Tag Archives: Rachel McAdams

Complicated Homecoming

Disobedience

by George Wolf

Upon creation, men and women were given the choice of free will, and with that comes the unique “power to disobey.”

An Orthodox Jewish flock in London hears that message from a beloved rabbi, and then lives it in Sebastian Lelio’s quietly compelling Disobedience.

Ronit (Rachel Weisz) was raised in that devoutly religious community, and then shunned for her attraction to childhood friend Esti (Rachel McAdams). After building a life in New York, Ronit is called home for the burial of her father. She’s greeted by a less than warm welcome and the news that Esti has married Dovid (Alessandro Nivola), another longtime friend who is now also a respected rabbi.

Gracefully adapting Naomi Alderman’s novel, Lelio (A Fantastic Woman, Gloria) continues his interest in stories of women struggling to be free and live as their true selves, exerting their power to disobey.

Weisz, McAdams are Nivola are all wonderful, crafting resonant characters as Lelio slowly builds the drama of a conflicting, scandalous triangle. Little backstory is provided early on, giving more weight to pieces that are picked up from characters carefully dancing around old wounds.

The message is love and mercy, and how these basic tenets of religion are often forgotten in the name of enforcing a preferred social order. Lelio and his committed actors make it intensely intimate but never salacious, a parable with a powerful grip.

 

Clowns Against Humanity

Game Night

by Hope Madden

Nobody does dry, self-deprecating humor as well as Jason Bateman. He’s such a natural as the put-upon husband/brother at the center of the Game Night tension, he becomes the action/comedy’s effortless center of gravity.

And the way this story orbits, circles back, veers around and comes back again, gravity is important.

Bateman plays Max who, with his wife Annie (Rachel McAdams), hosts a weekly game night at his house. But Max’s super cool brother Brooks (Kyle Chandler) wants to host this week, and Max’s creepy neighbor Gary (Jesse Plemons, creepy perfection) wants to come. Well, things are spinning out of control, aren’t they?

A tight script by Mark Perez gives a game cast (see what I did there?) plenty of opportunity to riff on each other and nerd up the place. The chemistry onscreen, particularly between couples—each of which is given the chance to create believable unions—elevates the hijinks.

McAdams steals scenes with comic charm, reminding us again of her spot-on timing and ability to generate plausible relationship backstory with anybody. Meanwhile, funny bits from Sharon Horgan and Lamorne Morris, in particular, keep the larger Game Night ensemble from letting the storyline lag.

The easy humor spilling from this cast pulls the film away from absurd comedy and turns it into something more comfortable. Because, even though there may or may not (or may?) have been a kidnapping and they may or may not (or may?) be making things worse, they have actually trained for this moment for years.

Because what is it that will help these couples live through the bizarre and twisted mess their game night has become?

Teamwork.

Directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein (Vacation) keep the action low key. This allows the entire effort to indulge in the “so this is happening right now, then? Ok, let’s deal with that” kind of humor that is so characteristically Bateman. The comedy is upbeat and fun (though sometimes surprisingly violent) and true to the characters and their relationships.

It’s consistently fun and ultimately forgettable. Like a game night.

Exposed in the Light

Spotlight

by Hope Madden

The Catholic Church sex abuse scandal – phenomenon, really – is a difficult cinematic subject to handle with integrity. It is so overwhelming in scope, in horror, in tragedy, in sociological impact and culpability that a clear eye and an even hand in storytelling can be almost impossible. Luckily, filmmaker Tom McCarthy chose to tackle the topic with his magnificent film Spotlight.

His inroad is the 2002 Boston Globe story that exposed systemic, generations-long abuses in Boston and the surrounding areas. With understated grace and attention to the minutia of journalism, Spotlight sidesteps melodrama at every turn, never glorifying its reporters or wallowing in the lurid.

A superb ensemble – Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schrieber, Brian d’Arcy James, John Slattery, Billy Crudup, and Stanley Tucci – draw you into a film with more insight than could reasonably be expected from its two hour running time.

An outsider (Schrieber) takes the helm of the Globe and wonders why the paper hasn’t spent more time on an allegation of priest pedophilia. As he learns how tough it can be to be an interloper in Boston, his native reporting team faces similar problems. But they take on the story, uncovering something so widespread and so high level it’s hard to fathom.

How did it happen? Why would these children allow it and why would they and their families keep quiet? How did the church keep it quiet? How widespread is it? Why are there so many predators in the priesthood? How exactly did such an epidemic go unreported and unaddressed for so very long?

McCarthy, writing with Josh Singer (The Fifth Estate), offers thoughtful consideration to the suffering, the cover-up, and the general societal culpability. “If it takes a village to raise a child, then it takes a village to abuse one.”

Spotlight also poignantly grieves the loss of faith – the inability to separate faith from institution – that haunts not only the victims, but those confronted with the systemic cover-up and enabling of the abuse.

After a couple of questionable turns (The Cobbler, for instance), it’s great to see this excellent filmmaker back at the top of his game. This is as observant a film as you will find, delicately crafted and brimming with sincere, multi-dimensional performances. It is required viewing.

Verdict-4-5-Stars

Fast Times in Blue Hawaii

Aloha

by Hope Madden

Aloha slips quietly into theaters this weekend. How is it that a Cameron Crowe film starring Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Rachel McAdams, and Bill Murray could fly under the radar with no critic screenings and barely a blip of an ad campaign?

Not a good sign.

No, on that cast alone this movie should have worldwide buzz. It should be the movie grown-ups see this weekend instead of San Andreas. Instead it’s an unwieldy, herky-jerky romantic comedy that leaves the romance and comedy behind in favor of goofy mush.

And what a waste of a cast! Hell, the sheer talent wattage nearly salvages the effort. Cooper is reliably compelling as military contractor Brian Gilcrest, a piece of seriously damaged goods with a chance to get back in with the big boys on this trip to Hawaii. McAdams shines as his former flame, and Murray is great as the charming, eccentric, billionaire villain.

Stone, however, drew the short straw with a wholly unrealistic character who’s equal parts Navy hutzpah and dreamy eyed innocent. Her hyperactive Captain Allison Ng, the Naval airman assigned to keep tabs on Gilcrest while he’s in town, rarely breaks beyond caricature and when she does it feels all the more inauthentic because of the broadly drawn comical foil we first meet.

Crowe’s writing is as likeable as ever, leaving cynicism behind and populating his islands with odd but lovable characters. He’s just not making any choices. Is this a romance? Because there’s a love triangle happening here that actually keeps your attention, under-developed as it is. Or is that cast aside in favor of one man’s dramatic attempt at redemption? Because that doesn’t work, either, as Crowe introduces a dark, political storyline that he tidies up with almost laughable convenience.

Crowe’s best work ranks among the better films you’ll ever see, but his last worthwhile film was 2000’s Almost Famous. Since then, his unchecked sense of wonder in the face of a cynical society has overtaken every film, none more so than Aloha.

Although, let’s be honest, it’s better than San Andreas.

Verdict-2-0-Stars

More Adorably Smitten Brits

About Time

by Hope Madden

Even if you’re not a romantic comedy fan, it’s hard to dislike Love Actually, right? Sure, pieces of writer/director/Brit Richard Curtis’s film drag. Still, the fact that so many story lines – big and small – fit together so nicely, telling tales of heartache as well as true love, helps to make it an entertaining gem. So, why not give About Time – the latest from its creator – a shot?

Well, actually, it helps if you are not a fan of romantic comedies because, regardless of the marketing campaign, that label fits this film loosely at best.

About Time is perhaps the most understated time travel movie ever. The Lake family has a secret. Their men can travel – briefly and with very mild manners –  through time. One New Year’s Day, this intel is passed from father (Bill Nighy – hooray!) to son (and unrepentant ginger), Tim (Domnhall Gleeson – son of the great character actor Brendan Gleeson, but best known as a Weasley boy from Harry Potter).

Tim mostly uses his power to improve his luck with girls, though he fails as often as succeeds because Richard Curtis loves adorably, politely, pitifully smitten Brits.

Tim’s big success is the love of his life, Mary (Rachel McAdams, aggressively adorable, as always).

The end.

Surprisingly enough, that is not true because bumbling awkwardly but endearingly toward true love is not the film’s real focus.

Rather, Curtis’s interest lies on the fringes of Tim’s life, with everyone and everything he fails to notice because of his dogged attention to his pursuit of true love. And in the end, that’s what Curtis wants of us: to slow down and notice everything. Live life fully and you won’t need time travel to go back and fix things.

If that sounds trite and patronizing, credit Curtis for developing it at a leisurely enough pace and with sound enough acting that it does not feel that way. The life lessons Tim learns are thoughtful, and Gleeson’s performance sells the tenderness and the hard-won wisdom.

What it doesn’t really settle is the almost creepy dishonesty of Tim’s wooing of Mary, and for all of the rest of the film’s Nice Guy Tim-isms, it’s hard to look past the SciFi trickery he utilizes to dupe this woman into loving him.

But I suppose you can look past that, since the romance is hardly the point. Unless you’re a fan of romantic comedies, in which case, may I recommend Love Actually?

Verdict-3-0-Stars

 

 

Worthy of a White Flag

 

by George Wolf

 

From 1973 to 1998, Terrence Malick created a grand total of three films. He must be slamming down the energy drinks, because it just the last eight years, he’s finished three, with three more currently in post-production.

The latest release is To the Wonder, a sort of companion piece to the brilliant and beautiful The Tree of Life from 2011. This time, Malick’s mind is on the mysteries of love, both physical and spiritual.

Those who were perplexed by the abstract nature of The Tree of Life will be even more challenged by To The Wonder. Unlike Tree, it does not have a tangible narrative at its core, existing mainly as a series of exquisite montages undercut with whispers of philosophical dialogue.

Of course, writer/director Malick does have a philosophy degree from Harvard, so he’s in his element.

The film’s abstract centerpeice is the relationship of Neil (Ben Affleck) and Marina (Olga Kurylenko). They meet while Neil is traveling in Marina’s native Ukraine, eventually settling (along with her 10 year old daughter) in his home state of Oklahoma.

When things get rocky, she finds emotional comfort through Father Quintana (Javier Bardem), a priest who has begun to question his own faith. As Neil and Marina pull farther from each other, Neil reconnects with Jane (Rachel McAdams), a girlfriend from years past.

Malick is often elusive, and it would be easy to dismiss To the Wonder as a beautifully filmed commercial for a dating service, as lovers playfully chase after one another,  romping in tall grass with adoration in their eyes.

Look deeper, and you’ll find a meditation on troubled souls struggling for spiritual fulfillment.  Affleck is rarely held in the frame and barely heard, suggesting his character may not represent flesh and blood at all, but rather a faith-based spirit with which the other characters are striving to bond.

Much like the love Malick is exploring, his film requires a certain amount of surrender. Though not the wondrous success The Tree of Life was, To the Wonder is worthy of a white flag.

 

Verdict-3-5-Stars