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Julianne Moore

Movie Review: Crazy Stupid Love — Not to be Confused with Eat, Pray, Meh

by Dustin Freeley on August 12, 2011 · 0 comments

Take a couple that has been married for twenty five years. Add a dash of midlife crisis until it yields infidelity and divorce. Slather the wife with remorse for the disintegration of the marriage and her choice to sleep with David Lindhagen. Provide a young, philandering mentor to the aging, seemingly asexual protégé ex-husband. At first glance, this could be a recipe for disaster. Perhaps it could be the treatment for a film that finds pleasure in castigating the wife for her transgressions and praises the cuckold for his restraint. It could also be the formula for a movie that delights in showcasing a middle-aged man finding himself by evolving – or devolving – into a modern day Casanova. And, Crazy Stupid Love might have been one of these two things – or a blend of both – had it not been for the cast.

Instead, Crazy Stupid Love assigns no blame for the collapse of Cal (Steve Carell) and Emily’s (Julianne Moore) marriage. Rather, the issues within their milestone “twenty five year” marriage surface within the first three minutes of the film, and it becomes apparent that they are both culpable. As the trailer gives away, the couple sits over dinner, unable to decide “what [they] want.” Agreeing to announce their decision on the count of three, Cal goes a la carte with the “crème brulee” while Emily modifies her order and tasks the kitchen to prepare “a divorce.”

From there, we are whisked to the car, where Emily drives while confessing to sleeping with someone else and declaring “we were so young” when we got married. But, from this, she gets no rise out of Cal, who sits comatose in the passenger seat, quietly asking her to “stop talking” before he “get out of the car.” As Emily prattles, Cal stays true to his word and rolls out of the moving vehicle, but unlike the preview, this scene isn’t very funny. And, it’s not supposed to be. There is no music playing over Cal’s escape, just the sounds of a body thumping on pavement, Emily’s voice rationalizing her decisions, and the screeching of tires as she slams on her breaks to help her soon-to-be-ex-husband from his heap.

Here, we see that it was necessary for Emily to announce both her transgressions and a desire for divorce because Cal is unable to communicate, preferring the route of avoidance. Here, Crazy Stupid Love absolves Emily of blame and places it on the shoulders of both characters. In the realm of “break-up, rejuvenation comedies,” (Old School, Swingers) this is refreshing territory in that we are not forced to root for either character. Rather, Crazy Stupid Love illustrates the demise of a marriage – be it from time together, changing desires, etc. – but places it under a lens through which both characters are flawed.

What’s additionally refreshing is that the subsequent arcs of both characters don’t devolve to slapstick sexual humor where they both rampantly sew their oats, only to find that they were only truly happy in the past. Granted, there is sex, and there are sex jokes – mostly involving Cal – but the film never goes far in Emily or Cal’s liberation without allowing the melancholy of divorce to crest. Divorce is not just “something that happens,” and it – most often – can’t be tersely written off. This happens in a number of films where the scorned party is so angry at their ex because of his or her infidelity that their rage washes away any residual sentiment, but not in this one.

When Jacob (Ryan Gosling), the philandering, equal-opportunity flatterer, takes Cal under his wing, showing him how to dress and how to approach women, there are a number of awkward, uncomfortable, embarrassing moments, mostly centered around Cal’s conversational digression to his children, his “crappy apartment,” his wife, and her lover – did I mention he was a “cuckold”? — all of which keep him as isolated as he was in wedded bliss. It’s simultaneously comical and heart-rending, and Carell makes this possible with a smile that begins as sincere but soon becomes a mask for his well of emotions. The same can be said for Moore, who plays Emily as a woman whose eyes bespeak the love she has for Cal, but whose smile is worn as a perpetual mask, something that is most evident during a particularly touching scene in which she needs to relight the pilot in the hot-water heater.

Something else that keeps this story afloat – and offers a bit of hope for relationships, as opposed to decrying them all – is the subplots: Jacob, whose philandering is foiled when he falls for Hanna (Emma Stone), a young woman who has mistaken niceness for love; the tryst between Kate (Marisa Tomei), a recovered alcoholic who’s turned on by honesty and Cal, who is often too honest; and, Robbie (Jonah Bobo), Cal’s son who’s in love with Jessica (Analeigh Tipton), his babysitter who is in love with an older man and has a penchant for photography.

Often, subplots are a way to make movies longer and pack in more celebrities, but here, the subplots do a fine job framing the main characters by showing various generations of cupidity, infatuation, sex, and love.

The one downside to the film is the last twenty minutes, and while it doesn’t quash the accomplishments of the first hour and a half, the final act becomes less a poignant, intelligently written film and more a devolution into a cesspool of clichéd twists, conflicts, and misunderstandings. A few are relevant – like the penultimate meeting between Jacob and Cal – but the others are silly, nonsensical uber-coincidences that even a liberal interpretation of deus ex machina would be a stretch to apply to them. Perhaps these twenty minutes were the writer’s and directors’ way to show that caprice and silliness still exist amidst the wreckage of crumbled live, and because of what Crazy Stupid Love achieved in the beginning, I’ll absolve it from blame and place part of the culpability on my elevated expectations.

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Movie Review: Winter’s Bone — A Narrative on Survival

by Dustin Freeley on January 19, 2011 · 3 comments

Natalie Portman, Annette Bening, and Julianne Moore have already established themselves as Best Actress contenders, but we can now add Jennifer Lawrence to the race as well for her performance in Winter’s Bone, a glimpse at how poverty not only constrains people economically, but also socially in a rural area where everyone’s struggle for survival is individualistic and biting the hand that feeds you literally leads to starvation.

Ree Dolly (Lawrence) is a seventeen-year old girl in the Ozark Mountains who is tasked with taking care of her two younger siblings as well as her depressed mother, who is often more catatonic than lucid. As with the rest of Winter’s Bone, there is chilling realism to her mother’s depression, and it’s not overplayed; instead, it’s subdued, exploring the conflict between familial obligation (caring for a catatonic, hardly lucid, yet living parent) and individual survival where hypothermia and starvation lurk within your shadow. The mother “is,” and Ree doesn’t visibly seem conflicted, but with every moment her mother spends dancing on the edge of sedation, the viewer wonders why Ree hasn’t absconded. The same subtlety is employed by director Debra Granik when handling Lee’s younger siblings. They don’t scream and cry. They don’t blatantly state how hungry they are, but this is told through the meager amount of food cooked in the morning. Winter’s Bone could be exaggerated poverty porn, driving us to find Sally Struthers asking for donations, but it isn’t.

The main conflict of Winter’s Bone comes when the sheriff informs Ree that her often-absent father has put their house up for collateral on his bail bond, which he has yet to pay back. Adding to the matter, Ree’s father has disappeared, and even his brother Teardrop has suggested that he’s dead in a ditch somewhere. However, without a body, the bail bond is still valid, so the house remains on the verge of repossession. Knowing that her father is in the meth-manufacturing business and involved in the local drug trade, Ree visits his local haunts, employers, and customers to find either him or his body.

There is an additional thematic narrative here that plays off of the previous conflict between family and survival in that Ree’s concern is not whether her father is alive, but rather that he is currency to dissolve the bail bond. Alive or dead, his body has a price associated with it, and as opposed to her mother and her siblings, Ree has ostracized her father from the family unit, relegating him to a pawn. Perhaps this is because he’s a reprobate, but there are plenty of those in this film that are still deeply tied to their family. Rather, his ostracism is a result of his abandoning his family. Leaving the collective unit to strike out on his own individualist endeavors breaks a social code and places his loyalty in the hands of other criminals who use him as a supplier, an additional form of currency.

Herein resides an additional conflict. If Ree’s father is alive, he will hardly turn himself over to the cops, and his existence as a drug distributor benefits a number of other members in the drug trade. If he is re-incarcerated, they are in danger. At the same time, his dead body more than likely results from murder, so it puts all those associated with him in danger because of a potential investigation, and this is what makes Ree’s journey through this social underworld so precarious. While she’s acting as a means of survival, like anyone else in the community would, her survival potentially impedes the survival of others by cutting off their livelihoods, whether it is through snuffing the drug supply or leading investigators to the breadwinners of each clan.

This trek illustrates a refreshing “survival narrative” because the viewer is only ever told so much. There is very little revealed at the end aside from the fate of Lee’s father, and even that is murky. (No pun intended when you see the film.) We know what ultimately happens to her father, but the how and why left untold, and truthfully, it doesn’t take away from the tale. We also don’t know what will happen to the nearly-catatonic mother or the hungry siblings. The film is transient, obviating a happy ending – or a sad one – and focusing on Lee and her quest to secure shelter until the next travesty.

DYL MAG Score: 8

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Movie Review: The Kids Are All Right — Jesus on Toast

by Dustin Freeley on January 18, 2011 · 3 comments

Each year, a handful of people report that they have seen a vision of either the Virgin Mary or Jesus Christ. These apparitions take a number of forms: watermarks on walls, streaks on windows, iron residue, cookware, or pita. The question to be posed here is not “why have Jesus and Mary come to us through these quotidian household objects?” Rather, we should ask why these images are being seen; and, the concise answer is that they want to. These visions are a testament to the devout beliefs carried by some, at times causing a misinterpretation of images. For example, to me, pita Jesus looks a lot more like Davey Crocket with his coonskin cap. If you turn it sideways, it looks more like a hut with smoke coming out of the chimney. Likewise, the remaining lard in the frying pan resembles a soft-boiled egg when rotated 90 degrees.

These observations are not to pass judgment on those who have a much stronger faith than I, but rather to assert that our belief systems often create a powerful suggestive force that we have a hard time dismissing because these visions justify our life-choices and reaffirm to that we are trekking down the right path. In other words, people will view an object and see an image that they feel best represents them. Had the discoverer of Pita Jesus eaten his or her lunch without noticing the coonskin cap beard, would they have been swallowed by the Earth? Probably not, but it did allow the owner to turn around and sell it on Trademe.com. I’ll assume God got his share of the proceeds.

All this being said, films are often similar to these divine apparitions. At times, movies that receive acclaim from critics and layviewers alike make me wonder if people are seeing Jesus on toast because they feel it is expected of them. If they dismiss this movie, what does it say about them as a person? Does disliking this film equal bigotry? Racism? Xenophobia? What backlash might arise?

A fine example of this phenomenon is Crash, a movie that I have almost blocked completely from my mind because of its shallow, ambitious, non-sensical, sanctimonious view of itself; nevertheless, it remains the most requested movie on Netflix, and the average viewer on Rottentomatoes ranks it at 87%. The critics on the other hand have it at 75%, but it’s still quite high for this film. Without getting too far into the silliness that is Crash, it gives off a vibe that suggests to viewers: this movie should change your life, and if you don’t like it, then you are a bigot who only sees the world categorized into stereotypes. In reality, this movie isn’t eye-opening, and it’s not poignant. In fact, it’s hyperbolic and contradictory. You can’t open a movie with two thug-looking characters complaining about stereotypes and how white women fear them when they walk down the street, only to have them produce guns and rob someone. Prejudice also can’t be erased when someone falls down the stairs and the only person there to help them is the Hispanic maid. Fortuitous? Yes. But is the audience supposed to believe that this maid is the WASP’s “only friend”? Hardly, but at this point in time, the message being sent is “everyone is equal and should be seen as such.” Definitely noble, but illogically ideological.

The Kids Are All Right is a movie that has recently entered this category. Admittedly, it is much much better than Crash, and the cast is amazing. Annette Bening and Julianne Moore are stellar as Nic and Jules, a lesbian couple who have each given birth to one child, bringing their family unit to four people. Bening is nuanced and controlled in every one of her movements. More often than not, her eyes convey her anger, sympathy, confusion, and suspicions. Her lines are not forced, and she moves fluidly through each scene. Like the character she plays, Bening maintains constant control but subtly enough not to overshadow her fellow cast members.

Moore’s turn as Jules is also a memorable one in that she harnesses anxiety and self-consciousness, allowing it to seep out in drips as opposed to fashioning a ball of kinetic energy. While Jules is vilified at the end (more on that later), she is the easiest to sympathize with because of her stymied wanderlust, initially acting on the family’s best interest rather than her own.

Mark Ruffalo also holds his own as the philandering restaurateur Paul, the sperm donor from twenty years prior that helped Nic and Jules produce their two children, Joni (Mia Wasikowska) and Laser (Josh Hutcherson). Caught in the throes of middle age, Paul reflects on his current station when Mia contact him on her eighteenth birthday to see if he is willing to meet his two “offspring.”

As Rob Cotto mentioned in a previous post, The Kids Are All Right has the “ensemble cast of the year,” and I couldn’t agree more. They are superb.

At the same time, there are a number of issues with this film that equate it to Jesus on toast. In a way, this film reminds me of Brokeback Mountain, another film that gave us stellar performances from Heath Ledger, Michelle Williams, and Jake Gyllenhall, but in the end, the film was perpetuated by its inclusion of male homosexuality as the primary plot device. The Kids Are All Right employs the same device, but this time, it’s not a novelty, so what we are left with – on both counts – are romantic dramas with stellar casts, but instead of heterosexuals with issues, we are offered homosexuals with issues. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it leads both films down a clichéd path.

The primary conflict in The Kids Are All Right is Nic and Jules’ relationship. Having been married for twenty years, they have fallen into their roles – Nic as the breadwinning, belittling, megalomaniacal, bordering on alcoholism, mama bear that needs to husband most everything in the relationship. Then we have Jules, the overshadowed, belittled, concerned, anxious partner who put her career on hold to take care of the children while Nic became a doctor. So, there’s nothing here – aside from gender – that differs from the parental dynamic in Ron Howard’s Parenthood.

Predictably, this conflict leads to infidelity, a trope used so often that we are desensitized to the socially-prescribed evil that adultery conjures. Don’t misunderstand, I’m not suggesting that infidelity is “okay,” but to be honest, in film, it’s expected, and this infidelity feels forced and unnecessary, primarily because it occurs between Jules and Paul, which in itself briefly attempts to fashion a discourse on whether or not homosexuality is a choice or nature, but The Kids Are All Right isn’t brave enough to take this further and create controversy. Instead, homosexuality is treated as a capricious alternative rather than a lifestyle.

Honestly, the film would have had a greater impact if the infidelity was elided and the focus of the film remained a study of the family dynamic being threatened by an “interloper.” The same control issues could have come to the forefront, and Jules’ resentment and frustration could have boiled over when she takes Paul’s side when he gives the children advice. Instead, The Kids took the easy route and forced a clichéd conflict that ultimately obviates Nic of blame and vilifies Jules, which is rather absurd.

For the first two-thirds of the film, Nic is seen as a passive aggressive narcissist. When she and Jules have sex, Jules is under the covers, hidden from view, and unable to breathe while Nic watches homosexual male porn, essentially blocking out her partner entirely. Similarly, when Jules tells Nic about the truck she bought in order to start her landscaping business, Nic says Jules is “putting the cart before the horse,” to which Jules reminds her, “you’re always telling me to be proactive.” Here, we have Nic’s controlling nature conflicting with her duty to support her spouse, and this is a fine scene, but it still paints Nic in a negative light.

However, when Nic discovers that Jules is having an affair, somehow Jules is the pilloried. Every line written for Nic and every bitchy moment she had is obfuscated, allowing Jules to be the villain, which is another overused trope. The infidel is not always the villain. Quite frankly, the distance between these two characters almost justifies her infidelity as a sledgehammer to the relationship. However, it is not treated as such; instead, Jules becomes the bad guy, Nic was right all along – although she wasn’t – and Paul’s a slime bucket.

So, how does this movie rank at 94% on Rottentomatoes? Perhaps I’m a bigot or insensitive desensitized to anything that portends to be novel and shocking. Maybe all of the critics were taken in by the performances, which to be honest, are the only reason I didn’t shut the movie off. They are phenomenal, and if Bening takes home this year’s Best Actress Oscar over my favorite Natalite Portman, I won’t begrudge the nod. It’s definitely a close race. At the same time, the hype over this movie reminds me of Crash or A Beautiful Mind where our ideologies outweigh the content of the script.

DYL MAG Score: 6

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Date Night: Chloe

by Tim Adkins on April 11, 2010 · 0 comments

The Liberian Girl got a day off work this weekend and she wanted to go to the movies. I suggested a Korean film or an Irish film or a bottle of rum and Hot Tub Time Machine. She suggested Chloe. Guess which movie we bought tickets for on Saturday?

Neither of us knew much about Chloe. Based on chatter around the ticket-buyng machine at the AMC 14 in Georgetown, neither did anyone else. (We overeard someone ask their machine, ”What is Chloe? I haven’t seen any commercials for that one.”) The Liberian Girl had seen a trailer for it and assessed it as potentially sexy with a great cast, which was enough to get me to cough up $21.50 for two tickets.

The film stars Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson and Amanda Seyfried. (You may remember Amanda from Mamma Mia! I didn’t. But you may.) Moore plays a wife. Neeson plays a husband. Seyfried plays a call girl. The wife, who is also a doctor, suspects the husband, who is also a professor, of infidelity. Consequently, the wife hires the call girl to tempt the husband in order to determine if he is capable of infidelity or not. The call girl accepts the gig and goes to work. But who exactly is she working on? Or for? And to what end?

That’s where the film is supposed to get interesting. And it kinda does. The husband, who is presented to us as an aggressive flirt, appears to be an easy mark. The wife, who is presented to us as a combination of suspicious and curious, appears to have a blurry agenda. As we learn that the wife’s suspicions may have been correct, we learn that the wife is in need of something more than just confirmation.

There’s more to say about the plot than that, but anything more would be too much of a spolier. I will tell you that the movie isn’t going to tease you without paying off. (Translation: yes, you get to see some boobs.) I’ll also tell you that I found it to be a bit underdeveloped. Stuff happens that forces you to make certain assumptions and there aren’t enough subtle details presented in the film to enable you to thoughtfully fill in the plotpoints that the filmmakers glossed over. It’s not terrible, but it asks too much of the viewer — so much that you could be distracted. In the event of distraction, you may lose the ability to enjoy what should have been a tantalizing and poignant mystery. In the end, I found it to be a film that wanted to be unconventional, but settled, to some degree, for convention.

After the film, the Liberian Girl asked me about the husband and his flirtatiousness/infidelity. We chewed on that for a while over drinks at the bar next door. Not just the husband, but on the nature of temptation and infidelity as they pertain to aging couples. It was the kind of intense conversation that the filmmakers probably wanted to inspire. It’s also the kind of “What would you do?” exchange that ruins a lot of dates and, eventually, a lot of relationships. Thankfully, our Date Night was not ruined.

Although, I kinda regretted spending more than matinee prices on the tickets.