CODA: A heartwarming treasure

CODA (2021) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for frequent sexual candor and amusing profanity

Available via: Movie theaters and Apple TV+

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.20.21

If you’ve been dismayed by the absence of real people and relatable stories in recent films, you’ll love this one.

 

Ruby (Emilia Jones, left) is mortified when she's forced to vividly translate the intimate,
ah, "medical problem" that is plaguing her parents (Troy Kotsur and Marlee Matlin),
while a mildly amused doctor takes in every detail.

Writer/director Sian Heder’s richly nuanced CODA — say it as a word, not an acronym — is a sure cure for the summer blockbuster blues. Her warmly sensitive script is populated by engaging characters brought persuasively to life by a cast of talented (and mostly unrecognized) actors. The resulting coming-of-age story has more depth than most; it’s the wry, frequently funny and occasionally shattering saga of a teenage girl struggling between family loyalty and finding her own bliss.

The setting is modern-day Gloucester, Mass. Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones) wakens each day at 3 a.m., in order to join her father Frank (Troy Kotsur) and slightly older brother Leo (Daniel Durant) on the family’s fishing boat; the daily catch keeps a roof over their heads. Ruby’s participation is essential, because she’s the conduit to all the buyers and other fisherman; she’s her family’s sole hearing member (which is to say, a Child Of Deaf Adults).

 

Her father, mother (Marlee Matlin, as Jackie) and brother are culturally deaf, relying on sign language to communicate with each other, and with Ruby … and relying on her as interpreter (which can get embarrassing during, say, visits to a doctor).

 

After each early morning’s ocean excursion, Ruby bicycles to the local high school, where she tries to avoid falling asleep during her senior year classes. She’s long been the target of cruel taunts, in part due to her “weird” family, and also because she often arrives smelling strongly of fish. Best — and only — friend Gertie (Amy Forsyth) is her sole salvation.

 

The plan, up to this point, has been for Ruby to join the family business full-time after graduation: something she never has thought to question.

 

But one otherwise ordinary day, as all students select an elective class, she impulsively signs up for choir … mostly because she has been silently crushing on Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo), who also did so. Truth be told, Ruby has grown up adoring all sorts of music, particularly that of obscure pop/rock bands.

 

The first choir session is deeply intimidating, thanks to the flamboyantly formal behavior of instructor Bernardo Villalobos (Eugenio Derbez, who deserves an Oscar nomination). His almost regal bearing would elicit snickers of derision, if he weren’t also so damn intimidating. But that’s all surface; it quickly becomes apparent that he’s one of those sublimely talented teachers who makes a difference in young lives.

 

He quickly recognizes that Ruby is talented. Quite talented. Even if it takes her awhile to accept this opinion.

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms: Far from balletic

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG, for no particular reason
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.2.18

This isn’t your grandfather’s Nutcracker.

Actually, I’m not sure what to call it.

Having just learned that she's princess of the magical Four Realms, Clara (Mackenzie
Foy, left) is gowned in suitable fashion by Sugar Plum (Keira Knightley), while one of
the palace soldiers guards them attentively.

This Frankenstein’s Monster is a cynical, coldly calculated commodity that lards the gentle Marius Petipa/Lev Ivanov/Tchaikovsky ballet with bits and bobs from Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz and The Chronicles of Narnia, wraps the content-heavy mess with a ribbon of mild steampunk, and — for good measure — adds Harry Potter’s owl as a bow.

Only Disney could concoct such a clumsy, lumbering mess of a movie, in what appears to be a deliberate effort to enhance the corporate brand via ancillary merchandising.

Along with the opportunity to further entice little girls with a new “Disney princess.”

Mind you, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms certainly looks spectacular. The traditional Disney logo — Sleeping Beauty’s castle — appears on the screen; then the camera swoops past its spires and takes us on a breathtaking, owl’s-view ride above and through Victorian-era London, all in a single magnificent tracking shot, until we reach the Stahlbaum residence, home of Clara (Mackenzie Foy), Louise (Ellie Bamber), young Fritz (Tom Sweet) and their father (Matthew Macfadyen).

It’s a dizzying, captivating tour-de-force opening by cinematographer Linus Sandgren, production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas, and visual effects maestros Max Wood and Marc Weigert.

Things get even more dazzling when the Stahlbaum family joins the cream of London society at the annual Christmas Eve ball, held in the even more opulent palatial estate of Drosselmeyer (Morgan Freeman). He’s an eccentric, well-traveled entrepreneur and inventor, who also happens to be Clara’s godfather. She shares his talent for tinkering and fabrication: a gift revealed earlier, in the Stahlbaum attic, where she dazzles Fritz with a complicated, Rube Goldberg-esque mousetrap that (briefly) captures an actual mouse.

But Clara is troubled and saddened: This is the first Christmas without her mother, Marie, who — in the rather harsh Disney tradition — is dead before this story takes place. Consumed by her own grief, Clara fails to register her father’s similarly forlorn bearing (a mood that Macfadyen conveys with a persuasive subtlety the rest of this film lacks).

Ah, but Marie has bequeathed a special gift to Clara this Christmas Eve: an ornate, locked metal egg accompanied by a note that reads “Everything you need is inside.” But the egg requires a golden key that Clara does not possess; she hopes that her godfather will know how to open it. Instead, Drosselmeyer speaks in benevolent riddles and sends her along a ribboned trail to find his gift to her.

At which point, after following the ribbon through his garden hedge labyrinth, and the similar maze of upstairs hallways in his oddly, ever-expanding upstairs wings, she emerges from the hollowed trunk of a massive felled tree in a snow-covered landscape.

Whereupon I turned to Constant Companion and muttered, “C.S. Lewis, here we come.”

Overboard: Floats delightfully

Overboard (2018) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for suggestive content, mild profanity and fleeting partial nudity
By Derrick Bang

The rule regarding remakes is inviolable: If it won’t be at least as good as the original, don’t bother. Please.

As it happens, writer/directors Bob Fisher and Rob Greenberg’s re-boot of 1987’s Overboard isn’t as good.

Things are about to get unpleasant: Little realizing that he's minutes away from humiliating
her to an unacceptable degree, Kate (Anna Faris) initially is intrigued by the devil-may-care
playboy antics of Leonardo Montenegro (Eugenio Derbez).

It’s better.

For starters, this new version is remarkably faithful to Leslie Dixon’s script for the original film, down to the setting in fictitious Elk Cove, Oregon. (Filming actually took place in picturesque Steveston and Fort Langley, British Columbia.) The key plot beats are retained, allowing for minor shifts here and there. The stroke of genius, however, is the gender flip: It allows for entirely new levels of humor derived from droll pokes at traditional masculinity.

Adding a cultural element to the mix also brings creative opportunities for hilarity.

And while it’s refreshing to see Anna Faris in a romantic comedy that doesn’t rely on eye-rolling moron humor, she has to work hard to keep up with co-star Eugenio Derbez, who’s no less than a force of nature. He pretty much blows her off the screen. Although beloved and respected in his native Mexico, his roles in American films have been minor until now.

That’s about to change.

Derbez’s line delivery is sublime; his comic physicality has the fluid grace of a dance impresario. He can be laugh-out-loud funny while standing still ... not that he does much of that, in this well-crafted comedy. The premise was rich back in 1987, and Derbez makes the most of it here; he’s amusing, feisty, endearing or woebegone at the blink of an eye, and he makes you believe each shift, even in a silly comedy such as this.

Events begin with a prologue, as the paterfamilias of the Montenegro family corporate dynasty — Fernando Luján, as Papi — lies in bed, near death. His daughters — the imperious, avaricious Magdalena (Cecilia Suárez) and the meek, artistic Sofia (Mariana Treviño) — are stunned when, following tradition, their father announces that the business empire will be left to their ne’er-do-well brother, Leonardo (Derbez).

The fellow in question is an arrogant, insensitive, spoiled-rotten playboy currently anchored off Elk Cove in his luxurious yacht, which is complete with, respectively, hot and cold running women and champagne.