12/14/14 (Part Three): I and I Can’t Survive

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1984, based on a book, British films, bureaucracy, Cathy Moriarty, cinema, confusing, dark comedies, dark films, doppelgängers, doubles, dramas, film reviews, films, Franz Kafka, Fyodor Dostoevsky, insanity, J. Mascis, James Fox, James Simon, Jesse Eisenberg, literary adaptation, loss of identity, Mia Wasikowska, Movies, Noah Taylor, office romances, Richard Ayoade, Simon James, Submarine, suicide, surrealism, The Double, UK films, Wallace Shawn, writer-director, Yasmin Paige

For better or worse, we appear to have experienced a bit of a renaissance in doppelgänger/double films over the past decade: The Prestige (2006), Timecrimes (2007), Moon (2009), Black Swan (2010), Another Earth (2011), The Face of Love (2013), +1 (2013), Enemy (2013), and The One I Love (2014) have all dealt with the rather nightmarish experience of coming face to face with yourself and the resultant difficulties that inevitably result from such meetings. While the above films are all (for the most part) as different from each other as possible, they all share the paranoid idea that, somewhere out there, there’s an exact duplicate of you just waiting to step into your shoes and take over your life. To this group, be sure to add writer-director-actor Richard Ayoade’s newest film, The Double (2014), a blackly comic adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s same-named novel that came out a mere two months after another similarly plotted film, Denis Villeneuve’s Enemy (2014)…talk about doubling your pleasure, eh?

What’s fueling this sudden interest in doubles? While plenty of folks have their own ideas, I think it has a lot to do with our society’s uncontrollable need to be “the best possible _____” we can be. In an age where fame is only a YouTube video away and social media contacts are worth more than any over-stuffed Rolodex, many folks must be coming to the conclusion that their “allotted” measure of fame has somehow been held-up, way-laid by some unknown force. If everybody is getting famous and you aren’t, there has to be a good reason: perhaps, just perhaps, you’re not getting what’s coming to you because another version of you is. Maybe you aren’t the next singing sensation because your doppelgänger already got a contract. Perhaps there’s another version of you that’s more successful with the opposite sex, wealthier, more powerful, etc…The whole concept of doppelgängers provides a handy “out” for those folks who just can’t seem to secure a foothold on the ladder of success: it’s not my fault…the “other” me got there first!

Jesse Eisenberg stars as Simon James, the neebishy, milquetoast and nearly non-existent office worker who toils his days away in an oddly anonymous company run by the eccentric fellow know only as The Colonel (James Fox). Living a life of quiet, tedious desperation, Simon has worked at the company for seven years, yet still has trouble being recognized by the overly officious front-desk guard (Kobna Holdbrook-Smith) or even his own supervisor, Mr. Papadopoulos (Wallace Shawn). Simon also pines, in silence, for his lovely, yet equally odd, co-worker, Hannah (Mia Wasikowska), although she doesn’t seem to exist, either. This doesn’t stop Simon from peering at her apartment through his telescope, however, but it does (probably) preclude him from ever asking her out. Not to put to fine a point on it but Simon’s life is pretty damn shitty.

Things take a turn for the bizarre one night, however, when Simon chances to see someone jumping from an apartment across the way: the figure seems to smile and wave at Simon before leaping, which the poor guy finds suitably distressing. Imagine his further distress, then, when he seems to spy an exact double of himself through another apartment window. Faster than you can say “double your pleasure,” Simon’s company has just hired a dynamic new employee, someone who looks awful familiar: James Simon. As is par for the course with most doppelgänger films, James is pretty much the exact opposite of Simon: he’s outgoing, boisterous, popular, suave, aggressive and sly, all things that poor Simon has no experience with whatsoever. At first, James offers to help Simon woo Hannah, in exchange for posing as him and taking some aptitude tests. In short order, however, James has insinuated himself into every aspect of Simon’s life, stealing the credit for his work, blaming his foibles (such as seducing Mr. Popadopoulos’ daughter) on Simon and getting extremely friendly with Hannah.

As James appears to take over more and more of Simon’s life, the other man finds himself losing what little identity he appeared to have. A co-worker calls Simon a “non-entity” and the loss of his pass-card puts him in a completely untenable situation: he doesn’t exist, since he’s not in the system, but can’t get into the system unless he has a card, which he can’t get unless he’s in the system…a classic Catch-22 if ever there was one. Just when Simon’s situation seems as hopeless as it could possibly get, he hatches a desperate plan to get James out of his life forever. Will Simon be able to reclaim his identity? Is James as real as Simon? Can two objects occupy the same space, at the same time? If not, who will be left standing when the dust clears: meek Simon or assertive James? But most importantly: just what the hell is actually going on here in the first place?

Ayoade’s adaptation of The Double has quite a bit going for, not least of which is the film’s intriguing look, a visual style which splits the difference between the lo-tech dystopia of films like 1984 (1984), Brazil (1985) and Barton Fink (1991) and something like the noirish Gothica of Proyas’ Dark City (1998). None of the machines in the film, office or otherwise, look quite “right” and it’s impossible to assign any sort of time-period to the film: it might take place in 1950, 2050 or 12050, for all we know. Despite looking great, David Crank’s production design does have one unforeseen side-effect: rather than feeling like Dostoevsky, The Double often feels more in line with one of Kafka’s paranoid nightmares. While other critics have pointed this out as one of the film’s most damning flaws, I must politely disagree: as far as your humble host is concerned, the film’s production aspects are the most impressive thing about it…dig below the surface, however, and things get a bit dicier.

For one thing, the acting in the film tends to be rather hit-or-miss. Eisenberg is quite believable as the neebishy Simon but somewhat less so as the charismatic James. While playing opposite yourself is never the easiest acting gig, I’m instantly reminded of Mark Duplass’ much more interesting, dichotomous performance in the far-superior The One I Love: in that film, Duplass was able to portray both halves of himself as completely different, if inherently connected, individuals…they walked differently, talked differently…even smiled differently. Here, the differences between Simon and James are not only less consistent (James is never quite as assholey as he should be) but far less interesting. While I’ve never been the world’s biggest Eisenberg fan, I fully realize that he’s capable of much more than he does here.

The actor who really gets the short-end of the stick, however, is Wasikowska. So fascinating and vibrant in films like Albert Nobbs (2011), Stoker (2013) and Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), Wasikowska is completely wasted here: made into more of a non-entity than even Simon, Hannah flits like a ghost from scene to scene, affecting nothing and matters not one iota, in the grand scheme of things. Her only expression seems to be a mild hint of confusion (or is it just gas?) and we get so little character development as to make her seem more symbolic than anything else. While several aspects of the film disappointed me, few were as vexing as the complete marginalization of Wasikowska.

The single biggest issue with the film, however, is just how hollow and meaningless the whole thing, ultimately, ends up feeling. While never intended as a particularly “warm” bit of entertainment, I was still expecting to feel something by the end of the final reel. As it stands, however, the only emotions I really walked out with were my previously mentioned disappointment, along with an overriding sense of frustration over the needlessly complex conclusion. Truth be told, the ending of the film makes absolutely no sense, even from a purely symbolic standpoint: perhaps I would need to go back and reread the original novel but The Double’s head-scratching finale felt more like philosophy freshmen riffing than any sort of “real” conclusion.

For all of this, however, I still find myself in the odd position of not really disliking the film…at least, not much. Despite the film’s many flaws, Richard Ayoade is an extremely talented filmmaker – his debut, Submarine (2010), is a rather excellent coming-of-age flick and the craftwork behind The Double is quite nice. I’ve always been a sucker for this kind of dystopic worldview and dystopia is one thing that The Double has in bushels. There are plenty of creepy moments to be found here (Simon’s first glimpse of “himself” is a real goosebump-raiser), along with some thought-provoking ideas about what it means to “be yourself,” as well as the frightening notion that, somewhere out there, there’s a more accomplished version of yourself then you’ll ever be. For a society obsessed with being the very best, this may be the hardest pill of all to swallow: no matter how much you want it, some thing’s are just out of your control.

10/10/14 (Part One): What a Drag It Is Not Getting Older

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31 Days of Halloween, Adam and Eve, Anton Yelchin, art films, auteur theory, Bill Laswell, Christopher Marlowe, cinema, Dead Man, Detroit, drama, ennui, eternal life, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, Ghost Dog, hipsters, horror movies, husband-wife team, independent film, Jeffrey Wright, Jim Jarmusch, John Hurt, Mia Wasikowska, Movies, Only Lovers Left Alive, romance, romantic films, Tangiers, Tilda Swinton, Tom Hiddleston, Vampire Code of Conduct, vampires, vampires vs humans, writer-director, youth vs old age

In certain ways, the classical notion of vampires is equitable with the current phenomena known as “hipsters”: vampires are intelligent, urbane individuals who look down on the dregs of “normal” society, take pleasure in obscure, archaic entertainments, consider themselves to be more sophisticated than those around them and lament the tawdriness of the modern age in contrast to purer, more interesting “times gone by.” Minus the blood-sucking bit and aversion to sunlight (well, perhaps not completely forgetting the aversion to sunlight bit…), that description sounds an awful lot like the current conception of hipsters. At the very least, both groups appear to share a common attribute: a completely world-weary and jaded viewpoint that makes snark and sarcasm more natural go-to responses than honest simplicity. For bored, ageless vampires, the business of “living” appears to be as much of a burden as “regular folks” are to the modern hipster. The whole thing is just so…gauche.

Auteur Jim Jarmusch’s newest film, Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), takes the above parallel between vampires and hipsters to its logical extreme, positing Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton as the bored, ageless vampires Adam and Eve, doomed to cast a disparaging eye on the wreck that is humanity for more centuries than they care to recall. Or, at least, that’s definitely Adam’s take on the whole mess of existence. In fact, he’s so agitated with the inanity of the “zombies” (the vamps favorite descriptor for humanity) that he’s commissioned a wooden bullet and plans to commit the ultimate act of bored defiance: if this world won’t cease its tedium, he’ll just have to cease his existing.

Eve, on the other hand, views things just a little differently. In fact, it’s probably easiest to view Eve as a Gothic variation on the whole “manic pixie girl” ideal: unlike Adam, she hasn’t lost her sense of joy at being alive. As she sees it, living for hundreds of years can get tedious and humdrum, of course, but it also allows for more experiences and wonder than any “regular” person could ever have. After all, she’s best friends with the one and only Christopher Marlowe (John Hurt)…how many “regular” people can say that?

This contrast between Adam and Eve forms the foundation of Jarmusch’s film, his rather belated follow-up to The Limits of Control (2009). As befits someone who tackles genre films in the most unconventional ways possible (Dead Man (1995) is a trippy art-film masquerading as a Western, while Ghost Dog (1999) is a treatise on Eastern philosophy filtered through a gonzo Mafia framework), Only Lovers Left Alive is a highly unconventional film. For one thing, there isn’t a whole lot of narrative thrust to be found here: much of the film’s running time is taken up with the relationship between Adam and Eve and what happens when she leaves her home in Tangiers to come see him in Detroit (despite being married for, apparently, hundreds of years, the couple live across the world from each other, which has to one of the handiest metaphors for long-distance relationships in some time). Plot points do raise their heads from time to time, of course: the couple is visited by Eve’s young, out-of-control sister, Ava (Mia Wasikowska), and must figure out how to replenish their exhausted blood supply. On the whole, however, Jarmusch is largely uninterested in the vagaries of a traditional plot: this is all about atmosphere and vibe, two fronts which Only Lovers Left Alive really takes to the bank.

More than anything, Jarmusch’s newest film is an art film: the emphasis is most definitely on mood, with evocative shots, exquisite slo-mo and deliberate framing taking precedence over any traditional narrative devices. To that end, events sometimes come and go with a sense of arbitrary randomness: Adam’s best friend, the human Ian (Anton Yelchin), is dispatched early on but it so much as cause a ripple in the narrative. Ava seems poised to serve as some sort of villainous character (she’s so selfish, obnoxious and derisive towards humans that she feels cut from a much more traditional “vamps vs humans” film) until she’s pretty much written out of the story without so much as a second thought. Adam appears to be a rock star, of some sort, and much is made in the film about him constantly hearing his music in surprising places (a restaurant, for example) but this ends up having no bearing on the story whatsoever. Like much in the story, these various plot ends aren’t meant to be tied up neatly: they’re used for seasoning, like salt on a steak.

Lacking any sort of driving narrative, the responsibility for the success (or failure) of the film rests solely on its considerable craft: as with anything else in his catalogue, Jarmusch is more than capable of not only making this work but making it work spectacularly well. For one thing, Only Lovers Left Alive looks fantastic: the well-lit daytime scenes may seem a little blown-out but the night-time scenes are exquisite and highly evocative. The score, all hyperbole aside, is a true thing of beauty: not only does it manage to elevate the film, as a whole, but Jarmusch’s musical choices are just a ton of fun, all on their own. The scene where Adam plays his music is pitch-perfect (apparently, vampire music sounds like droning, Eastern-tinged shoegaze, which makes complete sense), as is the truly nice moment where Adam and Eve dance to a Motown tune. The Bill Laswell instrumental that closes the credits totally rips and this was the first art film I’ve seen in sometime that practically demands I check out the soundtrack.

As with all of his films, Jarmusch assembles a first-class ensemble and puts them through some pretty excellent paces. Hiddleston and Swinton are absolutely magnificent as the ageless lovers: not only is their relationship genuinely romantic but the pair make a truly unearthly couple…they not only look but act and sound like age-old creatures living in an era not of their construction. Wasikowska turns in another great performance as the childish, casually evil Ava and is quickly proving to be one of this generation’s most capable genre actors. It’s always good to see John Hurt in a film and he tears into the character of Christopher Marlowe with gusto, although I wish he got a little more screen-time. Likewise, Yelchin and Wright turn in great supporting performances as Ian and Dr. Watson, respectively: Hiddleston’s scenes with Wright are definitely a highlight of the film.

As a huge fan of Jarmusch’s work (Dead Man is one of my all-time favorite films), I went into this expecting nothing short of greatness and, for the most part, my expectations were met. Only Lover’s Left Alive is definitely an extraordinary film, from the peerless performances to the gorgeous cinematography and back to the picaresque locations (the dilapidated, ramshackle setting of the once-might Detroit makes a pretty awesome, if obvious, metaphor for a vampire film, since the city seems as undead as the vampires). That being said, I still found myself slightly letdown by the film: there’s nothing inherently wrong with the picture – truth be told, there’s a lot about it that’s very, very right – but it still manages to feel somehow slight, at least when stacked up against his previous work. Whether this due to my perception or Jarmusch’s intention, there definitely seems to be a disconnect (at least for me), a disconnect that I rarely noticed in his earlier films.

Ultimately, however, my slight dissatisfaction ends up being a pretty moot point: Only Lovers Left Alive is a pretty great film and certainly one of the more interesting vampire films to emerge in some time. The main idea, that ageless individuals with access to all of the music, art, history and time in the world, can still manage to be bored and listless is an extremely relevant one in this day and age of the Internet: after all, humanity now has access to just about everything that Jarmusch’s vampires do and we’re not content, either. It’s an interesting notion, is this idea that having it all really means we get nothing. It’s certainly not the kind of idea that’s par for the course in most vampire films. When you’re dealing with Jarmusch, however, “usual” and “par for the course” are pretty meaningless terms: he’s been doing it his own way for over 30 years, now, and I’m imagining he won’t be stopping anytime soon.

10/8/14 (Part Two): The Ties That Blind

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31 Days of Halloween, auteur theory, Chan-Wook Park, Chung-hoon Chung, cinema, Clint Mansell, coming of age, Dermot Mulroney, dysfunctional family, English-language debut, family secrets, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, Flannery O'Connor, flashbacks, Harmony Korine, insane asylums, insanity, Jacki Weaver, Lady Vengeance, Matthew Goode, Mia Wasikowska, mother-daughter relationships, Movies, murder, Nicole Kidman, Old Boy, Phyllis Somerville, psychopaths, psychosexual, Stoker, Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, Uncle Charlie, uncompromising voice, voice-over narration, Wentworth Miller

Pitched somewhere between Flannery O’Connor’s Southern Gothics and Pedro Almodovar’s psychosexual jaw-droppers, Korean auteur Chan-Wook Park’s English-language debut, Stoker (2013), is quite a piece of work. Long known for films that are as impressive to look at as they are often difficult to watch, Park’s newest film pulls few punches and holds even fewer hands, coming off as more fairy-tale influenced than any of his previous films, achieving an intoxicating, if confounding, atmosphere that’s fairly close to a fever dream. For anyone who expected the transition to Western films to “tame” park, Stoker stands in towering confirmation to the idea that Park, like all true film auteurs, will always follow his muse first and popular conventions second. While the film won’t supplant Park’s classic “Vengeance” trilogy anytime soon, Stoker is a meticulously crafted, often beautiful, treatise on the destructive nature of obsession and the familial secrets that haunt us all. While the movie seems slightly more subdued than films like Oldboy (2003) or Lady Vengeance (2005), it still packs a pretty vicious bite, albeit one informed by a particularly chilly sensibility.

Stoker centers around the surviving members of the titular family, namely the neurotic Evelyn Stoker (Nicole Kidman) and her odd, 18-year-old daughter, India (Mia Wasikowska). India’s father, Richard (Dermot Mulroney) has just been killed in a car accident, an event which has, effectively, shattered what remains of Evelyn and India’s lives. At the funeral, the Stokers are introduced to Richard’s long-lost brother, Charlie (Matthew Goode), a handsome, intense young man who claims to have been traveling the world for many years. He wants to stay and help Evelyn and India make it through their current tragedy, although his motives seem to lean more towards romancing India’s mother than to helping to soothe their mental wounds.

As Charlie hangs around, India begins to pick up little hints of things that may be…well, just a little askew, as it were: a strange argument with the housekeeper, Mrs. McGarrick (Phyllis Somerville), that seems to come out of nowhere; Charlie’s strange, knowing glances at India; Aunt Gwen’s (Jacki Weaver) seeming distrust and unease around Charlie; a piano lesson that hovers at the acceptable boundaries between instruction and seduction…indeed, trouble seems to follow Charlie around like a second skin, facts which are certainly not lost on young India.

To complicate things, however, India appears to be just as mysterious and complicated a figure as her uncle. She’s a dour, serious young woman who’s constantly bullied and harassed at school (one obnoxious student draws naked pictures of India and shoves them in her face, while constantly “punching at” her face, always stopping just shy of actually making physical contact) and doesn’t seem to have any friends whatsoever. There’s one telling scene where India spends her art class drawing the detailed pattern on the inside of the vase, rather than the vase, itself, as her other classmates do: as with everything else, India just doesn’t see things in the same way as the rest of the world.

As Charlie continues to stay with the Stokers, however, the psychosexual storm gets whipped into a veritable frenzy: India’s sexual awakening seems to coincide with Charlie’s increased interest in both Evelyn and India, although her coming-of-age has started to take on certain violent aspects, not the least of which is the explosive moment where she finally strikes back at her bully. As events progress, India gets ever closer to deciphering the mystery of the key that hangs around her neck, a key that will help explain not only Uncle Charlie’s strange behavior but will also set India upon a path of self-discovery, a path that will ultimately lead to both salvation…and destruction.

As with all of Park’s films, Stoker is so carefully crafted as to seem almost like a clockwork marvel. The film is a constantly moving, evolving puzzlebox, a tricky construction that purposefully obscures key information, leaving the audience in the dark for a majority of the proceedings in a similar manner to Oldboy. This sense of complexity extends to every aspect of the film, from its narrative structure to its visual language, although the cinematography ends up being the most identifiable aspect of this structure. Quite simply, Stoker’s cinematography and shot construction, courtesy of long-time Park collaborator Chung-hoon Chung, is a complete marvel. It goes without saying that Stoker is frequently beautiful and always interesting to look at: more impressive are the myriad ways in which Park and Chung use the visual language of film to get across their subtextual themes and ideas. The scene where India is completely encircled by identical shoeboxes…the bit where a spider crawls up her leg and between her thighs…the gorgeous, surprising shot where brushed hair suddenly becomes a flowing field of waist-high grass…unrelated imagery juxtaposed in ways that seem to indicate that everything, no matter how irrelevant is interconnected…Stoker is all but bursting with subtle nuance and just-out-of-eyesight symbolism.

Into this beautifully realized visual tapestry, then, Park pours a trilogy of performances that manage to accentuate and support each other in some nicely organic ways. Mia Wasikowska, currently making quite a name for herself in just about every type of role imaginable, is pitch-perfect as the morose, guarded India. In the hands of any other actress, India might have come across as more enigmatic than necessary, a “real-life” Wednesday Addams who exists purely to pour Pernod on everyone’s ice cream. Wasikowska is amazingly subtle, versatile performer, however, and India becomes a full-realized character in her capable hands. I won’t lie and say that I found India to be likable, at any point in time, but it wasn’t hard to see things from her point of view, as twisted as it may be: her continuous voice-overs were also well-handled, allowing us insight into her cluttered little brain.

For her part, Kidman turns in another dependably solid genre performance: there’s always a thinly concealed streak of insanity running through her controlled performance but Kidman’s Evelyn never comes across as a certifiable nut. If anything, she’s a wounded, needful mother who foolishly pines for the one thing that mothers take for granted: the love of their own children. Evelyn is never a completely pathetic character, however, mostly thanks to the cold steel that Kidman brings to the performance, as if one could see the metal framework just below the skin.

Special mention must also be made of Matthew Goode’s performance as the sinister Uncle Charlie. Although I must admit to being far less familiar with his career than either Kidman or Wasikowska’s, I was completely taken with Goode’s performance. Like Wasikowska’s take on India, Goode brings an overriding sense of barely contained neuroses to his depiction of Charlie: he’s able to convey a world of information with just the barely perceptible uptick of an eyebrow or a smile that’s just slightly too curdled to instill much warmth. Goode’s performance is the epitome of restrained tension: you know that he’s going to uncoil and explode, at some point, but you’re damned if his eyes give any indication as to when that might be. By the film’s conclusion, Goode and Wasikowska make an almost unbeatable pair, playing off of each other’s mannerisms and tics in some truly impressive, startling ways. Park is definitely an “actor’s director” and his newest film comes top-loaded with some typically impressive treading of the boards.

As with almost all of Park’s films, Stoker is incredibly easy to respect, although it’s just a little more difficult to really love. While the film is constantly twisted and the narrative always unpredictable, this complexity sometimes translates into moments that are pure-headscratchers: by the conclusion, I found myself second-guessing a few “facts” that previously seemed pretty solid, mostly because I felt a little lost in the back-and-forth of the flashback-heavy narrative. The film is also just about as bleak and chilly as a film can possibly get: this sense of frigid sterility may be a little off-putting for many Western audiences, although there’s nothing in here that will challenge Western taboos in quite the same way as the plot twist from Oldboy does.

Ultimately, Park’s Stoker is an impressive English-language debut and a mighty fine film on its own rights, even if it’s not quite as incendiary or feral as the Korean films that preceded it. On a craft-level, the film has few equals: quite frankly, it’s one of the most astoundingly beautiful films I’ve ever laid eyes on. If the narrative/thematic elements of the film don’t get me quite as jazzed as the visual/aural elements…well, that’s alright, too. I respect and trust Park enough to stay with him on his cinematic journey into the darkness of the human soul: in a world where more and more things seem to get “dumbed down” for the masses, it’s always refreshing to find an uncompromising voice who trusts that we’ll “get it,” even if we’re not quite sure what “it” is.

7/4/14: Moonshine Over My Hammy

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bad cops, based on a book, based on a true story, Benoit Delhomme, bootleggers, brothers, Chris McGarry, cinema, corrupt law enforcement, Dane DeHaan, film reviews, films, Gary Oldman, Guy Pearce, Jason Clarke, Jessica Chastain, John Hillcoat, Lawless, Mia Wasikowska, moonshine, Movies, Nick Cave, period-piece, romance, set in the 1930s, Shia LeBeouf, the Great Depression, The Proposition, The Road, Tom Hardy, voice-over narration

There are some writer/director relationships that end up bearing more interesting fruit than others and the pairing of Australian director John Hillcoat and post-punk savant Nick Cave is certainly one of those. Beginning with the brutal Ghosts…of the Civil Dead (1988) and continuing on into the equally raw The Proposition (2005), Hillcoat and Cave have proved a formidable team: Hillcoat is a masterful director who’s able to wring genuine pathos out of Cave’s often unpleasant, animalistic but eternally vital characters. Stylistically, Cave’s voice approximates Cormac McCarthy’s tales of moral decay, explosive violence and doomed fatalism, which are only complimented by Hillcoat’s panoramic, sweeping visuals. When it was revealed that Hillcoat and Cave’s next pairing would be an adaptation of Matt Bondurant’s novel about his bootlegging family, The Wettest County in the World, I was interested to see how the two native Australians would be able to bring their particular vision to bear on Prohibition-era rural Virginia. Turns out, there’s still plenty of brutality to go around, although Lawless (2012) ends up feeling like a much different beast than either Ghosts…of the Civil Dead or The Proposition.

Lawless involves the various machinations of the Bondurant family: brothers Jack (Shia LaBeouf), Forrest (Tom Hardy) and Howard (Jason Clarke). The brothers run one of the biggest, most impressive bootlegging operations in rural Virginia and are something of local gods, particularly when one factors in the local legend about the Bondurant’s invincibility (an interesting hint of magical realism that also informed bits of The Proposition). Brutish, laconic Forrest is the defacto leader, although youngest brother, Jack, is our entry point into the story. He’s the “new generation,” as it were, and constantly strains at the restraints that he feels are placed by his more cautious older brothers. Jack also idolizes urban gangster Floyd Banner (Gary Oldman), a flashy, tommy-gun-wielding hothead who bears more than a passing resemblance to the legendary “Pretty Boy” Floyd. Forrest, for his part, just wants life to keep going as it has been: the family has managed to carve out their own piece of happiness and success amid the turmoil of the Great Depression and Forrest will do anything to protect their way of life.

Trouble, as it often does, ends up riding into town in the person of sleazy G-man Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce). Rakes, all ash-white complexion, plucked eyebrows and fastidious dislike of dirt and germs, is a mealy-mouthed monster and just about as far from “law and order” as a lawman can get. Together with corrupt Virgina Commonwealth Attorney, Mason Wardell (Tim Tolin), Rakes is more interested in shaking the Bondurants down and taking a cut of their profits than he is in eliminating the run of moonshine from Franklin County out to the rest of the bone-dry state. Hard-headed Forrest won’t budge, however, initiating a war between the bootleggers of Franklin County and Rakes. As the casualties build up on both sides, the polar ends of the Bondurant clan must deal with their own issues: Forrest begins a halting, tentative relationship with Maggie (Jessica Chastain), a waitress at the Bondurants’ “bar,” while Jack tries to court Bertha Minnix (Mia Wasikowska), the virginal daughter of a local fundamentalist preacher. When Forrest is ambushed and injured during a liquor delivery that Jack was supposed to back him up on, Jack decides to strike a deal with Floyd Banner, which irks Forrest and creates a division in the family. As the corrupt feds close in and their fellow bootleggers either fall in line or are outright killed, the Bondurants must make a desperate last stand to preserve their way of life. Will Forrest be able to pulverize the problem into submission or has his luck (and invincibility) finally run out?

While Lawless has moments of abject brutality that nearly rival anything in Hillcoat and Cave’s previous films (the scene where Forrest beats ten shades of red out of a pair of barroom louts with some brass knuckles manages to be both immensely horrifying and primally satisfying, while the scene where Rakes’ men tar and feather a bootlegger is just horrifying), this is a much “softer” film than either Ghosts…or The Proposition. For one thing, Hillcoat and Cave break up the brutality with the twin romance angles, which bring some delicate balance to the proceedings: while the relationship between Jack and Bertha often feels a bit silly and clichéd, there’s some genuine pathos to the tender, wounded courtship between the formerly big-city Maggie and the resolutely grim Forrest. While neither romance ever really takes center stage, they both serve as decent enough ways to break up the near constant stream of beatings (poor Jack gets wailed on at least three separate times, including once by his own brother), shootings and stabbings, along with the odd rape and tar-and-feathering here and there.

While Lawless looks absolutely gorgeous (veteran French cinematographer Benoit Delhomme provides us with some truly striking, beautiful images, as well as a really evocative way with hard shadows and dark areas), the whole film is let-down by the often out-of-place acting. Hardy, in particular, is frequently kind of awful but there isn’t a single performance in the film that feels genuine or rings true. Perhaps the award here must go Guy Pearce, however, who plays Rakes right to the cheap seats and comes up with something akin to a mustache-twirling Bond villain. LaBeouf (who can be decent-enough, given the right role) feels severely light-weight as Jack and Jason Clarke gets so little to do as “other brother” Howard that I kept wondering if most of his character arc got left on the cutting-room floor. Only Chastain (who’s always been hit-or-miss for me) acquits herself admirably as Maggie: there’s genuine pain in her performance but there’s also some steel there, too, a fighting impulse that somehow seems both more real and more feral than the one ascribed to Hardy’s character.

With more fine-tuned, realistic performances, Lawless would be a much better film, although it’s still decidedly lightweight when compared to Hillcoat and Cave’s other collaborations. There were several points during the film, not least of which during a thoroughly unnecessary closing tag, where it felt like Hillcoat lets the material get away from him and the tone had a tendency to flop violently between breezy, musical montage action scenes and moments such as the one where a character is “reverse-gutted” from tailbone to neckbone. This back-and-forth was also evident, to a much smaller degree, in The Proposition but Lawless’ tone feels less structured and more haphazard. When the film works, it works spectacularly well: the combination of the Depression-era setting, extreme violence and a rousing bluegrass-ish score never cease to get the blood-pumping. When one steps back to examine the film as a whole, however, it seems to come up a bit short. It’s a pity, really: there seems to be a really intense, gritty story locked inside but the constant overacting took me out so often that I ended up viewing events in a much more clinical manner than I would have liked. The greatest criticism that I can level against Lawless is that, for the first time, Hillcoat and Cave appear to have created something that feels disposable rather than essential. Here’s to hoping that their next partnership bears better fruit than this one.