→ April 27, 2023
→ By

Living.

Living was the last English-language Oscar nominee on my list of movies to see, since I’m not interested in seeing Avatar and the only other nominees of note I haven’t seen are three of the International Feature picks. Scoring nominations this year for Best Actor (for Bill Nighy, his first) and Best Adapted Screenplay (for Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro), this adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s famed Ikiru is a quiet gem of a film, with a tour de force performance from its star and some lovely dialogue supporting him. It’s available to rent on amazon, iTunes, etc. (Full disclosure: I have never seen Ikiru.)

Nighy plays Mr. Williams, a widower and an aging bureaucrat in in the London County Council in the 1950s whose job seems to consist primarily of pushing paper around, especially when it can be pushed to another department on another floor. He never declines a request, merely passing the buck (or quid, I suppose) to someone else. His staff includes the young Miss Harris (Aimee Lee Wood), the lone woman in the group; the eager, brand-new employee Mr. Wakeling (Alex Sharp); and a few other replacement-level men who show no desire whatsoever to challenge the existing system.

This is all upended when Mr. Williams receives a terminal cancer diagnosis, with just months left to live, and finds himself terribly dissatisfied with his life. His son and daughter-in-law show little interest in him as a person, and he doesn’t seem to have any friends. He has no legacy to leave, no one who will truly miss him, so after vanishing from work for several days, he decides to take on one particular project that has been presented to his department and kicked around the building that he can see to fruition: turning a bombed-out building into a playground. His attempts to live a little also bring Miss Harris into the picture, as he takes her to lunch once or twice, and to a film, in an entirely chaste relationship that she can’t understand and that his daughter-in-law, with help from the neighborhood gossip, assumes is something more prurient. The film jumps ahead around the midpoint to show his funeral, after which we see flashbacks to the last few months of his life and the way his family and co-workers respond to his death. Their words and their behavior don’t exactly line up, although this might be the most authentic part of the entire script.

This is Bill Nighy’s film. I’ve always enjoyed his work, and argue just about every year that his story is the only remotely acceptable one in Love Actually, in large part because he treats the film with the reverence it deserves – none. He was outstanding in the British mini-series State of Play, and even charming in the ridiculous The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. This is the role of a lifetime, and he gives a performance to match it. His Mr. Williams is restrained, so constipated in speech that he’s hard to understand, but it makes the moments of actual emotion so much more powerful, even though he’s still actually kind of hard to understand. (Turn the volume up. Just a tip.) Nighy is often at his best in patrician roles, even though that’s not his upbringing, but here he gets a more consequential role in which to deploy that high-born air.

The script takes its time hitting its points, which appear to mirror those of the original film (based, I admit, on my reading of the latter’s Wikipedia entry), including a long, slow buildup to the doctor’s visit that defines the whole movie. That works because the dialogue is so precise – every word seems placed there for a specific purpose, especially those that come out of the mouth of Mr. Williams, yet these words never come across as forced, or out of character. Ishiguro is one of the greatest living prose writers, yet even across his novels, his voice changes to suit the style and genre of the work. Living is his work without sounding like his work, and the result is that Mr. Williams’ grief and revelations and enthusiasm for his one last project come through as genuine.

Nighy became an Oscar nominee at age 72, which Collider says puts him in the top ten for oldest such first-timers, forty-two years after his first credited film role. This is too un-showy of a role to win the honor – I’m surprised he even got the nomination, given how quiet and unpretentious he is as Mr. Williams – but he was certainly better than the fat-suit guy and the Elvis impersonator. Aimee Lee Wood, who is one of the stars of Sex Education, also gives a lovely turn in a smaller role as Miss Harris, serving as the unwitting confidante and comforter to Mr. Williams, while Alex Sharp, who bears more than a small resemblance to Matthew Murphy of the Wombats, is perfect as the wide-eyed innocent who hasn’t yet been ground down by the do-nothing mentality of the office. I’m not sorry to see Ishiguro lose out to Sarah Polley for her adapted screenplay of Women Talking, but both were quite deserving.

For those who are still curious about such things, I’ve got this in my revised top ten for 2022, at #9, just behind Tár and ahead of La Caja and Nope. I still have to see EO, Close, The Quiet Girl, and Return to Seoul, all of which are at least now out as rentals.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
→ January 13, 2022
→ By

Being the Ricardos.

Aaron Sorkin just can’t help himself: After directing The Trial of the Chicago Seven into an occasionally entertaining but bloated, self-important mess, he’s done it again with Being the Ricardos, and here the offense might actually be worse. This is a funny script about very funny people, one that touches on a couple of important topics, and Sorkin directs the audience right out of the film multiple times. (It’s free for Amazon Prime members.)

The film covers one week during the heyday of I Love Lucy, when a blind gossip item tagged Lucille Ball as a Communist, another tabloid story said that Desi Arnaz was unfaithful to Ball, and Lucille reveals that she’s pregnant, which was a huge complication for the highly censored, misogynistic medium of television in 1953. Those events all did take place, but in reality, they happened in separate weeks, and Sorkin condensed them all for (melo)dramatic purposes, which is small potatoes compared to other choices he made here. The conflation of three crises lends itself well to Sorkin’s trademark rapid-fire dialogue – yes, we get walk-and-talks – and despite its lack of adherence to the truth, it probably improves the film on the whole.

Far and away the biggest problem with Being the Ricardos is Sorkin himself. He frames the movie with what are supposed to be interview clips with the show’s three main writers in something like the present day, although those three people have all been dead for at least ten years now. The interviews add nothing, and I mean nothing, to this movie, and at times are actively insulting, such as the scene near the very end of the movie when none of the three can remember Desi Arnaz’s catchphrase. I wanted to throw something at the TV. Sorkin makes his presence felt in plenty of other ways, not least in the many scenes that tell us just how incredibly important the work of television is, what a difficult art form it is, and uses that to tell us what a genius Lucille Ball was – except the whole thing rings very fake. A fair amount of the movie is devoted to Ball obsessing over the blocking in one scene, and I’d be shocked if any of that was true, including the bizarre 2 a.m. meeting she calls to go over it again.

The script does have a lot of humor in it – zingers, banter, sarcasm, you name it, and the actors bring the energy required to keep up with a script like this. Nicole Kidman won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama, a surprising result to those who follow this stuff, but she’s better here than Renée Zellweger in Judy or Rami Malek in Bohemian Rhapsody, both of whom won Oscars for what amounted to very strong impersonations. Kidman gets the voice right, but the script doesn’t have her engage in much physical mimicry, focusing instead on the very wide range of emotions Ball would have felt if all of these things had happened in the span of a week. Kidman’s performance is superb, giving Ball depth and complexity; if you don’t think she’s worthy, it’s a comment on the film, not on her performance. Javier Bardem, as Desi, is right behind her, although in his case getting the accent right was critical and I could see an argument that his performance is more of an imitation than hers was. Tony Hale also deserves some mention for a quiet but essential performance as showrunner and head writer Jess Oppenheimer, and J.K. Simmons is very funny as William Frawley, playing him as a drunken asshole with occasional moments of clarity. I’m fine with Kidman getting a nomination, as seems likely, but if this gets a Best Original Screenplay nod over, say, Mass, I might throw something else, too.

Ball was not an actual card-carrying Communist, of course, and the controversy blew over quickly in reality; Sorkin sorkins it up with a very Hollywood ending that he fabricated, perhaps to match the incredible real-life resolution to the issue of CBS refusing to let Lucille be pregnant on the show. (The telegram in the movie is real.) Sorkin overdraws his dramatic license many times, but he does bring it all together for a strong finish, with Ball and Arnaz talking in her dressing room just before they go on stage … except the movie keeps going after that, and the second ending Sorkin gives us is worse. The film starts badly and ends badly, and even though much of what comes in between is funny and emotional, someone needed to tell Sorkin to trim all this fat and just let the two main characters carry the story.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,
→ January 6, 2022
→ By

tick, tick … BOOM!

tick, tick … BOOM! is the ‘other’ Jonathan Larson musical, the one he wrote and performed himself a handful of times before he finished and sold Rent. As you probably know, Larson died of an aortic aneurysm, likely the result of undiagnosed Marfan syndrome, the night before Rent opened. That makes the story of tick, tick … BOOM! even more poignant – and sometimes painful – to watch: It’s about a young would-be playwright who is about to turn 30 and is wondering if he’ll ever get a play produced, or if he has to give up his dream and find a ‘regular’ job like his roommate Michael.

Lin-Manuel Miranda directed this film from Steven Levenson’s adaptation of Larson’s stage musical, splitting the film into two threads: A live performance of the play itself, powered by Andrew Garfield as Larson, and recreations of scenes from Larson’s life to which he refers within the play. At the time that he wrote this play, Larson was working at a diner while trying to get his first play, a dystopian sci-fi musical called Superbia that was loosely based on 1984, produced. His difficulties and his approaching birthday have led him to an existential crisis, and to a breaking point with his girlfriend (Alexandra Shipp), a dancer who gets a big opportunity in western Massachusetts that would force her to move out of New York. Larson’s roommate, Michael (Robin de Jesús), has given up his acting dreams to take a job in advertising, earning a steady income that’s enough to get him a better apartment and a fancy car. The story takes place against the backdrop of late 1980s/early 1990s New York, especially the AIDS crisis, with one of Jonathan’s co-workers dealing with the disease (which became a major subtheme in Rent as well).

Garfield is tremendous here as Larson – he’s brimming with enthusiasm and dry wit when he’s doing the stage part, anxious and frazzled and torn in different directions when he’s in Larson’s regular life. He carries the movie, even with a raft of strong supporting performances, including Shipp, de Jesús, and a surprisingly strong turn from Vanessa Hudgens as his foil in the stage play. It hinges on the lead, though, given how much of the movie is him singing and talking on the stage, and he delivers. I’d be floored if he didn’t join Will Smith among the Best Actor nominees for the Oscars this year.

I didn’t see Rent during its 12-year run on Broadway, or any of its tours; I’ve only seen the recording of the last date of that initial run, and have listened to the soundtrack. I know the music well enough now to know that it’s much better than the music in tick, tick … BOOM! This musical doesn’t have anywhere near the memorable numbers of Larson’s magnum opus – a tautological argument, since that’s why Rent is his magnum opus in the first place – but this film feels like the double A version of Rent‘s big leagues. These songs sound like they come from Larson in both music and lyrics, but they lack the strong hooks of “Seasons of Love,” “Take Me or Leave Me,” “Light My Candle,” or “La Vie Bohème.” The best song here might be the finale, “Louder Than Words,” which is the song that would sound most at home in Rent. Perhaps it’s unfair to judge this musical against a critically acclaimed juggernaut, but that’s the inevitable result of a compelling story that adheres so closely to Larson’s real life.

That might imply that tick, tick … BOOM! isn’t worth watching – it is. Being less than Rent is hardly an insult. The plays differ primarily in how the stories differ: This is autofiction, where Rent is a broad study of a set of characters, a time, and a place. It’s more than a historical artifact, not just of interest only because Rent became a Broadway classic, but my honest response was that it was fun and enjoyable but the music didn’t hit me like I want a musical’s soundtrack to.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,
→ December 30, 2021
→ By

The Power of the Dog.

Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog is the closest thing we have this year to a Best Picture front-runner, although its status as favorite rests on the slimmest of margins according to Gold Derby. It appeared first on more critics’ year-end lists than any other film, and received more second-place votes than any other film received first-place votes except the acclaimed Japanese-language Drive My Car. Based on a 1968 novel of the same name, it follows a tense family drama on a ranch in Montana in 1925, with long, expansive shots of the landscape alternating with close-ups of characters, an auteur’s film that builds on several great performances and the slow burn of its plot.

Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch) is one of the ranchers, a tough guy who refuses to use the bathtub inside the house he shares with his daintier brother George (Jesse Plemons), whom Phil thinks is soft and often derides as “fatso.” George falls for the widow who runs the local inn, Rose (Kirsten Dunst). Rose has a son, Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who speaks with a lisp, makes paper flowers, and generally acts and looks un-masculine, earning him the ire of Phil, who mocks and bullies the boy, a situation that only worsens when George marries Rose, moving her into the ranch while Peter attends boarding school. Phil bullies and torments Rose as well, driving her to drink, so when Peter returns from school, the situation threatens to boil over.

Campion directs the hell out of this movie. It cuts both ways; there are moments in this film when you just know it’s being directed, especially some of the lingering shots on characters’ faces (or sometimes hands) that last a few frames too long. It works for setting scenes, in the incredible landscape shots, or for framing segments like Phil’s awkward conversation with his parents and the state’s governor, shot from behind Phil with the other characters all facing the camera beyond him. There’s a solo scene with Phil on the side of the river that is so overwrought that it took me completely out of the movie. It may be the kind of direction that wins awards, but I prefer a subtler touch.

The acting shines across the board, starting particularly with Dunst, who does the most with a limited but critical role as a suicide widow who becomes the victim of Phil’s bullying, losing herself in drink and seeing her relationship with her son deteriorate in the process. Cumberbatch delivers, as he always does, although I found his American accent a little forced – but given some of the character details, that might be deliberate. Smit-McPhee may have the most to do, even though it’s a supporting role, as his character is the only one that truly evolves over the extent of the story, and the one we understand the least at the beginning, as Peter is far more than a weak, effeminate mama’s boy.

Much commentary on The Power of the Dog has revolved around the ambiguous ending – which isn’t ambiguous at all. You might argue that what comes next is uncertain, as is true in just about every movie, and the argument that what came before the film starts is now uncertain is even stronger, but there’s no doubt in my mind what happened at the end of the story. It simply casts what preceded it in a different light, and that is one of this film’s strongest attributes. You can see this ending coming if you watch carefully, but once it occurs, it should change your interpretation of the first ¾ of the film – and even some of what we were told about its prehistory. (If you want to discuss that part, throw it in the comments – I just don’t want to spoil anything here.)

I haven’t seen enough potential nominees yet to say what nominations the film and its people deserve, but it definitely feels like a movie that voters will support. It’s a movie that puts its movie-ness out in front of you, especially in the direction, for better and for worse. I think this is a very good movie, a B+ if I assigned letter grades (as my friends Tim Grierson and Will Leitch do on their superb podcast), but could have been an A- or better with a different director, someone whose fingerprints were less evident in the finished product. In hindsight, it’s the sort of film I should have loved – cowboy noir, in a sense – but that I respected and liked instead.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
→ November 29, 2021
→ By

King Richard.

Will Smith is already receiving Oscar buzz for his performance as Richard Williams in King Richard, currently streaming on HBO Max, in which he gives Venus and Serena Williams’ father a more three-dimensional depiction than he’s received in extensive media coverage before this. It’s the kind of performance – playing a real person while convincingly mimicking their voice and mannerisms – that tends to win awards, but the film itself is far more well-rounded and nuanced than recent Oscar bait like Judy or Bohemian Rhapsody were.

Richard Williams (Smith) is the father of Venus and Serena Williams, and decided before the girls were even born that he would raise them to become world-class tennis players, writing out a plan with the help of his wife, Oracene (Aunjanue Ellis), who also worked extensively with them to help them improve as players. They lived in Compton, and as Black players in the extremely white tennis world, faced racial and socioeconomic discrimination, with coach after coach declining to work with the girls or hear Richard’s (possibly crazy) requests for funding for a tennis academy. He does eventually coax Paul Cohen (Tony Goldwyn) into taking them on, but Richard’s plans for his girls – including emphasizing their development as people, not just athletes – clash first with Cohen’s plans and later those of legendary coach Rick Macci (Jon Bernthal), who pays for the entire family to move to Florida as part of the deal to train both Venus and Serena. Richard pulls them from the junior circuit, against the advise and wishes of Macci, driving him towards a conflict with Venus, who sees this as a sign that her father doesn’t believe in her, which gives the film its one real story arc and allows for the resolution when she re-enters the competitive sphere by turning pro.

The film, with a script written by Wilmington native Zach Baylin, starts when the girls are preteens and Richard is trying to find a coach willing to train them, and takes us up through a 14-year-old Venus Williams facing then-#1 ranked Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario (who is probably going to jail soon for fraud and tax evasion). That allows Baylin to show us Williams’ persona as more than just the stage dad from hell, hinting at his actual flaws while centering his love and concern for his daughters, and still leaving room for Oracene, whose role is often diminished or erased from the Williams sisters’ legend. We’re seldom without Richard on screen, but he is also counterbalanced by other strong personalities – Oracene, Cohen, Macci – who at least prove different perspectives and often push back against his monomania, once or twice giving him the shadow of a doubt about his plans.

King Richard is still a showcase for Smith, though, and he answers the challenge with something more than just an impersonation. The voice, lisp, and slight hunch are all true to the actual Richard Williams, but Smith gives Richard an emotional depth that is beyond mere mimicry. The movie can’t work if you don’t buy him as a loving father who’s wildly overconfident in himself and his plans, rather than the crazy, overbearing father of the media narrative when Venus and Serena first emerged on the national scene. He also has to show weakness when his plans don’t quite work – although that’s infrequent in this script – and when his wife confronts him multiple times, including an argument about his infidelities, which only scratch the surface of some of his worst behaviors. Smith maintains the veneer of confidence while hinting at some inner vulnerabilities, which Oracene exposes in that argument scene, which also gives Ellis one of her strongest moments in the script. Indeed, one of this film’s greatest strengths is the room it gives Ellis to make Oracene a three-dimensional character who is a major part of the girls’ personal and professional growth. The two young actresses who play the Williams sisters themselves, Demi Singleton and Saniyaa Sydney, both had to learn to play tennis for their roles, and the hours of work paid off, as they look more than passable in numerous scenes on the court, helping the film avoid the common pitfall of sports movies that get the sports stuff wrong.

It’s a crowd-pleaser of a film, but does so without becoming saccharin, or excessively revising history – we could hear more of the more unsavory parts of Richard’s history, certainly, but at least his infidelities made the cut – and the choice to end the film with a match Venus lost was a sharp one, because one thing the film lacks is much drama on the court. The sisters crush all opposition on their way to Venus turning pro, which doesn’t make for great cinema on its own, and including that loss – which still rankles her – at least allows the narrative to turn on a different point than the obvious point that they were just better than everyone they played. Smith deserves the awards buzz he’s getting, but Baylin’s choices, from adhering to the true story to not pandering to the audience, made this film work for me.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , ,