The Father: Not for the faint of heart

The Father (2020) • View trailer

4.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and occasional profanity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.16.21  

This one is very hard to watch.

 

Not in the negative sense; director Florian Zeller’s film adaptation of his award-winning 2012 stage play — available via video on demand — is fueled by a powerhouse performance from Anthony Hopkins, cast as a mischievous 80-year-old whose grip on reality is unraveling. Hopkins’ performance is heartbreaking; the path his character walks is absolutely shattering.

 

Anthony (Anthony Hopkins) is all smiles and good manners when introduced to Laura
(Imogen Poots, left), who's being interviewed by Anne (Olivia Colman) to become his
caregiver. But the moment Anne's back is turned...

Consider this a companion piece to Julianne Moore’s Oscar-winning — and similarly distressing — performance in 2014’s Still Alice (although I wouldn’t recommend watching them back to back). The comparison isn’t entirely apt; Moore’s Alice spends the bulk of her film fully aware that she’s sliding into Alzheimer’s, whereas Hopkins’ Anthony has no knowledge of his condition.

 

Zeller’s non-linear and provocatively disorienting play was designed to give audiences a sense of what dementia looks, sounds and feels like; his film is similarly disconcerting. There’s no “beginning” to speak of; we’re simply dumped into Anthony’s world, for the most part confined to the flat that he shares with his divorced daughter, Anne (Olivia Colman).

 

She has fallen in love anew, and intends to join her new man in Paris. But she worries about her father, knowing that he shouldn’t be left alone. But Anthony is defiant, and refuses to put up with the caregivers Anne keeps bringing into the flat. His “trick” is to be charming and solicitous when meeting each new possibility — as with Laura (Imogen Poots), the one we witness — and then, later, to bully, frighten or antagonize them into quitting.

 

But I’ve already created an impression of linear progression, and that’s far from true. Zeller and cinematographer Ben Smithard favor establishing shots down the flat’s long hallway, and we never know whose voice — or presence — will manifest at the distant end. Anne’s clothing — and even age — shift. At one point, a man (Mark Gatiss) pops up in the living room, contentedly reading, looking like he belongs there.

 

Anthony misplaces things, most frequently his beloved watch. He forgets that he squirrels it away in a hidey-hole, to prevent it being stolen; Anne reminds him of this, and he erupts in a fury, incensed that she knows about that “secret” stash.

 

He frequently laments the absence of his other daughter — Lucy, his “favorite” — and wonders aloud why she never visits, oblivious to the pain such remarks cause Anne.

Promising Young Woman: Beware her wrath

Promising Young Woman (2020) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated R, for violence, sexual assault, sexual candor, drug use and relentless profanity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.26.21

If revenge is a dish best served cold, then Carey Mulligan’s Cassie Thomas leaves dry ice in her wake.

 

Cassie (Carey Mulligan) still hasn't quite decided how to handle Ryan (Bo Burnham),
but there's no denying his ability to have spontaneous fun in an unlikely setting.

Cunning, calculating and crafty as if borne to treachery, Mulligan’s Academy Award-nominated performance is a marvelous display of graceful subtlety: something at which she always has excelled. She’s both hero and anti-hero, drifting from one side of that fence to the other, enchanting us just as much as she (ultimately) terrorizes her victims.

 

All of which is delivered with ghoulish glee by Emerald Fennell, also Oscar-nominated for both directing and concocting this deviously nasty dark-dark-dark comedy. It’s available via Amazon Prime and other streaming services.

 

We meet Cassie under lamentable circumstances: dressed to kill but just this side of dangerously intoxicated, makeup askew and swaying slowly while trying to remain upright on the sofa in a trendy bar. Easy prey for a trio of good-looking guys on the make (Adam Brody, Ray Nicholson and Sam Richardson).

 

One — seemingly the “compassionate fellow” — separates from the pack, solicitously asks if she’s all right, chuckles sympathetically at her efforts to sound coherent. Offers to take her home, brings her to his place instead. Laughs off her slurred, wavery protests. He gets increasingly, ah, fresh.

 

Benjamin Kracun’s camera rises above this scene, tightens focus on Cassie’s face. Her drowsy eyes abruptly snap into full awareness. 

 

And we think Uh-oh…

 

Returning home, Cassie withdraws a small notebook from a place of concealment, flips through pages and pages and pages of red and black hash marks, reaches the page in progress, and adds a vertical red line.

 

And we think Yikes!

 

Fennell’s Promising Young Woman is the ultimate #MeToo statement. It’s a righteously angry response to an appalling situation — campus rape — that has been ignored, concealed or denied for far too long. What’s most impressive is that Fennell refrains from preaching; despite the awfulness of what occurs here — and of what occurred years earlier — her film remains … well … entertaining. Amusing, even.

 

The Courier: Suspenseful espionage saga

The Courier (2020) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated PG-13, for violence, dramatic intensity, brief profanity and fleeting nudity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.14.21

The more I learn about early 1960s Cold War posturing, and Nikita Khrushchev’s volatility, the more frightened I get in hindsight.

 

Thank God, the adults in the room remained calm and rational.

 

Once Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch, right) agrees to become a spy for MI6,
his initial meetings with Soviet military intelligence Col. Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze)
are the stuff of total anxiety. Over time, though, Wynne blossoms and embraces his
clandestine role.

Director Dominic Cooke’s The Courier, opening today at a theater near you, is adapted reasonably faithfully from actual events; the result is an absorbing slice of old-style British espionage cinema. Cooke’s tone, Sean Bobbitt’s cinematography and Suzie Davis’ impeccable production design strongly evoke classics such as The Ipcress File and The Spy Who Came In from the Cold; indeed, at times this film feels as if it had been made during the same era.

 

Events begin in July 1960, when Soviet military intelligence (GRU) Col. Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze) — gravely concerned about Khrushchev’s plans regarding Cuba and nuclear missiles — impulsively approaches a pair of American students on Moscow’s Moskvoretsky Bridge; he hands them a packet of documents and insists they be delivered to the American Embassy.

 

The two young men oblige.

 

In London, we meet business consultant Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his wife Sheila (Jessie Buckley). He exudes aptitude and refinement: the sort of cultured, impeccably dressed British chap who’d smoothly navigate a deal over drinks at a gentlemen’s club. 

 

Cumberbatch makes him the epitome of ordinary: happily married, satisfied with his profession, at ease with life. Wynne isn’t overly intelligent, his dyslexia having hampered formal schooling, but he seems to have made peace with that.

 

In short, Wynne is just the sort of fellow who — thanks to his frequent international business trips — would make the ideal undercover agent, because the Soviets wouldn’t look twice at him.

 

Which is precisely what MI6 operative Dickie Franks (Angus Wright) and CIA agent Emily Donovan (Rachel Brosnahan) propose, to the utterly astonished Wynne. More precisely, they want him to act as the courier conduit to the information Penkovsky wishes to supply to Western powers.

 

Franks and Donovan appeal to Wynne’s patriotism, while also stressing how extremely valuable Penkovsky’s intel is.

Own the Room: An engaging study of young entrepreneurs

Own the Room (2021) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated TV-PG, and suitable for all ages

By Derrick Bang 

Filmmakers obviously have figured out that shadowing talented young people, as they navigate the trials and tribulations of decisive, real-world competition, makes for a captivating documentary.

 

The co-founders of iCry2Talk — from left, Andreas Loutzidis, Anastasia Ntracha and
Jason Hadzikostas — map out their presentation for the upboming Global Student
Entrepreneur Awards.

Once again following the template established by 2002’s Spellbound, and subsequently copied by 2018’s Science Fair and others, Cristina Costantini and Darren Foster’s Own the Room — exclusive to Disney+ — follows five ambitious innovators on their journey to the annual Global Student Entrepreneur Awards, held this particular year (2019, pre-COVID) in Macau, China.

 

Aside from the prestige involved, and the exposure gained from such a public presentation, the first-place trophy includes $100,000.

 

The five students profiled in this film — all personable, intelligent, hard-working and great on camera — are as varied as their ideas. 

 

New York University’s Daniela Blanco, the most science-minded, has developed solar-powered electrochemical reactions that create synthetic materials — such as nylon — in a more environmentally friendly manner. The degree to which this would re-write the textile industry cannot be overstated; needless to say, that industry has no desire to change, and this hostility clearly has interfered with Daniela’s efforts to get meaningful attention from the outer world.

 

A good showing in Macau could change that.

 

Henry Onyango, a computer coder in Nairobi, has developed an app — Roometo — that helps students throughout Kenya find housing and alternative accommodations. “It’s Airbnb for students,” he explains. He’s by far the most philosophical of this quintet of entrepreneurs, which is quite a contrast to his gregarious girlfriend, Mercy, who teases him about tuning out the entire world when he’s in “the zone.”

 

The irrepressibly enthusiastic Santosh Pandey, from Kathmandu, has built a business as an “offering happiness surprise consultant” who arranges memorable events — parties, spontaneous encounters, unexpected (and perfect) gifts — that addresses the “family dislocation” that results from parents or adult children living and working abroad.

 

Greek-born Jason Hadzikostas, also a coder, has developed an app — iCry2Talk — that translates a baby’s cries, in order to help parents distinguish a wail of hunger from one of discomfort, fear or simple vexation. He’s something of an odd duck, often seen strolling the streets of Thessaloniki with a baby doll under one arm (wearing a cap with the iCry2Talk logo).

Nomadland: An ode to free spirits

Nomadland (2020) • View trailer

4.5 stars. Rated R, for brief full nudity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.19.21

Some films so persuasively blur the line between fiction and reality, that the result feels less like fabricated drama, and more like a documentary.

 

Fern (Frances McDormand) and Dave (David Strathairn) enjoy a rare hearty meal while
taking in the wonders of South Dakota's Badlands National Park.

Director/scripter/editor Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland — available via Hulu — is just such a film: a deeply moving ensemble drama, and an eye-opening exploration of an expanding, off-grid social development that has become a disheartening 21st century phenomenon, in the wake of the 2007-08 economic crash.

 

Zhao’s film is adapted from Jessica Bruder’s 2017 non-fiction book of the same title: itself a sly blend of character study and undercover journalism. Although this cinematic translation is anchored by Academy Award winner Frances McDormand — as a fictitious character — most of the supporting players are true nomads with no prior acting experience.

 

Which makes the performances that Zhao coaxes from them, all the more stunning. It’s damn near impossible to capture true authenticity on camera, because novices tend to be too self-conscious, too aware of “posing.” What Zhao and cinematographer Joshua James Richards have done here, is nothing short of remarkable.

 

The story opens on an actual event: the sad fate of Empire, Nevada, a tiny mining community run by U.S. Gypsum since 1948. In the wake of the recession, the company closed its gypsum plant in January 2011, eliminating all jobs for the local residents. By the end of that year, Empire had become a modern-day ghost town, having lost even its Zip Code (89405).

 

Fern (McDormand) is hit harder than most, her husband having died from a lingering disease. In a heartbeat, then, she has lost her entire world: her job, her soul mate, her neighbors, her very community.

 

Dismayed by how the “stuff” of a failed American dream has lost its significance, Fern limits her world to whatever can be stuffed into her white Ford Econoline van, which then becomes her home. She’s reasonably resourceful, fabricating and adding all manner of cupboards, compartments and folding counters that are both cleverly functional and somewhat cozy.

 

“I’m not homeless,” she insists tartly, during a chance encounter with a former neighbor. “I’m just house-less.”

 

It’s December; Fern has signed up for seasonal work at an Amazon fulfillment center, which comes with campground facilities that compensate for her van’s lack of running water and, well, anything approaching a bathroom. She befriends co-worker Linda May: Fern’s first encounter with a veteran “nomad.”

 

(Zhao’s obvious devotion to authenticity notwithstanding, it’s an eyebrow lift when Fern’s stint at the fulfillment center is depicted as pleasantly satisfying, with plenty of bonding, but not even a whiff of the exploitatively hard labor and exhaustingly long hours. Clearly, that wasn’t an element of the story Zhao wished to tell, so we must let it slide.)

 

I Care a Lot: Deviously nasty fun

I Care a Lot (2020) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated R, for profanity and violence

By Derrick Bang

In this Netflix original’s initial 20 minutes, writer/director J Blakeson and star Rosamund Pike craft one of cinema’s all-time, audaciously evil characters.

 

Dragged from her home by the force of a court order, Jennifer (Dianne Wiest, center)
becomes increasingly suspicious of the "benevolent" attitude displayed by Fran
(Eiza González, left) and Marla (Rosamund Pike).

Pike’s Marla Grayson isn’t merely malevolent; she’s smug, self-satisfied, shark-like and insufferably condescending. Think Louise Fletcher’s Nurse Ratched, from 1975’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but with naked avarice and ambition added to the mix.

 

Marla’s plastic smile is so insincere, so unbearably patronizing, that you want to reach into the screen and throttle her.

 

She’s one of the best-scripted villains ever concocted, and Pike brings her to terrifying life. Every little detail — every nuanced bit of dialogue, every self-righteous smirk — is exquisitely calculated.

 

Marla’s behavior — her very existence — is nightmarish. We pray never to encounter her like, in real life.

 

She unapologetically reveals her moral bankruptcy early on, via voice-over. “There are two kinds of people in this world,” she insists, matter-of-factly, “those who take … and those who get took.”

 

Marla has built an appallingly successful career as a professional, court-appointed guardian for dozens of elderly wards deemed “incapable of caring for themselves,” and therefore railroaded into managed-care facilities. Once barricaded and helpless behind locked glass doors, Marla and her business partner/lover Fran (Eiza González) seize, strip and sell each victim’s assets via dubious but wholly legal means.

 

As the film begins, the son of one such casualty — Macon Blair, as the hapless and frustrated Feldstrom — understandably goes berserk when he’s refused access to his elderly mother. It’s a disastrous move, which the oh-so-cool-and-collected Marla later references before court Judge Lomax (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), since it proves that Feldstrom poses a “clear and present danger” to his mother.

 

It only gets worse.

 

Marla has two additional key players on her corrupt payroll: smarmy Sam Rice (Damian Young), director of her favorite managed-care prison, who’ll adjust meds and treatment to her desires; and chirpy Dr. Amos (Alicia Witt), who proposes likely candidates from her patient roster.

 

Her newest suggestion is Jennifer Peterson (Dianne Wiest), a wealthy retiree who lives alone and is without family: therefore a “cherry,” in Marla’s cold analysis.

Flora & Ulysses: Doesn't quite fly

Flore & Ulysses (2021) • View trailer

Three stars. Rated PG, for no particular reason

By Derrick Bang

Although director Lena Khan’s adaptation of Kate DiCamillo’s Newbery Award-winning children’s novel occasionally retains its message and engagingly snarky tone, the film — available via Disney+ — too frequently succumbs to the property-destroying slapstick that characterized far too many insufferable Disney comedies in the late 1960s and ’70s.

 

Having discovered that her new pet squirrel has some rather unusual talents, Flora
(Matilda Lawler) is faced with a problem: What does one do with a critter that can fly,
and possesses super-strength?

I suspect the book’s fans will not be pleased.

 

Brad Copeland’s screenplay takes serious liberties with DiCamillo’s book, particularly with respect to how the young heroine’s mother is portrayed. She has been softened considerably here, and made more amiably flustered and vulnerable: characteristics at which co-star Alyson Hannigan is quite adept.

 

This, in turn, demands an entirely re-written third act dominated by a new comic-relief villain: a juvenile artistic decision which suggests that Khan and Copeland simply didn’t understand their source material. More’s the pity.

 

We meet young Flora Belle Buckman (Matilda Lawler) at low ebb: deeply concerned because her parents — George (Ben Schwartz) and Phyllis (Hannigan) — have separated. He’s a frustrated comic book artist depressed by never having been able to sell any of his creations; she’s a successful romance novelist who fails to realize that her current case of writer’s block stems from the absence of her soul mate.

 

Flora, adept at adapting, has forsaken hope for suspicion and pragmatic sarcasm: She’s a self-proclaimed cynic, and proud of it. Her imagination is shaped by the do-gooding heroes she adores in comic books, while recognizing that there are no heroes — no magic, no miracles — in the real world. Her personal philosophy is shaped by the book Terrible Things Can Happen to You!

 

(Let it be said, her small town has the world’s coolest comic book shop.)

 

On an otherwise ordinary day, a somewhat ditzy neighbor’s Ulysses Super-Suction, Multi-Terrain 2000X vacuum cleaner bursts from the house, into the yard and — to Flora’s horror — sucks up an unsuspecting squirrel. Not one to shirk from an opportunity for personal heroism, Flora rescues the little critter, reviving it from suffocation by … well, the way one normally helps those who aren’t breathing.

 

The grateful squirrel refuses to leave Flora’s side, becoming a clandestine pet … and not just any pet. As the next few days pass, Ulysses — as Flora has named him — demonstrates impressive strength, along with the ability of actual flight. Even more amazing, he clearly understands what Flora says, and can “respond” with brief sentences composed while bouncing on the keys of Phyllis’ ancient manual typewriter.

 

“Holy Bagumba!” the girl exclaims.

Shadow in the Cloud: Totally demented

Shadow in the Cloud (2020) • View trailer

Three stars. Rated R, for violence, crude sexual comments and relentless profanity

By Derrick Bang

Director Roseanne Liang’s cheeky little thrill ride — available via Amazon Prime and other streaming services — is a tip of the aviator’s cap to an iconic Twilight Zone episode.

 

On steroids.

 

Flight officer Maude Garrett (Chloë Grace Moretz) expected a bumpy — but otherwise
uneventful — flight from Auckland to Samoa. Boy, does she get a surprise!

Back in the 1960s, this New Zealand import would have been relegated to the drive-in circuit. In the late 1980s and early ’90s, you’d have found it in Friday’s late-night pay-cable time slot. Even so, it won the People’s Choice Award for Midnight Madness at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival: an honor it richly deserves, and is a perfect indication of what you should expect.

 

The script, co-written by Liang and Max Landis — director John Landis’ son (also telling) — is defiantly whacked. Liang and Landis make no apologies for contrivance and the violation of all known laws of physics and aerodynamics; indeed, they gleefully revel in this stuff ’n’ nonsense.

 

That said, Liang and editor Tom Eagles deliver an impressive level of tension and momentum. This baby moves. 

 

Although … not right away.

 

The film opens with a WWII-era public service cartoon that parodies “Falling Hare,” the 1943 Warner Bros. classic that finds Bugs Bunny battling a little gremlin. This foreshadowing thus established, we meet Flight Officer Maude Garrett (Chloë Grace Moretz) on a military airfield in Auckland. It’s August 1943, late at night, and she’s scheduled to meet a B-17 bomber touching down only briefly, before resuming flight to Samoa with badly needed supplies.

 

The plane is christened The Fool’s Errand. (More foreshadowing.)

 

Maude’s left arm is in a sling, and she looks a bit worse for wear. She’s carrying a small dispatch case laden with top-secret papers.

 

Most of the seven-man crew is actively hostile to her presence, but her orders — verified by the plane’s pilot, Capt. Reeves (Callan Mulvey) — are emphatic: They’re to transport her and the case to Samoa. Lacking anything in the way of passenger space, the men get childish revenge by consigning her to the ball-shaped Sperry turret, fitted on the plane’s underbelly.

 

There’s no room for the dispatch case, which Maude insists can’t leave her custody. Quaid (Taylor John Smith), the top turret gunner — and the sole crew member treating her with kindness — promises to guard it.

 

So, into the turret she goes. We — along with cinematographer Kit Fraser’s camera — go with her. And stay with her.

The Mauritanian: A disservice to history

The Mauritanian (2021) • View trailer

2.5 stars. Rated R, for violence, profanity, and grim scenes of torture

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.5.21

Many stories demand to be told.

 

Some are so important, that it’s crucial they be told well.

 

After having gained his trust, defense attorney Nancy Hollander (Jodie Foster) begins
what will become a lengthy, seemingly impossible battle to free Mohamedou Ould Slahi
(Tahar Rahim) from his Guantánamo Bay prison.

That simply isn’t the case with director Kevin Macdonald’s oddly flat handling of The Mauritanian, adapted from Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s best-selling 2015 memoir, Guantánamo Diary. It’s available via Amazon Prime and other streaming services.

 

Under the authority of the United States’ post-9/11 “Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists” resolution, Slahi, a Mauritanian citizen, was arrested in November 2001; he subsequently was sent to Cuba’s Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp in August 2002. He remained there, without charge, until finally being released on Oct. 17, 2016.

 

Although some probably will argue this point forever, Slahi’s sole “crime” appears to have been guilt by association: most critically, a) a chance call accepted from Bin Laden’s phone; and b) having allowed an al-Qaeda recruit to spend one night at his home. There’s never been any indication that Slahi knew the man before that evening, or ever saw him again.

 

On said “evidence,” Slahi was accused of having recruited the men who flew the planes into the World Trade Center … which obviously didn’t sit well with the interrogators and Guantánamo soldiers charged with extracting a “confession.”

 

This film’s screenplay — by Michael Bronner, Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani — bounces between these 2002 events and ’05, when Slahi’s case comes to the attention of renowned defense attorney Nancy Hollander (Jodie Foster). She was an apt choice, possessing the necessary security clearances, and having defended Irish clients against charges of terrorism.

 

Hollander is assisted by the much younger Teri Duncan (Shailene Woodley), depicted here as enthusiastic, fresh-faced and rather naïve. (That’s likely unfair to the actual Duncan; the screenplay also omits a third defense attorney, Sylvia Royce, and assigns some of her involvement to Duncan.)