Out in Theaters: HER

December 9, 2013 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Amy Adams, Best of 2013, Chris Pratt, her, Joaquin Phoenix, Olivia Wilde, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Rooney Mara, Scarlett Johannson, Spike Jonze 2 Comments

“Her”
Directed by Spike Jonze
Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johannson, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, Chris Pratt, Olivia Wilde
Comedy, Drama, Romance
120 Mins
R

Spike Jonze has made a career out of thought-provoking eccentricity, strange tenderness, and powerhouse performances. Her is no change of pace. While both Being John Malkovitch and Adaptation found brilliance probing personal identity, infectious longing, and the delicacies of the human experience, Her strips back some of the junky, heady aspects (that comes hand-in-hand with working from a Charlie Kaufman script) to explore similarly heavy themes in this streamlined and entirely esoteric masterpiece.

In Her, Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) lives in the not-so-distant future of Los Angeles, a place where human interaction has nearly become obsolete. As Theo bumps through any given crowd, the many commuters he passes each have next-gen devises stuffed in their ears, reciting emails, updating global news, and dishing out the latest gossip scoop. For Theo, these future ear-products (which will likely be marketed in the next decade or so) are about as exciting as hanging out with your iPhone is nowadays, but it’s just about the only contact he’ll have all day.

Rather than paint him as a pathetic bumbleite, Jonze allows us to find ourselves in Theo. His crippling loneliness is an invention of instantaneous “contact” as the new highest order. Instead of bringing us closer, all this connectivity has led to a devolution of what it means to actually connect. When people become as dismissible as closing out of a browser, what it means to connect with someone has fundamentally changed.

A scene where a sleepless Theo voice “connects” with an equally restless vixen named SexyKitten (voiced by Kristen Wiig) sees a distant, instant voice embarks on a cat-based sexual tirade, get herself off, and bail out of the conversation. It’s evidence of a society that has ceased to be such. Society quite literally means “a group of people involved with each other through persistent relations.” [Wikipedia] This is no society. We need look no further than our own social media culture to see that this era of emotional distancing and the end of society is already upon us.

By day, Her‘s Theodore occupies himself working at a custom, hand-written card agency where he drafts letters “from” his clients to their loved ones. When an anniversary comes around, a husband pays a premium price for Theo’s handiwork. Christmas time? Theo’s writing thank you cards to Grandma. At that high school graduation, it’s not Dad who’s penned the heartfelt and tender note but Theodore Twombly, sitting in his cubicle. Theo’s got a preternatural knack for emoting warmth and his outpouring of caring sentiments put those buying Hallmark cards to shame. How tragic though that he’ll never meet these people he’s writing to. Almost worse is the fact that his clients need rely on him at all. Everywhere he looks, Theo faces a society that has come so far as to outsource emotion.

Enter her. She isn’t really a she though. She’s an advanced operating system (like Mac’s OS X or Windows) specifically designed to match Theodore’s needs. Imagine Apple’s Siri except everyone had a different one customized to their personal preferences. Voiced to perfection by Scarlett Johansson, this OS takes the name Samantha after “thumbing through” a book of baby names (a feat achieved in a mere microsecond) and begins to evolve beyond her wildest dreams, all the while stoking an accidental romantic relationship with Theodore.

Having closed himself off to the world after lifelong lover Catherine (Rooney Mara) set the scene for a divorce, Theo is a man halved. In relationships, Her reminds us, we pour ourselves into our counterpart and when that union ends, we lose something of ourselves. In the aftermath, we’re left haunted by these ghosts of lovers past. But as Theodore begins to unexpectedly fall for his OS, his haunting memories of Catherine change their tune. The melancholy melts away and the future becomes an opportunity rather than a sentence.

The early Sam is like a child, reaching out and trying to understand the many unexplained mysteries of life. Each day, her self-awareness and curiosity grows and she soon discovers the many wonders “surrounding” her. In Sam’s perpetual bewilderment and glowing enthusiasm, Theodore begins to rediscover his own love of life.

The romance that unfolds between Theodore and Sam may prove difficult for members of older generations or those with limited imaginative capacity to grasp (“He’s fallen in love with a computer?”) but for those willing to stretch their minds and let in something new, they’ll find an entity surprisingly earnest and exceptionally affecting. When this bi-species couple “consummate” their new relationship, the screen goes black and we’re left with a scene unspeakably powerful. Theo and Sam let each other, with moans of belonged need and physical desire, with such palpable love and affection that it’ll warm and break your heart simultaneously.

As she grows, Her gets more complex and begins to dig into some deeper issues of what it is to love and be loved. How much of love is about holding on and how much is letting go? With a cast spilling with talent, standout performances flow from everyone. Phoenix and Mara perfectly encapsulate the trauma of evaporating passion, while Amy Adams and Chris Pratt provide the necessary shoulders to lean on. Even Olivia Wilde as a nameless blind date turns in a quick but potent performance. But amazingly, the tippiest of the tip of the hat goes to Johannson as her performance here is a career best. Showing a range of emotion unthinkable for a limited performance of this nature, what Johnasson communicates with her voice alone provides some of the most commanding work of the year.

Anchored with a cast this talented that are each putting their all into each and every scene, Her is lightning in a bottle. Instead of feeling like this future world is strange, it feels entirely practical, a slightly scary yet peculiarity hopeful fact. And however weird the concept of falling in love with an operating system seems, when we’re in heat of the moment, it never feels weird. It just feels right.

A+

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Out in Theaters: OUT OF THE FURNACE

December 6, 2013 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Casey Affleck, Christian Bale, Forest Whitaker, Out in Theaters, Out of the Furnace, Reviews, Willem Dafoe, Woody Harrelson, Zoe Saldana 1 Comment

“Out of the Furnace”
Directed by Scott Cooper
Starring Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Woody Harrelson, Willem Dafoe, Zoe Saldana, Forest Whitaker
Crime, Drama, Thriller
116 Mins
R

Out of the Furnace is not the movie you expect, it’s not quite the movie you think you want, and it’s certainly not a movie you’ll see coming, but it is one of the best movies of 2013. Petering along a solemn road of America as industrialized hellhole, the jet-black tone and snail’s pace cadence of the film may prove too overbearing for some but those willing to dive into the mire will find a film overflowing with themes of chaotic grace, personal sacrifice, ego death, spiritual deterioration, and unbounded duty. Many similarities to early Kurosawa samurai films and Drive – which itself is largely plotted like a samurai film – emerge and make the film rich with subtext, even though unearthing that subtext is a bit of a harrowing chore.

While the dark material present in the film – beat downs and drugs, depression (economic and mental) and murder – may yield endlessly gloomy circumstances, a trio of standout performances from Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, and Woody Harrelson showcases actors at the top of their game that keep you glued to the screen and cemented into the emotional stakes of the film. The first scene involving a dead-eyed Harrelson, a harlot, and a hotdog will take your breath away and doesn’t let up from there.

Cue Russell Baze (Bale), a genuinely good guy of the strong and silent persuasion, and lil brother Rodney (Affleck), a four-tour Iraq war vet trying to find his footing after his last deployment. In the barren, has-been Rustbelt of Pennsylvania, each face their own economic struggles while also, and more importantly, vying with their personal demons. Nightmares populated by decapitated babies, massacred friends, and piles of hacked off feet haunt Rodney, who can’t escape these grotesque images of war irrevocably burned into his tender mind. Russell, on the other hand, has never seen combat, but a drunk driving incident, where he was responsible for the death of a child, provides him with his own demons to combat.

Both men are bent by society and by themselves and seek means for redemption. As Rodney turns to bare-knuckle underground fighting – a gig he says is just for the money but we suspect that these acts of supreme self-mutilation provide some fleeting escape for his tormented soul – Russell courts serenity in the things of everyday living, like fixing up his Dad’s house. Also finding solace in the gentle monotony of manual labor at the soon-to-close steel mill, Russell tries to move past his spotted history while Rodney’s battle-worn psyche prefers to bask in dreams of grandeur; a grass is greener on the other side mentality that sees him losing his path and descending into Harrelson’s Harlan DeGroat personal circle of hell.

In Russell, Rodney, and their fading pops, the Baze family represents the backbone of America: the laborer, the solider, and the invalid; the maker, the doer, and the needy. These three are a cross section of blue collar America caught in a deteriorating socioeconomic climate. Juxtaposed against DeGroat’s wealth (his financial stock culled from dealing crank and heroin) and utterly maniacal temperature, the Baze’s are the 99% to DeGroat’s brand of “elite” class. As they struggle and toil, he lumbers around, shooting spikes of crank into the crevices of his toes and growling intimidation at his underlings while his stacks grow higher. But rather than beat these metaphors over the head, the burrowing screenplay from Brad Ingelsby and director Scott Cooper is wildly subtle, allowing you to make up your interpretation about many elements scattered throughout the film.

While the marketing has played up aspects of this film as a gritty revenge story, these elements don’t really emerge until the final act (and I would strongly urge you not to watch any trailers for Out of the Furnace as they give away 90% of the film.) Instead, more than anything, this is a tale of two brothers who have lost their way.

Making up their own humble sub-nuclear unit, Russell takes the role of big brother to distant but loving Rodney very seriously. When Rodney wracks up a debt gambling on racehorses, Russell plays provider, silently going to the bookie, a pitch perfect Willem Dafoe, and silently pays his struggling brother’s debts. But unlike Rodney, Russell doesn’t crave praise, just peace. As Rodney gets deeper into DeGroat’s playground, Russel loses his opinions of peaceful negotiation and must take up arms to fight for his brother’s honor.

From playing the watchful protector, Russell evolves from almost effeminate – a character trait hinted at through his soft spoken intonation and general aversion to conflict and violence – to a stone cold but silently compassionate hunter of men. Like a shepherd left to herd his flock, one can only rely on his shepherd’s crook for so long. When the wolves come, it’s time to take the old rifle out of storage and switch to old testament mode. And, like the wrathful God of the old testament, Russel doles out his own variety of penalty. Again, biblical themes are open to interpretation, and may entirely just be something that I alone got out of the film, but there is something palpably holy in Russell’s aura and his journey in the film.

As Russell, Bale puts in one of the strongest performances of his celebrated and illustrious career. Entirely captivating and utterly committed, the greatness of his performance is hard to put your finger on but it shines from beginning to end. The final scene we spend with Russell juxtaposed against a heartbreaking sequence shared with ex-lover Lena (Zoe Saldana) showcase Bale’s awesome range. Providing yet another masterclass of acting prowess, Bale excels at making his craft look effortless. It’s as if he’s changed skins since playing the shleppy Irving in American Hustle as he has once transformed himself physically to “become” someone new.

Affleck too puts in a performance for the books and has finally begun to prove to this previously unconvinced critic that he may just be great actor. He balances camaraderie with solitude, laughs with anguish while having to sell his character both as a physical brute and an emotional mess and we buy every second of it. For his part, Harrelson’s DeGroat is the best, and most vile, villain of 2013. Despicable though he may be, his bridge-burning demeanor turns being cavalier into a bloodcurdling game of conversation, making him just about the worst person you could ever bump into at a bar. And though Saldana and a gruff-voiced Forest Whitaker don’t get the screen time they deserve, both bring complex elements to characters that could easily have been one-note and forgettable.

Adding even more depth to the film, the technical elements racket up the tension and help to accentuate the ripe metaphorical elements planted throughout. Dickon Hinchliffe‘s score, largely leaning on Pearl Jam’s “Release,” lends itself to the harrowing nature of the film as bleak yet bold cinematography from Masanobu Takayanagi puts the rust back in Rustbelt. This is a dirty, decaying world the Bazes populate and the technical elements help prop up that fact, giving weight to the film and the metaphorical elements boiling within. All these elements – the stellar performances, crisp and dark direction, surging score, crunchy landscapes, an open-ended conclusion – all add up to a film that demands to be seen on the big screen and deserves to be dissected by its viewers.

A-

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Out in Theaters: MANDELA: LONG WALK TO FREEDOM

December 5, 2013 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Biography, Idris Elba, Justin Chadwick, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, Naomie Harris, Out in Theaters, Reviews

“Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom”
Directed by Justin Chadwick
Starring Idris Elba, Naomie Harris, Tony Kgoroge, Riaad Moosa, Jamie Bartlett, Deon Lotz, Terry Pheto, Gys de Villiers
Biography, Drama, History
139 Mins
PG-13

Nelson Mandela deserved better than the dour glossary of events present in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. Failing to capture the spirit of the apartheid, except in bursts of violence amidst a rotation of disconnected massacres, Justin Chadwick‘s film replaces thoughtful reflection on a cultural epoch with as many headlines events as possible. Idris Elba‘s turn as the titular South African hero is the easy highlight of this otherwise throwaway film but the real motivation of Nelson and wife Winnie Mandela are trapped somewhere in the performances, left on the editing room floor, and never given enough room to breathe and evolve into the epic struggle we know the world around.

The biggest problem Mandela encounters is that it doesn’t seem to know what to keep and what to cut. Running over two hours and twenty minutes, the film is a definitive slog. From seeing Mandela as a young child growing up on the tribal plains of Mvezo to his election as president of South Africa, no detail is spared. Rather honing in on a number of significant events in Mandela’s life, William Nicholson‘s screenplay just blasts every minuscule detail in there. Inevitably, they land with as little impact as possible because of the snapshot nature of their inclusion. Had this host of details been incorporated into part of a larger scheme, or even a Mandela miniseries, this all inclusive tactic may have worked fine and given meaningful chapters to a meaningful life, but within the framework of a two-and-a-half-hour movie, the film feels bloated to the point of bursting.

Nicholson is no stranger to epics – he wrote the screenplay for Gladiator and Les Misérables – so there’s really no excuse for why the story got away from him. Letting the scope of the picture drive the story rather than the other way around, Nicholson’s script confuses information for intimacy. Instead of spending ample time getting to know Mandela, most of our meetings with him try to inform us of what kind of man he is. Rather than seeing the man in action, we hear about his actions secondarily – all serviced up expecting astonishment but frequently landing with a crunch. As a complete work, it’s closer in kind to Les Misérables‘ wandering structure than Gladiator’s streamlined epic. While Maximus’ journey was a natural progression of events that increased the stakes chapter by chapter until a massively rewarding climax, Mandela’s long walk feels dull and meaningless by comparison. This fact alone is a bit of a disgrace.

Beneath the cake of old man makeup, Elba gives a solid performance as Mandela but he’s unable to keep the rest of the project afloat. He’s got the choppy cadence and regal tone down pat, and it’s nice to him see escape his recent slate of blockbuster supporting roles, but Nicholson’s lackluster script, surprisingly enough, doesn’t give him a ton to work him. For a man who spent 27 years rotting away in a jail cell on Robben Island, few scenes spend time probing the spiritual roller coaster of Mandela’s evolving psyche.

Shifting from lawyer to outlaw, man to message, “terrorist” to president – and always trying his best to remain a peacemaker – the Mandela onscreen remains largely the same. For all the heated ideas of revolution stirring, we’re in the back corner wondering when all this chatter will die down so we can actually dig into the man’s mind. Instead, we are forced to take any “transformation” at face value. We’re frequently told of a man changed but there’s little supporting evidence for these bold claims of metamorphosis. This is a man considered by many to be next to sainthood and yet it feels like he hasn’t grown a day in the 80-odd years we see him onscreen.

Although not helped a lot by the words on the page, Naomie Harris flounders as Nelson’s wife, Winnie Mandela. Screaming and shrieking her way through most of her lines, she is a character with a very clear transformation but it all takes place behind some mystical curtain. Audiences in search of understanding will be largely disappointed as we never see the stepping stones leading from Winnie 1.0 to Winnie 2.0. She shifts overnight, in the shadows, robbing us of any semblance of understanding, meanwhile rendering the film even more vanilla for its unwillingness to dissect a controversial character.

Obviously the makers of this film had nothing but good intentions in the making of Mandela but the fact of the matter is not everyone can get a gold star for effort. Their goal is appropriate; to bring a balanced biopic with equal measures of entertainment and education; but it just never comes to fruition, it never follows through on its promise. In their textbook approach, they’ve lost the majestic sense of wonder we come to expect of a film. Sidelining a succinct story arc for tell-all testimony, Mandela is designed to be played by substitute teachers in History classes across America for the next decade. It’s unlikely to have much staying power beyond that.

Nelson Mandela was a man who championed compromise, so maybe this is a suiting film for his legacy. Instead of being deeply entertaining or deeply informative, it lands somewhere in the middle, compromising depth for surface level knowledge and sidelining deserved dramatic beats for melodrama. Instead of being a really good chapter of Mandela’s life, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom is little more than the Nelson Mandela Spark Notes.

D+

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Out in Theaters: PHILOMENA

November 27, 2013 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Judi Dench, Michelle Fairley, Out in Theaters, Philomena, Reviews, Stephen Frears, Steve Coogan

“Philomena”
Directed by Stephen Frears
Starring Judi Dench, Steve Coogan, Sophie Kennedy Clark, Mare Winningham, Barbara Jefford, Michelle Fairley, Peter Hermann, Sean Mahon
Drama
98 Mins
PG-13

Philomena Lee’s true story is the stuff of nightmares. Her baby stolen away by nuns and sold to the highest bidder, the path to that forfeited son swept clean, locked inside the tight-lipped vault of one particularly malevolent Catholic nun, Philomena has been through hell on Earth. And yet, she won’t condemn those who have brought so much suffering upon her. Instead, she passes absolution down like Jesus himself. She may not ever forget but she is willing to forgive and from her untainted spirit, we can all learn a valuable lesson.

In Philomena, Martin Sixsmith’s not quite disgraced but he’s been let go from his cushy position over at the Labour party. Unsure where to start on his long-gestated novel of Russian history, he’s offered a chance to turn Irish elder Philomena’s life story into a personal piece by an old friend editor, Sally (Michelle Fairley). Intent on maintaining his journalistic pride, he refuses to touch her story on the grounds that it’s a human interest story and “human interest stories are read by weak-minded, ignorant people and written by weak-minded, ignorant people.” But when Martin meets Philomena, he is equally captivated by the unspeakable calamity that she’s just now opening up about for the first time in sixty years.

Judi Dench drops the crusty but caring shtick she’s perfected over the course of her career to embody this foundation of life of a woman. Bubbling over with enthusiasm and accidental wit, Philomena is like Pinocchio – a wooden figurine magically brought to life who, now finally living, can’t stop ogling at the wonders of the world. As she hops around the globe with Martin trying to unearth the mystery of her lost son, she lives out the childhood she never had, a childhood she spent slaving away at a nunnery. Even though Philomena’s story is a tragedy, she prefers to think of it as a work in progress, a perspective guided by her unflinching glass-is-half-full optimism. Though initially mocking Philomena’s rose-colored perception of the world, Martin begins down his own road of internal modulation that may turn around his raincloud ways.

A zesty screenplay from star Steve Coogan adapts the real Sixsmith’s “The Lost Child of Philomena Lee” balancing doses of meaningful character drama amongst potent religious commentary and stark moments of comedy. His acid wit underscored with her tender naivety, they are the quintessential odd couple.

But as the film pokes along, it only really finds its footing when Philomena emerges as a comic presence. Her unexpected sexual asides catch the audience off guard and proves that there may be more behind her mousy-mopped facade than we expected at first glance. And once this Philomena as comic is out of the box, anything less from her feels flat – a sour disappointment.

Moving from one act to the next, the film begins to feel fundamentally disjointed. The first act is moody and glum, a mirror of the cloud-raked weather of their London setting. The second Washington D.C.-set act reveals newfound buoyancy after discovering the humor of the piece. But comedy is interrupted by tragedy and by the time the third act rolls around and we wind up in Ireland, the inflammatory and revelatory conundrum we’re put in finds both audience and characters doing a bit of a ballet on eggshells.

We want to stand in Martin’s corner, lambasting the outrage of it all but we can’t help but marvel at Philomena’s incredible gifts of serenity. She’s the one who has been wronged and yet she is the only one capable of Biblical forgiveness. “I don’t want to be like you,” Philomena says, “I don’t want to spend my life hating people.” Hers is a power message to be sure but I’d be damned if it all the injustice doesn’t make you want to jump up and strangle someone.

Controversy stirred up by the MPAA and the Weinstein Company over the film’s rating – it was originally R but contested and changed to PG-13 – may have been a play to put this film more in the public eye but it’s clearly not a film that many youngsters will find much interest in. It’s thoughtful, sweet, and even challenging at times but it’s far from exciting and even tetters on the edge on boring at times.

Stephen Frears‘ effort is good at twisting our emotions but it’s not always clear which way he wants to twist them. Whether or not he’s intended to leave his audience feeling muddled and unsure, that is what he achieves. There’s tightly packed power packed in Philomena but I’m not entirely convinced that Frear knows where to aim his punches.

B

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Out in Theaters: FROZEN

November 27, 2013 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Animation, Chris Buck, Disney, Frozen, Idina Menzel, Jennifer Lee, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad, Kristen Bell

“Frozen”
Directed by Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee
Starring Kristen Bell, Josh Gad, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff, Santino Fontana, Alan Tudyk, Ciarán Hinds, Chris Williams, Stephen J. Anderson
Animation, Adventure, Comedy
108 Mins
PG

Although still lacking the gilded touch that made the likes of Aladdin, Lion King, and Beauty and the Beast such timeless classics, Frozen is a rock solid addition to the post-hand-drawn Disney musical stable and is the best animated feature of the year by a good margin.

Made up of a relatively unknown vocal talent, Frozen values story and song more than an all-star cast and kitschy pop culture jokes, making it an experience that’ll warm the most curmudgeonly of hearts and a film rich with beautifully-realized animation that keeps the wow factor buzzing for children and adults alike.

The new roster of tunes sound inspired by an alluring amalgamation of Inuit folk songs and bubbly fad-pop songs the likes of Katy Perry. And while some songs are a little too bright for the taste of a self-respecting mid-twenties male, each has a narrative purpose accompanying its infectious melodic tendencies that all blend perfectly into the fabric of the story.

Eight new songs from Kristen Anderson-Lopez (In Transit, Winnie the Pooh) and Tony Award winner Robert Lopez (“The Book of Mormon,” “Avenue Q”) are sure to inspire a whole new generation set to commit these catchy songs to memory. The best of which is the opening, near teary-eyed, “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” and the witty anthem courtesy of reanimated snowman Olaf (Josh Gad)- who is destined to be a favorite for all – in the openly hysterical “In Summer.”

Listening to these tunes, it’s clear why A-list celebrities have been sidelined for more undecided stars – they can all sing…and they can sing well. Unlike earlier Disney musical endeavors, no voice performer is swapped out for a sound-a-like. Keeping this narrative bridge consistent allows character to enliven their songs with the necessary emotional weight or comic vibrancy needed for the scene. But will they stand the test of time to join the ranks of “Tale as Old as Time,” “Circle of Life,” or “A Whole New World”? Probably not.

Loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen,” a non-Grimm fairy tale from 1845 that sees evil trolls, amnesiac kisses, and the Devil himself, Frozen pursues the sugarcoated stylings we’ve come to expect of Disney that champions heart over heinousness and works all the better for it.

In the royal town of Arendelle, we meet a newly crafted version of Andersen’s Snow Queen in Elsa (Idina Menzel), a withdrawn but hopeful young girl with magical powers of icy consequence. Quartered out of site after a childhood accident that nearly saw the death of her fearless younger sister, and this story’s other central heroine, Anna (Kristen Bell), Elsa’s loving but misguided parents instill in her a mantra the close cousin of Gandalf’s “Keep it secret, keep it safe.” But throbbing beneath Elsa’s poised veneer is an unflinching desire to break free of the taut regulations that years of secrecy have instilled in her.

Since we all know the most perilous job in the Disney kingdom is parenthood, it’s no surprise that the young princesses’ parents are lost in a storm at sea, leaving Elsa to take up the mantle of Queen when she reaches the ripe age of womanhood. Years later, on her coronation day, Elsa’s buried abilities are shaken loose by an overeager Anna whose heart is newly set on marrying prince Hans (Santino Fontana), whom she met just hours earlier. Unhinged by a sense of crumbling familial guardianship, Elsa unwittingly lets loose years of repressed icy powers to cover her island community in a blanket of eternal winter. Finally, the town’s people see her for what she really is – a sorceress lacking the most basic semblance of control.

Deemed a monster by the unscrupulous tradesmen passing through Arendelle on a business trip, fatally cute, and morbidly naive, Anna employs the help of ice salesman Kristoff (Jonathan Groff) and his reindeer BFF Sven to locate her escaped sister and return the city to prosperity before it’s too late. The normative fairy tale lessons of “Don’t judge a book by its cover” and “Be true to yourself” are pounded home but the dichotomy of two princesses each struggling with their own separate but equal identity crises is a new chapter in the Disney princess manual.

After absolutely dominating the 90s with some of the best animated features, Disney suffered a nosedive in quality that saw the likes of Treasure Planet, Bolt, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, and Meet the Robinsons flail and fall into obscurity, a side effect of their unwillingness to change with the ebb of culture. Halting their dominant reign (that unarguably stopped after 1998’s Mulan), newcomers Pixar started their own golden age which took the wind out of Disney’s sails. Bookending the period of Disney’s supremacy and the coming of Pixar’s rising star, Disney faded from the spotlight.

But with their recent string of successes, made up of 2010’s Tangled, last year’s Wreck it Ralph and now Frozen, it seems that Disney is finally back on top as the animation studio to beat. Although the hand-drawn days of animation have come to a close, the same immaculately rendered, noticeably loving detail is put into each and every breathtaking sequence in Frozen. This not only has resulted in an animated feature worthy of Disney’s legacy but it’s essentially is assured Frozen a win at this year’s Oscar ceremonies.

Adapting to a new generation of tech-savvy, open-minded youngsters, the House of Mouse also gives some much-needed wiggle room for Frozen to step away from Disney’s legacy of antiquated sexual identities, chartering a new and exciting course for post-feminist Disney princesses. Our main heroine may still be a landlocked princess but a smooch from a prince may not be the ultimate life bandaid we’ve seen in a thousand children’s tales before. Rather, true love is found in self-discovery, or simply etched in the fiber of the nuclear family. This is a new brand of lesson in a new social climate, one where the tenants of yesteryear cease to dictate the values of tomorrow.

B+

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Out in Theaters: NEBRASKA

November 21, 2013 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged 2013, Alexander Payne, Bob Odenkirk, Bruce Dern, June Squibb, Nebraska, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Will Forte

“Nebraska”
Directed by Alexander Payne
Starring Will Forte, Bruce Dern, June Squibb, Bob Odenkirk, Stacy Keach, Mary Louise Wilson, Kevin Kunkel
Adventure, Drama
115 Mins
R

Nebraska starts with the old school painted mountains of the Paramount logo, a veiled reminder of the golden days of the USA, and jumps into an austere black-and-white landscape of Montana as Bruce Dern‘s Woody Grant stumbles down the snowy strip of government manicured grass between some train tracks and a largely vacant highway. Convinced he has won a million dollar prize, Woody’s intent on claiming his winnings in Nebraska even if that means walking the entire eight hundred mile trip on foot. A reminder of how off the tracks his life has veered, Woody sees his not-too-good-to-be-true grand prize as a means to a life he never had – a golden ticket to meaningfulness and utility long lost.

Reinvention is not that simple though, a fact illustration by the simple reality that Woody’s prize is very clearly a scam – the stuff of Mega Sweepstakes mailing centers intent on pawning off China-made trinkets or magazine subscriptions. His family knows the truth of this hollow sham and treats his bullheaded demand to head southeast as a warning sign that he might be more than ready for a retirement home but Woody remains steadfast in his plans for great fortune.

Not ready to admit that his dad may have one too many screws loose, David (Will Forte) knows that there is nothing to come from Woody’s scam of a prize slip and yet agrees to take his grumbling father to Nebraska as a sort of last hurrah, a goodbye bonding road trip – a final way to spend some time with his seemingly fading pops. Along the way, they stop off at Rushmore where the cantankerous Woody hysterically riffs on America’s great monument (“It doesn’t look finished to me”) before then misplacing his teeth along, yet another, set of railroad tracks. Buzzing along towards impending disappointment, the camera eyes static horizon shots, with endless stretches of bleak farmland serving as visual commentary of the washed up wasteland that industry America has become. It’s left in its place a black-and-white relic of the once prosperous plains.

In these bowels of middle America, Alexander Payne finds sidesplitting humor in banality. Scenes of awkward family tension are as side-splittingly funny as watching people on their deathbeds count their many losses is tragic. Seeing how dreams wither and disappointment sets so deep in your bones it becomes indistinguishable from your DNA may prove too heavy a task for those seeking a sunshine and smiles kind of ride. No matter how jet-black the comedy and how biting the drama, it’s the careful balance of the two that makes Payne’s admittedly glum work shine so bright. Searching for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, Woody, and by extension Payne, sees tomorrow as an unwritten page.

Woody is a man of principles, no matter how skewed they may be and how stubbornly he sticks by them. He drinks too much and is a champion of his own independence (even though at this rate he will most like be on a Depends regiment in the next few years) but it’s clear that he is not a man who can live on his own. Enter wife Kate Grant. The realist ying to Woody’s eternally confused and tragically hopefully yang, June Squibb‘s Kate is the foundation for both Woody as a character and Dern as a performer. Without her blunt tell-em-as-it-is attitude, his blundering air-headed status would lack grounding.

Surly and confused as he may seem, Woody is more than meets the eye though, a fact that David learns when they visit Woody’s hometown. As people catch wind of Woody’s “good fortune” and flock to him looking for handouts, we see the real Woody as he welcomes family and friends coming out of the woodwork to beg like smiling buzzards. And as Woody claims his 15 minutes of fame, we also begin to realize that for all of his knuckle-headed nincompoopery, he’s a man who gives without regard, all brought to life by Dern’s hilarious and heartbreaking performance.

For this leading role, Dern is poised for some serious recognition. Even if he misses an Oscar shot (2013 has quickly become an extremely crowded year for Best Actor), he’s secure in nabbing nominations for the Indie Spirit Awards, Emmys and the like. There are few that would disagree that he’s earned it. And although her role isn’t as immediately noticeable as Dern’s, June Squibb has us convinced from moment one that she is Kate Grant. Foul-mouthed and sassy as she is heavy-set, she waddles her way to an inevitable showcase of Oscar moments and should be counted amongst those assured a nomination for Best Supporting Actress. For this part, Will Forte too becomes more than just a comedian. Although he’s the rock from which these other performers vault, his own performance is reined in and earnest – the mark of an actor who has matured greatly since his tenure as MacGruber at SNL.

Rolling sharp comedy and painstaking commentary into one is no easy task, but it’s one that Payne has all but mastered. Nebraska may not be as biting and manic as Sideways or as graceful and beautifully filmed as The Descendants but it has a life and energy all of its own, one that, much like Woody, is entirely unpredictable.

A-

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Out In Theaters: DELIVERY MAN

November 21, 2013 by Jill Landon Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Chris Pratt, Cobie Smulders, Comedy, Delivery Man, Ken Scott, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Vince Vaughn

“Delivery Man”
Directed by Ken Scott
Starring Vince Vaughn, Chris Pratt, Cobie Smulders, Andrzej Blumenfeld, Bobby Moynihan, Britt Robertson, Jack Reynor, Dave Patten, Adam Chanler-Berat
Comedy
103 Mins
PG-13

Whether our viewing sensibilities are just outgrowing Vince Vaughn or people just aren’t writing good showcases for him, it is undeniable that his career is not what it once was. Wedding Crashers came out eight years ago. Let that sink in. I’m of the opinion that the problem has been the material. Ken Scott directs the remake of his own 2011 film Starbuck, which provides an avenue for Vaughn to branch out a little from his typical snarkiness. The result is a surprisingly heartwarming film, if not a bit on the forced side. With some serious revisions, this could have been a great film.

Comedies these days have such farcical plots that you have to just roll with it. If the idea of a man being hunted down by over a hundred of his own illegitimate children doesn’t instantly set off your BS meter, you can probably handle Delivery Man’s multitude of plot holes, inconsistencies, and “yeah right” moments. In reality, the contract of an anonymous sperm donor is rock solid. In the world of Delivery Man, however, David Wozniak has to deal with the fact that 142 of his 500 plus sperm donations are suing to know his identity. On top of this, he has to deal with becoming a “real” father as he accidentally knocked up his on-again-off-again girlfriend.

After Vaughn learns the identity of the lawsuit children, he takes to stalking them and playing guardian angel. Stalking one of his “daughters”, he defends her from catcalls. For a musician “son”, he encourages donations to his street performances. One particularly offensive thing is the way Scott portrays a daughter who overdoses on heroin. Vaughn has the opportunity to send the 17-year old addict to rehab, but instead chooses to take it on faith that she can handle it herself, making it painfully obvious that Scott has never dealt with drug addiction in any capacity. For anyone reading this, in case you didn’t know, send them to rehab. Disappointingly (for the films own potential), she keeps her word to this man she has never met before, presumably kicking her nasty drug habit and becoming a tax-paying citizen overnight. What a great opportunity to teach Vaughn’s character a harsh lesson about parenthood wasted.

Parks and Recreation star Chris Pratt plays opposite Vaughn, as his comically stupid lawyer friend. Their exchanges are often hilarious, but still fail to carry the necessary weight, given how much screen time they take up. Pratt brings much of the films comedy, but might conflict a little too much with the realism of the film. It seemed the writers could not decide whether to make Pratt the responsible one of the duo, or to make him Homer Simpson. He alternates between the two, but plays both roles well. In some scenes, he gives lucid legal advice to Vaughn, while other scenes show him being entirely cartoonish. It may be a nitpick, but it just shows another symptom of a sloppy screenplay, that such a crucial character is not entirely focused. His childlike demeanor in the courtroom scenes exist to show just how open-and-shut this case is.

Vaughn’s character also owes 80 grand to some seedy folk, adding a sense of urgency to the film that feels artificial. This is basic screenwriting 101 stuff. A plot device like this should be more ingrained within the film. It ends up being his reason for countersuing the sperm donation facility for defamation. Wouldn’t greed be a much more interesting motivator, though? Also, this falls flat because the stakes of his trial aren’t that serious. There should be some consequences when his children find out who he is. Instead, they are joyous and relieved. This is all fine and good for the feel-good factor, but I wanted some more authenticity added to the stakes.

In the end, Delivery Man doesn’t quite have the comedic chops to be a great comedy, nor does it have the dramatic chops to be a great dramedy. And that is the problem. No matter how much I was enjoying the movie, I just felt it wasn’t something I would ever want to come back to. When I think of any film that I love, I think of those classic moments, moments which were sorely missed in Delivery Man. Still, there are a lot worse films in theaters right now and this one is quite enjoyable.

C

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Out in Theaters: THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE

November 19, 2013 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Donald Sutherland, Elizabeth Banks, Francis Lawrence, Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Out in Theaters, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Reviews, Stanley Tucci, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Woody Harrelson

“The Hunger Games: Catching Fire“
Directed by Francis Lawrence
Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, Stanley Tucci, Lenny Kravitz, Paula Malcomson, Willow Shields, Elizabeth Banks, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Toby Jones, Jeffrey Wright
Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
144 Mins
PG-13

Katniss Everdeen may be the girl on fire and Jennifer Lawrence may be Hollywood hot stuff (du jour), but this second installment of The Hunger Games is only slightly smoldering. In fact, the embers have already started to go cold. All the requisite franchise pieces are there to stoke the billion dollar conflagration this dystopian blockbuster is sure to light, but the overwhelming feeling that there is little spark behind the bark leaves us chilled to all this talk of fire.

Katniss and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) have returned “safely” from the 74^th Hunger Games but now they face the red hot wrath of President Snow (Donald Sutherland), who’s now breathing down their necks. Their final act of near-berry-gobbling defiance in the last film has led to stirrings of revolution across the districts. Through Katniss’ willingness to sacrifice herself to preserve her moral scruples, the country stands newly empowered. Unwittingly, Katniss has located a kink in the armor of Snow’s totalitarian society and must now suffer the price.

The seeds of hope Katniss and Peeta have planted, Snow plans to stomp out. He supposes that the country’s cautious optimism towards a new tomorrow can be quelled if Katniss and Peeta maintain the facade of their romance. By making them one of his own kind, they will become symbols of corruption – a constantly broadcast morphing into the upper class. But all of this is predicated on their selling their “true love” like it’s Oprah Winfrey coach hour. Anything that would even suggest their affection is a muse would be the equivalent of open rebellion and would lead Snow to “take care of” both Katniss and Peeta’s families mobster style. When Snow realizes that the country may not turn against the star-crossed apples of their eye, he launches a new scheme that will pit them, and former victors, again each other again.

In spite of these constant death threats, Catching Fire lacks breathless moments of white knuckle suspense. No matter how many times the dialogue, aided by Sutherland’s ripe delivery, insist that Katniss and her loved ones are teetering on the precipice of danger, there is little to convince us that anyone could actually be offed. In a franchise like this, everyone is too padded to actually face death. No harm will last more than a few hours, no scar will be too deep to heal. We know Katniss has no expiration date as the franchise train booms towards a fourth film and so any threat towards her – or her cohort’s – life feels paper thin.

And while the first film held a flicker of filmmaking as rebellion, everything about this one screams studio control and designed realism. It all feels so reined in, so calculated in its darkness, and so badly wanting to break free of its PG-13 constraints that it can’t help but lose track of the meaning behind the books. In trying to reel in the masses (and their wallets), Catching Fire as Hollywood product is almost exactly what “Catching Fire” as commentary rages against – turning its back on the central message of stoic individualism against the oppressive tyranny of the elite. The hand of the studio is omnipresent – although hardly malevolent – and there seems to be little to no room for creative flair in the directorial department. Again, big business trumps individual spirit.

Sorely missing is Gary Ross’s urgent camerawork and tight closeups that gave The Hunger Games such a sense of realism. Instead of jammed close in on character’s faces and sharing in their ghastly horror, we feel distant, an observer. With edge-of-your-seat scenes largely tabled, Francis Lawrence goes for something much more horrific – a near 12 Years a Slave for kids. One scene depicting poisonous fog is particularly distressing and uncharacteristically grim for a film of this rating. On the brink of being “too dark,” there is little artistry behind the darkness that feels more like “gritty per popular demand.”

Shying away from the close quarters, almost independent film-esque combat of the first flick, the violence in Catching Fire is staged like the many CGI heavy blockbusters of late. Much violence take place offscreen, in a wide zoom, or in rapid, random bursts, making death almost as inconsequential as it is in a Pierce Brosnan James Bond movie. While the first film saw Katniss struggling with the murder of other children, this film sees her adversaries stripped of that very feature that made their slaughter so perverse and unsettling in the first place. Instead, these adult competitors become faceless baddies in another adventure film.

This franchise middle-child also suffers a pretty rough case of inbetweener syndrome, where it only works within the context of a larger story and not as a standalone film. While it propels what began in the first film into the coming finale, it lacks the finesse of a great middler. Without the pure adrenaline of The Two Towers and the tonal twists and turns of Empire Strikes Back, Catching Fire just carries on the torch, readying it for the next billion dollar installment. Although the bleak-o-meter has been cranked up, the stakes remain largely the same: do or die.

As sets the gears to full throttle for the inevitable two-part conclusion, we ask, “Haven’t we seen this all before?” The skies have darkened and life on Panem is more unbearable than ever but for all the barrels of darkness and grit-drenched scenery, there is familiarity to this racetrack of escalation that we’ve seen in greater franchises (Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter).

But for all of my complaints and griping, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is still a smarter than average blockbuster. It’s hard to finger where the $140+ million budget went – none of the special effects are noteworthy – but hopefully most of it is going towards the performers, as they continue to be the strongest selling point of this franchise. However, it’s the supporting characters who outshine the love-locked trio. Stanley Tucci is simply a riot (and possibly the best part of the film) and Elizabeth Banks is as wacky and invisible in her character as ever. Even Woody Harrelson‘s haunted alcoholic Haymitch has more depth than before and seems to be more commited to the emotional toil of his role than many of his co-stars. And however lackluster some of the CGI is, the set design gives us a rock solid sense of place and tone.

Finally, fans of the source material will have little to complain about since the book is adapted to the T. But when all is said and done, it’s just not a terribly exciting movie and one which I don’t expect to return to. Really feeling the sting of its “part of a whole” status, Catching Fire is better at blowing smoke than fanning the flames.

C+

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Out In Theaters: THE BEST MAN HOLIDAY

November 16, 2013 by Jill Landon Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Malcom D. Lee, Out in Theaters, Regina Hall, Reviews, Sanaa Lathan, Taye Diggs, Terrence Howard, The Best Man Holiday 1 Comment

“The Best Man Holiday”
Directed by Malcom D. Lee
Starring Taye Diggs, Morris Chestnut, Monica Calhoun, Melissa De Sousa, Regina Hall, Terrence Howard, Sanaa Lathan, and Nia Long
Comedy, Drama
123 Mins
R

The Best Man Holiday is half of a fun Christmas comedy. The other half is a way-too-long, predictable, cliché of a drama. It’s fitting that Malcolm D. Lee is Spike Lee’s cousin, as they are the opposite kind of black filmmakers. Spike’s films focus on social problems and have something to say, while Malcom makes crowd-pleasers. This isn’t to say that there isn’t a place for crowd-pleasing films aimed at aging black women, they’re just not necessarily my cup of tea. If internet demographics are any indications, and you are reading this, it probably isn’t for you either.

That said, the screening I attended was the most packed I’ve ever been to. A crowded venue laughed endlessly, hooted, hollered, and cracked jokes the entire way through, while absolutely eating up Lee’s work, making the experience much more enjoyable. As I have not seen The Best Man, I felt like I wasn’t in on some of the jokes, but the film starts with a summary of the first that did a good job of catching me up. I half expected it to say, “Previously on The Best Man” like a new season of a BET series.

To be as objective as possible, the first half of this is a clever comedy script, with several good laughs. Every character has a distinct personality, their own agenda, and they riff off each other well. Terrence Howard stole the show in his scenes, playing the comic relief in a film where every character has Whedon syndrome (they are far too clever for their own good). He also provided some of the only enjoyable moments in the awful second half. Taye Diggs returns as Harper, the intellectual writer, desperate for money, who is trying to cash in on his famous football star friend Lance. Of course, every character is ridiculously famous and successful because this film is predicated on pure realism.

Unfortunately, the women in the film are defined by their male counterparts. They exist to mediate misunderstandings and scarcely talk about anything other than men, while also being at each other’s throats over previous sexual encounters with some of their respective spouses. Make no mistake, these characters were written by a man.

A convention that really needs to go, because it is pure lazy writing, is this: the misunderstanding that would be easily explained away, but the character does not try to explain it or the other party won’t listen. For example, every romantic comedy, where the protagonist gets kissed for a split second by a drunken girl, right as his significant other walks in. She will walk out and he will say, “No. Wait.” But he won’t do anything else. This convention is used three times in this film and every times it is so poorly executed that you see it coming miles away. Making it more disgraceful is how blatant it is. The character literally says, “Wow it would really look bad if so-and-so saw this out of context.” Gee, I wonder what’s going to happen. The problems inevitably work themselves out, even though the easy explanation never happens.

All of this isn’t enough, as Lee wants to drink your tears. The serious turn in the second half is so laughable that it was like one of those extremely satirical “dramatic” South Park episodes. To call it a spoiler would be as big an insult to your intelligence as calling your inevitable aging a spoiler, but I will refrain. This plot device brings everyone together, making everyone bummed out, before making them eventually triumphant. It wouldn’t be shocking to find out that Judd Apatow was responsible for the final cut of this nonsense.

Meandering, preachy, and cliché, there is nothing else to say about it. Every serious scene ends with a Terrence Howard line to try and lighten the mood, but it’s not enough in a film stuck dragging its feet in an otherwise pleasant Christmas comedy. The only thing Christmasy about this film, though, are the religious overtones at the end, as some of the characters talk at length about the importance of faith and prayer, while briefly touching on the problem of evil. Other than that, this has more penis jokes and cat fights than any other Christmas movie I’ve ever seen.

I know I’m repeating myself here, but there is really so little about this film that isn’t surface and contrived. If there were more to warrant a merit-based discussion, this wouldn’t be such a scathing review. Hey, though, if you only have 50 minutes and like this kind of humor, catch the first half and read a synopsis of the second. If you loved the first film, you will probably like this, as you probably have a lot more investment in these characters. For a first time viewer, though, it fails to build that bond. It’s one of the few movies I recommend seeing with a crowd. That means it’s bad.

D+

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Out in Theaters: BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR

November 16, 2013 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Abdellatif Kechiche, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Léa Seydoux, Out in Theaters, Reviews

“Blue is the Warmest Color”
Directed by Abdellatif Kechiche
Starring Adèle Exarchopoulos, Léa Seydoux, Salim Kechiouche, Mona Walravens, Jérémie Laheurte, Catherine Salée, Aurélien Recoing
Drama, Romance
179 Mins
NC-17

Before seeing Blue is the Warmest Color, ask yourself: am I interested in seeing two women in the buff pleasuring each other in unprecedented NC-17 fashion? Even if the answer is yes, there’s still a good chance you’ll find yourself squeamish, crunched in a theater surrounded by strangers as two au naturel ladies hump on screen like jackrabbits OD-ing on Viagra. Although Lars Von Trier‘s slated 5-hour sexual odyssey Nymphomania (sigh) will probably outdo anything set to screen here, Blue is the Warmest Color certainly charters new ground in terms of sexual depictions onscreen at this particular moment in time. But regardless of how risqué the scenes of full-blown love making are here, they add nothing to the context of the story and in one fell swoop redefine masturbatory filmmaking.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for some girl-on-girl action but I’d much rather experience that in the comfort of my own home rather than sitting next to a 65-year old gawking geyser who’s probably never heard of the internet. All the spanking, rug-munching, and disappearing fingers makes the audience uncomfortable and, it seems to me, that that is not the intention of filmmaker Abdellatif Kechiche. I’m not one to balk at gratuitousness in movies so long as it services the film. Here though, they’re just servicing each other.

The film centers on Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos) and how her sexual self-exploration parallels her growth as a person so it’s no wonder that we are to witness to some of the more carnal of her erotic acts. But by the time we get to these controversial lesbian love-making scenes, the hope is to unearth some kind of new found passion – a natural rigor unlocked from the union with another woman. Kechiche wants his audience to feel the explosive force of their love as we curl into our voyeur’s chair and watch the lovemaking unfold, but this “making love” looks a lot more like banging, and there’s little to “feel” other than a rumbling in your pant’s region. The lengthy scenes to follow are simply pornographic, making this just about the worst movie in the world that you could see with your mother.

Criticism of controversy aside, Blue is the Warmest Color itself stands out for its down to earth look at human relationship and depth of character. However easy it may be for some feeble-brained individuals to simplify Adèle down to the most basic elements of her lesbianism, she is remarkable because of her sexual complexity. More than being straight or gay or bi, Adèle is sexuality as experimentation. A pinch of this, a taste of that, all’s good in her witch’s brew of fleshy exploration. Rather than stick to the narrow road society has laid for expectations of lesbian culture, Kechiche sees his characters as people first and foremost, women second, a gay lastly. No matter what label we adhere to, he says, we are all sexual beings overflowing with desire and helplessly jealous. After all, we’re just human.

From her electric blue hair to her eccentric allure, Léa Seydoux‘s Emma’s unorthodox simplicity is a puzzle for Adèle. While Adèle sorts out her way through her world, Emma is steadfast in hers, a statue of self-secure lesbianism. Adèle can’t quite seem to get a read on the doting Emma and her personal brand of traditionalism. They are ying and yang, point and counterpoint – a memento of a familiar relationship we’ve all had. Every time Adèle shies away from watchful eye of the masses, Emma embraces it. As the film winds on, they circle each other, souls intertwined but never blended into one. However close they come, they cannot see the world through each other’s perspective.

Adèle‘s internal confusion is counterbalanced with a wholesome dose of curiosity. She’s eternally insecure, never really willing to commit to one side of herself or another before she’s sampled every treat in the candy shop. Society’s resolute demand for conformity is probably what prompts her to torture herself with thoughts of self-identification. Is she gay? Is she bi? Is she straight? Kechiche’s film says: it doesn’t matter either way. At any rate, it’s the process of trying to fit everything into a box that causes this toxic brand of internal confusion.

As Adèle navigates her way down the long path of figuring herself out, we gain incredible insight into the mind of a fence-sitter – a woman gravitating towards that with the strongest pull in the moment. Years pass and Emma’s electric hair fades to cool blue and eventually into a mousey brown mop as Adèle spirals in her own sink of sexual trial and error. We witness the ups and downs, the roots and fading foundations, and see a relationship raw and rounded.

But that intimacy comes with a price as the three-hour time tag is more than enough to drive people away. And for good reason. Adèle‘s introspective saga is complicated but unnecessarily lengthy, another example of excess in a film brimming with it. With 15-minutes or so of pure porn (which has already become more of a talking point than its victory at this year’s Cannes Film Festival) there is more than enough that could have easily been cut to produce a sharper, cleaner film. Sadly enough, it seems that the allure of the NC-17 might be more provocative than the result.

Seydoux and Exarchopoulos are so unwaveringly committed to the roles that there is no question as to how far they go to with each other, raising questions about where the line ought to be drawn between method acting and smut. But beyond their bare-bodied romps, they each offer intimate portrayals of flawed characters, embodying their characters with the stuff of masters – suffering their inadequacies and reveling in their joy.

Despite how fleshed out Adèle, Emma, and their relationship are, we still only need to know them so well to get the message and three hours gives us a much larger window than we ever need. Strangely enough, the story was adapted from a graphic novel by Julie Maroh and that probably accounts for the episodic, long-drawn nature of the film. But as this cuming-of-age story goes round and round, monotony sets in and we slowly start to not really care where Adèle and Emma get dropped off.

C+

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