Director: Christian Petzold
Runtime: 98 minutes
Despite seasoned careers, director Christian Petzold and actress Nina Hoss have precious little name recognition in the US, outside of the festival circuit. That will hopefully change with this weekend's release of Phoenix, the third collaboration between the two. This Vertigo-esque drama, which wowed crowds at last year's Toronto Film Festival, has its flaws - most notably in the pacing - but is still a rewarding slice of German cinema. If nothing else, it deserves attention for Hoss' beautifully understated central performance that reaches its height in a gorgeously executed finale.
Set just after the end of World War II, Phoenix begins with Nelly Lenz (Hoss) on her way to a secluded hospital. Stopped by American soldiers at a checkpoint, Nelly is eventually forced to reveal why she has obscured her face: brutal scars incurred in a concentration camp. Though her eventual surgery does wonders for her injuries, Nelly is understandably shellshocked. She looks quite a bit like her old self, yet shows no joy at the prospect of reuniting with her husband Johnny (Ronald Zehrfeld). The reason (well, other than the horrific trauma)? She's ambivalent about the idea that dear Johnny may have had a role in her capture by the Nazis.
Yet even though Phoenix's story positions the narrative to function as a psychological mystery, Petzold's screenplay fares best when sticking with the simpler ideas. The introductory act chronicling Nelly's physical recovery is given just the right amount of distance. Petzold avoids sensationalizing Nelly's grief or the gruesome details behind her injuries, in favor of beautiful and solemn imagery capturing the turmoil from afar. These also happen to be the scenes that require the least from Hoss, which is where the film's eventual fumbles arise.
When Nelly reunites with Johnny, he doesn't recognize her, and takes her under his wing at his nightclub (from which the film derives its title). There's an understandable reserve in Hoss' work here that isn't immediately impressive, but builds slowly and surely. Zehrfeld is quite good as well, and avoids making Johnny either overtly sinister or suspiciously saintly. The two actors are a great match for each other, especially given their respective roles.
And that's why it's frustrating that so much of Phoenix's middle comes off as repetitions of a single scene. Nelly is withdrawn and downtrodden, while Johnny is opportunistic and brusque. It's a testament to both actors that Phoenix is always watchable, because at this point Petzold's screenplay starts moving the story forward only centimeters at a time. It's one thing to have variations of a certain scene throughout a screenplay, but here it often feels like Petzold decided to just Copy+Paste a handful of conversations while only changing one or two details.
Even so, it's hard to deny what Petzold pulls off once he gets the pacing back on track. With Johnny's intentions finally out in the open, the film's amorphous middle takes shape. The truth begins to masquerade as lies, and turns this seemingly simple case of mistaken identity into an unsettling web of moral ambiguities. Just when you think Petzold has let his focus slip too far, he pulls it all together just in time before segueing into the conclusion.
Words like "shocking" and "devastating" have been thrown around a lot when discussing the final scene of Phoenix, and not without reason. Yet, in stressing these descriptors, one risks inflating a sequence that is very purposefully executed on a small scale. Phoenix's ending isn't exactly the sort of scene one can "spoil." It's not a revelation that changes one's perception of all that came before. Instead, it's a painful and beautiful moment of honesty, handled with delicacy and precision. Phoenix's middle is certainly a bit flabby, but Petzold's ending is cut as if by an X-acto knife. There are so many questions left unanswered as the credits roll over the film's open-ended emotional devastation. Yet given how hauntingly Petzold, Hoss, and Zehrfeld execute this story, the endpoint makes sense. In the wake of such raw pain, asking for more answers only seems cruel.
Grade: B+
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Runtime: 125 minutes
Coming just one week after Trainwreck, Antoine Fuqua's Southpaw serves as a grim reminder of what happens a formulaic plot meets formulaic execution. Whereas the Apatow-Schumer collaboration created a typical rom-com executed with with humor and heart, Fuqua's work with Sons of Anarchy creator/writer Kurt Sutter is emotionally stunted. You've seen this story of an athlete seeking redemption, and you've seen it done so much better that this latest iteration isn't worth your time.
Not even Jake Gyllenhaal, coming off of a winning streak that peaked with Nightcrawler, can do much to elevate the material. From a physical standpoint, the role is every bit as transformative as the one the actor played in Dan Gilroy's thriller, albeit on the opposite end of the spectrum. Gyllenhaal gain between 20 and 30 pounds of muscle to play boxer Billy Hope. Yet the external transformation is the most impressive aspect of Gyllenhaal's work. Of all of his recent projects, Southpaw gives Gyllenhaal the most traditionally Leading Man role, and the actor sells every minute.
But underneath the muscles and the screaming and cursing, Southpaw's protagonist rings hollow. The blame shouldn't be laid at Gyllenhaal's feet, but rather at Sutter and Fuqua, who have hardly fleshed out the character beyond the most obvious and blunt surface details. With such a textbook protagonist, it's even more difficult to care about the mechanical storytelling. A man is on top of his respective profession, then tragedy sends him into free fall. What is he to do in his hour of woe? Why, revisit his roots, get help from an elderly black mentor (Forest Whitaker), and work his way toward a boxing match that could serve as his redemption. Southpaw is Raging Bull filtered through the aesthetic of 8 Mile, but without the raw intensity of either.
Fuqua has never been a particularly nuanced director, and Mr. Sutter doesn't do much to help. As the architect behind one of TV's most suffocatingly MACHO prestige dramas, Mr. Sutter is an ideal fit on paper. But vapid bluntness multiplied by faux-gritty vapid bluntness only leads to...well, you get the idea. It's not enough to offer audiences a Damaged Male Protagonist and expect a connection, and it hasn't been that way for a while (and as for the way the film uses its female characters...yikes).
All of this reinforces the notion that Southpaw is, from a pop culture standpoint, a bit of an unintentional relic. Even from a technical standpoint, it's a surprisingly flat piece of work. Fuqua's images are a mix of the glossy and the grimy, and both sides are equally artless. The fight scenes effectively communicate the brute force of taking a punch to the face, but they never heighten the story's drama. Every story beat is so obvious that's no room to be engaged in the moment. A story of blood, sweat, and tears shouldn't feel so rote, yet here we are.
Grade: C-
Director: Judd Apatow
Runtime: 125 minutes
Though by no means as sharp as her sketch show, Amy Schumer's leap to the big screen couldn't have come at a better time. Having finished up a third season of her acclaimed Comedy Central series (which featured an award-worthy 12 Angry Men send up), Schumer is one of the most talked about people on the comedy scene. Rightfully so, as her first feature Trainwreck (which she wrote and stars in), proves. Despite the softening around the edges that was perhaps inevitable in the leap to the big studio system, Schumer's voice has landed into the mainstream remarkably intact and genuine.
Billed as a subversion of the romantic comedy, Trainwreck isn't quite the radical comedy promised by the marketing, but that's not entirely a bad thing. Instead of firmly skewering the rom-com, Schumer and director Judd Apatow (Knocked Up) have simply applied the former's voice to a traditional comedy, and made a funny and sweet film in the process.
In fact, the only truly rebellious aspect of Trainwreck's screenplay is that it does a bit of gender-swapping in its main roles. This time, it's a woman takes on the cinematic responsibilities of being highly promiscuous all while harboring an ingrained fear of intimacy and commitment. That woman is Amy Townsend (Schumer, obviously) a Manhattanite working at a GQ-esque men's magazine who's no stranger to boozy one night stands. Amy has followed in the footsteps of her rakish father (Colin Quinn), whose mantra is, "monogamy isn't realistic" (drilled in during the hilarious opening scene). Amy's feelings are challenged, however, when her boss Dianna (a spray-tanned Tilda Swinton) assigns her an article about a surgeon (Bill Hader) who cares for A-list athletes.
To be blunt, the rest of the film doesn't exactly contain surprises. Whether judging by Apatow's other films or by rom-coms in general, there's nothing in the structure of Trainwreck that's designed to surprise. Where the film's success comes from is that it remains (relatively speaking) grounded in reality, offering scenes that are either very funny or quite touching (or both). Though Schumer's comedy often blends vulgarity with cutting commentary, Trainwreck demonstrates that she can create genuine moments of drama as well. With Apatow in the director's chair, the shifts in tone are surprisingly smooth. When Schumer and co. take a minute to really get "serious," the end result feels realistic and sincere, without becoming pretentious. This is not the next great American dramedy, but it is a winning mix of sass and heart often missing from studio comedies.
The second biggest surprise of the film is that, in addition to its sincerity, much of the drama falls on Schumer's shoulders. Backed up by an excellent cast, Schumer does what Jenny Slate did in last year's Obvious Child, and shows off her skills as a comedian and as a convincing dramatic actress. Amy's Amy is, depending on the scene, either the goofball or the straight (wo)man, and she handles both roles effortlessly. Whether making drunken commentary during a movie or tolerating backhanded compliments from Swinton, Schumer is a consistently winning presence whose charm is only magnified on the big screen.
Likewise, the supporting cast is full of effective performances, starting with Hader's love interest. The SNL alum steps up to the plate as a romantic lead, and delivers convincing and heartfelt performance. His rapport with Schumer is delightful, which only makes the weightier scenes register more deeply as well. Brie Larson, playing a role modeled on Schumer's actual sister, does lovely work too. As different as the two actresses look, Larson and Schumer have a believable chemistry as siblings who are bonded by love but separated by their drastically different outlooks on life. Swinton, meanwhile, is a delight in her too-brief role as Dianna, while a whole host of Schumer's comedian friends (Vanessa Bayer, Jon Glaser, etc...) fill out additional roles, each with solid contributions to their scenes. LeBron James (as himself) and John Cena offer riotously funny performances as well, using their limited screen time to maximum effect.
So no, Trainwreck isn't the game changing rom-com that Amy Schumer easily could have concocted. And no, it doesn't have the stinging feminist commentary that Schumer's best sketches possess. But that doesn't stop Trainwreck from working as a highly-enjoyable means of pitching Schumer to the mainstream movie-going public. The studio system has a habit of squeezing the life out of distinctive voices. Thankfully, in Schumer's cast, the voice has remained intact. Under Apatow's guidance (or perhaps protection), Schumer has leapt to the big leagues not by compromising her voice, but by adapting to her surroundings. With this first step now out of the way, the door should be wide open for the comedian to really make her mark. And even if that means getting a few more Trainwrecks along the way, well, that's hardly a bad thing.
Grade: B
Director: Kim Farrant
Runtime: 111 minutes
"Kids go missing out here; it's the land," says an elderly Aboriginal woman. "What does that mean?" replies a panicky Catherine Parker (Nicole Kidman). If you're trying to sum up Kim Farrant's Strangerland, that exchange is the most efficient means. Farrant's missing kids drama is mysterious and unsettling, but also frustratingly opaque. Though headlined by compelling actors and featuring some moody visuals, Farrant's debut doesn't have the complexity to lift its premise above the ordinary.
The above observations are all the more irritating to express, given that Strangerland comes loaded with so much promise. Like an Outback version of Prisoners, the film centers on the aftermath of the disappearing of two children. Parents Catherine and Matthew (Joseph Fiennes) are left reeling, and the ensuing investigation only pushes them further to the emotional brink. Local detective David Rae (Hugo Weaving) does what he can, but he, like everyone else in Strangerland, pales in comparison to the overwhelming force of nature that is the Australian desert. The Outback is not just a setting in Farrant's film, but also an important character. The problem is, by the film's end, the Outback emerges as the most consistent and developed member of the cast.
The issues stem mostly from Farrant's work as a writer, which often undercuts the promising strengths of her direction. Her characters are scattershot at best. Farrant's script teases any number of angles for both characters and plot, yet never has the guts to make a commitment. Even the consistent traits manifest in clunky, unsatisfying ways. The writing is most noticeably a hindrance for Kidman, for whom Strangerland should have provided a total knockout of a role. Instead, Farrant limits her star to playing the same few notes of repressed anguish until the last half hour, when it's time for the histrionics. Kidman does her best to breathe life into the role, but she's ultimately powerless against Farrant's wishy-washy material. Scenes in which Catherine acts out by trying to seduce men have potential on paper, but are clumsily interjected into the narrative. Just when Strangerland looks like it's finding a solid tempo, a left field misstep comes along and everything gets reset.
The script is, somehow, even less generous to Fiennes and Weaving. Fiennes' Matthew suffers from the same repression as Catherine, only with fewer instances to go below the character's surface. Though at least Fiennes' role has something going on that's more than skin deep. Weaving, despite a natural presence in his role, is utterly wasted. Det. Rae has his own life, but the table scraps he's afforded feel like afterthoughts. They're the sort of details one adds at the last second so as to not fully give away that a major character is mostly a plot device.
At complete odds with all of this is that some of Farrant's direction is quite solid, and at times even inspired. The film's opening sequence beautifully sets the tone, especially thanks to PJ Dillon's photography and Keefus Ciancia's score. Farrant's command of atmosphere is where Strangerland makes its mark, and it's disheartening to see said atmosphere be used to prop up characters that are badly in need of reworking.
The ambition here is admirable, but Farrant's attempts to craft a probing, existential look at trauma and tragedy come off as simplistic and repetitive. In the right circumstances, film can turn emotional bleakness into something beautiful and transfixing. Strangerland, sadly, just isn't up to the task. Farrant doesn't need to explain what the Outback does to people, but she does need to provide more than ponderous questions and then leave literally everything else up to the viewer. Strangerland looks and sounds the part, to be sure, and in isolated moments it mesmerizes. But by the time the final shot of Kidman and Fiennes unspools, we're left in the same position as Catherine and Matthew: staring off into the harsh and ruggedly beautiful distance, wondering what the hell any of this means. The Outback didn't stop at swallowing up the Parkers' kids. It went and devoured the whole plot as well.
Grade: C+
Director(s): Pete Docter & Ronaldo Del Carmen
Runtime: 94 minutes
Pixar has a long history of finding unique ways to hit our emotions. This is, after all, the studio that got us to care about plastic toys, fish, and robots. Yet the studio has never confronted the very nature of emotion until now. With Inside Out, directors Pete Docter and Ronaldo Del Carmen have turned Pixar's power to the trickiest of concepts to visualize: human memory, emotion, and imagination. These three parts of thought have such a conceptual limitless to them that pinning them down with concrete imagery can be daunting. One risks creating a world that feels too slipshod to work as a setting for sincere drama. Thankfully, after a few years of divisive offerings, Pixar has made a remarkable turn around with its latest. Docter, Del Carmen, and the whole Pixar think tank have creating a vibrant, resonant, and emotionally mature tribute to the vastness of human feeling.
As portrayed here, each human mind is dominated by five key players: Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), Fear (Bill Hader), and Anger (Lewis Black). The emotions are in charge of handling responses as well as the formulation and storing of memories, which take the form of colored orbs.
We first meet these five inside the head of Riley (Kaitlyn Dias), an eleven year old girl whose parents (Diane Lane and Kyle MacLachlan) have just relocated from Minnesota to San Francisco. Without giving away too many details, things go awry when the emotions try to adjust with the move to California, and Riley's emotions are thrown into chaos. In the upheaval, spritely leader Joy and downer Sadness are knocked out of central command and stranded in Long Term Memory.
Following in classic Pixar fashion, Inside Out is built around a quest to find something/one important after being separated by larger forces. Joy and Sadness' journey back to HQ is mirrored in Riley's own desire to go back to Minnesota, the source of all of her best memories. The internal journey, however, proves to be far more imposing than the external one. Riley's brain is filled with an array of brilliantly designed locales that allow Docter and Del Carmen to have a great deal of visual fun along the way. Some ideas are more literal (a train of thought is just that), while others rely more on invention (dreams are created on sound stages like movies).
Yet with so much room for dazzlement, Inside Out never strays from its main story for the sake of spectacle. Poehler and Smith are smartly cast in their respective emotions, and the focus on such polar opposites creates an unconventionally winning buddy adventure. Poehler brings that Leslie Knope optimism to Joy, creating a well-intentioned, yet occasionally narrow-sighted go getter. Smith, a regular on The Office, brings an authenticity to Sadness, without dragging down the film's overall mood.
In fact, at the end of the day, Sadness might actually be the true hero of Inside Out. Sadness, as an emotion, is so often discouraged that it's often viewed as a negative. No one wants to feel sad, of course, but it's an emotion that fares better when it's faced head on, rather than repressed. The magic of Inside Out is that it refuses to turn Sadness into a Debbie Downer-esque punchline. She's valid, and in some cases, the one best equipped to handle what's going on.
At 94 minutes, Inside Out feels extra brisk, so it's a testament to those involved that the deeper moments hit as hard as they do. More than any of Pixar's previous films, Inside Out is the sort of kids' movie that will resonate far deeper with older audiences. The kids can come for the zippy adventure, colorful vistas, and slapstick comedy, while everyone else can come to laugh through the tears. To label Inside Out as a "kids' movie" feels condescending, given that it's all so rich with ideas and emotional honesty. This one really is for all ages.
Grade: A-
Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
Runtime: 105 minutes
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl might be THE most Sundance-y/indie/capital-Q "quirky" movie to hit theaters in the past half decade, or even decade. This is not a compliment. It is 105 minutes of the most grating stereotypes of quirky only without the self awareness one would find in a Saturday Night Live skit. The best possible outcome for American independent cinema would be that Earl is the final nail in the coffin for the Quirky Teen Dramedy genre, and not the inspiration for dozens more likeminded films.
Among the biggest issues plaguing Alfonso Gomez-Rejon's debut feature is that the titular Me is, quite simply, one of the worst protagonists in recent memory. Pittsburgh teenager Greg (Thomas Mann) is an awkward film geek with only one real friend. He also has low self-esteem and constantly rejects compliments about everything from his intelligence to his looks. So even though there's a Dying Girl involved, this is very much Greg's story, and that's a terrible, terrible thing. Greg's self-loathing has little basis, and his repeated mentions of his supposed deficiencies eventually sound less like an esteem problem and more like a ploy for unearned praise.
Of course, this means that the only thing that can help Greg change is a QUIRKY girl with some ISSUES. Of course, unlike similar films, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl's issue isn't that she's flighty or avoids serious issues. Instead, she has leukemia. Because, as The Fault in Our Stars showed us last year, nothing gets people going like kids going through first love with a nice side of chemo. In fairness, of all the cliched aspects of Me and Earl, the Dying Girl is actually the most genuine part of the film. Rachel (Olivia Cooke) isn't a brave smiling angel. Instead, she's a no nonsense kid who can cut through bullshit when she sees it. She's also got that wise-beyond-her-years vibe that could have been grating but thanks to Cooke feels totally natural. In essence, she's a more emotionally open version of Daria.
And yet even though Rachel is going through...what was it, oh yeah, LEUKEMIA, she gets sidelined in favor of the insufferable Greg and his BFF Earl (RJ Cyler). Except, y'know, since this whole thing is one big QUIRKY (TM) affair Greg won't refer to Earl as his friend. He's his "co-worker." Now, I know that Homer Simpson is not supposed to be a model citizen, but Me and Earl would have been improved significantly had Mr. Simpson sped by in his car and thrown out a drive-by "NEEEEEEEERRRRRDDD!!!" at Greg, and maybe Earl as well.
Earl's problems are a horse (and person) of a different color. Because we're apparently still in the late 90s, Earl is the Black Best Friend. He lives only a short walk from Greg, but in a "rougher" part of town (can you decode the language?). Earl's purpose is basically to stand there and be a emotional sounding board but he's different because, like, he's not white and that's super nifty, but he doesn't need a personality or agency. Hell, South Park's Token Black character has more dimensions.
But perhaps none of the above would be so troubling (also: infuriating, groan-inducing, etc...) if the script weren't so rotten to the core. Jesse Andrews' adaptation of his own novel is stilted at best. At worst, it's unforgivably manipulative and so forcibly twee that Wes Anderson looks butch by comparison (the film would have benefitted immensely from his touch). As far as heavily contrived dramatic moments go, Me and Earl builds to one that gives the whole of Men, Women, and Children a run for its money. This is also not a good thing.
Gomez-Rejon, an accomplished TV director, at least does his best to inject some energy into Andrews' self-satisfied tale. But the energetic camera work only exacerbates the problems with the script and in Mann's central performance. Greg's self-loathing/thinly-veiled narcissism smother the comedy, and bring hollowness to the drama. Only Cooke is on the right wavelength for her material, but she's often more of an emotional and thematic catalyst than a real character. Rachel deserves to be more than a device to push Greg outside of his comfort zone. But that would require conviction and a willingness to break away from stifling conventions, which Me and Earl and the Poorly Served Dying Girl has precious no time for. Cliches and tropes don't have to be burdens if they're properly managed (and tweaked). Unfortunately, Andrews' story is so in love with sob story expectations that there's never room for Me and Earl to do anything but drown in its own cloying artifice.
Grade: F
Director: Saverio Costanzo
Runtime: 113 minutes
Parenthood can be a scary thing, but hopefully not as scary as the woes that befall the central young couple in Saverio Costanzo's Hungry Hearts. It also likely won't descend to such stupid depths. Substitute the supernatural elements of Rosemary's Baby for paranoid veganism, and you get the drama at the center of Costanzo's latest film. It's certainly not a bad set up, and the Italian director (adapting Marco Franzoso's novel) gets some solid mileage purely based on the atmosphere. But after a compelling first half, Hungry Hearts degenerates into a series of increasingly idiotic actions and reactions by characters who barely have a single note to play over and over for two hours.
Young couple Jude and Mina (Adam Driver and Alba Rohrwacher) first meet after getting locked together in a foul-smelling bathroom in Chinatown. They struggle, in vain, to call for help, amused and disgusted by the absurdity of their predicament. Jump forward to the next scene, and they're living together. And then another scene comes by and they're married. And then Mina's pregnant. Costanzo keeps the pace going nicely as he covers these relationship milestones, using them as building blocks before the heft of the narrative arrives.
Where things change is after Mina gives birth, and insists on keeping the new (and never named) baby boy "pure." That means not going outside, or eating processed foods, or anything derived from animals. While Jude is a vegetarian, Mina is a hardcore vegan, and her intense devotion to her son's diet starts having adverse effects.
Unfortunately, from this point on, Costanzo's camera work evolves far more than his characters. Jude and Mina's anti-meet-cute unfolds over a single cramped shot. Other early scenes involve long, eye-level close ups. Most of these are reserved for Mina/Rohrwacher, whose face has a constant look of deeply-buried fear. And then, when things really start going down hill, the shots become wider, and Costanzo and cinematographer Fabio Cianchetti break out the fish-eye lens. Some of the later shots feel like rejected material from a David Lynch movie, and not necessarily in a good way.
Where Hungry Hearts really goes awry is in the behavior of its characters as Mina's paranoia increases. Jude is happy to standby and trust his wife, but even when he starts undermining her orders, he remains a weak-willed pushover. This isn't automatically a bad thing from a writing angle, but given that Jude has absolutely no other characteristics, it leaves his actions looking like those of an idiot. Though he eventually does take some sensible actions, he gives Mina far too many breaks regarding her behavior. Eventually, he sneaks the child out of the house in order to feed him meat, rather than put his foot down and insist to Mina that her parenting method is stunting their son's growth. When Jude's mother Anne (Roberta Maxwell) confronts her son during one of these feeding trips, she practically speaks for the audience, asking what the hell Jude is doing.
While Jude is nothing but a concerned pushover, Mina is only allowed to be unhinged and resolute in her paranoia. She insists that she knows what's best, even when her husband gives her evidence to the contrary. Yet even a pushover like Jude shouldn't have trouble standing up to the waif-like Mina. Her determination is disturbing, but not exactly intimidating. If she ever tried to do anything truly crazy, all Jude would have to do is cough on her and she'd probably be knocked off of her feet. Rohrwacher, for what it's worth, does what she can with the more expressive of the lead roles, but she fares better when she only has to act with her face, and not Costanzo's dialogue. I mean this as no slight against the actors themselves, but how Driver and Rohrwacher won the acting prizes at the 2014 Venice FIlm Festival is baffling.
To his credit, Costanzo manages to sustain the atmosphere from the first half all the way through to the end, but there simply isn't enough beyond that to make Hungry Hearts work. Jude's one dimensional personality only becomes a bigger problem when he tries to separate Mina and the baby, yet still gives her an unreasonable amount of access to visit the child. And Mina's freakish determination to keep her son pure is so clearly nuts in ambition that there's never room to question who's right and who's wrong. Jude and Anne are right, and Mina clearly just needs help. Lots of it. There's no room for nuance or doubt to lend this tale of marital strife a sense of balance or mystery. It's a one note enterprise under the impression that if it keeps playing louder and louder, it'll eventually turn into a melody.
Grade: C
