Short Take: Under the Skin

The sf-horror film Under the Skin, directed by Jonathan Glazer, isn't a thriller. It's an austere, deliberately paced character study about an earthbound alien (Scarlett Johansson) who begins to fancy that she's human. During the film's first act, she drives around the Edinburgh area picking up men. Promising sex, she takes them to an abandoned house where they are captured and disincorporated into plasma. The reason is never explained. However, the alien becomes fascinated with the human form she's adopted. She also begins to take pity on the men she preys on, and she develops a curiosity about human pleasures such as food and romantic love. She eventually finds herself fleeing the other aliens who accompanied her. Unfortunately, there's not a cheerful or affirming moment in the entire film. Johansson's performance isn't very expressive. By design, it runs the gamut from low-key to deadpan. The other actors, almost all of them non-professionals, don't make much of an impression. Glazer maintains a dour tone, with sunless imagery that emphasizes the windswept cold and wet of Scotland in autumn or late winter. The glumly ascetic take-me-seriously manner mutes the sensationalism--the picture is sex and violence from beginning to end--but it also empties the film of any emotional weight. The film is an impersonal, pretentious undertaking. The screenplay is credited to Walter Campbell and Glazer, from a novel by Michel Faber. Daniel Landin provided the gray-hued cinematography. The eerie, discord-heavy score is by Mica Levi.

Short Take: The Past

Writer-director Asghar Farhadi has a genius for intricate, richly nuanced domestic melodrama. His 2013 film The Past, his first made outside his native Iran, shows him in potent form. The setting is Sevran, a working-class suburb of Paris. An Iranian man (Ali Mosaffa) arrives from Tehran to finalize his divorce from his French wife (Bérénice Bejo). Four years earlier, his personal problems drove him to desert her and his two step-daughters (Pauline Burlet and Jeanne Jestin). He returns to find himself the only grounded presence in his former family's life. His wife is determined to make a fresh start with a new fiancé (Tahar Rahim), and the man and his young son (Elyes Aguis) now live with her and her daughters. But for all the efforts to build a stable new home, the wife's relationship has only stirred up turmoil with the children. She aggravates things further by manipulating the circumstances to fluster both her fiancé and her soon-to-be ex-husband. Jealousies, resentments, and anger at perceived betrayals are the undercurrent of almost all the characters' relationships. The plotting gets a bit too soapy in the film's latter sections, but overall Farhadi builds the assorted conflicts to eloquent dramatic crescendoes. He is aided in no small part by the fine cast. Pauline Burlet, who plays the older daughter, is especially impressive. She looks like a teenage Marion Cotillard, and she has a similar haunted expressiveness. And one has to mention Elyes Aguis, who is heartbreaking as the fiancé's angry, willful little boy. The film lacks the depth of cultural observation that marks Farhadi's Iranian films, but his directing has taken a significant leap forward. His staging, camerawork, and editing have never before been so assured. The film has the dramatic tautness of a first-rate thriller. The handsome cinematography is by Mahmoud Kalari. Claude Lenoir was the production designer. The clutter he gives the wife's house is particularly inspired.

Short Take: Nebraska

This review was originally published on Pol Culture.

Nebraska, director Alexander Payne’s sixth feature, is an absorbing if uneasy mix of family pathos, misanthropic humor, and mannered, faux-poetic cinematic style. Bruce Dern stars as a senile, alcoholic retiree who lives in Montana with his beleaguered wife (June Squibb). He’s convinced he’s won a magazine clearinghouse sweepstakes, and he refuses to listen to anyone who tells him otherwise. Come hell or high water, he’s determined to make the trip to the clearinghouse’s offices in Nebraska to collect the million-dollar prize. After his efforts to walk the 800-mile distance have been thwarted a few times, the younger of his two sons (Saturday Night Live alumnus Will Forte) decides to put the matter to rest and drive him. The two get waylaid in their old Nebraska hometown, where they’re joined by the wife and the elder son (Bob Odenkirk) for an impromptu reunion with family and old friends. At its center, the film is a parable about catering to a loved one’s illusions, and how it can be the most generous thing a person can do. However, Payne and screenwriter Bob Nelson surround the sentimental family drama with cruel, sneering humor that caricatures the hometown friends and relatives as a bunch of venal hicks. More discord comes from the pretentiousness of the black-and-white cinematography, deliberate pace, and desolate landscape visuals. The directorial style indicates a filmmaker far more concerned with being applauded for artistry than serving his material. But for all of Payne’s missteps, he makes the pathos of the father-son relationship work, and a couple of comedy scenes--the wife’s cemetery visit, and the sons’ botched effort to reclaim their father’s old air compressor--are brought off well. Payne also gets good work from the cast. June Squibb’s hilarious performance as the irascible, sharp-tongued wife is particularly impressive. Phedon Papamichael was the film’s director of photography. Mark Orton provided the musical score.

Film Review: The Blacklist, Season 1, Episode 1: "Pilot"

This review first appeared on Pol Culture.

The TV series The Blacklist, created by Jon Bokenkamp, has a solid pulp-adventure premise. Raymond “Red” Reddington (James Spader), once a rising star in the U. S. military/intelligence establishment, is now considered one of the world’s most dangerous criminals. After two decades of eluding capture, he voluntarily turns himself in to the FBI. But he’s not interested in surrendering himself to the criminal justice system. He has what he calls “The Blacklist,” a list of international criminals and terrorists whom he wants taken out. The FBI grudgingly agrees to collaborate with him in neutralizing these individuals. But Reddington’s motives are not entirely altruistic. He occasionally manipulates the FBI for personal ends. He also demands that he deal exclusively with Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone), a rookie profiler in whom he has an unspecified albeit paternal-seeming interest. The episodes promise a number of engaging conflicts: flamboyant villains, intrigue in Reddington’s dealings with the FBI, and the continuing mystery of his interest in Keen.

The show has plenty more going for it. Bokenkamp and the other producers are committed to high production values, and one can count on at least one bravura action set piece per episode. The stunt, effects, and location work are kept on a par with those in feature films. Best of all, the series is designed as a showcase for star James Spader. He understands how to use his upper-class bearing for both comic and dramatic effects, and he’s dazzling. His impeccable timing makes the character’s propensity for smug, condescending rejoinders hilarious. But he also knows how to play his patrician manner for gravitas, and he’s riveting in the character’s more earnest moments. His knack for hitting sinister notes almost goes without saying. One might wish that he was paired with a livelier actor than Megan Boone--she’s rather bland--but she’s up to the task of providing him a foil.

The Blacklist’s initial episode, “Pilot,” does a fine job of creating a foundation for the series. Bokenkamp’s teleplay deftly gets all the series elements described above rolling. This first adventure involves a terrorist who is looking to explode a chemical bomb in Washington, D. C., and it’s seamlessly integrated with the show’s introductory material. Bokenkamp’s handling of the more ambiguous story points is also strong, such as the open question of the extent that Reddington is orchestrating the villain’s actions rather than thwarting them. There are some flaws. The interrogation scenes between Reddington and Keen too closely recall those between the Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster characters in The Silence of the Lambs. Keen also has some violent moments, and the ruthless efficiency she displays doesn’t fit the novice everywoman characterization the show otherwise gives her. But director Joe Carnahan keeps things brisk, and his handling of the two major action sequences--a motorcade ambush on a bridge, and the climactic chase through the Washington, D. C. streets--is first-rate. Overall, this first installment is a terrific send-off for the program.

Short Take: The Wolverine

This review was originally published on Pol Culture.

The Wolverine is the sixth film in the X-Men movie franchise, and the second solo outing for the title character. played by Hugh Jackman. It’s also the best film in the series since 2002's X2: X-Men United. The picture, directed by James Mangold from a script credited to Mark Bomback and Scott Frank, recaptures the dynamic that made the character compelling in that film and the franchise’s first outing. Better yet, the picture presents that dynamic in new ways. Wolverine is again haunted by his past, although this time by guilt over a death he caused. He’s still caught in the conflict between his compulsively violent nature, his hatred of it, and the sense of duty that inevitably gives that violence an outlet. Jackman’s performance isn’t as fresh as it once was, but he still plays the character quite well. Most of the story takes place in Japan, and the unfamiliar locations provide for some entertaining action set pieces. The best is an extended fight-and-chase sequence that begins at a funeral in a Buddhist temple, continues into the Tokyo streets, and climaxes on the roof of a moving 200-mile-per-hour bullet train. The plotting isn’t especially coherent. The two main story threads--the hero’s efforts to save a Japanese heiress (Tao Okamoto) from assassination, and keeping a sinister Russian doctor (Svetlana Khodchenkova) from stealing his healing abilities--never comfortably weave together. But until a silly, overblown science-fiction action finale, the film is compelling. The Japanese setting and several of the characters (although not the story) are taken from a four-part 1982 Wolverine comic-book series by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller.

Short Take: Man of Steel

This review was originally published on Pol Culture.

The comic-book hero Superman, created in the 1930s by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, gets the cinematic treatment once again in director Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel. The film is insufferably pompous: long on pretension, numbingly violent, and completely lacking in humor. Snyder tries to run as far as he can from the material’s origins as pulp adventure for children. He seems to equate a grim tone with sophistication. The last movie featuring the character, Bryan Singer’s 2006 Superman Returns, also had a melancholy air. But it wasn’t afraid to play things for laughs on occasion, and Singer’s knack for poetic flourishes helped to keep one engaged. Snyder’s film is oppressively somber and literal-minded. The story is stale, too. The screenplay, credited to David S. Goyer, from a story by him and Christopher Nolan, is just a reworking of the first two Superman movies starring Christopher Reeve. The major difference is the absence of Lex Luthor, the earthbound villain played by Gene Hackman. Superman (Henry Cavill), a native of another planet, is sent to Earth as a baby when his world is destroyed. The different planetary conditions grant him superhuman powers, and he learns to cope and do right by them. He’s followed to our world by General Zod (Michael Shannon), a megalomaniac who leads a small group of refugees. Zod attempted to conquer their home planet before its destruction, and he now sets his sights on taking over Earth. It’s of course up to Superman to stop him. Violent spectacle (and CGI overkill) ensue. One's eyes glazeth over. The large cast includes Amy Adams, Russell Crowe, Diane Lane, Kevin Costner, Laurence Fishburne, Christopher Meloni, and Richard Schiff. As effective as all have been elsewhere, not one is memorable here. The elaborate production design, which at times heavily recalls H. R. Giger’s work on Alien (1979) is by Alex McDowell.