Tag Archives: dramas

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Lost In Love

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Wander Darkly

by George Wolf

At this point, there’s nothing surprising about a terrific performance from Sienna Miller. The really curious thing is why she still seems to fly so far under the radar.

Maybe it’s the knack she has for adopting unrecognizable looks and unique personalities from role to role, making it harder to tie her to an easily recalled resume. Whatever the cause, the effect Miller has on Wander Darkly is seismic, with an award-worthy turn that gives the film much of its emotional pull.

Miller is Adrienne, a new mom who’s starting to question her relationship with Matteo (Diego Luna, also stellar). Despite a child and a new mortgage, the couple hasn’t married, and as a rare date night out turns disappointing, they’re involved in a nasty car accident.

Dazed and disoriented, Adrienne believes she has died. While her parents and friends whisper “psychiatry,” Matteo tries to convince Adrienne that she is indeed still alive and recovering in the real, physical world.

Writer/director Tara Miele’s narrative is ambitious, surreal, touching and at times even terrifying, but it’s ultimately the sheer talents of Miller and Luna that keep the film from falling prey to gimmickry.

We re-live the couple’s journey together as they do, visually drifting through transfixing waves of history where both Adrienne and Matteo pepper the flashbacks with hindsight benefitting from their current perspectives.

As they make new admissions and wonder about who may be guilty of misremembering, the couple is reminded of why they first committed to each other, even as they search their respective memories for the exact moment it started to go wrong.

Whether or not you sniff out what Miele has in mind, where the film lands doesn’t quite deliver on its promise of profundity. But the cascade of emotion required to manifest this trauma is beautifully realized by Miller, and her chemistry with Luna makes it inviting to become invested.

You care about these characters, and that opens the door to care about Wander Darkly.

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Wounded, Not Even Dead

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Jungleland

by George Wolf

Jungleland is a film with a path that’s so well marked and worn, the biggest attraction becomes what a new group of actors can bring to such recognizable characters.

Director/co-writer Max Winkler has two fine ones in the lead. Jack O’Connell is “Lion” Kaminsky, a talented bare knuckle fighter in Boston who’s constantly at the mercy of bad decisions made by his brother Stanley. Yes, Stanley Kaminsky, which doesn’t make you think of Stanley Kowalski at all.

Charlie Hunnam plays Stanley, and he and O’Connell are able to craft an authentic brotherly bond that holds your attention as the film hits one familiar benchmark after another.

Stanley is in deep to a local crime boss (Jonathan Majors) who has a proposition. Go to San Francisco and enter the big Jungleland tournament. If Lion is king, it’s 100 large. And also, take this girl named Sky (Jessica Barden) with you.

Desperation breeds dreams of one big score and a better life. Sky has more secrets than just a fake name. Complications arise.

The storytelling is competent, the performances fine. But we have seen this so many times, contenders and pretenders begin to look pretty similar and you can’t help but wonder what point there is in another round.

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Presumed Guilty

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Just Mercy

by George Wolf

You may have noticed there’s no shortage of films exposing the miscarriages of justice that have landed innocent people on Death Row.

Sadly, that’s because there’s no shortage of innocent people on Death Row.

So while the prevailing themes in Just Mercy are not new, the sadly ironic truth is their familiarity brings an added layer of inherent sympathy to the film, which helps offset the by-the-numbers approach taken by director/co-writer Destin Daniel Cretton.

Cretton and co-writer Andrew Lanham adapt the 2014 memoir by Bryan Stevenson, an attorney and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, that details Stevenson’s years providing legal counsel to the poor and wrongly convicted in Alabama.

The film keeps its main focus on the case of Walter McMillan (Jamie Foxx), who, by the time Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) comes along, has long accepted his death sentence for the murder of an 18 year-old white woman. But by winning over Walter’s extended family, Stevenson gains Walter’s trust, along with plenty of threats from the Alabama good ol’ boys once he starts exposing the outrageous violations during Walter’s “fair trial.”

It’s clear that Cretton (Short Term 12, The Glass Castle) is firmly committed to respectful accuracy in his adaptation, which is commendable. The authenticity of the roadblocks, impassioned speeches or blood-boiling examples of bigotry are never in doubt, but it’s only the ferocious talents of Jordan and Foxx that keep Just Mercy from collapsing under the weight of its own unchecked righteousness.

As sympathetic as Walter’s situation is, the script never quite sees him as a real person, painting only in shades of hero. Oscar winner Brie Larson, a Cretton favorite, is wasted as EJI co-founder Eva Ansley, who seems included more out of respect than for what the character ultimately adds to the narrative.

Jordan has the most to work with here, and – no surprise – he makes the most of it. Peripheral cases help Jordan give Stevenson the needed edges of a man who is equally driven by his failures, doggedly committed to helping those he identifies with so deeply, those who, as Walter puts it, are “guilty from the moment you’re born.”

Though it comes out swinging with heavy hands, Just Mercy steadies itself in time to become an effective portrait of systemic injustice. You will be moved, but with a force that is muted by simple convention.

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Being Alive

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Marriage Story

by George Wolf

If plot is what happens and story is how it happens, there’s no better title for Noah Baumbach’s latest than Marriage Story.

For years, Baumbach’s films have probed characters struggling to live up to an image of themselves. It’s what he does, and now Baumbach has written and directed his masterpiece, a bravely personal and beautifully heartbreaking deconstruction of a marriage falling apart.

Adam Driver is Charlie, a New York stage director. Scarlett Johansson is Nicole, an L.A. film actress who made the switch to NYC live theater when she married Charlie and they welcomed son Henry (Azhy Robertson).

We meet Charlie and Nicole in counseling, taking part in an exercise that reminds them why they married and reminds us how skilled Baumbach is at not only writing wonderfully organic dialog, but in bringing it to the screen with layer upon layer of authenticity.

Tremendous performances from Johansson and Driver cement our immersion into the lives of two people valiantly trying to retain some control over the process of splitting up.

Nicole hurts deeply but wears a brave face, unsure of how to approach a future without Charlie, but unable to deny that life with him has meant she “got smaller.” Johannson has never been better, successfully mining Nicole’s mix of pain and defiance with silent tears and impassioned outbursts alike.

Here’s something I’ve said a lot this year: Driver is one the most consistently impressive actors around. His skill at finding the human center of his characters is subtle but unmistakable, and here Driver never lets you abandon Charlie, most importantly when his refusals to face reality seem like cathartic soul-baring from Baumbach himself.

We see the details that make up the work of a marriage, and the subtle cracks that weaken the relationship and begin to pull two people apart. And with the break comes the battle for child custody and the business of divorce.

But even as their two opposing lawyers (Ray Liotta and Laura Dern, Oscar-worthy herself) bleed the couple’s finances and turn the fight dirty, Baumbach never gets petty. When you think the film is taking sides it makes a subtle change in direction, slowly building toward the brilliantly executed emotional tsunami you know is coming.

Will you need tissues? Oh yes. The story of Nicole and Charlie’s marriage will put you through the wringer. And every frame is absolutely worth it.

Late in the film, Charlie’s out with a group of theater friends and ends up joining a pianist to sing Stephen Sondheim’s “Being Alive.” So we have a theater guy going through a tumultuous divorce taking time to sing a Broadway classic about the risk of commitment. It’s a sequence that could have easily devolved into self-indulgent excess, but instead only confirms the depth of Baumbach’s reach.

He lets another writer’s words brilliantly refocus what Charlie and Nicole will always mean to other, and like everything else in Marriage Story, it feels real, true and necessary.

It feels alive.

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Leap of Faith

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Them That Follow

by George Wolf

When a way of life not only makes you a social outcast, but presents increasing dangers to those closest to you, what would motivate you to cling even tighter?

It’s a premise that could easily lead to vilification, so credit filmmakers Britt Poulton and Dan Madison Savage for taking Them That Follow in a more resonant direction. Rather than relying on lazy condescension, they want to probe the psychological politics of control.

Mara (Alice Englert) is the pastor’s daughter in a small community of snake handlers in the Appalachian mountains. Her father Lemuel (Walton Goggins) preaches strict adherence to the Word, which requires frequent tests of faith, subjugation of women and shunning the ways of the material world.

But Mara’s interest is starting to move beyond the mountain, raising the suspicions of the stern Sister Slaughter (Olivia Coleman, recent Oscar-winner for The Favourite) and sparking the curiosity of her best friend Dilly (Kaitlyn Dever).

“Who you choose, girl, chooses your whole life,” Sister Slaughter cautions Mara. And Mara will soon face choices that will alter several lives.

Them That Follow benefits from a beautifully rustic production design and an unhurried pace, building earnest layers of authenticity that mirror a sublime ensemble cast (which includes a nice dramatic turn from comic Jim Gaffigan).

Poulton and Savage are not here to mock religious beliefs, but rather to question the motives of leaders who seek control by division. Followers are belittled by proxy (“They look down on you!”) while leaders make unhealthy demands and wash their hands of culpability (“It’s God’s law, not mine”).

While the film’s concerns are especially timely now, a third act that seems rushed and overly tidy loosens the grip of Them That Follow. The tail here has more bite than the head, but the serpent still deserves respect.

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Self Portrait

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The Souvenir

by George Wolf

The Souvenir rests at the hypnotic intersection of art and inspiration, an almost shockingly self-aware narrative from filmmaker Joanna Hogg that dares you to label its high level of artistry as pretense.

It is an ode to her craft and her experience, reflecting on both through an autobiographical tale of hard lessons learned.

Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne – Tilda’s daughter) is a young film school student with a privileged background and a cautiously supportive mother (played, of course, by Tilda, who’s customarily splendid). It is the early 1980s, and Julie has high aspirations for projects that will mine truths she has yet to experience.

That changes when she begins a relationship with Anthony (Tom Burke) a complicated older man who preys on Julie’s naivete.

Hogg lays the relationship bare, literally opening her diaries and projects for a portrait of the artist on her own unapologetic terms.

While other cast members had scripted dialog, Byrne worked improvisationally from Hogg’s own journal, with Julie’s student films also closely resembling those in the director’s past.

In her first major role, Byrne is tremendously effective (which, given her lineage, should not be that surprising). In her hands, Julie’s arc is at turns predictable, foolish and frustrating, yet always sympathetic and achingly real.

The intimacy of Hogg’s reflection on a toxic relationship is worthy on its own, but her story’s added resonance comes from its unconventional structure, and the brilliantly organic way Julie’s thoughts on filmmaking tell you why that has to be.

The Souvenir is finely crafted as a different kind of gain from pain, one that benefits both filmmaker and audience. It is artful and cinematic in its love for art and cinema, honest and forgiving in its acceptance, and beautifully appreciative for how life shapes us.

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American Pastoral

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Little Woods

by Hope Madden

If you already know the name Nia DaCosta, the likely reason may be that Jordan Peele pegged her to direct the Monkey Paws-produced remake of 1992’s horror gem Candyman that’s due next year.

What had she done to so impress the new American emperor of horror?

Little Woods.

DaCosta’s feature directorial debut, which she also wrote, is not a horror film. It’s an independent drama of the most unusual sort—the sort that situates itself unapologetically inside American poverty.

Tessa Thompson anchors the film as Oleander. She has 8 days left on her probation for running drugs across the Canadian border and she means to get the F out of her dead end town the first minute she can. Her sister Deb (Lily James) complicates things.

There is a predictability in the setup that DaCosta uses to betray your preconceived notions. While the traditionally structured narrative does its job to elevate tension, the characters within that tale veer wildly—or, authentically—from the expected.

This is less a film about the complicated pull of illegal activity and more a film about the obstacles the American poor face—many of them created by a healthcare system that serves anyone but our own ill and injured.

Films that honestly explore American poverty are scarce—The Florida Project, Frozen River, The Rider and very few others. Little Woods joins this list, all beautiful gut punch films that choose to present realistic tales with fully drawn characters rather than easy, noble tragedies.

The border crossing scene in Little Woods holds particular resonance, even more than it did back in 2008 when Courtney Hunt put Melissa Leo and her car on Frozen River‘s thin ice. Echoes of images from our own Southern border help to contextualize the nation’s narrative about saving society from the poor families and the criminals out to exploit our riches.

But politically savvy filmmaking is not the main reason to see Little Woods. See it because Tessa Thompson and Lily James are amazing, or because the story is stirring and unpredictable.

See it because it’s what American actually looks like.





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No Time Like the Present

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Here and Now

by Rachel Willis

What would you do upon receiving the worst news of your life? How would you spend the next 24 hours?

These are the questions that plague Vivienne (Sarah Jessica Parker) upon learning she has a tumor. More tests are required to diagnose the nature of the tumor, but if it’s cancerous, she can expect to live another 14 months with aggressive treatment.

It’s telling that Vivienne is alone when she receives this information. From the beginning, director Fabien Constant creates a sense of loneliness around her. After receiving the devastating news, her next stop is a rehearsal for her upcoming 25th anniversary show. A number of band members have clearly been waiting, but Vivienne mollifies their annoyance with banal pleasantries. She doesn’t mention to any of them, including her manager Ben (Common), that she is sick.

Vivienne spends the next 24 hours wandering from place the place. The New York City backdrop perfectly captures the theme of isolation despite being surrounded by millions. Though Vivienne has friends, a concerned mother, a lover, and a daughter, it’s clear from the dialogue she has always maintained an aloofness around those who care for her.

Writer Laura Eason gives us just enough to understand Vivienne’s relationships without giving away too much. Her relationship with the father of her daughter, Nick (Simon Baker) is cordial, but it’s clear from his tone when speaking about their daughter, Vivienne hasn’t been the most engaged mother. She’s been too busy with her career.

Though the first act of the film manages to convey a lot of information in brief exchanges, and Sarah Jessica Parker aptly conveys the emotional anguish of Vivienne, the second half falls quickly into melodrama. The idea that Vivienne is desperate for a connection is conveyed by a number of trite interactions with a Lyft driver who happens to make repeat appearances in her life. The naturalness of the dialogue in the first half is replaced with brief, forced conversations about profound subjects, mainly the power of music.

It’s unfortunate that Hollywood has adopted the policy of casting actors in singing roles when they can’t sing. Gone are the days of overdubbing actors with quality singers. Instead, we’re forced to listen to Parker muddle her way through a cheesy song. And not once, but twice.

With a title like Here and Now, it’s not a surprise that the film takes a melodramatic turn, but it’s a shame since it had a promising start.





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Seeds of Love

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Bitter Harvest

by Rachel Willis

The love story of Yuri and Natalka is the thread that ties together director George Mendeluk’s Bitter Harvest. Set in Ukraine in the early 1930’s, the Soviet oppression under Stalin (the Holodomor) is the backdrop for their relationship.

As Yuri, Max Irons shines as the artist who’s loved Natalka (Samantha Barks) since they were children. The bulk of the film is his story, as we follow him from the small town of his childhood to Kiev, where he is able to pursue his artistic passions. Though Natalka is primed to join Yuri in Kiev, the influx of Soviets into their country keeps the lovers separated.

Unfortunately, rather than keep the story simple and focus solely on Yuri’s attempts to get home to Natalka, the film tries to take on too much. As if trying to convey the entirety of the horrors inflicted on the Ukrainian people, the audience sees Yuri in a number of far flung locations and situations. What could be a three-hour epic is condensed into less than two hours, so the audience never feels a true connection to any of the characters.

Expository dialogue further removes the viewer from the movie. It’s hard to stay in the moment when characters break out of tense scenes to explain to the audience what’s happening in the greater context. A heavy handed score also does the film a disservice, as it turns moments of tension into melodrama.

Though the story is weakened by these elements, the actors bring heartfelt emotion to their roles. While never given the depth they deserve, they are nonetheless sympathetic. A scene in which a young boy kneels by his mother’s grave is moving because the actor conveys the depth of sorrow the character feels. It also speaks to the larger situation, as many more children will be orphaned by the Holodomor.

If the film could have stayed with the smaller, more personal moments, it would have been a stronger film. Even so, this is a story that needs to be told, and Bitter Harvest is a heartfelt endeavor to share it.

Verdict-3-0-Stars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpcYA4Xnhhk