Category: Film Review

Paula Beer, Pierre Nuney, Marie Gruber, Ernst Stötzner, Johann von Bülow. Directed by François Ozon. Rated PG-13. 113 minutes. 2017.

There must be a reason for the man’s intrusion upon the family’s shared grief. Their only son was one of the many who died in the war that ravaged an entire world, and the conflict that drove a rift between the French and German governments has, of course, developed between the people of those countries, too. When the fallen soldier’s father realizes that their visitor is French, he, a proud German, expels the man from his presence with eyes popping and voice strained. It isn’t a rational fear of ideological divide in this case; it’s an irrational fear of the “other.” The Frenchman doesn’t belong in the German doctor’s office – or, no doubt, in Germany at large.

The mystery surrounding the reason for the Frenchman’s visit to the grave of the fallen, German soldier is solved by the halfway point of François Ozon’s Frantz, but wisely, the co-writer/director understands that the solution to its puzzle is of secondary importance to what it means for its characters. For some time, this approach works toward a vital, urgent, and moving first half in which the unspoken secrets (replacing the truth with carefully observed lies) between two fragile people place an emotional barrier between them (There is also the clever photographic trick devised by the director and cinematographer Philippe Rombi to switch between black-and-white and color depending upon the mood of the scene). It’s understandable, though, that Anna (Paula Beer), who was to be the wife of Frantz (Anton von Lucke) until his death at the frontlines, would be distrusting of Adrien (Pierre Nuney), who represents for her much of what led to her fiancé’s demise.

It is even more understandable that Adrien would receive some resistance from Frantz’s parents, the doctor and his wife (played by Ernst Stötzner and Marie Gruber), and so it charges forward until the scene at almost precisely the halfway point in which Adrien confronts Anna with the truth. The arrival of this scene, played perfectly by Beer and Nuney, would in any other movie be the climactic one of confrontation, leading perhaps to a single contrived scene of reconciliation and the end credits. Ozon is a bit smarter than that, understanding that the unspoken secrets must be confronted in a more resolute way. This is where the screenplay by Ozon and Philippe Piazzo (adapting both Maurice Rostand’s stage play and the screenplay for Ernst Lubitsch’s Broken Lullaby) unfortunately stumbles.

It isn’t the fact that Ozon pushes forward after the central mystery of the film’s plot is confronted. The general fact of this confrontation is tricky and well-handled. What transpires after this, though, steers the film away from its honest view of its characters and toward exactly the kind of contrived melodrama that Ozon so carefully avoids until this point. The best way to put it, without revealing anything about the truth, is that it replaces the mystery that opens the film with another, far less involving, far more trivial one that seems to be a long-winded ploy to reunite Anna and Adrien. It feels dishonest, and Frantz suffers thus from two distended halves that betray each other.

Cynthia Nixon, Jennifer Ehle, Duncan Duff, Keith Carradine, Jodhi May. Directed by Terence Davies. Rated PG-13. 125 minutes. 2017.

Terence Davies’ A Quiet Passion approaches the life of poet Emily Dickinson with an astonishing sense of understanding its subject. Dickinson was, famously, guarded about her personal life, so that sense of understanding is a coup for the writer/director. The character speaks in her real-life counterpart’s typically witty and philosophical barbs. Dickinson was one of the more outspoken feminist voices of her time, righteously obsessed with ideas of agency and independence in a time when the patriarchal society frowned upon such activities. For a while, Davies’ film rejects the usual biographical elements that accompany a period piece about an historical figure, and even when the film must confront the events that led both to Dickinson’s late-life reclusion from outward society and ultimate death in 1886, the film never settles.

Even at a younger age, Emily (Emma Bell) was rebellious against a strict, religious upbringing. Deistic of a higher power, whom, she believed, would be less than uninterested in her petty existence if it even existed, she rejected the societal powers that might direct her to be in answer to men. As an older woman (played by Cynthia Nixon), she lives much by the same code as before, in distrust of the idea of marriage, lest it place her in the servitude of a man. She feels her intellect is enough to steer her right and conducts herself in exactly the manner that she feels befits that intellect while in the presence of men.

The biographical elements that do exist here contribute to the little plot that, thankfully, exists. Her father Edward (Keith Carradine) is disapproving of roughly her every move, unless he feels it will bring honor to their family, such as her wish from a young age to write for the Springfield Republican. Her mother Emily Norcross (Joanna Bacon) slowly deteriorates from an unspoken illness and attendant despair that consistently leaves the rest of the family reeling. Her brother Austin (Duncan Duff) joins the family’s law practice, marries the charming Susan Gilbert (Jodhi May), and later, carries on an affair with the alluring Mabel Loomis Todd (Noémie Schellerts) that will have lasting impact on Emily. Her sister Vinnie (Jennifer Ehle) remains loyal to Emily’s interests, even as the latter has trouble remaining grateful for the support.

We get the sense of an entire person through these events, which are guided by Davies’ perfectly attuned ear for the dialogue of the time, rich with meaning that, it seems, has been lost with the evolution of modern language. This aspect will alienate some viewers, but it’s crucial for our sense of insight into this woman. It also helps that Nixon, whose performance is phenomenal, knows seemingly instinctively how to deliver this dialogue in a matter that seems as natural as it can be. That goes for all the actors, and Davies’ understated camera utilize medium shots and close-ups to superb effect. A Quiet Passion is an observant character study of a woman, an author, and a poet who was, well, quite the character.

Baldur Einarsson, Blær Hinriksson, Diljá Valsdóttir, Katla Njálsdóttir, Jónína Þórdís Karlsdóttir. Directed by Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson. No MPAA Rating. 129 minutes. 2017.

Coming-of-age films are easy to mishandle because much of the dramatic forward motion is mirrored in the characters, who are often teenagers prone to melodramatic overreactions that come as unwanted guests in the throes of puberty. Heartstone is a film that gets the coming of age right through a remarkable sense of forthright honesty and raw emotion. The emotion is genuine here, too, chronicling a single summer in the lives of four young teenagers simply trying to grapple with the insecurities, the loneliness, and the explosive troubles of pubescence. It’s hardly a subtle movie, but the crescendos of the narrative build organically from what, early on in director Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson’s screenplay, is intentionally aimless.

That aimlessness is incredibly appealing in this instance, too, because these kids are appealing, even amid their myriad flaws and outbursts of hormonal indignation. Two of them are defined by their suffering loneliness in broken homes. Þór (Baldur Einarsson) is one of three children whose single mother Hulda (Nína Dögg Filippusdóttir) is something of the town pariah upon the decision to become romantically involved with a foreigner of a different nationality. Þór’s sisters, Rakel (Jónína Þórdís Karlsdóttir) and Hafdís (Rán Ragnarsdóttir) are opposites of each other – the former is an attention-seeker who has little patience for quirk and the latter likes to paint and produce poetry – and of Þór, whose budding sexual feelings and practices are complicated by his sharing a room with Rakel.

His best friend is Kristján (Blær Hinriksson), whose own home life is perhaps even more dour than Þór’s. His father Sigurður (Sveinn Ólafur Gunnarsson) has won himself a spot of infamy in this small, Icelandic town by picking a fight from which he still sports a blackened eye. He’s an often angry, occasionally violent man who is entirely ignorant of his wife’s concerns and of his son’s increasing, desperate depression. Kristján, after all, is gay, but he is in denial about his sexuality, as well as his feelings toward it. When Hafdís paints a portrait of Þór and Kristján dressed up as two women, those feelings come tumbling out for Kristján. And when the pair of boys meets Beta (Diljá Valsdóttir) and Hanna (Katla Njálsdóttir), a pair of would-be romances strikes up that is based around the exploration of their physical attraction and emotional maturity.

This plot, of course, leads to a series of melodramatic developments in these boys’ lives that would feel contrived if not for Guðmundsson’s insistence upon keeping an honest view of his characters and not simplifying them at the expense of their situations. The performances have a significant role in this, with each child actor having a lot asked of them and bearing the weight extraordinarily well under the pressure of heavy subject matter. Some of the third act does bend to contrivance with how it solves one of these subplots, but Heartstone remains an honest account of grappling with the hardest part of growing up. For that, it’s a special film.

I’m a sucker for a good extraterrestrial narrative, and the supremely wicked Dark Skies, which was released to ho-hum reviews and weak box-office back in 2013, is one of the more enjoyable genre offerings in recent memory. This is an intimately scaled sci-fi horror thriller with engaging performances from Keri Russell and Josh Hamilton as suburban parents who are being visited, along with their children, by something spooky in the night. J.K. Simmons is very effective as the alien hunter who helps them solve the mysteries that are plaguing their house. Written and directed by Scott Stewart and produced by the now-on-fire Blumhouse Productions, the film has an absolutely chilling and upsetting final scene, which really drives a stake through the heart of any parent who might be watching. The crafty cinematography is by David Boyd, while Joseph Bishara provided the ominous musical score and was in perfect tandem with Peter Gvodas’ sharp editing. Dark Skies isn’t groundbreaking, but sometimes a nasty and efficient little chiller is all that’s required.