Category Archives: Family Issues

Angst in my pants: Dark Horse ***1/2

August 25, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on August 4, 2012)

Lowered expectations: Blair and Gelber in Dark Horse

“Why does one decide to marry? Social pressure? Boredom? Loneliness? Sexual appeasement? Love? I won’t put any of these reasons down…Last year, I married a musician who wanted to get married in order to stop masturbating…He is now separated, still masturbating, but he is at peace with himself because he tried society’s way.”

-the wedding minister in Little Murders (screenplay by Jules Feiffer)

Todd Solondz loves to make his audience uncomfortable. I can’t imagine anyone sitting through a film like Welcome to the Dollhouse, Happiness or Storytelling without squirming in their seat, grinding their teeth or occasionally putting their hand over their eyes and daring themselves to peek. And what is it that the viewer is afraid of looking at? It’s not what you may think. It’s not an axe murderer, lurking in the closet. It’s not someone being doused with gasoline and set ablaze or having their fingernails pulled out one by one. No, it’s much, much worse than that. Because there is nothing that human beings fear coming face to face with more than…human nature. Or the Truth. Because the Truth is…life is nothing like the movies. Paradoxically, Solondz’s films are a lot like life.

Refreshingly, his latest film, Dark Horse, does not induce the usual amount of squirming and grinding and daring yourself to peek. Not that it lacks the dark comedic flourishes that have become the director’s stock in trade, but it actually toys with sweetness and light. Sort of a twisty, postmodern art house re-imagining of Marty, the story centers on Abe (Jordan Gelber), a portly thirty-something nudnik who lives with his parents (Christopher Walken and Mia Farrow, worth the price of admission right there).

Abe works for his father, collects action figures and doesn’t have any aspirations. You sense in Abe an undercurrent of angst and desperation, likely exacerbated by constant doting from his over-protective mother and verbal drubbing from his hyper-critical father. Abe also harbors a seething resentment toward his brother (Justin Bartha), a successful doctor.

Yes, Abe is a man-child…in the most petulant, cringe-worthy sense (which makes him a typical Solondz protagonist). Yet, he sees himself as a catch; a “dark horse” waiting to be discovered by some lucky lady (perhaps one who finds a delusional thirty-something man who works for his dad, collects toys and lives with his parents to be devastatingly attractive). Still, Abe registers genuine surprise when Miranda (Selma Blair), a lovely thirty-something woman he meets at a wedding, gives him her phone number after a few minutes of meaningless chatter.

Of course, there is a catch. She’s completely nuts (and lives with her parents, too). She’s so profoundly depressed (and heavily medicated) that she can barely hold a conversation. However, she is startled from her psychotropic haze when Abe proposes marriage during their first date (“You’re not being ironic…like performance art or something?” she asks). Abe assures her that he is being dead serious.

From this point onward, the viewer begins to wonder if maybe it is the filmmaker who is being ironic…like performance art or something? Without giving too much away, we become uncertain whether some events are occurring in the protagonist’s reality, or in his imagination. Gelber (who reminds me of the late Jack Weston) imbues his troubled character with enough vulnerability to invite empathy, yet spikes the punch with a fair amount of edgy unpredictability (lest we get too comfortable).

Blair slyly pinpoints the sweet spot between funny and sad with her deadpan performance, and Walken’s magnificently gauche toupee deserves its own star billing. Solondz has fashioned something akin to a modern Jewish morality tale, in the tradition of Jules Feiffer, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth and Mordecai Richler (Could Solondz be their heir apparent?). He’s also delivered a thought-provoking treatise on life, love and death. While he doesn’t let anyone completely off the hook (including the audience), he slips enough humanity and compassion into the mix to make the Truth a little bit easier to swallow this time around.

Drama, Family Issues, Show Biz

What a dump: Applause ***1/2

August 16, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on April 14, 2012)

I have a new favorite actress. Her name is Paprika Steen, and she delivers a searing performance in the Danish import Applause, directed and co-written (with Anders Frithiof August) by Martin Zandvliet. Technically, Steen is giving two searing performances; one as an embittered, middle-aged alcoholic stage actress named Thea Barfoed, and another as the embittered, middle-aged alcoholic “Martha”, as in “George and Martha”, the venomous, bickering couple who fuel Edward Albee’s classic play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

As you might guess, the clever theatrical allusions abound throughout, with interwoven vignettes of Thea’s nightly performances as “Martha” serving a Greek Chorus for her concurrent real-life travails. While she continues to wow adoring fans with her stagecraft, the acid-tongued Thea makes a less-than-glowing impression on the people she encounters in her off-stage life (mostly due to the fact that she’s usually half in the bag by lunchtime).

She has particular difficulty dealing with the fact that her ex-husband Christian (Michael Falch) has remarried, to a younger woman named Maiken (Sara-Marie Maltha). Adding insult to injury (at least from Thea’s perspective), Maiken is a psychologist, which only further fuels Thea’s ever-present paranoia and insecurities.

However, there does seem to be a tiny glimmer of light on the horizon, as Thea is making a concerted effort to step away from the bottle for good (which is sort of working out, in fits and starts). Finding herself in an unusually lucid state of mind one day, she decides to begin lobbying in earnest for acquiring more quality time with her two young sons, who live with their father and stepmother (Thea ceded custody when she divorced Christian). Although Thea is making nice with Maiken, and assuring her ex that she has “changed” since…(a mental breakdown, or possibly a prolonged stay at a rehab clinic?), Christian remains wary. After all…she is an actress.

And so this simple, yet emotionally dense slice of life unfolds. As anyone who has seen more than one study about an alcoholic knows, it’s right about the time things start looking up for the protagonist that you find yourself cringing and waiting for the other shoe to drop (“How is she going to fuck this up? Pass the popcorn.”).

While I’ve seen this story before, it’s been some time since I’ve seen it played with the fierce commitment Steen brings to it. Thea’s shame spiral binges evoke Patty Duke’s Neely O’Hara in Valley of the Dolls at times, but I felt Steen’s overall performance (and the film’s writing and directing style) most strongly recalled John Cassavetes’ Opening Night. In that 1977 film, Gena Rowlands plays, well, an insecure, middle-aged alcoholic stage actress, who is starring in a play that mirrors her real life angst. And just like the great Rowlands, Steen is a force of nature; a joy to watch. She is fearless, compassionate and 100% convincing. After all…she is an actress.

Drama, Family Issues

Girls will be boys: Tomboy ***

August 13, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on January 7, 2012)

“You’re different from (the other boys),” says Lisa (Jeanne Disson), sans any trace of irony in writer-director Celine Sciamma’s coming-of-age tale, Tomboy. She is talking to her new friend Michael, who recently moved into her neighborhood on the outskirts of Paris; the boy on whom she’s developing a crush.

Indeed, there is something “different” about Michael. It’s a possibility that Lisa, with the insouciance of a starry-eyed per-pubescent in the thrall of puppy love, would l never ponder (hence an absence of irony). “Michael” is the self-anointed nom de plume of a girl…named Laure (Zoe Heran).

Laure lives with her loving parents (Sophie Cattani and Mathieu Demy) and precocious little sister, Jeanne (Malonn Levana). Mom is pregnant and resting up, so we see Laure spending a lot of time with her dad, who is patiently teaching her how to drive in the film’s opening. Although dad is retaining control of the accelerator and brake (after all, Laure is only ten), she has a fearlessness and assured sense of self belying a ten year-old (and in a subtle way, challenging traditional societal expectations of gender behavior).

This is especially apparent in a wonderfully observed scene where Laure (in her guise as Michael, who she hides from her family) watches boys playing soccer, studying their body language and mannerisms. She is bemused by their propensity for spitting, and taking pee breaks en masse (typical males…spraying everywhere).

Soon, “Michael” is on the field; shirtless, spitting and generally displaying surly behaviors. But how long can Laure pull this off? It’s late summer, and a new school year looms; surely her parents won’t register her as Michael (what about roll call, or gym class?).

Although it may appear on paper that this story holds all the dramatic tension of an Afterschool Special, it is precisely the lack of drama (or, as Jon Lovitz used to exclaim on SNL…”ACT-ing!”) that makes Tomboy one of the most naturalistic, sensitive and genuinely compassionate films I’ve seen about “gender confusion”.

What’s most interesting here is that it is not the protagonist who is “confused”. Laure knows exactly who (she?) is; this is not so much about the actions of the main character as it is about the reactions of those around her (and perhaps the viewer as well).

There is one thing the director seems to understand quite well, and that is that you can learn a lot about a society’s mores by watching its children at play; Sciamma devotes large chunks of screen time to simply allow us to observe kids doing, well, what kids do when they get together.

Tackling childhood sexuality is a potential minefield for a film maker, which is probably why so few venture to go there (the last film I saw that handled it with such deftness was Miranda July’s Me and You and Everyone We Know).

Thanks to the combination of an unobtrusive camera, sensitive direction, a perceptive screenplay (by the director), and extraordinary performances by the child actors (especially from Heran, who vibes like a Mini-Me Jean Seberg with her pixie hairdo) The film perfectly captures the elusive “secret world” of childhood. And it’s a lovely ode to self-acceptance…which is a good thing. Any 10-year old can tell you that.

Cult Movie, Family Issues, Romantic Comedy, Troubled Teens

Blu-ray reissue: Harold and Maude ****

August 11, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 30, 2012)

Harold and Maude – Criterion Collection Blu-ray

Harold loves Maude. And Maude loves Harold. It’s a match made in heaven-if only “society” would agree. Because Harold (Bud Cort) is a teenager, and Maude (Ruth Gordon) is about to turn 80. Falling in love with a woman old enough to be his great-grandmother is the least of Harold’s quirks. He’s a chronically depressed trustafarian who amuses himself by staging fake suicides to freak out his patrician mother (wonderfully droll Vivian Pickles). He also “enjoys” attending funerals-which is where they Meet Cute.

The effervescent Maude is Harold’s opposite; while he wallows in morbid speculation how any day could be your last, she seizes each day as if it actually were. Obviously, she has something to teach him. Despite dark undertones, this is one “midnight movie” that somehow manages to be life-affirming. The late Hal Ashby directed, and Colin Higgins wrote the screenplay. The memorable soundtrack is by Cat Stevens (the disc features a recent interview with the reclusive musician, who for the first time talks about how the songs came together). Criterion’s transfer is outstanding.

Family Issues, Historical drama, On Politics, Royal Intrigue

DVD reissue: I, Claudius ****

August 11, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on March 31, 2012)

She preys like a Roman with her eyes on fire: Sian Phillips as Livia

I Claudius 35th Anniversary Edition – Acorn Media DVD set

“Political questions, if you go back thousands of years, are ephemeral, not important. History is the same thing over and over again.”

-Woody Allen

35 years ago (best to my hazy recollection), I was living in a house in Fairbanks, Alaska with 4 or 5 (or was it 6 or 7?) of my friends. Being 20-something males, ragingly hormonal and easily sidetracked by shiny objects, it was a rare occasion when all the housemates would be congregated in one room for any period of time.

But there was one thing that consistently brought us together. For about a three month period in the fall of 1977, every Sunday at 9pm, we would abruptly drop whatever we were doing (sfx: guitars, bongs, Frisbees, empty Heineken bottles and dog-eared Hunter Thompson paperbacks hitting the floor) and gather round a 13-inch color TV (replete with Reynolds Wrap-reinforced rabbit ears) to rapturously watch I, Claudius on Masterpiece Theatre.

While an opening line of “I, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus…” could portend more of a snooze-inducing history lecture, rather than 11 hours of must-see-TV, the 1976 BBC series, adapted from Robert Graves’ 1934 historical novel about ancient Rome’s Julio-Claudian dynasty, was indeed the latter, holding U.S. viewers in thrall for its 12-week run.

While it is quite possible that at the time, my friends and I were slightly more in thrall with the occasional teasing glimpses of semi-nudity than we were with, say, the beauty of Jac Pulman’s writing, the wonder of the performances and historical complexity of the narrative, over the years I have come to realize that I think I learned everything I needed to know about politics from watching (and re-watching) I, Claudius.

It’s all there…the systemic greed and corruption of the ruling plutocracy, the raging hypocrisy, the grandstanding, glad-handing and the back-stabbing (in this case, both figurative and literal). Seriously, over the last 2000 years, not much has changed in the political arena (this election year in particular finds us tunic-deep in bread and circuses; by Jove, what a clown show).

Although it’s merely a happy coincidence that a newly minted 35^th anniversary edition of the series was released on DVD this week by Acorn Media, the timing couldn’t be more apt. I’ve been finding it particularly amusing the past few days to zip through the nightly network newscasts on the DVR, then immediately follow it up with an episode of I, Claudius so I can chuckle (or weep) over the parallels.

Kawkinkydinks with the ongoing decline of the American empire notwithstanding, the series holds up remarkably well. In fact, it still kicks major gluteus maximus on most contemporary TV fare (including HBO and Showtime). What’s most impressive is what they were able to achieve with such austere production values; the writing and the acting is so strong that you barely notice that there are only several simple sets used throughout (compare with Starz’s visually striking but otherwise chuckle-headed Spartacus series).

It’s hard to believe that Derek Jacobi was in his mid-30s when he took on the lead role; not only does he convincingly “age” from 20s to 60s, but subtly unveils the grace and intelligence that lies behind Claudius’s outwardly afflicted speech and physicality.

Another standout in this marvelous cast is Sian Phillips, with her deliciously wicked performance as Livia (wife of Augustus) who will stoop to anything in order to achieve her political goals (Machiavelli’s subsequent work was doo-doo, by comparison). George Baker excels as her long-suffering son, Tiberius, as does Brian Blessed, playing Augustus. And John Hurt’s take on the mad Caligula is definitive, in my book. The new transfer on the Acorn release is excellent, making this DVD set well worth your denarius.

Cop on the Edge, Drama, Family Issues

SIFF 2012: Polisse ***

August 9, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 2, 2012)

A docudrama-style police procedural in the tradition of Jules Dassin’s Naked City. You do have to pay very close attention, however, because it seems like there are about 8 million stories (and just as many characters) crammed into the 127 minutes of French director Maiwenn’s complex film.

Using a clever “hall of mirrors” device, the director casts herself in the role of a “fly on the wall” photojournalist, and it is through this character’s lens that we observe the dedicated men and women who work in the Child Protective Unit arm of the French police. As you can imagine, these folks are dealing with the absolute lowest of the already lowest criminal element of society, day in and day out, and it does take its psychic toll on them.

Still, there’s a surprising amount of levity sprinkled throughout Maiwenn’s dense screenplay (co-written by Emmanuelle Bercot), which helps temper the heartbreak of seeing children in situations that they would never have to suffer through in a just world. The film fizzles a bit at the end, and keeping track of all the story lines is challenging, but it’s worthwhile, with remarkable performances from the ensemble (it won the Jury Prize at Cannes in 2011).

Family Issues, Heist Caper, Sci-Fi

SIFF 2012: Robot and Frank **1/2

August 9, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on June 2, 2012)

Robot and Frank, a lightweight crowd pleaser from first-time director Jake Schreier, opens with a screen crawl informing us that it’s “the near future” (code for “we’re not budgeted for CGI, so you’ll have to take our word for it”). The story centers on an aging ex-cat burglar named Frank (Frank Langella). Concerned about Frank’s increasing forgetfulness, his son presents him with a “caregiver” robot. Initially, Frank reacts with crankiness and hostility toward his metallic Man Friday (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard) but warms up considerably after he gleans that the robot is a wiz at picking locks and cracking safes. You can likely guess what happens next (think Going in Style meets the classic Ray Bradbury-penned Twilight Zone episode, “I Sing the Body Electric”). Not exactly groundbreaking sci-fi (the A-I theme is pretty dusty) but buoyed considerably by Christopher Ford’s affable screenplay, Langella’s engaging performance and the always-welcome presence of Susan Sarandon.

Family Issues, Rock 'n' Roll, School Days, Troubled Teens

SIFF 2012: Fat Kid Rules the World **

August 9, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 26, 2012)

Fat Kid Rules the World marks the directorial debut for Matthew Lillard (who surprised many by revealing previously untapped depth as an actor in The Descendants last year). Lillard’s film, a sort of Gen Y take on Boudou Saved From Drowning (with a touch of Times Square) centers on a socially awkward high-school student named Troy (Jacob Wysocki) who lives in a cramped Seattle apartment with his ex-jarhead dad (Billy Campbell) and snotty younger brother.

One day, our glum hero is seized by a suicidal impulse and throws himself in front of a bus. He is saved by guitarist/street kid/Oxy junkie Marcus (Matt O’Leary), who demands $20 for the “service”. It’s the beginning of a beautiful friendship, with Marcus playing a punk rock Henry Higgins to the arrhythmic Troy’s Eliza Doolittle, encouraging him to locate his inner Cobain and learn to play the drums so they can storm the Seattle music scene. Marcus falls in love with a cute alternachick at school. He discovers rhythm. Life lessons are learned. Director and cast have their hearts in the right place, but it all sinks into a morass of After School Special clichés.

Family Issues, Romantic Comedy

SIFF 2012: Your Sister’s Sister ***1/2

August 9, 2015 Dennis Hartley

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 19, 2012)

This “love triangle” dramedy from Humpday writer-director Lynn Shelton was SIFF’s 2012 Opening Night pick. In my experience, the film selections for the annual kickoff soiree are not always (how should I put this delicately)…well-advised, so I usually approach with trepidation. This year, however, I think they made a really good call. It was not only filmed in and around Seattle, by a Seattle filmmaker, but (most importantly) it’s vastly entertaining (locally produced and/or filmed doesn’t necessarily equate “perfect choice”, as 2008’s anemic Festival opener, Battle in Seattle demonstrated).

The film (reminiscent of Chasing Amy) is a talky but thoroughly engaging look at the complexities of modern relationships, centering on a slacker man-child (Mark Duplass) his deceased brother’s girlfriend (Emily Blunt) and her sister (Rosemarie Dewitt), who bumble into an unplanned “encounter weekend” together at a remote family cabin. Funny, insightful and well-directed, it’s one of the best movies I’ve seen so far this year.