11/6/14: One Is the Loneliest Number

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Andrew Scott, Ben Daniels, Bill Milner, British films, cheating husbands, cinema, Dickon Hinchliffe, dramas, Eastern Promises, film reviews, films, foreign films, Haris Zambarloukos, illegitimate child, infidelity, isolation, Ivan Locke, Locke, midlife crisis, Movies, Olivia Colman, one interior, one-location, Redemption, Ruth Wilson, set in a car, Steven Knight, Tom Hardy, Tom Holland, UK films, writer-director

From time to time, I find myself presented with films that are a lot easier to respect and appreciate than to actually like: normally, this comes from intensely unpleasant, disturbing horror fare but I sometimes get this same experience from more traditional films, such as writer-director Steven Knight’s Locke (2013). While the film is exceptionally well-crafted and makes great use of its “one actor, one location” conceit, I found it impossible to connect with the main character on any meaningful level, rendering the film more of a style exercise than the dramatic character portrait that it obviously aims to be. Nonetheless, Locke ends up being a dazzling, if subtle, bit of craftmanship and gives Tom Hardy one more mildly intriguing character portrayal to add to his resume.

Hardy is Ivan Locke, the titular “hero” of Knight’s film, although “hero” is a bit of a stretch. More than anything, Locke is a man with his back to the wall, almost entirely thanks to his own doing. When we first him, Locke is leaving a construction site in the wee, dark hours of the morning, heading off for points unknown: the entire rest of the film will consist of nothing but the character driving, all interactions with other characters coming via his frequent phone conversations. Right off the bat, we’re thrown into the deep end, coming into the story in media res as Locke tries to deal with various problems, the chief one being thus: in the morning, he’s supposed to be overseeing the single largest concrete pour in European history (outside of military and nuclear installations) but he’s currently driving in the opposite direction, racing across town to a hospital. At the hospital, Locke’s middle-aged secretary, Bethan (Olivia Colman), is preparing to give birth to a child that’s the product of her and Ivan’s one-night stand. Determined to do “the right thing,” regardless of the consequences, Locke has promised to be there for the birth of the child, even though any problems with the construction job will cost his company upwards of $100 million, effectively wiping them from the face of the earth.

And then, of course, there’s the little issue of his family: neither his loving wife, Katrina (Ruth Wilson), nor his young sons Eddie (Tom Holland) and Sean (Bill Milner), have any idea that Ivan is about to blow their happy world apart. When Ivan calls his wife to explain why he won’t be home, the situation goes from zero to one hundred in seconds, with a devastated Katrina giving Ivan the ultimate ultimatum: get home now or don’t come home at all. Ivan is a “principled” man, however, and he’s determined to see his decision through to its necessary conclusion, even as his boss, Gareth (Ben Daniels) screams at him, his kids innocently relay details of a football game that Ivan should have been home watching and Bethan, whom Ivan slept with out of “sympathy,” proclaims her love for a man that she knows doesn’t care about her. As his personal life collapses around his ears, Ivan must also deal with his co-worker, Donal (Andrew Scott), as he tries to troubleshoot him through one work problem after another. Through it all, however, Locke seems to have one mantra running through his head: fix the job and he can fix his marriage. Life is never that easy, however, and as the night rolls on, Locke may just be running out of time…and luck.

Let’s get one thing squared away up front: Locke is a meticulously crafted film that provides a more than suitable showcase for the kind of understated performance that Hardy is capable of when not surrounded by CGI explosions. Cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos makes great use of the film’s one location, giving us plenty of beautifully-lit shots of the twinkling night outside Locke’s car, as well as the dark, dashboard-lit interior. The musical score, by Dickon Hinchliffe, is suitably droney and atmospheric, helping to add tension to scenes that are, literally, just Tom Hardy talking into a car phone. In all respects, Locke’s central conceit could have been its downfall but it ends up working spectacularly, similar to the coffin-locale of the Ryan Reynolds-starrer Buried (2010). Far from being a dull, monotonous affair, Locke is consistently engaging, albeit relentlessly straight-forward.

The biggest issue, at least as far as I’m concerned, is that Ivan Locke is never a sympathetic character: he’s a human wrecking ball whose strict adherence to an ill-defined code of “ethics” propels the film’s narrative in the same way that the T-rex got rid of those pesky raptors in Jurassic Park (1993). Ivan’s motivations are never clear: he obviously has no interest in Bethan and still feels a connection to his family, yet he consistently makes decisions that put him on opposite ends of the spectrum. While the film’s conclusion hints at a resolution, of sorts, the whole thing feels so unemotional and cold as to be largely academic: it’s as if Locke reasoned out the pros and cons of everything, tallied the results and came up with as scientific a response as possible.

This cold detachment sits at distinct odds with the film’s few moments of genuine passion: Locke’s angry explosion when he realizes that Donal is getting drunker by the phone call…the bit where tears roll down his cheeks as his son describes a football goal that couldn’t be less important in the grand scheme of things…these are the little moments, the sparks that threaten to bring Locke to glorious, blazing life, only for Hardy’s composed frown and slightly distracted demeanor to douse the flames. It’s often been said that Stanley Kubrick’s best films were cold and mannered to a fault: while I’ve never agreed with that particular criticism, it’s one that I can level at Locke without a moment’s hesitation…the film is cool, mannered and detached to a fault, bleeding away most of the impact in the process.

Knight, who also wrote and directed the dour Jason Statham-vehicle Redemption (2013), as well as the screenplay for David Cronenberg’s amazing Eastern Promises (2007), is an obviously gifted filmmaker who displays the same eye for the dark, neon-lit gutters of humanity that Nicholas Winding Refn does, albeit without Refn’s trademark deft touch. Despite feeling disengaged from the main character and emotional beats, Locke was always a pleasure to watch, a similar feeling that I had when I first saw Redemption. I’ll always be the biggest supporter of tricky, against-the-grain filmmakers you’ll run into, so there’s no way I won’t give Locke at least a recommendation, no matter how slight. That being said, I can’t shake the feeling that Knight’s sophomore production could have been so much more powerful if I…you know…actually cared about any of the characters. Style over substance? Perhaps but I’m more than willing to accept a ride from Knight the next time he decides to prowl the nocturnal streets.

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11/5/14: The One With the Pulp

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Adam Brody, adult children, adult friendships, Alia Shawkat, Allison Janney, Catherine Keener, cinema, co-writers, dramas, dramedy, estranged family, film reviews, films, friends, Hugh Laurie, Ian Helfer, infidelity, Jay Reiss, Julian Farino, Leighton Meester, male friendships, middle age, midlife crisis, Movies, Oliver Platt, romance, Sam Rosen, set during the holidays, suburban homes, The Oranges, troubled marriages, voice-over narration

While the “May-October” relationship between twenty-something-year old Nina (Leighton Meester) and fifty-something-year old David (Hugh Laurie) may be at the center of director Julian Farino’s The Oranges (2011), the “bromance” between David and next-door-neighbor/Nina’s father, Terry (Oliver Platt) is really the heart of the film. David and Terry, along with their respective families, are the kinds of neighbors that only seem to exist in cinematic versions of the real worlds, life-long friends who are close as kin and connected at the hip. This sense of unity is shattered as David’s family tries to come to terms with his infidelity and Nina’s family tries to come to terms with the fact that their beloved, if wayward, daughter is romantically involved with their middle-aged best friend. Bonds will be tested, relationships will fray and lots of life lessons will be learned: welcome to the “dramedy” as filtered through an after-school special.

Named after West Orange, New Jersey, The Oranges is anchored by the nearly constant voice-over presence of Vanessa (Alia Shawkat), David and Paige’s (Catherine Keener) daughter. Vanessa and Nina used to be as inseparable as their respective parents until Nina left Vanessa behind for the “cool kids” in high school, wedging a divide between the two that continues into the present. Vanessa is a rather aimless individual: she always wanted to be a designer but ends up working at Ikea, which is “close enough.”

Vanessa and her family’s lives are thrown into turmoil when Nina suddenly reappears after five years away from home. She’s just walked in on her fiancée, Ethan (Sam Rosen), with his tongue down someone else’s throat and has come back home to pull herself back together. Once home, Nina’s pushy mother, Cathy (Allison Janney), “encourages” her to go out with David and Paige’s son, Toby (Adam Brody), home for the holidays before heading to China for his job. When Toby has a little too much Christmas cheer, however, Nina ends up hanging out with David in his “man-cave” and watching TV. Turns out that David and Paige are kind of on the rocks right now: he’s been sleeping on the couch and she’s been throwing herself into her choir group with the kind of zeal normally reserved for hoarding animals. Before you can say, “Uh oh,” David and Nina have shared an illicit kiss, which blossoms into a full-blown love affair.

Once the affair hits the bright light of public opinion, however, things start to go rapidly downhill: Terry takes a swing at David, Vanessa calls her former friend a “slut” and blames her for breaking up her parents and Cathy pointedly asks her daughter if she enjoys “sucking on David’s old balls.” David and Nina are determined to make their relationship work, however, regardless of how it affects those around them. Just when Terry seems to be thawing a little, however, Ethan shows up on their doorstep, bound and determined to win Nina back: looks like everybody, especially the “adults,” are going to have a lot of growing up to do.

For the most part, The Oranges is a pretty by-the-book, formulaic “family in crisis” film, albeit one that hedges more on the side of the serious rather than the humorous: this is a “dramedy” where the comedy aspect is more ironic than anything else. With that being said, the film is blessed with a truly great cast doing great work: at times, this is enough to elevate the rather tired material, although there’s always an unfortunate “been there, done that” feel to everything. Keener, as always, is a master of the slow burn and her eventual breakdown is a textbook example of how to lash out while still keeping the audience firmly on one’s side. Shawkat, such a stand-out in Arrested Development, shows a serious side to her performance that’s rather bracing: there’s real pain and anger in her interactions with her father that are almost difficult to watch, at times. Janney gives another sturdy performance, with the highlight being the scene where she, literally, bumps into David and Nina at a no-tell motel. Meester, for her part, plays Nina as a flighty, impetuous and eminently selfish creature, so wrapped up in her own needs and wants that she doesn’t take any time whatsoever to consider those around her. It’s a rather unpleasant character, to be honest, and the filmmakers do nothing particular to sand off her rough edges: by the time Nina has completed her character arc, she’s the furthest thing from a sympathetic character but she certainly feels like a real person.

Without a doubt, however, The Oranges belongs to Hugh Laurie and Oliver Platt: their relationship is the true center of the film and provides the movies with the majority of its big emotional beats. In fact, the scene where the former friends finally stop and say hi to each other, in passing, is so impossibly sad and lovely that it handily eclipses any of the similar scenes between Nina and David or Nina and Ethan: this is a romance, true, but it’s not the one that folks might be expecting. There’s a breezy quality to Laurie and Platt’s interactions that feels 100% genuine, even in the more awkward, uncomfortable moments: this feels like how real people might handle this situation, warts and all.

Ultimately, The Oranges is a well-made, if exceedingly familiar, production: while the film breaks no new ground and feels remarkably free of real tension and conflict, the acting is superb and the movie is quick-paced and a pleasant-enough watch. More than anything, however, watching The Oranges brings up a very important question: why the hell hasn’t Hugh Laurie done more work like this? He brings a real sense of nuance and subtlety to his performance that’s light-years from anything he did on either Jeeves and Wooster or House. We need more Hugh Laurie, no two ways about it: The Oranges might not blow anyone away but it gives us that fix and that’s going to have to be good enough for the time being.

8/10/14: The Hair Protects the Brain

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academic quiz show, Alex Wolff, Austin Pendleton, Billy Kent, Brendan Fraser, child genius, college student, Collegiate Mastermind, collegiate rivalries, coming of age, Eli Pettifog, Elisabeth Hower, Fred Melamed, Greta Lee, HairBrained, Harvard, independent films, indie comedies, Julia Garner, Kimiko Glenn, Leo Searly, Michael Oberholtzer, midlife crisis, Napoleon Dynamite, Parker Posey, Robin de Jesus, romance, Rushmore, social outcasts, Teddy Bergman, The Trotsky, voice-over narration, Whittman College

Sporting a King Buzzo hairdo and dragging an outrageously overstuffed dufflebag of books behind him, Eli Pettifog (Alex Wolff) is quite the memorable figure. He’s also a socially inept, fourteen-year-old certifiable genius who’s just begun his freshman year at Whittman College, the 37th best school on his list, far below his beloved first choice, Harvard. Eli, obviously, is not going to have an easy go of it. On the other hand, Eli is droll, fearless and has a way with a witty comeback that would make Juno proud. In other words, at least as far as indie comedies go, Eli is gonna be just fine.

As the centerpiece of Billy Kent’s HairBrained (2013), Eli joins a proud tradition of cinematic misfits made good, taking his place with the likes of Max Fischer, Napoleon Dynamite and Leon Bronstein. Like his predecessors, Eli faces a pretty predictable arc: begin as the maligned outsider and win the world over with his quirky charm. While HairBrained is nowhere near the ivied walls of Wes Anderson’s Rushmore (1998), nor even the high school halls of Jacob Tierney’s The Trotsky (2009), the film has enough charm to make it a breezy watch and a worthwhile addition to the canon.

We’re first introduced to Eli as his waste-case of a mother (Parker Posey, in a great cameo) drops him off at the bus station on his first day of college. She’s “too tired” to drive him to school: she’s a “terrible mother,” his voice-over informs us. “Make some friends,” she tells him, with a tone that indicates she knows how this particular request will go. And, with the gentle, psuedo-tropical rhythms of Cayucas’ “Cayucos” playing on the soundtrack, we’re off. It’s an effective opening and a good portent of what’s to come: plenty of gently snark, some genuine emotion and lots of quirk.

Every good movie misfit needs a sidekick and Eli gets his in the form of Leo Searly (Brendan Fraser), the unnaturally happy, easy-going, oldest freshman student at Whittman. As we discover via a clever “slot-machine”-style interlude, Leo has recently had a bit of a mid-life crisis, abandoning his job and family to “rediscover” himself which, as we’ll come to see, mostly consists of flipping a coin to decide between adding badminton or squash to his schedule and attending raging keggers where he gleefully picks up on co-eds young enough to be his daughter. Leo takes to Eli at first sight and makes it his goal to help steer his young protegé through the rocky waters of academia which, again, mostly consists of attending parties and learning to “loosen up.”

For his part, however, Eli can never truly be happy since he’ll always have to settle for second-best: namely, any place that isn’t Harvard. He’s wanted to attend the Ivy League school since he was a small boy and still plasters every inch of his Whittman dorm with his accumulated Harvard memorabilia: being rejected by the school is a blow that Eli still struggles to overcome, even as his outward appearance suggests nothing so much as bored acceptance.

After seeing a flyer for Collegiate Mastermind, an academic quiz show, Eli attends a competition only to watch in delight as his beloved Harvard wipes the floor with the pathetic Whittman team (Eli stands and cheers every time Harvard scores, earning him multiple “atta boys” from the smug Harvard crew, along with dismayed looks from his own peers). After the meet, Eli tries to wheedle himself in with the Harvard boys, only for the nerds to turn around and bully him after finding out that he goes to Whittman. In one moment, Eli’s entire world is turned upside-down: where once burned the flame of adulation, now only burns hatred. Rushing back to his room and destroying all of his Harvard gear, Eli vows revenge on his former crush: he will join Whittman’s Collegiate Mastermind team and he will utterly destroy Harvard…or, at least, Harvard’s Collegiate Mastermind team.

Once the boy genius is on-board, Whittman’s Collegiate Mastermind team is virtually unstoppable. In face, Eli pretty much becomes the entire team, completely over-shadowing original members Gertrude (Greta Lee), Alan (Teddy Bergman) and Romeo (Ruben de Jesus). He even gets a girlfriend in the form of the equally quirky Shauna (Julia Garner), who works at the local mall and enjoys smoking pot and making out (clumsily). Eli also ends up with his own fan base (success-starved Whittman students will hold on to any victories they can get, attending CM meets and chanting “We’re not dumb” en masse) and even a groupie, of sorts, in out-of-his-league cheerleader Eve (Elisabeth Hower), whose football player boyfriend, Laird (Michael Oberholtzer), has become some sort of “frenemy” to Eli. As for Leo, a chance reunion with his estranged daughter, who is now a perspective Whittman student, has got him re-evaluating his life choices: it certainly gets him rethinking his choice in bed partners, as his latest girlfriend is too close in age to his daughter for comfort.

As Eli and the Whittman team get ever closer to their elusive Harvard rivals, temptations arise everywhere for our intrepid heroes: Eli’s increasing showboating and obnoxious behavior during meets threatens his participation in the Collegiate Mastermind finals, Leo’s need for tuition money for his daughter leads him to return to his formerly destructive gambling habits. Will Eli be a hero and take Whittman all the way to a championship? Will Leo do right by his family, at long last? And will someone finally shut up those egotistical Harvard nitwits?

Although HairBrained doesn’t do much different from any other indie coming-of-age comedies of late, it’s still a pleasant, fun film, even if it manages to lose quite a bit of steam by the final third. Without a doubt, the film’s biggest asset is its incredibly winning cast: while there are certainly stand-outs, nearly every performer is equally likeable, charismatic and entertaining, whether in major or minor roles. Wolff and Fraser make an excellent odd couple, sort of a Mutt and Jeff where Fraser gets to traffic in his patented “aw shucks” attitude to great effect. Wolff is a pretty extraordinary young actor, definitely someone who we’ll be seeing more of in the future. Michael Oberholtzer almost steals the film away as Laird, however, playing the character as anything but the stereotypical bully: the bit where he inexplicably dresses like the Donnie Darko rabbit is pretty great but even better is his initial meeting with Eli, wherein he holds his head in the toilet after which he toasts his new “enemy” with a swig from his hip-flask. It’s a great, funny character and Oberholtzer is endlessly fun to watch.

Just as impressive, however, are Greta Lee, Julia Garner and Elisabeth Hower as, respectively, Gertrude, Shauna and Eve. As the no-nonsense anchor to Whittman’s CM team, Lee’s Gertrude is the perfect combination of wistful desire and bland practicality, while Garner’s take on the “manic pixie girl” stereotype is infinitely more tolerable than similar recent examples. Hower, for her part, is magnificent as Eve, playing the character as something of a lackadaisical predator, a sleepy-eyed shark who sets her sights on Eli, for whatever reason: the scene where she corners her prey in the library and implores him to “Look past her breasts,” to which Eli gives his best Henny Youngman-esque answer, “Look past them? I can’t even look at them!” is one of the film’s funniest moments.

On the downside, HairBrained ends up running out of steam well before the conclusion and a lot of what seemed charming and funny in the first two-thirds begins to feel strained and humdrum by the finale. My biggest issue came with the two deux ex machinas dropped into the script, either of which would have been bad enough on their own but taken together almost seem insulting: in essence, any time the relatively “stakes-free” film threatens its characters’ complacency, the script throws in a handy way to get them out, free and easy. As mentioned, it’s more than tiresome: it mars what’s otherwise a pretty good, funny script and smacks of lazy writing.

Despite a few issues, however, HairBrained is a pretty charming film: it’s not a classic, by any stretch of the imagination, but I found myself liking it a great deal more than I did Juno (2007). The dialogue is (usually) pretty clever, Wolff and Fraser have great chemistry and are completely believable as the odd couple friends and the supporting cast is exceptionally strong. While the film doesn’t break any new ground, it does just fine with what it has.