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.

Let Them All Talk: No, really, they should stop!

Let Them All Talk (2020) • View trailer

2.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.22.21 

Although director Steven Soderberg’s gentle little drama has its charms, it’s more of an acting exercise than an actual film.

 

Alice (Meryl Streep, foreground) has just spotted a fellow writer — one who seems more
popular than she — much to the amusement of, from left, companions Tyler
(Lukas Hedges), Susan (Dianne Wiest) and Roberta (Candice Bergen).

As revealed in the production notes, Deborah Eisenberg’s “script” was more an outline: the broad strokes of the story, with its key plot beats, and a general sense of the primary characters. Most dialogue was left to actor improv, which was fine-tuned during production.

 

Seasoned pros like Meryl Streep and Dianne Wiest clearly had no trouble with this approach. The rest of the cast … leave something to be desired. The results are visible via HBO MAX.

 

New York-based author Alice Hughes (Streep) is celebrated for two novels: her debut, You Always, You Never, which brought her a Pulitzer; and the more recent A Function of the Body, which has just earned the Footling Prize. She regards the latter as more prestigious, because it’s bestowed by writers: an honor therefore coming from her peers.

 

That aside, Alice’s publisher has grown impatient over the lack of progress on her next book. Karen (Gemma Chan), a newbie literary agent, has been sent to extract some details. The rumor is that it might be a sequel to You Always, You Never, but Alice refuses to say anything. Even so, she’s clearly been working on something, given the tall stack of manuscript pages.

 

Much as Alice would love to attend the UK presentation of the Footling Prize, she can’t fly. (Streep’s visible discomfort at the very notion suggests a phobia.) No matter, Karen replies brightly, clearly invested in the publicity that would be generated by a personal appearance; you could travel by luxury liner.

 

(Talk about serendipity: Cunard, which allowed shooting to take place aboard its flagship Queen Mary 2, must be loving the positive attention, as a welcome change.)

 

Alice accepts this suggestion, in part as a means to re-connect with old school chums Susan (Wiest) and Roberta (Candice Bergen), whom she hasn’t seen in 35 years. Both accept the all-expenses-paid invitation; Alice’s nephew Tyler (Lucas Hedges) completes the party, as a sort of wrangler. Unknown to Alice, Karen also joins the cruise, still hoping to learn something about the mysterious manuscript.

 

Once on board, the reunion is tense, even prickly. We gradually learn that Alice apparently mined details of Roberta’s tempestuous marriage for You Always, You Never; she therefore has long blamed Alice both for the subsequent divorce, and for the dead-end life she has led ever since. Worse yet, Roberta is convinced that the rumored sequel will re-open old wounds.

 

The Mule: Quietly powerful

The Mule (2018) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for frequent profanity and brief nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.4.19

Clint Eastwood isn’t merely a savvy judge of good material; he also has lucked into projects that required a bit of patience.

After being confronted by a highway patrol officer, Earl (Clint Eastwood, left) must think
quickly, having just realized that the unassuming satchel in the back of his truck contains
a considerable quantity of cocaine.

He famously waited years to make 1992’s Unforgiven, because he wanted to be old enough to take the lead character. Nobody could have expected him to pull that trick off twice, and yet here he is again: age-appropriate for the starring role in The Mule.

At 88 years young, he once again stepped both behind and in front of the camera; the result is a thoroughly engaging character study, leavened with occasional dollops of dry humor … which is unexpected, given the subject matter.

Screenwriter Nick Schenk previously worked with Eastwood a decade ago, on Gran Torino. It, too, concerned a feisty senior citizen betrayed by progress, and stubbornly stuck in a past that has drained between his fingers. It’s an archetype that Eastwood could play in his sleep at this point, and yet he brings freshness to his portrayal of Earl Stone, a 90-year-old horticulturalist-turned-unlikely courier (“mule”) for a Mexican drug cartel.

Schenk’s script is inspired by New York Times journalist Sam Dolnick’s lengthy — and mesmerizing — profile of Leo Sharp, who was 87 on Oct. 21, 2011, when he was arrested by Detroit DEA agents. The five duffel bags in the back of his pickup truck contained 104 kilos of cocaine. And this was very, very far from his first run for the Sinaloa cartel.

Eastwood and Schenk wisely embraced only the crucial details of Sharp’s saga, preferring to develop a more intimate fictitious subplot with poignant highs and lows (thereby avoiding tiresome accusations about the absence of 100 percent accuracy, which have dogged Green Book and other excellent films of the past few years).

We meet Earl during a brief flashback, at the peak of his career as a farmer and flower breeder: a horticultural rock star whose efforts are prized by attendees at daylily conventions, who cluster around his booth to obtain free samples. But this fame has come at a price: He has chosen the adulation of strangers over a meaningful family life.

Flash-forward to (more or less) the present day, as Earl reluctantly abandons the now-foreclosed farm that has been his primary love for so long. As with so many other business models, the Internet has destroyed individual breeders and suppliers; Earl lacked the willingness to adapt, and now stands destitute.

Worse yet, he’s been absent far too much to garner any sympathy from his long-estranged wife, Mary (Dianne Wiest), and their adult daughter, Iris (Alison Eastwood). His granddaughter Ginny (Taissa Farmiga) is more tolerant and sweetly loving, insisting on having a relationship with him, warts and all. But Ginny is about to marry, and Earl’s sudden appearance is more than unwelcome; it intensifies the fury of Mary and Iris, angered both by his long estrangement, and his failure to honor a promise to pay for the wedding.

The Odd Life of Timothy Green: A delicate bloom

The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012) • View trailer
3.5 stars. Rating: PG, and needlessly, for mild (and fleeting) profanity
By Derrick Bang

Peter Hedges makes delightfully idiosyncratic films about socially awkward and mildly eccentric characters somewhat out of step with the real world: people not quite in synch with the rest of us, and unable to figure out how to bridge that divide.

Rather perplexed by the ivy-esque leaves that appear to be fastened
to the lower legs of the mysterious boy (Cameron "CJ" Adams) who
entered their lives as in answer to a prayer, Cindy (Jennifer Garner)
and Jim (Joel Edgerton, far right) bring the little guy to a horticulturist
(Lin-Manuel Miranda). He offer to clip off the leaves ... a suggestion
that we just know is misguided.

Hedges doesn’t work quickly; he came to our attention back in 1993, when he adapted his own novel, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, for director Lasse Hallström. He followed that with adaptations of two books by other authors — Jane Hamilton’s A Map of the World and Nick Hornby’s About a Boy (the latter earning Hedges an Academy Award nomination) — before taking the director’s chair for his next project, 2003’s Pieces of April.

Aside from giving Katie Holmes her best role to date — and bringing co-star Patricia Clarkson an Oscar nomination for supporting actress — Pieces of April established Hedges as a writer/director with a fondness for wayward souls, and a solid sense of the way people interact with each other. His next project, the 2007 romantic comedy Dan in Real Life, remains my favorite Steve Carell film.

All of which brings us to the aptly titled The Odd Life of Timothy Green, a delicate, poignant little fantasy that I suspect will have trouble finding an audience during these noisy, action-oriented summer months. Timothy Green feels like a story that might have been spun by the Brothers Grimm, were they among us today; this is a fairy tale with a gentle message, and characters whose lives are changed by the intervention of a supernatural being straight out of wish-fulfillment dreams.

The story is credited to Ahmet Zappa, a low-profile actor making an intriguing writing debut; Hedges directed and supplied the script. The result is whimsical, charming and completely preposterous ... and that latter attribute is somewhat at odds with Hedges’ traditional strengths.

Because this narrative can’t possibly take place in our world, despite his insistence that it’s doing precisely that.

Cindy and Jim Green (Jennifer Garner and Joel Edgerton) live in the small town of Stanleyville, known as “the pencil capital of the world.” Unfortunately, the growing proliferation of computers, iPhones and the like have greatly diminished the demand for pencils, and plant employees keep expecting manager Franklin Crudstaff (Ron Livingston) to announce cutbacks and layoffs.