Review: "Nocturnal Animals"

Director: Tom Ford
Runtime: 116 minutes

It's perhaps not the greatest sign that the scene that has stuck with me the longest from Nocturnal Animals is the one that absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the plot. A mesmerizing series of grotesques set to Abel Korzeniowski's lush score kicks things off in a way that would make David Lynch proud. What follows, sadly, has the basic blueprints for a mesmerizing Russian Nesting Doll of a story, yet struggles to get beneath the artifice to something worth savoring. Fashion designer Tom Ford, in his second feature, continues to showcase his hidden gifts as a director (following the achingly beautiful A Single Man 7 years ago). And he's assembled a cast of talented actors to make it all sound convincing. But what gets in the way of Ford's Nocturnal Animals is Ford himself...or at least, his screenplay.

Adapted from Austin Wright's novel "Tony and Susan," Nocturnal Animals is either three stories in one or one story fragmented into three volumes. In the first, we meet Susan (Amy Adams), an art gallery owner trapped in an increasingly hollow marriage to a philandering Ken Doll of a husband (Armie Hammer). Susan is jolted from her sterile LA lifestyle when she receives a manuscript for a novel from her ex-husband Tony (Jake Gyllenhaal). As she reads through the draft (also titled "Nocturnal Animals"), she traces the connections between it and her relationship with Tony, which ended under less than pleasant circumstances. 

What transpires is, on paper, a compelling slice of modern noir punctuated with heavy doses of a grimy Texas-set revenge thriller. Working with many of the same technical collaborators from A Single Man, Ford has crafted another luxurious cinematic experience, ranging from the aforementioned music to the chameleonic photography (and of course, the clothes). It looks the part, sounds the part, and even adds a few new tricks to Ford's directorial skill set. The dramatization of Tony's novel (in which Susan imagines Tony in the lead role) kicks off with a terrifically staged car chase on an empty West Texas road, and builds to a chilling climax. 

But what's missing from Nocturnal Animals is the psychological acuity that gave such weight to A Single Man. There's a lot of external activity on screen, but precious little of it gets beyond the surface of the beautiful faces on screen. What transpires often enthralls in the moment, but dissipates soon after. You'll likely find yourself wanting to be investing in these people, but Nocturnal Animals too often refuses to even meet you halfway.

Credit then, belongs to the actors for filling out these roles as best they can. Adams, coming off Arrival, turns in another quiet, introspective performance. But while Arrival allowed the actress room to take her character on a journey, Nocturnal Animals too often relegates her to the same position as the audience: a watcher. She is pushed to the margins, and spends more time staring out of windows and taking off her (admittedly killer) reading glasses than she does contributing to the story. 

Gyllenhaal, though occasionally pushed to go over the top, is also effective in both of his grief stricken forms, while Michael Shannon nearly steals the show as a sickly sheriff in Tony's novel. Taylor-Johnson is suitably menacing, though eventually his backwoods terrorizer schtick becomes repetitive. Actors like Hammer, Andrea Riseborough, and Michael Sheen do what they can with limited time, while Laura Linney makes the most of her 1 scene cameo as Susan's imperious mother.

Just about everything in Nocturnal Animals is at least watchable, and for large stretches it's perfectly engaging. But while the narrative's structural divisions are admirable, their proportions are all off. So much time is spent bringing Tony's novel to life that Susan's current existence and her past life with Tony feel like add-ons struggling to justify themselves. And yet, if you were to cut them out, Tony's novel on its own wouldn't be enough to justify a full film. Ford spends so much time figuring out how to cobble the story together that he seems to have neglected to make even the faintest point out of everything. For all of its beauty, it's the ugly imperfections that linger longest. Nocturnal Animals pretends to get its hands dirty, but upon closer inspection, there's never a speck of dust under its immaculately manicured fingernails. 

Grade: B-

Review: "The Birth of a Nation"

Director: Nate Parker
Runtime: 110 minutes

President Woodrow Wilson has been (falsely) quoted for decades as describing D.W. Griffith's landmark cinematic epic/paean to white supremacy The Birth of a Nation as being "like writing history with lightning." Regardless of the quote's actual attribution (or total fabrication), or the film's hideous messages, it's hard to fault the line as inaccurate. The film was, on a technical level, a groundbreaking push forward for cinematic techniques, particularly in the editing department. 

Now, roughly a century later, actor-turned-director Nate Parker has admirably set out to rewrite history with lightning. In sharing a title with Griffith's KKK epic, Parker's The Birth of a Nation acts as a historical and cinematic corrective. The story of Nat Turner's bloody slave rebellion is one that hopefully makes Griffith turn in his grave. A shame, then, that such worthy subject matter and contextual significance is spent on an altogether amateurish endeavor. Nat Turner's story and its relation to American race relations is important, but that can only carry a film so far. 

Arriving three years after Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave, Parker's film is not without merits, but comes off as pale imitation of bolder, richer narratives about our country's great shame. As is often the case with historical biopics, the protagonist's rougher edges have been sanded down to make him an archetypical hero. The same goes for just about everything else in Birth, which proceeds through a checklist of Signifiers of Slavery on its way to the end of a tepid Great Martyr story.

In fairness, there are times when Birth hits home, whether due merely to its content or the film's tackling of said content. A scene involving a slave being force fed (it involves clearing out some teeth) is harrowing stuff any way you slice it. And there are other moments that speak to broader truths about the silent community that built up among slaves on a plantation. After Nat (Parker, pulling triple duty) is whipped for disobedience, the camera pulls up to reveal that, in the hours since the whipping, the other slaves have put out candles in front of their quarters as a sort of secretive vigil. And, in the film's most impressive moment, the camera pulls back from a close up of a black boy's face to reveal that he's one of six or seven slaves who have been hanged together on a tree in a hauntingly still tableau.

But these are grace notes in a movie that often feels too caught up with its main character (and thus, it's star, director, and writer) to speak to bigger concerns. By casting Turner as a semi-prophetic shepherd of slaves, the actual man's mark on history becomes diminished. When Turner's wife Cherry (How to Get Away with Murder's Aja Naomi King, who's excellent) whispers that hundreds of blacks have been killed in retaliation for Turner's rebellion, it almost feels like an afterthought. Yes, slaveowners exacted terrible vengeance on people, but at least Nat Turner got to have one last conversation with his beloved and then die for our sins. Oh, and to cap it all off, the last thing Turner sees is an angel with classic feathery white wings smiling down at him. Pile on the overeager score (which would be a better fit for a Spielberg-directed historical romance), and the film reveals its lack of finesse. There's a difference between flinging down lightning bolts hoping that something leaves a mark, and wielding them with eloquence.


Grade: C+

Review: "Mirror Mirror"

The first of two big studio take on the classic Snow White tale, Mirror Mirror was always quite upfront about its status as the lighter film. Clearly made with younger audiences in mind, visual genius Tarsem Singh's film is a mixed bag overall, despite some truly wondrous costume and set design. That doesn't stop it from being enjoyable in bits and pieces, but outside of the production values, there's not enough here to justify the journey, at least not at full theater prices.

Yet even though the film is truly Snow White's (Lily Collins and her magnificent eyebrows) story, the film pays just as much attention to its evil queen, played by Julia Roberts. The particulars of the story aren't really worth bothering with, but we'll get to that later. What's worth discussing is how, like John Carter, some decent acting and strong production values are sunk by a wildly flawed script. Singh's films have never been loved for their writing, but the difference between his art house fantasies The Cell and The Fall and something like Mirror Mirror is instantly noticeable. This film feels a little stiff, and watered down by big studio meddling. Had this project landed in different hands (at least at the studio level), we could have had a film that was both a sincere fairy and a razor sharp satire of the genre. Roberts has a few lines that come close to capturing this, but they come few and far between. She and Armie Hammer are obviously having fun in their roles (and Roberts' signature laugh is put to grand effect in one scene), but as is often the case with projects like this, they're left with material that's far beneath their efforts.

Less compelling is Collins, though some of this may be due to the script's weak attempts to make her more than a damsel in distress. Yes, she wields a sword and manages to outdo a man in a duel, but the girl-power elements of the character often come off as forced and feel hollow as a result. The story as a whole also runs into problems, particularly in the conclusion, where it throws out a lame monster, an all-too-neat resolution, and a lazy and rushed attempt to integrate the iconic poisoned apple. Throw in an insect on insect rape joke, and you begin to get a better picture of the script and its transition to the screen.

Worth more attention are the production values which, unlike Tarsem's last film, Greek mythology cluster fuck Immortals, actually make an impression. The castle interiors, where much of the film takes place, are a wonder to behold, a mix between a fairy tale castle and an opulent Russian palace. Even more impressive are the late Eiko Ishioka's marvelous costumes, which often have such a wide array of colors and styles that they sometimes distract from the film's weaknesses. Ishioka was a true visionary when it came to her craft, and while watching Mirror Mirror, I couldn't help but be sad during parts of the film because I knew it was the last time we'd see any original designs from her. Worse, thinking about Ishioka's passing got a stronger emotional reaction out of me than anything Mirror Mirror actually had to offer.

Grade: C+

Review: "J. Edgar"

Whatever your opinion on J. Edgar Hoover is - unwavering patriot, paranoid witch-hunter, a bit of both... - the man is undeniably one of the most fascinating figures in American history. With such rich material to mine from, one would think that a film maker like Clint Eastwood and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black (who won an Oscar for his look at Harvey Milk in Milk) would be able to create a film as fascinating as its subject. Unfortunately, that's not quite the case. Eastwood's directorial career, recently in a bit of a funk, doesn't get the reinvigoration it so desperately needs from J. Edgar. It's not a horrible film, just a terribly simple and unremarkable one.

Of any film this fall, J. Edgar certainly screams "Oscar bait" the loudest. Biopic of famous American figure? Check. Period piece? Check. Simplistic framing device? Check. Old age makeup, some of it absolutely awful (poor Armie Hammer)? Check. Judi Dench? Check. All of these are part of the film. The problem is that Eastwood seems to simply stop there. He's made (and Black has written) an Oscar contender that feels lazy. The film may cover nearly seven decades, but even with all of that time, it never amounts to much more than a safe and shallow examination of its central subject. Black and Eastwood never take any sort of stance on Hoover as a man. True, they've avoided making a lopsided cartoon of Hoover, but they've also failed to have any sort of opinion on him at all.

It's a shame, because poor Leonardo DiCaprio really is trying his hardest here, even having to fighting against some odd old age makeup that gives him awkward-looking jowls. It's a committed performance, and DiCaprio totally sells it. Unfortunately, there isn't enough for him to sell, even with the script's hints at Hoover's closeted sexuality and mommy issues. No one else fares well either, if only because the film isn't as interested in any of the characters as it is in Hoover. Armie Hammer tries his best as Clyde Tolson, Hoover's right-hand man and rumored lover, though the character is ultimately little more than an oversimplified foil to Hoover. Judi Dench pops in for a few scenes as Hoover's mother and brings her usual credibility without doing much more save for one scene that links Hoover's mommy issues with his sexuality. The most unfortunate, though, is Naomi Watts as Hoover's lifelong secretary Helen Gandy. To be brief, it's almost criminal how basic the character is considering the remarkable actress playing her on screen.

And it's this precise lack of anything remarkable that leaves J. Edgar feeling so middling. Though certain memories, such as those surrounding the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, are interesting, there's never enough of a look into Hoover's thought process to explain his increasingly paranoid tendencies. As such, the film has some strong scenes, but never rises to become a fully compelling examination. The closest it comes is in a moment after Hoover's mother dies, but given how safe the film is in dealing with that angle, it amounts to little in the long run. Considering all of the ways Hoover was involved in Washington's inner-workings, it's amazing how tame some of the "surprises" of the story feel.

The film is also brought down by the ho-hum look of everything, by which I mean the fact that every frame seems to be filled with nothing but shades of grey and green. I'm not sure why Eastwood has recently become fond of this washed-out look, but he needs to get over it, and soon. I can at least say that for once Eastwood's score contributions (extremely limited this time around) are either effective or aren't noticeable. I'd comment about the production design and costumes, but with everything so drained of color it's hard to evaluate (or care about). Then again, maybe the lighting and coloring of the film actually works, because it embodies the film as a whole: so safe that it feels drained of any life or vivacity that would have made it as fascinating as Hoover himself.

Grade: C