Review: mother! (2017)

* * *
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem

If you follow entertainment news sites, you've heard that mother! earned the rare "F" grade from CinemaScore. An F doesn't just mean that an audience disliked a movie, it means that the audience feels betrayed by the movie, like they've been sold a false bill of goods. On one hand, this turn of events is understandable because the marketing for mother! doesn't really give a clear idea of what it's going to be, but it being a major studio release one could be forgiven for assuming that it's going to be a little more... normal. On the other hand, it's a Darren Aronofsky movie. The closest he's ever come to "mainstream" is Black Swan and that's only mainstream insofar as it was a box office and Oscar success. Most of his movies are flat out designed to alienate. Granted, even knowing that going in, watching mother! can still feel like a bit of an endurance test. I don't think there's any way to actually discuss this movie without spoiling it a little (or a lot), so consider this a spoiler warning.

Review: The Counselor (2013)

* * 1/2
Director: Ridley Scott
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Javier Bardem, Cameron Diaz, Brad Pitt, Penelope Cruz

It's easy to see why Ridley Scott's The Counselor landed with such a thud (both critical and commercial) when it arrived in theaters last fall. It's an aggressively inaccessible film, savagely violent in some places, thick with talk in most places. I admire the film for its confidence; mainstream films (and given its cast and its director, The Counselor qualifies as mainstream), even the good ones, usually seem like they've been put together by committee, designed to appeal to as many people as possible, but The Counselor has the courage to be its own animal and do its own thing. It's bold, it's fascinating, and it doesn't entirely work, but when it fails it does so on its own terms and there aren't a ton of movies you can say that about.

Review: To the Wonder (2013)

* *
Director: Terrence Malick
Starring: Olga Kurylenko,Ben Affleck, Javier Bardem, Rachel McAdams

Typical of Terrence Malick's work, To the Wonder is an absolutely beautiful film to look at. Also typical of Malick, it's a narratively elusive piece, set firmly in its characters' interior lives. Atypically, at least for me (Malick is an acquired taste), it's a film that doesn't ever really come together, one that it at once intimate and small in scale, and yet far too broad, a ponderous, shapeless story of failed loves and crises of faith. The visuals alone almost make the film worth watching, but To the Wonder doesn't really leave you with enough to hold onto for its impact to be anything but superficial.

The Best Picture Countdown #80: No Country For Old Men (2007)

Note: this post is modified from a previously published post

Director: Joel & Ethan Coen
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin

No Country For Old Men is the best Coen brothers’ film since Fargo and, until A Serious Man and its tornado ending came along, probably their most divisive. You either love this movie or you hate it, the ending filling you with awe or leaving you scratching your head in frustration. I remember when I saw this in the theatre and the audience’s reaction to the ending varied between stunned silence and audible displeasure. This isn’t the kind of movie that works for the audience; it’s the kind of movie that makes the audience work for it.

The film opens with a monologue by Sheriff Ed Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) which is reminiscent of the speech by Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) at the end of Fargo. The two characters are similar in a lot of ways – they’re both smart, level headed individuals with a keen eye for putting details together, and both have well-meaning deputies who are always this close to putting things together themselves, but ultimately require a little extra push. Like Marge, Ed has difficulty understanding the senselessness of what he sees. Javier Bardem is the only actor from the film who earned an Oscar nomination (he, in fact, won 2007’s Best Supporting Actor prize), but Jones’ performance provides the force which steadies the story and keeps it grounded. Jones did receive a nomination that year for a different film which I suspect happened because people didn’t know how to categorize his performance here: it is clear to me that he is the film’s real protagonist, its central character, but since his screen time is more limited than that of co-stars Bardem and Josh Brolin, it might be difficult for some to consider him as the lead. This is only one of the many challenges that the film puts forward.

The story itself can be easily summarized: In the middle of nowhere Llewelyn (Josh Brolin) stumbles across a drug transaction gone wrong and finds the money that about a half a dozen people have been killed over. After taking it home he does something fundamentally stupid, which results in the people who want that money knowing who has it. The person who wants the money most is Anton Chigurh (Bardem), one of the cruellest and most relentless villains ever committed to film. Llewelyn goes on the run, with Chigurh coming every moment closer, while Sheriff Bell tries to put the pieces together to save Llewelyn and catch the killer. The relationship of Bell to Chigurh is the heart of the film. Chigurh is a brutal killer who leaves a trail of bodies in his wake. Wandering into the crime scenes Chigurh leaves behind, Bell is simply at a loss to explain how a human being can be like this. He comes to believe that it is a generational thing, a sign that society is simply going awry. However, his brother points out to him that people have always done harm to others senselessly, that it isn’t just a sign of the times. This is why the ending is so meaningful and appropriate – Bell is the old man for whom there is no country. The world to which he has always belonged (law enforcement) no longer makes sense to him and, leaving it, he realizes that he doesn’t know how to relate to the rest of the world either. The dream he describes at the end is the essence of what the rest of his life is going to be like – there’s nothing for him to do now but stay on the trail and catch up with his father in the hereafter.

No Country For Old Men looks like a crime thriller but I think it’s really a western, a response to those westerns from the 60s and 70s that centred on the concept of the “dying west,” the wild west that is tamed by the coming of the railroads and society, leaving no room for the hero outlaws. Here the trope is reversed and instead we have a hero who is part of civilized society and is pushed out and set adrift by the breakdown of society into violence and chaos. Chigurgh is the character representative of that chaos, a killer who believes that the lives he takes aren’t taken as much by his hand as they are by the hand of fate. Twice he leaves the fate of potential victims to a coin toss. "This coin got here the same way I did," he explains. His last victim refuses to accept that and tries to force him to accept responsibility by refusing to call the toss. But, this isn't a man who can be reasoned with. This is a man who seems to think that if you happen to cross paths with him, then you were probably meant to die. And even though it will be by his hand, it is also ultimately out of his hands. And what is that kind of thinking if not chaotic?

This is an excellent film, one that only seems richer and deeper on subsequent viewings. The Coen brothers, who have been a little hit and miss with their output over the last decade, are at the top of their form and the entire cast is pitch perfect, creating something that is sure to stand the test of time, a film that will always be worth revisiting.

Countdown To Oscar: The Sea Inside

* * *
Best Foreign Language Film, 2004
Director: Alejandro Amenabar
Starring: Javier Bardem

What makes life worth living? That is, without a doubt, an intensely personal question and one which you can only ever answer for yourself. Why is it, then, that the idea of a person deciding that his or her life is not worth living can become a matter of debate amongst complete strangers? The Sea Inside is about one man’s fight for the right to die and the effect that fight has on those in his immediate circle and on his society in general. The subject is a difficult one and the film approaches it as sensitively as it can, which is perhaps part of the problem: though the film is good, it also feels a bit soft.

As a young man, Ramon Sampedro (Javier Bardem) dove into shallow waters and broke his neck, leaving him a quadriplegic. For the next 30 years he would fight for his right to end his life while living in a room in his brother and sister-in-law’s home, rarely leaving. He refuses to use a wheelchair, believing that it presents an illusion of freedom and movement, a mockery of what he once had. He is miserable, he says, and feels that a life spent trapped in his own body is the worst kind of hell. It’s difficult to argue that he’s in an unenviable position and that his pain is very real but, at the same time, an argument could be made that life is what you make of it and that he’s miserable because he’s simply given up on life. The film doesn’t really focus enough on his reasons for wanting to end his life, choosing instead to simply have him say over and over that he’s miserable even as he’s surrounded by people who love him, even though his mind has still retained its sharpness, even though he’s found ways to do things like write, allowing him to express himself through poetry.

Ramon hires Julia (Belen Rueda) to represent him and fight for his right to assisted suicide. He chooses her specifically because she suffers from a degenerative disease and he believes that this will make her more sympathetic to his cause. He’s correct in this, as she herself has thoughts of committing suicide rather than living with the agony of her disease, and the two form an intense bond that turns to love in spite of the fact that she’s married. You might think that this newfound love would give both a reason to live after all, but the effect is actually opposite, making both more determined to die and, in fact, to die together.

Though many friends support Ramon’s desire to end his life, his family takes a different view. His brother (Celso Bugallo) fights with him intensely on the issue, and his sister-in-law (Mabel Rivera) has similarly strong feelings. She, in particular, is insulted by the suggestion that the last 30 years of his life have been nothing, an attitude which she feels detracts from the love and care that the family has given him since the accident. She has devoted much of her life to him, acting as day-to-day nurse for him while also raising her son, and she goes so far as to say at one point that Ramon is himself like a son to her, which is perhaps part of the problem as Ramon sees it. The age difference between them is slight and yet, here he is, reduced to the status of a child in her eyes – his life has become an embarrassment to him and if he cannot return to the life he was leading before the accident, then there is nothing left for him in the world.

The Sea Inside isn’t really a crusade movie, though it has all the makings of one. Little time is spent in the courtroom and, in the grand scheme of things, only a small portion of the film is really dedicated to discussing the legality of Ramon’s quest, which he sees as an individual struggle and not a universal one. He’s fighting for himself and himself alone, not for everyone who wants to claim the right to determine their fate in this way. He isn’t looking to become anyone’s hero and the film is good in the way that it grounds him and keeps him from being deified within the context of the story.

Thinking about the film afterwards, the word that came up for me time and again was “fine.” This is a fine film, but not one that inspired any particular passion in me. For all the skill that has gone into it both in front of and behind the camera, it ultimately fails to reach the heights to which it strives.

Review: Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)

* * * 1/2
Director: Woody Allen
Starring: Scarlett Johnansson, Rebecca Hall, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz

There’s something comforting to me about those familiar white on black titles that begin every Woody Allen film. Seeing them, I know that I’m about to enter a world where the people (most of them, anyway) speak intelligently, have interesting ideas, and prove that you can be the smartest person in the world but still be a complete idiot when it comes to relationships. Sometimes – especially lately – the promise contained in those opening titles is disappointed and sometimes it is not. Vicky Cristina Barcelona is perhaps not destined to become a classic like Annie Hall or Manhattan, but I still walked out of it very happy.

Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Christina (Scarlett Johnasson) are two Americans spending the summer in Barcelona. Vicky, who is engaged, is working on her Master’s thesis about Catalan culture and Christina is more or less just along for the ride. They meet a painter named Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem) who invites them to spend the weekend with him. Vicky is appalled by his forwardness, but Christina is intrigued and talks her into accepting his offer. After an evening of wine and oysters, Christina falls ill, leaving Vicky and Juan Antonio to their own devices, which results in them spending the night together. Later, after guilt has caused Vicky to retreat back into her studies, Juan Antonio and Christina pick up where they left off. Soon, however, another woman moves into the picture to disrupt the harmony of their relationship – Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz), Juan Antonio’s ex-wife.

The story plays out as a series of couplings and uncouplings, simultaneous couplings and unrequited couplings. When he first encounters Vicky and Christina, Juan Antonio explains to them that life is meaningless, love fleeting, that the moment and the moment alone is worth living for. The film itself seems to follow this philosophy, as various characters find themselves dissatisfied in their relationships and flirting with the possibility of beginning new ones, only to find something lacking in these new relationships as well. If there is any one message in the film, I suppose it’s that there’s no such thing as perfect, lasting happiness, and that all things are transitory.

The performances in the film are uniformly good and reminded me of something which I often find myself thinking after seeing a Woody Allen film, which is that of all directors working today, I think he’s the most consistently great at directing women and giving them interesting characters to play. Christina is a dilettante who has adopted the role of the “free spirit” with all its inherent clichés, but ultimately doesn’t really know herself yet, and Johansson plays all these notes to perfection. Maria Elena is a tempestuous artist who perhaps plays up that tempestuousness because she’s an artist and it’s expected of her, and when Cruz enters the fray the polite energy of the film changes completely and new dimensions are given to the story. Vicky is the kind of woman who will (almost) always do exactly what is expected of her because, as she herself admits, she lacks the courage to be more like Christina. As Vicky, Hall was the biggest surprise for me – Cruz has been getting the lion’s share of the attention for the film, but Hall is just as worthy, making her character, who might simply have been the shrill stick in the mud, effortlessly relatable and likeable.

I enjoyed Vicky Cristina Barcelona a great deal, though I concede that it isn’t a masterpiece. There is a narrator who intrudes throughout to tie the details together, which has the effect of making this the cinematic equivalent of a particularly well-written summer beach read. It’s light and breezy, easily consumed and not especially challenging, but the perfect complement to a lazy summer day.

Review: No Country For Old Men

This is easily the best Coen brothers film since Fargo. This is a bloody, suspenseful epic with an ending that will have people talking – you’ll either love it or hate it; it’s nature leaves little room to wander in between. In the audience with whom I saw this, reaction to the ending varied between silence and audible displeasure. It isn’t a movie that’s going to please everyone, but those who like it will really like it.

No Country For Old Men opens with a monologue by Sheriff Ed Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) which is reminiscent of the speech by Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) at the end of Fargo. The character of Ed is like Marge in a lot of ways – they’re both smart, level headed individuals with a keen eye for putting details together, and both have well-meaning deputies who are always this close to putting things together themselves, but ultimately require a little extra push. Like Marge, Ed has difficulty understanding the senselessness of what he sees. A lot has been made of the performance by Javier Bardem, whom I have little doubt will receive an Oscar nomination for this film. I hope that the Academy also recognizes Jones’ work in this film, because he’s the force that steadies the story and keeps it grounded.

The story itself can be easily summarized: In the middle of nowhere Llewelyn (Josh Brolin) stumbles across a drug transaction gone wrong and finds the money that about a half a dozen people have been killed over. After taking it home, he does something fundamentally stupid, which results in the people who want that money knowing who has it. The person who wants the money most is Anton Chigurh (Bardem), one of the cruellest and most relentless villains ever committed to film. Llewelyn goes on the run, with Chigurh coming every moment closer, while Sheriff Bell tries to put the pieces together to save Llewelyn and catch the killer. The relationship of Bell to Chigurh is the heart of the film. Chigurh is a brutal killer who leaves a trail of bodies in his wake. Wandering into the crime scenes Chigurh leaves behind, Bell is simply at a loss to explain how a human being can be like this. He comes to believe that it is a generational thing, that society is simply going awry. However, his brother points out to him that people have always done harm to others senselessly – it isn’t just a sign of the times. This is why the ending is appropriate – Bell is the old man for whom there is no country. The world to which he has always belonged (law enforcement) no longer makes sense to him and, leaving it, he realizes that he doesn’t know how to relate to the rest of the world either. The dream he describes at the end is the essence of what the rest of his life is going to be like – there’s nothing for him to do now but stay on the trail and catch up with his father in the hereafter.

This is a film that’s being described as a crime thriller, but I think it has a lot in common with the westerns that came out in the 60s and 70s that centre on the idea of the “dying west,” the wild west that’s tamed by the coming of railroads and society, and which leaves no room for the hero – only here the trope is reversed. Instead we get a hero who is part of civilized society and is pushed out and set adrift by the breakdown of that society into violence and chaos. Chigurh is the character representative of that chaos, a killer who believes that the lives he takes aren't taken as much by his hand as they are by the hand of fate. Twice he leaves the fate of potential victims to a coin toss. "This coin got here the same way I did," he explains. His last victim refuses to accept that and tries to force him to accept responsibility by refusing to call the toss. But, this isn't a man who can be reasoned with. This is a man who seems to think that if you happen to cross paths with him, then you were probably meant to die. And even though it will be by his hand, it is also ultimately out of his hands. And what is that kind of thinking if not chaotic?

This is an excellent film. The Coen brothers, who have been a little hit and miss with their output over the last decade, are at the top of their form and the entire cast is pitch perfect. The performance by Bardem is likely to be the thing people talk most about, but hopefully the quiet, solid performance by Jones will get some recognition, too.