Review: While We're Young (2015)

* * *
Director: Noah Baumbach
Starring: Ben Stiller, Naomi Watts, Adam Driver, Amanda Seyfried

Youth is wasted on the young, but in the case of Noah Baumbach's While We're Young, it is also wasted on the middle-aged. Though it's being marketed as a somewhat raucous generational comedy, as if it's a gentler and less raunchy version of Neighbors, no one should go into While We're Young expecting a laugh-a-minute movie. It has some lines and moments that are very trailer friendly and it is a funny movie, but it's funny in that sharp, find the humor in tragedy and the tragedy in humor sort of way that is typical of Baumbach's work - this may be more conventional and broadly appealing than the filmmaker's previous films, but it's still Baumbach. Featuring a couple of great performances at its core, While We're Young is a strong effort, even if it deflates a bit in its final act.

Review: Birdman (2014)

* * * 1/2
Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Starring: Michael Keaton, Emma Stone, Edward Norton, Zack Galifianakis, Naomi Watts

Gimmicks are a double-edged sword. On the one hand a gimmick can bring attention to a film which, in a crowded marketplace, might otherwise get lost in the shuffle. On the other hand, a gimmick can dominate conversation in such a way that the movie itself gets lost even as people are talking about it. Designed to look like it is unfolding in one long, continuous take, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Birdman has a gimmick that can't be ignored, but it is more than a mere exercise in form. A vital and exciting film as much for its technical wizardry as for the bravura performance as its center, Birdman is a singularly entertaining movie and an experience that shouldn't be missed.

Review: St. Vincent (2014)

* * *
Director: Theodore Melfi
Starring: Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy, Naomi Watts

Ten years ago, St. Vincent would have starred Jack Nicholson and become another notch in his series of "curmudgeon with a heart of gold" movies. Nicholson's loss (and apparently he actually was signed to the film at one point) is ultimately Bill Murray's gain, giving him a great character to play, even if the film itself is a bit messy, stacking subplots on top of each other until it seems like the narrative might collapse under the weight. Nevertheless, I enjoyed St. Vincent quite a bit. Sure, the movie is a veritable grab bag of familiar storylines and character beats thrown together, and it is deeply sentimental, but it has charm enough that you feel inclined to forgive it for its more formulaic elements and just enjoy it for what it is.

21st Century Essentials: Mulholland Drive (2001)

All eras have works of art that are fundamental to our understanding of not only the craft itself, but the culture from which it was created. The 21st century is still nascent, but it isn't too early to start creating a canon that demonstrates the heights to which film as an artform has reached since the year 2000. These are the essential films:


Director: David Lynch
Starring: Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Justin Theroux
Country: USA/France

Twelve years on, David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, has its own established mythology: the failed TV pilot resurrected with an assist from StudioCanal, the audition scene that made Naomi Watts a star, the battling “realities” of the plot and double performances of the cast. It’s a dazzling film about love and the dream of Hollywood stardom, by turns nightmarish and seductive, but wholly engrossing and endlessly captivating, the kind of film which reveals new layers and meanings with every viewing*.

Review: The Impossible (2012)

* * * 1/2
Director: J.A. Bayona
Starring: Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, Tom Holland

It’s the great equalizer: a wall of water ruthlessly rushing forward, knocking out everything in its path and rendering all the eye can see to ruins. The only thing that can help you in a situation like that is luck, and even then it might only help you get your head above water and no further. The aptly named The Impossible is the true (as far as that goes, in a fiction narrative) story of a family of five (Spanish in real life, British here) that somehow manages to survive the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami intact. Directed by J.A. Bayona, this is an intense experience that leaves one shaken at the sheer power of nature and the human spirit.

Review: J. Edgar (2011)

* * 1/2
Director: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Naomi Watts, Armie Hammer, Judi Dench

Stately and handsomely mounted but ultimately a bit empty, Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar is less a story than a survey course on a segment of American history (and enduring political gossip). It is stacked with fine performances - led by Leonardo DiCaprio as J. Edgar Hoover - but performances alone can only get you so far when the film itself succumbs to the worst habits of the biopic genre.

Review: Mother and Child (2010)

* * * 1/2
Director: Rodrigo Garcia Barcha
Starring: Annette Bening, Naomi Watts, Kerry Washington

During the first half of its running time Rodrigo Garcia Barcha’s Mother and Child is an almost relentlessly brutal film, its characters defined by the pain they feel and the pain they inflict on others. By the second half, however, those hard edges are softened considerably, revealing a delicately wrought character study about people who are all too human and all too flawed. Mother and Child is a totally riveting character-driven drama carried by three terrific performances.

Review: You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010)

* *
Director: Woody Allen
Starring: Naomi Watts, Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Gemma Jones

About midway through Woody Allen’s You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, I realized what the problem was: every element of this film is just a watered down version of something from one of Allen’s better films. So, by all means, save yourself the trouble and just watch one of his better films instead of this one, which ends up being little more than a demonstration of how to completely waste a cast of incredibly talented actors.

Review: Fair Game (2010)

* * * 1/2
Director: Doug Liman
Starring: Naomi Watts, Sean Penn

How you respond to Fair Game may ultimately depend on the politics that you bring into it (and probably on how tired you are of narratives centering on the war on terror). Likely, it's a film that can do little more than preach to the choir, but as a member of the choir I have to say that I liked it quite a bit. It's a solid political thriller in the tradition of All The President's Men with two absolutely fantastic performances at its centre.

Based on the books Fair Game by Valerie Plame and Politics of Truth written by her spouse, Joseph Wilson, the film details the upheaval and chaos of Plame and Wilson's lives following the very public revelation of Plame's work for the CIA. The story begins with rumors of a sale of uranium to Iraq by Niger. Because Wilson (Sean Penn) once held a diplomatic position in Niger, Plame (Naomi Watts) suggests that he might prove helpful in investigating the claims and he embarks on a fact finding mission. He returns certain that there's no possible way that the rumors are true, both because of politics (the millions of dollars in aid that has been given to the country by the US) and because of logistics (that much uranium would be difficult, if not impossible, to sneak out of the country). However, a narrative has already started to be developed by the White House to justify going to war and Wilson's conclusions are ignored and the information he's gathered is manipulated to support their intentions.

Wilson writes an op-ed for The New York Times revealing that the intelligence being relied upon is wrong, which results in Plame's name and occupation being leaked to the press in retaliation. Her career in shambles and her work diminished by the press, feeling guilty about the contacts around the world who may now be in danger, and fearful for the safety of her family, Plame's life begins to spiral and her marriage looks to be a casualty. Wilson wants to fight, Plame wants to lay low - they are fundamentally at odds over how to deal with the situation and the film is as much about how their marriage almost failed as it is about the scandal itself.

Wilson and Plame are not perfect heroes but their flaws are what makes them such fascinating protagonists. Wilson is an extremely aggressive character who, even when you agree with what he's saying, sometimes seems like a total jackass (in this way he's perhaps the closest Penn will ever get to playing himself in a film). He's a man whose greatest strength - his fierce intelligence - is also his greatest weakness because when he knows something to be false, he cannot keep quiet about it and develops a kind of tunnel vision about making the truth known which blinds him to the potential consequences of pursuing that truth. Plame, meanwhile, is a sometimes maddeningly interior character (which is one of the things that makes her such a good operative) and surprisingly passive. When her cover is blown, she's prepared to tow the line and keep quiet, refusing to speak to the press. She's an extremely intelligent person who has been shown to be very quick on her feet, but in this particular instance she seems to be stuck and always second guessing herself.

The screenplay by Jez and John Butterworth is very strong, balancing the story so that it works both as a political thriller and as an intense character study, and director Doug Liman keeps things moving at an efficient pace, but the film really belongs to Watts and Penn. Penn's role is perhaps the showier part and he brings a lot of fire to the film, but Watts is equally good (if not better) in her more muted role. As Plame, she's cool-headed and strong; her own loyalties never waver. The crisis for her is in realizing that those she's counting on are perhaps not quite as loyal to her. She's angry at Wilson for not considering how his actions might affect her and their family, and she's shocked to discover that the CIA has turned its back on her, refusing her requests for protection after she begins receiving death threats. The way she slowly begins to break under the pressure and then rallies and rebuilds herself in order to fight is very compelling and Watts' performance is one of my favourite of the year so far.

Review: Dangerous Beauty (1998)

* * * 1/2
Director: Marshall Herskovitz
Starring: Catherine McCormack, Rufus Sewell, Oliver Platt

I have long harbored an affection for the under seen, under appreciated Dangerous Beauty. I am well aware of its weaknesses but overall I find the film rather irresistible. I think it comes down to a couple of things: a) I love a lush, well-rendered period piece; b) the curiosity factor that inevitably arises when you think about the fact that star Catherine McCormack's career never really took off (and why not? She's a terrific actress) while supporting player Naomi Watts was just three years away from her game changing performance in Mulholland Drive; and c) and the film's strange but totally workable mix of gratuitous nudity and overt feminism.

Loosely (very) based on a true story, the film is set in 16th century Venice and centers on Veronica Franco (McCormack), a poet and courtesan. In love with Marco (Rufus Sewell), her best friend's (Moira Kelly) brother, but unable to be with him because his social standing is so much higher than her own, Veronica reluctantly enters into the sex trade with the encouragement of her mother (Jacqueline Bisset). Her mother, who was once herself a celebrated courtesan, reasons that it would be better for Veronica to take advantage of the freedom and independence offered to courtesans rather than make an unhappy marriage with a man of her own station, and it doesn't take Veronica long to come around to her mother's way of thinking, especially once she discovers that she can parlay the work into getting her poetry published. It isn't long before she's as famous for her intellect and verses as she is for her sexual prowess.

Though she has many clients, she refuses Marco, who has since made a desired match with Giulia (Naomi Watts), a woman he cannot relate to on any level. Eventually Veronica and Marco embark on an affair and she gives up prostitution in order to live exclusively as his mistress, though she refuses to be economically supported by him. For a time they live together away from Venice, isolated and happy, but it isn't long before the outside world begins to intrude on their idyll. Venice is about to go to war, which means that Marco's services will be called upon. To go to war, Venice will need the support of France's army and in exchange King Henry (Jake Weber) wants the services of Venice's best courtesan, which means that Veronica's services will be called upon as well. To make things worse, while the city's most powerful men are away fighting, the Inquisition comes to town and Marco's cousin (Oliver Platt), whose advances Veronica had once spurned, puts her directly in the tribunal's sights.

The film spends a lot of time analyzing and discussing the impossible position of women in this particular time and place. Women's education consists pretty much entirely of knowing how to be a submissive wife and their value is derived from being able to make a good marriage and bear children to carry on their husbands' legacies. The rules are different, however, for women existing outside of proper society and the thing that finally sways Veronica is the promise of access to the library; "good women" aren't supposed to read because by doing so they might gain unladylike knowledge, but courtesans, aside from the fact that they aren't considered ladylike anyway because of their occupation, are expected to be well read so that they can converse freely with their patrons and fully appreciate the thoughts and opinions of the men in their lives. The courtesans are unencumbered by typical social conventions, though the film harbors no illusions that that ultimately makes their lives easier. "My cage seems bigger," Veronica advises a friend, "but it is still a cage." Veronica's life is just as difficult and her position just as tenuous as other women, the difficulties just take a different shape and existing outside of the rules of society also, of course, means existing outside whatever protections society might offer. Veronica has gained certain privileges but she has gained them in exchange for rights she would have had if she had married and become a legitimate/recognized part of society.

Interestingly, and to the film's credit, it views the rigid rules which define "acceptable" womanhood as disenfranchising to men as well as to women. Giulia may be a proper society woman but it's her lack of intellect as much as her sexual frigidity that drives Marco to the company of courtesans. He literally cannot talk to her because she's been raised to believe that she shouldn't know anything or have an opinion about anything. She's an absent presence and he has married an empty symbol. It's a recipe for dissatisfaction and the film makes a solid argument that equality of the sexes enriches the quality of life for everyone, not just women.

Though it occasionally veers towards the melodramatic, particularly in its final act, Dangerous Beauty is for the most part a well written and well realized film. It finds a nice balance between the witty comedy of the first act, the sweeping romance of the second, and the drama and tragedy of the third. At the centre of it all is a great performance by McCormack, who absolutely should have become a big star on the strength of this film. Underrated hardly seems like a strong enough word for this entire endeavour.

Review: The Painted Veil (2006)

* * * *
Director: John Curran
Starring: Naomi Watts, Edward Norton

It’s unfortunate that a film as well-made as this one was little more than a blip on the radar when it was released in theatres. John Curran’s The Painted Veil has everything going for it: a great cast, a compelling story, and fantastic production values (even the opening credits sequence is breathtaking). This is a technical and artistic triumph, a movie that definitely didn’t deserve to fall through the cracks.

The story takes place in the 1920s and centers on Walter and Kitty Fane (Edward Norton and Naomi Watts), who rush into marriage and find themselves in over their heads in more ways than one. Walter is a doctor who is about to return to his work in Shanghai and falls in love with Kitty at a party. Kitty is a socialite who accepts his proposal in order to escape her mother, who keeps reminding her that the clock is ticking if she wants to avoid becoming an old maid. It is immediately apparent that the marriage will be an unhappy one: Walter and Kitty hardly know each other and have little in common. Walter is caught up in his work and Kitty quickly becomes bored and falls into an affair with Charles Townsend (Liev Schrieber). Walter discovers the affair and threatens Kitty with scandal and divorce unless she accompanies him into the countryside where he will be attending to a cholera epidemic.

Far removed from the comforts of the city, Walter and Kitty continue to grow apart. Aside from his marital troubles, Walter also encounters problems in trying to contain the epidemic. More scientist than doctor, he has little experience dealing the realities of sick people and even less dealing with the clash of cultures as the Chinese Nationalists stir up anti-Western sentiment and make it increasingly difficult for Walter to gain the trust of the locals. Kitty, meanwhile, occupies her time volunteering at an orphanage run by French nuns, and slowly begins to close the gap between herself and her husband.

As Walter, Norton delivers a very understated and restrained performance as a man who would rather suppress everything he feels than show even the slightest emotion. By design it’s a very quiet and undemonstrative role, the kind that seems deceptively simple. As Kitty, Watts has a meatier role, playing as she does a character who wears her emotions on her sleeve and has a greater narrative arc, going from selfish socialite to selfless wife and nurse. Watts is more than up to the challenge and convincingly conveys Kitt's transformation. There are also nice supporting performances by Toby Jones as one of the sole survivors of the original outbreak, and Diana Rigg as the Mother Superior of the orphanage, both of whom become confidantes for Kitty.

The technical aspects of the film are top notch, from the beautiful photography and costumes, to the score by Alexandre Desplat, who is quickly becoming one of my favourite film composers. The direction by John Curran is measured and restrained, letting the story unfold at its own pace rather than forcing it along. The only criticism I have is that the film should have ended with the beautiful shot of the boat carrying Kitty away up the Yangtze river, rather than the brief epilogue which takes place in England. But this is only a minor criticism of what is otherwise a wonderful and engaging film.

100 Days, 100 Movies: Mulholland Drive (2001)

Director: David Lynch
Starring: Naomi Watts, Lara Elena Harring, Justin Theroux

Mulholland Drive is David Lynch’s mind-bending masterwork about disenchantment with both love and the dream of Hollywood stardom, which are presented here as inseparable. It’s the sort of film you have to see more than once – first simply as an experience that washes over you and leaves you dazed, and then again to attempt to put the pieces together. This isn’t a film that can ever be fully “explained,” but that doesn’t matter. In fact, it’s part of its genius.

The film opens with someone lying down in bed – we don’t know who because it’s from their point of view, but the fact of this shot jibes with the most prevalent theory about the film, that two thirds are Diane’s (Naomi Watts) dream, the other third her reality, and makes it almost certain that the person lying down is Diane. In the dream, a car accident takes place, foiling an attempted murder and leaving Rita (Laura Elena Harring) stumbling around with amnesia. She wanders into the apartment of an actress who is on her way out of town, and makes herself comfortable, not counting on the fact that the woman’s niece, Betty (Watts) will be showing up to look after the place. Betty and Rita set about trying to find out who she is, her identity connected in some way to the money in her purse, a mysterious blue key and a woman named Diane Selwyn. It is also connected somehow to a man named Mr. Roque and a lowlife whose ineptitude when it comes to killing people has darkly hilarious results. In their quest for the truth, Betty and Rita fall in love and then go to the club Silencio where they seem to have some kind of supernatural experience and find a blue box into which Rita’s key will fit. However, once the box is opened, Rita and Betty cease to exist.

Running parallel to this story is another, this one involving a director named Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux). Adam is coerced into casting an actress named Camilla Rhodes (Melissa George) in his film. “This is the girl,” the Castigliane brothers inform him in what is the film’s most sinister line reading… until we meet the Cowboy (Monty Montgomery), who proceeds to terrify Adam with his polite soft-spokenness and his promise to Adam: “You will see me one more time, if you do good. You will see me two more times, if you do bad.”

Following the opening of the box, we’re thrust into (actually sucked into) the “reality” part of the story where we finally meet Diane Selwyn (Watts), a downtrodden woman who has failed both as an actress and in her romance with a movie star named Camilla Rhodes (Harring) who is engaged to… Adam Kesher. Many elements from the first part of the story reappear in different forms in the second. At a dinner party Diane talks about meeting Camilla when they both auditioned for the same role – the name of this film is the same as the film we see Betty auditioning for earlier. There is also a connection through Adam and his film. In the dream, Betty shows up on set, locks eyes with Adam but ultimately has to leave, which is just as well since Adam must cast Camilla. In reality, Adam casts Camilla and Diane gets a smaller role, where she looks on as Camilla and Adam fall in love. And, of course, there’s the fact of Diane hiring someone to kill Camilla and being given a blue key.

Much of the film’s emphasis is on the falseness of Hollywood reality, where the beautiful, glossy surface hides a darker truth underneath. Adam must pretend to want to cast Camilla, that she’s “the girl;” Rita adopts her name after seeing a poster for Gilda, starring Rita Hayworth; at the club Silencio, Rebekah del Rio pretends to sing and collapses on stage while the song carries on without her (“There is no band. It is an illusion,” the M.C. tells us). When Diane is given the key by the hitman, she asks what it opens. He laughs because it doesn’t open anything. They key is just another empty symbol, a pretence to add to the layers of falseness and illusion that are weighing Diane down and driving her towards madness.

What’s fascinating about this film is the way that the dream section is linear and relatively straight-forward, while the reality is jarring and harder to follow, as it’s filtered through Diane’s increasingly fractured psyche. It jumps forward and back and there’s no way to be certain that what’s happening is “really” happening or just a delusion on Diane’s part as she attempts to cope with the way that she’s been used and discarded by the woman that she loves. Words can’t even begin to describe how amazing Naomi Watts is in this film, playing the dual role of sunny heroine Betty and sullen revenger Diane. It’s difficult to believe at first glance that the two roles as being played by the same actress, she immerses herself so completely into the opposing personas of both. Harring is also good playing two roles that are equally tricky – but deceptively simple looking – as blank-slate Rita and vampy climber Camilla. Together the two have excellent chemistry – romantic in the first sequence, and adversarial/sadomasochistic in the second.

Mulholland Drive is a movie you’ll find yourself thinking about long after having seen it. You’ll want to get to the bottom of it – although the idea that you can is, itself, one of the illusions produced by the film. It was designed so that not all the pieces fit together, creating a maddening, thrilling experience.

Silencio.