing: at a certain point, I was positive that Sylvie was trying to make Becket sick although, as I think about it later, it really wouldn’t make sense, under that context.

For his part, Hamilton plays Becket with such a blase, befuddled sense of inattention that, like with Ireland’s performance, it becomes a bit of a question as to what’s intended and what’s not. While the world is full of oblivious, tunnel-visioned individuals, surely none of them could be as absolutely blind to their immediate surroundings as Becket is: it’s not so much that he seems to be obsessed with the lake as that he seems to be willfully ignoring the highly dysfunctional mother-daughter team before him.

Part of the problem with the film’s overall impact is the disparity between some of the obviously whimsical elements and the more grim, overall feel. The score, courtesy of Tim Boland and Sam Retzer, is what I like to call “indie quirky” and the film features such magical-realist elements as Fay’s workplace, the bizarrely esoteric Mailboxes and Thangs (where one can mail a package, buy a donut and get a nipple piercing, all in the same visit). At times, Bottled Up seems one quirky character or cleverly placed indie tune away from the same patch of land where Wes Anderson normally builds his brand of particularly baroque architecture.

These lighthearted touches, however, end up sitting uncomfortably next to the film’s more unrelentingly dark, rather hopeless tone. Despite any of its issues, Bottled Up manages to be rather on-the-nose when it comes to depicting the humiliating, pointless and painful lives that addicts (and their families) suffer through: while the film never wallows in the shit-and-piss ugliness of something like Trainspotting (1996) or Requiem for a Dream (2000), there’s also nothing wholesome, cute or heartwarming about Fay and Sylvie’s relationship. More than anything, there’s a thick air of hopeless defeat that hangs over the characters: it feels as if we’ve entered Fay and Sylvie’s story at the very end, after both parties have, for all intents and purposes, given up. You always need a rock bottom in any recovery story, of course, but the constant emotional back-and-forth feels schizophrenic rather than organic.

Despite the aforementioned problems and the constant sense of awkward distance, there was still a lot to like here. While she doesn’t always hit the mark, Leo turns in another typically sturdy performance: Fay’s character does go through an arc, over the course of the story, and Leo is an assured pro at letting this comes across organically, rather than conveniently. I also really liked the film’s more loopy elements and wish Zentelis had opted to center more of the story there: there’s endless, virtually unexploited potential in the Mailboxes and Thangs concept, alone, not to mention Fay’s tentative steps into the world of conservationism. I also liked the concept of Jerry, the drug dealer, even if the actual character ended up being under-used and seemed to exit the film all too quickly. While the film is about Fay and Sylvie’s struggles, it also works best when it grounds them within the surrounding community.

At the end of the day, Bottled Up is a film with the very best intentions which, as I’ve stated earlier, certainly isn’t lost on me. Even if the various elements never cohere, it’s quite plain that Zentelis does have plenty of good insights into addiction, co-dependence and dysfunctional relationships. There are moments in the film that ring absolutely true and the final resolution is the kind of hopeful break in the storm clouds that really drives a film like this home. Bottled Up is an ode to addicts and the people who love them, even at the expense of their own individuality. I might not agree with how Zentelis said it, but I’ll damned if I can find much fault with what she had to say.

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.

2/28/14: This Pain Will Help You (Oscar Bait, Part 11)

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2013 Academy Awards, 86th, 8MM, Alex Jones, Best Cinematography nominee, cinema, dark films, Denis Villeneuve, Detective Loki, drama, film reviews, films, Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, kidnapped, Maria Bello, Melissa Leo, missing child, Movies, Nicholas Cage, Oscar nominee, Oscars, Paul Dano, Prisoners, race against time, rainy films, Roger Deakins, Seven, snubbed at the Oscars, Taxi Driver, Terrence Howard, The Hunt, torture, Viola Davis

Movies have a marvelous way of presenting the most wretched, bleak situations possible in a truly hopeful light. Through the power of film, no obstacle is too great to overcome, no adversity too dire to best. Genocide, slavery, Holocaust, world hunger, extinction, climate change, death: all it takes is the right person (or group of persons) to change even the most stubborn of societal ill. On the flip side, however, films also have a particular way of sucking all of the air from a room and showing us how terrible insignificant we really are. The right film, at the right angle, for the right person, can be the most bleak situation imaginable.  Think back to the rain-drenched, under-lit atrocities of Seven and 8MM…the relentless march to oblivion that is Taxi Driver or Old Boy…the parental anguish of Hardcore…some films exist not so much to make us feel better about the world but to remind us of how terrible it really is. Some films, like Martyrs, are not so much entertainment as painful open wounds, viscera thrown straight into our brains. And some films, like Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners, exist to remind us that the first place we should always look for evil is in ourselves.

Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman)’s young daughter and her friend have gone missing and the police have a suspect in custody: Alex Jones (Paul Dano). Alex seems to be a truly weird, creepy guy and the beat-up RV he tools around in does seem fairly suspicious, but suspicions aren’t quite good enough for the legal system. Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal, chewing up scenery and spitting out shrapnel) is forced to cut Alex loose, which just doesn’t sit well with survivalist papa Keller. With the unsteady assistance of Franklin (Terrence Howard), the father of the other missing girl, Keller kidnaps and tortures Alex, trying desperately to find the missing girls. As the case becomes more complicated and Loki continues to dig up new leads, such as Alex’s strange aunt Holly (Melissa Leo), a mysterious body in a cellar and a homicidal priest, it becomes less and less certain that Alex is actually guilty. As the clock ticks down, Keller is faced with the agonizing possibility that the bloody, terrified man before him might actually be innocent…and that the real villain might still be out there.

On its face, Prisoners has quite a bit going for it and seems to compare well to similar fare such as Seven. The film is beautifully shot, featuring some truly gorgeous camera-work by legendary DP Roger Deakins, which also earned the film its sole Oscar nomination (Best Cinematography). The score is moody and oppressive, which aids ably in smothering the film in the same sort of atmosphere that cloaked films like Seven and 8MM and the script, while not completely original, nonetheless provides enough twists and turns to keep things interesting. Towards the end, the twists begin to spring up so fast that the film threatens to spring a leak, however, and there’s at least one moment that still has me profoundly confused. Nonetheless, the film looks and sounds great.

Unfortunately, there are two critical issues that threaten to pitch the whole affair upside-down: the over-the-top acting and the film’s general bloat. Although there are some nicely understated roles in the film (Dano is excellent as Alex and Viola Davis is very good as Franklin’s wife, Nancy) and one particularly juicy broader one (Melissa Leo is simply marvelous as Alex’s aunt and was criminally overlooked in the Best Supporting Actress category), the majority of the actors are almost ridiculously over-the-top, playing so broad as if to be shouting to the rafters. Gyllenhaal, in particular, is mercilessly teeth-gnashing, playing Loki (so named because Max Powers was too silly?) as the kind of sneering, desk-pounding, perp-bashing super-cop that was a cliché by the ’70s. He’s a good actor attempting to mimic Nicholas Cage at his most out-of-control and the effect is head-scratching: what was the point? Rather than coming off as a badass, Detective Loki is sort of like a whiny, highly ineffectual but endlessly bragging Harry Callahan. He receives perfect support from Jackman, however, who seems to greet any trial or adversity by howling in pain and punching it. Between the two of them and Howard’s skittish, constantly shouting Franklin, the film often feels like we’ve walked into the middle of a particularly nasty argument between complete strangers. Maria Bello is criminally wasted as Grace, Keller’s wife, suffering from the lethal combo of being as broad as the other actors but with less screen-time to smooth it out.

The fact that any character receives too little screen time is a bit of a minor miracle, however, since Prisoners worst flaw, by far, is its rather unbelievable 2.5 hour run-time. Since the film tells such a simple, contained story and never expands much past the immediate surroundings, it seems rather criminal for things to stretch past the 90 minutes mark, much less the two-hour mark. The film ends up being relentless but not in a good way: we end up getting bludgeoned into submission by one extended torture scene after another followed by one Loki tsunami after another followed by one Keller freak-out and so on and on. The Hunt managed to explore the horror and pain of small-town suspicion gone amok in a much more succinct fashion, while Saw and Wolf Creek managed to do likewise with the torture genre. Prisoners manages to mash both together yet, rather than co-mix them, seems content to merely stitch them side by side. The investigation portion of the film, alone, would make a full film, as would the largely gratuitous torture scenes. Together, it’s all too much. I found myself fatigued and wanting to tap out way before the extended 40-minute or so finale introduced another handful of twists.

It’s a shame that Prisoners hobbles itself in some pretty fundamental ways because it has so much going for it. Deakins, the master behind the lens of films like Fargo and The Big Lebowski, does some fantastic work here, presenting certain shots that are pretty enough to frame. There’s an easy fluidity to everything that makes the film effortlessly watchable, even during the torture sequences, which is a necessary counterpoint to the film’s bloat. You can see the hint of something truly exceptional and powerful gleaming deep in the clogged excesses of Prisoners: if the film were only an hour shorter, maybe that light would be a little easier to see.