Thursday, June 02, 2011
Schrader's return to safer ground
By J.D.
After dabbling briefly with a major studio on the debacle that became known as Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005), writer/director Paul Schrader returned to the relatively safe confines of the independent film scene with The Walker (2007). This film continues his fascination with loner protagonists ostracized by their profession as examined in American Gigolo (1980) and Light Sleeper (1992), or by their worldview as in Taxi Driver (1976).
Carter Page III (Woody Harrelson) is a popular socialite who works as a confidant, companion, and card player to the wives of politicians in Washington — a professional “walker,” a term coined for Nancy Reagan’s companion when she was First Lady. Carter is the epitome of the Southern gentleman. He plays a weekly card game with three women as they gossip and tell stories complete with salacious details about the denizens of Capitol Hill. Carter is finely groomed and impeccably dressed with only the finest suits, living in a beautifully furnished place.
With the stories Carter tells his dates, he hints at a rich backstory but he is careful not to reveal too much about himself. While waiting for Lynn Lockner (Kristin Scott Thomas), one of his dates, to meet up with her lover, she comes back in shock. Her lover is dead and she asks Carter to keep the incident quiet. Of course, he decides to get involved (he knew the victim). Carter used to trade in juicy gossip and now he has become the subject of it.
It doesn’t help that he lost considerable money on an investment that the victim advised and this gives the socialite a motive. As a result, he decides to investigate the murder using his own insider contacts and uncover a few dirty secrets that people in positions of power don’t want revealed. His efforts to clear his name become more urgent once the Feds apply pressure thanks to a particular nasty agent (William Hope). Pretty soon, events conspire against him and Carter becomes the prime suspect.
Woody Harrelson disappears into the role affecting a flawless accent and does an excellent job with Schrader’s witty dialogue and distinctive cadence. Every few years between amiable comedies Harrelson gets a juicy dramatic role to sink his teeth into and showcase his acting chops: Natural Born Killers (1994), The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), and now this film. Schrader’s screenplay, as you would expect, snaps and pops, especially the scenes where Carter and his companions banter and gossip. It doesn’t hurt that he has the likes of Lauren Bacall, Lily Tomlin and Kristin Scott Thomas delivering it.
The Walker is a fascinating inside look at a subculture that exists in Washington under the auspices of a murder mystery. It shows to what lengths politicians will go in order to protect themselves and their dirty secrets. Schrader has crafted a smart thriller with interesting characters that is driven by a well-plotted story and not a bunch of noisy, hastily edited action sequences.
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Labels: 00s, Bacall, Harrelson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Lily Tomlin, Schrader
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Monday, January 10, 2011
These memories lose their meaning
By Edward Copeland
A little more than 30 years since his murder, films chronicling John Lennon and the formation of The Beatles almost have become their own genre. With Nowhere Boy, we get to see Lennon as a teen and see another portion of his biography fleshed out (and fleshed out well, thanks to the lead work of Aaron Johnson as young Lennon).
Nowhere Boy depicts the years when Lennon was a student constantly in trouble at school and more interested in his fledgling music career than anything else. He lives with his Aunt Mimi (Kristin Scott Thomas), who more or less raised John even though his mother Julia (Anne-Marie Duff) lives nearby.
His disinterest in academics causes many conflicts with Aunt Mimi, but Mimi does love the boy, going so far as helping him to buy a guitar so that his group The Quarrymen can play more, even securing paying gigs. However, when Mimi learns he's been suspended from school and didn't tell her, she sells the instrument, much to John's consternation.
Depending how much of a John Lennon/Beatles fanatic you are, many of the details that Nowhere Boy shares might be things you already know, but the film by director Sam Taylor-Wood and screenwriter Matt Greenhalgh paints such a vivid portrait of working class Liverpool in the 1950s, that it hardly matters. It would be a good story even if its main character didn't grow up to be a legend.
Johnson doesn't try to do a Lennon imitation and that makes his performance all the stronger. Instead of trying to sound or look like Lennon, he just plays the part and succeeds at capturing Lennon's essence in a way the role might not work if the emphasis was on casting a young facsimile.
The same goes for Thomas Brodie Sangster who plays the young Paul McCartney. The actor is 20 years old, but he makes a more-than-convincing 15-year-old McCartney. His character really occupies a small part of Nowhere Boy, but Sangster makes the most of his limited screen time.
Duff also gets a lot of nice moments as Lennon's flighty and absentee mother Julia. She tries to keep things on a fun level, knowing the disappointments she's brought to her son's life, but she gets to let loose late in the movie in scenes that are emotionally wrenching and heartbreaking.
Above all, Nowhere Boy is blessed to have Kristin Scott Thomas. Her career trajectory has taken a remarkable path. When she first gained a lot of notice around the time of The English Patient, she didn't really do that much for me. However, in the past few years, often in foreign language films, she's become one of the reliable actresses around, whether she's the lead (as in I've Loved You So Long) or in a supporting role (as she is here or in Tell No One).
For Lennon fans, Nowhere Boy really should be seen. For film fans in general, it provides a slice of life that's worth your time.
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Labels: 10s, Beatles, Kristin Scott Thomas
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Sunday, January 02, 2011
From the Vault: Richard III
And therefore — since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair, well-spoken days, —
I am determined to prove a villain,
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Richard III, Act I, Scene I
Prove a villain he does in what may be the most imaginative, entertaining film adaptation of a Shakespeare play ever.
Adapted from an acclaimed stage production, Richard III transplants the Bard's historical play from the 15th century to a fictionalized England of the 1930s, where a bloody civil war rages and the pseudo-fascist Richard of Gloucester conspires to seize the throne from himself — at the expense of many family members.
When we first see Richard on screen leading an attack on reigning King Henry and his troops, a gas mask hides his face and causes Richard to breathe heavily and evoke a far more humanistic movie villain — Darth Vader. The allusion to Star Wars ends up being wholly appropriate because this is Shakespeare revised to be a movie, not just a filmed version of the play.
Sir Ian McKellen plays Richard, repeating his stage triumph and showing why he often earns the label of the foremost Shakespearean actor of his generation. This is Shakespeare delivered conversationally with as much respect for the context as the poetry. McKellen doesn't cradle the lines as if he fears they're so delicate that they might break: he charges full throttle and brings Richard to brilliant, rousing life.
An excellent cast supports McKellen, including Annette Bening as Queen Elizabeth, Nigel Hawthorne and John Wood as Richard's brothers Clarence and Edward and Maggie Smith as his mother, the duchess of York.
Lesser known but recognizable performers such as Kristin Scott Thomas as the widowed Lady Anne and Jim Broadbent as Lord Buckingham, Richard's co-conspirator, also add to the fun. The cast's weak spot turns out to be Robert Downey Jr. as Earl Rivers, Elizabeth's brother. Downey's line readings sound so awkward that it comes as a relief when he's dispatched by Richard's henchman (Adrian Dunbar).
Richard Loncraine directs Richard III at a galloping pace and though some purists may dislike cuts in the text, the omissions do not come at the expense of the story's flow, unlike the recent film of Othello.
Too often people of all ages treat Shakespeare as if his plays are museum pieces, treating them more like medicine they have to take than entertainment. With this film, perhaps that view can change as its stunning visuals and realistic action manage to keep reluctant viewers' attention while McKellen's exquisite acting helps the words penetrate their mind.
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Labels: 90s, Bening, Broadbent, Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith, Remakes, Robert Downey Jr., Shakespeare, Star Wars
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Monday, July 20, 2009
She has to talk loud: She's an American
By Edward Copeland
The dreary interiors of the English estate seem to belie the bouncy renditions of the period songs that permeate the soundtrack of Easy Virtue, the new film by Stephan Elliott (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) based on an early film by Alfred Hitchcock. (Just kidding: That's my Ben Lyons joke for today.)
Easy Virtue actually is based on an early play by Noel Coward and while there are many sly laughs, it's not as eager to please as some of his later stage efforts would be.
Elliott and Sheridan Jobbins adapted Coward's story of the stuffy Whittaker family disrupted by the arrival of their son (John Ben Barnes) with a bride Larita, a brash American race car driver (Jessica Biel).
No one is more outraged than the Whittaker family matriarch (Kristin Scott Thomas) who finds Larita totally unsuitable, though she harbors other ulterior motives for being against the match as well.
Colin Firth plays the family's patriarch and gives the film's finest performance as a lost soul, done in by his experiences during World War I. He wandered the world carousing until his wife found him and brought him home, where he now haunts the estate as if he's a ghost.
Thomas, as one would expect, turns in a fine performance as well but the real surprise is Biel who holds her own nicely with the other players.
Easy Virtue certainly turns out to be a watchable enterprise with some nice laughs even with its serious undercurrents, but the musical choices, while era appropriate, seem out of place with the mood of the film itself.
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Labels: 00s, Colin Firth, Kristin Scott Thomas
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Monday, June 01, 2009
2008-2009 Broadway Plays, Part 1
By Josh R
May is not a time of year that holds pleasant associations for anyone who’s ever survived a college education. Cramming for exams, grinding out term papers, fighting off the urge to procrastinate…to say that it can be overwhelming is the height of understatement (I would describe my mood at the tail end of my final semester as falling somewhere between immoderately frazzled and thoroughly deranged). It was never my intention to revisit this dreaded state of emotional dystopia, and yet, with a whole season’s worth of plays to discuss, and the Tony Awards looming on the not-too-distant horizon, I find myself in more or less the same spot as when I had to pull 30-odd pages on Dalton Trumbo and The Blacklist out of thin air in about 48 hours in order to graduate. The best approach — really, the only realistic approach at this point — is address everything as briefly as possible, with apologies to the shows I omit due to considerations of time, space and exhaustion.
The straight play reigned supreme on Broadway this year, with more than 20 revivals and a smattering of new works. Theatres that have traditionally housed musicals played host to tried-and-true favorites by Coward and O’Neill, as producers tried to adjust to a less friendly economy. Musicals cost money; with smaller casts and lower overheads, plays are here to stay — at least for the immediate future.
First up — the early-season entries that premiered in the fall, as well as the current crop of “new” plays (note the use of quotation marks) in contention for Tony Awards.
The most surprising production of the 2009-2010 season may well have been Ian Rickson’s glorious staging of The Seagull, in a production that transferred from London. Chekhov can be a rather dry affair, and The Seagull, while indisputably a classic, can seem pretty parched in the absence of a fresh directorial perspective. This was very much the case with the last Seagull I’d seen — a star-studded debacle in Central Park helmed by Mike Nichols featuring Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Natalie Portman and a phalanx of other big-name talents. The fact that Nichols
seemed more interested in throwing an A-list party than in interpreting the text was the least of that show’s problems — everyone seemed to be acting in a different play (and frankly, all but a few seemed mismatched with their roles). This was most assuredly not the case in Rickson’s masterful staging, which, while remaining entirely true to the spirit of the piece and the intentions of its author, didn’t treat the play like the kind of lofty classical opus to be treated with kid gloves and kept under glass like a priceless museum artifact. In much the same manner as Louis Malle’s Vanya on 42nd Street, this was The Seagull brought down to earth and demythologized — a naturalistic staging which captured the emotional truth behind the words without getting wrapped up in the profundity of them, or aiming for the formal gloss of a Masterpiece Theatre production. With his complex portrayal of a woman who can be both passionate and aloof, engaging and off-putting, breathtakingly assured and wildly insecure, Chekhov seemed to have imagined the actress Arkadina as a Molotov cocktail blended from equal parts fire and ice — and that’s exactly the way Kristin Scott Thomas played her, embodying the myriad contradictions of the character with wit, verve, and a laser-like emotional acuity. Since the production ended its limited engagement way back in December — and since Tony nominators have notoriously short memories — The Seagull and its star were conspicuously absent from the list of contenders for the big prizes.Also lost in the shuffle was Thea Sharrock’s hugely successful revival of Peter Shaffer’s Equus — although whether that success owed itself more to
the merits of the production than to Daniel Radcliffe’s highly publicized nude scene can remain a subject of debate (or not — something tells me all those teenage girls in attendance the day that I saw it were not hardcore Shaffer mavens). No matter how many times I see it, I’m never quite sure what to think of Equus as a play; while frequently fascinating and unfailingly provocative, it never quite seems to come together in the way that it should. Its central conflict is built around the contention that true liberation can be achieved only through madness — a conceit that the narrative doesn’t really seem to support, given that the lunatic in question seems less a free spirit than a desperately unhappy prisoner of his own warped mind. That notwithstanding, Sharrock’s highly polished staging kept the action moving even though the play’s overly cerebral passages, and Richard Griffiths delivered a performance admirable for its understatement (resisting the urge to mine so many flashy monologues for the stuff of actorly tour-de-force is no small thing). Inevitably, it was Radcliffe — in clothes and out of them — who attracted the lion’s share of the attention, although the performance lacked something in terms of shading and nuance. I’m not averse to an element of theatricality — but portraying a character who functions in a state of angry delirium doesn't necessitate shouting all of one’s lines.The shouting was appropriate in Neil Pepe’s fall revival of David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow, a marvelously cynical look at Hollywood power players and the ambitious hangers-on who love them (or, at least, want to ride to glory on their coattails). As a play, Speed-the-Plow isn’t quite as rich in scope as some of Mamet’s more celebrated works — nevertheless, it is a smartly calibrated, vastly entertaining example of the playwright’s craft. The action is streamlined and concise, while the dialogue, consisting mainly of sentence fragments, manages to be blunt yet elliptical at the same time. In some of his plays — particularly, it must be said, in the ones where female characters are placed front and center — Mamet’s fragmented style seems to be at odds with characterization. It feels perfectly right in Speed-the-Plow, which centers around the interactions of two jittery, over-caffeinated studio execs whose motors run so fast they can only pause long enough to communicate in sound bites. When I saw the production, these two titans of industry were played by Jeremy Piven and Raul Esparza, while the role of the seemingly demure office temp who gets caught in the crossfire was performed by Elisabeth Moss. Piven left the production mid-run amidst some controversy — something about mercury poisoning after having eaten too much salmon — and was subsequently replaced by Norbert Leo Butz and Mamet stalwart William H. Macy. Better Piven had departed under fishy circumstances than Mr. Esparza, who, I suppose, may be capable of giving a performance that is less than brilliant — I only say “may” because his most recent performances haven’t provided any evidence to that effect. On the heels of his triumphs in Company and The Homecoming, the protean star of plays and musicals delivered yet another galvanizing star turn — one which went for the jugular, and hit its target like a guided missile.
As for new plays, the story remained much as it always has on Broadway — which is to say, ‘twas slim pickins. The season’s best and most interesting new works could be found in non-for-profit off-Broadway houses — venues where the risk factor is considerably less from a financial standpoint, and greater risks can be taken on the artistic front as a result. Female playwrights made a particularly strong showing this year. Lynn Nottage’s Ruined, a modern-day version of Mother Courage set in war-torn Congo, deservedly won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, while Gina Gionfriddo’s Becky Shaw was a sharply observed comedy of manners with a sleek contemporary twist. Sarah Kane’s Blasted — an audacious compendium of unspeakable behaviors — was perversely fascinating, while Annie Baker’s clever, inquisitive Body Awareness marked a particularly auspicious debut for an emerging playwright. If the women commanded the spotlight, the men were not entirely lacking in action; Lorenzo Pisoni’s Humor Abuse, an autobiographical account of growing up in the circus, and Chris Durang’s absurdist trifle Why Torture is Wrong and The People who Love Them were particular standouts in a off-Broadway season that offered more than its share of high points (the lows were there too…but that’s a discussion for another day).
To say that no new works to be seen on Broadway quite matched that standard is a bit misleading, since all but a few could be accurately termed “new.” The late Horton Foote’s Dividing the Estate, written and first performed in the late 1980s, made its belated Broadway bow in a limited engagement at The Booth Theatre last fall. A kindler, gentler cousin to August: Osage County, featuring a gaggle of contentious Texan siblings squabbling over their inheritance, it was warmly received by critics — if generating little in the way of excitement beyond that. Foote’s homespun, elegiac style can work to beguiling effect when plied in service of gentle stories about gentle subjects — Trip to Bountiful and Tender Mercies are the two that immediately spring to mind. It doesn’t seem entirely appropriate, though, when the subject is something as thorny as a family feud. As with many of Foote’s later works, Dividing the Estate seemed to consist mainly of rose-tinged anecdotes strung together to create a sort of careworn, dog-eared scrapbook — while the fire-and-brimstone antics of Osage County would have seemed completely out-of-place, the proceedings could have used a bit more in the way of tension and urgency. Still, the play did furnish the occasion for pitch-perfect ensemble work by cast led by Elizabeth Ashley and Gerald McRaney; deserving of special praise (and receiving the show’s lone acting nomination) was Hallie Foote, the playwright’s daughter and frequent collaborator, making a memorable impression as the passive-aggressive sister determined to grab off the biggest piece of the pie. Another “new” play — at least according to Tony eligibility rulings — was Richard Greenberg’s The American Plan, originally performed off-Broadway in the early '90s. The Manhattan Theatre Club revival, directed by David Grindley, featured expert performances by Lily Rabe, Keiran Campion and particularly the acerbic, husky-voiced Mercedes Ruehl as an imposing, fatalistic Teutonic mama who alternately coddles and smothers her hapless offspring. Fine acting aside, you could see The American Plan’s surprise twist coming from a mile away, and the pretensions of the dialogue weighed the proceedings down to a certain degree — it didn’t quite make sense for Jews on vacation in The Catskills to spend quite as much time waxing philosophical.
Something called Impressionism quickly established itself as the biggest belly-flop of the year — not even the marquee value of Jeremy Irons and Joan Allen, making their first Broadway appearances since The Real Thing and The Heidi Chronicles respectively, could keep it from closing two months ahead of schedule. Not all the news was bad, however, and other instances of starry casting paid big dividends. There was no reason to assume that Jane Fonda, who hadn’t set foot on a Broadway stage in some 40-odd years, would deliver one of the breakout performances of the season. She did just that in 33 Variations, a strange, diffuse work by I Am My Own Wife scribe Moises Kaufman, rising above the limitations of the script and showing that she’s still got the goods to take on multi-faceted roles of the non-monster-in-law variety. Fonda’s most exciting quality as a performer has always been her bracing, prickly intelligence — the performances that stand as her career high-water marks always examined the manner in which intellect can exist at odds with naked emotionalism. It’s a formula that still retains its potency; as a dying scholar trying to unravel the mysteries of Beethoven’s life and work, she was never less than compelling, even when the play itself seemed unfocused and inconsistent in its ambitions. A cutesy subplot involving a burgeoning romance between Colin Hanks and Samantha Mathis — appealing performers who work a bit too hard to be ingratiating — could have excised altogether without altering the narrative framework considerably.
If 33 Variations was, at least, a work of considerable ambition, the season’s one true non-musical smash was blissfully unencumbered by anything of the kind. I didn’t see Art, Yasmina Reza’s previous Broadway hit, or Life x 3, which did very well abroad but was less kindly received in its 2004 New York debut. Based on everything I’ve gleaned about the prolific French playwright and her oeuvre, God of Carnage doesn’t represent much of a departure for her. It’s simplistic in its aims, which is to say it has about as much depth to it as pan of water; if that statement smacks of reproach, bear in mind that, in certain instances, shallowness can be a virtue. Reza has a remarkably assured grasp of the mechanics of playwriting — one can’t fault her sense of structure, and God of Carnage is, above all things, a shrewdly constructed work of theater. It knows exactly where it’s going and exactly how to get there, moving along smoothly from start to finish without hitting any speed bumps or permitting itself to stall for a fraction of a second. If it is, essentially, a glorified sitcom given the illusion of sophistication by virtue of an upscale milieu and highbrow cultural references (a pigeon dressed up as a peacock), that doesn’t prevent it from qualifying as the most entertaining new work of the season. Two couples meet to discuss an altercation their children have had on the school playground — what begins as an informal meeting for dessert and cocktails, largely characterized by strained civility and forced politeness, quickly degenerates into a drunken, screaming free-for-all, with the type of juvenile antics that might embarrass Albee’s George and Martha (in case you were wondering, it is a comedy). It’s a foolproof recipe for success — everyone loves seeing grown-up people behaving like children, especially when those cell-phone-stealing, flower-throwing, projectile-vomiting heathens in Armani are played by actors as resourceful as the four person cast assembled by director Matthew Warchus. His rollicking, immaculately executed production gives each performer his or her moment to shine in turn — James Gandolfini and Jeff Daniels are perfectly matched as wildly contrasting combatants in what turns out to be the silliest of pissing contests, Hope Davis’ drippy passivity mutates into a kind of maniacal glee all the more hysterical for its unexpectedness, while the indispensable Marcia Gay Harden all but steals the show as the kind of self-important, highly strung culture vulture who couldn’t let any imagined slight pass if her life — or her sanity — depended upon it. You can insult her husband, but don’t dare to insult her taste.
If God of Carnage was the best production of a new work to be seen on a Broadway in 2009, honors for the best new play can be conferred upon Neil LaBute’s reasons to be pretty, currently playing at The Belasco Theatre. That may sound like a ringing endorsement, but honestly, when you look at the season’s new plays as plays — meaning what’s on the page, as opposed to what shows up on the stage — 2009 didn’t produce any classics. There were some good, solid efforts, but very little in the way of risk. Reasons to be pretty is about the gap in communication and between men and women, and specifically how that lack of understanding is fueled by male competition and insensitivity (a friend of mine remarked that all LaBute’s plays and screenplays revolve around the notion that men are pigs - she may be on to something there.) It’s a worthy effort, with sharply drawn characterization and a dramatic intensity most of the year’s other new entries lacked — and yet, it feels a bit like the writer is spinning his wheels. If you’ve seen LaBute’s other works — in addition to being a prolific playwright, he’s had success as an independent filmmaker (In the Company of Men, Your Friends and Neighbors) — you know that he’s traversed this terrain before, and isn’t breaking any new ground at this point. There’s a sense of déjà vu that comes with seeing so many different variations on a single theme; LaBute is too talented a writer to get stuck in place, striking the same notes over and over again in slightly different arrangements. While his latest effort a lot to recommend it, it can’t avoid seeming remedial.
To avoid seeming remedial myself, I’m going to leave things there for now….the portion of our program where Josh is generally underwhelmed by everything and impossible to please has reached its conclusion. Next up, I’ll tackle the flurry of revivals that arrived in the spring — which is when the wow factor really kicked in, with some marvelous productions I fully expect to bore everyone to tears going gaga over. Stay tuned…
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Labels: Albee, blacklist, E. Ashley, Gandolfini, J. Fonda, Jeff Daniels, Jeremy Irons, Kevin Kline, Kristin Scott Thomas, Malle, Mamet, Natalie Portman, Nichols, P.S. Hoffman, Streep, Theater Tribute
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Friday, March 13, 2009
What lies beneath
By Edward Copeland
Juliette Fontaine would make a great poker player, because her face betrays nothing of what's going on inside her head. One could take it as serenity, if you didn't know that she'd just been released from prison after 15 years. If you knew why she'd been jailed, it could look to you to be a veneer of coldness belonging to a monster. As played superbly by Kristin Scott Thomas in I've Loved You So Long, Juliette doesn't think she owes anyone anything, but her younger sister Lea (the wonderful Elsa Zylberstein) loves her no matter what she did or why she did it.
Thomas received a good deal of Oscar buzz and a Golden Globe nomination for her work in Philippe Claudel's film, but missed the Oscar cut and it's a damn shame. Maybe the British actress should have turned to French films earlier because I've Loved You So Much may well be her career best.
The film itself is pretty good as well, but Zylberstein shouldn't be forgotten. Her performance could have been coated in syrup, but she perfectly modulates a younger sister's idolization clashing against her duties as a harried working mom and a rightfully concerned husband, uncomfortable with an ex-convict living under his roof.
As I continue to catch up with 2008 films I missed, I'm beginning to wonder how many slots on my top 10 list will end up being occupied by foreign language films because the best last year sure seemed to come in greater numbers from overseas than the U.S.
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Labels: 00s, Foreign, Kristin Scott Thomas
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Friday, January 02, 2009
Suspense souffle
By Edward Copeland
Why does it seem that American films of late seem to equate suspense with gore and shock and you have to travel across the ocean, at least cinematically, to get a good dose of psychological thrills such as Guillaume Canet's Tell No One.
The French seem particularly adept at this genre and though Tell No One becomes too complicated for its own good once the resolution arrives, it's still a helluva ride getting there.
Francois Cluzet stars as pediatrician Alexandre Beck, completely in love with his wife Margot (Marie-Josee Croze) until they are attacked on a getaway and Margot is murdered, or was she? Eight years later, Beck begins to have doubts when he receives a mysterious e-mail that appears to show Margot alive and urges him not to tell anyone because they are being watched. The mystery deepens from there.
Beck was originally suspected in his wife's murder until a serial killer was convicted for the crime. When the strange happenings begin to occur again eight years later, Beck once again finds himself the innocent man wrongly accused.
It's hard to write in much detail about Tell No One since so much is dependent on the plot. Canet keeps the pacing taut, though he has take some of the blame for the ending muddle since he's also the screenwriter. It is based on a very popular novel in France, though I can't vouch for how faithful it is, but something really needed to be done to find some clarity in the final act.
The performers are all good including Kristin Scott Thomas as a wealthy and powerful lesbian who is the lover to Beck's sister. Thomas seems to be finding more of a career in French language films of late than in English language ones.
Tell No One is a pleasant surprise, especially for those looking for a couple hours of suspense without buckets of blood.
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Labels: 00s, Foreign, Kristin Scott Thomas
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Monday, October 23, 2006
Mum's the Word
By Josh R
Of all cinematic prototypes, few may inspire as much nostalgia and affection as the classic British domestic. Victorian fictions portray them as colorful cockneys with round faces, comical features and preternaturally cheery natures — as endearing as household pets, and with the same kind of puppyish devotion to their masters. Of course, these pets have a practical utility, and their presence in the home is the ultimate stamp of a life of luxury. Who hasn’t fantasized about being waited upon hand and foot by a hyper-efficient collection of butlers, maids and cooks who execute their duties in crisp, self-effacing fashion and keep the household running like clockwork?
Envy then the Rev. Walter Goodfellow and his wife Gloria, as played by Rowan Atkinson and Kristin Scott Thomas, in the new film Keeping Mum, which is currently playing in select cities. A timid village vicar and his sexually frustrated wife, they inhabit a postcard-pretty cottage in the English countryside, juggling the duties of parenthood, the tedious obligations of parish life, and their own barely acknowledged frustrations with the dullness of it all. The family situation is far from perfect — the vicar is haplessly put-upon by his parishioners and too unassertive to do much about it, his wife is contemplating an affair with her caddish golf instructor, their teenage daughter has begun exploring the mysteries of sex with just about anyone she can get her hands on, and their sensitive young son is the kind of walking target school bullies fantasize about.
All seem resigned to a life of quiet, if genteel, desperation — that is, until Grace Hawkins, their new housekeeper, arrives magically on the scene like an angel from the blue. Lovably eccentric and devoted to a fault, Grace is the kind of servant that would make even Queen Elizabeth II grin with giddy satisfaction. She can cook like a dream (“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!” she chirpily declares), is equally adept as a confidante as she is at performing household chores, knows all the racy passages from the Bible by heart, and has a solution for seemingly every problem. Dispensing cozy comfort at every turn, she makes Mary Poppins look like a slatternly slacker by comparison. Of course, she occasionally has to kill someone, but if it’s all for the betterment of the family in her care, then where’s the harm? Equal parts sensibility and sentiment, she’s the kind of old-fashioned thinker who believes that all of life’s problems can be solved with a nice cup of tea — and if that won’t suffice, a shovel to the head will do just as nicely.
As if this isn’t recommendation enough, the lovable old sociopath happens to be played by the divine Dame Maggie Smith, an actress of peerless comic ingenuity who knows how to wring laughs from even the flimsiest of set-ups. If the film is the kind of featherweight confection with only slightly less substance than a plate of shortbread and a pot of Earl Grey, the redoubtable Ms. Smith comes miraculously close to making it seem like a five-course dinner. It’s been a long time — far too long — since she had a comic lead to call her own, and her fans will be gratified to know that her sense of timing and gift for priceless inflection haven’t diminished a fraction of an inch. A vision in tweed and sensible shoes, her presence here brings to mind Margaret Rutherford, the plummy-voiced, doughy-faced clown who graced many British comedies of the postwar era; the film itself, a pleasant little trifle that’s not nearly as clever as it would like us to believe, feels like something from that period. If you enjoy the sort of gently risqué, mildly droll Ealing comedies of the 1950s — the kind that usually starred Alec Guinness or Alastair Sim — Keeping Mum may provide a warm rush of nostalgia. If this sort of thing isn’t to your liking (and I know plenty of people who gagged at the similarly twee charms of modern-day Ealings like Waking Ned Devine and Saving Grace), you’ll probably still get a kick out of Smith. Whether brewing up endless pots of tea, helping the vicar to write his sermons, or cutting the brake lines on the bicycle of an 11-year-old bully, she radiates charm, warmth, and a blissfully happy sense of true-blue lunacy.
If Keeping Mum doesn’t give Smith the opportunity to show what dizzying heights she can truly be capable of, it is nonetheless a welcome showcase for her distinctive talents and persona. This isn’t Dame Maggie in full comic flight — you’ll have to look to 1985’s A Private Function for the most recent example of that — but she nevertheless transcends the limitations of the material quite effortlessly, as does Kristin Scott Thomas, who mines her character’s tense exasperation for deliciously sly humor. Rowan Atkinson is reliably funny in nebbish mode, and as for Patrick Swayze, as the libidinous American golf pro — well, if you’re not a fan of the actor, rest assured that Nanny Grace will see to it that his presence in the film, which she judges to be disruptive to the family’s happiness, will be mercifully short-lived.
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Labels: 00s, Guinness, Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith
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