Smartly edited small movie about not much: Gloria has a job, goes dancing, meets a guy, deals with her grown-up kids and her ex-husband; then things are resolved, in not terribly satisfactory or exciting fashion, and life goes on. The movie is all about Julianne Moore’s performance, which is fine, except she is much too pretty for the plain-Jane role. The music is good, especially the final, full-length rendition of Laura Branigan’s title song.
Seeing eleven plays (with one rain-out) in four weeks gave me, if nothing else, a better sense of my taste in theater. If only I could relate that to reviews I read, going forward.
There were two shows I left without a complaint, Kiss Me, Kate and Caroline’s Kitchen – one a relatively straightforward revival of a classic Broadway musical, the other a typically old-fashioned British farce. The latter was part of the Brits off Broadway series at 59E59 Theater, where we also saw Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain, which was cringe-worthy amateurish, easily the most forgettable of our theater experiences. In contrast, Caroline’s Kitchen had a slew of interesting characters, a topical plot with manageable tangles and new laughs for every actor who entered the single set. Being British, the play was wonderfully acted, of course.
One might have hoped the same for King Lear, imported from London with Glenda Jackson (and Ruth Wilson), but here the director wasn’t content to let Shakespeare be Shakespeare. He mixed Elizabethan costumes with a handgun and made one duke a deaf-mute, requiring an aide to be constantly signing onstage. Even more central, Lear was played by an 82-year-old woman, shrunken from her small stature to begin with; so we never believed that this could have been a king commanding a country. Without that tragic fall from power, what is Lear?
Ink was another disappointing import. In place of characters were caricatures. I felt I was watching a graphic novel (not that I’ve ever actually read a graphic novel), or a script designed to get us from one musical number to the next – except there was only one musical number. The story was devoid of surprise or suspense. It was a simple morality tale that we were already too familiar with. It also suffered from unintelligible dialogue (at least until we got hearing-assist devices at intermission) and an over-the-top screaming performance by Jonny Lee Miller as editor Larry Lamb.
The other disappointment was American, albeit adapted from the Greek: Hadestown. It was what it was, and my disappointment was more due to the Times review calling it the best musical of the season. Had I seen it Off-Broadway without expectations I might have felt differently. (I do note, however, that it wasn’t even nominated as Best Musical by the Drama Desk panel.) One problem was the music, which wasn’t melodic and didn’t appeal to me. Since this was basically an opera, that was a big issue. Second was the frenetic pace: every moment people were jumping around, lights were going off, stagecraft was being displayed. Hadestown is in the lineage of Rent and American Idiot, but without the good music.
For good music, nothing beat Kiss Me, Kate. Cole Porter’s score, I don’t have to say, is “wunderbar,” and Kelli O’Hara is the musical comedy standard for our decade. The plot shows its age, but in a charming way – particularly the pair of gangsters collecting a gambling debt – and the love/hate relationship between the leads is timeless. Best of all was the clever choreography (deservedly the Drama Desk winner), which further made Hadestown (and Rocketman) look mediocre.
All My Sons was the dramatic equivalent, vintage-wise, of Kiss Me, Kate; and unlike Lear (or last season’s Oklahoma!), I suspect it was presented pretty much the way Arthur Miller intended, the reason for its revival being the presence of Annette Bening and Tracy Letts in the lead roles. They were both superb, and the son has been nominated for a Tony, as well. The rest of the cast was not as uniformly good, but this was a play of ideas, and the ideas came through loud and clear. Responsibility to your family vs. society played out slowly and thoughtfully here, whereas responsibility vs. pandering to society was presented glibly in Ink.
The other classic revival we saw was Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars at the Irish Rep. Here was a history lesson (abetted by the exhibition in the upstairs lobby), a jaundiced view of Irish republican uprising and a searing view of human nature. I felt almost as though I were back in college, and all the better for it.
Perhaps it was having seen the O’Casey, or perhaps it was the new all-American cast, but The Ferryman somehow seemed less authentic than other plays about Irish troubles I have encountered. This is not to say it was not enthralling, from opening to close, and the way the story unfolded to a dramatic finish was masterful. I came away with a list of quibbles, however (detailed elsewhere on Riffs). Watching the children perform was an unalloyed pleasure.
The other play in the league of The Ferryman, at least in terms of commercial firepower, was Aaron Sorkind’s To Kill A Mockingbird. The story is powerful (I needn’t say), and the book has been translated to the stage adroitly. Celia Keenan-Bolger, despite the age issue (41-to-6), is captivating as Scout; and the race relations issue, unfortunately, seems just as relevant today as 1935 or 1960. Jeff Daniels, also unfortunately, is no Gregory Peck, which kept me from going over the moon over our $375-ticket evening. Someone who loves Jeff Daniels might feel quite differently.
Faced with an empty weekend, we followed that day’s Times review to Something Clean, a Roundabout black stage production, our furthest venture off-Broadway this season. It was just what you look for in small theater: three actors, all excellent, playing characters trying to make sense of their lives and their relationships, in this case dealing with the aftermath of sexual abuse by their (offstage) college son. Selina Fillinger is a playwright to watch, and Kathryn Erbe’s performance, always onstage, acting one way toward her husband, another, a split-second later, to the assault center counselor, was pitch-perfect.
So, what did I learn? I liked the slower plays, where there was space between the lines and characters, where I wasn’t constantly assaulted and wasn’t straining to hear what someone said. All My Sons and Kiss Me, Kate were written in an era where attention spans were longer and visual gimmicks weren’t required. Hadestown and Ink were the other end of the razzmatazz spectrum. Call me old-fashioned, I guess. Or, maybe, just old.
(6/5/19)
Disappointing. There’s no attempt at rock history, as Elton John’s songs are shoehorned into the plot wherever a lyric suggests relevance, regardless of chronology. OK, so it’s a fantasy (a la Baz Luhrmann), not a biopic. But there’s not much of a plot, either; it’s a therapy session in which Elton relives his unhappy childhood, lack of love and addiction to drugs and alcohol. It would be nice if there were a cathartic denouement, in which rock’n’roll triumphs, Elton discovers himself and becomes a star. But no, he’s a star from the start; his performances seem more forced than euphoric; and the big finale number is “I’m Still Standing” – probably the 53rd best song in his catalogue. By that point, we are fully tired of the Busby Berkeley dance numbers, which are repetitive, uninventive and not always appropriate. Do we really need a choreographed dance sequence in the hospital following a suicide attempt? Taron Egerton’s singing is fine, but the songs carry surprisingly little emotional heft: I couldn’t help but compare how I felt hearing “Tiny Dancer” here, with semi-naked bodies gyrating a la Woodstock at Mama Cass’s Laurel Canyon retreat, to the scene on the touring bus in Almost Famous. I was never a fan of Queen, while I purchased four of Elton’s first five albums on release; but Rocketman can’t hold a candle, in the wind or otherwise, to Bohemian Rhapsody.
Both these movies, which we saw back-to-back one afternoon, are primarily about a relationship: a callow and sneakily beautiful young woman falls in love with an older, more experienced and perhaps inappropriate man. Except one relationship is toxic, while the other is sweet. Needless to say, the latter movie, Photograph, is the enjoyable one.
The Souvenir moved with the pace and misdirection of Last Year at Marienbad. Maybe there weren’t dream sequences or movies-within-the-movie, but I never knew for sure what was going on. All I knew for sure was that the male love interest, “Anthony,” was thoroughly despicable, on the surface and below. Yes, we know love may be blind, but we still won’t enjoy its making a fool of someone, in this case the wonderful Honor Swinton Byrne. Hearing he had died of an overdose was the only happy moment of the two-hour slog.
By contrast – restoring our faith in movie-going – Photograph was easy to follow, with a plot you’ve seen many times before. The film admits as much when, in the last scene, the lovers walk out in the middle of a movie and the man says he knows how the story ends, even though he hasn’t seen that particular film before. We are left to wonder whether this story, against all odds, will have that predictable happy ending, but ultimately we don’t care. We like the characters so much – they are both so thoughtful, with just the right amount of spunk and a palpable connection – that if this flirtation turns out to be just one bright, shining moment in otherwise humdrum lives we are grateful to have shared it with them. Even India, for the moment, doesn’t seem quite so grim.
If your idea of a good French movie is lots of intellectual conversation, some red wine and multiple affairs, then Non-Fiction (or more to the point, Doubles Vies, its French title) is up your alley. And if, like me, you think anything Juliette Binoche does is worth watching, then this is time well spent. It does goes slowly, though. The characters are convincingly real, and the issues they bring up – mostly about the future of publishing – are good teases.
Why does almost every movie have to have a scene, or more, of characters smoking? At one point I used a cigarette rating at the end of every review, to comment on how extensive or unnecessary the smoking was – e.g., obviously a film taking place in the 1930s had more reason to show smoking than a movie taking place today – but that became tiresome and distracted, I admit, from more important critical judgments. I have decided, therefore, to set up this separate post as a resting place for my comments about smoking in films, as I see them.
Long Shot. Set in modern-day Washington, apparently, there is no reason to have a character smoke; yet Secretary of State Charlize Theron spots a pack of Gauloises in the Situation Room and bums a fag from one of the Chiefs of Staff to smoke while negotiating a hostage release on the phone with a Middle East leader. Would a Federal building, let alone the War Room of the Chiefs of Staff (or whatever it was), not be a No-Smoking area?
The Souvenir. This may set the mark for 2019 for constant, distracting fagging. The loathsome male lead apparently can’t breathe without a cigarette in his hand or his face. Plenty of others indulge, too, to show that this is all taking place in the distant past of 1983.
Non-Fiction. Here, at least, the characters are slightly guilty about their cigarettes – making apologies and stepping out-of-doors to light up – and usually not doing much more than that. Of course, why even that is necessary to the plot or the characterizations is not evident.
Gloria Bell. Julianne Moore becomes a chimney half-way through the film. At least she looks uncomfortable holding her cigarette.
Late Night. Cigarettes appear wildly out of the blue on two occasions: late in the game when Emma Thompson’s three-year-old affair is revealed, she lights up in bed; and in a meta moment, Mindy Kaling’s colleague has a smoke on the street while she tells him of a benefit for lung cancer she is about to emcee.
Yesterday. This film pulls off the cleverest obligatory but gratuitous smoking reference: when the lead character, out of the blue, says if he smoked he’d need a cigarette, his companion expresses bewilderment because cigarettes, like Coke, Harry Potter and the Beatles, were erased from human consciousness during a global 12-second electric grid collapse.
Wild Rose. Just two shots, I think, enough to check the box. The neighbor on her porch next door is puffing away, and our heroine lights up once, for no obvious reason.
Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood. Brad Pitt and Leo DiCaprio are smoking cigarettes pretty much the entire movie. Sure, we have to know it’s a time past – but even in 1969 most of my acquaintances weren’t smoking – and Pitt and DiCaprio have to look “cool.” But that’s my problem. How can having two of Hollywood’s leading heartthrobs looking cool with a cigarette in their mouth not have an effect on a teenager today? When Tarantino accompanied the closing credits with DiCaprio’s character filming a commercial for Red Apple cigs, I was hoping it would turn into a public-service disclaimer, but no, the character just dumped on the brand.
Aquarela. For no reason at all, in the opening scene of Russians pulling a car out of a frozen lake, one of the rescuers lifts his mask to light a cigarette.
Judy. It’s hard to argue with the profligate use of cigarettes by Judy (and cigar by Louis Mayer), given her general dissolution and similar abuse of alcohol.
Knives Out. For little or no reason, Jamie Lee Curtis lights up near the end: the typical cigarette cameo.
Marriage Story. Ditto above; after not smoking through an immensely stressful story, Adam Driver is seen smoking on the street before we leave.
Hustlers. Almost surprised there weren’t more cigarettes, but again the characters pulled them out well into the movie, after any plot need.
Honeyboy. The constant presence of cigarettes could be justified as emphasizing the low-life character of Honeyboy’s father; but the movie took it farther by having the 12-year-old become a smoker, too.
Uncut Gems. 75 minutes into the film a minor character lights up a cigarette following a seder – no relationship to the plot or a characterization, just an isolated incident of smoking.
Seberg. Period-appropriate smoking, I suppose, by several characters, ramping up as the movie moves along.
Charlize Theron is a 10, Seth Rogen a 6, the funny-smart dialogue an 8, hence the final average. The movie manipulates in all the time-worn rom-com ways, which meant my cheeks were wet for the final 15 minutes. This was pure escapist entertainment, with topical jabs at Trump, Murdoch, Fox News and politics in general, to compensate for the gross-out element that comes with Rogen. (As the New Yorker put it, “a film for adolescents of all ages.”) I’m not sure that making Theron’s love interest be so clueless, untalented and unattractive was necessary for the film to work, but it was a small price to pay for the privilege of watching her for two hours.
An unfinished documentary from 1972 about the making of Aretha Franklin’s gospel record, Amazing Grace. The songs weren’t much, at least to my taste, and Aretha’s performance was so charisma-free, you kept wanting the camera to look at someone else, maybe choir leader Alexander Hamilton. The commentary was similarly lackluster. For me, the only positive was seeing the all-black congregation for Day One, with women dressed in their best, and thinking about that community at that time in history in L.A.
1917
Ad Astra
Amazing Grace
Apollo 11
Aquarela
Biggest Little Farm
Birds of Passage
Booksmart
The Brink
Capernaum
Cold War
Dark Waters
David Crosby: Remember My Name
Downton Abbey
The Farewell
First Love
Ford v. Ferrari
Gloria Bell
Honey Boy
Honeyland
Hustlers
The Irishman
Isn’t It Romantic
JoJo Rabbit
Judy
Knives Out
Late Night
Laundromat
Little Women
Long Shot
Marriage Story
Meeting Gorbachev
Mustang
Never Look Away
The Nightingale
Non-Fiction
Once Upon A Time…in Hollywood
Pain and Glory
Parasite
Photograph
Queen and Slim
Rocketman
The Sound of My Voice
The Souvenir
Transit
Us
Wild Rose
Woman at War
Yesterday
Wonderful acting – by the horses. The opening scene of wild mustangs being herded by helicopter over a Nevada plain is the movie’s high point. The main story – horse tamed by man, while man is tamed by horse – is predictable to the point of cliche, although it may not have seemed so to the Belgian/French filmmakers. The two subplots – drug dealing among the convicts and the family relations of the hero – are too confusing to gain traction. Matthias Schoenaerts is the same bullheaded tough he played in Rust and Bone and Bullhead, but is less convincing when he moves out of character.
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