The Vanishing of Sidney Hall (2017)

22 Sunday Jul 2018

Tags

Disappearance, Drama, Elle Fanning, High School, Kyle Chandler, Logan Lerman, Michelle Monaghan, Mystery, Pulitzer Prize, Review, Shawn Christensen, Suburban Tragedy

Original title: Sidney Hall

D: Shawn Christensen / 120m

Cast: Logan Lerman, Elle Fanning, Michelle Monaghan, Kyle Chandler, Blake Jenner, Nathan Lane, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Margaret Qualley, Janina Gavankar, Tim Blake Nelson, Darren Pettie

A publishing phenomenon, Sidney Hall (Lerman) writes a first novel called Suburban Tragedy that is nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; he’s only eighteen when he starts writing it. By the time he’s twenty-four, he’s written a follow-up, State of Execution; both novels sit atop the New York Times Best Seller list. But Sidney isn’t happy. His past, and in particular, the source of inspiration for Suburban Tragedy, haunts him. He has married his teenage sweetheart, Melody (Fanning), but is unable to resist the attentions of his publisher’s daughter, Alexandra (Qualley), leading to an affair. As time passes, Sidney becomes more and more reclusive, until he disappears altogether. Soon after, a spate of arson attacks in bookshops and libraries, where the only books burnt are Hall’s, attracts the attention of a police detective (Chandler). Tracing the arson attacks across the Midwest, the detective becomes convinced that the perpetrator is Hall himself. But why would he do such a thing, and why disappear in the first place? What could have made Sidney Hall throw away everything he’d achieved?

Non-linear stories such as The Vanishing of Sidney Hall have two benefits: they can tease out important plot points in a way that keeps the viewer intrigued and wanting to know more, and they can reshape a movie’s storyline to ensure a greater emotional or dramatic impact when the mystery (whatever it is) is finally revealed. Shawn Christensen’s second feature aims for both, and is moderately successful as a whole, but makes one fatal flaw that stops the movie from achieving the goals Christensen has set for it: it makes Hall himself too miserable – and unrelentingly so – for the viewer to feel much sympathy for him. While the roots of his melancholy lie in a terrible tragedy that he feels responsible for, it’s a long time before the movie reveals this. And by the time that it does, and those all important plot points have been left as clues for us to piece together, the movie has become lethargic and banal. A late-on reveal feels forced (and less than entirely credible), while key moments are replayed without ever adding any greater emotional or dramatic impact. At the same time, the movie’s structure is both its best and worst component.

Something of a labour of love for Christensen, the movie often wears its heart on its sleeve, and though Hall is the kind of tortured literary genius we’ve seen so many times before, the co-writer/director surrounds him with a number of supporting characters that often prove more interesting. Sidney’s mother (Monaghan) is the kind of toxic parent who blames their child for being born and ruining their life, while his English teacher (Abdul-Mateen II) is so desperate to ride Hall’s coat-tails to literary success that his neediness is embarrassing. These are stories that, on their own, could comprise a number of separate movies, but Christensen keeps them in Sidney’s orbit, satellites bouncing off his celebrity, and feeling hard done by because of it. In the end, Sidney’s determination to punish himself pushes everyone away from him (hence, in part, his disappearance), but the script always makes it feel deserved. As the complex literary genius, Lerman is a solid presence, better at playing him as a teenager than as an adult, while Fanning offers strong support as the love of his life. There are good performances throughout, and the movie is beautifully photographed by Daniel Katz, but in its themes and ambitions, it lacks the overall cogency needed to make it all gel.

Rating: 6/10 – a worthy attempt at portraying the devastating effects of one tragic event on a young man’s much deserved success, The Vanishing of Sidney Hall falls short thanks to its title character’s unnecessary (and hard to condone) self-flagellation; with its insistence on breaking the story down into bite-size chunks of culpable exposition, it’s also a movie that says a lot but forgets to add enough substance to back it all up.

Indignation (2016)

03 Tuesday Jan 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Drama, James Schamus, Korean War, Literary adaptation, Logan Lerman, Philip Roth, Religion, Review, Romance, Sarah Gadon, Tracy Letts, Winesburg

D: James Schamus / 111m

Cast: Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon, Tracy Letts, Linda Emond, Danny Burstein, Philip Ettinger, Ben Rosenfield, Pico Alexander, Noah Robbins

In New Jersey in the early Fifties, Marcus Messner (Lerman), the son of a local butcher, has been awarded a scholarship to attend Winesburg College in Ohio. His father (Burstein) is over-protective and fearful that something will happen to Marcus when he’s there, but Marcus is having none of it; he can’t wait to get away. At Winesburg he finds himself boarding with two other Jewish students, Ron Foxman (Ettinger) and Bertram Flusser (Rosenfield). He throws himself into his studies, takes on a job at the college library, and generally keeps himself to himself. He doesn’t socialise, and when he’s offered a chance to join a largely Jewish fraternity, he refuses.

Marcus is drawn out of his self-contained world by the presence of Olivia Hutton (Gadon), an elegant fellow student he’s immediately attracted to. He plucks up the courage to ask her out on a date; at the evening’s end, Olivia surprises him by doing something so unexpected that he doesn’t know what to think of Olivia, or how to assimilate what happened within his limited experience of girls. He decides to avoid Olivia while he comes to a decision about how he feels, but this has the consequence of Olivia believing he doesn’t like her. Simmering tensions with his roommates come to a head in the meantime, and his decision to find alternative lodging within the college brings him to the attention of the dean, Hawes D. Caudwell (Letts). During a meeting between them, the conversation becomes heated, with Marcus decrying some of Winesburg’s traditions, including the mandatory attendance of chapel each week, especially as Marcus regards himself as an atheist. As he attempts to leave, he collapses and ends up in hospital thanks to a ruptured appendix.

Olivia makes several visits, and their relationship develops further. She reveals a secret about herself, one that complicates matters when he receives a visit from his mother (Emond) as well. The two women are introduced to each other, which makes an initially nervous Marcus quite happy. But his mother warns him that he should have nothing further to do with Olivia, a piece of advice that he ignores once he’s allowed out of the hospital. But his pursuit of Olivia, and his making a foolish decision in relation to attending chapel, leads to another encounter with the Dean, one that will have far-reaching consequences.

Adaptations of novels by Philip Roth have proven a mixed bunch in recent years, with the likes of Elegy (2008) and The Humbling (2014) receiving a lukewarm welcome with critics and audiences alike. And at first, Indignation seems as if it’s going to buck the trend of its predecessors. It opens with a sequence set during the Korean War, with Korean soldiers attempting to kill a US soldier. The soldier appears to avoid being killed, and we’re then transported to Newark and the funeral of a young Jewish soldier. We meet Marcus, fresh-faced, and anxious to get away from the stifling attention of his father. He’s well-liked in the neighbourhood, obviously bright, and will be the first Messner to attend college. It’s a neat, concise set up, and writer-director Schamus introduces us to the Messners and their milieu with a minimum of effort and a maximum of probity.

Once at Winesburg, though, and Schamus’s efforts begin to unravel. Marcus becomes a withdrawn, mirthless individual, and not without a degree of arrogance about his manner. This change of character is disturbing, as it challenges the viewer’s ability to feel sympathy for Marcus as the movie unfolds. His interaction with his fellow roommates borders on petulant, while he pursues Olivia with an eagerness that borders on obsession (he’s won over by the sight of her bare leg dangling over the arm of a chair). Only his inexperience with girls and obvious social naïvete spares him from being regarded as a jerk, but it’s a close run thing. His dismay at Olivia’s behaviour only adds to the impression of Marcus as a bemused but intolerant, shallow young man, and Schamus doesn’t do enough to offset that belief with anything more convincing or conclusive.

The encounter between Marcus and Dean Caudwell is the movie’s highlight, a near-fifteen minute masterclass in screen acting and writing that eclipses everything that comes before and after it. It’s somewhat of a shame that the scene is that good, because it exposes Marcus’s contempt for the college, and his disaffection with everything around him. This is where the “indignation” of the title is supposed to be revealed, from Marcus being made to do things that he doesn’t like or want to do (like join a fraternity), and railing against them. But Marcus’s indignation is misplaced and misappropriated; he’s an angry young man fighting for what he believes is just and right, but based on too little experience of life and the demands it can make on a person. He’s the classic angry young man/anti-authority figure, cocksure and heading for a fall.

And so it plays out, with Schamus guiding Marcus – and the viewer – to an inevitable downfall, one where Roth, via Schamus, reveals the truth behind Marcus’s animosity: that he’s the victim of his own poor choices, and has no one else to blame but himself. There’s a wider argument: that when we make decisions we do so mostly without giving those decisions proper consideration, and Marcus’s story is a perfect example. But in adapting Roth’s novel, Schamus – known as a screenwriter and making his directorial debut here – pares back the drama so that there are long stretches where Marcus’s search for recognition (of his needs in others) occupies too much screen time. The tentative romance between Marcus and Olivia is also an issue, as Olivia’s dialogue is almost entirely given over to evasive, tissue-thin comments about relationships, and sidestepping questions about herself. And there’s a grim inevitability to it all that Schamus isn’t able to hide or exploit, despite the tragedy that surrounds her.

Thankfully, Schamus is well-served by his cast. Lerman, who despite appearances in movies such as Noah (2014) and Fury (2014), still carries the aura of being Percy Jackson with him, here embraces Marcus’s faults and growing cynicism with such confidence that it’s perhaps his most intuitive and perceptive performance to date. He’s not able to engender too much sympathy as Marcus, but perhaps that’s the point, that Marcus shouldn’t be too likeable, because if he was, his attitude and displeasure with college life (and much else) wouldn’t be as strident. In support, Gadon is radiant, her blonde hair, marbled skin and ruby red lips – such perfection – covering a damaged soul whose emotional needs are unlikely to ever be met. And then there’s Letts, his stern yet worryingly blank features proving the perfect foil for Lerman’s anguished expressions in their mid-movie encounter, his stillness and slightly menacing approach to his dialogue adding unexpected layers to the performance.

While Indignation does touch on elements and notions of anti-semitism, sexual mores, and the wider political and social worries of the time, including the shadow of the Korean War, at its heart it’s the story of a broken romance. Marcus and Olivia are a good match, one of them with too little experience of the world, one with too much; one of them has yet to make any real, life-changing decisions in their life, the other has made one too many. Again, as Roth says, it all comes down to choices, and when we make them, how we respond when they don’t work out. The consequence for Marcus can be seen at the movie’s end, and if there’s a degree of justice in that consequence, then should we be surprised?

Rating: 7/10 – with too many of its source novel’s subtleties and nuances jettisoned in favour of a more straightforward retelling, Indignation doesn’t have the impact that it should, and as a result, it only delivers emotionally and/or dramatically on a few, isolated occasions; bolstered by a trio of very good performances, and a feel for the period that helps ground the narrative, the movie struggles to make you care about Marcus or his “indignation”, and is only gripping when Marcus and the Dean go toe to toe.

Fury (2014)

30 Thursday Oct 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Brad Pitt, David Ayer, Drama, Germany, Jon Bernthal, Logan Lerman, Michael Peña, Review, Shia LaBeouf, Tanks, US Army, World War II

D: David Ayer / 134m

Cast: Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Michael Peña, Jon Bernthal, Jason Isaacs, Jim Parrack, Brad William Henke, Kevin Vance, Xavier Samuel, Anamaria Marinca, Alicia von Rittberg

April 1945, Germany. A battered, disabled tank lies amidst the carnage of a recently fought battle. Its men – Collier (Pitt), Swan (LaBeouf), Garcia (Peña), and Travis (Bernthal) – are battle-hardened and weary but they have an unshakeable bond. Under Collier’s tough, uncompromising leadership they’ve survived countless skirmishes, encounters and battles. Now, with the war nearing its end, they are all looking forward to peacetime.

Travis gets their tank – named Fury – moving again and they head back to base. There, much to Collier’s disgust, they are assigned a new driver/gunner, Ellison (Lerman); Collier is disgusted because Ellison is too young, he’s only been in the Army for eight weeks and he knows nothing about tanks. Introduced to the rest of the crew, Ellison is treated with disdain and told to take a bucket of hot water and clean out the inside of the tank. When he does, he finds the partial remains of the previous driver/gunner. Meanwhile, Collier and three other tank commanders are given a mission to meet up with Baker Company and from there take over a small town.

On the way to the rendezvous, Ellison’s inexperience causes the death of several men including the lieutenant (Samuel) who was leading them. Now led by Collier, the convoy carries on and they meet up with Baker Company and their commanding officer, Captain Waggoner (Isaacs). Before seizing the town, Waggoner needs the tanks to flush out a German unit that has several dozen US troops pinned down in a field. Fury and the other tanks get the job done, but Ellison’s inexperience nearly causes more casualties. When the fight is over, Collier tries to make Ellison kill a captured German soldier, putting a gun in his hand and telling him to “do his job”, which is to kill Nazis. Ellison refuses but Collier puts his hand over the young man’s hand and pulls the trigger. Ellison is horrified by it all but it proves to be a turning point, and when the nearby town is taken he is less nervous and is able to despatch the Germans without feeling too sick or nervous.

With the town taken, Collier and Ellison investigate a building where they’ve seen a woman peering from a window. They find the woman, Irma (Marinca) and her niece Emma (Rittberg). While Collier washes up, Ellison takes Emma into the bedroom and clearly attracted to each other, they make love. Later, while the four are about to have a meal, the rest of Fury’s crew barge in and spoil things, before orders are received to report to Captain Waggoner. He tells Collier and the other tank commanders that there is a nearby crossroads that needs holding because of a large German troop movement that’s heading in that direction. But on their way there, the tanks find themselves under attack crossing a large field, and very soon the whole mission is in danger of failing.

After the less than impressive Sabotage (2014), writer/director Ayer returns with a movie that paints a portrait of extreme heroism under one of the most difficult of environments, and with a keen eye for detail that grounds both the action and the characters. It’s a challenging piece of moviemaking and provides a reminder of just how awful tank warfare could be.

And yet, Fury is a curious mix of the heroic and the mundane. Ayer’s script paints each man as a distinct individual – Collier as noted above, Swan as religiously minded, Garcia as more carnally oriented, Travis as a bigoted animal, Ellison as a callow liability (at first) – but it doesn’t take the time to explore or delve into those characters any further than those broad brush strokes allow. Collier speaks fluent German but the reason for this is never revealed, leaving the audience wondering if it’s part of a back story that was excised from the final script, or if it’s just a case of Screenwriting Expediency 101, a way to keep the crew ahead of the Germans without them having to work too hard to get there. Ellison is the only character who gets a story arc, and while his initial shock is well presented, though predictable given his introduction, when he does take to killing Nazis, all of a sudden he’s enjoying it. The change in attitude is too quick, and is an example of Ayer’s script downplaying motivation in favour of the next big action sequence.

The extended sequence in the apartment of Irma and Emma is another case in point where Ayer seems to be scratching the surface of an issue, highlighting the essential need, even in wartime, for people to hold on to their innate humanity. Collier and Ellison treat both women with the utmost respect but when the rest of the crew bundles in creating tension around the table and being hostile and objectionable, the tone shifts uncomfortably and Travis in particular is allowed to behave as if social manners were alien to him (he later apologises to Ellison but it’s not in the least convincing – if it were to happen in real life it would appear forced and contrived). The whole sequence becomes uneven and any message that Ayer was aiming for becomes lost in the telling. He then adds a layer of tragedy that speaks of the callous nature of war but which, for the viewer, will only come across as an unnecessary twist in the tale.

With so many apparent flaws in the screenplay, and with its shifting tone proving hard to pin down, Fury presents a problem for the viewer in that it’s a movie that attempts to take a snapshot of one part of what happened in World War II and to make it resonate beyond that snapshot. This is almost a timepiece, a movie where the overall picture is lost in the mist and shadow that permeates the fields and roads that the tanks travel through. It’s not a bad approach as such, but without that wider focus, Fury limits itself to being solely about the men inside a tank, and with no real effort to expand on their characters, it becomes a snapshot with no context.

Screenplay issues notwithstanding, the movie is on firmer ground with its action scenes, making the tank skirmishes urgent and vital, and deftly playing up the cramped conditions under which the crew operate, making a virtue of the economy of movement needed to load and fire the shells (try and count how many times we see Swan’s foot press down on the firing pedal). These scenes are impressively shot and edited together by Roman Vasyanov, and Jay Cassidy and Dody Dorn respectively, and offer a few heart-stopping moments along the way. But Ayer then settles for a final showdown between Fury and the advancing German troops that lifts action beats from every direct-to-video war movie you’ve ever seen, and which sacrifices credibility for the kind of careless heroics that undermines (and overturns) everything that’s gone before.

On the whole, Fury isn’t a bad movie per se, it’s sadly a movie that never quite realises its full potential. It does feature some very good performances however, and these raise up the movie when it most needs it. Pitt is as intense and commanding as ever, dominating every scene he’s in and making it difficult for the audience to concentrate on anyone else. But matching him – thankfully – is Lerman, putting in a career best performance that quickly obliterates any embarrassing memories of him in the Percy Jackson movies or The Three Musketeers (2011). As Ellison grows up on screen so too does Lerman, showing a range and a conviction that’s eluded him up until now. It’s a pleasure to watch him match the likes of Pitt and his co-stars, all actors who, on their day, can impress beyond all expectations. (Well, maybe not LaBeouf, but here he’s tolerable and seems required to stare fixedly at Pitt for most of the movie, but good luck with working out what emotion he’s meant to be feeling.)

Ayer is a talented individual, and he’s written some great scripts over the last fifteen years; he’s also making a name for himself as a director as well, but to date End of Watch (2012) remains his most fully realised project. Fury will definitely attract audiences initially but there’s a sense that, ironically, it won’t have “legs”. Which is a shame, as the movie could have been so much better had Ayer been more rigorous with his script.

Rating: 7/10 – slightly better than average but with enough problems to make viewing the movie more disappointing than not, Fury bristles with energy during its action scenes but otherwise is sluggish; one to see on the big screen though, and with one’s expectations firmly kept in check.

Noah (2014)

06 Sunday Apr 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Anthony Hopkins, Ark, Darren Aronofsky, Emma Watson, Fallen angels, Flood, Ham, Japheth, Jennifer Connelly, Logan Lerman, Ray Winstone, Review, Russell Crowe, Shem, The Creator

D: Darren Aronofsky / 138m

Cast: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman, Douglas Booth, Leo McHugh-Carroll, Anthony Hopkins, Marton Csokas, Frank Langella, Nick Nolte, Mark Margolis, Kevin Durand

It’s an unlikely idea for a fantasy movie, but Noah, as imagined by Darren Aronofsky and co-writer Ari Handel, is exactly that, a semi-religious essay on perceived personal sin and the demands of unwanted destiny tricked out with elaborate special effects sequences and… rock monsters. The story of the ark is a tale told in many religions – the Biblical version isn’t even the first – but here, Aronofsky removes any mention of God and has his characters reference The Creator instead. With this choice in place, the decision to include Adam and Eve, the apple from the Tree of Forbidden Knowledge, and Cain and Abel becomes a little puzzling, especially when the bulk of the film is a fairly straightforward interpretation of chapters 6-9 of the Book of Genesis.

After an opening sequence that conflates the first five chapters, the inclusion of fallen angels – called the Watchers – who came to earth to support Man in his endeavours but were punished by The Creator by being turned into creatures made of rocks – and who were in turn attacked and cast out by Man – comes as a bit of a surprise (it also brings to mind the rock monster seen in Galaxy Quest (1999), not the best point of reference for a Bible story). From there we see Noah as a young man with his father, Lamech (Csokas). Lamech is killed by a chieftain called Tubal-Cain (Finn Wittrock); he wants Lamech’s land for his own people (and appears to have instituted the concept of manifest destiny several thousand years before it was first thought of). Noah escapes and we next see him as an adult (Crowe). He is married to Naameh (Connelly) and has three young sons, Shem, Ham and baby Japheth. Noah is plagued by visions of the world covered by water. He takes his family with him to visit his grandfather, Methuselah (Hopkins), in the hope that he can explain what the visions mean. On the way they come across the scene of a slaughter, and rescue the only survivor, a young girl called Ila; Naameh quickly deduces that the wound she has will stop her from having children.

Methuselah believes The Creator has chosen Noah for a special task, and induces a vision that tells Noah he should build an ark. Fast forward several years and with the help of the Watchers, the ark is nearly completed. Shem (Booth) and Ila (Watson) have fallen in love, while Ham (Lerman) has a rebellious spark in him that Noah is unhappy about. One day a large contingent of men led by Tubal-Cain (Winstone) come to the ark in an attempt to take control of it but the threat of the Watchers stops them. Noah goes to their nearby encampment in the search for wives for his sons bout what he sees there, including uncontrollable lusts and signs of cannibalism, convinces him that the Creator’s plan is for the whole of Mankind to be wiped out, including Noah and his family.

Ham also travels to the encampment and there he meets Na’el (Madison Davenport). At the same time, Ila meets Methuselah for the first time and he blesses her, curing her barrenness. When the rain begins to fall, presaging the flood, Noah goes in search of Ham. When he finds him, Noah is forced to leave Na’el behind – she has her leg caught in a trap – and she is trampled to death in the rush by Tubal-Cain’s people to get to the ark. The Watchers aid Noah in keeping Tubal-Cain and his people from boarding the ark as the earth is engulfed in a terrible flood of water and massive funnels of water shoot skywards from the ground. Somehow, Tubal-Cain manages to get aboard though he is injured in the attempt. His boarding is witnessed by Ham, who, being angry with Noah over the death of Na’el, aids Tubal-Cain in his recovery.

Adrift on the waters, Ila learns she is pregnant and while Naameh and Shem are overjoyed, Noah is horrified. Certain that The Creator’s intention is for all of mankind to be destroyed, he tells his family that if Ila has a girl – meaning further children could be born – he will have no choice but to kill her. Ila and Shem attempt to escape the ark but Noah stops them. Moments later, Ila goes into labour… and Ham draws Noah into an ambush with a recovered Tubal-Cain.

A long-cherished project of Aronofsky’s, Noah reaches us with the weight of expectation weighing heavy about its celluloid shoulders, and while the movie takes quite a few mis-steps in its waterborne journey, there’s a lot here to offset any weaknesses. Aronofsky is a confident, innovative director and he handles the movie’s themes of sin and redemption, and sacrifice and fortitude, with considerable ease, and is aided by a commanding performance by Crowe. Between them they have created a Noah who carries the weight of his Creator’s plan with all the strength of purpose and stoicism needed to carry it through. It’s an impressive turn from Crowe, the kind of meaty role he obviously relishes playing, and here he doesn’t disappoint. Under Aronofsky’s intelligent direction, Crowe is completely convincing throughout, a patriarch given an unenviable task and determined that even the hardest of personal sacrifices won’t deflect him. (It’s no surprise how the movie ends, but when the moment comes – and it’s largely thanks to Crowe’s unpredictability as an actor – the audience isn’t certain he’ll relent from killing Ila’s offspring.)

Crowe is ably supported by Connelly and Watson, though some of the aforementioned mis-steps derive from the other male cast members. Winstone plays a pre-Christian version of (basically) himself, complete with East London accent and mangled phrasing. Lerman’s boyish face still can’t adequately portray any emotion except surprise (as both Percy Jackson movies will attest), while Booth is wetter than the flood and given too little to do to make a better impression. And with Crowe on such impressive form it makes the trio’s deficiencies even more obvious. In particular, this leads to the scenes between Tubal-Cain and Ham appearing leaden and less dramatic than they should be (not to mention too formulaic for their own good). As for Hopkins, the less said about his truly embarrassing performance the better (though the script should bear some of the blame too. Berries? Really?).

Noah is often amazing to look at, with Aronofsky and director of photography Matthew Libatique exploiting Iceland’s volcanic terrain to stunning effect. There’s a creation sequence two thirds in that looks good but holds up the movie but also seems at odds with the message that the world is the work of The Creator, as if the movie doesn’t want to be explicitly identified as a religious movie (which it isn’t anyway). It’s this kind of fence-sitting that undermines the movie for most of its running time. In taking a Biblical story where God seeks to expunge Man from the world only to relent when He sees the good in Noah, Aronofsky seems uncertain if he wants faith to be a central part of things, when clearly it is. There’s a snake skin – supposedly handed down from the Garden of Eden (yes, from that snake) – that was Noah’s father’s but it’s taken by Tubal-Cain. It’s referred to visually on several occasions but its purpose or relevance is never made clear, except possibly as a means of passing on inherited knowledge or wisdom (and I’m guessing here, it really isn’t that clear). Another mis-step is the inclusion of the Watchers, an addition to the flood myth that might be the movie’s most ill-judged decision. On top of their relation to the monster in Galaxy Quest, once they start laying waste to Tubal-Cain’s followers they most resemble the Ents from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002). The idea of their being fallen angels is a good one but rock monsters? Was that the only incarnation they could have had? (Hang on, let me check my scripture. Oh, I can’t.)

On a minor level, Crowe’s hair is a serious concern throughout, as is his clothing at the end (is he really wearing a suit at one point?), while Connelly stays the same all the way through. Aronofsky appropriates some character names: in the Book of Genesis, Tubal-Cain is the son of Lamech and his sister’s name is Naamah (close enough, eh?). This makes Tubal-Cain and Noah brothers, and Naameh his – well, let’s not go there.

Noah has its strong points, and for much of its running time, Aronofsky has a sure hand on the tiller but too often it trips over itself in its efforts to avoid any potential theological disputes. In trying to please both sides of the is-there/isn’t-there a God argument, Aronofsky relents on the effectiveness of the drama and avoids making Noah anything more than a man-has-vision-and-does-what-it-tells-him story that lacks the necessary resonance for such a huge responsibility. Aronofsky should thank The Creator that Crowe took on the role, for without him, what credible dramatic focus the movie has would have been lost.

Rating: 7/10 – on reflection a better movie than it seems while watching it, Noah suffers from its director’s indecisions but regains its edge thanks to Crowe’s intuitive performance; beautiful to look at, and with occasional moments of genius, but only just enough to offset the movie’s larger problems.

Stuck in Love (2012)

07 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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

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.

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.