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Tag Archives: Lily Collins

To the Bone (2017)

23 Friday Nov 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Alex Sharp, Anorexia, Carrie Preston, Catch Up movie, Drama, Eating disorders, Keanu Reeves, Lili Taylor, Lily Collins, Marti Noxon, Review, Treatment

D: Marti Noxon / 107m

Cast: Lily Collins, Carrie Preston, Lili Taylor, Keanu Reeves, Alex Sharp, Liana Liberato, Retta, Leslie Bibb, Maya Eshet, Alanna Ubach

Ellen (Collins) is a twenty year old college dropout suffering with anorexia. Returning to her father and stepmother’s home after a failed stint at an in-patient programme, she finds herself put forward for yet another treatment regime, this time run by unconventional therapist Dr Beckham (Reeves). At the urging of her stepmother, Susan (Preston), and younger sister, Kelly (Liberato), Ellen agrees to take part, and goes to stay at a home run by Beckham where sufferers from eating disorders can receive treatment and learn to remind themselves that “life is worth living”. There Ellen meets a variety of fellow anorexics (and bulimics), including Lucas (Sharp), a young, British-born ballet dancer whose career has been cut short by a knee injury and his subsequent anorexia. The pair develop a friendship that sees Lucas act as Ellen’s personal advocate, encouraging her to eat more and to see the world in a more positive light. But Ellen’s demons – largely in the form of something she did that prompted another girl to take her own life – aren’t so easily overcome, and her initial progress is soon derailed by events that she has no defence against…

Early on in To the Bone, Ellen and her sister are sitting talking quietly, an unidentified city spread out before them. Kelly is voicing her concern about Ellen’s condition when Ellen replies, “I’ve got it under control. Nothing bad’s gonna happen.” To which Kelly answers, “How many people do you think are down there? Like 2 million? I bet a bunch of them who are about to die just said the exact same thing.” It’s a poignant moment, and one that highlights the problem on both sides of the eating disorder divide: the sufferers think they’re in control of what they’re doing, while their loved ones wish it were true. And there’s no middle ground. It’s moments like these, where hope and despair collide and cancel each other out, that makes Noxon’s debut as a feature writer/director all the more affecting. A movie that for the most part offers little in the way of concrete answers, To the Bone is instead a powerful and unflinching examination of both the physical effects of anorexia, and the psychological damage that accompanies it. Based around Noxon’s own experiences, the movie steers clear of being yet another “disease of the week” TV-style outing, and instead focuses on what can be done to make someone with an eating disorder value their life again.

Despite some odd moments of fractured humour, mainly expressed through Lucas’s flamboyant behaviour, this isn’t a movie designed to entertain or make the viewer feel good. Which is a good thing, as this would have trivialised the serious nature of the subject matter, and undermined the good work of all concerned. Collins gives an exemplary performance, expressing Ellen’s anger and sense of hopelessness at her situation, and doing so with a clarity and a precision that allows Ellen’s rough-hued antagonism to have a credible emotional and psychological footing. There’s good support from Taylor as Ellen’s mother, unable to deal with her daughter’s suffering because of her own problems, Preston as Ellen’s stepmother, a woman out of her depth but willing to make  mistakes if it helps matters (though usually it doesn’t), and Liberato as the younger sister who misses the version of Ellen that she’s meant to be. If there’s one thorn in the narrative ointment, it’s related to Reeves’ character, a therapist whose benign manner and intuitive insights are jettisoned during a misjudged scene in which Beckham tells Ellen that the answer to her problems is to “grow a pair”. It’s a moment that sits uncomfortably within the rest of the material, but fortunately it’s a rare mis-step in a movie that is otherwise moving and empathetic.

Rating: 8/10 – confidently handled by Noxon, and compellingly structured, To the Bone benefits from an excellent central performance from Collins, and the decision to be non-judgmental of its characters; a journey worth taking then, sincere and unapologetic in its examination of a difficult and important subject, and worthy without preaching or being condescending.

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Rules Don’t Apply (2016)

15 Saturday Apr 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Alden Ehrenreich, Comedy, Drama, Howard Hughes, Lily Collins, Matthew Broderick, Review, Romance, Screen test, Warren Beatty

D: Warren Beatty / 127m

Cast: Warren Beatty, Lily Collins, Alden Ehrenreich, Matthew Broderick, Annette Bening, Martin Sheen, Candice Bergen, Haley Bennett, Megan Hilty, Paul Schneider, Alec Baldwin, Oliver Platt, Taissa Farmiga, Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, Paul Sorvino, Dabney Coleman, Steve Coogan

Not counting the TV short, Dick Tracy Special (2010), this is Warren Beatty’s first time behind the camera since Bulworth (1998). That movie was a pithy, satirical look at (then) modern US politics, but eighteen years on, Beatty’s skill as a director isn’t on quite such good form. Rules Don’t Apply focuses on Howard Hughes’ life between 1958 and 1964, and adds a fictional romance to bolster the main storyline (which the movie can’t decide on). It’s not a bad movie per se, just one that isn’t sure which one of three stories it wants to focus on.

The first story concerns Frank Forbes (Ehrenreich), who has just started for Hughes as a driver. He has a fianceé back home, Sarah (Farmiga), and a dream to build affordable housing at an undeveloped location just outside Los Angeles. Working for Hughes, though, is somewhat limiting, and for the most part he acts as a chauffeur for some of the actresses Hughes has under contract. The second story concerns one of those actresses, the fresh from Virginia, Marla Mabrey (Collins). Accompanied by her mother, Lucy (Bening), Marla is excited to meet the great Howard Hughes, and screen test for a movie called Sally Starlight. But as time goes on, she doesn’t get to meet him, and the screen test seems increasingly unlikely to happen. But she and Frank hit it off, and soon there’s the beginning of a romance. Her mother, however, returns home, leaving Marla to navigate the treacherous waters of reachable fame – and with Frank’s help.

The third story has Hughes showing signs of the strange behaviour that will eventually see his ownership of Trans-World Airlines (TWA) challenged by the US government. He refuses to see people, makes appointments that he doesn’t keep, and generally acts as if the concerns of other people are irrelevant. But eventually he and Marla meet, and he meets Frank also. Hughes takes a shine to Marla, and he begins to trust Frank, and it seems their careers are set. But their relationship takes an unexpected turn, and they grow estranged from each other. Meanwhile, Hughes becomes more and more withdrawn from the world, and begins to show clear signs of dementia, demanding things like all the available quantity of a certain flavour of ice cream (and then wanting another), and repeating himself over and over. What seemed eccentric only a few years before, now seems detrimental to both his health and his wealth. Frank stands by him, now as a personal assistant, while Marla moves away to start her life over…

On paper, Rules Don’t Apply has all the hallmarks of a very good movie indeed. It has Beatty in the role of Howard Hughes (a project he’s been planning for around forty years), a supporting cast who all do a terrific job, a recreation of the period that includes broad vistas of cities such as Los Angeles and London as they were at the time, individual scenes that carry both emotional weight and poignancy, and provides a somewhat caustic examination of wished-for fame and fortune. But the movie also has difficulty in making Hughes, or indeed any of the characters, sympathetic, and it flits between each of the storylines without always allowing them to flourish or become integral to the overall narrative.

The romance between Marla and Frank starts typically for the period with lots of exchanged glances and oblique references to the relevance of sex before marriage (Frank has, Marla hasn’t). It’s an old-fashioned courtship, made slightly more awkward by Hughes’ insistence that if any of his employees take any kind of interest in his actresses, then they’ll be fired. However, although this is mentioned on several occasions (as if the audience won’t get it the first time), in the end it makes no difference, as Hughes has no idea about them, and the few people who do know – fellow driver, Levar (Broderick), Hughes’ personal secretary, Nadine (Bergen) – don’t say anything anyway. There’s plenty of unnecessary repetition in terms of Hughes not seeing people, or making strange decisions, and it all pads out the movie, making it feel unfocused and willfully disjointed.

In the end, it’s Beatty’s script, and some of it is really, really good, but some scenes could have been excised and it wouldn’t have made any difference to the overall story. It would have made it a lot tighter, though, and kept the audience more involved. As the romance between Marla and Frank begins to crumble, and Hughes’ dispute with potential investors in TWA takes centre stage, the movie attempts to show Hughes both in decline and also more self-aware than people believed at the time. (Beatty’s script avoids the uncomfortable fact that at this period in his life, Hughes had already taken to spending long periods of time alone and naked watching movies in places such as a bungalow at the Beverly Hills hotel.) Beatty’s intention seems to be to idolise the man while at the same time admitting that he was flawed, a circumstance that causes the movie to seem undecided in terms of what audiences should make of him.

This all leaves the movie feeling and sounding less dramatic than it should be, with only the occasional confrontation jolting things out of the cosy, straightforward approach that Beatty adopts as director. Inert in certain stretches, and lacking depth in others, the movie is rescued from being completely disappointing thanks to its cast. As the billionaire who marries in order to avoid being committed to an insane asylum, Beatty steals every scene he’s in because he still has that old-time star charisma. There’s a good-natured, yet inherently pathological bent to his performance, and Hughes’ unpredictable nature, complete with vacant stares, bemused glances and paranoid outbursts, is explored with the kind of range and subtlety – in both diction and movement – that makes Beatty still such a good actor. Unfortunately, both Marla and Frank, being original characters created for the movie, don’t feel as well-rounded, and their romance is tepid, and not entirely believable, as Collins and Ehrenreich – very good individually – don’t have the chemistry necessary to make audiences believe in them as a couple.

Elsewhere, Broderick and Bening are superb, there are lots of blink-and-you’ll-miss-them appearances from the likes of Sorvino, Harris and Coleman, and a very funny cameo from Coogan as a British pilot forced to sit back and watch Hughes deliberately cause the engines to fail while up in the sky for a joyride. There are other humorous moments in the movie, many in fact, and most of them are in service to the characters, but as they’re mixed in with the drama and the romance and aren’t always played out at the best moments, some viewers may find that the comedy is forced rather than organic. Ultimately, and despite the best efforts of Beatty as writer and director, the various elements on display don’t gel to good enough effect, and this makes the movie less compelling and (often) too bland. A more immediate approach, and a more historically accurate one, may have made for a better movie – we’ll never know – but what is certain is that Beatty’s passion project, after forty years, isn’t as passionate an experience as he may have hoped it would be.

Rating: 5/10 – slow and repetitive aren’t the best of bedfellows when it comes to creating a drama about one of the most intriguing and distinctive billionaires of the twentieth century, and Rules Don’t Apply suffers accordingly; Beatty the actor is terrific, but is let down by Beatty the writer and director, and although the first half hour is briliantly executed, the rest of the movie falls short of that initial promise and settles instead for the kind of soap opera theatrics that never ring true, no matter how hard everyone tries.

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Stuck in Love (2012)

07 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Comedy, Divorce, Drama, First love, Greg Kinnear, Jennifer Connelly, Josh Boone, Lily Collins, Logan Lerman, Nat Wolff, Novels, Review, Stephen King, Writers

Stuck in Love

D: Josh Boone / 97m

Cast: Greg Kinnear, Jennifer Connelly, Lily Collins, Nat Wolff, Kristen Bell, Logan Lerman, Liana Liberato, Michael Goodwin

Three years after his wife, Erica (Connelly), left him, acclaimed writer William Borgens (Kinnear) is still convinced she will come back to him, even though she’s remarried. To make matters worse, he hasn’t written a word since Erica left. All he seems able to do is spy on his ex-wife in the hope he’ll see some evidence that her marriage isn’t working, and engage in casual sex with one of his neighbours, Tricia (Bell). The break-up has affected their children in different ways. Daughter Samantha (Collins) refuses to have anything to do with her mother and wants her father to move on with his life. Son Rusty (Wolff) still sees his mother and has no animosity toward her at all.

With William not writing anything, it comes as a surprise to learn that Samantha is about to have her first novel published. Both William and Rusty are initially frosty about the news, William because it’s not the same book he helped her with before, and Rusty because he’s struggling to find his own voice as a writer (he likes fantasy fiction and is a huge fan of Stephen King). With Samantha’s return home from college, the family dynamic alters considerably, with no doubts that her novel will be a success leading William and Rusty to question their roles as writers. For Rusty it means experiencing life more fully, leading him into a relationship with substance abuser Kate (Liberato). William tries to put the past behind him but without much success until Tricia tells him he shouldn’t be settling for the kind of relationship he has with her. Samantha, however, is fiercely opposed to getting close to anyone, as she fears the same thing happening to her as it did to her parents. Despite this, she meets and begins a relationship with Louis (Lerman).

As the various relationships deepen and become more serious, with unexpected consequences for all concerned, the Borgens, including Erica, find their family dynamic being tested at every turn.

Stuck in Love - scene

While it’s true that Stuck in Love is a little light on real drama, and the emotional crises the characters have to deal with are far from original, the movie is still a pleasure to watch, and is rewarding in many other ways. The chemistry between Kinnear and Connelly is affecting and effective in equal measure, with both actors playing off each other with practiced ease. There’s a scene where they meet at a shopping mall, and while the dialogue is mainly functional, the underlying charge given to their meeting is all down to how they look at each other, and their body language. Wolff shines too, imbuing Rusty with a restless, nervous energy that transforms over the course of the movie (from one Thanksgiving to the next) into a more relaxed, easily maintained confidence. As the initially self-repressed Samantha, Collins does well in a role that could have been more vapid than vital, and she copes equally well with the demands of being remote from her mother and fully engaged with her father. As the love interests, Bell is all business and tough love, Lerman is sweet but under-used, and Liberato shows promise as the wayward Kate.

The interaction between the characters is well handled, and thanks to first-time writer/director Boone, there aren’t any awkward moments where motivations can be questioned or behaviour impeached.  The family scenes feel natural, and if some viewers are put off by the idea of yet another slice of middle class neurotic navel-gazing, then that would be a shame, because Stuck in Love is sharp, observant, knowing, and above all, intelligent.  The comic elements fit comfortably alongside the dramatic elements, and the East Coast locations are a good fit for the story (as well as being beautifully photographed by DP Tim Orr).

Rating: 8/10 – a genuine pleasure to watch, with great performances enhancing an already great script; an indie movie with a warmth and a feel good factor all its own.

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