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| Royal
problems: Firth and Bonham-Carter in The King’s Speech. |
He
Said a Mouthful
By
Ann Morrow
The
King’s Speech
Directed
by Tom Hooper
The
King’s Speech earned seven Golden Globe nominations, and
by rights should garner at least that many Oscar noms. A dramatization
of the future King George VI’s stuggle with a speech impediment
on the eve of World War II, this wonderfully episodic view
of Great Britain’s royal family is about much more than Prince
Bertie’s private travails with a humiliating stutter. It’s
also about the newly emerging role of telecommunications on
the world stage, sly glimpses at a charming and supportive
royal marriage (Bertie’s with Elizabeth, the future Queen
Mum), child abuse behind closed palace doors, the national
security risk posed by the vapid heir apparent, Prince Edward,
and, last but not least, an enduring friendship between two
men who seemingly could not be more different. Bertie’s unlikely
friend and ally is Lionel Logue, a failed actor from Australia
who becomes Bertie’s last-ditch effort to find an effective
speech therapy.
The importance of Bertie (Colin Firth) being able to speak
directly to the public is shown in two different scenarios;
first by his ailing father, King George V (Michael Gambon),
who easily conquers “the wireless” in his baritone radio addresses,
and later, in a newsreel of Hitler’s oratory inspiring endless
columns of marching troops.
Adding to the pressure on Bertie is the realization that his
older brother (Guy Pearce) is more concerned with his paramour,
the American divorcee Wallis Simpson, than he is with being
king. With a push from his regally no-nonsense wife (Helena
Bonham Carter), Bertie meets with Lionel (Geoffrey Rush) at
the Logues’ shabby flat. That the first meeting is not a success
is an understatement (and the royals are all about understatement,
even when discussing such inflammatory topics as a sadistic
nanny). Bertie finds Lionel’s unorthodox methods to be disrespectful,
and his personal questions to be painful. Yet Lionel is convinced
that he can help the quietly despairing prince, and senses
similarities in Bertie’s upbringing and the shell-shocked
soldiers he treated in Australia. And even at their most mutually
stubborn, the two men have a bantering rapport. “Surely a
royal prince’s brain knows what its mouth is doing,” asks
Lionel in exasperation. “You’re not well acquainted with many
royal princes, are you?” replies Bertie in his characteristic
deadpan.
Firth expresses the prince’s speech impediments convincingly
without sounding the least bit laughable, even when Bertie’s
flashes of verbal temper are channeled into liberating bursts
of obscenities. Firth is just as sensitive with revealing
the toll royal burdens and uncertainties have taken on the
prince, as the camera catches a depth of sadness or bittersweet
smile in Bertie’s private moments, even during a happy interlude
with his two daughters, who heedlessly ask their father to
tell them a story. Rush, too, excels at the nuances of his
character, especially Lionel’s tenacious pleasure in being
an actor, albeit an unemployed one. All of the supporting
cast rise to the occasion, from Bonham-Carter’s delightful
queen-consort to Timothy Spall’s ungainly yet believable Churchill.
In one incisive mise-en-scene, religious preparations for
coronation by the Archbishop of Canterbury (Derek Jacobi)
are swept aside for “rehearsals.”
The pitch-perfect script by David Seidler (Tucker) and the
actor’s-dream direction by Tom Hooper, whose background in
class-conscious Brit-lit dramas apparently prepared him to
knock the stuffing out of royal pomp, are unobtrusively bolstered
by the evocative camera work (by Danny Cohen) and original
score (by Alexander Desplat), ably serving the cause of the
King’s speech to his peoples (the radio address that made
the new monarch the symbol of English resistance), an act
of friendship as much as bravery.
 |
| Determination
personified: Steinfeld in True Grit. |
Ornery
Creatures
True
Grit
Directed
by Joel and Ethan Coen
“People
do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could
leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father’s
blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will
say it did not happen every day.” So begins both Charles Portis’
elegiac novel, True Grit, and the new movie of the
same name, directed by the Coen brothers. The speaker of this
amazing pronouncement is 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld),
who has left her home and family in search of the cold-blooded
killer Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) who gunned down her father.
When told Chaney has lit out for Indian territory, she hires
the meanest U.S. Marshal she can find, one-eyed Rooster Cogburn
(Jeff Bridges), who shushes her attempts to haggle over money
by assuring her that he’s giving her the children’s rate.
Soon, Mattie and Rooster are joined by the bounty hunter LaBoeuf
(Matt Damon), who is pursuing Chaney for a different crime.
If
this sounds very familiar, it may be because you’ve seen the
1969 version of the movie, directed by Henry Hathaway and
starring John Wayne (in his only Oscar-winning role), Glen
Campbell and Kim Darby. That version was rollicking and still
highly enjoyable, but it’s light years away in terms of tone
and meaning from the Portis/Coen vision. Whereas the earlier
movie was dappled in sunlight and shimmering with boisterous
performances, this True Grit is raw, gray and utterly
unforgiving. Mattie’s stubborn determination brooks no compromise,
not even when Rooster tries to give her the slip and set off
solo after the fugitive. Her righteousness could be off-putting,
even annoying, but newcomer Steinfeld makes it believable,
even touching.
The movie is pretty near flawless. The elegant dialogue is
delivered superbly by all, and I particularly enjoyed Damon’s
recitations of LaBoeuf’s self-important pronouncements and
observations. True Grit is the kind of movie that you
can enjoy with your eyes shut, so rich is the vocabulary and
the cadences—think Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons
on the frontier. Roger Deakins’ cinematography transports
the audience to a savage and barren landscape fraught with
danger behind nearly every crevice.
It would be easy to go on about the overall excellence of
the filmmaking while giving short shrift to the narrative,
which is truly exciting and suspenseful. It’s standard Western
fare, and that’s meant as a compliment. Indeed, there are
gunfights and chases on horseback, but at its core, True
Grit is about the tension and ongoing conflict between
good and evil. Much like The Night of the Hunter, which
showcases the same hymn, True Grit hones in on the
nature of good and evil, and comes up with the obvious but
no less disconcerting conclusion that the two are often intertwined.
—Laura
Leon
 |
| Blood
brothers: Bale and Wahlberg in The Fighter. |
Punch-Drunk
Love
The
Fighter
Directed
by David O. Russell
The
names attached, however briefly, to The Fighter, preproduction,
indicate that it was always intended to be a big film. Brad
Pitt and Matt Damon were in the running for the part that
ultimately went to Christian Bale; Mark Wahlberg reportedly
attempted to secure Martin Scorsese to direct. After the fact,
and all the acclaim, that doesn’t seem surprising. But the
failure of those A-listers to commit is more telling: Though
The Fighter is becoming quite a big movie, it’s not
a very big story. Really, it was a bit of a long shot, itself.
Most overtly, The Fighter is the story of boxer “Irish”
Mickey Ward (Wahlberg) and his elder half-brother and sometime
trainer, Dicky Eklund (Bale). Dicky was himself a talented
boxer, famed for a controversial, apparent knockdown of “Sugar”
Ray Leonard, but his career was consumed by crack addiction.
Where Dicky is colorful, dramatic and self-destructive, Mickey
is earnest, striving and loyal. It’s a dysfunctional combination
that, along with the enabling interference of the boys’ mother,
Alice (Melissa Leo), threatens to consume Mickey’s career,
as well.
The
dramatic arc of this story is so evident as to be cliché.
A working-class underdog story? Haven’t we seen this? You
can easily guess how this all plays out. So, what’s the hubbub?
As you no doubt have already heard, the performances are very
good. Yes, Christian Bale has, again, immersed himself, lived
in character and transformed himself physically to fully inhabit
a character. No sarcasm, here: He is as good as you have heard.
But, still, that, in itself, wouldn’t have been enough. Leo,
as the abrasive, explosive Alice, is also excellent, as is
Amy Adams as the love interest, and the actresses who play
the gaggle of trashy sisters.
But it’s Wahlberg and director David O. Russell who transform
this predictable story into something worth watching. Russell
expertly crafts a setting—specifically, depressed Lowell,
Mass.—and an atmosphere of mingled desperation and fat-chance
opportunity that subtly raises the question, “Is Mickey merely
in this setting or wholly of it?” Wahlberg is absolutely perfect
and natural as Mickey. His unaffected performance provides
a still center without which the movie would have twitched
into camp. It’s not just a family drama; it’s certainly not
just a boxing movie. It’s an endearing existential riddle
in satin shorts.
—John
Rodat
 |
| Unhappy
together: Gosling and Dunst in All Good Things. |
The
Rich Are Always With Us
All
Good Things
Directed
by Andrew Jarecki
This disturbing, engrossing drama of emotional and physical
abuse, murder, cross-dressing and mental illness is a success
in large part because it walks a fine line between the familiar
and the absurd. The film begins as a heartbreaking domestic
drama, and turns into something resembling comic horror—except
that you’re more likely to choke on the laughs than enjoy
them.
Based in part on real-life events, All Good Things
is told in flashback as the graying, middle-aged David Marks
(Ryan Gosling) testifies in some kind of legal proceeding.
(Is he on trial? We’re quite pointedly left in the dark.)
The action quickly shifts from “now,” the mid-aughts, to a
vividly re-created 1971. We see the young David, alienated
from his cold, powerful real-estate tycoon father Sanford
(Frank Langella), fall in love with vivacious, blonde, and
non-Jewish Katie McCarthy (Kirsten Dunst). Fleeing the family
business, David romances and marries Katie; the two of them
move to Vermont, where they open the portentously named store
All Good Things.
This rural, quasi-hippie idyll doesn’t last, however; Sanford
pressures his son into bringing his bride to Manhattan and
into the family fold.
Jarecki made his reputation with Capturing the Friedmans,
a wrenching documentary about a family torn apart by allegations
of child sexual abuse. The fictional Marks family’s dysfunctions
aren’t sexual in nature, but are just as devastating in their
impact. What makes all the difference, however, isn’t the
nature of the crimes, but in how the crimes are dealt with:
The Markses are wealthy, powerful New Yorkers with influence
purchased at all levels of government.
Back in New York, things go terribly wrong. David’s growing
mental illness puts him in conflict with Katie, especially
as his job collecting rents from whorehouses and porn theaters
for his slumlord family wears on his fragile mental state.
Things go from bad to worse, but the Markses aren’t really
sweating it: They own everyone, from the unnamed mayor of
New York to the then junior U.S. Senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
And when the action shifts locale to the Southwest, things
get really weird, but no less compelling. The Markses don’t
care what happens to David as long as his troubles stay out
of the public eye.
Jarecki knows just how to use the historical context and changing
mores to hit the audience hard. The casual acceptance of domestic
abuse in 1970s culture is a terrible shock, for example, even
if it’s thoroughly recognizable to those of us who were around
then. And the film gives the audience just enough information
to make us feel like we know what’s happening, even as key
information is withheld.
Gosling is terrific, managing to be sympathetic and then monstrous
as circumstances require. Langella deftly embodies the gravitas
and entitlement of a man who literally controls the lives
and futures of millions of people. Dunst is engaging as the
doomed Katie, realizing too late her position (or lack thereof)
in the scheme of things. There are some stunning cameos, too:
Diane Venora as a slick Westchester prosecutor; Philip Baker
Hall as a neurotic old veteran; Kristin Wiig as Katie’s coked-up
friend; and Trini Alvarado as a sympathetic neighbor.
All
Good Things saves its last big reveals for the final moments;
they’ll haunt you as you leave the theater.
—Shawn
Stone
 |
| Am
I blue? Wilde in Tron: Legacy. |
It’s
Beautiful, Man
Tron:
Legacy
Directed
by Joseph Kosinski
If
you’ve ever wanted to enter a video game instead of just playing
one, then Tron: Legacy will undoubtedly provide a temporal
fix. Forget the barely serviceable plot that doesn’t quite
pick up where Tron left off 28 years ago: as Kevin
Flynn (Jeff Bridges) would say, it’s all about the visuals,
man. Actually, what Kevin says is, “You’re messing with my
Zen thing,” and his Zen thing is not the least dynamic aspect
of Kevin’s digitalized existence. Neither is Kevin’s avatar’s
visage, which is of the “I’m mel-ting” plasticene variety.
But no matter, because once your in, you’re in. It took decades
of CGI advancement and over $200 million, but the black-light
interior of the Grid is as immersive a gaming landscape as
any joystick (or glow stick) addict could dream of. In its
best sequences, the film’s light sabers, er, wands, expand
into drop-down motorcycles that roar through cyberspace in
a hallucinatory approximation of the speed of light. The avatar-gladiators
wear neon-tailored wetsuits and die by corruption, their pixilated
bodies tearing away like mini-wheats of flesh while other,
nimbler programs take their place in the Grid’s death-match
relay.
But in between tripping the light fantastic by way of stratospheric
circuitry, there is the story, of Kevin’s grown-up son (Garrett
Hedlund) coming to reclaim his father for passage back to
real life, and the battle against Kevin’s totalitarian alter-ego,
Clu, a frustrated perfectionist and unwieldy narrative device
for the screenwriters to recycle The Matrix’s Tron
base.
Amid the eye-popping pleasures of future-shock velocity (and
the occasional throwaway line of recognition of the original)
is the quest, and all the mind-numbing mumbo-jumbo that Kevin
must spout to develop it, but there’s also a live-wire Michael
Sheen as a living, breathing, dancing and conniving entertainment
archive, and also a gymnastic Olivia Williams as Kevin’s anime-stylin’
daughter figure and messianic heroine. Oh, and there’s a cautionary
tale in there somewhere, too, which might be, simply, to watch
your back whenever there’s a giant laser pointed at it.
—Ann
Morrow
 |
| Striking
out: Wilson and Witherspoon in How Do You Know. |
Love
Stinks
How
Do You Know
Directed
by James L. Brooks
The
unfinished portion of the title is supposed to be “when you’re
in love,” but while watching How Do You Know, one can’t
help but think of other, more apt, endings, like “when you’ve
completely wasted the price of the movie ticket” or “when
you should have gone to see The King’s Speech,” even
“when you should have stayed home to regrout the shower.”
How
Do You Know has pieces of what it takes to make a great
romantic comedy. It’s central character, Lisa (Reese Witherspoon),
is a confident 31-year-old pro softball player whose life
loses its direction when she’s cut from the team. Cast aside,
she drifts into a relationship with Washington Nationals player
Matty (Owen Wilson), a guy who keeps an inventory of women’s
track suits (sizes S and XS!) in his bathroom closet and a
dental clinic’s supply of toothbrushes to accommodate any
lady who happens to spend the night. With Lisa, he tries hard
to understand the new emotional territory he’s feeling, and
his attempts to get chick psychology are truly the film’s
best moments. At the same time as Lisa loses her ballplaying
gig, she meets George (Paul Rudd), a stock trader about to
be indicted by the feds for fraud. His world is clearly swallowing
him up, but Lisa’s lustrous cheer and winsome smile give him
something to hold out hope for, and to his father Charles’
(Jack Nicholson) bewilderment, he skips attorney-client sessions
to try to score face time with Lisa.
The idea of a couple meeting when they are both, unbeknownst
to each other, at the lowest ebb in their lives is workable,
and the unexplored terrain of Lisa’s suddenly prospectless
future is tantalizing. But Brooks focuses instead on countless
scenes in which the leads yak yak yak like a C- version of
Woody Allen. Conversations start and stop in annoyingly staccato
fashion, like “Well, but, I mean, well, frankly . . . ” to
which another character responds something like “What do you
mean, frankly?”
Lisa questions everything and George mostly just gazes at
her in wan admiration. For all his wanton hedonism and politically
incorrect sexual mores, Matty is far more intriguing and likeable;
I described him to some friends as the only person in the
movie I didn’t want to slap. Of course, it doesn’t help that
Rudd, who is sort of cute but not really, doesn’t have the
appeal we’d like in a romantic lead. For his part, Nicholson
is all wrong somehow. He looks physically ill at ease, which
could very well be script-related. And Witherspoon, hopelessly
attired in baby-doll dresses that make her look like a 12-year-old,
not a world-class athlete, doesn’t have much to do but look
golden and dimply. The whole movie plays like a very slow-moving
exercise in testing our collective patience, not at all a
serious romantic comedy or even a pleasantly mindless bit
of cinematic fluff.
—Laura
Leon
 |
| The
big dude: Black in Gulliver’s Travels. |
You
Know Jack
Gulliver’s
Travels
Directed
by Rob Letterman
First,
you must ignore the title of the movie. Gulliver’s Travels
shares so little with the Jonathan Swift book of the same
name that it might just as well be coincidence. Sure, there’s
a castaway and an island called Lilliput and some very small
people but, really, put the book out of your mind. It’s not
relevant, here. (And, honestly, was it ever really even in
your mind? Really?) Next, remember it’s a Jack Black film,
for kids. So, we’re pretty much done here.
What? Oh, OK, fine. Black plays a semi-delusional, self-aggrandizing
mail-room clerk who secretly, awkwardly, pines for the travel
editor (Amanda Peet) of the newspaper where he works. He bumbles
his way into a writing assignment for her section, and travels
to the Bermuda Triangle where he is swamped by a CGI storm
and dumped on the island inhabited by tiny people who are
amazed at his physique and charmed by his braggadocio.
If you, like they, find Jack Black charismatic, you, like
they, will find the experience of him rewarding. If not, well,
not. There’s almost no other way to evaluate the movie. Despite
the presence of other talented and/or appealing but strangely
underused actors, this is wholly a Jack Black vehicle. Billy
Connolly and Emily Blunt as members of the Lilliputian royal
family are barely present; Jason Segel is almost entirely
effaced in a gentle wash of bland likability; and though Chris
O’Dowd (from the amusing The IT Crowd), puts up a game
fight as cruel and narcissistic general, he, too ends up overpowered
by CGI effects. Amanda Peet is pretty, as if it’s a stage
direction.
That being said, there is something mildly charming about
Black’s earnest vulnerability, something heightened (no pun
intended) by having him match his outsized personality against
the courtly dignity of the tiny Lilliputians. Black’s outer-child
act works well—if you can bear it all, that is—with mini costars.
And, probably, works best for comparatively mini fans.
—John
Rodat
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