The Escape (2017)

15 Saturday Dec 2018

Tags

Art, Depression, Dominic Cooper, Dominic Savage, Drama, Gemma Arterton, Marital problems, Paris, Review, The Lady and the Unicorn

D: Dominic Savage / 101m

Cast: Gemma Arterton, Dominic Cooper, Jalil Lespert, Frances Barber, Marthe Keller

Tara (Arterton) is a young, stay-at-home wife and mother. Her husband, Mark (Cooper), works long hours, while their two young children, Teddy and Florrie, are of school age but still young enough that they prove a constant source of struggle for Tara as she tries to deal with their beahviours. She is unhappy in the marriage, particularly with Mark’s constant need for sex, which she finds distressing (though he doesn’t know this). When she finally begins to express her unhappiness, Mark is confused, and tries his best to be more supportive, but when Tara puts forward the idea of taking art classes, his support wavers at the first mention. Things come to a head one day when Mark castigates her for being clumsy; Tara packs a bag and leaves right then. She travels to Paris to see a series of tapestries titled The Lady and the Unicorn (the source of her desire to start art classes), and to begin a new life free from the stifling constraints of marriage and motherhood. At the museum she meets a Frenchman, Phillipe (Lespert), and they strike up a friendship, but what seems to be a much needed turning point in Tara’s life, instead brings more problems…

The story of an unhappy woman looking for both meaning and satisfaction in her life, The Escape is a sombre, emotionally redolent drama that isn’t afraid to explore the dark side of being a wife and mother. At one point, Tara confesses that she doesn’t care about her children – at all – and she knows they hate her. It’s a startling admission, relayed in a low-key, subdued manner by Arterton, but exactly the kind of transgressive admission that mothers aren’t supposed to make. This reflection of the depth of Tara’s misery is the movie’s key revelation, the heart of what ails her (if you prefer), and once that particular genie is out of the bottle, it’s obvious that it can’t be put back. Tara will flee the nest she’s built but now detests, and she’ll seek to give her life a renewed purpose. Is she genuinely unhappy with her life? Has she genuinely fallen out of love with Mark? Is she depressed, or suffering from some other form of mental illness? The screenplay (by the director) doesn’t clarify matters – and deliberately so. Tara can’t fully articulate her distress herself, and Savage uses this as a way of holding things back from the viewer. But it’s this that proves the movie’s undoing.

We never get to know what has brought Tara to this point in her life, and why she feels so unhappy. And when she reaches Paris, her initial pleasure at being there soon dissipates once her liaison with Phillipe takes a more serious turn than expected. This section of the movie is the least effective, with Tara’s motivations lacking full credibility, and a brief scene featuring Keller appearing to have been thrown in just to provide a resolution to Tara’s time in Paris. Through it all, Tara remains an emotional enigma, and despite a tremendous performance from Arterton, it’s hard to fathom entirely what’s going on in her head, and why. More successful is Cooper’s distraught husband, unable to fathom why his marriage is falling apart, and without the skills to deal with Tara’s unhappiness. As his efforts to save their relationship fail at every turn, Mark becomes a source of profound pity, and more so than Tara. Cooper and Arterton are great together, and the movie is all the better for the scenes they share, while Lespert’s amiable Frenchman is given short shrift by Savage’s decision to handicap the character in a way that he doesn’t with Tara. The end is deliberately elliptical, and seems to hint at Tara being stuck in the same depressive mind-set as at the beginning – which if true, hints at a broader meaning to events, but one that hasn’t been made clear.

Rating: 6/10 – sterling performances from Arterton and Cooper add lustre to a movie that is much more successful as an exploration of a marriage in freefall, than as an examination of a woman’s need to feel fulfilled; with its writer/director taking a broader approach to the latter theme, The Escape ultimately feels disingenuous once it reaches Paris, and the movie never recovers from its change of scenery and narrative opacity.

Final Portrait (2017)

25 Thursday Jan 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Alberto Giacometti, Armie Hammer, Art, Comedy, Drama, Geoffrey Rush, James Lord, Literary adaptation, Painting, Paris, Review, Stanley Tucci

D: Stanley Tucci / 90m

Cast: Geoffrey Rush, Armie Hammer, Clémence Poésy, Tony Shalhoub, Sylvie Testud

In 1964, the writer James Lord (Hammer) is in Paris on a short trip when his friend, the artist Alberto Giacometti (Rush), asks him to sit for a portrait. Giacometti initially says it will take a few hours – one afternoon – but his own eccentricities and his own self-doubts mean that one afternoon becomes several weeks, and Lord is faced with postponing his return to the US until the portrait is finished. Giacometti works in fits and starts, and his personal life often interferes with his progress with the painting. There are long-standing animosities between Giacometti and his wife, Annette (Testud), that are exacerbated by his relationship with Caroline (Poésy), whose portrait he’s also painting. As the time passes, Lord becomes an observer of Giacometti’s life and work, and his insecurities and obsessions.

Based on the biography written by Lord a year later, A Giacometti Portrait, Stanley Tucci’s fourth feature as a writer/director is a meditative exploration of the creative process, and the notion that no work of art can ever truly be regarded as finished. It’s an interesting idea for a movie to examine, as by its very nature, Final Portrait is exactly that: a finished product (unless Tucci decides to release revised versions of the movie in future years). But it’s an idea that Giacometti adheres to, and Tucci has him continually looking at the sculptures in his studio, examining them, assessing them, and sometimes changing them slightly, albeit in very minor ways, as if by doing so, he can improve the work in such a way that it becomes more relevant, and worth the effort he’s put into it. The same applies to Lord’s portrait, an endeavour that Giacometti says will never be truly completed, even if Lord were to be available to sit for the rest of his life; even then, more can always be done to improve the work, and then more again.

Tucci isn’t one for histrionics or exaggerated performances, and his cast comply with the needs of a script that requires a delicacy of touch and a sympathetic approach to both Giacometti and his erratic genius. Rush is a terrific choice as the artist who thinks nothing of throwing an envelope with two million francs in it under a bed and forgetting about it. Chain-smoking his way through the movie, Rush portrays Giacometti as a restless man who is always searching for that one moment of clarity in his work but never quite finding it. As the trapped, slightly bewildered, and increasingly frustrated Lord, Hammer is effectively the straight man to Rush’s manic devilry, but he carries the role well, and is a charming foil for Giacometti’s maddening behaviour. In support, Poésy and Testud offer polar opposites as the women in Giacometti’s life (neither of whom are as well treated as they would like), and there’s the quiet, reflective presence of Shalhoub as Giacometti’s brother, Diego. The movie is beautifully constructed, with the artist’s studio a wonderfully designed and assembled cave of wonders courtesy of production designer James Merifield, art director David Hindle, and set decorator Sarah Wan. The camera takes in all the elements that are on display and a wonderfully evocative world is entered into as a result. It’s all overlaid with a tremendous sense of fun, along with a dash of rueful humour here and there, and remains a captivating and entertaining experience throughout.

Rating: 8/10 – an affectionate tribute to the difficulties inherent in the artistic process, Final Portrait is a thoughtful, sincere, modest, and clever movie that offers a beguiling yet intuitive examination of the artist Alberto Giacometti and his work; Rush and Hammer give wonderful performances, Tucci directs with verve and confidence in his own script, and it all proves as invigorating as the pursuit of artistic “truth” should be.

The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017)

19 Sunday Nov 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Adam Sandler, Art, Ben Stiller, Comedy, Drama, Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, Family, Netflix, Noah Baumbach, Relationships, Review

D: Noah Baumbach / 112m

Cast: Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, Elizabeth Marvel, Grace Van Patten, Judd Hirsch, Rebecca Miller, Candice Bergen, Adam Driver, Matthew Shear, Sakina Jaffrey, Gayle Rankin, Michael Chernus

Harold Meyerowitz (Hoffman) is a semi-famous sculptor who hasn’t had a show in years, and who has become somewhat marginalised within the New York art world. His work is admired by those that know of it, but his contemporaries, such as L.J. Shapiro (Hirsch), are still exhibiting and still getting the recognition that Harold thinks they don’t deserve. Harold is on his fourth marriage – to Maureen (Thompson) – and has two children from his first, Danny (Sandler) and Jean (Marvel). Danny is in the midst of separating from his wife, and has a precocious teenage daughter, Eliza (Van Patten), who is about to leave for college. Jean is a spinster but leads an otherwise happy life. Harold has another child from his third marriage, Matthew (Stiller), but he lives in LA, and works as a financial consultant. He’s successful, and has a young son he would like to spend more time with. This is the family Meyerowitz, and despite outward appearances, many of which they foster themselves, they all need help (oh boy, do they need help).

What’s impressive about Noah Baumbach’s latest feature is that he takes a stereotypical dysfunctional family, and spins that stereotype ever so slightly off its axis, so that each nugget of information about any of the characters seems fresh and unexpected, even though a closer inspection reveals tropes and metaphors that we’ve seen countless times before. This is due to Baumbach’s very eloquent and very astute screenplay, a piece of writing that manages to include a number of complex and yet succinct observations on the nature of father-son relationships and the effect that an inwardly scared parent can have on their children. It’s no surprise that Baumbach has chosen to examine the issue of what children need from their parents as this has formed the basis of much of his work in the past, from The Squid and the Whale (2005) to While We’re Young (2014). But this is easily his most impressive and most fully realised project, and it has a smoothness and an ease about it that makes it all the more enjoyable to watch.

The main focus is, at first, on Danny. With his marriage coming to an end and Eliza going off to college, Danny has to reassess what he’s going to do with his life (he’s been a house husband up until now, having chosen that as his “career” instead of being a musician). He and Jean get involved in arranging a retrospective of Harold’s career, but Baumbach is quick to make the viewer realise that this isn’t being done out of love or affection, and not even necessarily out of respect for their father’s work. Like so many other things connected to Harold that they do, it’s done because they view it as the right thing to do; it’s a familial obligation. But Harold is obsessed with how his work is perceived, because his work is the only thing that, to him, makes him stand out from the crowd. He’s constantly seeking approbation from everyone around him, and insists he receives it from his kids. But if they don’t, then he’s oblivious to both them and their needs. Such is their lives as adults, such was their lives as children.

Harold’s narcissistic expressions about himself, and his short-fuse dismissal of anyone he deems unimportant, has had an unpleasant effect on all three of his children. Danny has spent an enormous amount of time and energy in raising Eliza so that they’re more like friends instead of father and daughter. As a result he’s a better father than Harold was to him, but the irony is that in its own way, it’s as unhealthy as the relationship Danny had with him as a child. Baumbach makes the point well: too little attention or love can be just as bad as too much. But while that may seem obvious (and it is), it’s the way in which Danny tries to strike a balance between the two, and without necessarily being aware that he’s doing it, that makes all the difference. Jean has her own reasons for keeping her life separate, and though it seems that she’s perhaps the most “adjusted” of the three, this later proves to be incorrect. And then there’s Matthew, who professes to be “over” his father’s ability to make him angry for having a successful life (Harold is almost as obsessed by money as he is by maintaining his reputation). Matthew, like Danny, is trying to be a better father than Harold was, but he can’t seem to connect with his son, despite his best efforts.

Watching these four people struggle to communicate with each other, and struggle to find the answers that are often in front of them, should be frustrating for the viewer, but Baumbach, and the sharpness of his script, helps avoid all that. The family dynamic is entirely credible and perfectly judged, with superb performances from all concerned. Sandler has only been better once before, in Punch-Drunk Love (2002), and here he proves that he can be a fine dramatic actor when he wants to be (which isn’t often enough). Sandler displays a warmth and a heartfelt sincerity as Danny that allows the viewer a way in to the Meyerowitz family and its myriad issues. He’s a sweet, caring guy trying to do his best, and he has enough self-awareness to know that he doesn’t always get it right. Stiller is equally as good, channelling Matthew’s anger at being unfairly singled out for Harold’s praise as a child when the praise, and what it related to, wasn’t important to Matthew at all. In support, Marvel, Thompson and Van Patten offer touching performances, while there are a clutch of more minor roles that allow for a few scene-stealing moments (Chernus as a snippy nurse is a treat). But this, perhaps expectedly, is Hoffman’s movie, his portrayal of Harold as a manipulative, emotionally remote artist one of the best things he’s done in years.

Baumbach approaches the material and the characters with a great deal of care and attention, and it’s this that makes the movie so effortlessly dramatic, and so effortlessly funny. Nobody behaves in a manner that might seem odd or inappropriate because that’s how they’ve always behaved. With some questions there’s an answer provided, but many’s the time when Baumbach keeps the viewer in the dark, as if to say, “these characters still need time to figure things out, and it’s not going to happen before the movie’s over”. It all adds up to a remarkably humane and sympathetic look at expectations between the generations, and how personal legacies can hamper the growth of those who are raised in the shadow of them. Thoughtful and considerate of its characters’ foibles and muted aspirations, Baumbach’s latest is a sprightly mix of drama and comedy that succeeds on both fronts, and is his best work yet.

Rating: 9/10 – that rarity: a comedy-drama with heart as well as intelligence, The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) is a cautionary tale that never once feels forced or that it’s struggling to find its own voice; the characters linger in the memory, along with Baumbach’s clever script and fluid direction, and a number of quality performances, making this a movie that everyone should try and see, and especially as an alternative to more mainstream, big-budget moviemaking.

Catfight (2016)

04 Saturday Mar 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Alicia Silverstone, Anne Heche, Art, Black comedy, Coma, Drama, Onur Tukel, Pregnancy, Review, Sandra Oh, War

D: Onur Tukel / 95m

Cast: Sandra Oh, Anne Heche, Alicia Silverstone, Myra Lucretia Taylor, Amy Hill, Giullian Yao Gioiello, Ariel Kavoussi, Stephen Gevedon, Damian Young, Tituss Burgess, Dylan Baker, Craig Bierko

Veronica Salt (Oh) is the trophy wife of Stanley (Young), a businessman whose company is about to make a lot of money thanks to a contract with the US government. She has a teenage son, Kip (Gioiello), who aspires to be an artist (even though she and Stanley want him to go into finance), but Veronica herself doesn’t work, though she does have a habit of drinking too much red wine. Ashley Miller (Heche) is a struggling artist whose work is regarded as too painful to look at, or be displayed in people’s homes. She has a partner, Lisa (Silverstone), who is supportive of her, and an assistant, Sally (Kavoussi), who she treats appallingly. When Lisa needs Ashley to help her out one night with her catering business, she finds herself at a party organised by Stanley to celebrate the birthday of one of his business partners.

Veronica and Ashley were at college together, but though they were friends, Veronica ended their friendship when she found out Ashley was a lesbian. With Ashley still feeling some animosity for this, an unfortunate encounter later on on a stairwell leads to a fight between the two women. Ashley is victorious, but the fight leaves Veronica in a coma. Two years pass. Veronica wakes to find that her world has changed completely while she’s been asleep. Stanley and Kip are no longer alive, and she’s flat broke. Ashley, meanwhile, has become successful, and her latest exhibition has resulted in her selling all her paintings. She and Lisa have also decided to have a baby together, with Ashley being the birth mother. Veronica is taken in by her ex-housekeeper, Donna (Taylor), and begins a job as a chambermaid at a hotel. One day she sees an art magazine that features an article on Ashley. Angry at all that she’s lost because of her fight with Ashley, she attends Ashley’s latest exhibition and damages several of the paintings before running off with one. Chased by Ashley, they have another fight, but this time it’s Ashley who ends up in a coma.

Two more years pass. Ashley wakes to find that her world has changed completely while she’s been asleep. She has lost both the baby and Lisa, and she’s flat broke. Sally, meanwhile, has become successful, and her comic book about happy bunnies has led to Hollywood snapping up the movie rights. Ashley is taken in by Sally, but she finds it difficult to draw, a side effect of the coma. With her life having lost all its meaning, Ashley is given the opportunity to find Veronica – who is now living in the countryside with her Aunt Charlie (Hill) – and settle things once and for all.

If the idea of seeing Sandra Oh and Anne Heche beat the living crap out of each other is your main reason for watching Catfight, then perhaps you shouldn’t. Although the three fights in the movie occupy a reasonable amount of screen time, they’re not what the movie is about, and they’re not as integral to the story as you might believe. In fact, writer/director Tukel could have used any one of a dozen other confrontations between Veronica and Ashley, and still got his point across. The fights themselves are heavily stylised, with both women hauling off and landing huge punches to each other’s faces in a way that isn’t the least bit realistic (they even use a hammer and a wrench on each other in the second fight), but which is at least entertaining in an “oh-my-Lord-will-you-look-at-that” kind of way. Both actresses give it their all, but the accompanying sound effects add to the dampened sense of realism that Tukel is aiming for, and as mentioned before, the fights are heavily stylised, brutal exercises in women behaving like brawling men.

The real message that Tukel is trying to get across is that happiness is intangible, here one minute, gone the next, and it’s how we deal with that loss that counts. Veronica loses everything: her family, money, her social standing, and a lot of bad habits that she encouraged in herself, such as drinking too much and not taking responsibility for it. She learns humility, and begins to work on bettering herself. She’s derailed for a moment by seeing Ashley on the cover of the art magazine, and when she goes to Ashley’s gallery, she’s doing so out of both revenge and self-pity. She wins the fight that ensues and walks away the victor because she’s exorcised the anger she felt for missing out on so much, and losing so much as well. She finds a peace within herself in the time that follows, and by living with her aunt, learns to embrace that peace in the same way that her aunt embraces nature (or Sam the tree).

For Ashley, though, it’s a different matter. While she has a strident sense of her self-worth as an artist, her lack of success has left with her with a warped sense of entitlement. Her art reflects this, with its violent images and criticisms of consumerism and the Middle Eastern war the US is engaged in. This anger sees her through the first fight, and precipitates the third, but where Veronica eventually finds a better way to live her life, Ashley is unable to. As she tells Veronica before their third showdown, “I have nothing left to do in this life but destroy you.” Ashley needs her anger; in some ways it defines who she is. For Veronica, anger is a tool, a resource that she can call on when she needs to. It’s no wonder their feud is so intense, and costs them both so much emotionally and physically.

In telling Veronica and Ashley’s stories, Tukel is on solid ground when examining the two women’s lives and what drives them, but unfortunately is less successful with the themes and subplots that accompany them. Throughout, there’s a war on, a conflict in the Middle East that Tukel uses to further examine issues of individual loss and pain, and to challenge the broader sense of entitlement that the US has in these situations. But these moments within the movie, ultimately, don’t add anything to it, and aren’t fully addressed, leaving the viewer with the sense that the movie is anti-war but can’t quite articulate why beyond the obvious. And there are awkward interludes featuring Bierko as a TV presenter whose updates on the war are meant to be ironic, but which are too facile to count.

Oh is terrific as Veronica, perfectly capturing the emotional highs and lows of her character’s journey, while Heche has the straighter arc, and one that calls for her to be largely unsympathetic throughout. Both do a fine job, and there’s able support from Silverstone as Ashley’s partner, whose paranoia surrounding gifts at a baby shower is one of the movie’s (uncomfortable) comic highlights. Tukel deftly weaves comedy and drama together in his script, but when he wants to get surreal – as when both women wake from their comas – it’s a little less effective. (He’s on even less firmer ground with Lisa’s obsession over a fake baby that she uses as a substitute for not being the birth mother.) With crisp, adroitly framed cinematography from Zoe White, and an offbeat soundtrack that features tunes played by a marching band, Catfight is a low-budget, low-key surprise, and well worth a look.

Rating: 7/10 – mildly demanding, but effective enough within the limits of its own ambitions, Catfight mixes black comedy with drama and the occasional dose of satire to create a movie that tries hard to impress, even if it doesn’t always succeed; Oh and Heche make for great rivals, and show a tremendous commitment to their fight scenes, but it’s when they’re called upon to show each character’s vulnerabilities and strengths that the movie really strikes a chord.

Crack-Up (1946)

10 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Art, Claire Trevor, Crime, Drama, Fraud, Herbert Marshall, Irving Reis, Murder, Museum, Mystery, Pat O'Brien, Ray Collins, Review, RKO, Thriller, Train crash, X-rays

D: Irving Reis / 93m

Cast: Pat O’Brien, Claire Trevor, Herbert Marshall, Ray Collins, Wallace Ford, Dean Harens, Damian O’Flynn, Erskine Sanford, Mary Ware

Suggested by the wonderfully titled short story, Madman’s Holiday by Fredric Brown, Crack-Up is, on face value, yet another cheap throwaway movie made by RKO in the post-war years, and of little interest to anyone who isn’t a fan of Pat O’Brien, Claire Trevor or Herbert Marshall. But look more closely and you’ll find a neat little thriller, still modest by the standards of the day, but with an approach to the material that makes it a fascinating piece to watch.

O’Brien is noted art critic and curator George Steele. When the movie begins we see him desperately trying to break into a museum late one evening. He appears drunk and he’s violent towards the policeman who tries to stop him. Once inside the museum the policeman manages to knock him unconscious. When he comes to he’s surrounded by Barton and some of the other museum trustees, as well as Terry, a visiting Englishman called Traybin (Marshall), and a police lieutenant called Cochrane (Ford). When Steele starts talking about being involved in a train crash earlier, it’s Cochrane who breaks the bad news: there hasn’t been a train crash (and his mother isn’t in the hospital). Certain there has been a crash, Steele allows himself to be pacified by one of the trustees, Dr Lowell (Collins). Lowell asks Steele if he can remember anything before the so-called crash, and though his mind is obviously disturbed, Steele recounts events from earlier in the day.

He gives a lecture at the museum, and is particularly interested in debunking the idea that art and culture are the exclusive properties of the rich and prosperous. He wants to see art made more available to the general public, an idea that worries the museum’s director, Barton (Sanford). When Steele goes further, and voices his plan to allow the public to see paintings being x-rayed so as to see how some artists have painted over an existing work, Barton is incensed and tells Steele he will do his best to block the idea and ensure it never happens.

Unperturbed by Barton’s waspish attitude, Steele hooks up with an old flame, Terry Cordell (Trevor) and they go for a drink together. Steele receives a call that tells him his mother is sick in hospital. He heads straight for the train station where he boards the first available train north. But as the train approaches one of its stops, Steele sees another train that he’s convinced will crash headlong into his. The other train gets nearer and nearer, and beyond that Steele can’t remember anything else, and certainly not breaking into the museum. With Traybin intervening to stop Cochrane from arresting Steele for assaulting the policeman, and with the trustees all wanting the whole affair being kept out of the press, Steele is allowed to go home.

But you can’t keep a confused art critic down and soon Steele is determined to find out what happened to him. He makes the same journey by train and learns enough to know that there’s something suspicious going on at the museum, and that it has something to do with a painting by Gainsborough that was recently lost at sea. With Terry’s aid he begins to piece together the fragments of a conspiracy that brings together the museum, a collection of old masters, and his own unwitting involvement.

There’s something undeniably charming about Crack-Up, with its murky lighting and frazzled hero, its well-oiled narrative and pleasing performances. For modern audiences it’ll prove too familiar perhaps, but if viewed with the eyes and ears of a contemporary viewer, there’s a lot that won’t seem as predictable or commonplace as it would do today. And a large part of the movie’s charm is the freshness the script – by John Paxton, Ben Bengal and Ray Spencer – brings to its central mystery: did George Steele experience a train crash, and if he didn’t, then why does he think he did? And as the story unfolds there are enough twists and turns to keep things lighhhearted and playful.

This is largely due to Irving Reis’s exemplary direction. Reis was a director who by 1946 had made a number of low budget thrillers including three featuring The Falcon. But while the projects he worked on were largely prosaic and uninspiring, Reis himself didn’t see it that way, and he worked hard to elevate the material he had to work with. This can be evidenced by the way in which Crack-Up is structured – there are breaks in the narrative where the viewer could convince him- or herself that they’ve missed something (just as Steele does) – and the way in which Steele is never able to fully convince himself that his sanity is as secure as he’d like it to be (he’s not quite the tortured hero of other film noirs, but his insecurity is a definite plus).

Reis is aided by strong performances from O’Brien and Trevor, with the latter given the chance to be more than just a piece of attractive window dressing to pose beside the lead actor. While O’Brien is steadfast and determined (while remaining unsure deep down), Trevor is angry and tenacious, refusing to believe her man is of unsound mind, and willing to support him no matter what. It’s a tough, unwavering performance, and Trevor, who was always an actress capable of far more than she was usually asked to provide, here makes Terry the equal of any of the male characters, and someone who the audience can identify with and be sympathetic towards. As the urbane Traybin, Marshall plays to type and uses his sleepy-eyed features to good effect, drawling his way through the material with a casual deference that balances O’Brien’s gruffer, more aggressive portrayal.

For fans of the genre (and the era) there are cameos from the likes of Edward Gargan (an arcade cop), Eddie Parks (a drunk in the same arcade), and Gertrude Astor (a nagging wife), and there’s an above average score by Leigh Harline that includes a couple of unsettling motifs that are used during some of the more intense sequences. It all builds to a satisfactory climax, with the villain – and their accomplice – proving not quite as obvious as usual (though, again, fans of the genre may think otherwise). It all adds up to a surprisingly rewarding film noir, and a movie well worth checking out if you get the opportunity.

Rating: 7/10 – an unassuming, modest little thriller that features a robust script, adroit performances, and assured, confident direction, Crack-Up is a movie that goes some way to proving that not all post-war mysteries were derivative and/or bland; not just for fans, this is a welcome addition to the genre that doesn’t settle for being second best or tired and predictable.

NOTE: Alas, no trailer for Crack-Up is available.

Big Eyes (2014)

18 Sunday Jan 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Amy Adams, Art, Christoph Waltz, Drama, Keane, Margaret Keane, Paintings, Review, The Waifs, Tim Burton, True story, Walter Keane

D: Tim Burton / 106m

Cast: Amy Adams, Christoph Waltz, Danny Huston, Krysten Ritter, Jon Polito, Jason Schwartzman, Terence Stamp, Delaney Raye, Madeleine Arthur

In 1958, Margaret Ulbrich (Adams) leaves her husband and moves to San Francisco with her nine year old daughter, Jane (Raye). She is an artist, and paints portraits of young children with enlarged eyes; her work is original but not successful. She has a stand at a street market for artists, and it’s there that she meets fellow artist Walter Keane (Waltz). Walter paints street scenes set in Paris but is as unsuccessful as she is. They begin seeing each other and Margaret discovers that Walter is actually a realtor and not a full-time artist. When Margaret’s ex-husband tries to sue for custody of Jane by arguing that Margaret is unable to support her properly, Walter suggests they get married. Grateful, but already falling in love with him, Margaret agrees.

With Margaret still painting her waifs (as she calls them) and Walter trying to sell his own paintings, neither is making any headway until Walter hits on the idea of renting some wall space at a jazz club owned by Enrico Banducci (Polito). When a woman shows an interest in one of Margaret’s paintings instead of one of his own, Walter accepts an offer for it. A fight with Banducci over being situated by the toilets makes the papers and leads to increased demand for Margaret’s waifs. Soon, sales are soaring, but Walter takes credit for Margaret’s work, telling her “lady art” doesn’t sell and that people already think he painted the waifs anyway (because he’s not tried to clarify matters).

Margaret goes along with Walter’s fraudulent selling of her paintings, and they become richer and richer, eventually opening their own gallery. When sales slow, Walter hits on the idea of mass printing the paintings as posters, and their fortune increases even more. But Margaret becomes increasingly uneasy about the deception she’s a part of, and the ease with which Walter seems able to hoodwink everyone. Even when she changes her style and paints new pieces, Walter insists she carry on painting the waifs, but with the proviso that she never tells anyone that he’s not the artist; even Jane isn’t to know. Again, she goes along with Walter’s wishes.

In 1964, an altercation with a drunken Walter results in Margaret leaving him and taking Jane (now played by Arthur) to Hawaii. She begins to rebuild her life, and becomes a Jehovah’s Witness. Through their teachings she reviews her life with Walter and determines to finally tell the truth about her paintings and Walter’s role in their success. She reveals everything on a radio show, and when Walter finds out he opts to hit back via the press, arguing that Margaret is of unsound mind. Margaret sues him for slander and takes him to court, where Walter ends up having to defend himself. At stake is credit once and for all for her artwork.

An odd combination of drama and low-key whimsy, Big Eyes takes the true story of Margaret and Walter Keane and their rapid rise to fame and fortune on the back of her talent for painting and his talent for promotion, and makes it a largely enjoyable – if occasionally unbelievable – tale of manipulation and deceit. Making his most straightforward movie yet, Burton dials back on his usual fantastical approach – except for one fantasy sequence set in a supermarket – and allows the script by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski to unfold at a deliberately sedate pace that keeps the audience involved but proves repetitive in terms of how often Walter intimidates or bullies Margaret into continuing to paint her waifs.

It’s a problem the movie never properly overcomes. Margaret acts as an accomplice for too long for it to be credible, and if it wasn’t for the fact that this is a true story, her reticence and complicity would appear too unlikely for comfort. As it is, the script focuses instead on Walter’s gift for self-betterment, and shows just how easy it was for him to popularise Margaret’s work. Trapped in a relationship that she feels there’s no way out from, it’s not until she discovers that Walter can’t paint at all that she begins to find her footing, and her empowerment drives the movie’s last half hour.

It also leads to one of the most bizarrely staged court cases in movie history. It’s at this point that Burton loses control of Waltz’s performance, and the movie goes all out to provide as farcical a conclusion as you’re likely to see all year (or any other). Up til now Waltz has mugged and grinned his way through the movie in an effort to showcase Walter’s charm and public good nature. But it’s so off-putting the viewer becomes glad when he’s not on screen. It also makes the viewer wonder if anyone was ever paying attention to Waltz’s interpretation, so completely off the wall is it. Next to him, Adams opts for pained disappointment and resigned looks, and imbues Margaret with a vagueness of character that she never fully shrugs off or replaces.

The script for Big Eyes tries its best to make Margaret’s art more relevant than it actually is – only art critic John Canaday (Stamp) is allowed to offer a voice of reason – but this is about one woman’s decision to be recognised and not kept in the shadows by her domineering husband. As a result, some scenes lack focus, while others seem included as padding rather than as a way to bolster the narrative. Burton directs as if he hasn’t quite connected with the material (which is strange as he commissioned the real Margaret Keane to paint a portrait of his ex-wife Lisa Marie), and while the movie is boosted by some beautifully framed and lit camerawork by Bruno Delbonnel, it’s effectiveness is undercut by some choppy editing and a score by Danny Elfman that doesn’t quite enhance the drama.

Rating: 6/10 – a mixed bag of a movie with a memorable performance (for all the wrong reasons) by Waltz, Big Eyes takes a true story and downplays the seriousness of what was, basically, a massive fraud perpetrated on the American public; drily humorous in part, but also dramatically undercooked, this unusual tale would probably have worked better as a documentary.