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The Vow

Max Weiss — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:59:34 +0000

Rating:

2.5 stars

I love that the producers of The Vow says it’s “based on a true story.” That’s the moral equivalent of Days of Our Lives flashing those words across bottom of the screen when they bring an evil twin back from the dead.

Not to suggest that certain elements of The Vow aren’t true. I’m sure that there was a lovely young married couple and I’m sure that after a car accident she forgot who her husband was (indeed, they show the “real life Paige and Leo” during the end credits.) But what makes The Vow a guilty pleasure of the highest order is the structural elegance of its completely far-fetched premise. (Well, that and Channing Tatum’s abs.)

Okay, so here’s the ripped-from-the-headlines story: Paige (Rachel McAdams) and Leo (Channing Tatum) meet cute, fall in love cute, and even get married cute (sneaking after hours into the Chicago Institute of Art and reading handwritten vows off the menu of their favorite trendy café). Then, car accident—boom, bad thing. Paige wakes up and thinks Leo is one of her doctors. (The fact that she thinks Channing Tatum could ever be a doctor is the first sign of serious brain trauma.)

But here’s the far-fetched yet elegant part: Paige remembers her life up until the point she stopped being the dutiful daughter, ditched law school and moved to Chicago to become an artist. The last thing she remembers, she was an overgrown sorority sister with a dishy boyfriend (Scott Speedman) and a J. Crew wardrobe.

And since she hasn’t spoken to her parents (Jessica Lange and Sam Neill) since she moved to the city, they’re all-too-thrilled to get their baby girl back and are secretly conspiring to get Leo out of the picture.

Silly, yes? But fun, as we watch as Leo tries to get his wife to remember her inner-boho and fall in love with him all over again. Not a romance pic cliché is left unturned—including a late night skinny dip between Leo and Paige—but you’re definitely rooting for her to snap out of it and fall into his studly arms.

Not totally sure if soulful meathead Tatum is the best choice to play a downtown hipster—although he does wear a jaunty hipster-approved hat—but he has an undeniable basic appeal (to women, at least). And McAdams reminds us why she was once considered a legitimate heir to Julia Roberts throne—not only is she adorable, with those laughing eyes and frisky grin, but she can actually act: she taps into Paige’s terror and confusion over her predicament.

Has McAdams struck romantic gold again, as she did with The Notebook? Not quite. (Channing Tatum, handsome as you are, sir, you are no Ryan Gosling.) But if Valentine’s Day pics are essentially advertisements for love, meant to make women swoon and help men get lucky—well, yeah, mission accomplished.

Chronicle

Max Weiss — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:20:35 +0000

Rating:

3 stars

With its found-footage aesthetic and regular-guys-get-super-powers plot, Chronicle will rightly be compared to Cloverfield or perhaps the TV show Heroes. But the film it really has the most in common with is Carrie.

As in Brian De Palma’s horror classic, our teen hero is a ticking time bomb, with a very dangerous weapon at his disposal. And like Carrie, we care about him more than we should and maybe even want to see him exact revenge on his tormenters—until we, well, don’t.

Then again, to call Chronicle a horror film isn’t quite right either. It’s a genre-mashup extraordinaire—seriously funny at times and exciting, too. For a little bit, it plays like a fantasy wish fulfillment picture—what if three regular high school kids found some sort of crazy radioactive cave (never explained, not that it matters) and emerged with super powers? What if they could control objects with their minds and then even fly? How cool would that be? (Cue Beavis and Butthead laugh.)

One of the things I loved about Chronicle is the fact that these guys have no actual clue what to do with their powers—in other words, they don’t immediately decide to don tights and fight crime. Should they look up girls’ skirts? Freak out little kids in a toy store? Play football amongst the clouds?

It’s Andrew (excellent Dane DeHaan) who first uses his powers recklessly. The boys are being tailgated by a redneck type in a truck and Andrew conjures telekinesis to swerve him off the road. The trucker ends up with minor injuries, but it could’ve been a hell of a lot worse. It’s then that Andrew’s cousin, the smart and well-adjusted Matt (Alex Russell), makes a pact: No more using their powers on other people. As if.

You see, Andrew is not exactly a happy-go-lucky type. His mother is dying of cancer and his father is an abusive drunk. He’s always suspected that Matt only hangs out with him out of familial obligation/pity—and he knows for sure that the über popular Steve (Friday Night Light’s Michael B. Jordan) wouldn’t give him the time of day if they didn’t share such a big secret. Basically, you want to give Andrew a hug and say, “It gets better.” Alas.

The triumph of Chronicle is that it's not just a Jack of all genres but a master at some, too. I have to give credit across the board, not just to the appealing young cast, but to screenwriter Max Landis, who perfectly captures teen speak without ever seeming to try too hard, and director Josh Trank, who does wonders with the found footage perspective (much of the film really does play like some viral video you’ve stumbled across on YouTube). The best and most important thing about Chronicle is that it never loses sight of its characters. In the end, it’s characters who make any film—of any genre—memorable, and we root for Andrew to use his powers for good even as we grimly suspect that it might all end in tears and screaming and blood.

What The Artist Has in Common With Mitt Romney

Max Weiss — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:44:34 +0000

This year’s Oscar race has been a lot like the Republican primary. The nominees have been extremely divisive (with Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close being the Herman Cain of the bunch) and the frontrunners have had a “next movie up” quality. For a while, The Descendants seemed the one to beat. Then Hugo took a small lead. Briefly War Horse surged. But all along, The Artist has been holding steady—it’s clearly the Mitt Romney of the field—and I see it, much like Mitt, capturing the big prize.

This is the first year that the number of Best Picture nominees was not predetermined. It could be anywhere from five to 10, depending on some sort of arcane algorithm involving first place votes (I’m not sure it’s ever wise to model your voting system after the BCS, but so be it. . .).

As someone who loves to prognosticate the nominees for sport (and profit) (just kidding)—not knowing the number of Best Picture nominees bugged me to no end.

But I have to admit, I was on the edge of my seat as Jennifer Lawrence and MPAA president Tom Sherak announced the Best Picture nods. There were certain gimmes—The Artist, The Descendants, Hugo, The Help, and Moneyball (my favorite film of the year, if you don’t count the essentially unreleased Margaret)—but would Terrence Malick’s arty The Tree of Life get some love (it did). And what about the bawdy but beloved Bridesmaids? (No dice.) Would the Academy’s love affair with Woody Allen continue (yup—the delightful Midnight in Paris made the cut). What about the existential action flick Drive? (Alas, no.) And whither the fate of the mawkish War Horse, which had been shockingly snubbed by the Director’s Guild? (Made it by a nose.)

But the best moment certainly came in the end—after Lawrence and Sherak had rattled off eight of the nine nominations. Dramatically, reality TV style, they paused and said: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Audible gasps were heard among the assembled.

Now, I happen to be a pretty big fan of that film. But I was downplaying it when I called it the Herman Cain of the bunch. At least most people agree that Cain was a source of amusement. There are some critics who revile that film. I mean, break out in hives at the very thought of it. In fact, my Twitter pal Sasha Stone over at the indispensable awardsdaily.com noted that it has the lowest “Metacritic” score (46) of any film to ever be nominated for an Oscar. Wowsa. (I’m not going to get all apologist on the film—again. Suffice it to say, the Oscar nom suggests that at least some people were as moved by the peculiar little film as I was.)

Anyway, at this point, the winner is almost a foregone conclusion and to me, it feels a lot like last year’s big win for The King’s Speech. That is to say, I absolutely loved both The King’s Speech and The Artist, but I couldn’t help but to feel a little meh about their inevitable death march to victory. Both films are safe and crowd-pleasing and, while brilliantly executed, hardly stirring, provocative works of art. The Academy had been showing a little chutzpah in recent years, with wins for complex films like The Hurt Locker, No Country For Old Men, and The Departed, but they seem to have regressed a bit to a middlebrow comfort zone.

So be it. I don’t want to resent The Artist—which is a gem—just because it’s a film we can all agree on.

As for the rest of the nominations. I was profoundly disappointed by a few omissions—Tilda Swinton, for her hauntingly raw work in We Need to Talk About Kevin, Michael Fassbender for his let-it-all-hang-out (literally) sex addict in Shame, Leonardo DiCaprio, who emerged from pounds of makeup to give us great insight into the elusive J Edgar, Albert Brooks for his chillingly menschy sociopath in Drive, and Ryan Gosling for. . .well, just for being Ryan Gosling.

My predictions for the big awards? Right now, and these are preliminary guesses I’m going with:

Best Picture: The Artist

Best Director: Martin Scorsese in Hugo (The Artist’s Michel Hazanavicius is actually considered the frontrunner, but call it a hunch).

Best Actor: George Clooney for The Descendants

Best Actress: Viola Davis (!) for The Help

Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer for Beginners

Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer for The Help

We’ll see. It’s still early. And since Newt Gingrich just won South Carolina, it’s obvious that neither race is over til it’s over.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Max Weiss — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:37:35 +0000

Rating:

3.5 stars

There is nothing cuddly about Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn), the 9-year-old narrator of Stephen Daldry’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. He’s fretful, voluble, socially awkward—obviously brilliant, but not entirely pleasant company. He confounds his mother (Sandra Bullock) and doesn’t seem to have any peer friends. The only person he can really relate to is his father (Tom Hanks), who sends Oskar off on elaborate reconnaissance missions, all in a sly attempt to get the boy to interact with the world.

The movie is about one last mission his father sends Oskar on—how even in death, the father is still showing his son how to live.

Yes, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is that film—the 9/11 one—and it attempts to negotiate the massive scope of our national tragedy with the tiny world of a socially isolated little boy. A few critics have lambasted the film for being emotionally manipulative—and it certainly is heavy handed at times (this is the same Stephen Daldry who gave us the operatically depressing The Hours, after all).

But when an answering machine containing urgent messages from the World Trade Center left by Oskar’s father—delivered with escalating panic as he begins to realize the grimness of his own fate—can be more disturbing than anything you’ll see in a horror film, I’d say Daldry has tapped into our collective dread from that horrible day.

It’s while Oskar is hiding the answering machine—ostensibly from his mother (Sandra Bullock), but really from himself—that he stumbles across a blue vase that belonged to his dad, as well as a key. The only clue is the name “Black” on the key. So he sets off—in a highly systematic and obsessive way (by triangulating and visiting every Black on the island of Manhattan)—to find the lock that fits the key.

Yes, he goes door to door—and yes, most people let him in (including the stellar acting duo of Viola Davis and Jeffrey Wright, as a troubled married couple). Just go with it. Eventually, he will be joined by Max von Sydow, a man with a dark secret of his own who is renting a room from his grandmother, and who may or may not be Oskar’s paternal grandfather. Again, there is nothing cuddly about their relationship—it is contentious at times, even prickly. But a bond is forged and they make a strange odd couple—a hulking, silent man, stooped by age and regret, and a scrawny, garrulous boy, gaping suspiciously at the world.

The acting here is quite remarkable. Young Thomas Horn obviously has to the do most of the heavy lifting—and he’s utterly convincing as the oddball genius, nary a cute-child-actor tic in sight. (Not incidentally, he was discovered when he was contestant during Kids Week on Jeopardy!). Tom Hanks is wonderfully menschy and solid—the perfect idealized dad. Sandra Bullock breaks your heart as the grieving mother—she had watched with curious fondness the special bond between father and son and now silently fears that her child will be lost without his guiding role model. As for Max von Sydow: How is it that he’s never won an Oscar (and only been nominated once)? Older actors can fall prey to the cutesy trap, too—Cocoon-it-up, if you will—but von Sydow never flinches. There’s not a twinkle to be found in those hooded, haunted eyes.

There have been quite a few good 9/11 films—United 93 had a cinema verite-style brilliance and I loved Spike Lee’s subtly mournful 25th Hour—but Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was certainly the most cathartic. It’s about the all-important relationships we forge in this life—and the gifts we unintentionally leave behind.

Diablo Cody's Hipster Camouflage

Max Weiss — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 17:36:03 +0000

I’ve made no bones about the fact that I am something of a Diablo Cody fangirl. I loved Juno and Young Adult made my honorable mention list for best of this year.

But a question has been nagging at me lately: Is Diablo Cody some sort of hipster double agent? She certainly traffics in hipster-friendly environments: Her films are loaded with winking pop culture references and her heroines—who at least SEEM to be a stand-in for the screenwriter herself—are snarky and too-smart-for-their-own-good iconoclasts who wear a lot of plaid. And yet, she seems to subvert the hipster ethos at every turn.

We can start with the most obvious example of this: The fact that her eponymous heroine Juno carries her child to term. Many people have noted that abortion isn’t even a real option for Juno—certainly unexpected for such a pragmatic, unsentimental character. Not that pro-choice necessarily equals hipster, but you don’t see a lot of ironic eyewear at a so-called “Pro-Life” rally.

Sticking with that film for a sec: There’s the funny (and brilliant) bait and switch (or should I say Bateman and switch?) (sorry) on Jason Bateman’s Mark. We spend the whole movie thinking that he’s the cool guy: The cute dad with the recording studio in his basement, who wears Sonic Youth T-shirts and feels trapped by suburban conformity. But wait: He’s not the hero at all! In the end, it’s Jennifer Garner’s wannabe mother—the kind of woman who baby-talks to an unborn fetus and has spent her whole life embracing society’s preordained female roles—where the film’s true loyalties lie.

When I reviewed Juno, I also noted, with some delight, that even Juno’s needlepoint-loving stepmother was a surprise. “Oh we’ve seen this before,” I wrote. “A homey, kitschy character who will be the source of ridicule. But no, in Cody’s script, the stepmother is salty and smart, with lots of fierce love for her weird stepdaughter.”

And there’s the rub: Cody takes you just to the edge of making fun of these people and then she pulls back and reveals them to be far stronger and cooler than we thought. It’s a sleight of hand of sorts. And that’s the double agenty aspect of her work. We think we’re supposed to laugh at the needlepoint lovin’ mama or the type A would-be super mom: But the joke’s on us! They’re the secret heroes!

Now let’s look at Cody’s latest, Young Adult. Its heroine, Mavis Gary (brilliantly embodied by Charlize Theron) is a former homecoming queen/mean girl type who escaped a small town in Minnesota and moved to what the locals call “The Mini Apple” ( “nobody calls it that anymore” Mavis snorts disdainfully). She’s divorced, her series of young adult novels is about to come to an end, and she’s feeling a bit unmoored. So naturally her thoughts drift to her glory days of high school and she convinces herself that she is destined to be with her former sweetheart Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson) and that she will save him from a life of suburban drudgery. The fact that he’s married with a newborn baby is only a minor deterrent.

Of course, Young Adult isn’t as sneaky as Juno in subverting our expectations. After all, Mavis is clearly a delusional hot mess. We’re not supposed to totally align ourselves with her point of view. Nonetheless, when she mocks the town for its big new franchise—a “Ken-Taco-Hut” (that is, a Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC combo) or goes to a department store where they’ve never even heard of Marc Jacobs—we are supposed to sneer a little. This small town is as banal, as unhip, as blandly commercialized as any in America—and yet Cody seems to secretly love it (even as she mocks it). The film’s coolest character, by far, is Buddy’s wife (Elizabeth Sleader), who is not only a special ed teacher, but a drummer in an (admittedly horrible) grunge cover band. See? You can stay in a small town, raise a family, and still be cool. Indeed, embracing strong Middle-American family values seems to be the only path to true fulfillment in Cody’s work.

So where does this leave Cody, herself—with her tats and her piercings and her Roller-Derby-ready name? I suppose the greatest trick the conservative ever pulled was convincing the world (and possibly even herself) that she was a hipster.

Photo courtesy of wireimages.com

The Artist

Max Weiss — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 19:25:20 +0000

Rating:

4 stars

It may seem astonishing that a black-and-white silent film, made by a French director with a nearly unpronounceable last name (Michel Hazanavicius) and starring two French actors that no one in the U.S. has ever heard of (Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo) would be the frontrunner to win Best Picture at this year’s Oscars.

To which I say: See the film.

Because, truly, once you see The Artist, it will all be clear. It’s made with such visual élan, such an obvious love for the medium, such joie, such wit—it’s about as irresistible as cinema gets.

When we first meet George Valentin (Dujardin), he’s a Hollywood silent film star along the lines of a Douglas Fairbanks (with a little touch of Gene Kelly thrown in). He’s almost drunk on his own swashbuckling charm—but who can blame him? Barrel-chested, light on his feet, possessing a quick, roguish smile—audiences can’t get enough of George, or his devoted sidekick, a scrappy Jack Russell terrier. (In fact, the only person who can get enough of him, it seems, is his put-upon wife, played with a perfect mask of exasperation by Penelope Ann Miller.)

One day, after a premiere, he has an accidental run-in with a wide-eyed fan (she’s dropped her autograph book at his feet) named Peppy Miller (Bejo)—and the press and the public is besotted. Soon she becomes the new Hollywood “It Girl” and, in the classic style of the genre, we watch her rise up the ranks of film credits, from showgirl, to co-star, to leading lady. All the while, she’s pining away for Valentin.

Meanwhile, a dreadful new word has entered the Hollywood lexicon, at least as far as Valentin is concerned: Talkies.

Valentin thinks these talkies are just a fad, not to mention an unworthy artistic endeavor, and he stubbornly refuses to partake in them. This leads to one brilliant sequence (and the only one that fully incorporates sound), where Valentin is trapped in a horror chamber of his mind where even the most mundane sound—a coffee cup placed on a vanity mirror, say—is ruinous, deafening.

Well, we all know the rest: Peppy becomes a noted talkie movie star, while Valentin drifts into obscurity. Briefly, there’s some question as to whether Peppy is a naïf who’s been swept up by her own fame or a conniver, a la Eve Harrington in All About Eve—but fear not: The Artist is meant to delight, not confound with moral ambiguity.

And delight it does: In one charming scene, Peppy imagines a swoony dance with Valentin’s tuxedo on a rack. Later, in a bittersweet corresponding scene, a now destitute Valentin contemplates his reflected image in a store window, so that he appears to be wearing a tux.

Supporting work—by John Goodman, as a cigar-chomping studio head, and James Cromwell as Valentin’s loyal valet—is note perfect. And the cute little dog damn nears steals the show.

Early on in The Artist, the camera stays trained on Valentin as he expectantly waits backstage to “hear” the crowd react to his latest film. There’s a pause and then his face breaks into a wide grin. They’re not the only audience who will be cheering wildly. As The Artist proves again and again, we don’t need to hear a thing—Dujardin’s expressive acting and Hazanavicius’ gorgeous vision are more than enough.

We Bought a Zoo

Max Weiss — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 22:21:49 +0000

Rating:

3 stars

A film like We Bought a Zoo always brings out my two sides as a film critic. Let’s call them “Bad Max” and “Good Max.”

Bad Max might point out that this film, about a recent widower (Matt Damon) who buys a ramshackle zoo with his two children, is a cutesy blend of sitcom humor and sentimentality, all wrapped in a convenient “based on a true story” package.

But Good Max would note that the film’s “not too heavy, not too light” tone is perfect for the holidays.

Bad Max might whine that Cameron Crowe, who made the brilliant Almost Famous and Say Anything, among others, is too good for this kind of formulaic material.

But Good Max would argue that well-made family fare—even the formulaic kind—are a rare thing, and we shouldn’t look a gift horse (or zebra, in this case) in the mouth.

Bad Max might say that the youngest daughter, played by Maggie Elizabeth Jones, is the worst kind of movie kid: Self-consciously cute and precocious.

Good Max would note that, well, she is kind of adorable and the characters of both her moody older brother (Duncan Mee) and his adoring new friend (the suddenly essential Elle Fanning) are much more complex and thoughtful.

Bad Max might say: And of coooourse a hot babe like Scarlett Johansson just happens to be the zookeeper.

But Good Max would note, Hey, it’s a movie. You were expecting an ugly zookeeper? (And besides, Johansson is a welcome presence in almost any film. )

Bad Max might say, Could that final scene have been any more manipulative?

Good Max says, “Pass the tissues.”

In the end, Good Max wins out and Bad Max says “uncle.” We Bought a Zoo wore down my defenses.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Max Weiss — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 13:16:17 +0000

Rating:

2.5 stars

David Fincher directing The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is the moral equivalent of Beethoven composing a jingle for a Bud Lite ad (a strictly hypothetical example, by the way—as far as I know, Beethoven never even had a Bud Lite.)

Of course, it’s not surprising that Fincher would be drawn to Stieg Larsson’s wildly popular series. It combines two of his favorite genres—the hyper violent serial killer pic and the insiderish procedural. It’s just that after the career heights of The Social Network, I expected to see a new sophistication from Fincher. Instead, it looks like he’s retreating to the grungy comfort zone of films like Se7en and Fight Club.

Now, I don’t want to turn this whole review into a referendum on Larsson’s book, but its success has always irked me. To me, it’s a comic book masquerading as serious grown-up entertainment. The villains are all deviant bureaucrats and Nazis and serial killers. There’s tons of sexual violence, followed by equally rococo revenge. (The book wants it both ways: to titillate with violence and then give us the moral balm of seeing the perpetrators come to vivid justice). Of course, I see the appeal of Lisbeth Salander—the emotionally wounded, androgynous, cyber-punk heroine. She’s one of the great super heroes ever created. But to me, that’s all she is—a comic book character. Those who say she’s a triumph of genuine female empowerment have lost me.

Okay, enough of that. . .So how’s the film? Well, masterful, I suppose, on its own terms. Markedly better than the Swedish version, although that one worked in a certain matter-of-fact way.

Does anybody not know the plot at this point? Just for the record: Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig), a reporter still reeling from a libel scandal, has been hired by Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), the aging patriarch of an old-guard Swedish family, to reopen the 40-year-old case of the disappearance and presumed murder of his beloved niece. Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) is a computer hacking genius and ward of the state, fending off a sexually predatory case worker. Eventually, Blomkvist will hire her as a researcher, and they become tenatative allies, lovers, and friends.

Of course, even comic book characters can result in brilliant performances—just ask the late Heath Ledger. And Rooney Mara is electrifying as Salander. Even in the intimidating wake of Noomi Rapace’s memorable depiction in the Swedish version, Mara makes the elfin, coiled, damaged-but-defiant Salander very much her own. (And the makeup artist who decided to bleach and pierce her eyebrows is a genius—it gives her a compellingly alien look.)

As for Daniel Craig? The actor’s wonderfully worn, bluntly handsome face almost single-handedly elevated the putrid Cowboys and Aliens to watchable status—and his great mug is put to necessary use here as well, since Mikael Blomkvist isn’t really much of a character. He’s dogged, idealistic, and gentle—meant to represent that rare beacon of male decency (although even he cheated on his now-ex-wife—in Larsson’s world, all men have something to be ashamed of). I do have one small quibble with Craig’s depiction: Blomkvist’s wardrobe—all chunky heather gray sweaters, dark wool scarves, and perfectly indigo dungarees—is a bit more “New York gallery owner on a ski holiday” than “world-weary reporter on a case.” But hey, it’s not Craig’s fault and he sure looks great.

Fincher deftly keeps his two heroes apart for the first half so that when they finally do come together, the film gets a jolt of energy (not that it needs it— even at two and a half hours long, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo zips along at a Eurorail pace).

The American auteur emphasizes Salander’s longing for Blomkvist more than his Swedish counterpart did (making the ending that much more touching) and his film is certainly more intense and scary—a confrontation between Blomkvist and the possible killer had me reminding myself to breathe.

But how can even the film’s staunchest defenders not laugh at the ridiculous moment near the end where Salander dons a blonde wig and a power suit and goes undercover like she just strutted off the set of one of her co-star’s Bond films?

If there was any doubt left, the film reveals itself once and for all in that moment as pure fantasy escapism. But fantasy escapism with a side order of rape and torture? Thanks, but I’ll pass.

Why The Descendants Didn’t Make My Best of the Year List

Max Weiss — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 17:52:56 +0000

Warning: This isn’t so much a review of The Descendants as a discussion of why it didn’t quite “do it” for me. So I’m assuming that anyone who reads this has already seen the film. In other words: GIANT HONKING SPOILERS AHEAD.

Let me start by giving my Alexander Payne bona fides here: He’s on my shortlist of favorite working directors, and I consider Election and Sideways to be two of my all-time favorite films.

One thing that Payne does so well is give us complex, defiantly unlovable, but impossible not to care about characters. He creates these great American archetypes that nonetheless are thrillingly specific. I’m talking about Miles in Sideways, whose supreme intellectual superciliousness is matched only by his crippling insecurity; or Election’s Tracy Flick, that teacher’s pet on steroids with her crazed politician’s grin; or the regret-fueled everyman, beset by that peculiar American combination of stoicism and mawkishness, of About Schmidt.

But how to sum up the Clooney’s Matt King in The Descendants? He’s sort of a good guy; sort of a good father; he sort of cares about his native Hawaii; he sort of wants to exact revenge on his wife’s lover. . .

Not to suggest that a kind of middling decency isn’t enough to build a work of art on—Arthur Miller, among others, would argue otherwise.

But Matt is a man of inaction. His road trip, his relationships, his very being have a kind of aimlessness to them. What then are we in the audience to hold onto—what’s our takeaway from the film? Schmidt, Flick, and Miles all had one thing in common—delusions of grandeur. The tension (and humor) of those films was often derived from the difference between the character’s myth of self and their reality.

But Matt King has no such illusions. In fact, he’s almost stubbornly matter-of-fact about his own averageness. (“I was the backup parent,” he admits, early in the film.)

As for Clooney, I think he’s in fine form (although he goes a little overboard with Matt’s dorky little running motion—an alpha male trying to affect the body language of a loser).

He’s particularly affecting in two scenes: When he has his little meltdown in his wife’s hospital room and when he spontaneously kisses Judy Greer (playing his romantic rival's wife).

But Clooney is put in the unenviable position of having to anchor a film while playing a man with no discernable character traits. And because of that, when I left The Descendants I wasn’t quite sure what the film was actually about.

How, in particular, are we supposed to feel about Matt hanging onto his family’s land in the end? Is this a noble act of preservation, a gift to his daughters (his own descendants, as it were) and the people of Hawaii? Or is it an act of revenge against his dying wife’s lover, who would serve to profit wildly from the sale? Is it both? Can it be both?

I think Payne’s pulling his punches here and elsewhere and it reflects his larger ambivalence about the character. To me, it’s okay for the audience to feel ambivalent, but not the director. Which is why, although The Descendants is certainly a good film, in my opinion, it’s not a great one.

Okay, have at me.

Superheroes, saviors, and shooting stars: 2011 in Film

Max Weiss — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 19:45:56 +0000

It’s almost impossible to do this, but when I assemble a Top 10 list, I like to imagine myself a decade from now, reflecting back on the year that was. Which 2011 films will really stick out in my mind? Which are the ones that will rise to the status of all-times favorites, warrant repeated viewings, permanently lodge themselves in my cinematic soul? (To be honest, it’s an interesting—and humbling— exercise to look back at my Top 10 lists from years past. . .some of the films I was so passionate about at the time, I can barely remember.) So what follows is my best guess of the films that will stick with me forever.

At the very least, they stirred the hell out of me this year.

1. Moneyball – A buddy film, a baseball film, but mostly a story about the courage to spurn conventional wisdom and take personal and professional risks. Brad Pitt gives his best performance ever as Billy Beane, an alpha male and baseball lifer, whose armor of confidence has been ever-so-slightly dinged by disappointment and regret. Jonah Hill is the brainy sidekick who idolizes and ultimately saves him. Director Bennet Miller and co. get all the baseball details right. You can practically smell the chew and the pine tar.

2. Hugo – Martin Scorsese makes a 3D film and shows the world how it’s done (thus making him the greatest superhero of them all). His film about a little boy (Asa Butterfield) who lives in the bowels of a Parisian train station, circa 1920—is bursting at the seams with imagination, spectacle, and visual wit. The little boy is solving two interconnected mysteries: That of an automaton left behind by his deceased father and that of a bitter toy maker (Ben Kingsley) who works at the station. This is Scorsese’s Cinema Paradiso, his love-letter to film, done with a master’s eye and a passionate precision. Ultimately, Scorsese is able to celebrate the history of film while adding to own considerable cinematic legacy.

3. The Artist - It may seem astonishing that a black-and-white silent film, made by a French director with a nearly unpronounceable last name (Michel Hazanavicius) and starring two French actors that no one in the U.S. has ever heard of (Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo) would be the frontrunner to win Best Picture at this year’s Oscars. To which I say: See the film. Because, truly, once you see The Artist, it will all be clear. It’s made with such visual élan, such an obvious love for the medium, such joie, such wit—it’s about as irresistible as cinema gets.

4. The Help –I thought the book was one of the great populist works of entertainment of the last decade—juicy, hilarious, morally satisfying—and felt that Tate Taylor’s film replicated many of its specific joys. It also featured fierce, fabulous, and career-changing performances by the likes of Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Jessica Chastain and Emma Stone. So the controversy that surrounded the film somewhat baffled me: This was not a story of a white woman swooping in to save her helpless servants. It was a celebration of collaboration, of the strength and sisterhood of women—of all colors. Did the naysayers not see the same film I did?

5. Bridesmaids- The funniest film of the year—by a wide margin. Among its many pleasures, it finally gave Kristen Wiig a proper vehicle for her outsized talent (she also co-wrote the script). As 30something, marginally employed, unlucky-in-love Annie, Wiig is a revelation, as comfortable with a subtle gesture as she is with a broadly comedic one. She never panders for the audience’s affection—there’s no adorable clumsiness, no chin quivering crying jags, no scenes trying on hats fetchingly in front of a mirror. In fact, true to her name, she spends much of the film completely wigging out. And in its own modest way, Bridesmaids is actually pretty groundbreaking. After all, how many raunchy, rollicking female buddy films have we seen in the last five years? (I’ll save you a trip to imdb.com. The answer is none.) Turns out, when it comes to low-brow humor, anything boys can do, girls can do grosser.

6. Like Crazy – An achingly tender, heartbreaking, funny, sad, frustrating look at first love that will resonate with anybody who happens to be human.

7. We Need to Talk About Kevin – Lynne Ramsay’s positively haunting film—a horror story in many ways—about a mother (Tilda Swinton) who doesn’t love her own child. Does she not love him because he is awful? Or is he awful because she does not love him? In the aftermath of an unspeakable tragedy, Swinton’s face is a rictus of despair. In a year of incredible performances, hers is the most powerful.

8. Midnight in Paris - Woody Allen’s fanboy take on the artist’s life in Paris in the 1920s—and his most charming film since Purple Rose of Cairo. In this case, the Woody substitute is a Hollywood writer (Owen Wilson), concerned about selling out, who travels to Paris with his materialistic fiancée and gets magically transported back to the days of Pablo, Ernest, and Zelda. Giddily romantic, filled with Woody’s patented takedown of blowhards and pseudo-intellectuals, and a fun party game to boot—hey, is that Adrian Brody as Salvador Dali?—it was the film everyone loved this year, and with good reason.

9. Win Win - In my review, I referred to Thomas McCarthy as the “Anne Tyler of directors.” He makes movies about surrogate families, unlikely bonds, and sad people finding solace—if not outright happiness—in each other’s company. (In many ways, he reminds me of the great Alexander Payne—and this year, I actually preferred McCarthy’s lively offering to Payne’s somewhat wan The Descendants). Paul Giamatti gives another note-perfect performance as a decent man who does decent things, but not always for the right reason. Amy Ryan keeps it refreshingly real as his Bon Jovi loving wife. And newcomer Alex Shaffer shines as the sullen young man who enters their lives and, unexpectedly, their hearts.

10. Summer Action Movies - Okay, this is cheating a bit, but there were an insane number of good action films this summer. We’ll start with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II, which ended that (eventually) excellent series on a triumphantly high note. Then the ferocious, humanist, fiercely original Rise of the Planet of the Apes, featuring that great motion capture performance by Andy Serkis, and certainly the most pleasant surprise of 2011. Those two may’ve soared above the rest, but this summer also gave us the treat of Chris Evans morphing from 98-pound weakling into superhero in Captain America; Kenneth Branaugh’s campily-fun Thor; The Rock going bicep-a-bicep with Vin Diesel in Fast Five (actually more of a spring release, but I couldn’t resist); and the female catnip of James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender teaming up (we’re not worthy!) in X-Men: First Class.

Runners Up: 50/50, Beginners, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Martha Marcy May Marlene, The Muppets, Putty Hill, Shame, Source Code, The Tree of Life, Young Adult.

Note: I am yet to see David Fincher’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I will post a review of that film on Tuesday and let you all know if it should’ve made the cut.