Archive for category: Reviews

Un film francais “typique,” with sex and talk and sex and talk and then un peu de fantasie au fin. Was it extolling the liberating properties of prostitution or condemning the men who engage in it, as well as the men who don’t? Well, there didn’t seem to be a point. The one thing that was clear was that Juliette Binoche’s character wasn’t much of a journalist. She was, however, beautiful as always, although the director tried for “realism” by showing her unmade-up, uncombed, sweating through Pilates. Oh, and one other French thing: a la Marienbad, there was no clear indication of what was taking place when – other than it couldn’t have been on the “day” in question.

While the situations tended to comedic extremes, the underlying relationships were touchingly real, and of course I know something about being a “trailing spouse.” Ultimately, the charm of Emily Blunt and Jason Segel carried the day and made us forgive absurdities such as the wedding finale. One of the best comic absurdities, played absolutely straight, was the career involved: a post-doc position, at which the heroine was not very good, in an apparently useless academic career. As usual in a Judd Apatow production, the ancillary characters ranged from perfect to hilarious. And speaking of Apatow, it’s time to give him some credit: there’s nothing profound or even intense about his relationship flicks, but all share a gentleness and strike familiar chords. I’m reminded, at the moment, of Trollope.

I’m trying to think of one thing in this movie that wasn’t absurd, but I can’t come up with anything. Start with why the Scandinavian gorgeous (and smart and sensitive) Diana would be in love with Roger, her short, creepy, pompous husband. Next, how Roger expects to get millions by fencing a stolen Rubens that is a) well documented, b) small and c) not very good. Then there is the dashing Dane whose plan to become ceo while still employed by a rival firm involves murdering five or six people. The climactic showdown between the killer Clas and the amateur Roger is as full of credibility holes as Clas’s body becomes. The movie’s tone is a mess: scenes of potential terror are pierced by absurd bits of humor: Roger hiding from death by submerging in a latrine, then driving a tractor down the road with a pit bull impaled on the tines. But most of all, there is this problem at the movie’s core: the ‘hero’ is someone we just don’t care about. He’s a cad in his marriage, an arrogant snob at his job, and a petty thief on the side. We’re supposed to root for him?

As with every Shakespeare play, I wish I had read at least the first two acts before witnessing the production, to familiarize myself with the dialogue as well as the characters. Not having done this, I found 50% of the lines unintelligible, despite the actors’ good efforts. Nevertheless, the acting was so good that the meat of the argument rang through, and by play’s end I was riveted.
Kudos first and foremost for Ralph Fiennes’s conception, the best updating of Shakespeare I have ever seen. The modern – TV news and tanks – coexisted with the historical – addressing the public in the forum and knife fights – seamlessly. We didn’t know what era we were in, but it was a timeless one. And that, I believe, was Fiennes’s point: the political views of Shakespeare’s play ring as true today as they did in Elizabethan England or ancient Rome. Government by the people? A bad idea. Government by the politicians? Just as bad. I see today’s Republicans intent on nothing but bringing down Obama, and I see Shakespeare’s tribunes undermining Caius Martius. And how different are the Occupy Wall Streeters from the Roman citizens demonstrating for grain?
Finally, the acting is superb: Vanessa Redgrave as Volumnia, Brian Cox as Menenius, Jessica Chastain (she is everywhere!) as Coriolanus’s wife and, of course, Fiennes himself as the tragic hero.

From time to time I venture outside my comfort zone, to check on a genre I normally avoid, when reviews indicate a work may have some unusual merit. Thus, I watched this “horror film,” one intended for the young adult mass market, not the independent adult. I can’t say it was a mistake, but, as was my experienc with the animated-film genre, I won’t be going back very soon. The characters were all quite watchable, but the alternate-universe posited by the story was so absurd as to be ungraspable. My emotions were never engaged; what I saw was an intellectual puzzle that made no sense on its terms or any other. Casting Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins in their roles was probably a mistake: it certainly made me take matters less seriously. And the question the film tried to raise at the end – is humanity worth saving? – was far too serious for this drivel.