Tag Archives: Bullying

Dogman (2018)

06 Wednesday Feb 2019

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D: Matteo Garrone / 103m

Cast: Marcello Fonte, Edoardo Pesce, Nunzia Schiano, Adamo Dionisi, Francesco Acquaroli, Gianluca Gobbi, Alida Baldari Calabria, Laura Pizzirani, Giancarlo Porcacchia, Aniello Arena

In a rundown seaside resort during a miserable winter, Marcello (Fonte) makes a living as the local dog groomer. Operating out of a small shop that’s part of a small parade of other businesses, Marcello is a quiet, inoffensive man whose marriage has broken down, but who has a daughter, Alida (Calabria), who dotes on him. They go on expensive holidays together, which Marcello pays for by dealing cocaine on the side to his friends at the parade. But one local individual, Simone (Pesce), an intimidating and thuggish former boxer, takes advantage of Marcello’s timidity and never pays for his cocaine when he wants it. Marcello is further taken advantage of when Simone “persuades” him to be the getaway driver in a house robbery. Later still, Simone bullies Marcello into letting him have the keys to his shop so that Simone can break through the adjoining wall of the jewellers next door, and rob the place. Marcello is compromised by the robbery, and is arrested and then jailed when he says nothing about Simone’s involvement. But when he comes out, he goes looking for reparation…

As much a delicate character study as it is a bruising drama, Dogman is many things, but each aspect has been carefully melded to ensure that the whole is entirely effective, and the viewer is left with the sense that this is an entirely credible slice of life. Dealing with ideas related to loneliness, bullying, moral lethargy, and the modest aspirations of its main character, Garrone’s follow up to Tale of Tales (2015) is like gaining access to a world that we’ve heard about but never seen before, a world where a combination of weakness and strength is a vital component in the struggle to survive. Marcello is always deferring to others, even amongst the other shop owners who are ostensibly his friends, and outside of his relationship with Alida, he’s a loner who struggles to make himself stand out. His need for acceptance leads him to spend time with Simone, as if the two of them were friends, but so desperate is Marcello’s need to be included he allows himself to be patronised and exploited in equal measure. When he’s released from prison, there’s the initial impression that he’s toughened up, and to a degree he has, but as his pursuit of Simone and the restitution he feels is owing to him unfolds, it becomes clear that much of this change is only on the surface – and this leads to an uncomfortable, bittersweet ending.

Garrone has fashioned a tense, often unnerving movie that doesn’t shy away from portraying Marcello’s struggles against the backdrop of a demoralised seaside resort that has seen better days, and having the resort mirror the continual setbacks that Marcello endures. The only relief there is comes from beautifully lit underwater scenes where Marcello and Alida scuba dive on their holidays, a respite for both of them from the tawdry gloom of their home town. Garrone places these scenes carefully throughout the movie, but not to offer hope; instead they’re an acknowledgement of just how far Marcello is from those wondrous experiences. Fonte gives a subdued yet expressive performance, always apologetic, always nervous, never feeling at ease, and ready to excuse any inconvenience. It’s a subtle exercise in character building, with Fonte working from the inside out, and showing how Marcello’s innate passivity has fostered a kind of perverse self-preservation. As the hulking brute, Simone, Pesce is all blunt force and deliberate condescension, and he brings a cruel menace to his scenes with Fonte; you’re never quite sure what he’s going to do, but you do know that it won’t be pleasant. The relationship between Simone and Marcello is the unlikely focus of a movie that doesn’t believe in happy endings, and by showing how happy Marcello can be in this relationship, Garrone makes Marcello’s predicament a thing of undiluted tragedy.

Rating: 9/10 – sombre and unhesitatingly harsh, Dogman paints a bleak yet compelling portrait of moral and emotional ambiguity, and what some people will do to feel included; a standout performance from Fonte anchors a menacing script by Garrone and co-screenwriters Ugo Chiti and Massimo Gaudioso, and the whole thing benefits from superb work by DoP Nicolai Brüel that matches the darkness inherent both in the material, and the souls of its two main characters.

Pin Cushion (2017)

10 Friday Aug 2018

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D: Deborah Haywood / 82m

Cast: Joanna Scanlan, Lily Newmark, Sacha Cordy-Nice, Saskia Paige Martin, Bethany Antonia, Loris Scarpa, Chanel Cresswell, John Henshaw, Isy Suttie, Nadine Coyle, Bruce Jones

It’s time for a new start for Lyn (Scanlan) and her teenage daughter, Iona (Newmark). Having moved to a new town, both are ready to fit in with their new surroundings. But several things aren’t likely to work in their favour: Lyn is a hunchback whose right leg is shorter than the other; she’s also socially awkward. Iona is almost desperate to fit in, but she has less life experience than her peers, and is easily manipulated. At her school she tries to be friends with a trio of girls – Keeley (Cordy-Nice) and her cohorts in bullying, Stacie (Martin) and Chelsea (Antonia) – and though she’s treated appallingly by them, Iona still regards them as her best friends, even when Keeley steals away the one boy (Scarpa) who’s shown any interest in her. Meanwhile, Lyn struggles with self-esteem and -confidence issues, and is rebuffed by everyone she meets, from an aggressive neighbour (Cresswell) to the organiser of a local support group (Suttie). As each suffers, their once solid relationship begins to fracture and tear…

When we first meet Lyn and Iona, their combined appearances immediately mark them out as different, as the kind of people society in general will be unkind to. And so it proves in Deborah Haywood’s first feature, a strikingly misanthropic and unremitting tale of deliberate social exclusion and unconscionable bullying. That both Lyn and Iona are victims is a given: they mis-read social cues, trust in others even when experience teaches them they shouldn’t, and persevere in the face of untold setbacks. They’re figures of fun for the people they encounter, a source of endless amusement and/or disgust, but such is the nature of their own needs that they carry on, hoping to make some connection – any connection – that can exist independently of their own. Being that much older (if not wiser), Lyn is more reluctant to engage with others; she’s had enough disappointment in her life already, and the depth of the pain she’s had to endure because of her physical appearance can only be guessed at (when she explains the circumstances of Iona’s conception it’s horrifying and heartrending at the same time). She tries her best, but the self-styled Dafty One (Iona is Dafty Two) can only absorb the blows she receives with a grieving acceptance.

Iona’s plight is explored in greater detail, and Haywood really piles on the agony. As Keeley and her pals take her under their wing, their ulterior motives are as obvious as Iona’s desperate need to fit in. It’s an awful thing to contemplate, but there’s a horrible symbiosis here, and the script exploits Iona’s capacity for self-abasement in such a rigidly unforgiving way that what begins as bullying becomes something worse: a situation in which she is entirely culpable. Haywood orchestrates Iona’s journey of self-deception as a terrifying coming of age drama spliced with fantasy moments that serve as pointers to the character’s self-delusions. It’s a supremely confident first feature, enhanced by Nicola Daley’s impeccable cinematography, and featuring two exemplary and moving performances from Scanlan as Lyn and Newmark as Iona (in her first starring role). Both actresses shine, highlighting their characters’ innate feelings of loneliness and vulnerabilities, and making the viewer hope that they’ll find some small measure of acceptance, even though it’s unlikely. In some ways, this is an urban horror movie, and there are moments of body horror that Haywood could have taken further, but she employs a restrained, matter-of-fact approach that is actually more effective. Mesmerising and fascinating, this an impressive first feature that isn’t so easily shaken off once it’s been seen.

Rating: 8/10 – with a deeply unsettling mise en scene and two central characters whose lives are blighted to such an extent that each successive misfortune they endure adds to the discomfort of spending time with them, Pin Cushion is a triumph for its writer/director; with an excess of style and form to help it along, this is a movie that’s unafraid to leave a nasty taste in the viewer’s mouth, or provide anything remotely close to a happy ending.

I Kill Giants (2017)

24 Saturday Mar 2018

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D: Anders Walter / 106m

Cast: Madison Wolfe, Zoe Saldana, Imogen Poots, Sydney Wade, Rory Jackson, Art Parkinson, Jennifer Ehle

For Barbara Thorson (Wolfe), the existence of giants is a given, as much a part of the fabric of her daily life as brushing her teeth or riding the bus to school. Barbara is an expert on giants, she knows their origins and their proclivities, but worse still, she’s seen one in the forests outside the town where she lives. Knowing their destructive power, she determines to save the town, and constructs elaborate traps designed to kill the giant. Of course, no one else believes her when she talks about these terrible creatures, not her adult sister, Karen (Poots), or her older brother, Dave (Parkinson). At school she’s treated like the outsider she’s happy to be, and is regularly targeted by the school bully, Taylor (Jackson). The arrival of Sophia (Wade) from England gives her a chance to make both a friend and an ally in her fight against the giants, but with the omens and portents pointing toward a greater threat than even she is prepared for, Barbara’s behaviour becomes increasingly erratic. Her friendship with Sophia suffers, she rejects the help of the school psychologist, Mrs Mollé (Saldana), and does her best to avoid talking about the reasons why her main weapon against the giants is called Coveleski…

Adapted from the graphic novel of the same name by Joe Kelly and JM Ken Niimura, and with a script by Kelly, I Kill Giants is a winning blend of teen drama and fantasy thriller that plays it straight throughout, and when it does add humour, ensures that it’s as mordaunt as possible. Barbara’s world is convincingly structured from the start, and as the movie progresses, Kelly’s script adds the kind of layers that make it difficult for the viewer to dismiss Barbara’s fantasy world as being just that (there are moments when you’ll be sure it’s all in her head, and then moments when you won’t be). The movie provides clues as to the reality of what’s happening, but unless you’ve already read the original graphic novel, it’s unlikely you’ll piece it all together before the end. This means that the tone of the movie is dark overall, with its themes of imminent peril from without (the giants) and from within (Taylor), the fractured dynamic of Barbara’s family, and the cause – if there is one – of her retreat into a fantasy world.

With all these elements in place, you could be forgiven for thinking that I Kill Giants is a dour, depressing movie, but thanks to Kelly’s understanding of the characters and first-timer Walter’s sympathetic approach, not to mention an impressive performance from Wolfe, this is often uplifting stuff when it’s not addressing the serious natures of its various themes. Inevitably, Barbara is the kind of precocious child who can talk to adults on their own level, and leave them dumbfounded (something that only seems to happen in the movies), while her friendship with Sophia goes through the kinds of trials that leaves Sophia feeling less like a fully developed character and more of a deus ex machina. Elsewhere, there’s a striking animated section that depicts the origins and various incarnations of the giants, and several moments where the sound is either distorted or withdrawn in order to show Barbara’s disorientation when faced with certain unpalatable facts. Rasmus Heise’s cinematography, with its largely muted colour scheme, adds to the overall tone, and there’s a fascinating degree of detail in Stijn Guillaume’s set decoration.

Rating: 8/10 – an ambitious Irish/Belgian co-production, I Kill Giants tells its story with a great degree of warmth and affinity for its central character, and in doing so, proves itself to be noticeably sincere; it’s a cleverly assembled movie, forthright and stirring in places, and like all the best stories, it doesn’t give up its secrets until it absolutely has to.

A Girl Like Her (2015)

17 Sunday Sep 2017

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D: Amy S. Weber / 91m

Cast: Hunter King, Lexi Ainsworth, Jimmy Bennett, Amy S. Weber, Stephanie Cotton, Mark Boyd, Christy Engle, Jon W. Martin, Madison Deadman, Anna Spaseski, Mariah Harrison, Emma Dwyer, Michael Maurice, Gino Borri, Sarah Kyrie Soraghan

If there’s a message to be found at the heart of A Girl Like Her, a tale of bullying and its consequences, it’s not that bullying is wrong per se (though of course it is), it’s that we all make mistakes, and especially when we’re young. In this particular movie, mistakes are made by children and adults alike, and some of them are compounded and inexcusable. And yet the movie seems to be saying, if, after the fact, you’re sorry, then that’s alright. That may be a very nice, and very politic way of looking at things, but unfortunately, by the time A Girl Like Her arrives at that conclusion, its argument has been undermined completely by its approach up until that point.

The movie quickly introduces us to Jessica Burns (Ainsworth), a student at South Brookdale High School who is anxious, depressed, and contemplating suicide. She has one friend, Brian (Bennett), who she spends a lot of time with, and she’s confided in him that she’s being bullied at school by her one-time best friend, Avery (King). Their friendship changed over a minor incident that could have been dealt with very easily, but Avery has used it as a launchpad for a series of incidents that have made Jessica’s life an absolute misery. Brian gives her a brooch that doubles as a spy camera, and he persuades her to wear it at school, to document the bullying and provide proof that it’s happening. Jessica wears it, but is too fearful of what Avery might do if she finds out about it that she refuses to do anything with the footage, and she makes Brian promise he won’t tell anyone about it either. Then, one day, while wearing the brooch, she takes an overdose and lapses into a coma.

At this stage of the movie, what we’ve seen so far has been a compilation of footage shot by Brian, and footage from the spy camera. Now, with Jessica in a coma, and with no certainty that she’ll fully recover, the task of providing the viewer with footage falls to a documentary movie crew who are at South Brookdale thanks to its recent, highly impressive ranking in the national school league tables. Sensing a bigger story than the school’s educational achievements, the documentary’s director, Amy Gallagher (Weber), decides to focus on Jessica and how the rest of the students and the faculty feel about what she’s done, and the possibility that it’s linked to bullying. But “the fun” really begins when Amy finds out about Avery and decides to incorporate her into the documentary. Given a camera to record a daily video diary, Avery soon uses it as a means to make the viewer feel sorry for her instead of Jessica, but when Brian breaks his promise and shows Amy the footage of Jessica being bullied by Avery, “the most popular girl in school” soon learns that her past behaviour hasn’t always been her best behaviour, and her popularity begins to wane.

By mixing found footage with documentary footage in order to tell both Jessica’s story and Avery’s story, Weber has created a movie that looks and feels like a basic documentary but which veers off into straight up drama territory too often to make the conceit a successful one. It’s an earnest movie that looks to explore the fallout from Jessica’s suicide attempt in a way that’s sincere and non-judgmental – and therein lies its biggest problem. An initial talking heads approach with Amy eliciting the thoughts and reactions from students and faculty offer the expected clichés (“She was in my class but I didn’t really know her”), but once the idea of Jessica’s suicide attempt being the result of bullying arises, there are thinly veiled criticisms of the school’s anti-bullying policy (mostly from the teachers), and the students react in an offhand, blasé kind of way. For them, bullying, though deplorable, is just another fact of high school life.

So far, so predictable. But then, with Jessica consigned to a coma, Weber turns her attention to Avery, and makes her the focus instead. At first, this seems like a good idea, but the movie becomes irrevocably heavy-handed from this point on, and all the nominally good work Weber has put in so far begins to fall away. An extended scene at Avery’s home during dinner time shows her mother (Engle) behaving inappropriately and showing a complete lack of understanding in regard to Avery’s feelings. From this, we are meant to accept that Avery’s home life and domineering mother are to blame for her bullying Jessica, and that she is just as much a victim of bullying as Jessica. This would be fine if it wasn’t all too pat, and if Avery didn’t show any remorse until she sees the footage from the spy camera showing her being unrelentingly abusive. Sympathy for Avery, the movie seems to be saying, is essential if the cycle of bullying is to be broken, but Avery’s behaviour is presented as self-aware and opportunistic; she’s enjoying being a bully. And in another scene that’s meant to be telling, she does all she can to ensure that her parents don’t see the spy camera footage.

The movie strives to be an emotional rollercoaster as well, with tears at every turn, melodramatic scenes at the hospital, and awkward moments where Avery’s friends attempt to distance themselves from their involvement in her attacks on Jessica. It also stumbles badly in a scene where the school principal (Maurice) holds a meeting with Avery and her parents to get her side of “the story” (Avery’s friends have written a letter blaming her for Jessica’s situation). Avery is allowed to get angry, swear at the principal and storm off without any repercussions whatsoever. It’s a scene that lacks credibility throughout, and later, when Amy attempts to offer Avery help in dealing with the fallout from a self-serving, self-pitying video she posted online, the perilously thin line between documenary movie maker and secondary character is crossed irrevocably, and the movie reveals it’s true raison d’être: to persuade the viewer that being a bully is a matter of emotional circumstance and any blame is ephemeral. All of which is likely to provoke a less than satisfied response in the average viewer, and particularly if said viewer has been the victim of bullying themselves.

Nevertheless, there are good performances from King and Ainsworth, with strong support from Cotton and Boyd as Jessica’s distraught parents, but they’re all in service to a script that too often preaches when it should be observing (as all good documentaries do). Weber doesn’t always move from one scene to the next as fluidly as might be expected, and Samuel Brownfield’s cinematography noticeably varies between handheld and static and often in the same scene, a decision that undermines any attempt at cinéma vérité that Weber might be aiming for. There’s the germ of a good idea here, but with too much going on that feels forced or laboured, the same can also be said of the movie’s message… and that it can be applied to the movie itself can be considered unfortunate and ironic at the same time.

Rating: 5/10 – overheated at times and often lacking in subtlety, A Girl Like Her strives to provide a meaningful discourse on bullying and its aftermath, but falls short in its aim thanks to poor plotting and some wayward characterisations; with its uncertain approach and mix of shooting styles, it’s a movie that’s searching for a fixed identity, one that it brushes up against from time to time, but which it has very little chance of connecting with.

Before I Fall (2017)

06 Tuesday Jun 2017

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D: Ry Russo-Young / 99m

Cast: Zoey Deutch, Halston Sage, Logan Miller, Kian Lawley, Elena Kampouris, Cynthy Wu, Medalion Rahimi, Erica Tremblay, Liv Hewson, Diego Boneta, Jennifer Beals

It’s Cupid’s Day (12 February), a day for romantic gestures, red roses, and if you’re high schooler Samantha Kingston (Deutch), the perfect time to lose your virginity with your boyfriend, Rob (Lawley). As her day begins, Samantha is teased about this by her three best friends, Lindsay (Sage), Ally (Wu), and Elody (Rahimi), but she’s comfortable with their comments and single entendres. One of her classes is interrupted by the arrival of flower girls, students going from classroom to classroom and distributing roses for the lucky students who have an admirer (known or unknown), and while Rob has sent her some, she receives another that she believes has come from Kent (Miller), someone she’s known since they were children. Later, Kent invites her to a party he’s having that night. At the party, Rob drinks too much to be of use sexually, while the arrival of Juliet (Kampouris), an outsider that Samantha and her friends have bullied for some time, leads to an altercation and Juliet running off into the surrounding woods. The four friends leave soon after, but as they travel home in Lindsay’s car, it hits something in the road and crashes, killing them all.

But Samantha wakes up and it’s Cupid’s Day again. She can remember what happened, but when she meets up with her friends again, they’re all doing and saying the same things they did the day before. Samantha relives the day knowing that something isn’t right, but while some incidents and events happen differently, the end result is the same and Samantha finds herself waking up on Cupid’s Day. This continues over and over, with Samantha finding different ways of dealing with each same day. As she does so, she discovers things about Lindsay that she didn’t know, and about Juliet, and begins to understand much of what was going on in her life, but which she’d either ignored or wasn’t aware of. But with each change she makes there are consequences, some emotional, some moral, some unexpected. In time she begins to realise that the true benefit of having so many days in which she can experience her life over and over again, is the ability it brings to live a perfect day, and to use it to put right so many of the things that would otherwise remain unalterably wrong.

Before I Fall is based on the young adult novel of the same name by Lauren Oliver, and while it certainly paints an interesting portrait of the group dynamic surrounding Samantha and her friends, on its wider, broader themes of bullying, peer pressure, socially approved acceptance, and emotional confusion, Maria Maggenti’s screenplay lacks the focus needed to make the movie as compelling as it could have been. The opportunity to provide viewers with a powerfully realised exploration of teenage redemption as seen through the eyes of Samantha and the cruel circumstances of her death, is undermined by the determinedly soap opera elements of the plot, and the stereotypical natures of the characters.

Samantha is revealed to be the conscience of her little clique, while Lindsay is the overbearing queen bitch that the other three defer to, and Ally and Elody are the “other two”, the less rounded but nevertheless essential characters needed to make Samantha and Lindsay more important in comparison. With these stock incarnations established, and the movie’s opening twenty minutes devoted to the kind of socially exclusive banter and posturing that quickly grows tiresome if you’re not a member of the group itself, the movie heads for Kent’s party and an awkwardly staged – and edited – hazing of Juliet that you can’t help but feel wouldn’t have happened because Juliet would never have gone there in the first place. It disarms the movie in moments, and brings the viewer out of what up until then, had been an acceptable small town milieu with recognisable small town behaviours. But without it, a major part of Samantha’s coming to terms with her own attitudes and prejudices would go amiss, and her Road to Damascus would take a lot longer to travel along. It’s a compromise, but it’s also dramatically unsound.

The tone of the movie varies too, with domestic scenes at Samantha’s home taking centre stage just as further explorations of her friends and their interactions seem likely to reap better dividends, and then again when the plot decrees that of course Samantha’s relationship with Rob is inappropriate and it shifts her attention to Kent. There isn’t always a through line to connect all these disparate elements though, and while there is a piecemeal, episodic approach to the material that’s no doubt derived from its Groundhog Day-style structure, what connections there are, are often left hanging in order for the action to move from one scene to the next. By the time of Samantha’s last day, the day when she makes everything right, the movie has corrected this imbalance, but it’s too late. However it all turns out, whatever sympathy or support the viewer may have had for Samantha and her efforts will have evaporated long before then (like so many of the movie’s subplots).

What also evaporates very early on is any attempt at providing the plot and the characters with any depth. Maggenti’s script references Sisyphus (a clumsy metaphor for Samantha’s plight) and the Butterfly Effect (an inane metaphor for… what exactly?), but otherwise keeps things simple and simplistic in equal measure. Even the blatant promotion of the mantra Be Yourself (here reworked as Become Who You Are) has all the resonance of a greetings card homily. Meaning and purpose are bandied about with abandon, but neither land with conviction on either the script or the characters, and when pressed into action, feel contrived and pedantic.

The performances are serviceable, with Deutch given the kind of voice over dialogue that even the likes of Meryl Streep or Julianne Moore would struggle with, and only Kampouris makes any real impression, and that’s thanks to possibly the most unflattering blonde wig seen in many a year, and the strident nature of her portrayal. Otherwise it’s business as usual in a teen drama, with the problems of a bunch of well off kids put into sharp relief by the banality of their issues, and their persistent bullying of one of their classmates proof that they’re as shallow as their own gene pools.

Russo-Young’s direction is as wayward as the script, and they seem to be a perfect match for each other, but though the director lacks the wherewithal to make a better movie out of Maggenti’s ill-focused screenplay, she is at least able to relay a sense of the painful ennui that must come eventually from reliving the same day over and over. Thematically, she doesn’t have as tight a control on things as the viewer would like, and this shows in the pacing too, as scenes that should have a directness and a sharpness of intent are allowed to go on for too long, and jeopardise the viewer’s patience and/or interest. It’s all topped off by a slightly trippy score courtesy of Adam Taylor that, much like the movie overall, is intermittently successful at adding to the mood, and sometimes, is overly intrusive.

Rating: 5/10 – to borrow a phrase from sellers everywhere, “Buyer beware!”, because Before I Fall never lives up to its promise, and never focuses long enough on what it needs to in order to be more effective; a drama attempting to be something much more than it is, it’s a project that – like so many others – needed a much better script before it was allowed into production, and which works best if you go into it with absolutely no expectations at all.

The Tip of the Iceberg (2016)

14 Monday Nov 2016

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Original title: La punta del iceberg

D: David Cánovas / 96m

Cast: Maribel Verdú, Carmelo Gómez, Fernando Cayo, Bárbara Goenaga, Jesús Castejón, Carlo D’Ursi, Juan Fernández, Álex García, Ginés García Millán, Nieve de Medina

Why have three employees at the Tecnocentro offices committed suicide in the last few months? Is there a link between the three untimely deaths? And if there is, is their work the link? These and other questions, and any answers, become the responsibility of project manager Sofia Cuevas (Verdú). Tasked by her boss, Enzo (D’Ursi), with visiting the offices, speaking to the staff there, and compiling a report, Sofia isn’t too keen on the idea. Unable to get out of it, she arrives there and meets the head of the Tecnocentro division, Carlos Fresno (Cayo). He’s abrasive, abrupt, and won’t entertain the idea that there is any link between the three men other than that they were unable to deal with the pressures associated with their jobs.

Unimpressed by Fresno’s uncaring attitude, Sofia is further dismayed when she learns that the office she is allocated to work from, was the office of the last man to kill himself, Marcelo Miralles (Millán). She talks to Miralles’ secretary, Gabriela Benassar (Goenaga), and begins to get the feeling that not all is right at Tecnocentro. As she learns more about the demands made of the employees there, she begins to suspect that Fresno’s management skills leave something to be desired, and that he’s guilty of bullying people. But is it enough to link the three men, or even to explain why they took their own lives, and all at the Tecnocentro offices?

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Sofia eventually learns far more than she expected about Fresno’s management style, and is provided with enough evidence to see him dismissed. With a further tragedy looming, and Fresno making it clear to Sofia that if she writes the correct report she can expect a promotion and the commensurate raise, she is faced with the possibility that her investigation is merely a matter of protocol. But if it is, how can she proceed, and how can she ensure that Fresno’s bullying isn’t ignored or swept under the carpet?

The answer to that final question is, in the end, quite an obvious one. The viewer is given advance warning of how The Tip of the Iceberg will end soon after Sofia arrives at Tecnocentro and she receives a certain phone call. Everything that happens between that particular call and the one that closes the movie is largely filler; the viewer doesn’t have to have seen many corporate thrillers to know that the company is up to no good, that it views its employees as entirely expendable, and that the bigwigs in charge have no intention of making any changes – and especially if it will affect the bottom line.

So the movie offers nothing new in terms of plot or storyline. It’s clear from the start that Sofia is regarded by her male bosses as dependable in a way that is also patronising. She doesn’t have much of a life outside the offices where she works, she says she’s still in a relationship with a botanist when anyone asks but later reveals that she isn’t, and her reputation as being tough and uncompromising precedes her to the Tecnocentro building. She’s a “safe pair of hands”, expected to go in there, do her job (as instructed), and come back. She’s not expected to rock the boat.

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But while Sofia may be tough and uncompromising, she also has standards, and worse still for the company she works for – which is never named – she has principles too. When her investigation reveals levels of bullying for which there can be no justification, it’s Sofia’s quiet outrage that ensures this matter won’t be swept under the carpet, or left to wither and die for lack of attention. But despite all this, she’s still a woman in a predominantly man’s world, and the movie articulates this throughout, sometimes cleverly, though usually with a bluntness that is actually a little tarnished thanks to the way in which it’s driven home.

Elsewhere in the script, which is an adaptation of a play by Antonio Tabares, and was co-written by director Cánovas, José Amaro Carrillo, and Alberto García Martín, there are quite heavy doses of sexism, with Álex García’s super-confident Jaime Salas hitting on Sofia at every opportunity, and her role as investigator being undermined by almost everyone who she comes into contact with. This is meant to be a damning critique of the entrenched ideas at the heart of modern business ethics, but while it has some merit on that level, it’s laboured use within the movie doesn’t add anything to the basic storyline. The same goes for the way in which Goenaga’s exploited secretary, Gabriela, is treated by both Miralles and Fresno (and which leads you to wonder why she works at Tecnocentro in the first place).

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But while the movie doesn’t offer very much in the way of originality, it does feature impressive – and expressive – art direction by Uxua Castelló that is admirably enhanced and emboldened by Juan Carlos Gómez’s chilly cinematography. The Tecnocentro offices are open-plan yet claustrophobic at the same time, and there’s a surface glamour to everything that belies the distress and desperation being experienced by most of the employees. Adding to the sense of unease and dismay that permeates the visuals is a quietly angry performance by Verdú that anchors the movie and provides the viewer with someone to eventually root for (such is our first impression of Sofia: that she has adopted the don’t care attitude of her male colleagues in an effort to fit in, that we don’t trust her to see or understand the problems going on at Tecnocentro).

Making his feature debut, director David Cánovas has created a dangerous world of expediency and mistrust that doesn’t allow Sofia to be herself until she’s faced with the logical, and tragic, extension of the management style – profits before employees – that she is a willing part of. As he explores this notion, Cánovas makes some salient points about modern technology’s demands on people’s time and effort, and the way in which large corporations or companies justify their constant chasing after profits as the only way they can validate themselves. It’s just a shame that these points are used in service of a largely pedestrian plot, and aren’t expanded on to make sure that the somewhat tepid thriller elements are allowed to have more of an impact.

Rating: 7/10 – some viewers may be wondering, “Is that it?” by the movie’s end, but The Tip of the Iceberg is a slow-burn drama that seems like it’s not trying too hard, but which has a steeliness to it that makes up for the lack of originality; Verdú is on fine form as usual, and strong supporting turns from the likes of Gómez (as an unreliable union rep) and Goenaga help bring a strong sense of humanity to a movie that points out how badly some employers can behave – and deliberately so.

Just Before I Go (2014)

08 Thursday Oct 2015

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Just Before I Go

D: Courteney Cox / 95m

Cast: Seann William Scott, Olivia Thirlby, Garret Dillahunt, Kate Walsh, Kyle Gallner, Mackenzie Marsh, Evan Ross, Rob Riggle, Connie Stevens, David Arquette, Diane Ladd, Missi Pyle, Clancy Brown, Beth Grant, Griffin Gluck, Elisha Cuthbert

When his marriage falls apart, Ted Morgan (Scott) finds himself reassessing his life. He doesn’t like what he sees and this leads to him making the decision to return to his hometown and right the wrongs in his childhood that he feels have contributed to where he is now – and then he’ll kill himself. He moves in with his older brother, Lucky (Dillahunt), and his family: wife Kathleen (Walsh), and sons Zeke (Gallner) and Randy (Gluck). Ted’s first mission is to confront one of his teachers, Mrs Lawrence (Grant), who treated him harshly and undermined his confidence. He finds her in a home but his confrontation doesn’t go as planned, though he does meet Greta (Thirlby), his teacher’s granddaughter. When he tells her why he was there, and about his plan to kill himself, Greta threatens to tell Lucky (who’s also the town sheriff) unless Ted lets her tag along and film everything in lieu of his having to leave a suicide note.

Ted next visits the man who bullied him mercilessly at school, Rowley Stansfield (Riggle), but Ted’s plan to beat him up is ruined when Rowley apologises straight away for his terrible behaviour. With his expectations being dashed at every turn – a meeting with the one girl in school who treated him kindly, Vickie (Marsh), leads to a one night stand – Ted finds himself taken into his nephew’s confidence over the issue of Zeke’s confused sexuality. He also finds himself recognising that not everything is okay with his brother’s marriage (Kathleen spits in Lucky’s coffee and “sleep masturbates” in front of Ted each night). Still intending to kill himself despite how much he finds people like him, a secret from Greta’s past threatens to put an end to their burgeoning relationship, and an incident at school leads to Zeke disappearing. Faced with being involved with everyone else’s problems, Ted has to lend what aid he can before going through with his own “self-help” plan.

JUST BEFORE I GO

For a movie that deals with themes of suicide, childhood bullying, homophobia, teen peer pressure, sexism, marital disharmony, and adds a dash of casual racism to the mix for good measure, Just Before I Go could have been one of the dourest, most depressing movies of 2014 or any other given year. And while it contains a layer of seriousness that befits all those themes, Courteney Cox’s feature debut opts instead to throw in all manner of comic additions to the material, from the aforementioned sight of Kathleen “auditioning the finger puppets” (thankfully not in close-up) to a totally unexpected moment when Lucky sports an early morning hard-on that he does nothing to hide. It’s moments like these when it seems that David Flebotte’s script has lost any confidence it had in its own effectiveness and goes for the cheap laugh as a way of maintaing the audience’s interest.

What this means for the movie is that the humour, misjudged and awkwardly shoehorned into the narrative as it is, leaves the undercooked drama somewhat isolated and struggling to make the required impact. Take away the humour and you have a movie that, while it still struggles to be insightful, is at least broadly entertaining, with a quiet, understated performance from Scott, and an awareness that the issues it’s dealing with aren’t being tackled with any real depth but with enough energy to keep the audience involved (if only to see how many tonal switches the movie can make in ninety-five minutes). Cox apparently had advice from David Fincher and Gus Van Sant, but it’s hard to see where, or if, their advice was taken up, and she has trouble focusing on the emotions needed in any given scene, which adds to the disappointment of seeing a pretty good ensemble cast given very little to sink their teeth into. That it’s all wrapped up so neatly as well, merely reinforces the soap opera dramatics that do the movie such a disservice.

Rating: 4/10 – there’s already a movie called Trainwreck (2015), but this comes close to being the celluloid equivalent, as crass humour collides with sentimental drama to very poor effect; saved by a handful of well-judged if directorially unsupported performances, Just Before I Go is a badly constructed mess that stretches the patience and often betrays itself, let alone the viewer.

Monthly Roundup – May 2015

31 Sunday May 2015

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There’s a phrase that everyone will be familiar with: “Too many [insert item here], too little time”. When it comes to the number of movies that I watch in any given month, that phrase is apt in relation to the ones that get reviewed here on thedullwoodexperiment. I would love to have the time to post reviews of all the movies I see, but it’s just not practical; and besides which, some movies just don’t merit the attention (Annabelle (2014), for instance). Sometimes it’s a case of choosing one movie over another, sometimes Life gets in the way of blogging and a movie falls by the wayside. To combat this, and to give these “other” movies their due, I’ve decided to present, at the end of each month, a brief “review” of all the other movies I’ve seen. There won’t be any synopsis, or proper full-length analysis, just the title, director, running time, cast, and then the traditional two sentence ratings summation. So, let’s see which movies didn’t quite make the cut in May 2015.

The Forger (2014) / D: Philip Martin / 96m

Cast: John Travolta, Christopher Plummer, Tye Sheridan, Abigail Spencer, Anson Mount, Marcus Thomas, Jennifer Ehle, Travis Aaron Wade

Rating: 5/10 – Travolta’s art forger comes out of prison to spend time with his dying son (Sheridan) and pull off an audacious robbery; a derivative, occasionally unappealing crime drama that tries to do something different with its dying child angle, The Forger is nevertheless a movie whose “one last heist” scenario has been done to death elsewhere, and with far better results.

Forger, The - scene

The Gunfight at Dodge City (1959) / D: Joseph M. Newman / 81m

Cast: Joel McCrea, Julie Adams, John McIntire, Nancy Gates, Richard Anderson, James Westerfield, Walter Coy, Don Haggerty, Wright King, Harry Lauter

Rating: 6/10 – Western legend Bat Masterson (McCrea) tackles corruption supported by Haggerty’s devious sheriff in Dodge City and faces romantic problems as well from minister’s daughter Adams and saloon owner Gates; a middling, mildly diverting Western, The Gunfight at Dodge City benefits from McCrea’s solid, no-nonsense performance and Newman’s underrated abilities behind the camera.

Gunfight at Dodge City, The - scene

Comet (2014) / D: Sam Esmail / 91m

Cast: Justin Long, Emmy Rossum

Rating: 7/10 – Long and Rossum are the soulmates whose on-again-off-again relationship is examined over the course of six years; with the narrative continually fractured and reassembled, Comet is replete with the kind of “serious” romantic musings that sound alternately pretentious and profound, but the two leads have a definite chemistry and this helps immensely in making the movie as enjoyable as it (largely) is.

Comet - scene

Murder at Glen Athol (1936) / D: Frank R. Strayer / 67m

Cast: John Miljan, Irene Ware, Iris Adrian, Noel Madison, Oscar Apfel, Barry Norton, Harry Holman, Betty Blythe, James P. Burtis

Rating: 5/10 – two murders and a dying confession confuse matters for a detective (Miljan) who’s just trying to take a vacation – next door to where the murders have taken place; packed full of seemingly endless exposition and no shortage of suspects, Murder at Glen Athol is a sprightly murder mystery that packs a lot in but not always to its best advantage.

Murder at Glen Athol

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (2015) / D: Paul Tibbitt / 92m

Cast: Antonio Banderas, Tom Kenny, Clancy Brown, Bill Fagerbakke, Rodger Bumpass, Mr. Lawrence, Carolyn Lawrence

Rating: 7/10 – when the formula for Krabby Patty is stolen by the notorious Burger Beard (Banderas), SpongeBob (Kenny) is forced to team up with Plankton (Mr. Lawrence) to get it back… and venture above the surface; freewheeling fun with the denizens of Bikini Bottom that features lots of gags and the usual bright visuals, but takes an awfully long time in getting to the “sponge out of water” part.

SpongeBob Movie, The

Chappie (2015) / D: Neill Blomkamp / 120m

Cast: Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, Hugh Jackman, Ninja, Yo-Landi Visser, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Sigourney Weaver, Brandon Auret, Johnny Selema

Rating: 6/10 – with a robot police force firmly established in Johannesburg, the introduction of artificial intelligence leads to one robot, named Chappie, learning what it’s like to be human; disappointing outing from Blomkamp that never quite gels or seems sure of what it’s trying to do or say, but does feature an excellent performance from Copley.

Chappie

Impact (1963) / D: Peter Maxwell / 61m

Cast: Conrad Phillips, George Pastell, Ballard Berkeley, Linda Marlowe, Richard Klee, Anita West, John Rees

Rating: 5/10 – when newspaper reporter Jack Moir (Phillips) is framed for robbery by arch-nemesis “The Duke” (Pastell), he swears to get even when he gets out of jail; a low-key crime drama that seems busier than it is and which gets bogged down in the mechanics of Moir’s revenge plot, Impact does allow for a welcome appearance by Berkeley aka Fawlty Towers‘ Major, and an above average performance by Pastell.

Impact

The Loft (2014) / D: Erik Van Looy / 103m

Cast: Karl Urban, James Marsden, Wentworth Miller, Eric Stonestreet, Matthias Schoenaerts, Isabel Lucas, Rachael Taylor, Rhona Mitra, Valerie Cruz, Kali Rocha, Elaine Cassidy, Margarita Levieva, Kristin Lehman, Robert Wisdom

Rating: 6/10 – the discovery of a woman’s dead body in the loft apartment shared by five married men for their secret liaisons prompts them to suspect each other of the crime; alternately gripping and implausible, The Loft is a modern day cautionary tale that loses credibility with its solution then recovers with a great twist, but still has the air of a thriller that its writer never quite got to grips with.

Loft, The

Unfinished Business (2015) / D: Ken Scott / 91m

Cast: Vince Vaughn, Tom Wilkinson, Dave Franco, Sienna Miller, Nick Frost, James Marsden, June Diane Raphael, Britton Sear, Ella Anderson, Uwe Ochsenknecht

Rating: 5/10 – Swarf salesman Dan Trunkman (Vaughn) has to overcome all sorts of obstacles to land the contract that will save his fledgling company from going under, including a visit to a Berlin gay bar; a bit of a strange fish, Unfinished Business suffers from being two separate movies joined at the hip: one a raucous comedy, the other a thoughtful study of bullying, but together they don’t make for a cohesive whole, and it’s yet another movie where Vaughn coasts along on former glories.

Unfinished Business

Let’s Kill Ward’s Wife (2014)

29 Sunday Mar 2015

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Let's Kill Ward's Wife

D: Scott Foley / 82m

Cast: Patrick Wilson, Scott Foley, Donald Faison, James Carpinello, Greg Grunberg, Dagmara Domińczyk, Amy Acker, Marika Domińczyk, Nicolette Sheridan

Ward (Faison) has three close friends: David (Wilson), Tom (Foley), and Ronnie (Carpinello), but since his marriage to Stacey (Dagmara Domińczyk) and the birth of their son, his chances of spending quality time with them has almost reached zero. The reason? Stacey has him browbeaten and henpecked and bullied and reduced to asking permission to see his friends (which he doesn’t get). When a planned Father’s Day trip to the golf course sees four end up as three, his friends start to muse on the idea of killing Stacey and ridding their lives of her forever. But while Tom and Ronnie dismiss the idea other than in principle, screenwriter David begins researching how to kill someone and get away with it.

At a party held at Ward’s house, the friends, along with Tom’s wife, Geena (Acker), and David’s ex-wife, Amanda (Marika Domińczyk), are all together when Tom receives a phone call from actress Robin Peters (Sheridan), whom he has recently interviewed for the magazine he and Ward work for. She flirts with him and he arranges to meet her. But Stacey overhears the conversation and threatens to tell Geena about it. In a fit of pent-up anger, Tom mashes her face into a cake. She comes up for air but slips on a piece of the cake and crashes to the floor, unconscious. She stirs, and Tom panics and strangles her.

He manages to keep the body away from prying eyes until everyone but his friends and Geena and Amanda have gone. He tells them what’s happened, and after the initial shock, they all decide to cover up Stacey’s murder, and then to dispose of the body. Ward is stunned but not unhappy, and goes along with the plan. When it comes to deciding what to do with the body, David reveals several ways in which they could get rid of it, and they decide to dismember it and bury the portions in various different locations. But there is a potential fly in the ointment: Ward’s nosy cop neighbour, Bruce (Grunberg), who senses something is up with Ward, and who keeps an eye on his and his friends’ comings and goings in the run up to the disposing of Stacey’s body.

But when it comes to actually dumping her body, Ronnie has a crisis of conscience that threatens the plan, and Ward is followed by an increasingly suspicious Bruce…

Let's Kill Ward's Wife - scene

There’s a moment in Let’s Kill Ward’s Wife that may well be too much for some viewers, and may prompt them to give the rest of the movie a miss, believing that there are some things – even in a black comedy – that shouldn’t be filmed. The moment in question involves Ward’s full bladder and his dead wife, and it’s the moment in the movie where any connection the audience might have had with Ward and his friends flies out of the window and heads south for the rest of eternity. Up til now, the easy complicity and the joking around have been awkwardly amusing, but here the script – by Foley – aims for the blackest of black comedy and misses by several country miles (there’s another moment later on, with a line of dialogue, that tries the same thing, but it also falls flat). These two moments are indicative of the script’s shortcomings – of which there are many – and why some movies shot on a low budget and in a short period of time… should remain unmade.

It’s true that there’s ambition here, but it’s almost choke-slammed into submission before the movie even begins. At their son’s Christening, Stacey berates Ward for his behaviour in front of all their guests, but he’s done nothing wrong; and while it’s a scene that’s played for maximum awfulness – and to show just how much of a shrew Stacey can be – it’s also a scene that feels too overwrought to be credible. And Stacey remains a shrew right up until she dies, with no attempt to show a different side to her personality, and with an almost blink-and-you’ll-miss-it explanation as to her bullying behaviour. It’s a one-note characterisation and harms the movie in ways that Foley hasn’t considered because he’s more interested in showing the four friends and their camaraderie. But they’re just a bunch of guys who can’t relate to women, and for whom casual misogyny is pretty much a way of life. Ronnie is a would-be Lothario, while Tom is planning to cheat on his wife because it’s easier than telling her she doesn’t turn him on anymore and trying to fix things. And apparent commitment-phone David can devise a plan to dismember and dispose of a dead body but he can’t devise a way in which he can win back his ex-wife. (And if you think these “issues” won’t be resolved by the movie’s end, then you need to think again.)

As the movie stumbles from one unconvincing set up to another – David proves to be a bit of a criminal mastermind, the friends all strip down to their underwear in order to get rid of their clothes… but before they leave Ward’s house, Ronnie fails to take a shovel with him to his burial site and has to use a golf club to dig the hole, Bruce proves to be the worst cop in the world – it soon becomes clear that writer/director Foley hasn’t got a grip on either the material or his cast’s performances. Wilson comes off best by making David gleefully amoral when it matters, and he wears a Cheshire Cat grin throughout. Faison plays Ward as either dazed or confused or panicky, and Carpinello adopts a breezy Brooklynite persona for Ronnie that is too close to parody for comfort. Of the rest of the cast, only Acker makes any kind of impression, but then only briefly before she’s required to turn into an unlikely sexpot. As for Foley, well, let’s just say this isn’t his finest hour.

With too much in the way of fixed camerawork going on, Let’s Kill Ward’s Wife isn’t the most visually arresting of movies, but Foley and DoP Eduardo Barraza do at least keep things moving within the frame, and their reliance on low angle shots occasionally pays off. There’s a score by John Spiker that rarely deviates from being twee and stiffly supportive of the action, and the movie’s brief running time proves to be an unexpected blessing.

Rating: 3/10 – considering the potential of its subject matter, Let’s Kill Ward’s Wife is a ridiculous, self-consciously careless attempt at making a whip-smart blacker-than-black comedy; with no one to root for, or care about, it’s a movie that tries too hard and as a result, fails to deliver.

St. Vincent (2014)

22 Saturday Nov 2014

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St. Vincent

D: Theodore Melfi / 102m

Cast: Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy, Naomi Watts, Jaeden Lieberher, Chris O’Dowd, Terrence Howard, Kimberly Quinn, Donna Mitchell, Dario Barosso

Vincent McKenna (Murray) is the kind of curmudgeonly old man it’s best to steer clear of. He drinks to excess, gambles too much, and is about as sociable as a dose of the clap; in short, he’s the kind of you’d cross the street to avoid. When new neighbours Maggie (McCarthy) and her son Oliver (Lieberher) move in next door, relations are initially frosty as the removals van causes damage to Vincent’s car. On Oliver’s first day at his new school he falls foul of bully Ocinski (Barosso) and has his keys, wallet and phone stolen. He manages to get home but with his mother at work and no other way of getting in, he calls on Vincent to use his phone to call his mother. Vincent isn’t best pleased but agrees nevertheless and Oliver stays with him until Maggie can get home from work – but not before he’s agreed a babysitting rate with her.

The money is important as Vincent’s terrible luck at gambling has left him very short of money. He can’t get a loan from the bank, he owes too much money to loan shark Zucko (Howard), and he’s behind on payments to the care home that looks after his wife Sandy (Mitchell). With Maggie working late more and more, he and Oliver spend more and more time together. Vincent teaches Oliver to defend himself from bullies such as Ocinski, and takes him to the race track where Oliver learns how to bet. He also bonds with the old man, becoming the only friend Vincent really has, unless you count pregnant stripper Daka (Watts), who has a fondness for the old man that she plays down at every opportunity.

When Vincent and Oliver win big at the race track, it’s potentially the beginning of a big change in Vincent’s life, but he still avoids paying Zucko. Meanwhile, Maggie’s husband begins a custody battle for Oliver, leading to an awkward court appearance where the depth of her son’s relationship with Vincent is revealed, and with less than perfect consequences. And matters are made worse when Zucko pays Vincent a surprise visit at home.

St. Vincent - scene

If you’re looking to make a movie where the main character is a caustic, mean-spirited, emotionally withdrawn malcontent, well, in the words of one of his earlier movies, “Who ya gonna call?” The obvious answer is Bill Murray, the one actor who does “grumpy” better than anyone else on the planet, and for whom the art of being a killjoy seems like second nature. He’s the perfect choice to play Vincent, and it’s a good job writer/director Melfi was able to get him to commit to the movie because without him, St. Vincent may not have turned out to be as enjoyable as it actually is.

It’s a particular kind of actor who can pull off such a deceptively difficult role, for while Vincent is outwardly abrasive, there’s a grudging kindness and likeability buried below the surface that is reserved for the people he cares about. As he becomes more and more enamoured of Oliver and Maggie, it’s good to see that the script doesn’t do the one thing that most movies of this kind do without fail: have the main character renounce his mordant ways and become more agreeable. Here, Vincent remains unlikeable to pretty much everyone for the entire movie, allowing Murray to paint a convincing portrait of a man continually at war with a world that kicks the rug out from under him at nearly every opportunity. His antipathy towards the world is entirely understandable, but it’s his willingness to let some people in, while retaining that antipathy, that saves the character from being entirely one note.

Murray grabs the character of Vincent and gives the kind of assured, entirely believable performance that only he can pull off, making the old man by turns acerbically funny, justly melancholy, disappointingly selfish, and unsurprisingly reticent. It’s a virtuoso performance, one that lifts the movie up and out of the rut of its less than original plotting and straightforward storylines. Aside from a couple of instances that don’t turn out in just the way the viewer might expect – the result of the custody hearing, the outcome of Zucko’s home visit – Melfi, making his feature debut as writer/director, has assembled an old-fashioned drama with over-familiar characters we’ve all seen at least a dozen times before, added the kind of spiteful humour that modern audiences appreciate, and has made his movie seem fresh and unconventional.

He’s also procured a raft of excellent performances, and not just from Murray. Leaving behind the forced hilarity of movies such as The Heat (2013) and Tammy (2014), McCarthy excels as Oliver’s mother, playing her with an honesty and put-upon vulnerability that works effectively against Murray’s obnoxious grouch. Watts is equally as good as the pregnant Daka, her hard-boiled exterior the perfect foil for Vincent’s ingrained irascibility; when they spar it’s like watching an old married couple, and the fondness that builds up in such a relationship. Howard, sadly, has little to do but appear menacing in a couple of scenes, and O’Dowd works his magic as Oliver’s home room teacher, a priest with very relaxed ideas about prayer. But the real revelation here is Lieberher as Oliver – like Melfi, making his feature debut – giving the role a delicate, yet simple touch that dispels the idea early on that Oliver is going to be one of those precious and precocious kids that Hollywood is so fond of putting on screen. He’s a natural, comfortable with his dialogue and able to hold his own with Murray (it really feels like he’s been doing this for a lot longer).

With its deft one-liners and subtle nuances, Melfi’s script makes the occasional stumble – Zucko disappears completely after he visits Vincent, Oliver and Ocinski become friends a little too easily (you’ll understand why when you see the movie), and the sub-plot involving Vincent’s wife adds little to the mix – but all in all this is a solid, hugely enjoyable movie that features some terrific performances, a great score by Theodore Shapiro, and enough charm to melt a dozen icebergs.

Rating: 8/10 – a great first feature from Melfi – who’s now one to watch out for – St. Vincent is a breath of fresh air, and rarely puts a foot wrong with its main characters; Murray carries the movie with ease, and the movie’s indie sensibility isn’t allowed to overwhelm the material, making for a very good time to be had by all.

Sleepaway Camp (1983)

24 Saturday May 2014

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Sleepaway Camp

D: Robert Hiltzik / 88m

Cast: Felissa Rose, Jonathan Tiersten, Karen Fields, Christopher Collet, Mike Kellin, Katherine Kamhi, Paul DeAngelo, Desiree Gould, Owen Hughes, Robert Earl Jones

Eight years after the death of her father and brother in a boating accident, Angela Baker (Rose) is heading off to Camp Arawak for the summer with her cousin Ricky (Tiersten).  Angela is withdrawn, says hardly anything to anyone, rarely joins in the camp’s activities, and soon becomes the target of bully Judy (Fields), as well as some of the boys.  She finds an ally in Ricky’s friend, Paul (Collet).  He shows an interest in her, and they begin a tentative relationship.  Meanwhile, a killer has struck twice, attempting the death of kitchen worker Artie (Hughes), and drowning one of the boys who tormented Angela earlier.  Camp owner Mel (Kellin) refuses to close the camp, though, and as Angela continues to be bullied by Judy and camp counsellor Meg (Kamhi), the body count rises.

The Eighties were a tough time for some horror movies.  The templates established by Halloween (1978) and Friday the 13th (1980) dictated a serial killer with supernatural abilities, not the least of which was the ability to suffer all manner of physical punishment and still keep on killing.  To be noticed in this particular sub-genre there had to be something different about either the setting (The Funhouse, 1981), or the killer (Curse of the Cannibal Confederates, 1982 – actually zombies).  By the time Sleepaway Camp appeared in 1983, there were already too many weird and wonderful slicers and dicers out there, and too many appearing against the backdrop of a very low budget (and even less imagination).

On face value, Sleepaway Camp had two things working against it from the start: the summer camp setting appropriated by the Friday the 13th series, and an eponymous mystery killer with a grudge against, well, pretty much everyone.  But somehow, and despite some very obvious disadvantages – the acting, the $350,000 budget, the relative inexperience of both cast and crew – the movie struck a nerve with audiences (and went on to make a very tidy profit).  The “shocking” twist ending had a lot to do with the movie’s success – it’s still one of the most unnerving final shots/close ups in horror movie history – but even without this, Sleepaway Camp has an unexpected, and goofy, charm that more than makes up for its faults.

Sleepaway Camp - scene

The familiar location, the typical teenage bickering and peer pressure, the now-awful fashions (did men really wear shorts that short back then?), all these aspects add to the tremendous sense of goodwill the movie engenders, and it’s a measure of writer/director Hiltzik’s confidence in his own material that Sleepaway Camp works so well.  With its slightly askew framing style, and scenes that often run just a beat or two longer than they need to, the movie has a disquieting feel about it from the start; it also throws in a few close ups when the audience least expects it, and this all adds to the disconcerting atmosphere the movie creates from its opening credits sequence showing the camp abandoned and in disrepair. It’s rare that a slasher movie is also creepy, but Sleepaway Camp is creepy without even having to try too hard.

The murders are carried out with gusto, although with an emphasis on not showing too much actual gore, that’s saved for the discovery of the body later on when the special make up effects come into their own (though it’s perhaps a good thing that the aftermath of one character’s death by hair straightener isn’t shown).  There’s the usual moments when you wonder just how one killer could have apparently been in more than one place at a time, and the average viewer could be forgiven for thinking the killer must be on steroids, but this is one time where the logistics of a killing spree can be safely ignored; the escalation has a kooky inventiveness that just works (even though it shouldn’t).  And the killer’s identity, when revealed, is still a moment of genius that has never been imitated since.

As mentioned before, the acting does hamper things, and some of the performances are practically raw (Fields doesn’t appear to be able to deliver a line without pouting at the same time), and some of the dialogue comes out sounding as if English isn’t the actor’s first language.  There’s also the sense that the actors aren’t listening to each other so much as just waiting for each other to finish talking so they can get their own lines out.  Again though, it all adds to the movie’s charm (though you have to see Gould’s performance to get a real idea of just how many “different” acting styles are on display here).

Rating: 7/10 – a superior slasher (and cult favourite) that still impresses over thirty years on; unintentionally funny to be sure (from the perspective of so many years having gone by, at least) but still an effective shocker with a killer twist ending that lodges itself in the memory and stays there.

Geography Club (2013)

17 Thursday Apr 2014

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Geography Club

D: Gary Entin / 80m

Cast: Cameron Deane Stewart, Justin Deeley, Andrew Caldwell, Meaghan Martin, Allie Gonino, Ally Maki, Nikki Blonsky, Alex Newell, Teo Olivares, Ana Gasteyer, Marin Hinkle, Scott Bakula

It’s a sad fact that even today, with society supposedly more tolerant, and understanding, of different sexual orientations that a movie such as Geography Club can still be relevant in addressing the issue of homophobia.  Set in Goodkind High School – a misnomer if ever there was one – the movie begins with Russell arranging to meet a guy he’s met online.  He’s nervous, and unsure of his sexuality, but the meet is mainly a test of his feelings.  At the park he bumps into fellow high schooler Kevin (Deeley), and when Kevin walks away after an awkward conversation, Russell realises it was Kevin he was due to meet.

Later, on a school field trip, Russell and Kevin get to know each other better and one night they kiss.  The kiss is witnessed by Min (Maki), a fellow student.  Back at Goodkind, Min leaves Russell a message to meet her in one of the classrooms after school the next day.  Worried that she plans to blackmail him and Kevin, Russell goes to the classroom, and finds not only Min, but also Terese (Blonsky), Min’s partner, and Ike (Newell).  All three are gay and have formed the Geography Club in order to provide support for each other.  Min wants Russell to join them, but at first he refuses.  However, he goes back the next day, and in time becomes a member of the club.

Running parallel to all this are the efforts of his best friend Gunnar (Caldwell) to go out with Kimberly (Gonino), the object of Gunnar’s not inconsiderable lust.  While Russell tries to maintain a clandestine relationship with Kevin (who’s the star player on the school football team), his friendship with Gunnar threatens to fragment altogether, culminating in a disastrous weekend trip to Kimberly’s folks’ summer place.  With Gunnar counting on Russell’s support, his unwillingness to pair off with Kimberly’s friend Trish (Martin) leads to Russell being outed at school.  Determined not to let himself be categorised so unfairly, he feels it’s time for the Geography Club to go public.

Geography Club - scene

As an expose of what it’s like to be a teenager and either gay or lesbian, Geography Club falls a little short in its intentions, taking a serious subject – from the bestselling book by Brent Hartinger – and often undercutting that seriousness by placing the emphasis on humour, or by adopting a superficial approach to the material.  While the movie looks at ostracism, peer pressure, sexism, bullying, parental expectations, personal freedoms, teenage sexuality and its potential pitfalls, the perils of someone trying to find their place in the world, and the difficulty in being true to yourself (if you’re even sure what that means), this is all perhaps too much for Geography Club to address properly and with the right amount of attention for each issue.

Russell’s struggle is initially with his uncertainty about being gay, even after he and Kevin kiss.  But Min’s “intervention” has the effect of deciding the issue for him, and the rest of the movie settles for the inevitable how-long-will-it-be-before-the-main-character-is-honest-with-everyone? approach so prevalent in this type of movie.  As a result, Russell is forced to hide his true feelings for fear of being found out; he also takes part in bullying another student, Brian (Olivares), and with barely a moment’s hesitation (it’s a scene that involves Brian being humiliated in front of everyone in the school cafeteria, and yet Russell and his “friends” from the football team get away with it completely; there’s no punishment for their behaviour at all, one of the weirder instances that pop up throughout the movie).  And Russell would rather upset his best friend instead of trusting Gunnar with the knowledge that he’s gay.  With the movie changing focus so often, it’s hard to work out if there’s a main point trying to be made – be nice to gay people? bullying is an awful thing to do? friendships should be more important than emotional self-doubt?

The relationships in the movie range from the non-existent (Russell’s father is referred to but never seen, as if the family dynamic that would need to be addressed by his being gay was one issue too many for the filmmakers) to the predictable (Gunnar accepts Russell’s being gay without batting an eyelid).  Kevin is the jock who won’t commit to being homosexual because it would ruin his need to be “normal” (but he still wants to see Russell at the same time); Min and Terese appear more like lipstick lesbians than a real couple; Trish’s predatory attempts at making out with Russell are badly handled – and misconceived – considering her apparent experience with other guys; and Brian readily forgives Russell for his involvement in the cafeteria incident (but only after Russell is outed).

With the characters behaving either too predictably, or in ways that serve to advance the script rather than giving them some much-needed depth, the cast are constantly in danger of having their performances derailed by Edmund Entin’s lightweight script and Gary Entin’s overstretched direction.  Blonsky is wasted in a role that either has her playing the guitar or looking cynically at everyone else, while Martin is saddled with a one-note character and no chance of making Trish any or more interesting.  Deeley has less to do than most but what he does have to do is repetitive, and Kevin is so selfish and callow you hope he and Russell don’t end up together.  With a humorous turn from Gasteyer as an oddball teacher, and Caldwell stealing the movie as a desperate virgin (he’s like a young Jack Black at times), it’s left to Stewart to keep the audience’s attention and provide the sympathetic character the audience needs to make it through.  Fortunately he does just enough to engage our sympathies, but it’s a close run thing, and as expected, once Russell is outed, he becomes less annoying as well.

Rating: 6/10 – not quite as involving as was hoped for, perhaps, but still a pleasant enough way to spend eighty minutes, provided you have a tolerance for less than convincing character motivation; a decent enough effort, and a worthy subject matter, but too lacking in real drama to make much of an impact.

Carrie (2013)

11 Saturday Jan 2014

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Carrie (2013)

D: Kimberly Peirce / 100m

Cast: Chloë Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore, Gabriella Wilde, Portia Doubleday, Judy Greer, Alex Russell, Zoë Belkin, Ansel Elgort, Barry Shabaka Henley

When seventeen-year-old Carrie White (Moretz), already a social misfit at the school she attends, has her first period and doesn’t realise what’s happening, her fear and confusion leads to her classmates throwing tampons and sanitary napkins at her, and yelling at her to “plug it up”. This humiliating event is filmed by the worst of her tormentors, Chris Hargenson (Doubleday), and is later posted on the Internet. Stopped by their teacher Ms Desjardin (Greer), the girls are punished by having to stay after school and do repetitive exercises. Chris rebels against this and ends up being suspended; this means she will miss the upcoming school prom. Angered by what she feels is a terrible injustice, Chris vows to get even with Carrie (though not with Ms Desjardin).

For Carrie, her problems don’t end at the school gates. Her mother, Margaret (Moore), governs their lives according to her strict religious beliefs. Carrie tries to explain how terrified she’d been when her period started, but Margaret, her beliefs skewed by a pathological fear of sexual intimacy, berates her daughter for “becoming a woman” and locks her in a closet. Carrie’s anger surfaces and with just her mind she causes a jagged tear to appear down the centre of the closet door. With both mother and daughter realising there is going to be a shift in their relationship – and in Carrie’s favour – a tense line is drawn, and Margaret, now wary of the daughter she has controlled so easily until now, fears for both their futures.

While Chris plots her revenge, another of Carrie’s classmates, Sue Snell (Wilde), ashamed of how she behaved, tries to make amends by persuading her boyfriend Tommy (Elgort) to take Carrie to the prom instead of her. Tommy is initially resistant to the idea but eventually agrees, and asks Carrie if she’d like to go with him. Surprised but flattered (even if she doubts his sincerity to begin with), Carrie agrees. At the prom, and as part of Chris’s revenge, Carrie and Tommy are crowned Prom King and Queen. As they bask in the applause and approbation of their peers, Chris and her boyfriend Billy (Russell) drop two buckets of pig’s blood down onto Carrie and Tommy. The shock and the humiliation is too much and Carrie, using her nascent telekinetic powers, proceeds to take her revenge on everyone there.

Carrie (2013) - scene

Updated in minor ways for a new decade, Carrie plods its way uncomfortably from one leaden scene to the next, never fully convincing and never fully engaging the audience. As a remake it fails to justify its existence thanks to two main problems, both of which are insurmountable: Peirce’s direction and Moretz’s performance.

Peirce – still best known for Boys Don’t Cry (1999) – here proves a bad fit for the material, her approach leading to a curiously flat, matter-of-fact retelling that never takes off or impresses that much. It’s as if she’s decided to film events at a remove, keeping a distance between the audience and the characters so that any empathy the viewer may have is kept from flourishing. For a story with such a strong, emotional resonance, and centred around the age old topics of bullying and female empowerment, it’s even more surprising that Peirce has been unable to connect with the themes inherent in the script. This extends to the performances as well, which – Moore and Moretz aside – are perfunctory and/or lethargic.

Moore is a great choice for Margaret White, and expresses the religious paranoia that has blighted her life, and her daughter’s life, with a real sense of conviction. She’s like a coiled snake, biding its time until the right moment to strike. Moore is the best thing in Carrie but it’s effectively a supporting role and so she’s not on screen enough to make a difference.

Someone who is on screen too much, though, is Moretz, a moderately talented young actress whose rise to stardom on the back of the Kick-Ass movies has meant her being given more praise than is deserved, and who is cruelly shown to be lacking the acting skills needed to portray a character such as Carrie White. She may be the right age but the part requires an actress who is both older and more experienced. Moretz does her best but she’s just not up to it. She isn’t at all convincing as a put-upon teenager, and when required to show the pain and discomfort her life at home has engendered, there’s barely anything for the audience to latch on to. Worse still is the wide-eyed, “did-someone-just-goose-me?” stare she adopts for her telekinetic rampage; if it was intended to make her look scary then someone wasn’t checking the dailies.

With Peirce’s feather light touch on proceedings and Moretz’s underwhelming performance putting the movie at a disadvantage from the risible opening to the even more risible denouement, Carrie fails to meet its audience even halfway. The script is serviceable enough but there’s a lack of effort all round: even Carrie’s destruction of the prom is done half-heartedly, leaving a feeling of “was that it?” in the air.  In horror terms, this has to be the biggest disappointment of 2013.

Rating: 4/10 – yet another poor adaptation of a Stephen King novel/short story/laundry list, Carrie lacks the brio and energy needed to carry it off; turgid in the extreme and saved only by Moore’s creepy performance and a sequence that wouldn’t look out of place in a Final Destination movie.