Camera: Darn near picture-perfect

Camera (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Not rated, but akin to PG-13 for dramatic intensity and brief drug use

Available via: Amazon and Apple TV+

By Derrick Bang

This charming independent drama has been released without fanfare, with no publicity, and no reviews by significant print or media outlets.

 

After an initial misunderstanding, Eric (Beau Bridges, right) quickly apologizes and does
his best to make amends with the understably wary Oscar (Miguel Gabriel).

It’s clearly a labor of love by director Jay Silverman, who financed it solely via his own production company. The obviously modest budget nonetheless attracted name talent including Beau Bridges and Bruce Davison, although the film is stolen by young Miguel Gabriel; he and Bridges anchor the bittersweet and poignant script by Jamie Murphy and Joseph Gamache.

The result, a quietly compelling ode to the power of mentorship, deserves much better exposure than it’s likely to receive.

 

The setting is present-day Jasper’s Cove, a small coastal California fishing community. (The 18-day shoot actually took place in and around Morro Bay; locals will recognize famous landmarks such as Morro Rock and the Piedras Blancas Light Station.)

 

The community is struggling, due to the local waters having been overfished. Veteran fisherman such as Frank Flynn (the always engaging Davison) and Manny (Jorge-Luis Pallo) have their backs against the financial wall; the latter contemplates selling his beloved boat. Jasper’s Cove has become, as one character later puts it, “a place where fun goes to die.”

 

But 9-year-old Oscar (Gabriel) is oblivious to all this. Although a newcomer, he has quickly become a ubiquitous wanderer in town and the surrounding area, never seen without a vintage twin-lens reflex film camera slung around his neck, and hanging onto his chest. But the camera is damaged, and cannot be used.

 

Oscar is mute, due to complications from life-saving surgery when he was younger, which makes him the frequent target of a trio of contemptible adolescent bullies.

 

Oscar’s mother, Evelyn (Jessica Parker Kennedy), does her best with him; she has taught him to communicate via a series of flash cards bearing common greetings, questions and responses. He’s by no means slow; he can hear and understand perfectly, and seems intelligent for his age. But he’s also shy, self-conscious and easily frightened; he wears vulnerability like a shroud, which makes him an easy target for the aforementioned young thugs.

 

The recently widowed Evelyn has just moved them to Jasper’s Cove. She works hard, as a single parent trying to hold her little family together, and therefore can’t watch over her son as much as she’d like.

 

Words and Pictures: Graceless and clumsy

Words and Pictures (2013) • View trailer 
2.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for sexual candor, profanity and nude sketches
By Derrick Bang

I cannot imagine what people were thinking.

This film is being marketed as a frothy romantic comedy involving a New England prep school English teacher and an art instructor, who encourage their respective students to engage in a friendly rivalry to determine whether words or pictures are the superior form of communication. Meanwhile, of course, the two instructors fall in love.

At first blush — and demonstrating excellent taste — Dina (Juliette Binoche) wants
nothing to do with the arrogant and conceited Jack (Clive Owen). But she cannot help being
intrigued by his proposal that their respective students embrace a challenge to determine the
comparative value of language, spoken or written, and images, drawn, painted or
photographed. So, game on!

Don’t believe it. That’s a serious distortion of the truth.

Gerald Di Pego’s original screenplay actually concerns an arrogant, alcoholic English instructor who lays waste to everything and everybody in his orbit, committing an escalating series of reprehensible acts while sliding further and further into uncontrolled drinking. The story is a downer from its opening scenes, with a few more dreary details thrown in as sidebar elements, just in case the central plot isn’t depressing enough.

Evidence suggests, after completion, that saner heads recognized this film as a stinker, since it sought U.S. release for almost a year. The eventual takers — Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions — must have been reluctant suitors, because the online press materials are minimal (only four photos from which to choose, instead of the usual two or three dozen), and most visibly because the film has been dumped quietly during an early summer season dominated by much glitzier popcorn flicks.

Fair enough. I just can’t figure out what prompted stars such as Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche to accept the assignment in the first place. Under no circumstances could Di Pego’s script have seemed reasonable, let alone rational. And although veteran director Fred Schepisi (Roxanne, Last Orders and Empire Falls, among others) gamely coaxes strong performances from his two leads, that can’t change the fact that they’re trying to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear.

Owen plays Jack Marcus, a charismatic honors English instructor at Maine’s bucolic Croyden Prep, who has long coasted on the adulation of students who enjoy his playful nature. But these “likable big brother” characteristics, which teens find so enchanting, are viewed as irritating and condescending by almost all of Jack’s colleagues. The lone exception is Croyden’s history instructor, Walt (Bruce Davison), a longtime friend who occasionally indulges Jack’s fondness for intricate word games.

Jack’s most visible problem is an ongoing slide into alcoholism, with lunchtime nips of vodka having blossomed into drunken public displays that have gotten him blackballed at a tony local restaurant. In part, Jack’s drinking results from professional panic; although hired as a noted author and poet, back in the day, he hasn’t been able to write anything for years.