Review: The Rewrite (2014)

* *
Director: Marc Lawrence
Starring: Hugh Grant, Marisa Tomei

Early in The Rewrite the protagonist, a once celebrated Hollywood screenwriter who has fallen on hard times, complains that he can't sell any of his story ideas because all anyone wants to make are stories about female empowerment. Lord, please tell me where this crowded marketplace of movies about female empowerment are, because as far as I can tell it's white male protagonists as far as the eye can see. If you can ignore the fact that the film is premised on a problem (if a rise in the number of films about women can be seen as a problem) that simply does not exist, then The Rewrite is a pleasant enough diversion. It's somewhat sleepy overall and not nearly as much fun as previous Marc Lawrence/Hugh Grant collaborations Two Weeks Notice and Music and Lyrics (I have no idea about Did You Hear About the Morgans?), but it's decent enough for what it is.

Review: The Ides of March (2011)

* * * 1/2
Director: George Clooney
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, George Clooney, Evan Rachel Wood, Marissa Tomei

"Because how one ought to live is so far removed from how one lives that he who lets go of what is done for that which one ought to do sooner learns ruin than his own preservation: because a man who might want to make a show of goodness in all things necessarily comes to ruin among so many who are not good. Because of this it is necessary for a prince, wanting to maintain himself, to learn how to be able to be not good and to use this and not use it according to necessity."
- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

Review: Cyrus (2010)

* * *
Director: Jay and Mark Duplass
Starring: John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei, Jonah Hill

Cyrus is a film that builds itself around an incredible sense of awkwardness. Just when you think it can’t get more awkward or, at the very least, that the film will give you some respite by looking away from the awkwardness, it instead proceeds to the next level and just keeps watching things unfold. Directed by Jay and Mark Duplass, two of the founders of the mumblecore film movement, Cyrus unfolds in a simple, unfussy way and is never afraid to get a little bit weird (or, you know, a lot weird).

Review: Before The Devil Knows You're Dead

This is a fantastic film. Tightly plotted, well acted, and compelling, this is easily one of the best films of the year – and in a year full of great movies, that’s really saying something. It’s a crime film, but one that’s less concerned about the crime than it is with the consequences of it. The two perpetrators, Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Hank (Ethan Hawke), don’t just spend the movie trying to get away with it; they also contend with their remorse and regret for having done it in the first place.

Hoffman and Hawke play brothers – which might not sound believable on paper, but in the film it works. In their conversations leading up to and following the crime, you get a feel for the history that exists between them. You believe that Hank would let Andy talk him into the heist because you get the sense that all their lives, Andy has been coming up with ideas and getting Hank to follow through on them for him. There’s a very natural older sibling/younger sibling dynamic at play between them.

The plot itself – two people need money, they plan a crime, something goes wrong, and mayhem ensues in the attempt to cover it up – is standard, but the way that director Sidney Lumet presents it is not. We follow a character towards a plot point, reach it, and then the film doubles back to go towards that point again from a different perspective. The narrative structure is one of the film’s many strengths because we see things from every angle, and it allows the film to focus less on the crime itself than on the people who have to live with its fallout.

The performances in this film are excellent, especially those of Hoffman and Hawke. Hank is a guy who just can’t seem to get it together, who owes his ex-wife (Amy Ryan who between this film and Gone, Baby, Gone could carve out a nice niche for herself as women with chips on their shoulders) three months of child support, and his inability to pay for his daughter’s field trip leads her to declare him a “loser.” There’s an assumption on Andy’s part that Hank was always the favourite of their parents, though their father (Albert Finney) disdainfully declares that Hank has always been “such a baby.” Desperation surrounds Hank: he’s desperate to pay off his debts, he’s desperate to do something with his life, but mostly he’s desperate for love.

While Hank is a character who seems to have already lost control of his life before the film begins, Andy is a character who seems much more controlled, though in reality his life is just as chaotic. His marriage to his wife, Gina (Marissa Tomei) is troubled, the IRS is about to catch up with him for embezzling from his company, and he has a drug addiction that seems to have taken over his life (there is a scene early in the film where Andy cuts up some cocaine and emits a long sigh. This, too, has become a routine chore in his life). While Hank looks scruffy and nervous, Andy is cool and calm, his hair always perfectly slicked back. When he lets out his frustrations at home, he doesn’t manically trash the place but instead methodically goes through the house displacing things, going through the motions of anger that he doesn’t quite want himself to feel because he might not be able to control it.

As I said before, this is a crime film, but it isn’t an action film. This film takes its time, it slows the action down, distils it. We listen to the characters talk and sometimes we simply follow them through rooms, getting a feel for their lives. We understand their relationships with each other. One of the more interesting aspects of the film, to me, is that both brothers assume that it’s Hank, the perpetual screw up, who will do something to blow their cover. However, it’s something that Andy does which brings about the final scene and an act that falls somewhere between Shakespeare and Eugene O’Neill.

See this movie. I can’t recommend it enough.