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The Intervention (2016)

18 Monday Jun 2018

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D: Clea DuVall / 89m

Cast: Clea DuVall, Melanie Lynskey, Natasha Lyonne, Vincent Piazza, Jason Ritter, Ben Schwartz, Alia Shawkat, Cobie Smulders

Annie and Matt (Lynskey, Ritter) are travelling to meet up with their friends, Sarah and Jessie (Lyonne, DuVall), Peter and Ruby (Piazza, Smulders), and Jessie’s brother, Jack (Schwartz), for a weekend get together. There is an ulterior motive for the get together: the rest are convinced that Peter and Ruby’s marriage is on the rocks and that an intervention is needed; they intend to suggest the couple divorce for both their sakes. When Jack arrives he brings a new girlfriend with him, Lola (Shawkat), but while this is initially regarded as inappropriate, it’s quickly forgotten with the arrival of Peter and Ruby. The couple bicker and squabble in front of their friends, and though Annie appears to the group’s prime mover, she fumbles a first attempt at confronting Peter and Ruby by getting drunk. Before another attempt can be made, divisions between the other couples are brought to the fore, partly because of Lola’s freewheeling sexuality, but also because of long-buried animosities. And things don’t improve when the intervention finally takes place, and Peter and Ruby react in ways that prove unexpected and which threaten the group’s friendship – perhaps irrevocably…

DuVall’s debut as a writer/director, The Intervention is a broadly optimistic, genial and amusing movie that works surprisingly well despite its largely conventional narrative and collection of characters. The basic premise plays out as you’d expect, adding fault lines in each relationship as the movie progresses, but thankfully not to the point where it looks as if each marriage/partnership needs their own intervention. Instead, DuVall does something that’s a little bit sneaky (maybe even underhanded): she pulls the rug out from under the viewer by revealing said fault lines but without wrapping them up neatly in a nice dramatic bow by the movie’s end. In doing this, she keeps the material fresher than it appears to be at first, and allows the main storyline and its various sub-plots to make much more of an impact than usual. Little betrayals and far from imagined slights have their place, but it’s the characters’ reactions to them – their bemused, uncomprehending reactions – that provide much of the enjoyment to be had from DuVall’s astute observations and the movie’s overall tone. If there’s one caveat, it’s that the drama is often underplayed in favour of the humour, but when it needs to, the script stings deliberately and painfully.

If DuVall’s first outing as a writer isn’t always successful – Lola is too obviously a catalyst for upset, the male characters aren’t as clearly defined as their female counterparts – as a director she’s on firmer ground, orchestrating matters with a great deal of confidence and precision in the way scenes are staged, and knowing when to focus on the appropriate dynamics relating to each couple. She’s aided by a terrific ensemble cast that’s headed by the always reliable Lynskey. As the commitment-phobic Annie, Lynskey invests her character with a pliable sense of responsibility and a survivor’s ignorance of individual culpability. It’s yet another performance that reinforces the fact that she’s one of the best actresses working today. Almost matching her (it’s really close) is Smulders, her portayal of Ruby as melancholy and subdued as you’d suspect in a woman whose marriage is visibly imploding (Smulders broke her leg shortly before shooting began; rather than re-cast, DuVall wrote it into the script). The rest of the cast enter into the spirit of things with gusto, and thanks to DuVall’s actor friendly approach, it’s the performances that prove to be the movie’s main attraction.

Rating: 7/10 – uneven in places, but with a sincerity and a sharpness to the material that keeps it (mostly) fresh and appealing, The Intervention is rewarding in an undemanding yet enjoyable way; bolstered by a raft of good performances, it’s unpretentious stuff that doesn’t outstay its welcome, and which knows not to resolve all its characters’ problems.

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90 Minutes (2012)

04 Saturday Apr 2015

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90 Minutes

Original title: 90 minutter

D: Eva Sørhaug / 89m

Cast: Bjørn Floberg, Mads Ousdal, Pia Tjelta, Aksel Hennie, Annmari Kastrup, Kaia Varjord

Johan (Floberg) has reached a point in his life where he’s made a profound decision as to his immediate future. He’s determined to put several aspects of his life behind him, such as the room he rents and a subscription he’s taken out. As he makes these changes, he’s goes about them with a sense of finality and sadness. Fred (Ousdal) is a cop who’s marriage to Elin (Tjelta) has ended in divorce. They have two young children, both girls, and Fred’s presence in their home while Elin plans a party is being tolerated by his ex-wife. When she takes a call from someone who is coming to the party and is currently playing golf, Fred assumes the man is the new love in her life, something that he isn’t happy about. Trond (Hennie) is a young man who appears to be living alone in a sparsely furnished apartment. He listens to the radio and tapes up his right hand but otherwise seems unmotivated. He goes into his bedroom, where he strips and has sex with a woman (Varjord) who is gagged and tied to the bed. Also in the room is a baby, which starts crying.

Johan arrives back home from a trip out. His wife, Hanna (Kastrup), is there. He begins to prepare dinner for them while Hanna has a shower. He is methodical and precise and makes sure that everything is just so. Fred begins to antagonise Elin by refusing to leave when she asks him to, and by complaining that she never seemed interested in golf before. He also finds excuses to remain there that involve either their children, or a neighbour. Elin loses her patience and insists that he leave. He eventually does so, and drives off angrily. Trond releases the woman tied to his bed to see to the baby. She is his partner, Karianne, and the baby is theirs. With the baby seen to, she begins to cook for them both, but when she looks out of the window, Trond becomes angry and attacks her. He drags her back into the bedroom and reties her to the bed. He snorts some cocaine, then arranges to meet a friend in order to get some more.

During their dinner, Johan prepares some gravy that he lets his wife try first. She becomes woozy and soon passes out. Fred drives around until he ends up back at his old home. He gets out of his car and goes inside to confront his family. Trond is visited by his friend and another man, who assault him and take his TV as repayment for his drug debts. Angry at being humiliated he decides to take it out on Karianne. He forces her to have sex and in the process nearly suffocates her, but stops just short of doing so. All three men find themselves on the verge of having their lives changed forever.

90 Minutes - scene

Only the second feature by talented director Sørhaug after Cold Lunch (2008), 90 Minutes is a bleak, uncompromising slice of Norwegian angst that gives the barest amount of detail for each man’s behaviour, and is coldly judgmental when it comes to the outcomes of each story. We meet each man at a stage where their individual journeys have reached a point of no return (though Trond’s is a little less cut and dried).

Johan’s actions are calculated and, in their own way, heartless and cruel. There may be an element of love involved in his actions toward Hanna, but the absence of any concrete reason for his actions doesn’t allow for any sympathy from the viewer. It’s clear he does have a reason for doing what he’s doing but Sørhaug is clever enough to make that reason irrelevant; his sadness tells us enough, and as we watch Johan carry out his plan, the sense of foreboding that builds is carefully orchestrated to the point where inevitability and hope collide, leaving a melancholy chill over the storyline that is quietly and unquestionably effective. Floberg is subdued, almost absent throughout, his careworn face providing all the information we need as to what he’s feeling. Of the three men he’s the most restrained and the most agonised, and Floberg gives perhaps the best performance as a result.

Fred is a man with unresolved marital issues and a simmering layer of anger lurking beneath an outwardly pleasant façade. Of the three men he’s the most recognisable and understandable, his jealous possessiveness a staple of marital dramas the world over. Sadly, this very familiarity stops Sørhaug from making his and Elin’s storyline from being anything more than entirely predictable, and his return to their home has all the surprise of presents at Xmas, especially after we learn he’s “taking a break” from active duty as a cop and is behind a desk. Nevertheless, Ousdal steers clear of making Fred too obvious, and makes his face almost mask-like when around other people. It’s only when he’s in his car that we see the full range of the emotions he’s feeling and realise just where those emotions will take him. As a transformation it’s unnerving and unexpectedly affecting.

As for Trond, he’s perhaps the most tormented of the three, his drug dependency exacerbating his paranoia and abusive behaviour towards Karianne. He’s an ogre, pitiless and self-absorbed, a rapist whose abusive nature has robbed him of every last ounce of decency. His actions are abominable, and it’s a measure of Sørhaug’s script, and Hennie’s abilities as an actor, that Trond isn’t allowed even the faintest hint of understanding or redemption; he’s unlikeable all the way through. Of the three storylines, Trond’s is the most difficult to watch, with its moments of domestic violence and sexual assault, and Sørhaug (again) is clever enough to thwart the audience’s expectations. The ultimate fate of Trond and Karianne and the baby is one that allows the movie to end on a note of cautious hope, but a note that nevertheless comes without any guarantees.

90 Minutes is a hard movie to like as such, its unremittingly grim mise en scene and examination of extreme misogynistic behaviour making it tough to engage with. But Fred’s story aside, Sørhaug’s script is still intrepid enough to make the other two storylines surprisingly engrossing. She also makes the camera more of an observer than a participant, allowing a more dispassionate approach to the material that offsets the horrors being witnessed. Henrik Skram’s icy score adds another dimension to the austere proceedings, and there’s sterling camera work from Harald Gunnar Paalgard, particularly in Trond’s apartment.

Rating: 7/10 – by making Johan, Fred and Trond so unsympathetic, writer/director Sørhaug runs the risk of making 90 Minutes too unpalatable for the average viewer, but there’s enough to admire in the stringent, uncompromising set ups to make up for any distaste at the characters’ actions; one that will linger in the memory and with a cathartic moment that remains appropriately unsatisfying.

What We Did on Our Holiday (2014)

12 Thursday Feb 2015

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What We Did on Our Holiday

D: Andy Hamilton, Guy Jenkin / 95m

Cast: Rosamund Pike, David Tennant, Billy Connolly, Ben Miller, Amelia Bullmore, Emilia Jones, Bobby Smalldridge, Harriet Turnbull, Lewis Davie, Celia Imrie, Annette Crosbie

Doug and Abi McLeod (Tennant, Pike) are separated but have agreed to travel with their three children – Lottie (Jones), Mickey (Smalldridge) and Jess (Turnbull) – to his father Gordy’s 75th birthday party in Scotland. The reason for their going together is that Gordy (Connolly) has cancer and this birthday is likely to be his last. Doug and Abi are worried that their children will say something awkward about their marriage as no one is aware they’ve split up – not Gordy, or Doug’s brother Gavin (Miller) and his wife Margaret (Bullmore), who are organising the party. The tension between Doug and Abi – brought about by Doug having had a brief affair – is exacerbated by the long journey, but they all arrive in one piece.

Once at Gavin’s mansion home, the children spend time with Gordy while their parents get involved with the plans for the party. Gordy is fun-loving and free of the hang-ups that trouble his children and their wives, but his cancer medication is putting a strain on his heart, making hm more unwell than he’s letting on. On the morning of his birthday, Gordy opts to take the youngsters to the beach, much to the dismay of Gavin who wants the day to go perfectly (and without his father going AWOL). While they’re gone, Doug learns that Abi wants to move to Newcastle with the children; she’s found a new job there.

Down at the beach, the children have a great time with Gordy, who reveals that because of his Viking heritage – 84% – he’d like to have a Viking funeral. His idea is that it will stop the arguments between Gavin and Doug. A little while later, Gordy passes away on the beach; Lottie heads back to tell her parents but when she gets to the mansion she finds her parents arguing (and discovers her mother already has a lover). Dismayed to see that what Gordy has said about arguments is true, she goes back to the beach, where she and Mickey and Jess decide to honour Gordy in the best way they know: by giving him a Viking funeral.

'WHAT WE DID ON OUR HOLIDAYS'

While there’s nothing completely new about What We Did on Our Holiday – except for Gordy’s ultimate fate – it’s been put together and produced with a great deal of heart and soul. As a result it’s a wonderfully amusing, often laugh-out-loud movie that has enough joie de vivre to offset some of the more predictable moments, and when it ends leaves you wanting to spend just a little more time with the characters, and to find out how they move on.

Part of the charm of the movie is it’s lack of sentimentality around Gordy’s illness (and his eventual death), and the way in which it makes the children more assured than their parents. Gordy talks about his impending death as if it’s a great inconvenience, and the scene where he tells Lottie about it is touchingly and simply done (it’s probably the way we’d all like to tell someone). His illness is never allowed to assume too great an importance, except when it comes to the adults, and it’s a refreshing change to see children being treated as able to cope with such information and not be affected by it (too much at least). It’s also refreshing to see them make the kind of decision that most adults would probably balk at.

Of course, it helps when your writers and directors are the very talented Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin (perhaps best known for the UK TV series’ Drop the Dead Donkey and Outnumbered). They have a knack for assembling and examining dysfunctional families and making their quirks and foibles and peccadilloes so completely entertaining that you can’t help but laugh with the characters instead of at them. So true to life are their efforts it’s not too much to imagine a little girl who collects rocks and breeze blocks (Eric and Norman respectively), or a pre-teen who uses a notebook to keep track of all the lies her parents tell. Equally, the squabbles and the caustic comments that Doug and Abi regale each other with have that essence of truth that make them so recognisable and appropriately amusing.

With the material striking only the occasional false note – Lottie’s speech to the adults late on seems forced and too much like wish fulfilment, Celia Imrie’s child protection officer is an unnecessary attempt to add some drama – the cast are left to have a field day. It’s easy to see that they’ve had a great time, and it shows in the performances. Tennant and Pike have an easy confidence around each other and their scenes together sparkle with mischievous energy. Miller does po-faced with aplomb but makes Gavin more than just strait-laced and lacking in humour (there’s a great scene where Lottie, Mickey and Jess interrogate him about what he does for a living). Bullmore doesn’t have quite as much to do but Margaret has her own back story and “the incident” is one of the funniest sequences in the whole movie. And Connolly plays Gordy with just the right mixture of resignation and resistance towards his cancer, reining in his usual acerbic style in favour of a more sweet-natured, affectionate approach that pays off in dividends. But if the adult cast are all on top form, they’re still outshone, out-performed and upstaged by the trio of Jones, Smalldridge and Turnbull. They’re so relaxed and self-assured it’s a pleasure to watch them handle the variety of emotions they’re called on to carry off, and with as much of a mischievous energy as their older co-stars. Full marks to casting directors Briony Barnett and Jill Trevellick for finding them and bringing them together.

Full marks too to the location scout who found the area of Scotland where the movie was filmed – the scenery is simply breathtaking. Having such a beautiful backdrop makes the movie all the more pleasing to watch and the visuals are supported by an unobtrusive yet fitting score by Alex Heffes. And watch out for Wiggins the ostrich – he only makes an occasional fleeting – literally – appearance but it’s one more level of comic absurdity amongst a plethora that makes the movie so delightful.

Rating: 8/10 – a great comedy that overcomes several moments of déja vu and the occasional stumble to provide a marvellous comedy experience, What We Did on Our Holiday is full of charm and playfulness; splendidly rewarding, it will put a smile on your face and keep it there until the final credits.

All Relative (2014)

29 Thursday Jan 2015

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All Relative

D: J.C. Khoury / 85m

Cast: Connie Nielsen, Jonathan Sadowski, Sara Paxton, David Aaron Baker, Al Thompson, Erin Wilhelmi, Liz Fye

Harry (Sadowski) is still getting over the break up with his fiancée – after a year has gone by. He’s continually encouraged to meet new women by his best friend, Jared (Thompson), but he’s afraid to take the plunge. One night, while out bowling with Jared, Harry meets Grace (Paxton); they hit it off but when he walks her home she reveals she’s seeing someone. They part as friends. Later that evening, Harry is in a hotel bar having a drink when he meets Maren (Nielsen). She’s in New York for the weekend and interested in “having fun”. They have sex in her room, but agree that it’s all purely physical. Over the course of the weekend, Harry tells Maren about Grace and she encourages him to call her. Harry and Grace meet up but she still treats him like a friend. When Harry is next with Maren, Grace texts him urgently and he goes to her, but not before Maren has made clear her disappointment with Harry’s reaction.

A month later, Harry and Grace are on their way to meet her parents. He’s nervous as Grace’s father, Phil (Baker), owns the architectural firm where he’s applied for a job. But his nervousness turns to outright dismay when Grace’s mother turns out to be Maren. With cracks in Maren and Phil’s marriage apparent from the beginning, and both Harry and Maren worried that one of them will tell Grace about their weekend together, the visit becomes bogged down by arguments and misunderstandings. When Harry is persuaded to stay over he finds himself giving marital advice to both Maren and Phil in which he preaches the values of listening and honesty – two things he’s not doing with Grace. When he finally decides to tell Grace about his time with her mother, Maren pre-empts him and sends Grace a text from his phone that ends their relationship but without mentioning their affair.

Unaware of what Maren has done, Harry is told by her as well that Grace no longer believes in his commitment to their relationship and she has ended it. Harry goes back to New York City, but doesn’t give up on Grace, or their relationship, and does his best to win her back.

All Relative - scene

There’s a point about two thirds into All Relative where Maren and Phil sit down and discuss their marriage and where it’s all gone wrong. It’s a long scene, well acted by Nielsen and Baker, but not as dramatic as it’s meant to be, and it’s a good example of the movie’s inability to make the serious parts of the script really dramatic, and to make the humorous parts really comedic. It’s an awkward mix, made more awkward by the movie’s frankly unbelievable sequence of events once Maren and Grace’s relationship is revealed. Suspension of disbelief is one thing, but writer/director Khoury clearly hasn’t worked out how to make Harry’s predicament even remotely credible. And with a conclusion that feels more like a compromise than a realistic outcome, All Relative deprives the viewer of a fully rewarding experience.

Which is a shame as the movie could have been a lot sharper and a lot wittier. The initial scenes between Harry and Jared are handled with a pleasant whimsicality that bodes well for the rest of the movie, and Harry’s bashful approaches to Grace are cute without being overly cringeworthy. It’s all pointing to an enjoyable rom-com with an indie slant, and with the introduction of Maren, an indie rom-com with a slight hint of danger: will Harry have to choose between the two new women in his life?  Alas, any edge is pushed to the kerb as the movie enters farce territory with Maren’s reaction to Harry’s arrival. Nielsen’s performance teeters on the overblown at this point (and is a good indicator as to why this is her first “comedy”), but the script, on its way to being completely schizophrenic in tone, helps her out by reining in her outlandish attitude, but only by making her a relative figure of sympathy. As the movie progresses, Maren veers between being cunning and manipulative, and sensitive and thoughtful, but this inconsistency hurts both the character and the movie.

However, Maren’s uncertain personality is nothing compared to Harry’s unnecessary insistence on being truthful. Only in the movies would someone take another person at their word if they said, let’s be completely honest about everything. Harry’s need to reveal all about his fling with Maren often feels like the character can’t get by without the occasional bit of self-flagellation; here, his need provides the movie with what little real drama it can muster, but it feels forced purely by virtue of its repetition. It also leaves Harry sounding like an emotional misanthrope, as if by being completely honest he’ll be better than everyone around him (even if he doesn’t say this outright). Sadowski looks uncomfortable throughout, as if he’s realised that Harry is a bit of a dumbass and he’s decided to act accordingly (to be fair, the script does paint him that way).

With only Grace and Phil given anything remotely reminiscent of a believable personality or character, All Relative falls back too many contrivances and there-for-the-sake-of-it moments to make it all work. Khoury relies heavily on his cast to make the material more effective but alas they can’t, and while Paxton and Baker come out of things with their reputations intact, sadly, Nielsen and Sadowski give mannered, uneven performances that are often uncomfortable to watch. The movie is also quite bland in its look and feel and there’s no appreciable zing to proceedings, events and occurrences happening with what appears to be a frightening lack of consideration or interest on Khoury’s part (and that’s without taking the viewer into account).

Rating: 4/10 – let down by a script that can’t decide what kind of movie it wants to be, All Relative staggers along without making the audience care about its characters or what happens to them; too awkward to work effectively, the movie runs aground with indecent haste and never recovers its forward momentum.

Gone Girl (2014)

09 Thursday Oct 2014

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Gone Girl

D: David Fincher / 149m

Cast: Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry, Carrie Coon, Kim Dickens, Patrick Fugit, David Clennon, Lisa Banes, Missi Pyle, Emily Ratajkowski, Casey Wilson, Lola Kirke, Boyd Holbrook, Sela Ward, Scoot McNairy

One morning in July, Nick Dunne (Affleck) comes home to find signs of a violent struggle and his wife, Amy (Pike), missing.  He calls the police and when they arrive, Detective Boney (Dickens) and Officer Gilpin (Fugit), soon find further evidence that something bad has happened.  Soon, Amy’s face is everywhere, and while it’s assumed at first that she’s been abducted, Nick’s behaviour doesn’t ring true and he becomes a suspect in what may be his wife’s death.  With evidence building up against him, Nick and his sister Margo (Coon) try to figure out what’s going on, but they’re stumped at every turn.  It’s only when they make a startling discovery in a woodshed on Margo’s property that they begin to realise what’s really happening.

At this point in the movie, as well as in Gillian Flynn’s original novel, there is a major plot twist, and both incarnations of the story begin to move in a new direction, opening out what is a fairly claustrophobic small-town mystery into something that strains credulity and begins to founder under the weight of its attempts to be cleverer than it needs to be.  There are many, many problems with the plot against Nick Dunne, not least Nick’s conveniently inappropriate responses in front of the police and the media, but also the introduction of Amy’s diary.  This offers a disjointed view of Nick and Amy’s marriage that’s meant to put doubts in the minds of the audience as to Nick’s innocence, but which has its effectiveness rendered null and void by the aforementioned plot twist.

It’s not unusual to watch a thriller and find yourself questioning the logic of what’s happening, but with Gone Girl it’s a constant process.  There’s little doubt that Flynn’s tale of marital discord has a degree of cultural relevancy, and her examination of the hidden duplicities and feelings within a marriage is sharper than expected, but ultimately, what we’re talking about here is an above averagely presented potboiler that marries trenchant observations on the media and modern marriage with more traditional thriller elements, and which muddles its way through to an ending which can be seen as either depressingly nihilistic or just desserts for a character – Nick – who has been outclassed from the beginning (though it seems at first glance that it’s all happening because the person doing it all really holds a grudge).

Gone Girl - scene

What happens in the movie’s second half, as Nick attempts to regain control of his life, and defend himself from the police and the media, is confidently arranged and presented by Fincher, but with what the audience knows is happening elsewhere, the movie maintains its measured, effective pacing but at the expense of the tension that’s been built up before.  It’s not the movie’s fault; it is, after all a very faithful adaptation by Flynn of her own novel, and Fincher seems happy to go along with the twists and turns and her reliance on dramatic licence to steer her characters through.  The weaknesses that plague the second half of the novel are present in the movie, and have the same effect: they make everything too unbelievable, and lead to a denouement that will either have audiences who haven’t read the novel shaking their heads in disbelief and asking, “Is that it?”, or audiences who have read the novel shaking their heads in disbelief and asking, “Is that still it?”

So – is Gone Girl then a bad movie?  The answer is very definitely No.  In Fincher’s hands, Gone Girl overcomes it’s cod-psychological thriller origins to become a dark, unsettling movie that picks at the conventional notions of love and marriage and finds murky, troubled waters flowing just below the surface.  As an examination of how two people can fall out of love with each other so easily, and be so ready to hurt each other in the process, the movie scores on all counts.  Nick and Amy, once so right for each other, are now adversaries, both looking to come out on top.  It’s an unfair fight; after all, if Nick was a box-cutter, he’d be the last one you’d use to open up something (he’s just not that sharp).  But Amy is sharp, smart as a whip in fact.  She’s Amazing Amy, the ultimate version of herself that her parents created when she was a little girl, a prodigy who always excels, who always ends up the winner, just because she’s Amazing Amy.  (Amy has always been in competition with her literary alter-ego, but the movie only mentions it in passing, while the novel explores the idea in greater, and more rewarding, depth.  It’s important to take in, though.)

Fincher excels at fleshing out the characters.  Nick is smug and stupid and reckless and self-satisfied and callow and foolish, and he has no idea how idiotically he behaves.  He’s like Bambi in a hunter’s sights, a prize just waiting to be claimed.  Affleck gives perhaps his best performance in years, earning our initial sympathy then dashing it to the ground in one superbly orchestrated scene that pulls the rug out from under the audience with undisguised pleasure.  Nick is twitchy, nervous, anxious, panicky – all the things you’d expect when someone is increasingly viewed as having killed their wife, but Affleck never puts a foot – or an inappropriate grin – wrong, imbuing Nick with an easy-to-warm-to naïveté that hardens as the movie plays out, his nervous energy transformed into a need for redemption in the public’s eye.  As mentioned before, Nick is a frustratingly obtuse character, but Affleck makes it a positive.  Even when Nick is doing or saying something witless, like posing with a woman for a selfie, it’s witless because it’s part of his nature, his way of dealing with people.  He’s like a puppy: he just wants to be loved.

Gone Girl - scene2

Conversely, Amy has always been loved, her parents’ books about her excelling alter-ego having made her treasured by default.  But that affection comes with an expectation that everyone around Amy will feel the same way about her, and if she’s in a relationship then it’s all or nothing, her way or no way.  Pike is a revelation here: as we learn more and more about Amy, she reveals more and more of the fractured person Amy really is.  It’s a role that would test any actress, but Pike – who probably wasn’t most people’s first choice for the part – claims the role as her own and pulls off a devastating performance.  She’s an actress who shows everything with her eyes; watch those and you’ll know everything her character is thinking and feeling, and some things you might not want to know.  She complements Affleck’s performance superbly, and she even manages to make some of Flynn’s more tortured dialogue sound appropriate and convincing.

In support, Dickens is excellent as the detective who never feels entirely satisfied with the way things keep happening, her experience telling her that there’s more going on than meets the eye.  As one of Amy’s old boyfriends, Desi Collings, Harris is awkwardly emotional and manipulative at the same time, the kind of creepy paramour most women would run a mile from.  Coon offers solid support as Nick’s sister but the role is  stereotypically rendered: she believes in him no matter what, even when he does something really stupid.  And Perry – as Nick’s lawyer, Tanner Bolt – has fun with a role that could have done with a bit more bluster, and he provides some much needed levity from the seriousness of the situation.

Marshalling the production into something much greater than its origins, though, is Fincher, a director able to elevate any material he’s given – save Alien³ (1992) – and make it riveting to watch.  In hand with cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth, Fincher makes Gone Girl an impressively visual experience, with shots and images that linger in the memory, and never so cleverly as with Nick and Amy’s home, a large, airy property that serves to highlight how far apart from each other they actually are.  Fincher also takes the more outlandish aspects of Flynn’s story and makes them more credible (though even he’s powerless to override the flimsy psychology that underpins the ending), and he makes the audience want to know what happens next, even if it might be obvious.  With two commanding central performances as well, Gone Girl cements Fincher’s reputation even further, and if at some point down the road Flynn decides to revisit Nick and Amy’s marriage, there shouldn’t be any question as to who should direct the movie version.

While it may divide some audiences – especially those who like their endings to be unequivocal (although this is, in its way) – Gone Girl is nonetheless superior movie-making, and should be regarded as such.  Fincher shows a complete understanding of the characters and their motivations, and delivers one of the most unexpectedly energised movies of the year.  It’s a thriller, yes, but at its heart it’s a movie about the expectations of love and the slow decay of a relationship, where passion turns to pain and love turns to hate.  And it’s relentless.

Rating: 8/10 – the script’s deficiencies knock this one down a point, but this is still very impressive stuff indeed; a taut, engrossing thriller that impresses with every scene, Gone Girl is that rare movie that grips the audience despite its faults and becomes a movie that everyone will want to talk about afterwards.

Cold Lunch (2008)

12 Saturday Jul 2014

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Cold Lunch

Original title: Lønsj

D: Eva Sørhaug / 90m

Cast: Ane Dahl Torp, Pia Tjelta, Aksel Hennie, Bjørn Floberg, Nicolai Cleve Broch, Anneke von der Lippe, Kyrre Haugen Sydness, Birgitte Victoria Svendson, Ingar Helge Gimle, Jan Gunnar Røise

A Norwegian drama focusing on the lives of five people who all live and (mostly) work in the same small section of Oslo, Cold Lunch introduces us to Leni (Torp), a forty-something woman who has spent the majority of her life in an apartment with her father; Christer (Hennie), a young man who can’t pay his rent; Heidi (Tjelta), a young mother whose husband, Odd (Sydness) is controlling and abusive; Turid (Svendson), a fifty-something woman who does her best to live an active, fulfilling lifestyle; and Kildahl (Floberg), whose disabled wife hates and despises him.  When Christer leaves for work one morning and he gets bird poo on his clothes, the “accident” sets in motion a chain reaction that brings these characters into each other’s orbits.

Using the washing machine of the building next door to his, Christer realises his money is in the pocket of his waistcoat.  Unable to open the washing machine, he finds the fuse box and pulls out the main fuse.  As he retrieves his money, Kildahl appears and challenges Christer, who promptly leaves (without apologising for causing everyone in the building an inconvenience).  Upstairs, Leni’s father has been killed as he attempts to restore power to his flat using his own fuse box.  Leni sees his body but does nothing; eventually Kildahl and an electrician visit the flat and find the old man.  In another apartment, Heidi is looking after her infant son.  With the power having been cut off, some of her husband’s clothes aren’t washed or ironed; he gets angry and when Heidi pleads for his understanding, Odd slaps her across the face before leaving.  Nearby, Christer quits his job because the store owner he works for won’t lend him the money he needs to pay his rent.  Odd works for a property management company; he finds Leni at the flat and informs her that her father’s contract for the flat ended when he died, and she must leave within the next two days.  Later, Kildahl is having dinner with his wife; angry with him and her condition she urinates while sitting at the dinner table.

Over the next couple of days, their lives intersect and new bonds are forged, while others are strengthened (or made to endure), and one is curtailed almost as soon as it’s begun, and one more remains unchanged.  Leni learns how to cope in the outside world, Christer gets an offer to join a small crew taking a boat to the Caribbean, Heidi tries her best to become a better partner to Odd, and mother to their son (with terrible consequences), and Kildahl and Turid both take each day as it comes in the hope that their lives will improve in some way, however small.

Cold Lunch - scene

The writer and philosopher Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”.  And so it is with Cold Lunch, its characters seeking ways out of their individual predicaments, and not knowing how to find them.  It’s a bleak, unforgiving kind of movie, intent on showing what can happen when we all have a bad day, and the repercussions that, often, we’re not even aware of.  Happiness, the movie seems to say, is fleeting, and by no means guaranteed, even if you work hard for it, or deserve it.  By chance, Leni finds a job but she is still all alone in the world – a scene in a cafe sees her nodding in acknowledgement to a woman at the next table.  When she does it again, the woman is unimpressed and turns away.  Unable to connect with the world around her on a meaningful level, Leni (who appears to be the movie’s one “success” story) will always turn inward for comfort and peace of mind.

Likewise, Christer and Heidi find it difficult to connect with others.  Christer is almost entirely dependent on the people around him but he has a fundamental distrust of everyone.  He has a moment of self-awareness that seems to bring about a kind of personal salvation, but how long it will last is uncertain.  Heidi’s life is even more wretched, her proclivity for self-denial dictating her behaviour at every turn.  She too has a moment of self-awareness (mixed with a burst of self-confidence), but it’s fleeting and she renounces any chance of changing her life almost straight away.  Her future is the bleakest, and has a grim inevitability.  The same can be said for Kildahl, his relationship with his wife entirely one-sided, his attitude toward her more as a parent with a disabled child than as a husband to his wife.  They are both locked in a loveless marriage of co-dependency, and as both are middle-aged, they will continue to make each other miserable for some time to come.  And Turid, whose life, at least, is governed by principles, doesn’t realise just how these principles will continue to keep her alone.

From all this it could be assumed that Cold Lunch is a dark, depressing movie, but despite its subject matter, it’s an oddly positive movie that makes you root for the characters even when you know there’s very little hope for them.  Per Schreiner’s script also has quirky moments of dry humour and unexpected levity amongst all the gloom.  There are good performances all round – Torp and Hennie are particularly effective – and the photography by John Andreas Andersen is understated while also emphasising the bright, airy rooms and outdoor spaces the characters inhabit (which reinforce how alone they are).  Making her feature debut, director Sørhaug shows sound judgment in her approach to the material and alleviates the doom and gloom with carefully constructed moments of hope, along with the aforementioned levity.  At times, she walks a bit of a tightrope in getting the balance right, and there are moments when the movie stumbles under the weight of its ambition – an homage to Hitchcock’s The Birds is clumsily done, and leads to an accident that no one responds to in anything resembling an appropriate manner – but all in all, Cold Lunch is quirky, and oddly affirmative despite its characters trials and tribulations.

Rating: 8/10 – darkly humorous at times, and in a way that only the Scandinavians can pull off, Cold Lunch is not for everyone; too downbeat for its own good at times, it’s nevertheless a movie well worth seeking out and rewards on closer inspection.

Best Man Down (2012)

25 Wednesday Jun 2014

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Best Man Down

D: Ted Koland / 89m

Cast: Justin Long, Jess Weixler, Addison Timlin, Tyler Labine, Shelley Long, Frances O’Connor, Evan Jones, Michael Landes

When Scott (Long) gets married to Kristin (Weixler) in Phoenix, there’s only one choice for best man: his best friend Lumpy (Labine).  At the reception, Lumpy drinks too much and his behaviour becomes more and more unacceptable, until Scott is forced to intervene.  Back in his room, Lumpy continues drinking; he has a fall and cracks his head open before passing out.  While the reception continues, Lumpy comes to and stumbles outside of his hotel.  Unable to get back in he heads toward the party but collapses before he can get there.  His body is discovered the next morning.

The news of Lumpy’s death puts Scott and Kristin in a bit of a bind.  Hailing from Minneapolis, they’re unable to afford both their honeymoon and the cost of arranging for Lumpy’s body to be returned home for the funeral.  Deciding to put off their honeymoon, they go through Lumpy’s phone in order to let his friends know what’s happened.  One name that neither of them recognise is that of Ramsey (Timlin).  Tracking her down proves difficult at first but eventually they find out where she lives and travel there to let her know the news about Lumpy.

Ramsey, who is fifteen, lives with her mother, Jaime (O’Connor) and her mother’s boyfriend, Winston (Jones), who is a bully to both of them.  Having got into trouble before, Ramsey is also under the care of the local priest (Landes); he vouches for her when she gets into any further trouble.  When Scott and Kristin meet Ramsey, they begin to learn that they didn’t really know Lumpy at all, and his relationship with the youngster reveals problems that Lumpy was doing his best to deal with (and which go some way to explaining his behaviour at the reception).

Best Man Down - scene

Advertised as a comedy – and with the presence of Long, Labine and Long (who sound like a firm of comedy lawyers), who can blame the makers for doing so – Best Man Down is first and foremost a drama with comedic moments, and not the laugh-fest some viewers might be expecting.  It’s an often heartfelt movie with the central relationship between Lumpy and Ramsey having a depth and a persuasive quality that is at once unexpected and which has an initial awkwardness that is entirely plausible (even if the first scene in Lumpy’s hotel room stretches that same plausibility).  As the mismatched friends, Labine and Timlin shine in their scenes together, and it’s their commitment to the material that makes the characters’ relationship so feasible.

Alas, the movie is on weaker ground when focusing on Scott and Kristin, newlyweds who never seem to have really talked to each other before they got married.  They’ve also lied to each other about some of the financial aspects of their marriage.  They argue a lot; Scott announces out of the blue that he’s quit his job; Kristin denies her increasing reliance on over the counter drugs.  This is a couple whose heads you want to bash together, and not just to make them see sense, but because it would actually make you feel better.  Long wears his exasperated face for most of the movie, and while it suits his character’s story arc to be like that, for the viewer it quickly becomes monotonous.  And though Long plays glum for most of the movie, it’s still preferable to the kooky, wide-eyed mugging that Weixler opts for.

There are other problems inherent in the material: just where is Lumpy’s mother in all this (she doesn’t show up until the funeral)?  Why does the threat posed by Winston, even when he brandishes a gun, feel about as menacing as being pelted with marshmallows?  And why doesn’t Lumpy confide in Scott in the first place – just how close were they really?  (This last question, at least, the movie tries to answer, but in an overly dramatic way that feels designed to add some much needed angst.)  There’s a resolution to Scott’s unemployment that smacks of expediency, and Kristin goes cold turkey without a backward glance; the audience is meant to believe at the movie’s end that their relationship is now much stronger, but in real life, the jury would still be deliberating.

With the movie proving so uneven, it’s left to the cast to make the most of writer/director Koland’s wayward script.  As mentioned above, Labine and Timlin come off best, while Long and Weixler appear lacklustre by comparison.  In support, O’Connor takes a clichéd role and wrings some invention out of it, Jones mistakes pouting for intimidation, and Shelley Long is almost unrecognisable as Kristin’s mother (it’s only when she speaks that it becomes obvious it’s her).  Koland directs too carefully for the movie’s own good, and never quite knows where the camera would be best placed; it’s a very unadventurous movie to watch.  On the plus side there is some magnificent, wintry location photography, and a pleasant, understated score by Mateo Messina.

Rating: 5/10 – unable to overcome its in-built limitations, Best Man Down stumbles along like a punch-drunk fighter refusing to stay down; another movie with twin storylines, though with just the one that’s at all interesting.

Mini-Review: Le Week-end (2013)

26 Wednesday Feb 2014

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Le Week-end

D: Roger Michell / 93m

Cast: Jim Broadbent, Lindsay Duncan, Jeff Goldblum, Olly Alexander

Nick (Broadbent) and Meg (Duncan) are celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary with a weekend in Paris, returning to where they had their honeymoon. It soon becomes clear that all is not well with their marriage, and that their relationship is foundering: they’ve lost any intimacy they once had, and Nick has recently lost his job as a teacher. As well, there are accusations of adultery, emotional abuse and repeated examples of each other’s despair at how things have gone so wrong. Nick is physically needy, while Meg is emotionally needy; both characters seem unwilling or unable to see beyond their own misgivings or regrets and rekindle the love they once had. This makes for a chilly romance between the pair who can imitate the love they once felt for each other, but have no idea how to resolve the issues they have. A chance encounter with one of Nick’s old college pals (Goldblum) leads to a dinner party invite and the confrontation of feelings they have been avoiding for so long.

Le Week-end - scene

Working from a script by Hanif Kureishi, director Michell has fashioned a creaking treatise on faded love and what it means to be aware of that loss within a failing relationship. Broadbent and Duncan are saddled with some awful, trite dialogue that wants to be meaningful but falls far short of the mark. At the dinner party, Nick makes a dreadful speech outlining his feelings that is so out-of-place and awkward it would only appear in a movie where the characters’ main purpose is to navel gaze repeatedly. Why movie makers continue to believe the dinner party confession is still a viable set piece in this day and age is incredible. On the plus side, Paris is as lovely as expected (there’s a particularly impressive view of the Eiffel Tower from Nick and Meg’s hotel room balcony), and Goldblum is a welcome antidote to the verbal posturings inflicted on the audience by his senior co-stars. By the movie’s end – itself feeling truncated and leaving things unresolved – it’s hard to care if Nick and Meg manage to sort things out or not. Still, it’s good to see Broadbent and Duncan in action – however hampered they are by the script – and at a trim 93 minutes, the movie doesn’t outstay its welcome. What would be interesting however, is this movie given a Before Sunset/Sunrise/Midnight make over; what Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy could make of this idea… now that would be interesting.

Rating: 5/10 – a sadly under-performing movie, Le Week-end strives to be profound in its own small way, but merely ends up sounding arch; growing old is bad enough without the possibility of ending up like Nick and Meg.