Director: Sofia Coppola
Runtime: 94 minutes
"There's a war going on, out there, somewhere..." So goes the opening line of current Broadway smash Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812. Cannons and guns wreak havoc in the periphery, while a different conflict is waged in the battlefield of opera houses and parlors among those privileged enough to get out of service. A similar framing device hangs over the characters of The Beguiled as well, draped over like a protective veil made of smoke, fog, and moss. Both works exist in realms of refinement, though the latter finds its characters staving off the ugly reality bubbling just outside their line of sight.
Given that this is a Sofia Coppola film, none of this is terribly surprising. Her specialty has always been her ability to chronicle the shut-off bubbles, specifically of upper class white women. Whether haunting hotel hallways amid the skyscrapers of Tokyo, or traipsing through an unguarded mansion in Beverly Hills, the notion of isolation is the connective thread holding her oeuvre together. Her adaptation of Thomas Cullinan's novel (previously adapted in the 70s with Clint Eastwood) immediately establishes itself as more of the same, at least thematically.
But the steady progression of The Beguiled (easily her tightest work of pacing) stealthily gives way to something unexpected: a heated, simmering psychological cat-and-mouse game. Or, rather, a cat-and-mice game. Beneath the Southern hospitality and longing glances cast out of windows is a delicious, cunning genre picture ready to claw its way out at any given moment. For once, Coppola allows her female characters to have their bubble punctured, and even violated. The muffled cannon blasts pepper the film's soundscape, but a different, twisty conflict is about to erupt not on the battlefield, but in a place designed to instill manners.
It takes only a few minutes before Corporal John McBurney (Colin Farrell) collapses on the doorstep of the Farnsworth home. Headed by the steely Miss Martha (Nicole Kidman), the household's exterior suggests a lack of maintenance, and even disarray. But lessons is music, etiquette, sewing, and French still occupy the time of the girls boarded up their by their wealthy Confederate families. And, being the proper Southern ladies they are, Martha's students and their teacher Edwina (Kirsten Dunst) help McBurney inside to treat his wounds.
McBurney is obviously injured, but there's still a palpable shock for the girls (and, frankly, the viewer), when his gruesome leg injury appears. Coppola loves her introverted, wan ladies, so to see something so lurid is a bit of a jolt. Not soon after, Miss Martha is sewing up McBurney's wound, in a grisly closeup that wouldn't seem out of place in a Guillermo Del Toro drama. Amid all of this, there is a great deal of lustrous closeups of Mr. Farrell's exposed chest and just as much heaving and "oh, my" breathing from the ladies.
Coppola has dipped her toes into new territory, and while she never takes a full plunge, her restraint is measured rather than timid. With a thick coat of fog, smoke, and mist smeared across many shots, The Beguiled lands firmly in the territory of Southern Gothic storytelling, albeit with an unconventional structure and sense of pace.
Using only natural/available light (daylight, candles, etc...), The Beguiled has the painterly look of Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, albeit with a color scheme more reminiscent of Goya or El Greco. Amid all the murk, the cinematographer Philippe Le Sourd conjures up an array of sharp images. Most transfixing are the closeups, of people handling tools, utensils, or bowls. The Farnsworth Academy may be a bit Brigadoon-esque in its removal from the "real" world, but it's still grounded in a tactile sense of place and time. The fineries of life are all these girls and women have to hold on to, other than each other. And so they clasp on, never giving an inch, whether it's to a wine glass or a gun.
Inevitably, a misshapen lust triangle emerges from the fog, and Coppola finally lights the fuse that's been sitting in the corner the whole time. Coppola has shown she can generate tension (Taissa Farmiga playing with a gun in The Bling Ring), but it's never been stretched out in any of her films. The wind up is masterfully done, and when the fuse finally reaches its lengthy end, the resulting display doesn't underwhelm.
There is little outright violence in The Beguiled, despite the early flash of gore, though what occurs lands well. More compelling, however, are the little digs and power plays initiated through dialogue, glances, and gestures. Kidman, delivering an antidote to her work in Cold Mountain, takes center stage amid the uniformly strong ensemble. In every meeting (many of which involve most of, or all, of the cast), he eyes seem to be in constant motion. She's keeping tabs on Edwina, the students, and McBurney all at once. The subtlety on display is, like the film as a whole, a wicked delight. Dunst, a Coppola regular, is gently and affecting as Edwina, who wants nothing more than to get as far away as possible. Farrell, as the object of the film's Female Gaze, is excellent too, crafting an intelligent portrait of a man who goes from victim to manipulator (and then back again).
Tonally, it's not all doom and gloom and ripped bodices. There is a tart sense of humor that hangs in the air along with the perfume, sweat, and hormones. At times, The Beguiled is basically a Gothic-accented comedy of manners. That is, until certain lines are crossed, and the battle lines are drawn. The bubble must be protected after all, and it will be done with a stiff upper lip, a beautiful gown, a prayer, and a very carefully constructed recipe. With a flirty, dangerous wink, Coppola signs off with one of those gems of Southern charm that can be wielded as an invitation or a weapon: Y'all come back now...
Grade: A-
Director: Mike Mills
Runtime: 118 minutes
It has taken six years for Mike Mills to make another film. When we last saw him, he delivered Beginners, a touching ode to his father, who came out after decades trapped in the closet. Yet even though that film was all about the father, one of the most intriguing peripheral characters was Georgia (Mary Page Keller), a stand in for Mills' mother. Now, over half a decade later, Mr. Mills is back to put Georgia (now named Dorothea, and sublimely portrayed by Annette Bening) in the spotlight she deserves.
Set in 1979 in Santa Barbara, 20th Century Women both exists as a maternal counterpart to Beginners while also standing firmly on its own. The film is just Mills' third full outing as a director, and his voice has only grown richer in the too-long gap between new work. Beginners charted a man's relationship with his father late in life (in which Mills got to be represented by Ewan McGregor; we should all be so lucky...). 20th Century Women, by contrast, takes the writer/director back to his childhood. Mills' new avatar is Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann), the teen son of newly-single mom Dorothea. Aptly, the film opens with the never-seen father's car catching fire, thus firmly severing the last symbolic ties with the past.
As we're seeing a boy/young man in a highly formative stage, 20th Century Women uses Jamie's place in life to examine those around him. In some ways, it calls to mind another 2016 release - Moonlight - in that it traces a child's growth by embracing a nurture over nature (to a point) idea of how our complete adult selves form. We are largely blank canvases coming into this world, and the people present in our lives at critical moments of change affect our growth in ways both obvious and subtle.
And so, early on, Dorothea enlists photographer tenant Abbie (a wondrous Greta Gerwig) and childhood friend Julie (Elle Fanning) to help raise her son. "Don't you need a man to raise a man?" asks Julie. To which Dorothea, nonchalantly, replies, "...no, I don't think so." "I think you're what's going to work for him," she says at another point. And even though there is an adult male presence in the form of handyman William (Billy Crudup), the three women turn out to be more than up to the task, in their own ways. The film may set itself up as Jamie's coming-of-age story, but the true subjects are the richly drawn women who lead him through that evolution.
Early on, it's tempting to dismiss the set up as scattered. But as Mills settles into his story's rhythm, the film blossoms. Both as writer and director Mills has grown considerably. His tendency to intercut archival footage and stills into his own material, at times grating in Beginners, feels purposeful and elegant throughout this new endeavor. Mills' films are not necessarily about compartmentalization, but his framing and editing choices (as executed excellently by Leslie Jones) present memories as little moments to be treasured and isolated in curio cases. The lighting accents this notion as well, often capturing moments of stillness by isolating an overhead source of light, so as to catch the subject as if they were occupying a museum display.
Where Mills' figures differ from museum oddities, however, is in their vibrancy. The voiceovers frame the characters in the past, yet while on screen they are thrillingly alive, even at their most ordinary. 20th Century Women can be brittle and caustic, but there is an underlying warmth at the core that practically floods the screen. And yet, in that tremendous warmth also lies clear-cut honesty. Mills and his characters don't sidestep the painful realities of life, whether it's those experienced by a parent or a child. But in that honesty, the film finds its transcendent moments. Those slices of life can be as significant as addressing a childhood trauma, or simply flailing your arms as you try to dance along the music around you.
Grade: A-
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Runtime: 117 minutes
When we throw around the term "popcorn movie," we tend to refer to larger than life spectacle that's harmless and entertaining. Maybe it's a high-level popcorn movie (Captain America 2), or something that borders on guilty pleasure territory (the Fast and Furious franchise). But the term is almost exclusively used to refer to larger than life spectacle. Yet the arthouse/international scene is equally capable of producing these types of movies, though they're often more divisive than what usually passes for popcorn moviemaking. If what you're looking for at the movies is an empty pleasure that eschews blockbuster theatrics (explosions, lasers, superheroes, aliens, etc...), then The Neon Demon is what you've been waiting for, even if you despise it. The latest from Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive) is the fried chicken of arthouse thrillers. You're left simultaneously satisfied and disgusted, knowing that you've just indulged in a treat that is absolutely horrendous for your health. Touch it, and your fingers become sickeningly shiny. But, as the saying goes...everything in moderation...
Returning to the glistening underbelly of L.A. has paid off for Refn, making a much needed rebound from 2013's insufferable Only God Forgives. That said, if you're expecting another Drive, you might be in for a bit of a shock. That film took a threadbare plot and turned it into a moody, soulful drama punctuated with flashes of exploitation-flick violence. The Neon Demon, rather than flirt with exploitation, fully embraces it with a sloppy tongue kiss. It is the unholy offspring of Suspiria, Eyes Wide Shut, and Black Swan: a delirious, sensory experience that either hooks you from the opening title cards or sends you into a defeated stupor.
The film's opening tableau, featuring aspiring model Jesse (Elle Fanning) bloodied and sprawled out on a fainting couch, captures the whole endeavor perfectly. It's exquisitely stylized, but eventually revealed to be a fake. At one point, Jesse disappears from the couch, not because she's become invisible or ascended, but merely because she's finished with photoshoot and needs to remove her make up. Everything and everyone in The Neon Demon's vision of L.A. is consumed only with youth and beauty. Most of the characters who appear on screen are young, pretty, and white (and the film's oldest actor, 51 year-old Keanu Reeves, hardly looks a day over 40). These people, even the less affluent, live in a bizarre sort of bubble. Despite occupying space in the 2nd largest city in the country, Fanning and co. seem to be living in a virtual wasteland.
Yet these aesthetic choices are hardly indicative of a film that possesses meaningful depth. It's a shallow movie about shallow people, carefully tiptoeing along the line that divides winking satire and indulgence. But that doesn't stop Refn from tipping his hat to areas the film might have explored had wanted to make something with more thematic weight. If The Neon Demon has a point, it's that L.A.'s fashion industry is populated entirely by a hierarchy of predators. These hunters come in different forms, from fellow models (Bella Heathcote and Mad Max: Fury Road's Abbey Lee), to landlords (Keanu Reeves), to photographers (Desmond Harrington). And, just to make sure you don't miss this message, Refn even includes a scene involving a lost mountain lion who breaks into Jesse's hotel room.
Refn's command over the film's look and soundscape is so intoxicating that it comes as a bit of a letdown that the performers tend to lack consistency. Fanning and co. seem to be in on the sick joke of it all in some scenes, and then minutes later become completely wooden. The only exceptions are Christina Hendricks (in a too-short cameo as Jesse's agent) and Jena Malone (as a make-up artist who befriends Jesse early on). Even through the inconsistency, though, there are moments campy magic that pop up, particularly from Fanning and Lee.
But, seeing as this is a film about models, it seems fitting that the actors are largely there to be manipulated. Everyone poses spectacularly, and the whole film looks magnificent thanks to Natasha Braier's neon-drenched photography. Cliff Martinez's pulsating electronic score is equally magnetizing, turning some of the protracted, pretentious sequences into hypnotic stretches of gorgeous nothingness. Knives are drawn, blood is spilled, and there are hints of something supernatural going on. Or maybe it's just a brush with magical realism. But whether or not even a second of The Neon Demon makes sense to the head is completely secondary when compared to whether it makes sense to the eyes and ears.
Grade: B
Director: Robert Stromberg
Runtime: 97 minutes
I'm sure there are loads of think pieces out there blasting Hollywood for repeatedly giving cinematographers, visual effects supervisors, and the like the director's chair for big budget tentpoles. I'm sure those think pieces make many valid points, and I'm sure they make them quite well. Yet this review only has room to target one such person inexplicably charged with directing ("directing") a major star vehicle. His name is Robert Stromberg, and he deserves to be verbally tarred and feathered for the visually bloated disaster that is Disney's Maleficent.
The latest in a line of live action re-imaginings of classic Disney fairy tales (next up: Brannagh does Cinderella! No, really. It's a thing.), Maleficent easily deserves to go down as the worst of the lot. What should be an enjoyable, even if generic, showcase for a brilliantly cast Angelina Jolie, is a sluggish, ineptly-handled attempt at summer entertainment.
As much as the camera loves Jolie as the iconic Sleeping Beauty villain (now a tragic antihero), even she can't overcome Linda Woolverton's abysmal script and Stromberg's unbearably hack-y directing. Small moments here and there work (Jolie's handling of baby Aurora's christening scene is dynamite), but they're nothing more than drops in the ocean.
And even though Maleficent is bad, it's shocking how baffling its badness truly is on all fronts. Despite a visual effects supervisor in the director's chair, there are a distracting number of scenes with jarring, shoddy green screen work. Not helping matters are the plastic-y CGI creations, which look like rejects from 2012's Snow White and the Huntsman.
Just as bad is the editing, which is somehow the work of two people, and not a single, overeager film student. When the cutting isn't merely getting the job done, it goes of in puzzling, risible ways. There are artificial snap zooms, "dramatic" blurry effects, as well as other trademarks of the "more is better" school of editing.
Before I become as big of a mess as Maleficent, I must return to Ms. Woolverton and her writing. There are cliches, and there are painful cliches. Maleficent is overflowing with the latter. Worst of all is the painfully forced comic relief, which puts wonderful actresses like Imelda Staunton, Leslie Manville, and Juno Temple in some truly embarrassing situations. I can't remember the last time I felt so, so bad for a group of actors working with bottom-of-the-barrel material. May they all find their way into a Mike Leigh movie as soon as possible.
Alas, I'm losing focus. Elle Fanning is in this movie too, though her radiant self shows up far too late to undo any of the damage wrought by Stromberg, Woolverton, and their merry band of fools. The only thing done remotely right is the reworking of Sleeping Beauty's waking from true love's kiss. It's a genuinely nice touch (albeit eye-rollingly foreshadowed) that subverts the outdated love-at-first-sight ideology of the animated film. If only it were put to use in a story that was being told with some semblance of intelligence or care (I'd say "and," but I think I'd be setting the bar a bit too high).
In fact, Maleficent is such a wreck that I don't even want to see it remade by more capable hands. Hollywood had its chance for a Maleficent-centric fairy tale for this generation, and it has failed spectacularly. I have enjoyed all of the film's major actors on multiple occasions (I'll overlook Oldboy, Sharlto Copley), yet there's no room to give any praise that's more than half-hearted. Jolie's devilish grin is nice and all, but even all of her star wattage is suffocated by the excess of visual effects and miserable craftsmanship.
Jolie and company are lucky that their film opened on the same weekend as Seth MacFarlane's A Million Ways to Die in the West. By being put up against that would-be comedy, they have, by the grace of God, been made to look like the lesser of two evils. Yet the lesser of two evils remains an evil, and not even of the so-bad-it's-good variety. Millions upon millions were spent upon this soul-less mess of a movie. Do your part and make sure that Maleficent struggles to recoup its considerable costs. The actors' careers will remain unscathed, and hopefully Mr. Stromberg's will meet a swift end.
Grade: D-
