About Elly (Asghar Farhadi)

Asghar Farhadi's A Separation (2011) ranks among my favorite films. When The Past appeared in the US two years later, we were not disappointed.  Finally, Farhadi's 2009 film, About Elly, was released this spring, and we made certain not to miss it.  Our efforts were supremely rewarded.
The film features a 8 or so minute seaside episode featuring small children and a young schoolteacher that is one of the most excruciating scenes I've ever witnessed on film.  The rest of the film carefully parses that scene, revealing small lies, one by one, until compounded they create a story that can no longer be sustained.  More broadly, it is an allegory of living in a restricted regime.

Highly recommended.  Should not be missed.

Love and Mercy (Bill Pohlad)

I'm not a connoisseur of popular music (or culture, for that matter). Having owned fewer than a dozen rock albums, I haven't listened to side B over and over, studied liner notes, or deconstructed the cover design. Instead, I came to rock and soul and country music in the most plebeian way, the radio.  Though I know decades of top 40s music, often I cannot match music with musicians or place them within the right decade. There are enormous gaps in my knowledge, and I'm not bothered by that fact.

My ignorance is compensated by Mike's fascination and knowledge.  One room in our home is given over the cider-block-and-board shelves that have held his albums for forty years and several addresses.  It's his interest and curiosity that takes us to biopics like Love and Mercy, a sympathetic portrayal of the dangerous dance between Brian Wilson's creativity and his mental illness.  Sometimes it's so sympathetic that the lines harden: the bad guys--his father and his therapist--are really bad, and the good guys--the studio musicians and his future wife--are really good. 

The sound design was more than Beach Boys music playing in the background. For both Mike and me, the film's best parts were set in the studio while Pet Sounds was being recorded. 

Recommend

The Connection (Cédric Jimenez)

The Connection continues the crime drama The French Connection in Marseilles rather than New York City, and in doing so it becomes the American film’s antithesis.  Set between 1975 and the early 1980s, the 135-minute film has none of the heart-thumping car chases of William Friedkin’s 1971 action film. Instead, it is almost flat, not in a bad way, but in the way life generally is: we go about our daily lives, never really knowing what will come of our decisions or chances; only in retrospect do we realize that our successes were really failures, our disappointments carved out opportunities, the end of the film brings us back to the beginning.  The betrayals in this film are numerous and the double-crosses heartbreaking.  Even the protagonist (the magistrate Pierre Michel) and his antagonist (the crime boss Tany Zamba) lead lives that oddly parallel and mirror one other.  The magistrate’s family suffers from and resent his single-minded efforts to clean up his city, while the drug lord’s family adore him and relish the privileges his cash-happy work provides.  

Recommend

Far From the Madding Crowd (Thomas Vinterberg)

I've read most of Thomas Hardy's novels, including (I thought) Far From the Madding Crowd. I find his plot twists excruciating, but they pull me along in my desire for a happy resolution that never materializes.  Imagine my surprise when Far From the Madding Crowd closes with a happy ending--and the plot summary in my handy Oxford companion confirms it's not a Hollywood fabrication. Happy, that is, if you're Bathsheba Everdene and Gabriel Oak, and not poor Boldwood.

Lovely to watch. Carey Mulligan was very fine, and the men in her life conveyed their thoughts and feelings with ever so subtle glances and twitches. 

The subdued and restrained musical score was much welcomed.

Highly recommend.

Union Square (Nancy Savoca)

Here's a movie I found it difficult to create any distance from. The two sisters, played in strong performances by Mira Sorvino and Tammy Blanchard, negotiate their past and their different responses to it. Though the film is primarily set in a tidy, upwardly-mobile apartment, it portrays the sisters' lives as tottering on chaos.

Recommend.

Hope Springs (David Frankel)

An all-too-familiar (though not on screen) story of faded love in a long-term marriage. Full of humor. Endearing acting by Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, and Steve Carell.

(Set in Omaha, NE and Maine, but filmed in CT.)

Recommend.

Ruby Sparks (Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris)

Perhaps we're the only regular movie-goers who didn't see American Pie. And because we can see American Pie veteran actors in other films without carrying over any prejudice from the earlier movie, I more and more believe that's to our benefit--and in this case, Paul Dano's.

Clever, entertaining film based on the Pygmalion myth--and, according to the two young women in front of us--their lives.

Recommend.

Killer Joe (William Friedkin)

I remember when--it must be close to a dozen years ago--Mike saw Tracey Lett's play, Killer Joe, in New York with a friend. I hadn't been able to go, and on his return said it was just as well. As much as he had liked the play, he was certain I would not have.

He was right. I wouldn't have liked it then.

Though I don't believe I become desensitized to violence in the subsequent years, I have learned to disassociate from what's happening on the screen. And in this particular film, that's a good trick to be able to play.

Like so many Lett's dramatic works, Killer Joe is a psychological study, this time in crime-ridden, drug-addled, intelligence-challenged trailer park in Texas. Though he sometimes overplays the stereotypes, by and large he hits the target.

Fantastic performances by Emile Hirsch, Juno Temple, Thomas Haden Church, and Gina Gorshen. And Matthew McConaughey owes the role if Texas lawman.

The scene with the fried chicken leg is a bizarre as any on screen.

Highly recommended: with the caveat that the NC-17 rating is for the graphic violence and explicit rape.

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

Superb film whose primary trope is the red herring.

Highly recommended.

Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson)

Funny, charming movie without an ounce of cynicism or saccharine. I enjoyed every moment of this love story between two misfits who find each other on the Island of New Penzance and, using the Sam's skills as a Khaki Scout, establish a makeshift hideaway they call Moonrise Kingdom. Their short escape doesn't last long, and yet their strong bonds of affection eventually help them return to family and friends.

Fine, nearly flawless film.

Highly recommend.

Snow White and the Huntsman (Rupert Sanders)

When did curled-lipped mouth breathing become attractive?  Even more to the point, when did it become acting?

Other than having to watch Kristen Stewart, this was a visually stunning adaptation of the Snow White fairy tale.  I'm not certain if it's refusal to let SW choose the lowly Huntsman over the the Duke's son is a nod to its medieval setting or to the 1%.

Recommend. (Even though my comments sound grumpy.)

Turn me on, Dammit! (Jannicke Systad Jacobsen)

A nifty Danish film about a fifteen-year-old (nearly sixteen!) girl with an insatiable hunger for sex but no one to feed her, so to speak.  Clever and humorous without being voyeuristic or condescending.

Recommend.

The Intouchables (Nakache & Toledano)

Fine French film that uses pathos and humor to dispel many stereotypes about wealth and disability while exploiting other stereotypes about race and poverty.

Highly recommended.

The Long Day Closes (Terence Davies)

A quiet film of long, still shots, little dialogue, familial affection, classroom brutality, and lots of rain.  (1992)

Recommend

Bernie (Richard Linklater)

This film is often called "darkly comic," but from my perspective--I recognized everyone in the film--it is a sober-eyed look at life in small-town Texas, where everyone knows everything about everyone and yet everyone tries (unnecessarily--see the previous clause) to hide a (well-known) secret.  If the Carthage, Texas citizens weren't played by themselves, outsiders might deem them parodies.  They are not.

Great performances by Jack Black and Matthew McConaughey.

New Times Review.

Highly recommended.

Headhunters (Morton Tyldum)

Great suspense film that achieves much of its effect by presenting the protagonist as a scoundrel whom the audience roots against.

Recommend

The Kid with a Bike (Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Luc Dardenne)

This film has all the components of an overly-sentimental heart-tugger: abandoned boy, single foster parent, a brush with the law, etc.  The Dardennes avoid the temptation and create instead a singular movie about the dangers of loving and trust, a movie that ultimately argues that the dangers not only test love's temper but they make the love all that much truer.  It was a difficult movie to watch because the difficulties were so palpably real.  I was equally a difficult movie to forget for the same reason.

Highly recommend.

Bully (Lee Hirsch)

Very distressing documentary.  Query: why not title it "Bullied"? 

Recommend.

We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay)

...but, of course, no one ever does.  In fact, no one really even talks to Kevin.  They ask his permission and apologize, but that's just about it.  A maddening film about bad parenting gone bad.  And we're never given reason to understand why Eva, Kevin's mother (Tilda Swinton in an excellent performance), is vilified by her community; instead, we're given every reason to understand why the community might grieve along with her.

Joins Sid and Nancy as one of the great, all-time depressing films.

Caveats.

In Darkness (A Holland)

This Polish film recounts the gripping narrative of a Lvov sewer manager who helps a small group of Jews survive 14 months in the city's sewers. Sympathetic portrayals of the reluctant savior and his Jews. Recommend.