MANCHESTER BY THE SEA (2016)
As much as I
love the cinema of the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s, it can’t be denied that nearly the
entire canon of classic Hollywood filmmaking is built on fairy-tale lies: Love
doesn’t conquer all, happiness isn’t always attainable, life isn’t always fair
and sometimes problems just don’t go away.
By the late
‘60s and into the 1970s, writer-directors took American films in a new
direction, seeking to portray life in all its heartbreak, frustrations,
compromises, injustices. But, like everything else in our entertainment
culture, it was a trend that passed quickly.
That’s why
when a movie that cuts to the heart of emotional truthfulness arrives, almost
like an alien into the fantasy factory of Twenty-First century cinema, it’s
worth celebrating.
Kenneth Lonergan’s
latest film, only his second since his impressive 2000 debut, “You Can Count on
Me,” offers a novelistic examination of the ways we deal with tragedy; an uncompromising
study of a man who struggles to find a reason to keep going as life keeps
piling on bad news, wrecking havoc on his soul.
Casey
Affleck, in the performance of his career, plays Lee Chandler, a temperamental
loner who works as a maintenance man at a Boston apartment complex. His dead end
existence is upended when his older brother, who lived with a heart condition,
dies, drawing Lee back to his hometown of Manchester by the Sea, Massachusetts,
and the memories that still haunt him.
The strength
of the movie is the deliberate, piece-meal way that Lonergan metes out Lee’s
back story, the events that made him the man he is today. Those slices of the
past are seamlessly edited (Jennifer Lame) into the present, amplifying Lee’s relationship
with his late brother’s exasperating teenage son (a spot-on Lucas Hedges), who
insist on living as if nothing has happened.
The sea plays
a crucial role in the lives of these people as Lee’s brother earned his living
with his fishing boat and the son insists on maintain it. Lee’s connection to
the sea, his brother and Manchester itself all collide as he endures his
burdens and faces decisions he’s not ready to make.
Affleck, a
standout in “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and
“Gone Baby Gone,” both from 2007, finds the perfect balance of determination
and exhaustion in Lee as he just barely sustains his sanity as he copes with
his past and his future. Through the insightful writing and Affleck’s measured
performance, Lee evolves in a very deliberate way, almost unnoticeably,
resembling real life, not most movie characters.
Two women
also play crucial roles in this story: the late brother’s alcoholic ex-wife (Gretchen
Mol), long estranged from the family and now born-again; and Lee’s ex-wife (the
extraordinary Michelle Williams), who, with more resilience than Lee, has found
a path to a new life for herself.
Near the end of
the film, Lee and his ex run into each other in Manchester (she’s with her
newborn). Their conversation, as she tries to reconnect with him, bristles with
raw emotions rarely seen on screen today; his inarticulate attempts to push her
away, her heartbreaking realization that she’ll never be able to reach him,
made me feel like an intruder, as their mutual sadness resonated with gut-wrenching
reality.
While the film
is superbly made and photographed, it is more of a literary achievement than
cinematic. Like one of John Updike novels of a tragic everyman or the brothers
and lovers that populate Sam Shepard’s plays, “Manchester by the Sea” gives
voice to the irreconcilable nature of grief and the struggle to maintain
humanity in the face of fate, cruelly delivered.
ARRIVAL (2016)
If there’s a
theme emerging from this new century of filmmaking, it’s that Earthlings should
be paying more attention to what’s going on beyond our atmosphere.
Among the most
ambitious post-millennium films include “Melancholia,” “Gravity,”
“Interstellar,” “The Martian” and now “Arrival,” all thoughtful explorations of
extra-terrestrial effects on humans. The latest entry has elements of
“Interstellar” along with a bit of classic sci-fi, tapping into “Close
Encounters of the Third Kind” and all those ‘50s meet-the-aliens films.
When a dozen
oblong-shaped transports arrive at various points around the globe, the
military pulls Louise Banks (the protean Amy Adams), a world-renowned linguist,
into service to decipher the alien’s language. In an otherwise extremely
measured film, the opening plays a bit too much like a Roland Emmerich popcorn
space flick. But it quickly becomes clear “Arrival” is much, much more.
The influence
of Steve Spielberg’s epic is obvious when the film arrives at the compound that
has rapidly been assembled around the Montana site of the alien ship. But 40
years of technology, in real life and on the screen, makes the science aspects
of this film look and sound as if it’s part of a documentary; more convincing
and, because of that, more ominous.
The sense of
impending doom among all the military and intelligence collective never wanes.
Like in “Close Encounters,” this group of most anonymous experts (led by the
always excellent Forest Whitaker and Michael Stuhlbarg) displays the utmost in
professionalism, but can’t offer the inspired heart that the film’s civilian
protagonist brings.
One of the
film’s strengths comes from treating the audience as knowledgeable insiders
rather than an open-mouth, frightened mass. By the time Louise and physicist
Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) arrive for “the show,” as they call it, contact
has already been made with the visitors, here and around the world. It’s up to
Louise to find out why they’ve come.
Adams, an
actress who has been superb in so many films in her still young career that
she’s easy to overlook, gives an extraordinary performance as the low-keyed
college professor who finds herself in the middle of the defining event of
mankind. The actress dominates virtually every frame of this picture; it’s a
performance so internalized, solemn and thoughtful that a close-up of her
awaking speaks like a page of dialogue. Not only does she serve as the conduit
between “them” and “us,” but she ends up taking on an almost mystic aura.
Director
Denis Villeneuve’s previous work, including the kidnapping film “Prisoners”
(2013) and “Sicario” (2015), about border drug enforcement, were briskly told,
intense thrillers, but do not anticipate the complex structure and thoughtful
introspection he brings to “Arrival.” Here he’s clearly influenced by recent
Terrence Malick pictures: Louise, much like a Malick character, finds a new
language to understand her world; while the director, though not quite to the
extent of Malick, doesn’t do much explaining, leaving viewers to find the
message.
Each encounter
with the aliens has a breathless power to it, while the detail devoted to decoding
their inkblot–like written language offers the film’s central message: How we
communicated determines everything.
Villeneuve
and screenwriter Eric Heisserer, who has mostly written supernatural-horror
films, expanding on a short story by Ted Chiang, take the film way beyond the
typical “aliens arrive” scenario, daring to dig deep into what it means to be
human and, like “Interstellar,” unleashing the whole time-space continuum
mindbender.
The director wisely
keeps the action and the actors at an unusually low-energy level, allowing the
last act, devoid of the usual hysteria, work in a subtle, mysterious manner,
making you wonder: “What just happened?”
Yet maybe the
film’s most poignant message is that someone out of the classroom, a lonely
intellectual, not some fantasy superhero, will save the world.
KATYN (2007)
Scant
attention was paid in this country when, in October, one of the most important
filmmakers of the second half of the 20th Century, Andrzej Wajda,
died at age 90.
Though his
most memorable films were made from the late 1950s to the early ‘80s, this
champion of the Polish people never stopped working; just three years ago
directed a biopic of the towering figure of recent Polish history, Lech Walesa.
Wajda quickly
moved into the first-rank of European filmmakers with his trilogy of pictures
depicting the oppressive life of Poles during World War II, starting with “A
Generation”(1954) and followed by “Kanal” (1956), an intense, heartbreaking
story of resistance fighters, and “Ashes and Diamonds” (1958), which looks at
the immediate aftermath of the war.
“Kanal” won a special jury prize at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival.
Working despite
the iron rule of the Soviets, Wajda captured the early rumblings of the
Solidarity movement in his “Man of Marble” (1976) and “Man of Iron” (1980),
which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes that year. In the early 1980s, he also made
a couple of high-profile films in France, “A Love in Germany” (1983), starring
the great German actress Hanna Schygulla as a woman who has an affair with a
Polish POW, and “Danton” (1983), an epic telling of the legendary French
revolutionary, played by Gerard Depardieu. The film won the Cesar award as the
best French film of the year.
Though he
continued to direct, Wajda spent much of the late 1980s and 1990s as part of
the new independent government of Poland.
Earning Wajda
an Oscar nomination for best foreign film in 2007, “Katyn” chronicles, though various
characters, one of the most horrific tragedies in the sad history of Poland
during World War II. Caught between the invading Germans and “friendly” Soviet
troops, Police officers and enlisted men are murdered and tossed in a community
grave by the Russian military.
After the war,
when the mass grave is uncovered, the Soviets (now in charge of the country)
blame the Germans, but many of the families of the victims continue to push for
the truth.
It’s an
episodical film that I found some difficulty keeping track of the characters,
but there are some beautiful staged scenes that show the director retained his
filmmaking prowess into his 80s. The film concludes with a reenactment of the
officers’ final journey to their death, a sequence as powerful as anything
Wajda has put on film.
In receiving a
Lifetime Achievement Award at the Oscar ceremony in 2001, Wajda put his career
in perspective: “I accept this great honor not as a personal tribute, but as a
tribute to all of Polish cinema.” Few great filmmakers are so closely
associated with the fate of their nation as Wajda was.
“Afterimage,”
his final film, opening for Oscar consideration this month, chronicles the life
of a famous Polish painter, who lived under post-WWII Communist oppression.
Fitting, as this is the theme of Wajda life’s work.
THE BIRTH OF A NATION
(2016)
While it’s not
the groundbreaking film that early commentaries promised, this response, over
100 years later, to D.W. Griffith’s racist silent epic, tells a powerful story
of a slave who led a short-lived revolt in 1831.
There’s
nothing subtle about this film, but then the institution of slavery was hardly
subtle. For director, star and co-writer Nathan Parker, a little-known
supporting player over the past decade, the movie provides an auspicious entry
into the world of major Hollywood filmmaking.
This story of
Nat Turner begins when he’s given the chance to study the Bible by the lady
(Penelope Ann Miller) of the plantation where he serves as a slave. The
precocious child takes to reading and preaching, soon leading service for other
slaves.
Life seems to
remain relatively unchanged for Turner as he becomes an adult and his white
boyhood friend (Armie Hammer) becomes master of the Virginia cotton ranch. At
least until Hammer’s Turner (remember, slaves were given their master’s name)
decides to make some extra money off of Nat’s preaching skills, “renting” him
out to other slave owners. Finally, Nat realizes that his words telling of a
better life in God’s kingdom are actually aiding the subservience of the
African-Americans.
This
awakening, along with the rape of both his wife and his best friend’s wife by
whites who face no consequences, spurs him to revolt, a move as hopeless as it
is admirable and brave.
The thin story
isn’t aided by either the script or the supporting performance. No character
other than Turner is written as a three-dimension character, a fault of both
the underwritten script and the unimpressive supporting cast. I kept waiting
for a memorable scene that didn’t include Turner to provide some depth to the
story, but that never happened.
But Parker is
excellent as Turner, a complex character who is caught between serving his god
and those suffering around him. Turner, as imagined by Parker, never doubts his
decision to take up arms.
But not
addressed by the film is the aftermath of the short-lived revolt. After he was
captured, tried and hanged, the education of both free blacks and slaves was
banned across the South along with other restrictions.
This film was
once considered a prime candidate for multiple Academy Award nominations, but
fell out of favor not because of what’s on the screen but because of Parker was
charged, and acquitted, with rape when he was in college.
Should that
affect my opinion of this film? I don’t think so; while I am a doubter of the
fairness of our criminal justice system, especially when it deals with college
sexual assaults, how can I second guess a case I know nothing about?
What I do
question are the production companies that put money into this Parker project
from the start. Did they think his past would be ignored? Not surprisingly, the
film opened and closed within a few weeks. That’s a shame, since this is a
story that all Americans should know about. But, clearly, many questioned
whether Parker was the right person to tell it.
THE ACCOUNTANT (2016)
I usually
applaud any film that dares to be complex and densely plotted, but this
sporadically entertaining story of a man suffering from a variety of social
disorders plays like six different version of the same life. Watching it was
like channel surfing from movie to movie.
Ben Affleck,
who appears in at least four films this year, portrays Christian Wolff (at
least that’s one of his names), a mysterious loner but brilliant accountant who
splits his time between dull, run-of-the-mill jobs and working for a series of
international criminal organizations, where the big bucks, but major risks, are
found. One day he’s offering tax advice to local farmers, the next he’s helping
an arms dealer look legitimate.
His mental
condition is amplified by a stressful upbringing, including his mother
deserting the family and an intimidating, rigid father who pushes Christian and
his brother to become hand-to-hand combat experts.
Things get
confusing when he takes a job for a large corporation in Chicago after the
firm’s accountant (a very shaky Anna Kendrick) questions the company’s books.
Turns out, the company (and its CEO played by John Lithgow) didn’t really want
to know what happened to their money, at least I don’t think so. Quickly, Wolff
and Kendrick’s Dana are on the run and the lives of everyone they know are in
danger.
There’s also a
federal investigator, Ray King, (J.K. Simmons), who has been after Wolff for
years. Needlessly, King blackmails a Treasury Department analysis to help him
unearth Wolff, but then seems to know everything she discovers. Does that sound
idiotic? It is. The film would have improved greatly by eliminating these
characters.
The film also
tries to address the treatment and care of people with autism, adds a bit of
romance and then ends it all with an over-the-top shoot’ em up, more suitable
for a Nicolas Cage straight-to-DVD movie. At its best, the film focuses on
Wolff’s “Beautiful Mind”-like genius for numbers, but director Gavin O’Connor
(“Warrior”) and writer Bill Dubuque keep trying to tell the wrong story.
It’s almost a
“Batman”-like role (see below) for Affleck in that he’s a humble, isolated
professional by day and a justice-serving killing-machine by night.
In parts, the
film is a superbly made, sharply written profile of an outsider whose
single-purpose life frees him from all moral and ethical restraints. Or maybe
I’m just projecting what it could have been.
BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN
OF JUSTICE (2016)
After a half
dozen films, starring an endless number of actors who have wedged themselves
into these iconic costumes, we’ve reached some kind of nadir. This pointless,
laughably serious superhero battle royale makes the old George Reeves
television series look like Shakespeare.
Bruce Wayne nee
Batman (a joyless Ben Affleck) joins a growing chorus in Gotham (or its is
Metropolis?) that blame Superman (a more engaged Henry Cavill) for opening up
the planet to extra-terrestrial evil, at the same time that Batman takes heat
for his one-man justice system. Of course, Lex Luthor (a weasel-like Jesse
Eisenberg) takes advantage of the plunging popularity of these two celebs to
plan some mischief of his own.
Essentially,
this is a continuation of the reboot of Superman, “Man of Steel” (2013), with
Batman serving as a confused supporting player. From “Man of Steel,” Amy Adams
returns as Lois, Larry Fishburne as Daily Planet editor (and Superman hater)
Perry White and Diane Lane as Clark Kent’s mother back in Kansas. Zack Snyder,
who directed the compelling 2013 reboot, remains behind the camera for this
sequel, trying, it seems to out noir Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight.”
I can’t image
fans of either of these comic book legends, the core audience for the film,
being very happy with the way this story plays out. For the rest of humanity,
it’s a very long 151 minutes.
CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL
WAR (2016)
I’m not going
to write more than a few sentences on this colossal waste of my time. What
bothers me most about this loud, pretentiously serious “Avengers” installment
is that the popularity of these cartoons-on-steroids seems to be growing
exponentially.
All I want is
this unpleasant comic-book hero trend to end so these actors can get back to
the business of making movies about life.
“Civil War”
basically has the same plot of “Superman v. Batman”: blowback from superheroes
doing their job. I will admit that it’s invented that after all these years,
Marvel and DC are addressing the death and destruction caused in the wake of
their heroes battling the bad guys.
Here they
mostly battle each other and it comes off as senseless as the Superman-Batman
bout. And is it just me, or is Capt. America (Chris Evans) the dullest dude to
ever be granted superpower status?
