Film Review: Rust and Bone

The French actress Marion Cotillard has perhaps the most expressive face in the history of movies. The broad cheekbones and low, heavy jawline set the stage for whatever she wants to convey. Her mouth is small, but it can seem a mile wide when she grins, and once you've seen that smile, you can feel the tension when she reins it back. And then there's her most extraordinary feature: those wide-set, heavy-lidded, pale-blue eyes. They're like twin seas of emotion, and whether they bathe you in warmth, or scald you with suffering, you cannot look away.

Cotillard's face is a marvelous instrument, and she plays it expertly. No actor working demonstrates a higher level of technical control, or a better command of nuance. Her masterstroke as a performer is her use of the insight that people turn inward when they feel pain. Most actors are quite demonstrative when playing characters in turmoil. It's understandable; they'd be a dead spot on the screen otherwise. Cotillard, though, invariably goes blank. She appears to recognize that the sight of her bold features emptied of emotion is haunting. She builds on that by letting, with striking precision, the blankness crack with growing flickers of hurt, anger, or sadness. Her most powerful moments can cut one to the soul.

My choice for Cotillard's finest showcase is Jacques Audiard's 2012 film Rust and Bone. Most of the picture is set in Antibes, a French Mediterranean resort town, and it follows Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts), an aspiring boxer, as he tries to build a life there for himself and his young son. He meets Stephanie (Cotillard) while working as a club bouncer. She's a killer-whale trainer at a local theme park, and shortly thereafter, during a park show, a whale jumps onto the trainers' platform and collapses it. The injuries she sustains lead to both her legs being amputated below the knee. After weeks of depression, she decides on a whim to call Ali. Their evolving relationship--friendship, friendship with benefits, a business partnership, and ultimately perhaps more--gradually transforms both their lives.

The picture may sound shamelessly soapy, and on a certain level it is, but Audiard is anything but cynical about the story. He strives to make it as vivid for the audience as possible. The staging, camerawork, and editing are as kinetic and headlong as an action film. Audiard also emphasizes the physicality of his two stars, and he keeps one acutely aware that their characters' relationship is primarily based on sex. He builds the story by dramatizing their growing awareness that it's becoming more than that. The plotting may be a little stale, but Audiard's treatment is anything but.

Schoenaerts' role is something of a juggling act, and he manages to make Ali sympathetic despite the character's self-centered inability to think in terms of anything but the immediate moment. Ali can be wonderfully kind, but he can also be recklessly violent and appallingly cruel. The character may seem like a lug at times, but Schoenaerts keeps one conscious that Ali is more than that, and he is never less than compelling. Cotillard, of course, is a wonder. She plays Stephanie's depression and emotional flowering beautifully. In her best scene, she provides a lovely spin on her signature effect. Stephanie sits on the balcony of her apartment one morning and begins miming her routine of directional gestures for the killer whales. She gives herself over to the movements, and her face goes blank. Emotions eventually reassert themselves, but they're not sadness or pain. She finishes the routine looking almost beatifically happy. The killer whales are in the past for Stephanie, but the joy they brought will always be a part of her. It may be the most exquisite note in any Cotillard performance.

Audiard matches Cotillard's artistry in short order. Stephanie returns to the theme park and goes to the tank holding the whale. The animal swims up to her, and behind the glass, she begins directing it. The whale moves in accord with her gestures. One can see they still have their bond, and that she forgives the animal for crippling her. She then gestures for the whale to swim away, and it does. It's a lovely allegory for bringing closure to a bygone period of one's life, and Audiard presents it perfectly.

These are only two of the scenes that have compelled me to watch Rust and Bone over and over again. Another is when, during their first encounter after her accident, Ali takes Stephanie out of her apartment and over to the beach across the street. He eventually takes her into the water, and she realizes she can still swim. It's her first rediscovery of the joys of life, and it's exhilarating to watch. The picture has beautiful small moments, too, such as when Stephanie allows Ali's young son to touch her prosthetic legs. I even love the hokier bits, such as when Ali, about to lose a fighting match, looks up to see Stephanie watching, and finds the resolve to beat his opponent. The movie never fails to take wing and soar.

Short Take: Skyfall

Skyfall, the third of the James Bond films starring Daniel Craig, has a strong claim to being the best in the franchise's history. The film's starting point would seem to be a question: What if Stanley Kubrick had made a Bond movie? Director Sam Mendes, cinematographer Roger Deakins, and production designer Dennis Grassner certainly capture the Kubrick look. The picture is chock full of visuals in the style of the master filmmaker, including symmetrical shot compositions, the conspicuous use of amber in the color schemes, and the insistently cold, gray look of the British locations. The adventure set pieces have the Kubrick ambition; they seem out to top everything seen before in the Bond pictures. The opening sequence in Istanbul, which goes from the Grand Bazaar to a motorcycle chase across rooftops to a stand-off with an industrial digger aboard a moving train, may be the most brilliantly elaborate action scene in the entire series. The screenplay, credited to Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and John Logan, is in the Kubrick spirit, too. The approach of Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, the two previous Daniel Craig outings, was to reimagine Bond in less fanciful, more human terms. This picture goes way beyond that into outright subversion. The Bond of this film is a nearly broken man: demoralized, out of condition, and essentially unfit for duty as an intelligence operative. The tenor of his conflict with the film’s antagonist, a disgraced former agent played by Javier Bardem, is sibling rivalry over the favor of their mutual mother figure, the British intelligence chief M (Judi Dench). The film caps this Freudian subtext with the grand joke of its epilogue, in which the Craig character, with his unresolved mommy issues, becomes the Bond played by Sean Connery. One assumes he takes on that version's smugness and misogyny as well. The reboot comes full circle with the films that started it all. The picture manages to be both a terrific adventure movie and a cutting satire of the material. One could not ask for any aspect of it--from the writing and the acting to the pacing and the production values--to be any better. The title song is gorgeously performed by Adele.

Short Take: The Impossible

This review was originally published on Pol Culture.

The Impossible, directed by J. A. Bayona from a script credited to Sergio G. Sánchez, is an earnest disaster-genre melodrama. The setting is Thailand in December 2004, when a massive tsunami swamped the Indian Ocean coastline in several countries. Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor star as a vacationing British couple who were caught in the flooding with their three young sons (Tom Holland, Samuel Joslin, and Oaklee Pendergrast). The production values are first-rate, and Bayona does a fine job of staging the action and pacing the film. The scenes featuring Watts and Holland (who plays the oldest son) trying to make their way through the flooded landscape are especially gripping. The depiction of the tsunami as it strikes the resort where the family is staying is also quite impressive. But the script isn’t very imaginative. It simply follows the family members as they become (repeatedly) separated and reunited. One wishes the filmmakers had put together a more substantial story. One may also be put off by the use of WASP characters to dramatize a catastrophe whose victims (over 200,000 killed) were almost entirely South Asian. Watts and McGregor give good performances in rather banal roles. The most compelling member of the cast is Tom Holland, who completely catches the viewer up in the travails of a child forced to rise to the physical and emotional challenges of the situation. The film is based on the account of María Belón, a Spanish woman whose family survived the tsunami. The fine cinematography is by Óscar Faura.

Short Take: Killer Joe

This review was originally published on Pol Culture.

Killer Joe has some impressive behind-the-scenes credentials: an Oscar-winning director in William Friedkin, and Pulitzer-winning playwright Tracy Letts as screenwriter. The film, though, is a piece of misanthropic pulp that congratulates itself on the depths of its nastiness. The title character, played by Matthew McConaughey, is a Dallas police detective with a sideline as a hitman. He’s hired by a young, ne’er-do-well drug dealer (Emile Hirsch) and the dealer’s father (Thomas Haden Church). They want him to take out the dealer’s mother so they can collect on the insurance policy. They are unable to pay his fee up front, so he offers to let them pay a "retainer": the sexual favors of the dealer’s somewhat addled younger sister (Juno Temple). The dealer and his family, which includes Gina Gershon as his stepmother, are probably the most amoral, indecent, and stupidest examples of working-poor whites in the history of American movies. Friedkin and Letts have quite a time chortling at them. The class bigotry on display is almost enough to make one look back longingly on the hipster-snob sneering of the Coen brothers. The dealer and his family cannot do anything right, which ultimately results in a vicious reprisal from the detective once he realizes he will never be paid. This comeuppance takes up the film’s final act, and the scene is about as vile as they come. (The treatment of the Gershon character is especially despicable.) It’s hard to say who is more demeaned by this finale: the characters or the audience. McConaughey is the only good reason to see the picture. He has an eerie calm as the psychopathic detective, and what is most frightening is how methodical the character’s violence is once it explodes. He is compelling in his quieter scenes as well. His character’s seduction of the dealer’s sister is a particular standout. Caleb Deschanel provided the excellent cinematography. Letts based the script on his 1991 play of the same name.

Short Take: Anna Karenina

This review was originally published on Pol Culture.

The English director Joe Wright has often treated dramatizing his material as a secondary concern. He often seems more interested in using the script as a springboard for directorial showmanship. He has never before taken this to the extravagant lengths he does in Anna Karenina, and this time it leaves one applauding. Any effort to realize Leo Tolstoy’s enormous 1877 novel as a feature-length film cannot help but be a diminution. Wright treats this stumbling block as beside the point, and he ends up doing the book more justice than a more conservative approach ever could. This Anna Karenina is a series of grandly executed set pieces that illustrate the story far more than they retell it. The basic plot is still there: screenwriter Tom Stoppard follows the general outline of the book and distills it into concise scenes. Anna (Keira Knightley), the wife of a high-ranking Russian official (Jude Law) falls in love with a dashing young military officer (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). She cannot let go of him, and in turn lets go of her marriage and societal position instead. As a piece of storytelling, the film feels like a summary of Tolstoy's novel. Wright, though, realizes every moment in the most flamboyant and theatrical terms. He seems to relish making the artifice as conspicuous as he can. The sets call attention to themselves as sets--the film deliberately looks as if much of it is being presented on a theater stage--and the action in the scenes is as boldly choreographed as a ballet. The spectacular staging and camera movement are complemented by the gorgeous work of cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, production designer Sarah Greenwood, composer Dario Marianelli, and costumer Jacqueline Durran--the film is a feast for the senses from beginning to end. Keira Knightley is a vivid, compelling Anna, and a few of the scenes are quite well-realized in dramatic terms. A particular standout is the dance when Anna and the officer fall in love, much to the chagrin of Kitty (Alicia Vikander), and unmarried hopeful also at the ball. The film isn’t for every taste, but if one can enjoy unbridled cinematic bravura for its own sake, it’s a treat.

Short Take: Django Unchained

This review was originally published on Pol Culture.

Writer-director Quentin Tarantino has become easier to pigeonhole as time has gone by. He’s essentially a 21st-century hipster version of Mel Brooks. He also has a fondness for 1970s blaxploitation tropes, a remarkably tasteless approach to historical subject matter, and a penchant for bloodletting that makes Sam Peckinpah look squeamish. Brooks went from one movie genre to another with his free-for-all spoofs, and so does Tarantino with his absurdist bloodbaths. He tackles the Western with Django Unchained, and, well, I much preferred Blazing Saddles. For starters, it was a lot shorter. (Django Unchained runs two hours and 46 minutes.) Jamie Foxx stars as the title character, a freed slave who is partners with a German bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) in the late 1850s. The first half follows their adventures hunting down criminals and collecting rewards. The second half is a convoluted melodrama in which the two conspire to free Django’s wife (Kerry Washington) from her current owner (Leonardo DiCaprio). He is a Mississippi plantation owner who is an enthusiast of “mandingo” fighting, an ahistorical sport that has two male slaves fight until one beats the other to death. I suppose Tarantino is trying to portray the dehumanizing horrors of slavery with this and other depictions. Among other things, the viewer is treated to whippings, brandings, and a runaway slave being torn apart by dogs. But Tarantino doesn’t use these for anything more than shock value, and the absurdist context--almost every scene has an oddball spin--makes their inclusion seem especially inappropriate. Tarantino isn’t in particularly good form outside of these moments, either. The dialogue is some of the flattest he’s ever written, and most of the scenes are poorly shaped and meandering. The action scenes are so violently over-the-top that they quickly become tiresome. One sits there marking time until the blood explosions end. Christoph Waltz is one of the film’s few saving graces. He has exquisite comic timing, and he plays his character’s impeccable manners off the barbarous environment hilariously. The other actors are nowhere as interesting. Jamie Foxx and Kerry Washington are stolid bores, while Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson, who plays the plantation’s chief house slave, take turns chowing down the scenery. Their cartoonishness is of a piece with the rest of the film tastelessness. Robert Richardson provided the handsome cinematography.

Short Take: Les Misérables

This review was originally published on Pol Culture.

Les Misérables, the screen adaptation of the musical based on Victor Hugo’s classic 1862 novel, is a whirlwind treatment of the material. That is not a compliment. Hugh Jackman stars as Jean Valjean, the reformed convict who, rather than see an innocent man condemned in his place, gives up almost everything for the life of a fugitive. The commitment he will not abandon is the upbringing of Cosette (Isabelle Allen as a child, and Amanda Seyfried as a young woman). It's a promise he made to her mother (Anne Hathaway) on the woman’s deathbed. His initial challenge is to stay out of the clutches of Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe), a dogged lawman who fervently believes in the law but has no understanding of justice. Years later, a greater challenge comes: accepting Cosette’s love for the young bourgeois revolutionary Marius (Eddie Redmayne) and allowing her to become the fellow’s wife. Everything comes to a head during France’s 1832 June Rebellion. Director Tom Hooper bit off a lot more than he could chew. He had three challenges: mounting the large-scale production, bringing off the musical set pieces, and effectively dramatizing the sprawling story. He succeeds almost completely at the first, and intermittently at the second. With the third, he fails: the audience is rushed from plot point to plot point, and the narrative cannot build momentum. The drama only comes to life with a few of the musical numbers. The best of these are “I Dreamed a Dream,” heartbreakingly performed by Anne Hathaway, and Eddie Redmayne’s rendition of “Empty Tables and Empty Chairs,” his character’s reflections on the rebellion and lost friends. “On My Own,” performed by Samantha Barks, also deserves mention. Hugh Jackman is perhaps the finest musical-theater actor in the world today, and he is quite compelling as Valjean, but his singing is of mixed quality. He’s a baritone being required to sing tenor, and while one can see his considerable skill, one can also see the strain. Russell Crowe would probably be a fine Javert in a non-musical production, but he’s hopeless here: his flat crooning completely locks one out of the character. The work of the film’s artisans, including cinematographer Danny Cohen, costumer Paco Delgado, and production designers Eve Stewart and Anna Lynch-Robinson, is first-rate. The screenplay is credited to William Nicholson, adapted from Hugo’s novel and Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg’s stage play. The English-language lyrics are by Herbert Kretzmer.

Short Take: Beasts of the Southern Wild

This review was originally published at Pol Culture.

Beasts of the Southern Wild, the début feature of director Benh Zeitlin, is an exuberant, uncategorizable, and marvelous film. It mixes up magic-realist allegory, slice-of-life parent-child drama, documentary-style local-color social realism, and probably a few other story genres and modes that I’m forgetting. The central character is Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis), a 6-year-old girl who lives with her father (Dwight Henry) in an isolated Louisiana bayou community. They and their neighbors want nothing to do with the rest of the world. Their only goal is to live and let live, and they fill their days with fishing, scavenging, and carousing. What would look like squalor to most is idyllic for them. But all things come to an end, and their way of life is threatened by a hurricane that floods the area. That threat is deepened by the authorities' insistence that they evacuate and be relocated. Hushpuppy has her own challenges, particularly her tempestuous relationship with her often manic father, and their realization that he is dying. But I’m making the picture sound dreary, and it’s anything but. Zeitlin captures the vigorous, indomitable spirit of the people the film portrays. His ace in the hole is the sometimes fierce, sometimes soulful, and always charming performance by Wallis in the lead. She seems like a force of nature at times, and she commands the screen with an ease almost any adult actor would envy. Wallis leads the viewer gladly through even Zeitlin's most outré passages, including the eerie, dreamlike quest for the girl's long-lost mother, and the goofy poetic fantasy of her belief that ancient boar-monsters are coming to reclaim the bayou. Dwight Henry, who is both savagely intense and deeply moving as her father, gives almost as impressive a performance. The gritty, lyrical cinematography is by Ben Richardson. Zeitlin and Dan Romer are responsible for the rich musical score. The screenplay is credited to Zeitlin and Lucy Alibar. It is based on Alibar’s play Juicy and Delicious.

Short Take: Life of Pi (film)

This review was originally published on Pol Culture.

Director Ang Lee’s adaptation of Yann Martel’s 2001 novel Life of Pi cements his place as his generation's answer to David Lean. Lee is undoubtedly the current king of literate spectacle filmmaking. The film’s screenplay, credited to David Magee, stays close to the story outline of the book. A middle-aged Hindu Canadian (Irrfan Khan) relates the story of his life before coming to North America in his late teens. We see his life growing up in the Indian city of Pondicherry, including his experiences at his father’s zoo, the story of how he came by the name “Pi,” and his explorations of religion. As a teenager (played by Suraj Sharma), his family decides to move to Canada, and this sets the stage for the story’s centerpiece. The cargo ship on which the family is crossing the Pacific sinks at sea. Pi is the sole human survivor. He finds himself stranded on a lifeboat with the family zoo’s adult Bengal tiger. For several months, the two are lost at sea together, and Pi is committed to seeing that both of them survive. He gradually learns to coexist with the animal, and their journey opens him up to the magic of nature and a more profound connection with God. Ang Lee, cinematographer Claudio Miranda, and visual-effects supervisor Bill Westenhofer use their considerable talents for all the pictorial grandeur they can muster. By any standard, the film works well as an intelligent, exciting survival story. But the depth of one’s admiration most likely hinges on one’s reaction to the epic visuals. Many will undoubtedly get caught up with the awe of nature the film is seeking to evoke. Others, though, may find the imagery too blandly pretty, pristine, and self-consciously monumental to give over to it. The film also doesn’t come close to the book's existential philosophical richness; the efforts at transposing those aspects of the novel are rather shallow. Ang Lee, like David Lean before him, often mistakes lavishness for artistry, but he’s a fine storyteller nonetheless.

Short Take: Looper

This review was originally published on Pol Culture.

The virtue of the science-fiction thriller Looper, written and directed by Rian Johnson, is its crackerjack plotting. One will want to talk about it right away with others who have seen it, and with those who haven’t, one’s attitude is the less they know the better. They should just know that after they see it, they will be thankful for the restraint. Without giving too much away, here’s the story’s starting point: The year is 2044. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a “looper,” an assassin who kills mob targets sent from the future for easy disposal. The loopers know they will become mob targets as well, and after one kills his future self, his tour of duty is over. He then gets thirty years to enjoy his retirement. It ends when the mob comes knocking to sign paid in full. The future self of the Gordon-Levitt character, played by Bruce Willis, has other ideas. He comes back to the past to protect the life he’s built, which gets the 2044 mob and his younger self after him. The younger self is on the run from the mob, too, as they intend to use him to take his older self down. This doesn’t begin to describe all the twists and turns the story takes, and if the film has a weakness, it is that beyond the plotting, there isn’t much of interest. But Johnson keeps the movie hurtling along at such a pace that one likely won’t mind. The film is an unpretentious piece of well-executed pulp entertainment. It isn’t trying to be anything more than an exciting couple of hours, and it does a terrific job. One comes away alert, refreshed, and satisfied.

Short Take: Lincoln

This review was originally published on Pol Culture.

Lincoln, director Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner’s treatment of the final months of the life of Abraham Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis), may be a passable history lesson. But it’s a pretty mediocre movie. The picture focuses on the effort in early 1865 to pass the constitutional amendment that outlawed slavery. Apart from some occasionally salty language, it appears intended for middle-school social-studies classes. Spielberg and Kushner seem to have no faith that the audience has even the most basic history under its belt. The film assumes one doesn’t know the amendment will pass, or that the Civil War is about to end. Certain material is cheesily used for suspense purposes, such as the impending arrival of a Confederate peace delegation whose presence could undermine passage. There's also the decision by Lincoln’s son Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) to enlist. The dialogue is often overstuffed with exposition, and it gets insultingly repetitive at times. By the halfway point, one may want to throw things every time “13th amendment” and “Constitution” are used in the same sentence. Spielberg appears straitjacketed by the material. Most of the scenes occur in darkened rooms, and the staging and camerawork rarely rise above the ordinary. That said, he gets good work from the cast, and the film is handsomely produced. The detailed, disciplined performance by Day-Lewis is the sort of thing one is supposed to admire rather than enjoy--he’s rather remote--but he has humor, and he isn’t dull. Tommy Lee Jones, who plays the fiery abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens, is the most engaging of the actors. Stevens is a wild card even if one knows the history, and Jones gives him an outsized theatricality and a hilarious deadpan wit. The other standouts are James Spader, who is quite funny as an uncouth lobbyist, and David Strathairn, who plays Secretary of State William Seward with considerable gravitas. Sally Field does a fine job as Mary Todd Lincoln, the high-strung First Lady, but most of her scenes are extraneous to the main story. They generally slow the picture down. Again, the history lesson, not aesthetics, seems paramount. The film is based on the book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Short Take: Magic Mike

This review was originally published on Pol Culture.

The story in Magic Mike, directed by Steven Soderbergh from a script credited to Reid Carolin, is a rather bland letdown. But the incidentals are terrifically entertaining, and they more than make up for other disappointments. Channing Tatum plays the title character, a 30-year-old stripper with talents and ambitions that go far beyond his performances at a Florida strip club. As the film begins, he takes an aimless 19-year-old (Alex Pettyfer) under his wing, introducing the fellow to the sex-drugs-and-party life of him and his fellow dancers. He also meets and falls for the fellow’s straight-arrow sister (Cody Horn), whose reservations about his lifestyle lead him to doubt the path he’s chosen. Soderbergh and the actors capably dramatize this scenario, but they cannot get out from under the pat sanctimony. The picture wakes up from its drearily familiar story in the strip-club dance sequences, choreographed with considerable flair by Alison Faulk. These epitomize the humor and sexed-up charge of burlesque routines, and they are a great deal of fun. They are surpassed only by the supporting performance of Matthew McConaughey, who plays the owner (and an occasional dancer) at the club. McConaughey is a flamboyant delight, capturing in one moment the cocky, witty naughtiness of a seasoned burlesque dancer, and in another the hard-nosed sleaziness of a man driven to earn money under any circumstances. This electrifying performance is perhaps the best of McConaughey’s career, and Soderbergh’s smartest move is to never keep him off-stage for too long. Soderbergh also does excellent work in behind-the-scenes artisan roles. Under the pseudonym of "Mary Ann Bernard," he provided the first-rate editing, and under the nom-de-plume of "Peter Andrews," he was responsible for the elegant cinematography. The cast also includes Olivia Munn and Matt Bomer.

Short Take: Arbitrage

This review was originally published on Pol Culture.

Writer-director Nicholas Jarecki’s Arbitrage is a crisp, tightly wound suspense melodrama. In the week following his 60th birthday, a wealthy financier (Richard Gere) is faced with the prospect of his superficially perfect life coming apart. He is attempting to sell the hedge fund he owns before a massive accounting fraud comes to light, but the buyer is dragging things out for negotiation purposes. His daughter and protégée (Brit Marling) is discovering the extent of his corrupt business practices. Most seriously, he has come in the sights of a police detective (Tim Roth) looking to nail him for fleeing the scene of a fatal car accident. Jarecki presents a world where the ends justify the means, and the ultimate end is maintaining appearances at all costs. His script is terrific: the plotting crackles, every element is thematically of a piece, and each twist brings further insight into the characters. His direction is every bit as strong. The staging and camerawork are sleek and unerringly effective at shaping the scenes. He does an especially fine job of orchestrating the actors. They play off each other beautifully. Gere is particularly superb. He modulates his trademark cockiness into a smooth, understated self-assurance. He is completely convincing as a man who knows from experience that he will invariably come out on top, yet never feels the need to flaunt it. (Viewers may find him especially reminiscent of JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.) The character’s moments of impatience, frustration, and desperation play like traveling cracks on the surface of an ice-covered pond. Gere is nothing short of riveting. The rest of the cast, which includes Susan Sarandon as the Gere character’s wife and Laetitia Casta as his mistress, provides excellent support. Yorick Le Saux provided the elegant, burnished-looking cinematography. The taut electronic score is by Cliff Martinez.

Short Take: Flight

This review was originally published on Pol Culture.

Flight, starring Denzel Washington, is an elaborately produced though ultimately pedestrian melodrama. It’s about a man coming to terms with his alcoholism and other substance-abuse issues. The film’s hook is the irony of his most heroic moment setting the stage for his downfall. Washington’s character is a best-of-the-best airline pilot. During the flight that takes up the film’s first act, he’s both drunk and high from cocaine. A mechanical failure causes the plane to go into an uncontrolled midair dive, but his skill and resourcefulness prevent a crash that would have otherwise killed everyone on board. He’s able to make an emergency landing in a pasture, and nearly all the passengers and crew survive. It’s a miraculous feat that no other pilot could have duplicated. But the subsequent investigation reveals he was intoxicated. He could very well end up going to prison, but the maneuvers of his union’s lawyer (Don Cheadle) ensure that he’s in the clear if he can just hold up through his testimony at a federal inquest hearing. The pressure gets the better of him, and the majority of the film shows his boozing downward spiral. Director Robert Zemeckis does a dazzling job with the opening flight sequence, but the rest of the film feels overscaled relative to the more intimate drama of John Gatins’ script. The script isn’t much, either; it’s mainly just a series of plot complications built around the question of whether Washington’s character will shape up in time for the hearing. Washington gives an earnest, skillful performance, but he never transcends the film’s pat scenario. The only other performance of note is John Goodman’s comic turn as the Washington character’s neighbor and drug dealer. The film is essentially a big-budget, star-vehicle version of a 1970s television movie.

Short Take: Zero Dark Thirty

This review was originally published on Pol Culture.

Zero Dark Thirty, director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal’s riveting portrayal of the CIA manhunt for Osama bin-Laden, scrupulously avoids a cathartic or celebratory tone. Its manner is clinical, non-judgmental, and ostensibly objective. (This aesthetic strategy is at the heart of the controversy about the film among certain liberal political commentators, who clearly would have preferred a simplistic, black-and-white treatment of the story's morally troubling aspects. The complaints about an erroneous historical bit are something of a red herring.) The picture follows the efforts of a young CIA investigator (Jessica Chastain) through years of investigation, blind alleys, and bureaucratic obstacles. The film climaxes with the 2011 Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Bigelow stages, shoots, and edits the movie with a stoic, methodical efficiency. It’s hard to imagine a more perfectly crafted film. Most impressively, this expertise is in the service of rendering moral ambiguity. An implicit question of the film is whether the success in taking out Osama justified the reprehensible conduct that characterized the investigation. The film is forthright about the torture and brutality the CIA employed, and Jessica Chastain's protagonist is fairly repellent. She is an asocial, quarrelsome monomaniac who is loyal to colleagues only insofar as they support her agenda for the mission. The casting of the delicate-looking, soft-edged Chastain is about the only concession the film makes to audiences. An actress with a more domineering presence all but certainly would have made the character too monstrous for viewers to take. Chastain is compelling throughout, and she’s heartbreaking in the film’s epilogue, in which she, Bigelow, and Boal depict the pathos of the woman’s unrelenting obsession. For her, victory proves a loss of purpose, and she cannot help but grieve. It’s a great scene, and easily the film’s most powerful moment. It’s of a thematic piece with the rest of the picture: the goal is achieved, but there are no winners. Greig Fraser provided the excellent cinematography. (It’s most impressive in the raid sequence, which is all but entirely shown through the green hues of the SEALs’ night-vision goggles.) Dylan Tichenor and William Goldenberg are credited with the superb editing.

Short Take: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

This review was first published on Pol Culture.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a sparkling cross-cultural ensemble comedy. Seven British retirees--a widowed housewife (Judi Dench), a gay judge (Tom Wilkinson), a would-be Lothario (Ronald Pickup), a perennial husband-hunter (Celia Imrie), an unhappy couple (Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton), and a former housekeeper (Maggie Smith)--relocate from England to an Indian retirement resort hotel. They are enticed by the picturesque images on the hotel’s website, but when they arrive, they find a dilapidated establishment run by an energetic, well-meaning, but rather inept manager (Dev Patel). But they by and large settle in, and each comes to terms with India--and life--in their own ways. The script, credited to Ol Parker, doesn’t have many surprises, but it gives an entertaining spin to the personal odyssey of each character. The cast does a great deal to give the film its charm. Dench, Wilkinson, and Smith are particular standouts. Patel can seem on the manic side at times, but if one gets used to it, one may look back on him just as fondly. But the real star of the film is director John Madden, whose work is dazzling. The comic scenes crackle, the dramatic ones are beautifully shaped, and there’s an embrace-the-world quality to his staging. The liveliness of the outdoor Indian locations and the intimacy of the indoor ones are both extraordinarily vivid. He captures the chaotic though vibrant experience of India, and keeps the story dancing as he goes. It’s the work of a remarkably skilled and assured craftsman. The lovely, sun-kissed cinematography is by Ben Davis, and Chris Gill provided the perfectly timed editing. The source novel is These Foolish Things, by Deborah Moggach.

Short Take: Compliance

This review was first published on Pol Culture.

Writer-director Craig Zobel’s Compliance is an intellectually smug piece of softcore torture porn. The film was inspired by a rash of incidents involving prank calls to fast-food restaurants and other retail operations. (Click here for the history.) The caller would pose as a police detective and convince the manager to strip-search a young female employee on suspicion of theft. The specific details of the film are taken from the most notorious of these incidents, which occurred at a Kentucky McDonald’s in 2004. In that instance, the young woman victimized was also subjected to an invasive body search and spanking at the caller’s behest. Even worse, she was coerced into performing a sexual act on the manager’s fiancé, who had been brought in to guard her until the “detective” arrived. The film moves the setting to a fictional Ohio chicken restaurant, but it otherwise follows that case closely. Zobel is a capable filmmaker, and he gets good performances from his cast, particularly Ann Dowd, who plays the restaurant’s middle-aged manager. But the film is little more than an extended wallow in the victimization of the young woman (Dreama Walker). One just sits there waiting for the next dreadful thing to happen to her. It’s hard not to fight the impulse to turn the film off, particularly since it feels as if Zobel is rubbing the viewer's nose in what happened to congratulate himself on his "daring" and "honesty." The implicit point is that good people at the behest of authority will do unspeakable things. But that’s ultimately a rationalization to justify playing voyeur to rape. A 2008 episode of the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit TV series, guest-starring Robin Williams, also used the Kentucky incident as a springboard. It dealt with what happened in a fraction of the film’s running time, and it made the exact same point. The episode also kept its depiction of the victim’s suffering to a minimum. It was a much more effective--and tasteful--treatment of the subject. One notes that the SVU series is perhaps the most lurid in the history of network television. When one feels compelled to praise it for its relative restraint, that might just say something about how offensively explicit Zobel’s handling is.

Short Take: The Sessions

This review was originally published on the Pol Culture website.

The Sessions, written and directed by Ben Lewin, is the rare uplifting movie that earns its uplift. It’s based on an autobiographical account by the late Mark O’Brien, a San Francisco-area poet and journalist. A childhood bout with polio left him a near-quadriplegic. It also required him to spend the majority of each day confined to an iron lung. He is played by John Hawkes in the film, which begins with him at the age of 38. He falls in love with a college-student caretaker (Annika Marks), but she cannot return his feelings and leaves his employ. That disappointment, along with an article assignment about the sex lives of the disabled, lead to his resolve to lose his virginity. Towards that end, he hires a sex surrogate/therapist (Helen Hunt) to see him through to his goal. The prospect of watching the film may seem a bit creepy. The discussions of sex are extremely frank, and the therapy sessions are about as explicit as can be within the confines of an R rating. But the sweetness and good humor win one over. Lewin and the actors keep one smiling throughout. And one cannot help but be touched by the final section, in which O’Brien finds romantic love without the baggage of anxiety about sex. The performances are spot on. O’Brien’s personality is charming and witty, and Hawkes is never less than compelling in the role--he takes the viewer right inside O’Brien’s feelings. Hunt’s performance is carefully shaded. The surrogate’s anxiety and ambivalence about working with O’Brien--primarily her concern about them becoming too emotionally attached--are palpable. Hunt also never has one in doubt about the surrogate’s professional ease when it comes to sex. There are two other notable performances, from William H. Macy as O’Brien’s conflicted but encouraging priest, and Moon Bloodgood, who delivers a droll, deadpan turn as his principal caretaker. It’s a modest film, but an extremely enjoyable one.

Short Take: Killing Them Softly

This review was originally published on Pol Culture.

Director Andrew Dominik’s Killing Them Softly is a considerable step up from his previous effort, the pretentious, slackly made, and interminable The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Existential crime drama appears to suit him better than the existential Western; he maintains his focus a lot better. Someone also appears to have prevailed on him to keep the running time to a reasonable length. At 98 minutes, this effort is a good hour shorter. The story is lowlife pulp. A New Orleans dry cleaner (Vincent Curatola), who supplements his income with occasional heists, decides to rob an organized-crime gambling operation. He hires two bums (Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn) to do the job. After they pull it off, the mob brings in one of their top enforcers (Brad Pitt) to find out who perpetrated the crime, and take them out. The film isn’t long on plot; it’s largely a collection of dialogue scenes of the sort that actors love. Essentially, the cast gets to deliver colorful monologues at each other. But they do well by it, and there’s strong work from Pitt, Curatola, McNairy (the American bum), Richard Jenkins (who plays Pitt’s mob contact), and James Gandolfini (as a washed-up hit man). The action scenes are sleekly designed and executed, although Dominik’s penchant for slow motion and other visual gimmicks is a tad excessive at times. It’s a solidly enjoyable genre film, and one doesn’t even mind the pretentious moments, such as the occasional juxtapositions of speeches from the 2008 presidential campaign and financial crisis. (This culminates in a bit of take-it-or-leave-it popcorn cynicism in the final scene.) The script, credited to Dominik, is adapted from the novel Cogan’s Trade, by George V. Higgins. Greig Fraser provided the handsome low-key cinematography.

Short Take: Argo

This review was originally published on Pol Culture.

Argo, Ben Affleck’s third feature as a director, is an entertaining historical thriller. But it’s not especially ambitious or accomplished, and one may be fairly surprised that such a modest project won, among many other honors, the Academy Award for Best Picture of 2012. It’s based on the 1980 rescue operation of six U. S. embassy employees in Tehran who escaped capture during the Iranian hostage crisis. Affleck plays Tony Mendez, the CIA officer who conceived, coordinated, and executed the mission. The operation’s cover story, the film's most outlandish aspect, is true to what actually occurred. With help from Planet of the Apes make-up designer John Chambers (John Goodman), Mendez put together a fake science-fiction movie project that was ostensibly considering Iran for location shooting. The embassy employees would be gotten out of the country by passing them off as Canadian production personnel. Affleck’s directing and the script, credited to Chris Terrio, are at their best during the first half. The opening scene, which dramatizes the seizing of the embassy and the employees’ escape, is suspenseful and, for all its complications, presented with admirable clarity. The Hollywood sections are even better. Chambers and Mendez recruit a (fictional) producer, played by Alan Arkin, to help them put the fake movie together. The scenes that follow do a hilarious job of satirizing the film business. Arkin, the picture’s standout performer, is terrific as the uncouth, no-nonsense movie veteran. The second half isn’t as strong. The script relies on a number of hackneyed suspense scenes--all contrived for the film--to elevate tension during the rescue. The obviousness tests one’s patience, and the airport climax in particular is ludicrous. Affleck’s lack of assurance and occasional sloppiness as a filmmaker become increasingly distracting as well. The editing often appears to be covering up for poor staging, and the sound quality is erratic. Apart from Arkin, who sounds crystal-clear, it’s not unusual to have to strain to hear what the actors are saying. But for all the film’s flaws, it’s enjoyable if one's expectations aren't raised too high by the accolades it's received.