The best thing about The Descendants?

In The Descendants, George Clooney plays Matt King, a lawyer whose family has lived in Hawaii for generations.  Right away, we learn a) that he has to decide whether to sell off a large parcel of land owned by his family; b) that his wife has just suffered a terrible boating accident that put her into a coma, forcing him to take care of their two daughters; and c) that said wife was cheating on him before she became unresponsive.

Heady stuff, and worthy fodder for a flick.  Unfortunately, it wastes the opportunity.  It’s a small point, but the first problem comes right away, with the opening voice-over.  Seriously, something needs to be done about voice-overs in movies lately.  In Time either believed that its audience was idiotic, or it was just too lazy to convey the characters’ situation without Justin Timberlake explicitly laying it out. (Did Children of Men need opening V.O. to tell us that people no longer had kids?) Similarly, Clooney’s V.O. here does not show, but rather tells us:  ‘This is my wife.  She is hurt.  I have kids.  I need to change.’  This writing is the worst form of laziness.  Inserting exposition into a film while still being entertaining is one of screenwriting’s biggest challenges, something that writers usually spend endless days slaving over, but this is one of the worst cop-outs I’ve seen.  (Note that I’m not saying voice-over should never exist; American Beauty, quite possibly the best script of our lifetime, used it, as did The Shawshank Redemption, Million Dollar Baby, and a host of other great movies.  But not like this.)

The V.O. is a minor flaw, but The Descendants errs, much more critically, by minimizing the conflict in its story—a death knell.  It’s difficult to imagine any scenario in which you want to reduce a film’s conflict.  Here, Matt has to take care of 10-year old daughter Scottie and 17-year old Alex.  The latter makes for the film’s biggest relationship, but, as she tells us, there’s nothing wrong with her.  She does fine in school.  She’s not a drug addict or pregnant.  Her boyfriend is harmless enough.  She cares for her sister.  She does think her dad is a bit of a sap, and drinks occasionally, but so what?  What does Matt need to do with her?  The answer is ‘Not a whole lot,’ and that’s devastating for this movie.

The Descendants acts as though it’s going to imply rebelliousness by providing a boyfriend that Matt doesn’t like, but he’s perfectly fine to her, and the edgiest thing the screenplay can have him do is laugh at an elderly person’s Alzheimer’s.  Nothing against that scene, but, really?  That’s all we’ve got?

Likewise, Matt’s decision about whether to sell his family’s land to developers is not mined for maximum tension and conflict.  At one point, he learns that his wife’s lover would benefit from the proposed sale—a revelation that could have been interesting, could have forced a difficult choice, except that you already assumed he wasn’t going to sell.  Therefore, learning this information makes the decision easier, not harder—and that’s boring.

I also think the story would have greatly benefitted from excising the younger daughter entirely.  Firstly, it would aid from a convenience standpoint, as she’s constantly having to be watched or dealt with while the adults go off and do their thing.  But more importantly, giving Matt just one daughter to reconcile with might have made that relationship sparkle more.  (Recall the expression that a single death is a tragedy, while a million is a statistic.  Focus on specific, individual relationships in order to move people.) Furthermore, the potential dynamic of Matt-Alex-Alex’s boyfriend would have felt imbalanced (that’s a good thing) and would have highlighted the mother’s absence.

Finally, the film suffers from hitting the same emotional beat over…and over…and over again.  Almost all of the best movies take you through a roller-coaster ride of different emotions.  The Descendants projects the same melancholy tone throughout.  Clooney, in a rather wooden performance, walks around with essentially the same expression for two hours.  That dreary music accompanies nearly every scene break.  There’s little to no humor.  No fewer than three people deliver angry monologues to Matt’s bed-ridden wife.  It all blurs together, it all feels the same, and it stops us from truly feeling it.  There’s a reason philosophers say that uninterrupted happiness would cease to satisfy humans after a while.  In cinematic form, any uninterrupted emotion stops resonating.

None of this is to say the movie is awful.  Once we got past the painful voice-over, and I came to grips with the fact that there wasn’t sufficient conflict, I was able to go along with the second half without checking my watch.  The scene where Clooney goes to ask his wife’s friends how much they knew about her affair was well done, and his father-in-law was a strong character.  Wisely, the film builds the anticipation before allowing Clooney to meet his wife’s lover.  And, as mentioned, I know that plenty of people have responded positively to it.  But, in my view, it’s a huge waste of potential.

#8 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

At the end of last year, I wrote about the first half of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows when I crowned it my 25th favorite thing of 2011:By design unsatisfying, the seventh Harry Potter movie is still in many ways the best of the series to date.

Part 2 gives us the payoff of Part 1’s intricate, hard-working set-up. It’s an inherently satisfying film as a stunning conclusion to a saga that’s been 14 years in the works.

A lot has been written about the eighth film. Pretty much everyone loved it. I won’t try and rehash the arguments in favor of the movie that critics have put more eloquently than I could.

Yes, Deathly Hallows Part 2 is wonderfully acted, crafted, and paced. It’s exciting and scary and sad and extremely faithful to the original. These can be said, to a certain extent, of all eight Harry Potter films, which never sunk below “very good” but failed to ever achieve “transcendent.”

But for a moment, I’d like to focus on a single element that has been an underrated key to why Deathly Hallows Part 2 was my favorite movie I saw in 2011 and probably my favorite of the series: The time frame within the story.

Aside from a few opening scenes, Deathly Hallows Part 2 takes place over a continuous timeline of about 24 hours. Compare that to each of the other Harry Potter movies, which all spanned almost exactly a year.

Think especially of Deathly Hallows Part 1. While beautiful and dark and enjoyable, it spans almost an entire year with no conclusion. It’s basically an extended bit of exposition to prepare for the non-stop action of the grand conclusion.

The plot of the Part 1 is, simply, a bit inert, moreso than any half of a Harry Potter story. A lot of the tension comes from the angst Harry and Ron and Hermione feel wandering and waiting for something to happen.

Part 2 is the exact opposite. In fact — ironically — the two halves of Deathly Hallows might be the two most different Harry Potter films in many ways. Part 2 is the brilliant, kinetic payoff that feels completely earned and fully realized because of the buildup we powered through a year earlier.

This capstone also gives us a chance to reflect on a series that has been one of Hollywood’s most successful ever, in terms of box office and in terms of cinematic quality. This is why I suspect it will earn a Best Picture nomination; the Harry Potter films have been continually appreciated (if not adored) by critics, and they end the series with its highest acclaim ever. The Oscars love lifetime achievement awards.

I know I clash with general fan consensus when I say the fifth film was probably my favorite of the series (excluding this film, which is tough to include in the field because it’s so fresh and only half of a story) and the sixth was maybe my least favorite. It’s hard for me to separate the films from their origin material, but Order of the Phoenix refines what made that book one of the best in the series and Half-Blood Prince muddles much of what made that book one of the best.

I’m always hesitant to put my opinions on Harry Potter films into virtual stone. My mind changes all of the time on which iterations of these series I prefer. I’ve only seen the Deathly Hallow movies once each, so my takes on each could change pretty drastically. I’m really looking forward to seeing each one again.

But there’s one thing that’s for sure: Deathly Hallows Part 2 marks the final Harry Potter book or movie that will ever be released (barring some sort of expansion by Rowling). It’s kind of the end of an era for me that’s spanned my most formative years and more than half of my life.

The Harry Potter series helped me discover how stories and characters can help you better understand the complexities of right and wrong. It cultivated a love of storytelling and fantasy and youth-oriented fiction that persists to this day. I owe much to the series and I thank it for an unforgettable decade-plus of fandom that will certainly stretch into a lifetime.

Previously: Bruce Springsteen – Hammersmith Odeon, London ’75

Up next: A terribly named but endlessly addictive history simulator

#10 Adventureland

Movie, 2009

That Thing You Do is one of my favorite movies of all time. Maybe even my favorite. And it kept popping in to my head as I was watching Adventureland.

It’s not because because the two are especially similar in plot or content. What the two have in common are fantastic control of tone, instantly memorable characters, and a well-told, small-scale story.

Adventureland was marketed as a raunchy teen comedy, which was probably a poor choice and certainly somewhat deceptive. It’s unlike the current breed of most R-rated comedies: The comedy elements are understated, and it has the structure of a character sketch or extended riff rather than a tightly plotted arc.

This has the effect of Adventureland playing more like a John Hughes movie than a Judd Apatow movie, even though it was branded as similar to the latter. It’s the story of a summer stuck at working at a cheap amusement park for the newly-graduated James Brennan.

James’s family falls on a bit of financial hardship and so he has to abandon his planned tour of Europe with his college pals. Instead, he’s stuck manning a games booth at Adventureland, where he gradually gets to know the rest of the people who work there. As he gets involved in their personal lives, things start to get complicated.

I’ll leave my synopsis at that. One of my favorite things about the movie is how it doesn’t follow standard procedure. For example, it’s kind of a romantic comedy, but there’s no “meet cute.” And, after setting up Adventureland as the central location for conflict, the climax takes place entirely away from the theme park.

All of this gives Adventureland an unpredictable, almost natural tone. There isn’t anything particularly special about these people. There’s no magical contrivance driving them together. They’re just a few young adults, equal parts passionate and confused, who bump into and out of each others’ lives.

Adventureland reminded me there can be movies that are both conventionally funny comedies and artistically significant films.

(I’d be remiss if I didn’t give a kudos to the uniformly superb acting in Adventureland. The AV Club’s excellent review covers the standouts. )

Previously: #11 Mount and Blade: Warband

Up next: A retroactively revealing live album

The Ides of March – 3 stars

A solid, crisp, professional flick that, unlike Moneyball, is consistent in its quality throughout.  Ryan Gosling is an up-and-coming political strategist working a presidential campaign.  After he starts sleeping with an intern who has secrets, and takes meetings with rivals that he probably shouldn’t, he becomes embroiled in trouble.  It’s a relatively hook-free premise, but the film skillfully portrays everything crashing down on Gosling at once, which always makes for an interesting character.  The acting is strong throughout, especially from Paul Giamatti and Philip Seymour Hoffman.  There aren’t enough reversals to make this excellent—although Giamatti’s reaction when Gosling ultimately comes to him was nice—but there’s not much to dislike either.  More Gosling:

Drive – 2.5 stars

An indie-esque movie that couldn’t deliver on its promise, Drive follows a skilled getaway driver (Ryan Gosling) who aids and abets criminals.  It opens with an excellent sequence—after Gosling escapes a nighttime police chase by driving into a parking garage as it’s emptying, I was hooked.  The elevator sequence is also touching.

But the rest is too sparse, too boring, too similar to Gosling’s Blue Valentine in its emptiness.  At some point, explaining/showing so little just becomes a cop-out, and there are numerous exchanges here where the characters need to actually say or do something instead of just looking at each other.  Most movies beat you over the head with their dialogue/theme, but be careful of the other side of that coin; we need something to hold onto.

Margin Call – 3 stars

A strong ‘talky’ movie that, like Ides of March, remains comfortably short of greatness.  Margin Call is a fictitious but plausible behind-the-scenes look at a Wall Street firm on the brink of instigating a large-scale economic disaster.  A strong cast, headed by an excellent Kevin Spacey, does well with dialogue that avoids character-cliches. (One example: CEO Jeremy Irons not dismissing Zachary Quinto’s theories because of the latter’s youth.)

The most obvious room for improvement IMO concerns the lack of debate among the higher-ups with the CEO’s decision.  I kept waiting for another twist or turn, for someone to stand up and float a different idea; Spacey disagrees with Irons, but no one seriously considers any other proposals.  Thus, you understand where this is going about halfway through, but that’s not a fatal flaw.

‘Be first, be smarter, or cheat,’ Irons says.  That’s life, ain’t it?

In Time – 2.75 stars

The definition of a ‘perfectly fine’ movie.  You can see the mechanism turning and feel the beats coming, but it stays enjoyable throughout.  In Time runs with an undoubtedly clever promise, though it would have benefited from having a stronger singular villain.  The sequence culminating in Olivia Wilde’s death is gripping and unusual, although I was slightly disappointed to see it recycled for the ending.  Timberlake is reliably solid as the masculine action star, although he’s probably more interesting as the refined and slightly effeminate type he does in The Social Network and Friends with Benefits.

J. Edgar – 1.5 stars

Sigh.  Leo, I know you like to do only Serious And Important movies, and that’s all well and good, but can we go back to doing ones that are also, you know, interesting?  Granted, 2010’s Shutter Island and Inception spoiled us, but that doesn’t excuse J. Edgar for a grossly clunky script that never finds clarity or a plot.  Numerous scenes lack conflict, the narrative is bloodless and insipid, and the framing device of Hoover narrating his biography is possibly the laziest I can remember, just an excuse for ponderous voice-over and exposition.  To any aspiring writers: the framing device of Slumdog Millionaire is the way to do it.  This is not.

This movie also minimizes its lead charater’s complexity and wimps out on saying much negative about him, by attributing so much to his (supposed) repressed homosexuality.  Compare with The Social Network: not only does that not wuss out on making Zuckerberg a douche, it also doesn’t provide a pop psychology ‘explanation’ for how he is.  In J. Edgar, the actors are good, but stay away.

Moneyball – 3.25 stars

Pop quiz: What do you get when you combine an interesting book that nonetheless felt nothing like a movie, a torturous development process that included a disastrous script draft, and subsequent work by quite possibly the two best screenwriters alive?  The result, amazingly, is a pretty darn good Moneyball movie.

Moneyball almost never happened.  Sony halted the project and fired writer-director Steven Soderbergh after reading where he wanted to go with it, and thank God; I know the man’s had success, but I’m sorry, his draft (you can find it online if you look hard enough) reads more like the output of an inexperienced 18 year-old screenwriter.  Take, for example, the introduction of Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) to Peter Brand (Jonah Hill); in the finished film, this comes after the latter has just affected the course of a trade Billy wanted to make with the Cleveland Indians.  That adds context and conflict to the one-on-one meeting.  In Soderbergh’s draft, the very first scene has those two expositioning—I mean, talking—to each other in the most soporific way possible, with such humdinger lines of dialogue as “We’re getting close to a new stadium.” – “Which you need.” – “Which we definitely need.  So let me ask you: Can you work spreadsheets and all that stuff, like Excel?”  That’s so bad, I don’t even know what to say.

Thankfully, the final credited writers (Aaron Sorkin, Steve Zaillian) boast a joint catalogue that includes Schlinder’s List, A Few Good Men, The American President, Searching for Bobby Fischer, The Social Network, A Civil Action, “The West Wing,” Awakenings, and many other successes.  Though by all accounts Sorkin and Zaillian worked mostly independently of each other, they were able to cobble together a cohesive and often moving story out of this mess. 

Note how they impart more in a couple heartbeats than Soderbergh did in entire scenes.  Nothing in his script conveyed the  sabermetric philosophy as efficiently as “Your goal shouldn’t be to buy players; your goal should be to buy wins, and to buy wins, you need to buy runs.”  In Soderbergh’s script, when catcher Scott Hatteberg wonders about the fans’ reaction to him playing first base, Beane replies with “The fans run my ballclub?”  In the finished product, the reply is “Yeah, maybe we can try one of them out too.”  Less amateurish, more revealing, and funnier.

Brand’s first scene in the boardroom full of scouts is a masterclass of writing for multiple viewpoints, and Moneyball also succeeds in humanizing Beane’s character, largely through the effective subplot with his daughter (almost entirely absent in Soderbergh’s draft).  The last post-script is perfect, several lines are laugh-out-loud funny, and you feel something when Beane declares that their work will be discredited if the A’s don’t win it all.  The movie is warmer than you’d expect.

Yet…it’s tantalizingly frustrating too.  After a few viewings, the disjointed way that this script came together becomes evident.  The beginning and ending both drag, and the whole thing wouldn’t have lost much at 15 minutes shorter.  A few scenes don’t begin as late as they should or end as early as they should, and others (like Beane’s early meeting with the Cleveland brass) feel off.  There’s no Sorkin-esque rapid-fire dialogue, and that’s fine in and of itself, but the tone needs a few jolts of intensity.  But ultimately, I can’t be too harsh, because adapting that book would have been extraordinarily difficult.  The writers, and actors, did a solid job, and that’s commendable.

The Social Network’s top comparison among critics has been the beloved Citizen Kane, as both chronicle the rise and fall of a young, ambitious individual who shapes a new technological medium to his advantage.  After 4 viewings of the former (plus many more of certain scenes), endless reading of reviews, and discussions with friends, I’ve realized another crucial similarity.

Kane’s greatness, so goes the narrative, becomes more apparent the more you know about movies; its praised cinematography isn’t the sort of thing that captivates casual fans.  Likewise, Network seems to me a movie that looks better the more thoroughly you examine its craft.  The timing of the scenes, the way they flow together, the way endings seamlessly become the next appropriate beginning, the way certain lines of dialogue come back to relevance minutes or scenes later, the utter lack of meaningless moments and utter pervasiveness of conflict—it exhibits the peerless level of craft to which screenwriters aspire.

This says little about the emotion the story elicits, which I point out because the only blemish I’ve heard anyone pin on Network is that it’s a little cold.  To an extent, I wouldn’t disagree with that, though I can adore ‘cold’ movies (Closer, anyone?).  But I think there’s plenty of emotional resonance, and, more importantly, the level of craft demonstrated by the screenplay thrills geeks like me.

What’s most remarkable to me about Facebook is not the extent of its ubiquity within modern society—it’s how fast that happened.  The site launched in 2004; within all of 2 years, no self-respecting student could avoid having an account, and after 2 more years, that category had pretty much expanded to everyone too young to be elected president.  Thus it should be no surprise that, 6 years later, there already exists a book and, now, a movie chronicling the site’s rise.

21^st century communicators owe a great deal to Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), the anti-hero of this film who created the site, albeit possibly with help from other people whom he did not credit and compensate.  A Harvard undergraduate in 2003, he channeled his utter inability to carry on a compassionate conversation into a creationist rage that became Facebook.  Problems arose, however, from his interactions with a couple of silver-spoon twins (both played by Armie Hammer) who claimed he stole their idea and with his best friend Eduardo (Andrew Garfield), who donated initial start-up cash and then was gradually phased out of the site’s ownership.

The Social Network, thus, intersperses the story of the site’s development with depositions being taken in two separate lawsuits filed against Zuckerberg, one by Eduardo and one by the twins, a brilliant structural choice that not only provides incredible forward momentum but also allows for moments of penetrating drama.  This is a ferociously entertaining rush through scenes laced with conflict, characters who understand themselves better than they do others, and ideas disseminated, dismantled, and disavowed.

Aaron Sorkin’s script, which pointedly, poignantly captures contradictions of the modern era, begins in mid-sprint, unspooling a delicious opening scene that makes you wonder why so many movies open in such a drab fashion.  Zuckerberg and his then-girlfriend (Rooney Mara) talk a mile-a-minute, West-Wing-for-college-students-style, and if that description titillates you half as much as it does me, see this movie.  Those first five minutes introduce the powerful irony the film pushes—the greatest cultural marker of the past generation (if not longer) springing from the mind of someone who “doesn’t have three friends to rub together.”  Network has the guts to let you dislike its protagonist right away.

Maybe it’s because Sorkin has never apologized for catering to a smarter audience than most Hollywood writers, but The Social Network doesn’t succumb to the typical Hollywood convention of deriding smart kids.  With the contrasting shots of Zuckerberg frantically typing on his computer as Harvard revelers party around him, it’s not making fun of his aptitude; in fact, it’s admiring both his brains and the perseverance with which he carries out his pet project.  Of course, it relishes the other side of him too—the less noble one.

Speaking of something less than noble, the other key player, providing a boost of energy halfway through, is Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake), who founded Napster, made nothing on it, and then grabbed hold of Zuckerberg’s ride.  A smart playboy, Sean manages to impress Mark with his acumen, even though the latter wants no trappings of success.  Some of his scenes—at a fancy dinner, and upstairs at a club—feature writing so sharp, dialogue so propulsive in service of both character and plot, that I had to lean forward in my chair as though I was awaiting the revelation of the villain in a suspense thriller.  Sorkin’s dialogue overflows with conflict and tension, and that, combined with his characters’ eloquence, commands your attention.

By this point, Sorkin—whose resume is getting a little absurd—has mastered all of the tricks at the disposal of screenwriters.  This tops A Few Good Men and The American President as his best movie, all of which ignores his contributions to TV—the decent Sports Night, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (which, despite its critics, was about 90% of a great show), and, ahem, four seasons of The West Wing.

There’s not a single solitary moment here that’s unnecessary—something that, when you think about it, very few films can say.  Sorkin manipulates the audience so subtly, so craftily, so enjoyably that not only do you never see it coming, but you simply shake your head in admiration after he does.  The ability to, say, make a line like “And the water under the Golden Gate is freezing cold” hit us where it hurts does not reside in most people.  Sean’s explanation to Mark of the man who founded Victoria’s Secret combines a capitalistic rags-to-riches fable with a cautionary tale, and it illustrates some of the differences between those two and Eduardo.  And Zuckerberg’s follow-up question, regarding Sean’s first love interest, illustrates the differences between those two, and foreshadows the devastating final shot of the film.

By that moment, you’ll be surprised at how well Parker has been fleshed out, a trait that Sorkin shares with all his characters.  Note the way he defines Harvard’s president three-dimensionally in about 5 minutes, or how Mark ‘interviews’ candidates for internships.  It’s telling that, when Mark lets down Eduardo at one point, he doesn’t apologize—though you can sense he’s thinking about it—but instead re-directs him to the company’s latest innovations.  Much of the dialogue effectively conveys the conflicting sense that A Beautiful Mind did about its protagonist—were all of his insults cruel, or did he just not always know what to say in everyday conversations?

Network, too, is a phenomenally acted film, from the ancillary characters (especially Hammer as both twins) all the way up; all three protagonists deserved Oscar nominations and/or wins (deserving, of course, not always translating to “receiving”).  Eisenberg is viciously good, especially at capturing the disturbing aspects of Zuckerberg’s personality.  Timberlake makes Sean seductive, resilient, and dependent, teeming with vigor and liveliness, every word dripping with conviction.  Garfield, excellent in Never Let Me Go, gives a performance that shines through on repeated viewings.  Though viewers may disagree over the details of who deserved what, Eduardo is the most sympathetic character, and Garfield paints his devotion to Mark without relying on corniness.  His reaction scene to getting all but written out of the company should have gotten him the Oscar nomination alone.

Despite the subject matter, director David Fincher wisely does not beat you over the head with his movie’s modernity.  No significance is played by text messaging or video sharing or Skyping, and the colors seem dried out of most scenes, especially the Harvard ones: it all looks like they could be sitting in 1980s dorms, and that’s critical for emphasizing Zuckerberg’s alienation from the society around him.  The movie gets all the small details right, too, in particular the fantastic score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross–ominous and haunting, as though things are breaking all around it (which they are).  And the scene (pictured above) at the club, with pounding music, where you sort of have to strain to hear the words, but can still grasp everything, is a masterwork of sonics–and, I think, says something about the way a lot of people live today.

“I don’t want my fidelity to be to the truth,” Sorkin recently said regarding his work here.  “I want it to be to storytelling.”  That sums up my thoughts exactly—I don’t go to movies for history lessons; I go for drama and entertainment, and The Social Network has both in spades.  It has them, above all, in its characters, who are all striving for something out of their reach.  Sean wants to get on board with something again.  Eduardo wants the approval of his father and his friend.  And Mark wants, not money or products or fame, but recognition as well, but only from the one person, out of millions, who won’t give it to him.

The Invention of Lying just doesn’t know what it wants to be. It spends its first third belaboring its premise — a world where people are incapable of lying — with the same joke over and over. Then it shifts to a Yes Man-type attempt at an inspiring tale. Then it shifts into a religious satire. And finally into a generic romantic comedy. It’s all a bit discombobulated and, unfortunately, unsatisfying.

Though the cast is full of lovable stars, they feel a bit strangely used and discongruous. Ricky Gervais leads the pack and only sometimes does a good job. He absolutely nails the satirical elements, but the conventional portions of the film fall short in spite of Gervais’s prodigious charms.

Jennifer Garner stars opposite Gervais and she is as winning as always. There’s not much chemistry between her and Gervais, primarily because her role is in the romantic comedy portion and that’s where Gervais falls flat.

The supporting cast is an all-star bunch but takes very odd roles: Louis CK is good at his deadpan but the character written for him contributes little. Rob Lowe as the foil doesn’t play to his strengths as an actor, and Jonah Hill’s contribution is very strange and short-lived. (Side note: Both CK and Lowe have appeared in the exemplary sitcom Parks and Recreation to much better effect.) Tina Fey and a few other stars appear for mere moments; why bring in the big guns if you have nothing for them to do?

The reason to see this film — aside from the first few minutes before the premise grows tired — is the extended scene where Gervais essentially invents God (“The Man in the Sky”). It is Gervais at his finest and most natural: biting, sarcastic, subversive. No other scenes in the film quite reach the hilarious heights of that atheistic satire of religion, even though later scenes toy with the idea — particularly a scene where an unkempt Gervais resembles a certain religious figure.

Others may be more hooked in by the premise than I was. I just thought a main character with all the knowledge and upper hand — he alone has the ability to lie in his world — was largely unappealing. But even if you buy the premise, large portions of the film have little to do with the film’s hook. Honestly, I can’t imagine anyone really loving this film unless they’re really smitten with Gervais. The film is just too schizophrenic to ring with any sort of truth.

Rating: 3 stars (out of 4)

There was a point about halfway into It’s Kind of a Funny Story when I was confident the film was headed into four-star territory. The set-up in this movie is phenomenal in three ways: the way it establishes its conflict, the way it introduces its colorful cast of characters, and the way it establishes a lightweight yet moving tone. While the second half of the film is a bit derivative and a let-down, the overall effect of the film is a fulfilling and inspiring one.

Sometimes the line between depression and happiness is razor thin, and Funny Story is about that line. Why is central character Craig (Keir Gilchrist) depressed? He has a loving family, he goes to a great school, he has friends, he has no particularly dark secrets. He’s just not very happy. He feels alone.

And so he begs a doctor to let him into the mental ward of the hospital, North 3, after he has a suicidal dream. He wants an easy way out. As soon as he gets there, he witnesses just how scary “real” mental disorders are. The patients — ranging from a bed-ridden Egyptian man who Craig shares a room with, to chronically depressed father Bobby, to quirky wristcutter Noelle — terrify and confuse him at first.

Central to Craig’s growth and ability to answer the questions he has about himself are Bobby and Noelle. Emma Roberts does a good job as Noelle, capturing a seductive balance of innocence and darkness. As you could probably guess from the posters, if not the casting decision alone, Noelle becomes something of a love interest for Craig, and they way they discover each other is adorable. It reminded me of a few of my favorite film romances, Before Sunrise and Garden State, in the earnest self-definition that it accompanies.

Meanwhile, Zach Galifianakis is astonishingly good as Bobby. He had me cracking up and on the verge of tears in the same scene. His presence is still a little bit uncomfortable, a la The Hangover. But where his star-making role primarily used Galifianakis as a comic crutch, he has a real character in Funny Story. Heartbreaking and moving, Galifiankis’s Oscar-worthy work alone is worth the price of admission.

The supporting cast does a solid job, though I came to question a few of the casting decisions. Particularly, I wasn’t a fan of the choice for Nia, Craig’s longtime crush. Zoe Kravitz never gives off a “Miss Perfect” vibe to match the characterization in the script.

The film never dawdles too long on Craig’s obsession with Nia, nor any conflict. It moves so briskly through the drama that I almost wish there was another 30 or 45 minutes to flesh it out. But the rapid pace has its perks: I dug the lightweight tone for most of the film. It would’ve been easily to screw up the tone of this film, but, for the most part, the the underlying giddiness never detracts from the seriousness of the topic.

Funny Story also briskly intercuts dream sequences and abstract representations of Craig’s mental state. Think 500 Days of Summer. There are also lots of flashbacks with narration and other tools that often get dismissed as contrivances but are a key part of this film’s experience.

The tone’s few trouble spots come towards the end. First, the film dips into some really tired romantic comedy tropes. I loved the blooming romance between Noelle and Craig for about two thirds of the film, until the generic third-act boy-loses-girl twist sends it into a nosedive from which it never fully recovers.

Even more troublesome is the questionable conclusion for the rest of the ward. After the film convincingly depicts the different ends of the spectrum of mental disorder spectrum, the conclusion of this film almost trivializes some of the more serious mental diseases.

There are people — such as this film’s Muqtada — who need more than a little joy and momentum to be cured. Some mental patients will always need serious therapy and medicine to cope with major issues. I did not detect an acknowledgment of that truth in Funny Story‘s ending.

At the same time, dwelling on the patients with serious mental illnesses would’ve bogged down the film from its central theme, which bubbles with passion and rings of truth: We need to live our lives in a way that make us happy.

The presentation of this theme connected with me on a very personal level. I really empathized with Craig’s impulses, along with many of the particulars of his situation: While I’ve never been close to suicidal, I have seen a therapist for many of the same reasons Craig begs the doctor to check him into North 3.

There will be people who hate Funny Story for showcasing a white, upper-middle-class teenager without any serious problems who mopes around. For me, that was the main strength of the film: Anyone, anywhere, even someone as lucky and well off as me, can suffer from an unfulfilled life. But fulfillment doesn’t just magically happen: We have to earn it.

Part 3 of our Aaron Sorkin exploration…

Rating: 3 and a half stars (out of 4)

The opening sequence of The American President is so good, it would be enough to carry the rest of a mediocre film into watchable status.  Thankfully, though, it doesn’t represent the extent of the pleasures here, in the film that eventually pushed Aaron Sorkin to write a little show called “The West Wing.”  Here (with subsequent partners Martin Sheen and Joshua Malina on hand as side characters), he focuses his attention not on the president’s inner circle but on the man himself—and one key woman.

President Andrew Shepard (Michael Douglas), recently widowed, faces the prospect of attending a state dinner alone.  Meanwhile, a liberal environmentalist group has hired a gun-ho lobbyist named Sydney Ellen Wade (Annette Bening) to press the White House to campaign for a bill aggressively fighting fossil fuel emissions.  When the president walks in on a meeting where Sydney blasts him, he’s kind of intrigued, intrigued at her passion and pluck and lack of political correctness.  He asks her to be his date to the state dinner.

It’s hard to imagine a sitting president ‘dating,’ so to speak, and Sorkin milks the hesitancy that the public would likely feel.  Shepard wants nothing of it; when asked by aides to give them something to say about “the Sydney issue,” he responds that there’d better be something wrong in Australia.  By creating opposition forces (in this case, Republicans) who attempt to discredit Shepard with character attacks and defame Wade’s name, Sorkin adroitly conveys his message regarding media and politics.  As one character notes, would FDR ever have been elected, in a wheelchair, if he’d had to campaign in front of a television?  It’s doubtful, and other anachronistic historical situations (such as political affairs that reporters used to keep quiet) are not mentioned—but they’re implied and understood nonetheless.

What’s perhaps most notable, on first blush, in The American President, is the remarkable chemistry between Bening and Douglas—the acting here is never short of exemplary.  Think of the scene in the ‘dish room’; before the two share their abbreviated first kiss, Bening conveys wonderment, little-girl embarrassment, and doubt with nary a word.  Likewise, Douglas, who’s never been one of my favorite actors, gives in my mind his finest career performance, drenching his character in realism and warmth.  Like Bening, he never overplays the moment—not the laughs, not when he chides aides, not when his presidential challenger (Richard Dreyfuss) begins spreading lies.  These are remarkably controlled performances.

The acting is matched by the writing, with scenes that slide between above-average and exceptional.  The aforementioned opening scene displays rapid-fire walk-and-talks that would become a Sorkin trademark in “West Wing,” but, good as they are, I was struck by something else.  Note the way we become aware of the president’s status as a widower: his press secretary (Anna Deavere Smith, the NSA in “WW”) casually mentioning that they can’t parade their boss around as the ‘lonely widow.’  The room goes quiet for a moment before she apologizes to his instant forgiveness.  A lesser movie would have beaten us over the head with this information; Shepard might have stared mournfully at a photograph of a woman on his desk, or his daughter might have melodramatically imparted the news.  Sorkin, though, integrates it seamlessly into the free-flowing scene, and the exchange reveals several details about the characters, including the president’s informal relationship with his staff and his lack of pretension.

Likewise, the subplots involving the political battles being fought by the staff—over gun control and environmental regulations—are skillfully handled.  Not every scene is exceptional, but the film moves with the kind of supremely entertaining smoothness that far, far too films achieve (or, at times, seem to aspire to).  Every exchange bristles with some kind of conflict, and Sorkin includes character-defining situations for all the key players; for example, an early scene where Shepard plays pool with his chief of staff (Sheen) feels even more integrated in the story after the second such scene.  The president, frustrated over the disapproval of his relationship with Sydney, wonders why Sheen always liked to give advice but never wanted to run for anything himself, never wanted to put himself out there.  If I did, he replies, “you’d be the most popular history professor at the University of Wisconsin.”  It’s a devastating line, though one that doesn’t ruin Sheen’s character because we understand that it comes, partly, from the staff’s exasperation with the president’s passivity.

Director Rob Reiner (A Few Good Men) makes good decisions himself (major props for never cutting back to shocked looks from Sydney’s sister during her first phone call with Shepard), but the most credit has to go to the actors and Sorkin.  He’s never afraid to ask the arresting questions, the ones on everyone’s mind that nevertheless sometimes go unsaid.  Early on, Sydney’s boss (John Mahoney) bluntly inquires, “Are you sleeping with him?”  And at the end of the aforementioned pool scene, the president ponders, “If Mary hadn’t died three years ago, would we have won?”  The ironic recognition that he might have won his first election with help from that event but now is vulnerable to character attacks just completes Sorkin’s critique of modern politics.  Few critiques, however, can legitimately be leveled here.

Our next Aaron Sorkin exploration…

Rating: 2 stars (out of 4)

The trailer for Charlie Wilson’s War and its IMDB page promise two very different movies.  The latter will remind you of the tremendous amount of talent that has been gathered in front of and behind the camera, but the former promises only a breezy, lazy film about a potentially weighty topic.  Believe the trailer.

War, based off George Crile’s book of the same name, chronicles Congressman Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks), a Playboy representing a district in Texas that doesn’t want anything, and his covert funding of Afghans after the invasion of the Soviets in 1979.  Director Mike Nichols and writer Aaron Sorkin strive for comedy, not drama, though, but it strangely all feels muted.  I would have preferred the film to not be so light-hearted, but that would have been easier to take if it was funnier.  War is borderline-competent, but hardly inspiring.

The cause of the Afghans is brought to Charlie’s attention by Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts), who, apparently, has enough time on her hands to be concerned about such things.  No other motivation is provided for her.  Charlie, it turns out, sits in a powerful position in Congress, and with one phone call he can double the U.S. budget for Afghanistan.  Joanne wants more, though, and so before long he’s on a plane to Pakistan and walking through refugee camps, which finally gets his attention.  The final player is Gust Avrakotos (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a CIA operative who seems permanently miscast in his role (Gust, not Philip).

I mentioned before that a fair amount of talent was assembled for this flick—a jaw-dropping amount, really, when you think about it.  Even the cinematographer and composer have been nominated for Oscars, and when you line up Hanks, Roberts, and Hoffman with Nichols (Closer) and Sorkin, you expect greatness.  Sadly, everyone here has been better, especially Sorkin, whose screenplay and storyline don’t measure up to his other pronounced successes, both in film (The American President, A Few Good Men) and television (“The West Wing” and “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip”).  There are chuckles to be had, and there’s nothing embarrassing, but it’s not nearly as funny as I expected, and Sorkin removes almost altogether the dramatic undercurrent that gave his other work heft.  Likewise, Hanks, Roberts, and Hoffman are all fine, but they’ve done better work—not coincidentally, I imagine, because they’ve been pushed harder elsewhere.

Since the roles are basically cut-outs, the stars were just included for box office receipts and, with the possible exception of Hoffman, could have been played by just about anyone.  Roberts’s blatantly gratuitous bikini shot falls under the same money-seeking category; Nichols doesn’t even bother to be subtle about that or try to justify it with a reason.

War moves forward reasonably, and there’s a story beneath the sheen, but the ending is far from dramatic—though, I suppose, the film isn’t supposed to be.  It’s all here, as shown faithfully by the trailer.  The first scene shows us Wilson in a hot tub with naked women and drugs, and within about 60 seconds, his attention is drawn to a television report about the war in Afghanistan.  The rest of the film plays out just the way you’d expect it to, replete with belly dancers, assistants who look like models (including Amy Adams, who’s much too gorgeous to be relegated to such a small role), and heavy liquor served at ten AM.  It’s all a bit act, but the funniest parts (such as an exchange between Hanks and Hoffman about U.S. policy in Afghanistan) were already shown in the trailer.  It just doesn’t seem like the kind of movie that would have taken very long to make; and before you know it, it’s done, clocking in at just over an hour and a half long.

Curiously, at the very end of the film, perhaps in an attempt to place Charlie’s actions into context, Nichols and Sorkin give us a hint about the unintended consequences of Charlie’s actions, and suggests where we went wrong.  The expression on Hanks’s face at his recognition ceremony—and, of course, the postscript—implies dissatisfaction with what he did.  Hey, Aaron—there’s the drama.  That’s what I wish this film had explored.

Rating: 3 stars (out of 4)

A Few Good Men is one of those movies, like Remember the Titans, that runs so smoothly on the strength of a well-written script and solid acting that you don’t realize in retrospect how standard its structure is.  It is immensely enjoyable and can be watched a few times without losing its luster, so long as you don’t expect it to change the world.  It works better than a movie like Titans because it doesn’t concern such a retread theme and because the writing is stronger.

At the beginning of the movie, two Marines, Pfc. Louden Downey and Lance Cpl. Harold Dawson (James Marshall and Wolfgang Bodison) enter the barracks of Pfc. William Santiago, stationed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and assault him.  Hours later he is pronounced dead, presumably from poison that was on a rag stuffed down his mouth.  Santiago had recently petitioned base commander Nathan Jessup (Jack Nicholson) for a transfer off the base; for this, he was willing to rat out Dawson for illegally firing a round across the fence line into Cuba.

The question the Navy doesn’t want discovered is whether the two Marines were sent to Santiago’s room on someone’s orders, to perform a “code red,” an informal procedure of punishing a wayward member of a platoon.  In the hopes that the case is buried, they assign defense of the Marines to a young, carefree lawyer, Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise), who lives in the shadow of his late, extremely successful father and has a track record for plea bargains.  Lieutenant Commander Joanne Galloway (Demi Moore), however, is determined to go deeper, and she refuses to let Kaffee give up on the case.

The back-story emerges, slowly, which I like, and the blame frequently shifts parties.  Do we blame the Marines for their actions?  Santiago for ignoring the proper chain of command in selling out a peer?  Jessup, who was in charge of everyone involved?  Or what about his right-hand man, who may have delivered his order to attack Santiago?  Did Santiago even die as a result of the attack or because of a pre-existing condition?  Even at the end, there is no definitive answer: everyone had a hand in the incident, and you are left to determine the proportions of guilt for yourself.

Predictability comes, though, in the film’s procedure.  The bulk of the time is spent either in the courtroom or in Daniel’s apartment, where he and Joanne and assistant counsel Sam Weinberg (Kevin Pollak) prepare the defense.  Unfortunately, I have to agree with Roger Ebert, who noted that the movie makes its ending even more predictable because it telegraphs it: Daniel announces ahead of time what their strategy is for questioning Jessup on the stand.  The climactic Cruise vs. Nicholson showdown, riveting already, could have been even better if we didn’t know exactly what was coming.  Sadly, as Ebert noted, “We are not allowed the pleasure of discovering Cruise’s strategy for ourselves, and Nicholson’s behavior seems scripted and inevitable, and is robbed of shock value.”

I don’t share all of Ebert’s negativity about the film, though, thanks to its other merits, notably its good pacing and skillful handling of the rising action.  Sharp writing abounds (no surprise given that Aaron Sorkin wrote the screenplay based on his own play).  When Joanne tells Daniel he isn’t right for the job, he says, “You don’t know me.  Normally it would take someone hours to discover I’m not fit for the defense.”  And Nicholson’s concluding monologue on the stand, though foreshadowed too explicitly, is positively electric.

Some small details work, while some don’t.  The dead father that Cruise’s character has to live up to has been around the block a lot, but it’s not overplayed and does add depth.  The movie wins points with me for not having Daniel and Joanne character become attached romantically, which seemed all-too-obvious thanks to their good looks and rocky beginning.  Finally, a couple of the courtroom moments seemed a little fake in that they would never stand in real life, but that’s relatively insignificant.

The acting is reliable on all fronts—down to Kevin Bacon as the lead attorney for the prosecution, but most especially the lead actors.  Cruise’s charismatic-when-he-wants-to be Daniel who discovers the joy in doing the right thing, and Nicholson’s widely-praised Jessup sneers and snarls and cuts through his words with a heartless intensity that you can feel from your living room.

A Few Good Men doesn’t break any new ground, but it’s a great yarn and asks an important question: When, if ever, can your conscience allow you to override orders from a superior as a member of the United States military?  Seeing this movie might cause you to think about that a little deeper.