Noah Review

SPOILERS:

If recent box office trends in 2014 have proven anything, it’s that there’s a sizable audience ready to spend their money on religion or Bible-themed movies, quality and star power be damned. Just a quick glance at theatrical releases such as Heaven Is for Real and Son of God, both of which spent multiple weeks in the top 10 at the US box office, and it’s clear that an untapped demand for more “spiritual” content has finally been noticed. Within that context, the arrival of 125 million dollar Noah doesn’t initially seem as that much of a surprise, and yet, it comes as a subversive game-changer. 

In other words, those expecting a heart-warming tale of a long-bearded Noah and cute and cuddly animals entering the ark two by two should look elsewhere. Keeping in mind that this film comes from Darren Aronofsky, director of Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan, what you’ll find with this latest big screen retelling of the ancient Biblical tale of Noah’s Ark is a provocative and occasionally unsettling story that isn’t your typical Sunday school rendition. We quickly learn all the familiar background elements of the story, from Adam and Eve’s temptation with the Apple to the murder of Abel by Cain. The basic components are still all the same as well: Noah (Crowe) is a good man who is given the task by God (or as he’s called in the film, the “Creator”) of protecting Earth’s innocent animals from an imminent great flood designed to wash away the evil men of the world. 

So far so good, but it isn’t long before this new version departs from its source material, and this is due to one important reason: the remarkable brevity of the aforementioned source material. The story of the Flood in the Bible covers only about four chapters and is very light on details; a challenge for any screenwriter, especially one trying to find enough content to fill a feature length film. In fact, aside from the stark and unique style of the opening sequence, the first thing you’ll notice about Noah is how daring it is when it departs from the conventional narrative. And this is for the simple reason that Aronofsky isn’t really interested in just telling the basic rudimentary story of Noah’s Ark. The film labors to explain certain “unbelievable” aspects of the story, adding details such as the assistance of several fallen angels called “Watchers” in building the ark or the usage of a special herb concoction to drug and control the thousands of animals, but it doesn’t explicitly dwell on them. Aronofsky isn’t that interested in the nuts and bolts of the story, mainly because he understands what’s important in the tale of Noah and the Ark. 

What this film is more interested in capturing is the struggle of a man placed in an unenviably difficult position of having the fate of the human race in his hands and the various moral dilemmas and repercussions that arise from such a situation; it is a challenging and compelling  approach that does not pander to its audience or soften the harsh edges of the story. The film also surprisingly includes an action-filled pivotal and impactful scene that definitely was not in the original tale and clearly smacks of a desire to inject some excitement into proceedings. While arguably unnecessary, its inclusion is understandable, mainly because the film does tend to meander a bit with much of the posturing and ruminating between the various characters proving to be slightly redundant. 

The film spends considerable time on a number of subplots covering the evolving hatred of Noah’s eldest sons towards their father, but none of it feels as satisfactory or as well done as the central elements of the film. Noah is most effective when it centers on Russell Crowe’s titular character; it weakens whenever it strays anywhere else. With only the guidance of ambiguous dreams and the oblique wisdom of his grandfather Methuselah (Hopkins) to help him, Noah is a man who knows firsthand the evil that humanity is capable of and sees it everywhere, even in himself and his family. Resolute in his belief that the Creator has deemed that humanity’s sin and evil is too great to allow its continued existence on Earth, Noah’s convictions lead him to some truly dark and unsettling territory. From his determination to let countless fellow human beings die to depriving his sons from the opportunity to have children or a future, Russell Crowe’s Noah is a tortured man whose torment is made all the more acute by the battle within him between the love for his children and his sense of duty and responsibility to the Creator.

And interwoven within the film is a contemporary message of warning as Aronofsky utilizes the allegorical power of the tale to get us thinking about the legacy of the human race and our effects on our planet and on each other. The great success of this film is in finding the timeless and prescient characteristics of its source material that are the chief reasons behind why it’s been around for such a long time. The story of Noah is about the evil of man and man’s struggle with his own evil nature, and that’s exactly what is most fascinating about this movie. Imagine a man in Noah’s position, a person who has seen the ugliness in himself and others and struggles to find the goodness in the human race, especially when sin is what appears to define our lives and our existence as human beings. 

This sin is personified in the film by Tubal-cain (Ray Winstone in a great performance), the King of a tribe of evil and capricious men. Tubal-cain captures all the self-destructive flaws of man in a nutshell: here is a man who only understands and sees the world in one way: the way he believes the Creator has made it. It's a struggle for survival, it is a world where one must take what he wants and use any means necessary; it must be this way and Tubal-cain’s way must be right. Why must man be punished when he has been given dominion over this world and when he is made in the Creator’s own image? By showing us the seduction of Noah’s middle son Shem at the hands of Tubal-cain and the darkness within Noah himself, the film explores how easy it is to let our harmful tendencies prevail, whether it’s self-preservation over altruism, greed over generosity, or simply strength over weakness. Embedded within us are the seeds of our own destruction, and armed with that knowledge, do we forsake ourselves, or do we find something to make our continued existence worthwhile? In a pivotal moment in the film, with the fate of the world hanging in the balance, Noah gets his answer and with it, he finds man’s redemption and an unassailable hope for a better future.

Verdict: Featuring a Russell Crowe performance that is worth the price of admission on its own, Darren Aronofsky’s Noah takes one of the oldest stories ever told and successfully gives it a contemporary tone and message. That being said, Aronofsky’s most ambitious (and expensive) project to date is an uneven film that could have lost at least half an hour on the cutting room floor.

B

Trailer:

Movie info:

Runtime:138 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Cast: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Emma Watson

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Screenplay: Darren Aronofsky, Ari Handel

Cinematography: Matthew Libatique

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Review

When plans were announced for a reboot of the enormously successful Sam Raimi Spider-Man films only 5 years after the critically-panned trilogy closer, there were concerns that it was coming simply way too soon. Aside from the almost inevitable effects of franchise fatigue, there was also the fear that the latest Spider-Man films, now starring young and upcoming British actor Andrew Garfield in the title role and helmed by the untested Marc Webb, would just be retreads of the older films with nothing new to bring to the table besides some spiffed up special effects.

With those concerns in mind, marketing for the first Amazing Spider-Man promised fresh storylines and unexplored territory and promptly failed to deliver, and yet, it was still a resounding hit. Although it didn’t reach the dizzying heights of the Raimi movies, The Amazing Spider-Man proved that audiences were still willing to pay to see an inferior product; only minor rejigging was necessary. The lessons consequently learned were the following: bring in hip and current young A-list stars, scrounge the source material for a new villain or two, have a big explosive action set-piece to build the movie around, rehash the rest, and money will undoubtedly follow. 

And The Amazing Spider-Man 2 almost perfectly follows that blueprint to a T, if it wasn’t for the fact that villain Harry Osborn aka The Green Goblin now joins the fray as yet another recycled character. The movie kicks off a couple of years after the end of the first installment with Peter Parker (Garfield) still maintaining a fragile relationship with girlfriend Gwen Stacy (Stone), a relationship complicated by his guilt about his role in Gwen’s father’s death. With Peter still searching for answers about his parents’ disappearance, more complications unsurprisingly and arbitrarily set in when Peter’s childhood friend Harry Osborn returns to his life with an agenda of his own.  And lest we forget, in case Peter’s life wasn’t difficult enough, timid, socially awkward, and Spider-Man obsessed Oscorp employee Max Dillon suffers an accident that instantaneously turns him into a super-villain à la Sandman from Spider-Man 3. With the villains wreaking havoc left and right, this all builds to a showdown that is as uninspired and disappointing as the set up.

Why so uninspired and disappointing? For a few simple reasons, all of which become this film’s fatal flaws. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has nothing new to say, nowhere new to go, and feels like a hollow and shallow attempt at piecing together a film. Sure, the characters are there and sure, things do happen to them in proper chronological order, but something feels so joylessly labored in its construction. If placed under close examination, it is actually shocking how flimsily put together the plot of this movie is and how loosely everything is tied into place. Simply put, not much rings true about the characters or their relationships with each other. Both Harry Osborn and Electro (formerly Max Dillon) end up despising Spider-Man with a blinding hatred for various reasons, but their motivation for doing so is poorly developed to say the least. Things happen to Electro and Harry Osborn but their reactions to these events and their decisions to seek revenge on Spider-Man feel forced and mechanical. The film spends very little time in building those conflicts: those characters have to be villains because that is what they are designed to be and we have to just accept it. 

The reason for the weak characterization of the villains is pretty straightforward: they’re not that important in this movie. The core of The Amazing Spider-Man films is the relationship between Peter and Gwen: Peter fears losing her and is tormented by his broken promise to Gwen’s father to stay away and keep her safe. For her part, Gwen insists that she makes her own choices and is willing to risk her life to be with him. This brings up one annoyingly unspoken solution to their dilemma: Peter’s choice of being Spider-Man and all the dangers that come with that life is presented as an unchangeable given (perhaps because there’s still one more movie to make), but his reasons for maintaining the Spider-Man guise are never really covered or discussed. During various ingratiating emotional scenes between the couple, you begin to wonder why Peter doesn’t give up this life and just do the cliche of living happily ever after with Gwen. Much as is the case with the villains, it becomes a problem of motivation.

Peter has an obsessive desire to discover what happened to his parents but this doesn’t explain why he must be Spider-Man; it’s just taken for granted. This is not to say that there’s no reason for him to hang around, what with all the villains with amazing supernatural abilities and arbitrarily evil natures that conveniently arrive just to muddy the works with plans to destroy the world or turn everyone into lizards. Sticking around is thus very understandable, but the film spends so much time dwelling on Gwen and the fact that being Spider-Man requires losing her that Peter's choice to keep that life doesn’t ring true or feel honest to the character. It all just amounts to a time-filling plot line designed to set the stage for the third time waster of an unimaginative franchise. 

And finally, just a brief mention of an issue that also plagued the first Amazing Spider-Man: while purists might argue that Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man is a more accurate representation of the comic book character, his witty comebacks and jovial jokiness come off as wildly inappropriate in many scenes. Much like the first movie, the silliness and outlandishness of certain scenes or moments come into conflict with the relative seriousness of the film’s overall tone. We watch as Electro destroys countless buildings and undoubtedly kills numerous people, and then are supposed to laugh as Spider-Man dons fireman hats while crowds cheer and applaud nearby instead of fleeing for their lives. It’s a strange thing to watch and sums up one of the movie’s various problems. Caught between trying to be a more serious and adult film in the vein of The Dark Knight and yet still pandering to the comic book’s traditionally more overtly juvenile tendencies and characteristics, the film makes for an odd experience, an experience that this reviewer would not recommend.

Verdict: Failing to build much on the first installment, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has plenty of impressive visuals and action but fails everywhere else. Weak characters, plot contrivances, and bland one-note villains tarnish this surprisingly unengaging film and ultimately condemn it to become the latest in a long line of forgettable big summer sequels. 

C

Trailer:

Movie info:

Runtime: 122 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Cast: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHaan

Director: Marc Webb

Screenplay: Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Jeff Pinkner

Cinematography: Daniel Mindel

Oculus Review

As far as sure thing money-makers in Hollywood go, you can’t really go wrong with high-concept low-budget horror. From Sam Raimi’s amateurish yet hugely successful 1981 film Evil Dead to 1999’s The Blair Witch Project, Hollywood has long turned to the niche genre over the years in the search of a safe and easy guaranteed profit. This trend has seen a resurgence in the last couple of years with the Paranormal Activity series, and in our era of 200 million dollar blockbuster 3D visual overloads, the stroke of genius of films such as Paranormal Activity is that they thrive on what they don’t show you. And Oculus is a perfect example of the Paranormal Activity formula slightly, ever so slightly, rejigged. Oculus features a next to nothing budget, a no name cast of primarily TV actors, minimal effects and simple stripped down sets. The difference is that this time, while the Paranormal Activity movies are more often than not exercises in tedium that barely reach the minimum requirements for tangible content in a feature length film, Oculus actually has some substance to back it up.

The premise and set-up is short and sweet: Oculus is a haunted mirror movie, pure and simple. And at the heart of the story, we find a family whose lives were irrevocably destroyed by that very haunted mirror and the brother and sister who happened to survive that ordeal. The film begins with us following the lives of those children, now all grown up eleven years later. Younger brother Tim (Thwaites) has just been discharged from a psychiatric hospital after being deemed fit for living in normal society, while his sister Kaylie (Gillan) has just arrived at the end of of a lifelong search for the antique mirror that she is certain is the cause behind the deaths and misfortunes of countless people over the centuries. When the siblings reunite after a long estrangement, Kaylie reveals to a reluctant and fragile Tim her plans to destroy the mirror and salvage their family’s tattered reputation. Kaylie then reveals an elaborate set up to do just that, one that involves multiple cameras, various sensors and detectors, a pet dog, and a ceiling-mounted anchor aimed right at the mirror, ready to destroy it if she should fail to reset its timer. 

SPOILERS: 

At this point, we don’t know what exactly happened all those years ago, why Tim was in a mental facility or the reasons behind that elaborate set up, but Oculus does a solid job of slowly and steadily revealing details and information. While some of the exposition is stilted and unnatural, the film’s strength is its reliance on the dialogue and interplay between the protagonists. The relationship between the two siblings is the core of the film and is fleshed out enough to elevate the film beyond other inferior horror products that shun any meaningful form of character development. 

Once things get going, the film bounces around a lot between the present day and eleven years ago when Kaylie and Tim’s parents first acquired the mirror, and many of the scenes deftly and seamlessly weave back and forth between those two time periods. While this may seem like a risky and potentially unnecessarily confusing approach, the filmmakers use this technique very effectively to help elucidate events and create a general atmosphere of dread and foreboding terror. Not exactly a horror movie in the same way that recent high-concept films such as Sinister or Mama were, much of Oculus unfolds as an inner psychological battle as Kaylie and Tim struggle to maintain their hold on what’s real and what's just the mirror's trickery.

Speaking of Sinister, a low budget horror flick that involved an evil entity that can reside in film footage, Oculus shares the same major flaw as the Ethan Hawke-starring film. While it’s not necessarily a bad thing to not learn too much or figure out everything in a horror movie, Oculus and Sinister both fail for not clearly establishing the rules of the playing field or giving their characters much of a fighting chance. Besides it clearly having a strong survival instinct, the mirror in Oculus constantly pulls more and more out of its bottomless bag of tricks and uses them all in its battle of wits with Kaylie and Tim. From the mirror having an ability to possess people or to just manipulate what they see or hear, the filmmakers have lots of fun with this in a number of scenes that take full advantage of the fact that very little of what happens throughout can be trusted by the characters or the audience. 

The problem is when this gets to the point where the audience realizes that all the rules are out of the window and pretty much anything could or could not happen, logic be damned. Paralleling the demise of Sinister’s protagonist, the protagonists in Oculus are completely helpless in the end and pretty much do everything that the mirror wants them to do. Although the main focus of Oculus is on setting up the struggle of the characters to cling to their bonds of family to resist the mirror’s power, much of the tension and suspense vanishes when you realize midway through proceedings that the mirror has such a substantial upper hand. And while the finale of Oculus does set things up for a potential sequel, those expecting any kind of resolution should look elsewhere: the horror genre thrives on dragging out franchises beyond the point of no return and milking them for all they’re worth. Oculus will doubtlessly prove to be no exception. 

Verdict: Not as barebones content-wise as the Paranormal Activity films, Oculus does everything you want a horror movie to do: a bit of gore, a couple of scares, a twist here and there, and lots of well done good old-fashioned ominous atmosphere. More psychological thriller than pure horror, Oculus is an effective little film that will entertain those that take it at face value for what it is: a movie about a haunted mirror. 

B-

Trailer:

Movie info:

Runtime:104 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Cast: Karen Gillan, Brenton Thwaites, Katee Sackhoff, Rory Cochrane

Director: Mike Flanagan

Screenplay: Mike Flanagan, Jeff Howard

Cinematography: Michael Fimognari

Captain America: The Winter Soldier Review

Ask anyone who their favorite Marvel character from the Avengers universe is and 9 times out 10, you’re going to hear them answering Tony Stark aka Iron Man. Witty, charming, and eminently quotable, Stark is the main focus of 2012’s mega hit The Avengers, gets the big heroic moment and has the most significant chunk of the screentime. But after the dud that was Iron Man 3 and the release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, all that biased favoritism could be about to change: neglected amidst all this Stark love and with an arc that has been subtly and carefully charted throughout the Marvel films, Steve Rogers aka Captain America might just become the new crowd favorite.  

While Iron Man proved to be an immediate slam dunk, risks abounded aplenty with Marvel’s equally ambitious plans for releasing standalone films featuring Thor, Captain America, and the Hulk. And aside from the unenviably difficult task of creating a mainstream blockbuster revolving around the ever so slightly enigmatic and difficult to relate to character of Thor, there was no riskier venture than the task of doing the same for stars and stripes wearing super soldier Captain America, a dated superhero to say the least. Now considered by many to be the weakest of the Marvel films, the approach with 2011’s Captain America was light and campy in a script full of juvenile hokiness and cheesiness. Intentionally designed for younger audiences, there’s no denying that the filmmakers succeeded in making the film they wanted to make but what remains debatable is whether or not their strange and occasionally perplexing approach made for a good movie. Which takes us to what might just be the best film of the whole bunch: Captain America: The Winter Soldier. 

Taking place after the events of The Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier opens with Steve Rogers (Evans) working for SHIELD and still coping with the shock of waking up 70 years into the future into a murky world full of intrigue and deception that he struggles to find a place for himself in. Sidelined during The Avengers in favor of other characters and plot lines, the key plot point of Rogers's strong dislike for SHIELD’s methods and tactics returns here. Continuing to team up with Natasha Romanoff (Johansson) under Nick Fury (Jackson), Rogers remains uncomfortable with his role with SHIELD and holds a shaky trust in both of them. This trust is put to the ultimate test when Fury begrudgingly reveals to Rogers SHIELD’s new plan for the future: the launching of three new and improved permanently orbiting Helicarriers armed with state of the art satellite guided missiles and guns capable of targeting and eliminating millions of targets in a matter of minutes. The purpose: the ability to pre-emptively dispose of all of SHIELD’s enemies in one fell swoop if necessary. Rogers predictably baulks at these plans and finds himself in a dilemma when Fury, who has long suspected foul play within SHIELD, turns to Rogers for help after an assassination attempt on his life happens days before the planned launch. Scrambling for answers and people to trust, friends quickly turn into enemies as Rogers finds himself at odds with a number of familiar foes coming back to haunt him from his past. 

The most surprising thing about this Captain America movie is how much it attempts to do and how much of it works so well. The action and effects are sublime and top-notch, the dialogue is sharp and witty and the script finds a great balance between humor and a more serious gravitas. There are a number of great and supremely entertaining set pieces here, all of which are well-executed, and the film also comes with a suitably threatening and daunting adversary. The Winter Soldier makes for a great and mysterious villain, a villain who may have more of a connection with Captain America than one would initially suspect. 

Clearly, after failing to find a proper tone in the previous attempt, the filmmakers have finally found the perfect avenue for Captain America to shine. With this latest Captain America film, what were the unavoidable flaws and weaknesses of the 1940s comic book hero suddenly become his strengths. Charming in his own way as a refreshingly simple and straight up character, Rogers isn’t the morally ambivalent anti-hero that you find everywhere nowadays: he has his principles and sticks to them, no questions asked and no hesitation; his compass always points north. Rogers thus becomes our looking glass into our world, a world where things aren’t always what they seem and where everything comes in varying shades of grey. And while Rogers’s struggle with reconciling his principles with the compromises necessary in war is covered in the first movie, this struggle comes to full fruition in the sequel. Evans does a great job of channeling all of this while still also finding the integrity and earnestness that is at his character's core and Scarlett Johansson is also utilized equally well here. Introduced as perfunctory eye candy in the Iron Man 2 with no real important part to play in proceedings, she finally gets her chance to shine two Marvel appearances in. Unlike Rogers, Romanoff is a character who thrives in the dark shadows of this world, where you’re not sure who your friends and who your enemies truly are, a closed world where you can hide from your past and change your identity, where things are never fully out in the open.

And this brings us to the core theme of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Armed with what might be the best script of the Marvel movies (including The Avengers), one would probably not expect to find topical real life parallels and themes here but this film is chock full of them. From NSA scandals to cyber warfare and underground terrorism, we live in a world where the stuff of cloaks and daggers reigns supreme and where the real enemies don’t wear uniforms out there for everyone to see anymore. And through the character of Captain America, a character who proudly dons his colors and his principles on his sleeve, we get a poignant look at the problems we face in real life. With technology rapidly advancing the world ending potential destructive capabilities of those in power, interesting and pivotal questions arise. If someone had the technology available to SHIELD in this film, should they have the authority to use it? Should anyone? Who decides who has that authority? In a world full of secrets, how do we hold anyone accountable? All interesting and difficult questions to answer indeed but this film supplies those answers, utilizing Captain America as its moral center. The past shouldn’t be something to hide from or distort but should be out there in the open so that nothing can fester in the present. Multiple characters, both good and bad, have dark and ugly pasts, but the film seeks to uncover and reveal those ugly pasts to allow these characters to find their redemption. Ultimately, embedded within all those action scenes and explosions, this film asks for openness in a world that is paradoxically closing up the more globalization and technology gives us the capacity to come closer together.  

Verdict: Satisfying on multiple levels, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is the full package: topical and unexpectedly nuanced themes are deftly interwoven with tons of action-packed thrills and excitement. Long story short, Marvel simply gets Captain America right the second time around.

B+

Trailer:

Movie info:

Runtime:136 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Cast: Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Robert Redford, Samuel L. Jackson

Director: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo

Screenplay: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely

Cinematography: Trent Opaloch

Nymphomaniac (Volumes I & II) Review

MAJOR SPOILERS:

Nymphomania. A woman’s sex addiction was always going to be a movie subject bound to attract some curiosity, especially if you found out that the director involved helmed the notorious ‘Antichrist’, a  film that revealed Willem Dafoe’s O-face to unsuspecting audiences worldwide. And just purely on the curiosity front, Von Trier definitely doesn’t disappoint with Nymphomaniac. As a substantive and consistent work on the other hand, Von Trier misses the mark slightly. A 5 hour magnum opus that debuted in its full and uncut form in Von Trier’s native Denmark, the film was edited into two approximately 2 hour-long volumes without the director’s involvement, and one can speculate that this was done for financial reasons of commercial viability (this might be a long shot, but a 5 hour-long marathon of gratuitous nudity, violence, and graphic sex may be too much of an ask for most audiences). For all intents and purposes though, dividing this film serves absolutely no artistic or creative function; Nymphomaniac is one single film and will be reviewed as such. 

With a set up reminiscent of something you would see in a theatrical production, the majority of the film is narrated in retrospect by our protagonist, Joe (Gainsbourg). She recounts her tale through a sophisticated film-long conversation with Seligman (Skarsgard), a gentle and good-natured man who discovers the beaten and bloodied Joe in a derelict alley and takes her to his home to recover. And it is in Seligman’s dreary bedroom that we find out how exactly she got to that point in her life: what unfolds is a fantastical and lurid story that has to be seen to be believed, and one that even Seligman himself begins to question at times. While much of the dialogue, especially between Joe and Seligman, feels stilted and artificial, this comes with the territory in a Von Trier film. His films aren’t interested in reality per se, more an artistic interpretation/embellishment of reality that seeks to reveal truth that exists in the world. 

Although they are both lone wolfs, our two main characters are, for the purposes of this film, complete polar opposites. A completely de-sexualized metaphorical eunuch, the bookish and timid Seligman listens to her story with an avid fascination, but as Joe notes early on, he doesn’t particularly find the sexual parts titillating; his interests are more cerebral and scholarly in nature. But even while Seligman is as non-threatening as they come, there is something worrisome and off-putting about him; he is a man who has clearly spent too much time time imprisoned in isolation with only his books to keep him company. Joe is another person in solitary confinement; the makings of her prison, however, are of a completely different nature. The Joe we meet is a bruised and broken wreck of a woman, both emotionally and physically. Driven by an immense self-loathing, Joe’s journey is one to find salvation for herself as she explores with Seligman the various avenues her sexual addiction has taken her. Nymphomaniac isn’t just about naughty sex scenes and BDSM à la 50 Shades of Grey; it’s about a woman’s struggle to reconcile her unquenchable and overwhelming sexuality with her identity as a human being and her desire to have some semblance of a happy, normal and validated life. Powerful stuff indeed.

Shot in Von Trier’s typical minimalist style that puts the focus on the characters above all else, Nymphomaniac’s frankness on a taboo subject is refreshing. While numerous scenes are explicit and risqué, they never feel exploitative or cheap; here is a director who has complete mastery of his vision for this project and a confidence and daring to see it through that is clearly visible on screen. Utilizing his muse Charlotte Gainsbourg to great effect once more, what’s surprising is that a sizable bulk of Joe’s part is actually played by actress Stacy Martin, a complete unknown who portrays Joe during her younger years. The interesting thing to notice here is that the actresses embody very different portrayals of the same woman, to the extent that it doesn’t feel like the same person. While the young Joe imbues more ethereal qualities and a vivacious sexuality, the older version radiates a world-wearied inner strength and a refined frustrated anger of sorts. But while the performances of Seligman and Joe are spot on, it is in the casting decisions of Nymphomaniac that we find the most glaring flaws. As Joe’s on-again off-again love interest Jerôme, Shia LaBeouf is an unmitigated disaster. Watching the American actor, who actually has a substantial role in this film, struggle with an inconsistent and woeful British accent is jarring and immediately takes you out of the experience. And although not quite as disastrous, the performance of former Hollywood A-lister Christian Slater as Joe’s father comes with an equally off-putting British accent. A note should be also made about the misguided choice to cast a different actor to portray Jerôme as an older man, a choice that will undoubtedly confuse audiences and take them out of the experience once more. 

While those are the most blatant mistakes, this only scratches the surface of what could have been done better in Nymphomaniac. The novelistic framing structure is interesting in that it's both a drawback and a plus in this movie. While it’s initially entertaining to watch Joe find sources of inspiration in Seligman's bedroom for the chapter headings of her story, it starts to feel perfunctory and unnecessary further on into the film, especially when it tends to be a cue for Seligman to get into some bizarre metaphysical ponderings and analogies. And as is often the case with films that traverse into 3 or 4 hour territory, some parts will be stronger than others and the flabby Nymphomaniac is no exception. While there is endless creativity to be found here, some chapters are more intriguing and effective, it’s as simple as that. Joe’s scenes with her dying father are ineffective and feel false, half-hearted even. While morbidly fascinating, the “Dangerous Men” chapter is overlong, perhaps needlessly graphic, and difficult to reconcile with the rest of the overall work. On the other hand, the segment involving Uma Thurman is inspired and equal parts hilarious and incredibly awkward (think an R-rated Ricky Gervais episode of The Office). 

And perhaps this could be attributed to an unreliable narrator, but Joe’s relationships with the main characters in her life feel frustratingly hollow and incomplete. Although Jerôme comes closest to being the love of her life, he is a beguiling and truly mystifying character who comes and goes through the story and we never truly understand him or his motivations; we only seem to see him through the foggy prism of Joe’s flawed retrospection. The same could be said about Joe’s relationship with her parents and especially with P., a seemingly pivotal character whose part feels rushed and not as well thought out as the rest of the film. It is at the point that we get introduced to P. that everything starts to get wobbly and slightly farcical. Joe adopts a rather far-fetched profession and begins a poorly developed relationship with P., and what these actions lead her to make for a rather underwhelming and unsatisfactory conclusion after all that we’d been through with this character. 

Is there identity outside of sexuality? Can one truly be a human being without any form of sexuality, suppressed or otherwise? The film seems to want to tell us that the answer to both questions is a resounding ‘No’. Seligman claims to be completely asexual, but as was the case with the suppressed paedophile Joe exposes towards the end of the film, her recounting of a sexually charged tale slowly and steadily opens the doors on a long stifled innate and irresistible sexual desire that Seligman inevitably must succumb to, for he is only human. Initially wary of him, as she must tend to be of all men, Joe eventually warms up to Seligman and begins to trust him, a fact that makes his betrayal in the end even more gut-wrenching, as predictable as basic human nature though it may be. This is where we get a oddly poetic complete role reversal from where the two principal characters started off: Joe resolves to become asexual, right when Seligman’s nascent sexuality finally begins to bloom. And in the end, with the powerful and viscerally representative image of Joe standing on a ledge across from a horribly twisted and contorted tree that continues to grow on the top of a rocky cliff against all the odds, the tragedy of Joe’s struggle becomes all the more obvious. Armed (literally) with a new determination to suppress her sexuality and salvage her life, the film closes on an ambiguous note. Will Joe succeed in her task?  Yet again, all signs in the film point to the answer of that pivotal question being a 'No'. 

Verdict: Equal parts frustrating and fascinating, Nymphomaniac is an unflinching and unglamorous chronicle of a woman’s sex addiction that comes packaged in the typical no holds barred Lars Von Trier approach. Themes of identity and its inextricable tie to sexuality are deftly touched upon, but the film’s impact is dented by a weak and misguided final third. 

B-

Trailer:

Movie info:

Volume I Runtime: 118 minutes

Volume II Runtime: 123 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Cast: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgard, Stacy Martin, Shia LaBeouf

Director: Lars von Trier

Screenplay: Lars von Trier

Cinematography: Manuel Alberto Claro

The Grand Budapest Hotel Review

A polarizing director to say the least, Wes Anderson belongs to a small group of American filmmakers who have garnered critical acclaim throughout their careers without ever tasting mainstream success. Paul Thomas Anderson is another such filmmaker, and the Coen Brothers once belonged to that class too until their surprise smash hit True Grit in 2010. And funnily enough, although they couldn’t be further apart in style, pretentious is the word that comes up most often in criticism of their films. This is especially true in the case of Wes Anderson, a director whose work always gets burdened with the same question: are his films more substantive than the sum of their stylish and visually appealing parts? And it’s Anderson’s latest, and most ambitious film yet, that might finally settle that debate and stand as testament to how wrong his naysayers were. 

Although it features the typical cadre of go-to Anderson thespians (Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson all make brief appearances, just to name a few), The Grand Budapest Hotel is focused on the performances of two first-timers: one an experienced and Oscar-nominated veteran (Fiennes), the other a young actor getting his first big break (Revolori). After a laborious and unnecessarily complicated introduction, we quickly figure out that this story takes place in an alternate historical timeline. Set in the fictional Eastern European country of Zubrowka, the bulk of the story takes place during the 1930s heyday of the decadent Grand Budapest Hotel, a ski resort and hot spot for the elites and social bigwigs of the time. And thirty odd years later, the tale is told to us by the old and lonely Zero Moustafa, owner of the now desolate hotel who reflects on his earlier years as a lobby boy under the stewardship of concierge extraordinaire, M. Gustave.

A slightly vain and pompous individual with a tendency to get involved in torrid affairs with the aging wealthy ladies who frequent the hotel, Gustave runs every facet of operations of the Grand Budapest with a militant efficiency and takes the young and inexperienced Zero under his wing. But after the suspicious death of one his lovers, Gustave draws the ire of her greedy and covetous children, led by the positively diabolical Dmitri (Brody) and his comically evil henchman Jopling (Willem Dafoe in what might just be the funniest performance of his career). Unjustly accused of murder and with the threat of a major war looming in the region, what unfolds is a touching story of friendship between Zero and Gustave as they take on the unfairness of a cruel and uncaring world and ultimately find the strength to keep going in each other. Beyond the exquisite production design and the distracting various perfunctory cameo appearances, it is the inspiring and unlikely bond between those two characters that is at the core of this story. After Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel also offers another touchingly simple story of young love between Zero and Agatha (Ronan), one that somehow survives untainted in a dark and cynical world (this film’s alternate timeline is filled with parallels of the rise of fascism and Nazism). And that is what this film is about: the survival of the goodness in people, even in a world where malevolent forces reign supreme and good things never last. Each Wes Anderson film has lots of heart and soul, and The Grand Budapest Hotel is no exception.

Featuring tense prison breaks, some surprisingly graphic violence, and a hilariously over-simplified send up of the typical movie chase scene, this is an uncharacteristically action-packed Anderson film. In spite of this, nowhere at all does it lose its bearing or the director’s signature zany levity; in no other film could something like a cat’s brutal death be a point of laugher (albeit shocked laughter). But what stands out here most of all is Anderson’s mastery of world and character building. You immediately know when you’re in a Wes Anderson movie; there’s no mistaking his unique and oft-imitated vision. And The Grand Budapest Hotel is no different. Here is a visual feast to behold for movie lovers everywhere. Characters, even the ones we spend so very little time with, feel like real and complete individuals with rich backstories, quirks, and eccentricities. It’s the subtleties and the often humorous little details that fill Anderson’s films that make them so endearing. Whether it’s Gustave’s love of a specific brand of perfume, his sporadic use of unexpected profanity, or his propensity to quote a poetic verse appropriate for the occasion (a habit that quickly gets picked up by various other characters close to him), Gustave is a colorful individual we haven’t seen before in an Anderson movie. Ralph Fiennes isn’t known for his comedic chops but his performance here gets lots of laughs and he lends a likeability to a flawed yet kind and deeply human character, a prim and proper man who belongs to a different era, an era that the characters look back on with a deeply sad and nostalgic fondness. That's The Grand Budapest Hotel in a nutshell: a nostalgic time capsule of an old-fashioned and quaint idyllic world, a world that you get the sense the director especially fondly looks back on. 

Verdict: The Grand Budapest Hotel is an entertaining, endlessly creative, and surprisingly poignant film that is Wes Anderson’s most ambitious undertaking yet. Anderson fans will rejoice but its occasionally over-indulgent style and quirky storyline may irritate and bore general audiences.

B

Trailer:

Movie info:

Runtime:100 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Tony Revolori, Saoirse Ronan, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe

Director: Wes Anderson

Screenplay: Wes Anderson

Cinematography: Robert D. Yeoman

Enemy Review

SPOILERS:

One of two Denis Villeneuve films to premiere at TIFF last year, psychological thriller Enemy didn’t get as much attention as the more mainstream Prisoners and took a lot longer to actually get a theatrical release. Surprising considering the fact that it’s headlined by an Oscar-nominated A-list star, but once you actually see the movie, you’ll understand why. For those acquainted with the Dostoyevsky novella “The Double” or perhaps even the 2013 Jesse Eisenberg adaptation of the same name, the terrifying concept of finding an exact copy of yourself out there somewhere in the world is an old one. But although that concept is the core premise of Enemy as well, what’s new here is the ambitious execution and presentation. Enemy is a serious and bleak affair that pulls no punches and gives nothing easy for the audience to work with. For those who love to debate and scrutinze films ad nauseum, look no further. 

Enemy begins with a quote that is as beguiling as the film itself: “Chaos is order yet undeciphered.” And while you’re still comprehending what that means exactly, you are immediately flung into an exclusive underground night club of sorts, where shady men enjoy a performance involving spiders and exotic women. Not exactly a straightforward opening, but the premise is pretty simple once things start getting going. Caught in an almost irresistible loop, Adam Bell (Gyllenhaal) is a history professor who leads a very repetitive and unremarkable life and is involved in a frosty relationship with an emotionally distant girlfriend. Tormented by surreal and hellish dreams, you immediately get a sense that there’s something not quite right about Adam’s state of mind. He dreams of himself starring as an extra in some movie he watched earlier that night, but something feels too vividly real about it. And to his shock and horror, when he watches the film again, he sees the impossible and realizes that his dream has become a waking nightmare. Thus begins an intriguing conundrum as Adam plays the part of detective and attempts to put together the pieces of this almost hypnotically entrancing mystery. 

It should be apparent at this point that you’re not going to see anything like Enemy in theaters any time soon. To say the least, Enemy is a challenging visual experience, mainly because it sticks to very few cinematic conventions; chronology and the characters’ experiences themselves are all suspect. Filled with visual cues and potential hints, this isn’t a movie that can be watched casually. It grips you from the very first scene and demands your close attention for the rest of the brief 90 minute runtime; Villeneuve divulges information, through visuals and dialogue, in a careful and deliberate manner. There’s plenty of subtle (and unsubtle) symbolism and everything you see and hear is there for a specific and explicit reason, even if that reason isn’t clear at first. It almost works like a puzzle that you have to solve along with the protagonist; the film invites you to look for all the pieces and try and put them together. What it all means or adds up to is open to interpretation, however. While this is usually part of the fun of this kind of film experience, Enemy might also leave audience members frustrated or annoyed. Anyone who likes nice and clear cut beginnings, middles, and ends with obvious conflicts, climaxes, and resolutions will not have a fun time. 

Even if this film’s more ambitious aspects could leave people divided, what should be universal is the praise for the great job both Villeneuve and Jake Gyllenhaal have done here. The filmmaking is simply superlative: the mood and tone of the film is dark and brooding and the visuals are adventurous and unconventional. The hauntingly unsettling score immediately places you within the eerie confines of Adam’s world and the setting of Toronto is a character in of itself. Some of the most memorable imagery can be found in Adam’s dreams, dreams that might just be glimpses into the character’s torn psyche. As for Gyllenhaal, he effortlessly creates distinctive personalities and mannerisms for the two men he plays, two men who may just be two sides of the same coin. Adam is an introverted and perennially hunched over man who seems to be constantly unsure of himself, while his double exhibits more adventurous, confident and aggressive qualities.

While it could be classified as horror and there are are some genuinely terrifying and unnerving moments, Enemy is chiefly a psychological examination of the inner workings of one’s mind. Villeneuve tends to have a fascination with fractured or distorted family dynamics, and while elements of that surface here, Enemy deals more with themes of identity and free will. What does it mean to be a person? Is it your memories, is it your innermost unavoidable impulses, or are you simply the sum of your atoms? The film that Adam finds his doppelganger starring in is entitled “Where There’s a Will There’s a Way”, and that’s no accident. Enemy asks if there truly is such a thing as free will, or if we just unwittingly carry out the will of our subconscious desires? If we got a do-over, would we be doomed to make the same mistakes? The concept of history inevitably repeating itself is briefly touched upon by Adam in his lectures and crops up again throughout. Eventually, you get the feeling that Adam is a man who cannot change his inner nature and is doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again, that he’s just another tiger who can’t change his stripes, even if he’s willingly (or unknowingly) avoiding that fact.

Verdict: Ambitious to a fault, Enemy is a disturbing and engaging psychological thriller that will definitely leave audiences polarized. An intense and thought-provoking film, repeat viewings will be most rewarding for those willing to partake in the journey.

B

Trailer:

Movie info:

Runtime: 90 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Sarah Gadon, Mélanie

Laurient

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Screenplay: Javier Gullón

Cinematography: Nicolas Bolduc