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.

 

Happiest Season: Romantic holiday angst

Happiest Season (2020) • View trailer

3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for occasional profanity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.24.20

Some people approach the holidays with far too much emphasis on expectation — everything must be just so, and God forbid any little detail goes awry — rather than simply basking in the comforting glow of seasonal spirit.

 

When Harper (Mackenzie Davis, left) and her family decide to hit the
local ice-skating rink, she doesn't think to ask if her lover, Abby
(Kristen Stewart) knows how to skate.

Add a supplementary “important” reason for gathering, and the pressure becomes enormous.

 

(And the stuff of countless Christmas movies.)

 

Abby Holland (Kristen Stewart) has suffered the Christmas blahs ever since losing her parents a few years back. Hoping to cure this, her lover Harper Caldwell (Mackenzie Davis) impulsively insists that Abby come along for a family celebration in her home town. Warming to this suggestion, Abby decides it’ll be the perfect time to meet Harper’s folks, and then propose to her on Christmas morning.

 

Ted Caldwell (Victor Garber), in turn, wants his entire family present during the few days leading up to Christmas, as a picture-perfect “showcase” to help fuel his run for town mayor.

 

Except …

 

Ted’s family is far from perfect. Harper’s younger sister Jane (Mary Holland) is an aggressively giddy nerd with no concept of social boundaries, who constantly babbles about the epic fantasy novel she has been writing for the past 10 years. Perfectionist mother Tipper (Mary Steenburgen), although polite to a fault, insists on recording everything for her new social media presence.

 

Snooty elder sister Sloane (Alison Brie) and her husband Eric (Burl Moseley) abandoned their law careers in order to craft custom-made gift baskets. (Correction: Sloane archly calls then “curated gift experiences inside of handmade reclaimed wood vessels.”)

 

On top of which … little problem … Harper confesses, during the drive from Pittsburgh to her family’s upstate Pennsylvania town, that she hasn’t yet come out to her parents.

 

Despite having told Abby that she did so, quite a few months back.

 

And, well, y’know, now probably isn’t the best time, given Dad’s mayoral run, and their community’s conservative values. So how ’bout you just pretend to be my straight roommate?

 

At which point, a gal with even an ounce of common sense and self-esteem would bolt from the car, and hitch a ride back to Pittsburgh. (But then we’d have no movie.)

The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part — Poor construction

The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part (2019) • View trailer 
2.5 stars. Rated PG, and needlessly, for mild rude humor
By Derrick Bang

Well, it was inevitable.

I can’t really say this is a case of the sophomore curse, since The LEGO Batman Movie arrived in between, and it was quite entertaining.

Even though their beloved Bricksburg has been blasted into post-apocalyptic rubble,
cheerful Emmet has lost none of his optimism ... much to the annoyance of gal-pal Lucy.

But The LEGO Movie 2 is a serious disappointment: a clumsy mess with little of its 2014 predecessor’s charm and cheeky creativity. This sequel suffers from all the flaws inherent in bad animated films: poor pacing; a random storyline that lurches from one scene to the next, with little effort at rational continuity; and a gaggle of truly dreadful songs … including the ill-advised decision to undercut the first film’s anthem, “Everything Is Awesome.”

By far the worst sin, though, is the way this new LEGO entry violates the first film’s ingeniously constructed divide between “our” world, and the realm inhabited by these delightful brick characters. This barrier was an important clue to the powerful weapon — the “Kragle” — wielded by the “evil” Lord Business.

I’ve hammered this point many times before, while denouncing poor writing: Fantasy mustadhere to its own established set of rules. Failure to do so, results in a loss of suspense and viewer involvement. There’s no reason to worry about potential peril, if slipshod writers just make stuff up as they go.

And I’m surprised, because this film’s scripters — Phil Lord and Christopher Miller — are veterans of the first film. They should know better.

Lord, Miller and director Mike Mitchell err further by devoting too much screen time to real-world activity. That was the first film’s big reveal — that there was a “real world” — and, granted, it’s true they couldn’t pull off that surprise a second time. And although — in fairness — there is an important underlying message in these real-world activities, it’s blindingly clear early on.

Which all-too-quickly turns this limp sequel into a tedious case of overstating the obvious.

Get Hard: Rather limp

Get Hard (2015) • View trailer 
2.5 stars. Rated R, for pervasive crude and sexual content, relentless profanity, graphic nudity and drug references
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.27.15

If relentless vulgarity and blithe racism, sexism and homophobia can be considered an art form, then I guess Will Ferrell is a Rembrandt.

"Trapped" within the confines of the faux jail cell made from his own study, James (Will
Ferrell, center) nervously awaits the moment when his house staff and grounds keeper
will "pretend" to beat on him, prison-style, while Darnell (Kevin Hart, right) supervises.

There may be a racial, gender or religious faction left unsmeared by Ferrell’s newest foray into moron comedy, but it’d be hard to determine who got left behind.

And, no doubt, that would have been an oversight. I’m sure scripters Adam McKay, Jay Martel, Ian Roberts and Etan Cohen — the latter also occupying the director’s chair — intended to be equal-opportunity offensive.

Get Hard is typical Ferrell, with the Saturday Night Live veteran swanning through yet another contrived plot constructed around its boorish sight gags. By no means can what Ferrell does be termed acting, since his entire persona is built around a naïve twit alter-ego who cheerfully, unwittingly, insults and outrages everybody within his orbit.

This gimmick has served him well for 20 years, so I guess he sees no reason to change. And it could be argued that viewer indignation and disgust are tempered by the fact that Ferrell works hardest to make fun of himself. He clearly knows that his various screen characters are ignorant, clueless boobs, and he revels in their boobishness.

Which, in a weird way, makes his behavior more palatable.

A bit more palatable, anyway.

Because — as always is the case — a little of Will Ferrell goes a long, long way, and 100  minutes of him in Get Hard might have been difficult to endure ... were in not for the truly hilarious presence of co-star Kevin Hart.

Frankly, Hart should get top billing. He runs away with this film, stealing every scene he’s in, and he’s a helluva lot funnier than Ferrell. Hart has the rhythmic physical grace, streetwise savvy and impeccable comic timing of a young Eddie Murphy at his prime: a vibrant screen presence that couldn’t be a more welcome alternative to Ferrell’s insipid white-bread doofus.

The Kings of Summer: This film rules!

The Kings of Summer (2013) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rating: R, and rather harshly, for occasional profanity and teen drinking
By Derrick Bang

This is why I love my job.

The Kings of Summer marks an impressive feature debut for director Joran Vogt-Roberts and writer Chris Galletta, the latter with nothing more to his credit than a brief 2005 stint as a production staff member for The Late Show with David Letterman. Vogt-Roberts’ résumé includes several shorts and a lot of TV series work, the latter suggesting the hilariously snarky mind set on ample display in this film.

Having more or less completed their new home away from home, our three young
renegades — from left, Joe (Nick Robinson), Patrick (Gabriel Basso) and Biaggio (Moises
Arias) — contemplate the next challenge: putting food on the table. That'll prove far
more difficult than anticipated, since they've no experience with traps, lures, bare-handed
fishing or any other woodsian skills.

Actually, calling this picture “impressive” isn’t nearly strong enough. It’s a sure-fire audience pleaser: one of those so-called “little films” — like Little Miss Sunshine or Juno — guaranteed to take off like a rocket, once word gets out. This year’s enthusiastic Sundance Festival audience certainly thought so, granting a nomination for the Grand Jury Prize (not won, alas).

As a collaborative team, Vogt-Roberts and Galletta demonstrate a striking degree of creative synch; the latter’s dialogue sounds just right coming from the naturalistic ensemble cast, granting a level of verisimilitude that makes these characters feel like the folks next door.

Allowing, that is, for a left-of-center gaggle of eccentrics commonly found in films by Wes Anderson or the Coen Brothers. But I mean that in the gentlest way: However funny the lines, however warped some of the emotional behavior by sidebar adults, this is — first and foremost — an intimate coming-of-age saga.

In the truest sense of the old cliché, we laugh with our young protagonists, not at them.

The contemporary setting is a smallish town in Northeast Ohio, the sort of all-American community that typifies such narratives. Best friends Joe (Nick Robinson) and Patrick (Gabriel Basso) are strongly bonded, in part, by their inability to cope with utterly impossible parents.

Joe’s father, Frank (Nick Offerman), hasn’t yet recovered from his wife’s untimely death, years earlier. He has become bitter, condescending and imperious: a combination that doesn’t blend well with a teenage son’s instinctive rebelliousness. Joe’s favorite method of revenge, when sufficiently annoyed, is to summon the local law — personified by the competent Capt. Davis (Mary Lynn Rajskub) and her absolutely useless rookie companion (Thomas Middleditch) — on some trumped-up accusation.

Frank responds to such hijinks the way he deals with everybody: angry sarcasm delivered by Offerman with a relentlessly straight face ... which, of course, makes every bile-fueled line that much funnier. (And they’re pretty funny to begin with.)

Joe’s older sister, Heather (Alison Brie), fled the tension-laced home awhile back, although she still visits. That speaks well of the young woman; her choice of male companions, however, does not. Colin (Eugene Cordero) is a misfit who’s as oblivious to social cues, as he is to the fact that Frank constantly winds him up.

In this case, we can hardly blame Frank; Colin’s much too easy a target. Which Heather is aware of, and Brie’s face is an amusing study in conflict: clearly annoyed by her loutish father, but equally embarrassed by her clueless boyfriend.

The Five-Year Engagement: Can't commit

The Five-Year Engagement (2012) • View trailer
Three stars. Rating: R, for profanity, sexual candor and fleeting nudity 
By Derrick Bang

The engagement itself staggers along for five years, and it takes about that long to watch this film.

Or so it seems.

The morning after a delightful engagement party, which allows Violet (Emily
Blunt, left) and Tom (Jason Segel, second from left) to announce their pending
marriage, they're surprised to discover that his best friend, Alex (Chris Pratt),
and her sister, Suzie (Alison Brie), spent the night together. Truth be told,
Alex and Suzie are equally surprised by the situation.

A sweet, amusing and saucy romantic comedy is buried somewhere within the leaden mess of The Five-Year Engagement, which occasionally flickers into life and reveals The Film That Might Have Been. With the benefit of tighter editing and the objectivity needed to jettison some of the wandering narrative detours that just hang on the screen, like limp laundry, director Nicholas Stoller — who co-wrote the script, with star Jason Segel — might have delivered a decent result.

But at 124 minutes, this inexcusably self-indulgent exercise in slow torture feels interminable. The story goes on and on and on and on, until we’re ready to scream at the contrivance of yet another emotional roadblock that separates our two main characters, and thus prevents the film from finally grinding to its fitful conclusion (a wholly predictable outcome, I might add).

Stoller and Segel previously collaborated on 2008’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall, another comedy of love’s labors that adopted a similar kitchen sink approach to its core storyline. The problem, in both cases, is a lack of focus; Segel, the writer, needs to be reined in and persuaded that he’s not necessarily the best judge of what works for Segel, the actor.

We’re introduced to Tom (Segel) and Violet (Emily Blunt) on the happiest day of their made-for-each-other relationship, as he honors the one-year anniversary of their first “date” — actually a midnight kiss at a New Year’s Eve party, where they met — with a proposal. Actually, he intends to surprise her with a adorably elaborate setting for this proposal, but he’s not good at keeping secrets, and fumbles the approach.

Except.

There’s a world of difference between an actor fumbling dialogue, in character, and an actor merely fumbling dialogue. Pay attention to this opening scene, as Segel and Blunt navigate these first few pages of script. The line deliveries are awful, the timing equally poor; the sequence plays more like a first rehearsal — and a bad one, at that — than a take preserved for use in the finished movie.

Much of The Five-Year Engagement suffers from such clumsiness, as if Stoller abdicated his directorial responsibilities and let random set visitors vote on which take to accept. However it happened, the result is a film that repeatedly starts, stops and stalls without warning, like a junker that can’t quite make it off the used-car lot.