Marriage Story (2019) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Scenes from a divorce

Posted on November 30, 2019 by kaist455

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Noah Baumbach’s latest film “Marriage Story”, which is released in South Korean theaters this week and will be available on Netflix on next Friday, is a sharp and intimate story about one difficult process of divorce. When its two main characters decide to end their marital relationship, they want to divorce as quickly and painlessly as possible, but they eventually find themselves in a long, bitter legal/emotional struggle, and the movie deftly alternates between drama and comedy while never losing its deep empathy toward both of its two main characters.

At the beginning, the movie shows Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) and Charlie (Adam Driver) going through a mediation session not long after their decision on divorce. They respectively write about each other’s better sides, and the opening scene based on their respective writings convey to us how much they knew and liked each other during those happy years of their marriage, but then we also see how much they feel bitter and resentful now. While Charlie, who is a young promising theater director, has felt fine with living in New York City along with his wife and their young son, Nicole, who was a movie actress before marrying her husband and then performing for his theater company, has actually been quite unhappy with where her life and career have been going, so she recently decided to move to LA for restarting her career – and that was the beginning of how their married life started to crumble.

Anyway, both Nicole and Charlie want to terminate their marriage without any unnecessary headache, but then, not so surprisingly, both of them gradually come to consider taking more aggressive actions mainly due to the custody of their son. While Nicole wants to take their son to LA, Charlie is not particularly willing to accept that because he does not want to look bad to their son, though he does not know well what their son exactly wants. Once Nicole hires her divorce lawyer and then delivers an envelope containing legal documents to Charlie, Charlie belatedly comes to discern that things get really serious, so he looks for any good lawyer to represent him.

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As slowly accumulating emotional tension around Nicole and Charlie, the movie never hurries itself for generating considerable realism and intimacy around them and other substantial characters surrounding them. While Nicole’s mother and sister provide a considerable amount of comic moments, the movie also gives us several amusing scenes involved with Charlie’s theater company, and the lawyers respectively representing Nicole and Charlie are imbued with colorful personalities coupled with practical professionalism.

When their situation becomes more complicated than before later in the story, Nicole and Charlie come to confront how ugly and nasty divorce can be. While the lawyers representing them are surely ready to say anything to benefit their respective clients at the court, both Nicole and Charlie cannot help but feel guilty, but they also become more resentful to each other than before especially when they fight harder over the custody of their son, and there eventually comes a private moment when they spitefully and regretfully hurt each other’s feelings a lot.

However, the movie also often reminds us of how much they care about each other even at that point. I was particularly touched by a tender scene when Charlie comes to Nicole’s residence for taking care of a little problem involved with the front gate of her residence, and this and other warm, gentle moments in the film, which are usually accompanied with Randy Newman’s sensitive score, show us that there is still some emotional bond between them despite all the anger and resentment churning around them.

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As the two beating hearts of the film, Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, both of whom will definitely be Oscar-nominated early in next year, are simply fabulous in their rich nuanced performance full of realistic human details. As shown from a number of various films ranging from “Lost in Translation” (2003) to “Under the Skin” (2013), Johansson is a versatile actress too talented to be remembered only for her thankless role in those popular Marvel Cinematic Universe flicks, and she is particularly terrific when cinematographer Robbie Ryan’s unflinching camera closely focuses on her character’s face during several key scenes in the film. On the opposite, Driver, a very distinctive actor who drew my attention for the first time with his Emmy-nominated supporting turn in HBO TV series “Girls” and then moved onto a diverse array of films ranging from “Paterson” (2016) to the recent Star Wars films, effectively complements Johansson whenever it is required, and I must tell you that their sublimely dynamic interaction on the screen took me back to what I observed from Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson in “Scenes from a Marriage” (1973).

The movie also allows its other main cast members to shine in each own spot. While Laura Dern, who may also be Oscar-nominated, is suitably no-nonsense as Nicole’s sympathetic lawyer, Alan Alda and Ray Liotta are equally engaging as two very different lawyers representing Charlie, and I was also delighted by the appearance of Wallace Shawn and Julie Hagerty in the film (Remember how funny and charming Hagerty was in “Airplane!” (1980)?).

Considering how well it is written, performed, and directed from the beginning to the end, “Marriage Story” is Baumbach’s best work since “The Squid and the Whale” (2005), and it is also indubitably one of the best films of this year. Sure, it is occasionally quite painful to watch, but we come to empathize a lot with its two main characters as getting to know them more, and that is why it is touching to see when they eventually arrive at a point where they come to understand and care about each other more than before. Yes, they move on separately now, but they do remember what they once had, and they will certainly do their best for what both of them care most.

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I Lost My Body (2019) ☆☆☆(3/4): A hand looking for its body

Posted on November 30, 2019 by kaist455

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French animation feature film “I Lost My Body”, which won the Nespresso Grand Prize when it was shown in the International Critics’ Week section at the Cannes Film Festival early in this year (It is incidentally the first animation film to do so in the section’s history, by the way), is a curious piece of work with some offbeat touches to be admired. Although it often trudges at times due to its rather unbalanced narrative structure, the film still engages us thanks to a number of striking moments which shine with style, humor, and imagination, and you will not forget it easily after watching it.

After the opening shot suggesting that something bloody and terrible happened, we are introduced to one dismembered hand which is initially stored in a refrigerator of some laboratory along with other body parts including an eyeball. Once it recognizes its captive status in a plastic bag, this hand attempts to escape for itself, and its attempt leads to a series of morbidly humorous moments including the one involved with that poor eyeball.

After successfully escaping from the laboratory, the hand goes through several ups and downs of its uncertain journey to a certain destination. At one point, it has a very unpleasant encounter with a pigeon inhabiting on the roof of a building, and then there later comes a perilous scene where it finds itself threatened by a group of mice residing in a subway station, which certainly become quite aggressive once they recognize that the hand can be their latest meal. When the hand later happens to be caught by a pet dog belonging to some disabled guy, we get a nice moment of peace and comfort, but, unfortunately, that does not last long.

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Meanwhile, the movie also focuses on a young man named Naofel (voiced by Hakim Faris), and a number of brief flashback scenes early in the film give us a glimpse into his childhood period. Growing up under his caring parents, he aspired to be a musician or an astronaut someday, but, alas, his parents died early due to an unfortunate car accident, and his subsequent years have been not very happy to say the least. While he has been allowed to live in his uncle’s residence, his uncle does not care much about him, and neither does his horny cousin, who incidentally has shared the same bedroom with him for years.

Naofel has worked as a pizza delivery guy, but he is not so good at his job, and then he happens to have a very bad day. When he is hurriedly trying to deliver pizzas as usual, his motorcycle is broken due to an unexpected accident, and, shortly after arriving at a high-rise building and trying to contact with a young woman who orders a pizza, he belatedly finds that the pizza is considerably ruined due to that accident.

Anyway, while stuck inside the building due to rain, Naofel comes to have a conversation with that young woman via the intercommunication system in the building for a long time, and, though he does not see her and also does know her much, he finds himself gradually attracted to her, so he becomes determined to search for her as much as he can. After finding out who she really is and where she works, he attempts to approach to her, but then he only gets himself employed by her carpenter uncle, and, fortunately, it looks like he finally finds a job in which he is really interested.

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Meanwhile, Naofel continues to try to approach closer to that young woman, named Gabrielle (voiced by Victoire Du Bois), without telling her anything about his motive, and that is where the story becomes less engaging to us. While he is sincere in his romantic pursuit of Gabrielle, it also can be said that Naofel is your average stalking creep, and we are not so surprised when Gabrielle later becomes quite upset and disturbed after coming to learn about what Naofel has been holding behind his back.

Nevertheless, the film still holds our attention thanks to those imaginative moments involved with the hand, which turns out to be as resourceful as Thing in “The Addams Family” (1991). It is quite determined to go to its destination by any means necessary, and we accordingly get a tense and frightening moment when it boldly attempts to cross over a busy highway in a rather creative way.

Although it begins to lose its narrative momentum around the time when the hand finally arrives at its destination, the screenplay by director Jérémy Clapin and his co-writer Guillaume Laurant, which is based on Laurant’s novel “Happy Hand”, still maintains its humor and sensitivity at least, and then everything in the story eventually culminates to its calm but poignant finale. Mainly driven by sounds and images, the finale effectively presents a climax as emotional as demanded, and I also appreciate a little but precious sign of hope and resilience shown at the last minute of the film.

In conclusion, “I Lost My Body” is not entirely without weak aspects, but it is definitely recommendable to you if you enjoyed “Amelie” (2001) and other whimsical movies of Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who has frequently collaborated with Laurant. In short, this is one of more distinctive animation films of this year, and you will not be disappointed if you are looking for something different from those usual Hollywood digital animation films out there.

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Official Secrets (2019) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): A whistleblower charged with treason

Posted on November 29, 2019 by kaist455

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“Official Secrets” is a well-intentioned but ultimately mild drama based on the true story of Katharine Gun, a British woman who was an employee of Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) around the time when she decided to leak a secret memo from National Security Agency (NSA) in US for stopping the invasion of Iraq in 2003. While it is certainly ready to show and tell us how wrong the invasion of Iraq was as well how courageous Gun was, the movie feels rather pedestrian at times, and I was only surprised a bit by how her unjust plight eventually ended.

After the opening scene showing Gun, played by Keira Knightley, at her trial in 2004, the movie promptly moves back to her another usual working day in GCHQ in 2003. While she begins to work along with her several colleagues as usual, they all receive that secret memo from NSA, and it demands GCHQ to search for any information which may be used to manipulate a number of delegates in the United Nations Security Council. The council is recently tasked to vote on a resolution regarding the invasion of Iraq being planned by the American government with the assistance from the British government, and it looks like the American government is quite determined to get the resolution by any means necessary for justifying its invasion of Iraq in advance.

As a person opposing to the invasion of Iraq as much as many other people in UK and numerous other countries around the world, Gun comes to believe that this illegal spying operation demanded by NSA must be exposed in public, but she also knows well that she must be really careful and discreet in leaking that memo in public. She sends the copy of the memo to an activist friend of hers, and that friend later hands it to some anti-war journalist, who subsequently gives it to Martin Bright (Matt Smith), one of the journalists working in the Observer.

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When Bright shows the copy of the memo to his editor and colleagues, many of them are understandably skeptical at first, but they soon come to discern that they have a very credible evidence after checking it through various experts and sources. For example, Bright’s fellow journalist Ed Vulliamy (Rhys Ifans) confirms that a man behind the memo really works in NSA, and Peter Beaumont (Matthew Goode), another close colleague of Bright, gets an indirect confirmation on that illegal spying operation from a friend/source of his, who incidentally works in MI6.

As Bright and his colleagues in the Observer delve further into their highly sensitive matter, the mood accordingly becomes as tense as, say, “All the President’s Men” (1976), but the screenplay by director Gavin Hood and his co-writers Gregory and Sara Bernstein, which is based on “The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War” by Marcia & Thomas Mitchell, does not generate much narrative momentum as ponderously moving from one plot point to another. You may appreciate how it diligently tries to present its big picture via various pieces of information popping up from here and there, but its big picture will not surprise you much considering how much we know about the Invasion of Iraq now, and the eventual publication of Bright’s article does not feel as dramatically impactful as intended.

While Bright and his colleagues in the Observer unfortunately face a big setback due to an absurd mistake in their published article, Gun confronts the dire consequence of her action. Once the article is published, everyone at her workplace is thoroughly investigated, and, of course, there eventually comes a point where she decides that enough is enough. After she confesses to her superiors, she is arrested for a breach on the Official Secrets Act as expected, and that is just the beginning of her predicament during next several months. She can have lawyers to defend her at the upcoming trial, but she is notified that she is not allowed to discuss with her lawyers on anything involved with her work at GCHQ, and that certainly puts her and her lawyers in a very disadvantageous position.

officialsecrets04.jpgIt seems that she should plead guilty for getting some leniency from a judge to preside over her trial, but Gun firmly sticks to her position because she believes she did a right thing for her country as well as thousands of people to be affected by the invasion of Iraq, though her action and Bright’s article did not change anything to their disappointment and frustration. While he initially does not see much chance for Gun, Gun’s barrister Ben Emmerson (Ralph Fiennes) later comes to see that there is actually a possible way for defending her, and, what do you know, there comes a very unexpected turn during her trial.

I was disappointed a bit with the following anti-climactic ending of the film, but I enjoyed the performances of its several notable cast members, who did as much as they could for filling their respective positions. While Keira Knightley is credible in her character’s growing anxiety and conflict along the story, Matt Smith and Rhys Ifans bring some colorful personality to their rather thankless roles, and the same thing can be said about Ralph Fiennes, who is as unflappable as required during his few key moments in the movie.

Although I was not that bored during my viewing, “Official Secrets” does not succeed much in making its story as compelling or enlightening as I hoped, and it is a minor letdown compared to Gavin’s better works such as “Tsosti” (2005), which garnered him a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, and “Eye in the Sky” (2015). Sure, its story and subjects are still relevant, but the movie merely delivers facts and details, and that is all.

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Bring Me Home (2019) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): Desperately looking for her missing son

Posted on November 28, 2019 by kaist455

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Watching South Korean film “Bring Me Home” is an experience not only unpleasant but also stressful in many aspects. Relentlessly pushing the story and its increasingly desperate heroine into sheer cruelty and brutality from the beginning to the end, the movie surely gives us a number of gut-wrenching moments to shock and repulse us, but it is also often blatant and inconsiderate as coarsely trying to squeeze reactions and emotions from us, and we are only left with bad tastes in our mouth without much reward for enduring this grimly and remorselessly disturbing piece of work.

Lee Young-ae, who was memorable in Park Chan-woo’s “Sympathy for Lady Vengeance” (2005), plays Jeong-yeon, who has been looking for her young son along with her husband since her young son went missing 6 years ago. While she is working in a hospital, her husband, who is a former teacher, spends most of his time on looking for any possible clue which may lead them to their missing son’s whereabouts, but there has not been much progress yet, and there is a silent but awkward domestic moment between Jeong-yeon and her husband as they are reminded of their missing son’s absence again.

And then something happens on one day. When he is trying to make a little forward step for their life, Jeong-yeon’s husband receives a series of text messages about their missing son, so he hurriedly drives his car to a location where their missing son may be found, but, alas, that only leads to a tragic accident which costs his life, and, to Jeong-yeon’s shock and devastation, those text messages later turn out to be nothing but a reckless prank.

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Around that narrative point, the movie introduces to us a young boy living in some remote rural fishing community, who is frequently harassed and exploited by several sleazy adults around him including a local police officer. After the news about the tragic death of Jeong-yeon’s husband is reported on TV, the police officer and his cohorts notice that the boy may be the one for whom Jeong-yeon and her husband have searched, but they do not want to draw any unnecessary attention to what they have been doing to the boy and a younger kid who has also been their captive, so they decide to keep quiet about that.

Of course, as many of you have already guessed, Jeong-yeon later comes to learn about the boy via someone who demands some money in exchange for the information. She soon goes down to that rural fishing community, and it does not take much for her to sense something fishy, but, not so surprisingly, she only comes to find herself against the wall as the police officer, who turns out be a lot more cruel, selfish, and rotten than expected, and his cohorts are quite determined to push her away from their area as soon as possible.

As the mood accordingly becomes more tense, we are served with lots of cruelty and savagery poured upon not only Jeong-yeon but also the boy. For example, you will wince a lot as watching a very painful and disturbing scene where the boy and that other kid are forced to assist a barbaric act of animal hunting, and there is also a repulsive scene where the boy is thrown into a horrific circumstance which any minor should not suffer at any chance.

Regardless of whether the boy is really her son, Jeong-yeon becomes more urged to do the right thing, but then the movie takes a left turn just for pushing her into more despair and desperation. Not so surprisingly, she is consequently thrown into madness during the last act of the film, and then she becomes quite determine to go all the way for what should be done in her viewpoint.

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The movie accordingly becomes quite darker and more violent, but, unfortunately, the result is merely repetitious mainly due to its thin narrative and superficial characterization. While Jeong-yeon remains as a clichéd heroine simply defined by her longtime guilt, many of other characters in the film are flat and mediocre on the whole, and those despicable villain characters in the movie are more or less than banal caricatures who seem to exist only for drawing more anger and annoyance from us. As a result, we come to observe its story and characters from the distance without much care or attention, and we become more aware of its heavy-handed handling of plot and characters especially around the finale.

At least, the movie is fairly competent in technical aspects including the excellent cinematography by Lee Mo-gae, and its main cast members fill their respective roles as much as demanded. While Lee Young-ae gives an effective lead performance, Yoo Jae-myung is suitably detestable as the main bad guy of the film, and Lee Won-geun and Park Hae-joon are well-cast as a few decent figures in the story.

Because of several problematic reasons including its weak storytelling as well as numerous unpleasant moments of gratuitous cruelty and violence, “Bring Me Home”, which is incidentally the first feature film of director/writer Kim Seung-woo, is not so worthwhile to watch in my humble opinion. I understand it intends to be as dark and violent as demanded by its uncomfortable subjects, but I would rather recommend “Bedevilled” (2010) and “Miss Baek” (2018) instead. Yes, they are also pretty dark and violent to say the least, but both of them engaged me nonetheless via stronger storytelling and emotional resonance, and I assure you that you will have a more cathartic time with these two films.

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Hustlers (2019) ☆☆☆(3/4): The Vixens of Wall Street

Posted on November 27, 2019 by kaist455

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“Hustlers” is a sexy and engaging crime drama film to be savored and appreciated for good reasons. While wisely avoiding pitfalls of sensationalism and exploitation, the movie is buoyed by a bunch of colorful performances to admire, and it is even a bit poignant as never losing the focus on the strong relationship between two female characters at the center of the story.

The story, which is based on New York magazine’s 2015 article “The Hustlers at Scores” by Jessica Pressler, is mainly told through Destiny (Constance Wu), a young Chinese American woman who begins to work in a popular strip club of Manhattan in 2007 for supporting herself as well as her dear grandmother. The club is always full of male clients willing to pay her and other strippers in the club, but she still does not earn as much as she hopes, and she certainly envies a senior stripper named Ramona (Jennifer Lopez), who is older than many of strippers in the club but, as shown from her stupefying entrance on the stage, knows quite well how to mesmerize and seduce those horny guys coveting her body.

By coincidence, Destiny later spends some brief time with Ramona, and Ramona comes to take Destiny under her wing after they instantly befriend each other. She gladly teaches Destiny not only a number of effective striptease moves but also how to select and approach to certain clients who can pay her a lot, and Destiny cannot help but excited as her life and career are considerably improved within a short period thanks to Ramona’s teaching.

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However, their good time does not last that long because Wall Street is subsequently hit hard by the financial crisis of 2007–2008, and, as the number of their clients is accordingly decreased a lot, Ramona and Destiny have to look for other jobs just like many of their fellow strippers. Three years later, Destiny eventually returns to the same strip club where she worked, but she only comes to see how things have gotten worse down there. Many of strippers working there are willing to earn money by any means necessary, and there is a very uncomfortable scene where Destiny has no choice but to do whatever her latest client wants in exchange for money.

Some time later, Destiny comes across Ramona, who has also been back in business for a while. She tells Destiny on how she has earned a considerable amount of money along with her two fellow strippers Mercedes (Keke Palmer) and Annabelle (Lili Reinhart), and Destiny cannot possibly refuse the offer from her mentor/colleague because she desperately needs the money for herself and her grandmother and dear little daughter.

The movie cheerfully and energetically depicts how Destiny, Ramona, and their colleagues work together. Once they catch a potential target, they give him a glass of booze mixed with drugs in advance, and we get an amusing scene where Destiny and Ramona try to get the right mix of two different drugs. After their targets are drugged and taken to their strip club, they extract any feasible credit card from their targets, and they do not hesitate to charge their targets quite a lot because their targets, who are mostly married, are unlikely to report to the police due to shame and fear.

Destiny knows well that she and her colleagues are committing serious cases of fraud, but she is not bothered much because, well, she and her colleagues are simply hustling money from many of Wall Street guys who are no better than them. After all, those bankers and brokers of Wall Street continue to hustle money from many people out there even after that big financial crisis, so Destiny and her colleagues do not feel any guilt as keeping going with their expanding criminal business.

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Of course, as implied from the very beginning of the movie, Destiny and her colleagues subsequently come to faces a series of troubles, and the movie accordingly comes to lose some of its lightweight spirit, but the screenplay by director/co-producer Lorene Scafaria, who previously directed “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World” (2012) and “The Meddler” (2015), seldom loses the human dimensions of its story and characters. While mainly revolving around the dramatic development of Destiny and Ramona’s relationship, the movie also pays some attention to a number of female supporting characters around them, and these female supporting characters all come to us as convincing human characters just like Ramona and Destiny.

And the main cast members of the movie carry the movie well on the whole. While Constance Wu, who has been more prominent thanks to her breakthrough performance in “Crazy Rich Asians” (2018), demonstrates more of her substantial acting talent, Jennifer Lopez, who also participated in the production of the film, gives her best performance since “Selena” (1997) and “Out of Sight” (1998), and she and Wu are supported well by a number of talented performers including Julia Stiles, Keke Palmer, Lili Reinhart, and Mercedes Ruehl, who is still as vibrantly no-nonsense as she was in her Oscar-winning supporting turn in “The Fisher King” (1991).

In conclusion, “Hustlers” is fairly entertaining for its solid storytelling and performances coupled with considerable realism, and I particularly appreciate how it presents and depicts exposed female bodies on the screen with enough care and thoughtfulness under Scafaria’s competent direction. While never objectified throughout the film, these sexy and beautiful ladies in the film are certainly strong female characters to remember, and it is certainly compelling to see them in full control of their bodies and sexuality. In the other words, this is another notable feminist film of this year, and I am sure it will be appreciated a lot by many female audiences out there.

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Crawl (2019) ☆☆☆(3/4): Against a hurricane – and alligators

Posted on November 27, 2019 by kaist455

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“Crawl”, which belatedly arrives in South Korean theaters at the end of this autumn, is a modest but effective genre piece which handles its rather preposterous premise better than expected. Although I could instantly see from the beginning how it was going to jolt and scare me during its 87-minute running time, I often myself quite nervous and terrified, and I came to appreciate more of the skills and efforts put into the film in the end.

During its first 10 minutes, the movie quickly establishes its story promise. When Haley Keller (Kaya Scodelario), a student-athlete of the University of Florida, receives a phone call from her older sister living in Boston, she is not exactly in a good mood at all because of her disappointing result in her latest swimming competition, but then her older sister notifies her that their estranged father Dave (Barry Pepper), who has lived alone since his recent divorce, is not answering his phone even though a hurricane of category five is coming upon Florida right now, and she soon drives her car to his current residence for checking for herself whether he is all right.

When Haley arrives at her father’s current residence, she is only greeted by his cute furry dog, so, along with the dog, she drives her car to where he possibly went: their old family house which has been empty and on sale since his divorce. Not long after arriving in the house, she soon discovers several things belonging to her father, and then she comes to check the crawlspace beneath the house after realizing that her father went down there for fixing something.

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Although it does not take much time for Haley to find where her father is, she soon comes to see why her father could not get out of the crawlspace. It turns out that more than one alligator came into the crawlspace via a drain duct connected with it, and her father was seriously mauled by one of these alligators, though he managed to drag himself to a corner spot which is safe at least for a while.

Fortunately, Haley also manages to evade the alligators and then join her father, but, of course, the situation gets worse and worse as the hurricane is coming upon their old neighborhood second by second. As the hurricane pours a lot more rain onto the ground, the crawlspace becomes flooded inch by inch, and this certainly makes Haley and her father’s circumstance more perilous than before. They must get out of the crawlspace before getting drowned, but then they may get themselves killed by the alligators, which are indubitably more dangerous when they are moving around in water.

During the following middle act, the movie gradually dials up the level of tension and suspense via a number of good moments packed with dread and anxiety, and director/co-producer Alexandre Aja, who previously made “Piranha 3D” (2010), skillfully handles these moments while showing a little wry sense of humor from time to time. While it goes without saying that several other characters appearing in the middle of the film are destined to be the main course for the alligators sooner or later, their respective exits jolt us as much as intended, and I must say I was particularly shocked and amused by a brief shot showing a minor character’s body being brutally torn apart by the alligators.

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And the alligators in the film are frightening enough to hold our attention. Sure, they are CGI creatures which are not that distinguishable from each other, but they function well as lethal and formidable foes for our two main characters, and the movie also did a solid job of accentuating the claustrophobic mood surrounding our two main characters and their ruthless opponents. The stuffy atmosphere surrounding our two main characters is palpable on the screen to say the least, and I also cringed a lot as watching Haley crawling on the very muddy ground of the crawlspace early in the film.

In addition, the movie is carried well by the solid acting of its two lead performers. While Kaya Scodelario, who drew my attention for the first time through her notable supporting turn in “The Maze Runner” (2015) and its two sequels, is believable in several physical action scenes in the film, she and her co-star Barry Pepper are convincing as ably conveying to us the dramatic shifts in their characters’ strained relationship. As recognizing how much her father still cares about her, Haley comes to push herself harder for their possible survival, and we root for her a lot especially when she tries something quite risky in front of an alligator cornering her later in the movie.

Although it does not exceed my expectation, “Crawl” did its job as well as it wants, and the overall result is a bit better than “Piranha 3D”, which was a little too gory and violent for me despite some nice tongue-in-cheek moments to be savored (How can I ever forget what eventually happens to a certain body part of a supporting character played by Jerry O’Connell?). The movie is occasionally rather trite and superficial in terms of story and characterization, but I willingly overlooked that and other several weak points of the film during my viewing, and it surely made me more scared of alligators than before. It is a shame that the movie happens to crawl into South Korea when winter is coming, but summer will come after winter and spring anyway, and I may revisit it around that time just for getting more fun and thrill than before.

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Burning Cane (2019) ☆☆☆(3/4): Southern lives stuck in anger and despair

Posted on November 25, 2019 by kaist455

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“Burning Cane”, which won two awards including the Founders Prize when it was shown at the Tribeca Film Festival early in this year, is a small but remarkable work to be appreciated. Although this is the first feature film of a very young filmmaker, the movie palpitates with the vivid and authentic sense of places and people, and I had no trouble at all in letting myself absorbed into the gloomy daily life of the main characters of the film.

The movie opens with the long but mesmerizing monologue spoken by Helen Wayne (Karen Kaia Livers), a middle-aged African American woman who rambles on how she has tried to take care of her dog’s serious skin disease many times without much success. She tried a series of different methods recommended by people around her, but her dog’s condition got only worsened, and she did not want to take it to a veterinary because she knew she would be only recommended to do a mercy killing.

Although this monologue of hers does not seem to signify anything at first, it gradually comes to resonate with a problem involved with her adult son Daniel (Dominique McClellan), who has been mired in alcohol at his residence since he became unemployed some time ago. Whenever his wife is absent for her work, he is supposed to take care of their little young son Jeremiah (Braelyn Kelly), but, not so surprisingly, he mostly neglects his domestic duty, and he even gives his son a glass of whiskey just for putting him to sleep before his wife returns.

While it is apparent that he is approaching to the bottom of alcoholism, Daniel is not particularly willing to stop drinking, and his anger and resentment generated from his wounded male ego are accumulated day by day as he drinks more and more. In the end, there comes a moment when he happens to clash with his wife over a petty matter, and his life consequently goes down into more anger and despair without any visible hope on the horizon.

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As reflected by a small conversation scene between Daniel and his mother early in the film, David resembles his dead father more than he thinks, and we subsequently comes to see how the toxic culture of masculinity has been maintained in his neighborhood via patriarchy coupled with Christian belief, which is mainly represented by Reverend Tillman (Wendell Pierce). Whenever he is at his pulpit, Reverend Tillman often emphasizes the importance of God, faith, and family to his parishioners, and he certainly impresses them a lot with your average fire and brimstone summon, but, as Helen tells us, he is actually a weak man who cannot help himself in front of several vices including drinking and domestic violence.

Once its main characters are fully established, the movie calmly observes how things get worse for them bit by bit. Daniel cannot hide his unemployed status from his mother anymore, and Helen eventually takes away Jeremiah from him after coming to learn about what happened between her son and his wife, but she does not know what to do with her son’s worsening circumstance, which culminates to an urgent moment later in the story.

Helen seeks for some advice from Reverent Tillman, but he does not help or advise her much as approaching to his own bottom just like Daniel. Frustrated with the diminishing number of his parishioners, he drives himself further into anger, self-pity, and alcohol, and he does not stop at all even after a rather embarrassing incident, while continuing to throw hollow words about morals and family values as usual.

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Leisurely moving from one episodic moment to another, the movie slowly immerses us into its mundane but realistic Southern background which often draws our attention with considerable local atmosphere and details. Although there are not many other people in the film besides its four main characters, the movie is constantly filled with the palpable rhythm of daily life thanks to the competent direction of director/writer/cinematographer/co-editor Phillip Youmans, and there are a number of commendable moments to be admired for thoughtful camera work and scene composition. For example, I like several key scenes which emphasize the constant instability surrounding the characters in the film via tilted camera angle, and I also enjoyed occasional landscape shots filled with the green color of sugar canes.

Youmans also draws good natural performances from his main cast members. While Wendell Pierce, who has been one of my favorite character actors since he drew my attention for the first time via his colorful supporting performances in HBO TV drama series “The Wire” and “Treme”, is compelling as a flawed but complex man of God, Karen Kaia Livers, who also participated in the production of the film along with Pierce, ably holds the center as required, and Dominique McClellan has his own moments during his several scenes with young actor Braelyn Kelly, who is poignant as an innocent boy who will bound to be influenced by his harsh and despairing world in one way or another.

Although it requires some patience due to its rather slow narrative pacing, “Burning Cane” is a rewarding experience, and, considering that Youmans is only 19 at present, its overall achievement is all the more amazing to say the least. As far as I can see from the film, he is a promising new talent full of potentials, and it will be really interesting to see what will come from him during the next decade.

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The Nightingale (2018) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): A brutal revenge drama set in Tasmania, 1825

Posted on November 25, 2019 by kaist455

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There are a number of brutally remorseless moments of physical violence in Jennifer Kent’s second feature film “The Nightingale”, which won the Special Jury Prize when it was shown at the Venice Film Festival in last year. As a matter of fact, I cringed and flinched a lot as watching the film, and I was not so surprised to learn later that some audiences were quite repulsed by these gut-wrenching moments in the movie.

The story of the film is set in Tasmania, Australia in 1825, when the region was going through a violent conflict between British colonists and Aboriginal Australians. The heroine of the movie, a young Irish woman named Clare Carroll (Aisling Franciosi), has been held as a convict by a British military unit led by Lieutenant Hawkins (Sam Claflin), but, at least, she is allowed to led a family life with her husband and their little baby while working as a servant in the unit, and she has been waiting for the day when she and her family are permitted to leave the unit and become totally free.

However, Hawkins still does not write a letter of recommendation for Clare and her husband, and it does not take much time for us to see how much this loathsome guy enjoys having her under his power. At one point, he has her sing a song in front of his soldiers, and his soldiers do not hesitate at all to show their rude and vulgar sides while she tries to sing as well as possible.

Meanwhile, Hawkins has aspired to be promoted to captaincy, but, to his exasperation and frustration, his superior does not approve much of what has been going on under Hawkins’ command, and that eventually leads to a repulsively violent moment between Hawkins and Clare when they happen to be together in his private place. While austerely restricting itself from any possibility of sensationalization and eroticization, the movie does not pull any punch at all during this scene, and, in fact, it is so strong that I actually found myself concerned about the welfare of the two performers in the scene.

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And that is just the beginning. Claire’s husband, who has been desperate and frustrated as much as her, decides to take care of their matter of freedom for himself, but his decision only results in more anger and spite from Hawkins, and Hawkins and his two soldiers subsequently come into Claire and her husband’s shabby residence. When they leave, Claire, who was brutally raped again, is utterly devastated by her irreversible personal loss, and it looks like there is not anything she can do about that mainly because of her current social status.

After belatedly learning that Hawkins already left for a distant town along with his two soldiers and several other guys including an old Aboriginal Australian tracker, Claire becomes quite determined to catch up with Hawkins for her vengeance, but she also needs a tracker to guide her along a perilous route to the town in question, so she comes to a young Aboriginal Australian named Billy (Baykali Ganambarr). Although he is not particularly willing to get hired by Claire, Billy eventually makes a deal with her, and they soon take their first steps into the wilderness full of possible dangers.

Because of their mutual distrust fueled by racial prejudice and resentment, Claire and Billy, whose real name is Mangala (It means ‘blackbird’ in his native language, by the way), do not get along that well with each other, but then, as going through several ups and downs of their journey, they come to depend on each other a lot as finding some common ground between them. While she does not say much about her past, it is clear that Claire was mistreated and disregarded many times due to her gender and social status before being sent to Australia. In case of Mangala, he often talks about how much he has suffered since he was taken away from his tribe and family, and he comes to sympathize with Claire more than expected as sharing their similar hatred toward British people.

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In the meantime, the movie also focuses on Hawkins and his men’s increasingly problematic journey, and we are served with a series of unpleasant moments to strike us quite hard as they continue to show more of their ugly and deplorable sides. There is a horrific scene where a certain minor character is cruelly raped just for happening to come across one of Hawkins’ two soldiers, and then there is also a disturbing subplot involved with a young boy who lets himself influenced by the toxic masculinity of Hawkins and his men.

I understand that these and many other violent in the film are intended to reflect the heartless evil and savagery of the colonialism during the 19th century, and I also appreciate that Kent actually consulted a lot with Tasmanian Aboriginal elders for the accurate and realistic depiction of that dark, violent era in the past in addition to having psychiatrists on the set during the shooting of many brutal moments in the film, but, unfortunately, Kent’s screenplay stumbles and meanders especially during its last act as often hampered by its thin characterization and weak storytelling. Aisling Franciosi and Baykali Ganambarr, who received the Marcello Mastroinanni Award at the Venice Festival for his debut performance in here in this film, are solid in their tense interactions throughout the film, but the movie often hesitates to go further with their characters while merely scratching the surface of its historical subjects, and I am not sure whether the finale works as well as planned by Kent’s screenplay.

In conclusion, “The Nightingale” is less impressive compared to Kent’s previous film “The Babadook” (2014), a spooky and intense horror film which I chose as one of the best films of 2014. Although the movie shows us that Kent is indeed a talented filmmaker knows one or two things about how to generate genuine emotional intensity to jolt and shock us, I still cannot help but feel that it could be more focused and effective, but I do not think I will easily forget how much I was disturbed and horrified by what I saw from this intense but ultimately flawed work.

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Brittany Runs a Marathon (2019) ☆☆☆(3/4): Running for her body, mind, and life

Posted on November 24, 2019 by kaist455

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“Brittany Runs a Marathon”, which won the Audience award when it was shown at the Sundance Film Festival early in this year, is a genuine crowd-pleaser packed with lots of wit and heart. While generating a number of sharply humorous moments from its heroine’s rocky struggle to improve her life and herself, the movie is also poignant at times as depicting her and other characters around her with care and affection, and we come to cheer for her a lot as she eventually arrives at the destination of her bumpy journey of self-improvement.

When we meet Brittany Forgler (Jillian Bell) at the beginning of the film, she is almost near the bottom of her New Yorker life in more than one aspect. While she barely earns her earning as working as a greeter in some small off-Broadway theater, she frequently goes out for evening drinking along with her self-absorbed roommate Gretchen (Alice Lee), and we are not so surprised when her doctor later notifies her that she really needs to change her lifestyle considering how bad her current health condition is. In addition to being overweight apparently, her blood pressure is alarming to say the least, and her liver may suffer more medical problems if she is not careful.

At first, Brittany is not particularly willing to be active for her health, but she gradually comes to feel that she must try anything after being reminded again of her serious overweight status, so she eventually takes her first forward step. Because she cannot afford to pay for the membership of a local health club due to her current poor financial situation, she decides to try running, and, though it is certainly hard and difficult for her at first, she soon finds herself a lot more motivated than before.

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Furthermore, Brittany fortunately comes across two people willing to support her as running with her. Catherine (Michaela Watkins), a recently divorced female photographer who resides in the same building where Brittany lives, recommends Brittany to join her and her fellow runners, and that is how Brittany comes to befriend Seth (Micah Stock), a married gay dude who also recently joins the group for self-improvement. While both Seth and Brittany initially sweat and pant a lot as trying to catch up with other runners, they get improved day by day as pushing themselves harder and harder, and Brittany certainly feels a lot better about herself than before as routinely checking her decreasing weight.

After successfully finishing a 5-km run, Brittany gains more self-confidence, and that prompts her to reach for a big marathon rally which will be held in the city several months later. Fully focusing on her goal, she discerns that she needs a more stable life in addition to a healthier lifestyle, so she gets another job, though it is not what she initially applies for.

And then someone unexpectedly comes into her life. When Brittany meets Jern (Utkarsh Ambudkar) for the first time, she does not like him much for understandable reasons, but, as many of you already guessed, she slowly becomes attracted to him, and, not so surprisingly, he also likes her a lot. Although neither of them is willing to admit the mutual feelings growing between them, they get closer to each other as they come to spend more time with each other, and they are surely ready to move onto the next step once their mutual attraction is finally confirmed to both of them.

As entering its third act, the screenplay by director/writer Paul Downs Colaizzo, which is inspired by his friend’s real story as reflected by what is shown at the end of the film, takes an expected plot turn for pushing its heroine into a momentary setback, but then it surprises us with several heartfelt moments filled with empathy and compassion, and then it touches us a lot with the finale which may be predictable to the core but is uplifting nonetheless. For bringing some authenticity and verisimilitude to this part, Colaizzo and his crew members actually shot several key moments of this part during the marathon rally, and the overall result is seamless to say the least.

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Above all, the movie is a nice showcase of the undeniable talent of Jillian Bell, who imbues her character with vivid life and personality in addition to losing around 40 pounds (18 kg) for her role. While never making any excuse on her character’s human flaws and weaknesses, Bell presents her character as an engaging heroine who can be funny and charming despite her personal issues, and we come to care about her character a lot even as she makes some wrong choices later in the story.

Bell is also surrounded by several good supporting performers. While Michaela Watkins, who previously appeared along with Bell in “Sword of Trust” (2019), and Mikah Stock are well-cast, Utkarsh Ambudkar and Alice Lee are also effective in their respective roles, and the special mention goes to Lil Rel Howery, who stole the show in “Get Out” (2017) and demonstrates a more serious of his talent during a crucial scene where his supporting character happens to have a sincere and honest conversation with Brittany.

Overall, “Brittany Runs a Marathon” runs along a rather familiar route, but you can sense its good-natured heart beating with humor and sincerity. To be frank with you, it reminds me that I really need to do something about my current overweight status, and I have already promised to myself that I should run harder as being more stoic to myself than before. If an ordinary person like Brittany can do it well, I can also do it, right?

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Dora and the Lost City of Gold (2019) ☆☆☆(3/4): Silly but entertaining nonetheless

Posted on November 24, 2019 by kaist455

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“Dora and the Lost City of Gold” is an unabashedly lively entertainment product which provides a fair share of silly fun for its target audiences. While it is as broad and goofy as you can expect from a live action movie based a popular Nickelodeon TV animation series, the movie is quite more entertaining than you think, and you will probably appreciate the sweet and cheerful heart behind its seemingly silly façade.

The heroine of the movie is Dora Márquez (Isabela Moner), a young adolescent girl who has lived with her two explorer parents Elena (Eva Longoria) and Cole (Michael Peña) in some remote jungle area of South America for years since she was very young. After learning a lot thanks to her parents’ teaching, Dora grows up to be a smart and brave girl willing to join and assist her parents’ ongoing search for an ancient Incan city hidden somewhere in South America, but her parents decide that Dora should experience the outside world, and they subsequently send her to LA.

Although she is disappointed a lot to be separated from her parents, Dora keeps maintaining her chirpy spirit nonetheless, and she certainly distinguishes herself a lot right from when she arrives at the LA airport and then meets her cousin Diego (Jeff Wahlberg) and his parents. During her first day in a local high school she is going to attend along with Diego, she cannot help but excited and enthralled as everything understandably looks amazing and interesting to her, and Diego, who has changed a lot since their good old childhood time in the jungle, is understandably embarrassed to be around her.

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Meanwhile, Dora happens to encounter two kids who cannot possibly different from each other: Randy (Nicholas Coombe) and Sammy (Madeleine Madden). While Randy is a clumsy nerdy boy who often reminds me of my bumpy high school days, Sammy is your typical overachiever, and she is not so pleased to be in the same classroom with Dora, who innocently threatens Sammy’s status as the smartest student in the classroom.

Although she frequently gets ridiculed for her irrepressible personality, Dora keeps going on while simply being herself as usual, and then something unexpected occurs when she and Diego and other classmates go to a local museum for their field trip. Not long after she and Diego happen to join Randy and Sammy to form a team for a searching game, they are approached by three suspicious persons, and, what do you know, they all soon get kidnapped and then find themselves being taken to somewhere in South America.

Fortunately, Dora and other three kids are subsequently rescued by a guy named Alejandro Gutierrez (Eugenio Derbez), who tells them what is going on once they manage to evade their kidnappers. It seems Dora’s parents finally find what they have searched for many years, but they have been recently disappeared, and the persons who kidnapped Dora and her three schoolmates have been looking for any possible clue which may lead to Dora’s parents and that ancient Incan City, which, according to its legend, is full of gold and treasures and has certainly been coveted by many treasure hunters out there.

Once she discerns that she must do something for finding her parents, Dora goes deep into a jungle area where her parents has gone missing, and Diego and other two kids reluctantly join her along with Alejandro because, well, they have no choice as being lost in the middle of South America. As Dora and others go deeper into jungle, they naturally face small and big problems here and there in the jungle, and I must confess that I was particularly amused by a scene where Dora cheerfully provides a spot where one of her schoolmates can take care of a certain urgent biological urge.

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When our main characters eventually arrive at their expected destination, the movie serves us a series of fun moments of peril and adventure besides several humorous moments. For example, there is a silly but uproarious moment which utilizes fart sounds in a rather creative way, and there is also an unexpectedly hysterical scene where the movie suddenly dives into the realm of animation along with its several main characters. While many of action sequences in the film are clearly influenced by “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981) and many other similar flicks, they are presented well with enough sense of awe and excitement in addition to some tongue-in-cheek attitude, and that is why we are not so distracted much even during several scenes featuring talking CGI animal figures.

Moreover, the main cast members of the film do not hesitate at all whenever they are demanded to go all the way for silliness, and their characters are sort of endearing in one way or another. While Isabela Moner is suitably plucky and likable in her titular role, Jeff Wahlberg, Nicholas Coombe, and Madeleine Madden are also solid in their respective roles, and Eugenio Derbez, Eva Longoria, and Michael Peña, Danny Trejo, and Benicio del Toro, who, like Trejo, is incidentally one of the last actors I can imagine sounding ridiculous, have some fun with their broad supporting parts.

On the whole, “Dora and the Lost City of Gold” is a well-made product packed with personality and energy, and director James Bobin did a competent job on the whole. Sure, it is a bit too ludicrous from time to time, believe me, you will come to root for its spirited heroine as amused and excited a lot, and you may also come to wish for her next adventure.

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