Rachel Getting Married

Dir. Jonathan Demme, 2008



The most widely advertised component of Rachel Getting Married is the acting performance of Anne Hathaway. At the movie theater, the projectionist came to the front of the auditorium and welcomed us all, told us that Hathaway's performance has been critically lauded, and that she's a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination. All of this is true, but what the media has failed to remark upon is also the strength of the rest of the cast, the excellent script, and the tactful directing. This is exactly the kind of film I love to watch, where every scene holds the possibility for something, but the movie remains unexpected.

The film opens with Anne Hathaway (not actually playing Rachel, but rather, her sister, Kym), sitting with a nurse and another patient on a bench outside. The other patient begins to whine and Kym sharply scolds him. The patient responds with malicious sarcasm, "Are you going to run someone over again, with your car?" Kym looks away quickly, scanning the horizon, and smoking her cigarette. So much is revealed in that short exchange, yet it opens up a whole universe of questions. Did she actually do this? Is she at a hospital for rehab or for an injury? Is she looking for someone? Who is Rachel, then?

As the film progresses, our questions are answered, but oh so slowly. Rachel is Kym's sister. Kym was in rehab. Kym was a model for at least some time. Kym goes to NA meetings and really, really believes in them. The plot of the film seems to move around her for the first part; she drifts into scenes and creates drama with her neediness and her wounded self image which battles her still-inflated ego. The other characters are correct in saying that Kym makes everything about herself, from taking it personally when she is neither selected to be the maid of honor due to her chronic unreliability and her "past," nor informed that Rachel and her husband-to-be, Sidney, are moving to Hawaii after their nuptials. Kym is a whirlwind of self-importance and brittleness, sharp tongue and shame.

Portrayal of family can be very hit and miss in films, though it doesn't seem like the complexity of this kind of interpersonal relationship should be so difficult. Yet I think portraying a dysfunctional family that still has a lot of affection for each other is the most challenging because it requires a sensitivity to the ways in which people who love each other can be cruel, but then make amends almost as though nothing happened. Rachel Getting Married does this without ranging into the sentimental or the improbable. Kym, Rachel, their parents and their friends are all intelligent and emotional people, but the conversation never strays into the trite or the pretentious, and the compassion that they express seems genuine. This is both testament to the writing and the acting, but the entire ensemble just brims with talent and aptitude.

As much as I enjoyed this film, it wasn't perfect. Any film laced with tragedy borders on the melodramatic at times, and this is no exception. Although, sometimes a real-life situation can be melodramatic at times, and truly, there is no other way to show a confrontation between mother and daughter than tearfully maudlin. Additionally, there is the occasional scene in the film that is meant to show the closeness and the quirkiness of the family, but they can be a little strange and a little bit long. For example, there is a scene in which Rachel's father and Sidney race to see who can load the dishwasher in two minutes with the most dishes. This scene seems hardly edited for time, and we experience every moment of that two minutes, down to the scrubbing of the platters and the re-stacking of the plates, and including the time in between the dad's and Sidney's rounds. It's kind of cute, kind of funny, and then takes a turn for the sad, but then you realize that there has been some portion of the film has been devoted to watching people load a dishwasher.

Altogether, I loved Rachel Getting Married. Anne Hathaway may have the greatest star power and therefore the loudest accolades, but Rosemarie DeWitt has gained recognition for her stint in Mad Men, and so will her marketability increase with this. It's not a film with an obvious protagonist or villain, but in it, we can see the multi-faceted nature of people who really do mean well, but say and do terrible things. It is a subject that I enjoy seeing in movies because it forces me to look beyond the forced dichotomy of good and evil that so many stories present, and most things in life are not so simple.

Margot at the Wedding

Dir. Noah Baumbach, 2007



I don't really know what Noah Baumbach's deal is. I can see that he's a really weird guy, and that's his shtick, but it doesn't work every time. Now that I have seen three of his films, rather than thinking the first one that I didn't love, Kicking and Screaming, was just the odd one of a presumably successful repertoire, I can see that the one that I do love, The Squid and the Whale, is actually the odd one out of an apparently lackluster repertoire. Margot at the Wedding retained some of the sparkle of relatable humanity that was so wonderful about The Squid and the Whale, but the oddness of the characters and the disconnectedness of the scenes from one to the other were ultimately disappointing.

Nicole Kidman plays Margot, who, along with her son, Claude, goes to the sudden wedding of her sister, Pauline, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh. The two sisters are sharp and witty, but with different outlooks on life: Margot is a pessimist and Pauline is an optimist. Margot's "still got it," and Pauline thinks she needs to just take what she can get. Each sister's respective children have more in common with each other than the actual siblings do. While at first we are unclear why Margot would go such a distance for a wedding she was predisposed to disapprove of, we soon realize that she was promoting a book, arranging a tryst with a neighbor, and running away from her husband, who is never portrayed as anything less than a decent guy.

Pauline, on the other hand, reveals that she is pregnant, which is why she has chosen to leap into matrimony with Malcolm (Jack Black). Malcolm is chronically unemployed, disgruntled, immature and has other unspeakable issues. He and Margot cannot hide their contempt for each other, though Claude and Malcolm get along quite well. Claude is sadly torn between his loyalty for his mother and his sympathy for his aunt, whom he cannot see as the fool that Margot describes her to be. Preparations for the wedding include some friendly moments which someone's hissy fit inevitably ruins, or screaming matches that we wonder will ever get resolved.

I'm not sure which, if any, of the characters are meant to be sympathetic. Pauline starts out as the obvious choice for her sweet desperation, but then she proves to be just another Dumb Girl. Malcolm seemed like a poor old slob until you learn that his behavior is morally reprehensible. Margot somewhat earns our sympathy for being so emotionally cut off and unable to deal with her own self-loathing that she projects onto everyone else, but her words are so unpleasant that while I could intellectually feel for her, I know I would absolutely despise her if she actually existed. This leaves Claude, the unfortunate recipient of a broken home and a confused pre-adolescence. Perhaps someone with a similarly dysfunctional upbringing could relate more to him on a personal level, but I had difficulty overcoming his weirdness.

In The Squid and the Whale, the similarly pre-adolescent Frank has a similar oddness that he expresses in public sexuality and binge drinking. His parents are like Margot in that they are very intellectual and literary, and emotionally incapable of an appropriate relationship with anyone. These adults are developmentally stunted and have not taught their children any useful tools for existing in society. And yet Frank is more believable than Claude, more understandable and more sympathetic. Perhaps it is because he has a bigger role that he is allowed more screen time to develop more layers of personality, or perhaps it is because the words that Frank and his parents exchange seem more like realistic words than those between Claude and Margot. It seems as though Noah Baumbach took his good ideas in Squid and looked through his emotional thesaurus to find an equivalent, but as we all know, synonyms don't have the exact same meanings or implications as the original word.

I really wanted to like this film, nay, love it. The Squid and the Whale was full of such bittersweet humanity that watching it was like inspecting a fine gem and being blown away by the intricacies. Margot at the Wedding was too similar to not be compared, but too different exist alongside as an equal piece of art. While I have heard that Baumbach drew strongly from his own life for Squid, I can believe that he was a really weird kid who felt alienated from his peers because of his uniquely screwed up home life. While Frank made me want to give him a hug and buy him a sandwich, I just wanted to keep an eye on Claude and to make sure he didn't break anything or steal my underwear. It is a subtle difference between the two films, and a subtle departure that makes one excellent and the other middling. Repetition of theme, and overuse of device? That is a large part of it, but the rest may just be physical exhaustion from such exposure to irreparably weird people.

W.

Dir. Oliver Stone, 2008



I had no intention of seeing this film until about two weeks ago. It's hard to say what exactly changed that influenced my decision, but I think that my masochistic streak must have gone into gear. As someone who likes neither George W. Bush nor Oliver Stone, I figured there would be nothing in it for me, except to be possibly be annoyed, or to reaffirm my pre-existing feelings. Then, I thought it might be an important film to see for the awards season so that I would have my own opinion of the film and the performances. I found that while I by no means loved the film, and my views of Bush are neither changed nor augmented, it was interesting and ambitious, with some good ideas mixed in among expected weaknesses.

It was brave of Stone to make a film about a president while he is still in office, not only for the criticism it will inspire, but because of the fact-checking required to assure that it is not a work of pure fiction. I have neither the time nor the inclination to research things about Bush's past and present to make sure that Stone did not take liberties, but I suppose it cannot be avoided. The film covers W.'s life from when he was a fraternity pledge at Yale to the end of his first term in 2004. The history behind the man and the administration years are inter-cut together to show both Bush's upbringing and the result at the same time. In the end, this makes a it film built on dichotomy: on opposing sides, opposing views, and opposing goals. At times this works well, and at other times, it appears to be two films battling against each other.

In documenting Bush's early life, Stone portrays W. as a good ole boy, not particularly bright, but definitely personable. He lives his whole life in the shadow of his accomplished father, whom you may recognize as George Herbert Walker Bush, or "Poppy." Whenever W. wants something done, his father pulls whatever strings he can to make it happen, but the result is bittersweet: the victory is tainted by the shame that W. didn't do it all his own, and that his brother, Jeb, could have. Poppy's opinion of his son is that he should work for his living, but is willing to enable his slacking if it means saving the face of the Bush family name. W.'s inferiority complex leads him to plow through meaningless jobs, a marriage proposal he regrets, and a failed congressional election. Only in his governorship and his presidential election was he able to prove that he could pull himself up by his own bootstraps, but Poppy is always quick to chastise him for poor timing, or for stealing Jeb's thunder.

As leader of the free world, President W. is battling with his cabinet for how to best justify to the American people the decision to invade Iraq despite no tangible proof of WMDs, or reliable reports about Saddam Hussein's purchase of yellow cake Uranium from Niger. It is a political drama involving heated debates around ovular tables, punctuated by moments of prayer, and campaign strategists working to properly word speeches and press releases and fact-checking with world leaders and journalists. In this segment, W. is not sympathetic at all; his upbringing contextualizes his need to definitively capture Saddam Hussein and to tie al-Qaeda to Iraq to accomplish what Operation Desert Storm did not, but a few cautioning words from Colin Powell and smarmy speeches by Dick Cheney indicate that Stone believes that these are ill-chosen decisions and represent Bush's misguided and sinister presidency.

In describing it this way, it hardly seems like one film at all. Stone does not smoothly reconcile the early years with the later years, except to contrast the one from the other. While we can believe that Early W. and Present W. are the same person, all that Stone does to build W. up as a sympathetic figure, always seeking his father's approval is ultimately torn down by his depiction of W. as bumbling, tongue-tied, and taking direction from his Vice President. The Bushisms are expected, but they are not funny anymore given how often they are quoted in calendars, Newsweek, and the internet. When Stone chose to turn the tone from humanizing to ridiculing, I was less able to see characters, but rather actors doing impressions. I can see what his intent with the film was, and it was clever, but one of Oliver Stone's major flaws is his lack of subtlety. Had he allowed for a more neutral middle ground in the two approaches to W.'s life story so that they wouldn't appear so separate, the film would have been more successful.

When the casting for W. was first announced, I was pretty puzzled. Josh Brolin seemed far too beefy, Elizabeth Banks far too pretty, and Thandie Newton far too sweet for their respective roles of George W. Bush, Laura Bush and Condoleezza Rice. On the other hand, Jeffrey Wright as Powell, James Cromwell as George H.W. Bush, and Ellen Burstyn as Barbara Bush seemed well-chosen. The film held surprises, both pleasant and not. Brolin was quite good, and by the end, had perfected W.'s voice so well, that I was unsure to whom I was listening when he was giving speeches. Newton's portrayal of Rice was unflattering and a bit distracting in the way that her speech was so affected, and her face so wrenched up in a grimace. I didn't know that Richard Dreyfus had been cast as Cheney, and I was pleased to see him again, although a bit unsettled at hearing such poisonous words come out of such a differently familiar face. As a sort of sideways homage to The Daily Show, noted political satirist Rob Corddry unexpectedly comes in as Ari Fleischer.

Along with Stanley Weiser's commendable script, Oliver Stone puts together a commendable film. For the most part, it is interesting to watch and it is important as a historical artifact for what some people's perceptions of the administration is and has been. However, Stone was fighting a battle already in choosing such contemporary subject matter, and that has limited him in the scope of the film. Because I know that Bush is still in office and was re-elected in the 2004 election, I was unsure when the film would actually end. For the last six or seven scenes, I was sure it would be over, and then I was surprised that it went on. Who is to say that in the last two and a half months of George W. Bush's presidency, something noteworthy may happen, worth mentioning in a film? That would perhaps make for a more natural story arc.

Choke

Dir. Clark Gregg, 2008



When I first saw Fight Club, it was so new and exciting and original. That edgy, gritty, yet polished style of moviemaking hadn't yet quite taken off, and the plot was engrossing and surprising. It motivated me to dive into the writing of Chuck Palahniuk to see what this guy was actually like. The book, Fight Club, was fun, and I read it with relish. I was pleased that the film adapted it so closely, and it may be one of the few films that actually surpasses the original book in quality. After that, I read Survivor, which I thought was an even better book, but that I wish I had read first. Because the styles of the two books were so similar, even though Survivor was great, it felt stale and repetitive. I figured that I shouldn't read another Chuck Palahniuk book, because I would probably find it even more stale, and I wasn't in the mood to confirm this.

In case you weren't following, I haven't read Choke. But I feel that my initial fears about reading another Palahniuk were reflected in my viewing of the film, Choke in that I was mostly entertained but the pattern of the events was so reminiscent of the other two stories that it wasn't quite fresh. Palahniuk is intrigued by the depraved, perverted anti-hero who steals hearts and finds an equally enigmatic woman to share his bizarre existence with. In Fight Club, it was Tyler and Marla. In Survivor, it was Tender and Fertility. In Choke, it's Victor and Paige.

So Victor, living what can only be the result of an immensely screwed-up childhood, works as a "historical interpreter" (models as a 17th century colonial for tour groups), goes to regular sex addicts anonymous meetings (but is definitely off the wagon - or is it on?), and makes a pittance in sympathy checks from wealthy men in restaurants who save him from choking. His mother, who neglected him as a child, is living in a nursing home and is suffering from either Alzheimer's or dementia, it is not quite clear. The question of Victor's birth father comes up, and his mother's doctor, Paige, translates her diary to find that some rather startling revelations. Without giving the hook away, Victor's perspective on himself and his mother changes somewhat, and he begins to search for something more substantial without really knowing what that is.

This film is crude, dark, and not particularly funny, but whether it is my own dark side or my continued fascination with Palahniuk's style, I did not dislike it. It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what I liked about it, though a large part is probably that I quite like the actors. Anjelica Huston plays Victor's ailing mother with a frightening tact reminiscent of both Etheline Tenenbaum and the Grand High Witch in The Witches. I've always enjoyed Sam Rockwell and Kelly MacDonald (even though, as a friend of mine once pointed out, in her film roles, she always "gets fucked"), and there are some fun little cameos from people whose faces I recognize but could never for the life of me place.

I was disappointed, actually, that it was not as funny as I'd hoped it would be. I laughed a couple of times, and there were certainly no jokes that were over my head, but that's about it. The script is ultimately a little formulaic, with no unique flair. Clark Gregg clearly believed that the plot of the film is all it would take to captivate an audience, and that the book contained enough quirks to possibly carry over into the film. I suppose he was right, since I remained entertained, but I was hoping for something unique, like a cutting-edge soundtrack or ballsy performance, as Fight Club had to keep it relevant and re-watchable. My review is coming out more negative than I expected. Sometimes, I guess mediocrity can be okay.

The arc of a Palahniuk story is irresistible, and somehow restores my faith in the fact that I'm a decent person, because I'm nothing like these guys. This very concept is not enough to carry an entire literary work, and so I have no plans to revisit those books, or any new ones. It is unlikely that I see another film based on one of these books either, because its novelty will surely wane, and I doubt that I will need the regular reaffirmation of my relative morality. For now, Choke gets a pass, but I won't be seeing it again.

Miracle at St. Anna

Dir. Spike Lee, 2008



I have a lot of respect for Spike Lee. He is a very clever director, and one that always makes me think. I know that when I see one of his films, it won't do to check my brain at the door; I have to be fully engaged. I love this. I love a director who challenges conventions and conventional thought, and who clearly invests a lot of himself in all of his films so that you know that he never just makes a movie to raise money for the next one. For this, I was looking forward to Miracle at St. Anna. If I didn't love the movie, I knew that it would at least affect me on a more profound level. I did not anticipate the fact that the movie, while thought-provoking and paradigm-shifting, would actually have a few structural faults.

The film starts off in the noir fashion: the camera crawling through a harshly lit hallway, with the sound of a movie playing in the background. We see the main character, Hector Negron, watching The Longest Day and responding to John Wayne as though in personal conversation with him. Cut to Negron at his job in a bank. He is mechanical in his duties until a familiar face comes to his window. In apparent cold blood, he shoots the man with a German luger, and, impervious to the panic and uproar around him, calmly drops the gun, and closes his window. The police can't figure out why an upstanding citizen, decorated war hero, and otherwise unproblematic man would commit such a crime. Finally, we get the whole story when Negron flashes back through his history; the only hint he gives to a reporter is the mention of the "Sleeping Man."

This intriguing introduction sets the scene for a film that, ultimately, is nothing like that. The noir aspects from that point on are completely absent. The writing then takes a turn for both the brutally dramatic and silly. After a devastating attack on the WWII Buffalo Soldiers and a betrayal by their own white commanding officer, the four surviving soldiers plod through a sort of slapstick, sarcastic plot wherein they make fun of each other and find the little boy, Angelo, who will follow them throughout the remainder of their journey. This mood, too, will not continue beyond this gathering of scenes, and about an hour and a half into the film entire do we realize exactly what kind of movie this is.

It is, ultimately, a sort of supernatural tale of magical leaps of faith and human interaction. Angelo proves to be quite a remarkable boy, with instinct like a cat. The townspeople in the little Florentine village where the soldier quartet find themselves have experienced a sort of miracle of electricity that they attribute to having somehow pleased the nearby mountain known as the Sleeping Man. Tragic events ensue and befall all characters involved, and eventually, through a series of entirely unlikely and, dare I say it, miraculous events, we understand the motive behind Hector Negron's seemingly cold blooded murder.

Each of these component parts would make an interesting film on their own, and it's almost like they were separate films. However, there is little except continuity of characters to tie the three portions together. It is as though the final idea of the film was never quite fully figured out, or that the footage for each of these parts pleased Lee and the crew so much that they didn't wish to alter them to make the film more cohesive. Whatever the reason was, it felt rather disjointed.

This is not to say that it is a bad film. The attention to detail is quite remarkable, from recurring themes to the sets, and the acting on the part of everyone involved is above par. Some of the loveliest parts of the film are the interactions between the main characters; that sentiment of tough-love brotherhood, affection and disgust at the same time. Some big actors play some very small parts, which are fun, but then it's a little boggling that they pretty much disappear entirely.

As with many of Spike Lee's films, his credo, "by any means necessary" comes into play. He appears to truly believe that violence can be justified if the ends are worthwhile. I don't know how fully I believe in this notion, but my personal history is quite different from that of Lee, and of many other people who believe as he does. Oftentimes, as I watch his films, I have difficulty reconciling my beliefs on violence with the point of view that he presents. He makes a convincing argument for why it was necessary for Negron to kill this man the very moment he laid eyes on him, nearly 40 years after the war ended, as he makes a good case for violence or uprising in other films. However, that element just doesn't completely sit right with me all the time, so much of my viewing experience is combating cognitive dissonance.

I look forward to every Spike Lee film that comes out, and even if I don't like it, I always take something away from it. He likes to present unique perspectives on history and society, often at the expense of the audience's comfort level. There were protestations in Europe against his choices in Miracle at St. Anna because it did not portray the Italian resistance in an overall positive way. For cinematic effect, surely, he chose to stretch the truth of the circumstances behind the titular "miracle" at Sant'Anna. While I often dislike when filmmakers take liberties with historic events for the sake of good cinema, without the events being what they were, without that element of subversiveness and scandal, it would simply not be a Spike Lee film.