3/12/15: Where There’s a Mom, There’s a Way

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abandoned in a foreign place, adult friendships, Andres Munar, Anthony Chisholm, bittersweet, Bradford Young, cinema, co-directors, co-writers, Colombian immigrants, coming of age, courage, dramas, dysfunctional marriage, Eddie Martinez, Entre Nos, feature-film debut, female friendships, film festival favorite, film reviews, films, Gil Talmi, Gloria La Morte, homeless, homeless children, husband-wife relationship, immigration, inspired by true events, Jacqueline Duprey, Laura Montana, motherhood, Movies, multiple directors, multiple writers, Paola Mendoza, Sarita Choudhury, Sebastian Villada, self-sacrifice, set in New York City, single mother, Spanish-language films, strength, writer-director-actor

Think about Mariana (Paola Mendoza) the next time you’re having a bummer day: uprooting herself and her two children from their lives in Colombia, she follows her shifty husband, Antonio (Andres Munar), all the way to Queens, New York, only for him to suddenly head off to sunny Miami, where he’s decided to start a new life…one that doesn’t include his “old” family. Alone in a foreign land, unable to speak the language, jobless and with children in tow, Mariana’s options look as grim and hopeless as they do scarce. Like I said: there are bad days…and then there are BAD days.

The human spirit is a funny thing, though, the kind of inner power that would make a superhero blush. When someone has the will to survive and the relentless drive to keep pushing forward, against all odds…well, pretty much anything is possible. Paola Mendoza and Gloria La Morte’s extraordinary Entre Nos (2009) is testament to this notion of inner strength, a semi-autobiographical story about an unstoppable mother’s ferocious fight to keep her family together, despite every disaster, tragedy, hiccup and speed bump that the universe can possibly throw at her. What could have been maudlin, overly emotional or obvious becomes vibrant, life-affirming and genuinely resonant in the hands of the truly gifted filmmakers and cast.

While Entre Nos (roughly, “between us”) is about the struggles that immigrants face when coming to a new country, it’s also about how easy it is for people to slip from the scant comfort of the “lower” classes into the abject terror of homelessness: as Mendoza and La Morte show, there’s only a few short steps and misfortunes that lead from four walls and a floor to a park bench. There’s a universality to the film that goes far beyond the nationalities of its protagonists: while not all of may have first-hand experiences with the struggles of being an emigrant to a foreign country, it’s fair to say that any and everyone worries, at least in the back of their heads, where their next meal is coming from.

It’s to Mendoza and La Morte’s great credit that they manage to combine these twin struggles, that of the immigrant and the newly homeless, into such a potent, vibrant stew. As mentioned earlier, there’s nothing overly sentimental or aggressively manipulative about the film: we’re simply shown a woman who’s been thrown into a hole and, rather than bemoan that fact, simply puts her head down and starts digging her way out. There’s a refreshing matter-of-factness to the way in which Mariana sizes up any given situation and acts: she’s conflicted, sure, and we get more than a couple heart-breaking breakdown, along the way…that’s just the unfortunate other half of the human condition. When the chips are down, however, Mariana has a resilience and power that’s positively inspiring: if she doesn’t let life beat her down, why should we?

Entre Nos, then, is about the struggles of the immigrant and the ever-present threat of personal and economic collapse: that would be a potent enough one-two punch for just about any film. There’s more under the hood, however, than just the “big” issues: Mendoza and La Morte’s film is also about the relationship between a mother and her children, about trying to balance being a kid with becoming an adult and about the importance of providing for your family, regardless of the costs or sacrifice. It’s about friendships, those halting ones that begin over shared strife and continue based on genuine love.

This is Mariana’s story but it’s not hers, alone, to tell: characters like the kindly recycling maven, Joe (Anthony Chisholm), or Mariana’s landlord/hesitant friend, Preet (an absolutely extraordinary Sarita Choudhury), contribute just as much to the overall tapestry, but we’d be remiss not to mention the reason for Mariana’s constant struggle: her beloved son, Gabriel (Sebastian Villada), and daughter, Andrea (Laura Montana). As strong as the rest of the cast are, Villada and Montana still manage to shine as the equally resilient kids. It’s a real treat watching Gabriel, slowly, become a man, while Andrea provides a necessary innocence and sense of child-like optimism to circumstances that could certainly be deemed soul-crushing.

Entre Nos isn’t just an acting tour de force, however: the film is exquisitely crafted and looks amazing. Props to Gil Talmi for a funky, head-bobbing score that mixes cumbias with more “traditional” dramatic scores and only occasionally dips into stereotypically “serious” territory. The often gorgeous cinematography, courtesy of Bradford Young, has endless appeal: there’s one shot that frames Mariana and her sleeping children like the Pieta and is almost impossibly beautiful. In the years since Entre Nos’ release, Young would go on to shoot a couple of films called Selma (2014) and A Most Violent Year (2014): you know…no big deal…

Like the particular spot of land that it depicts, Entre Nos is nothing if not a melting pot of influences, styles, points of view and ways of life. There’s a vibrancy and immediacy to the proceedings that pulls viewers in and keeps us right in the thick of things: if I had to compare the filmmakers’ style to anything, it would be latter-day John Sayles, which is pretty damn high praise, indeed. There’s an eye and ear for the way that every-day folk talk and interact that cuts thorough generations of artificial bullshit and gets right to the heart of the human condition: each and every one of us deserves to live our lives to the fullest of our potential, regardless of our individual situations.

We find out, at the end, that Andrea became a filmmaker and created Entre Nos as a tribute and testament to the strength of her mother. It makes perfect sense: everything about the film has the feel of a passion project and Mendoza’s triple-threat of writing-directing-acting is nothing short of stunning. Reminiscent of Marion Cotillard’s powerful blend of iron-will and vulnerability, Mendoza’s performance is utterly unforgettable and the film’s deserves all of the love that it’s received at festivals since its release (although a little mainstream attention might be nice…).

Exemplifying the very best aspects of the human condition, Entre Nos is a film that deserves not only praise for its technical and thematic elements but for its ability to unite us all under one common need, regardless of race, class, gender, nationality or political affiliation: if you can’t understand and empathize with Mariana’s need to make a better life for herself and her children, well, pardner…I’m gonna go ahead and assume that you’re not human. In this one case, the film was definitely not made for you: move along…absolutely nothing to see here, whatsoever.

2/22/15: Growing Up, Moving On

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2014 Academy Awards, 87th Annual Academy Awards, absentee father, abusive relationships, Andrew Villarreal, Barbara Chisholm, Best Director nominee, Best Film Editing nominee, Best Original Screenplay nominee, Best Picture nominee, Best Supporting Actor nominee, Best Supporting Actress winner, Boyhood, Brad Hawkins, brother-sister relationships, Cambell Westmoreland, Cassidy Johnson, Charlie Sexton, cinema, coming of age, divorced parents, dramas, dysfunctional family, Elijah Smith, Ellar Coltrane, Ethan Hawke, father-son relationships, film reviews, films, Jamie Howard, Jenni Tooley, Jessi Mechler, Libby Villari, Lorelei Linklater, Marco Perella, mother-son relationships, Movies, multiple award nominee, Patricia Arquette, relationship, Richard Linklater, single mother, Sinjin Venegas, Steven Prince, Tom McTigue, Zoe Graham

From the outside, indie film wunderkind Richard Linklater’s Boyhood (2014) seems like a pretty impossible endeavor: filmed over the course of 12 years with the same cast, the film purports to follow young Mason (Ellar Coltrane) from his childhood all the way to his 18th birthday, as he leaves for college. Along the way, we get to witness Mason (and his family) growing up before our very eyes, the passage of time marked by such, real-world indicators as growing taller, sprouting facial hair or any of the endless ways in which children become adults. It’s an impressive bit of filmcraft, no two ways about it, the kind of thing that would, no doubt, earn an appreciative thumbs-up from an experimental filmmaker like Terrence Malick. While the final result ends up being no different from a thousand other coming of age tales, it does nothing to take away from Linklater’s achievement: as the press states, there really hasn’t been another film like this and it’s doubtful there will be another quite like it in the future.

Structured in a loosely chronological manner, albeit one devoid of any easy time demarcations (there are no “Two years later” notes, time/date indicators or anything so obvious, although the use of pop music and culture helps to ground the film’s time-frame in a thoroughly organic manner), we follow young Mason, his slightly older sister, Samantha (Lorelei Linklater), his single mother, Liv (Patricia Arquette) and his absentee father, Mason Senior (Ethan Hawke), as they all go about the process of living their lives. Samantha begins as a shrill, obnoxious kid and grows into a smart, droll and laid-back young woman. We watch Liv’s journey as she progresses from divorced, single mother to new college student and, later, college professor: along the way, she bounces from one bad, abusive relationship to the next, first with her alcoholic professor/husband, Bill (Marco Perella), later with a damaged, former soldier (Brad Hawkins). We see how Mason Senior moves from an aimless, perpetually restless, politically-active roustabout to a centered, responsible fellow with a new family and a desire to get it all right, at least the second time around.

The majority of our focus, of course, is reserved for the film’s subject, young Mason. We follow him through all the vagaries of childhood: first love, schoolyard bullies, family problems, sibling rivalries, making (and losing) friends, developing his own interests and viewpoints (albeit with more than a little influence from his father’s fiery rhetoric) and, finally, leaving the nest to strike out into the world and make his own mark. Through it all, Coltrane proves to be a more than capable actor, as comfortable with the film’s bigger emotional beats (the abusive home situation) as he is with the subtler ones (the scene where he hangs out in an abandoned house with older boys and talks about girls, for one). It’s to Coltrane’s great credit that the young performer always feels authentic: there’s an inherent danger with child actors that they’ll come across as stiff or unrealistic but that’s never a problem here.

To be honest, aside from the over-familiarity of the film, there’s very little to complain about here. The acting is uniformly solid, even if none of the performances really distinguish themselves from the others: while Arquette won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance here, all of the acting is similarly realistic…there were no real standouts, at least from my perspective. The film looks great, with some nice, vibrant colors and the sound design is quite exceptional: the film is very music-oriented (as is much of Linklater’s output) and the use of pop music to establish the time-frame is nicely realized.

Personally, I’ve never been the biggest Linklater fan: I’ve always found Slacker (1991) to be thoroughly underwhelming and Dazed and Confused (1993) has always placed well behind Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) in my personal playbook. To be honest, my favorite Linklater film is actually Bernie (2011), which is probably the least representative film in his canon. My major issue has always been that his films seem more content to keep up a constant verbal barrage than to actually mean anything: it’s always come across as a ridiculously pompous combination of Kevin Smith and John Cassavetes, at least to my non-discerning ears. While Boyhood is less guilty of this than past films, there’s still plenty of wheel-spinning, especially once we get to Mason’s numerous “philosophical” discussions with girlfriend Sheena (Zoe Graham).

Ultimately, I enjoyed Boyhood, although I certainly wouldn’t rank it as one of the best films of 2014: minus the “twelve years” gimmick, there really wasn’t anything here that I hadn’t seen before, certainly no great “insights” into growing up. In many ways, this was very much a basic coming-of-age film with a slightly glossier top-coat. I was also rather unhappy that Arquette’s character, essentially, was summed up by her various bad relationship choices: it seems slightly mean-spirited that the film allows her to progress from single mother to student to college professor, only for her to keep making the exact same relationship mistakes at each and every turn. It’s almost as if the film is saying that no matter how much Liv progresses, learns or grows, she’s still just a woman who needs a guy in order to feel complete…and can’t even pick a “good” one, to boot. Her final breakdown seems even more reductive, in this light, as if her entire life is defined by others, whether husbands, boyfriends or her own kids.

There’s a lot to like here, without a doubt: very rarely has a family/relationship drama felt this realistic and the actors all have tremendous chemistry together. At the end of the day, however, Boyhood is not appreciably better (or more insightful) than any number of similar films: at the end of the day, I have to wonder…was it worth the twelve years?

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.

1/3/15 (Part One): Throwing the Baby Out With the Bathwater

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Alexa Havins, Alexia Rasmussen, cinema, co-writers, confusing, convoluted plots, drama, Erika Hoveland, Faust Checho, film reviews, films, insanity, Joe Swanberg, Kevin Donner, Kristina Klebe, lesbian relationship, lies, mental breakdown, mental illness, motherhood, Movies, Proxy, revenge, single mother, support groups, twist ending, writer-director, Zack Parker

Until it goes completely off the rails in the final third, sort of like a speeding train missing a dead-man’s curve and plummeting into a bottomless ravine, Zack Parker’s Proxy (2014) is a tricky, endlessly fascinating and constantly frustrating experience. As the film progresses, however, the numerous plot holes, leaps of faith and contrived scenarios begin to pile on fast and furious until audience members have but two choices: embrace the chaos and go down with the ship or jump overboard and swim for land as fast as possible. While I ended up going with the first option, wise readers would be well-advised to practice up on their backstroke: this is two hours you will never get back.

We begin with Esther (Alexia Rasmussen), a sad-sack, mopey single mother-to-be who’s on her way back from her gynecologist when she’s suddenly and brutally attacked by an unseen assailant: the attacker knocks her out with a brick and proceeds to bash her stomach until the unborn baby is just a memory. After she wakes up in the hospital, Esther is truly alone: she has no family, no friends, no significant other…even her pregnancy came courtesy of a sperm bank donation. As various authority figures like Detective Allen (Faust Checho) and Mary Wilkins (Erika Hoveland) hover and bustle about her, Esther keeps pulling back into her own world, even more isolated than she was before. As Mary warns her, however, Esther better get help while she’s still “in the system,” so to speak: once she leaves the hospital, no one is going to care a damn about her or offer her any help whatsoever.

Esther ends up taking the advise and finds herself in a “mothers in mourning” support group. While there, she happens to meet bubbly, blonde Melanie (Alexa Havins): still mourning the deaths of her husband and young son at the hands of a drunk driver, Melanie is, nonetheless, at least 1000% times more outgoing than Esther and the demure loner ends up hanging out with her, as the two stumble towards a tentative friendship. When Melanie begins to blow off Esther’s calls, however, the other woman begins to feel marginalized and depressed all over again. While filling out a job application at a department store, Esther happens to see Melanie, although the other woman seems way too occupied to notice her: when she spies her, Melanie is making a huge fuss about losing her son in the store, which strikes Esther as a neat trick, since the kid is, supposedly, dead.

As it turns out, Melanie’s husband and son, Patrick (Joe Swanberg) and Peyton (Xavier Parker), seem to be quite alive and quite well: when Esther confronts her friend with this information, Melanie freaks out and tells Esther to get lost. At about this time, we also meet Esther’s tough-as-nails girlfriend, Anika (Kristina Klebe): we’re introduced to her in a rather bracing scene that begins as what appears to be a rape but is later revealed to be very rough, albeit consensual, sex. Anika is both paranoid and constantly suspicious of Esther’s fidelity, neither of which make a particularly good combo with her violent temper.

Just when it appears that all of these disparate folks are headed for a violent, smash-up confrontation, ala Simon Rumley’s  Red, White & Blue (2010), Parker and co-writer Kevin Donner throw in a huge twist at the mid-point that spins the film off in a completely different direction. Unfortunately, this represents the first of many twists and turns that have the effect of jerking the film from one side to other erratically. As new plot points develop, bigger and bigger holes begin to appear in the film and, by the final 30 minutes, the whole thing has begun to disappear into a sinkhole of its own creation. By the time we get to the ending (yet another damn twist), so much of what came before has either been contradicted, forgotten or made redundant that it feels as if Proxy were actually three separate films stitched together: on their own, any of them might have been able to stay afloat. Shackled together, however, the disparate elements of Parker’s film pull the whole production down into Davy Jones’ locker.

Suffice to say, by the time it was over, my primary emotions were relief (this is an awfully long two hours, trust me), frustration and more than a little irritation: there were seeds of an intriguing idea here but nothing was developed in any satisfactory way. To this problem, add some truly erratic acting (Rasmussen is great as Esther, pretty much everyone else in the film is astoundingly awful and awkward), some painfully stilted dialogue and some enormous plot holes and contrivances…mix, bake at 350 and voila…you have one Proxy.

The hell of all this is that, at times, Parker’s film is actually pretty good. Rasmussen does a great job with a particularly tricky character (at various points, Esther earns both our sympathy AND our revulsion, which makes her a sort-of spiritual descendant to Travis Bickle, believe it or not) and definitely marks herself as someone to watch. The Newton Brothers’ moody, tense score is a mini-marvel: the duo was also responsible for Oculus’ (2014) excellent score and are handily establishing themselves as go-to guys for modern-day genre film scores. There were also some nicely realized visual flourishes and stylistic tics (my favorite being the slo-mo water dripping in the bathtub) that were definitely appreciated, even if the film’s general messiness and chaotic structure made it a little difficult to really focus on them.

Ultimately, Proxy ended up being one of the most disappointing 2014 films I saw all year: there was so much potential here, which made the results even more unfortunate. I’m not quite ready to write-off the production team, however: there were enough good ideas here to bode well for the future, provided that some measure of order is restored. As it stands, however, Proxy just isn’t very good, even though it could have been so much more.

12/27/14 (Part Five): They Call Me Mr. Babadook

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Australian films, Australian horror films, bedtime story, Best of 2014, children in peril, childrens' book, Chloe Hurn, cinema, Daniel Henshall, dysfunctional family, Essie Davies, Essie Davis, favorite films, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, foreign films, Hayley McElhinney, horror, horror films, insanity, Jennifer Kent, monsters under the bed, mother-son relationships, Movies, Noah Wiseman, psychological horror, Radek Ludczuk, Repulsion, set in Australia, single mother, stylish films, The Babadook, Tim Purcell, writer-director

If there was one film that most horror and genre critics seemed to agree on in 2014, it was Australian actor-turned-director Jennifer Kent’s fearless debut, The Babadook (2014). Kicking completely against the mainstream thirst for franchises, familiarity, sequels and found footage, Kent’s film is a fiercely original and, at times, genuinely frightening, treatise on fractured families, difficult children and the mothers who must hold them all together, even when the only reward is the promise of more pain at the end of another difficult day.

Single-mother Amelia (Essie Davis) is doing her best to raise her young son, Samuel (Noah Wiseman), although the boy’s very obvious emotional and developmental issues don’t make it a walk in the park. Amelia is still trying to get over the death of her husband (he died while driving Amelia to the hospital to deliver Samuel) and her son’s constant violent outbursts and spirited “antics” serve to both isolate her from everyone around her and constantly remind her of her beloved, dead husband. Amelia works in a rather dreary old-folks home, lives alone in her large house with her disruptive son and has only her standoffish sister, Claire (Hayley McElhinney), for occasional company, although Samuel’s behavior ensures that Claire spends as little time at Amelia’s place as possible.

In every way possible, parenthood is a full-time job for Amelia, above and beyond anything else in her life: she has to keep bringing Samuel home from school due to his propensity for taking homemade crossbows to class and, once at home, every minute of the day is devoted to Samuel’s care. In a particularly telling scene, poor, lonely Amelia can’t even get a few spare minutes to masturbate in bed before Samuel comes rampaging in, off on some hyperactive bustle of activity like a tiny, pubescent Tazmanian Devil. Amelia is constantly tired, depressed, stressed-out, overwhelmed and isolated: whenever she looks to her son for affection, she’s met with angry outbursts, violence and uncontrollable chaos. Imagine the hell of being forced to care for someone who not only doesn’t seem to appreciate your efforts but who actively fights and pushes back against you at every possible opportunity…there’s nothing enviable about that whatsoever.

As if all of this weren’t enough to send someone screaming into the abyss, however, young Samuel suddenly comes up with a heretofore unknown bedtime story called Mr. Babadook. The creepy pop-up-book seems to have appeared out of nowhere and is sort of like Clive Barker taking a stab at Dr. Seuss. Needless to say, Samuel is completely unnerved by the sinister, shadowy figure of Mr. Babadook and his mother is only too eager to hide the book and move on with life. As Samuel seems to become more and more obsessed with the book, however, things begin to happen around the house, things which the boy blames on the increasingly evil Babadook: it all reaches a head when Amelia finds glass in her soup, another bit of “mischief” attributed to the story-book villain. For Amelia, the implication seems clear, despite her son’s protests: his behavior has progressed to the point where she can no longer safely care for him.

Buffeted on all sides, Amelia begins to feel her tenuous grasp on reality slip: she begins to see hints of the Babadook everywhere, including the local police station, and there always seems to be something sinister lurking outside her field of vision in her dark, creepy house. Already pushed to the breaking point, Amelia begins to lash out violently at the one continued source of her strife: Samuel. As Amelia becomes more and more obsessed, however, the situation becomes more and more murky: is Amelia falling under the dread influence of the sinister Mr. Babadook, is she losing her mind or is there something altogether more apocalyptic going on?

Despite its surface similarity to a handful of other films, including Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) and James Wan’s Insidious (2010), The Babadook is wonderfully original, inventive and just out-of-step enough with the current mode of horror film to make it seem more refreshing than it might be in any other era. There’s an effortlessly old-fashioned quality to Kent’s film that recalls ’80s horror, such as Pumpkinhead (1988), without slavishly imitating the era. There’s nothing about this that screamed “period piece,” yet everything about the film’s style and execution pointed back to these older films.

One of the most difficult aspects of crafting a memorable horror film is always the creature/villain and Kent’s Mr. Babadook is truly interesting, creepy and fascinating. Equal parts Coffin Joe and Freddy Krueger (albeit much less loquacious), we don’t get any backstory, which ends up being a big plus: there’s a genuine sense of mystery to the proceedings, since nothing is over-explained. While I think that the film definitely takes a side on the “Is it or isn’t it real?” issue, there’s a refreshing lack of hand-holding that allows for some real emotion to shine through.

In fact, the single most impressive thing about Kent’s film, aside from its decidedly old-fashioned take on horror, is the crushing heft of the film’s emotional content. At its best, Amelia’s descent into insanity recalls Polanski’s Repulsion (1965): we’re never far from the notion of a strictly supernatural cause for the disturbances, unlike Polanski’s film, but there always a distinctly queasy unease over what is and isn’t really happening. Once the film really takes off, in the final reel, it seems a bit less open for interpretation (although there’s still a margin one way or the other) but the lead-up to that is impressively open-ended.

Much has been made of Essie Davis’ stunning performance as Amelia and, to be honest, all accolades seem fairly earned. This is the kind of raw, painful, agonized performance that would all but guarantee an actor an endless stream of awards and nominations in anything but an explicitly genre-based film. As it is, Davis’ performance will probably be one of those “best-kept-secret” deals for horror fans, something for us to gloat over whenever non-believers spout off about how facile and “silly” horror films are. The facts are quite plain and undeniable: horror and genre films are not afforded the same level of respect as other types of film and this is often to the detriment of truly great performances like Davis’.

The Babadook is precisely the kind of “prestige” horror film that deserves to be seen by as many people as possible, the kind of film that could easily break out to a much wider audience. The film looks absolutely gorgeous, for one thing: Radek Ludczuk’s cinematography is wonderfully evocative and it’s easily one of the best-looking films of the year. The production design is completely immersive, with some really awesome work being done on the creepy pop-up-book (the bit that foreshadows Amelia and the dog is insanely cool), as well as the house location. One of the biggest surprises for me regarding The Babadook is just how polished and amazing the film looks for a debut feature: it’s almost impossible for me to believe this was the product of a first-time filmmaker. I daresay that the finale, which manages to combine Time Bandits (1981), In the Mouth of Madness (1994) and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), may be one of my favorites of the year, even as it manages to wrap up the film’s themes with a nice bow.

One of the great shames of the horror industry is that female voices are so under-represented: roughly 90% of horror film “victims” are female, yet you can practically count the number of female horror filmmakers on one hand. Couple this with the fact that actual female stories are so few and far between and it makes something like The Babadook seem even more special. Here we have an exquisitely well-made, genuinely scary horror film, told from a female perspective, and written and directed by a bold, new female filmmaker. This is precisely the kind of film that must be supported if folks want to see a more balanced, interesting and original kind of horror film, in the future. If nothing else, The Babadook should serve as bracing notice that Jennifer Kent is here: she’s kicked the door wide open and I, for one, can’t wait to see what she does next.

12/24/14: To Grandmother’s House We Go!

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Amanda Walsh, based on a short story, brothers, Byron Shah, Chandler Riggs, children in peril, Chris Browning, cinema, creepy buildings, demons, Dylan McDermott, dysfunctional family, Eddie Jones, farmhouse, feuding brothers, film adaptations, film reviews, films, flashbacks, Frances O'Connor, Gramma, grandmothers, Hastur, horror, isolated estates, Joel Courtney, literary adaptation, Mark Duplass, Matt Greenberg, Mercy, Movies, Peter Cornwell, possession, Reza Safinia, Shirley Knight, single mother, Stephen King, suicide, violence against children, voice-over narration, weeping book

When it comes to filmed adaptations of literary works, the question always comes around to “How close do you stay to the original work?” As a visual medium, film is a much different ballgame than written works and not every book or short story is equally suited to adaptation. In particular, adapting short stories can present certain challenges, especially when filmmakers attempt to make full-length productions out of decidedly shorter works: when you only have 20-30 pages of the original material to work with, stretching the proceedings to 80 or 90 minutes seems to make about as much sense as a silent-film version of a Mamet play.

This, of course, becomes the first (and, perhaps, most significant) problem with Peter Cornwell’s recent adaptation of the Stephen King short story “Gramma,” here renamed Mercy (2014) in honor of the titular character. While Cornwell’s version of the story gets quite a bit right and makes great use of the creepy, isolated farmhouse locale, it also bears little resemblance to the original, save for the film’s final 20 minutes. By attempting to expand King’s original short to roughly three times its size, Cornwell and screenwriter Matt Greenberg manage to add lots of stuff and nonsense, especially concerning “gramma’s” backstory, but very little in the way of real value. In the process, the filmmakers manage to strip much of the quiet menace from King’s story, a creepy little shocker with a simple premise (little kid stuck by himself with his creepy, dead grandmother), turning it into something both more complex and, unfortunately, far less interesting.

After her aging mother, Mercy (Shirley Knight), has a stroke, single mother Rebecca (Francis O’Connor) and her two young sons, George (Chandler Riggs) and Buddy (Joel Courtney), move into her dilapidated farmhouse, in order to take care of her. Rebecca’s loutish brother, Lanning (Mark Duplass), had been taking care of their mother but he’s not quite reliable (he may also be a little crazy, come to think of it) and doesn’t really seem to care whether Mercy lives or dies. Also on the scene are Jim (Dylan McDermott) and his wife, Charlotte (Amanda Walsh), an artist who paints eerie pictures of local “haints” like the death wolf. Seems that Jim and Rebecca used to be an item, back in the day, and there appear to be a few unrequited feelings flying around on both their behalves: hell, even the kids make constant comments about “the one who got away” and keep talking about how they wish dear ol’ mom had married Jim, when she had the chance.

Via flashbacks, we’ve already had a little inkling of Mercy’s past, including her tireless efforts to conceive (she has one miscarriage after the other, at first), as well as the shocking suicide of her husband (by axe to the face which, if you think about it, is pretty much one of the most hardcore way to off yourself, ever). After her stroke, Mercy has been mostly silent, although her eyes seem ever watchful. When George gets a mysterious note that mentions “Hastur,” however, he sets off a rather dreadful chain of events when he speaks the name to his ailing grandmother. In no time, Mercy seems sharper, more alert and, needless to say, more than a little sinister (she’s given to dropping more big winks than the wolf in a Merrie Melodies short). As bodies begin to pile up around them, George is faced with the frightening notion that his beloved gramma may be both more and less than completely human: with the help of his brother and a local priest (Eddie Jones), George must get to the bottom of Mercy’s past, before he becomes her next victim.

Right from the jump, Mercy looks and sounds great: Byron Shah’s evocative cinematography really shows off the landscape and creepy farmhouse to great effect and the droning musical score, courtesy of Reza Safinia, adds immeasurable tension to the proceedings. The acting is generally pretty good, with industry vet Shirley Knight chewing a bit less scenery than she’s been known to and familiar faces like Dylan McDermott and Mark Duplass giving a little oomph to the film. Chandler Riggs isn’t bad as George, although I found Joel Courtney’s performance as his brother to be slightly off. The film moves at a decent clip and, at slightly under 80 minutes, doesn’t really wear its welcome out until the final reel.

The biggest problem, as previously mentioned, is how overstuffed Mercy’s narrative is compared to the original source material. While the need to expand on the evil gramma’s backstory makes sense, the new material ends up being rather confusing and unnecessarily jumbled: by the time we get to the climax, we’ve even been introduced to some sort of shaggy Sasquatch-demon-thing that pops up out of nowhere, sends the narrative in a new direction and disappears just as quickly. Unlike the sinister bit of foreshadowing that ends the original story (although these kind of “Or are they actually evil?” endings have been driven into the ground, as of late), the conclusion to Cornwell’s film makes little sense: the film ends happily but certain unresolved issues seem to make this an impossibility, rendering the final image as something perilously close to silly.

Despite all of the frustratingly unnecessary added backstory, I kind of liked Mercy: for much of the film, the atmosphere and tension is as thick as a New England fog and there are some genuinely interesting ideas floating around (the concept of the “weeping book” is pretty great, to be honest). While the acting can, occasionally, dip into the highly unrealistic, most of the time, Mercy is filled with some nice, dependable performances, none of which really stick out like a sore thumb. Perhaps my overall dissatisfaction with the film has more to do with my status as an avowed Stephen King fan than any more technical reason: in any other situation, Mercy would be an enjoyable,  decent-enough B-horror film. As a King adaptation, however, the film comes up just a little bit short.

6/11/14: Workin’ on Something Big

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

And it wasn’t no way to carry on

It wasn’t no way to live

But he could put up with it for a little while

He was workin’ on something big.

“Something Big” — Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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