Till: Absolutely riveting

Till (2022) • View trailer

Five stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity, strong disturbing images and racial slurs

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.21.22

2017’s Academy Award-nominated live-action short subjects included filmmaker Kevin Wilson Jr.’s My Nephew Emmett, which dramatizes Moses Wright’s late-night dread, as he awaits the men who he knows will kill his nephew.

 

It’s a heart-stoppingly solemn, quietly powerful 20-minute experience.

 

Emmett Till (Jalyn Hall, center) pauses before entering the tiny grocery store, where
the next few minutes will forever change his life, and the lives of many, many others.

Director Chinonye Chukwu’s Till is far from quiet, and even more powerful. Thanks to her astute direction, along with a meticulously detailed and thoroughly absorbing script — co-written by Chukwu, Michael Reilly and Keith Beauchamp — this film is mesmerizing, appalling and unforgettable.

(Beauchamp spent 27 years researching Till’s heinous murder, and his research prompted the U.S. Department of Justice to reopen the case in 2004.)

 

Chukwu draws an absolutely amazing performance from Danielle Deadwyler, cast as Emmett’s loving and protective mother, Mamie. When eventually confronted with what has happened to her 14-year-old son — what he looks like, when she sees his brutally maimed body — Deadwyler summons a degree of anguish, heartbreak and fury that I’d not have thought possible.

 

This goes far beyond acting; she becomes Mamie Till.

 

Few film performances achieve the impact of similar work in a live theatrical production, because the screen remains a barrier between us and the actors. But Deadwyler’s breathtaking work here is a rare exception; she unerringly navigates an astonishing range of richly nuanced emotions, as Mamie resolutely embarks on a path she never would have chosen for herself, and often dreads walking.

 

But that comes later.

 

Equally impressive is the degree of restraint and dignity with which Chukwu and her writers allow this story to unfold; this must’ve been quite difficult, considering the heinousness of what occurred.

 

Events begin in Chicago, in the summer of 1955. Mamie is a widowed single mother — her husband died in action, during World War II — who is the head of her household, and (tellingly) the sole Black woman working for the Air Force in this city. She dotes on Emmett (Jalyn Hall), nicknamed “Bobo,” her only child; he’s an irrepressibly cheerful bundle of energy.

 

Hall’s performance is equally engaging; his handling of Emmett is a blend of enthusiasm and joy, with subtle touches of youthful arrogance. He simply loves life, his gaze forever radiant. (It’s difficult to be certain, as a viewer, if we detect the boy’s somewhat reckless streak on its own, or because we already know that this side of Emmett will prove his undoing.)

 

Cyrano: Love's labours lost

Cyrano (2021) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for strong violence, dramatic intensity and brief profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.25.22

We’ve seen two noteworthy big-screen versions of Edmond Rostand’s 1897 play up to now: José Ferrer’s Oscar-winning turn in director Michael Gordon’s modest 1950 American translation; and Gérard Depardieu’s robust, Oscar-nominated work in director Jean-Paul Rappeneau’s far more lavish 1990 French adaptation.

 

Cyrano (Peter Dinklage) has long loved Roxanne (Haley Bennett) from afar, but kept
silent out of the fear that she'd find his worship comical or insulting. She, in turn,
has eyes only for a new King's Guard recruit glimpsed briefly in a crowd.

Nor should we overlook star/scripter Steve Martin’s kinder, gentler rendition in 1987’s Roxanne. (Which is to say, nobody dies.)

Director Joe Wright’s Cyrano is adapted from Erica Schmidt’s new 2018 stage musical, with Peter Dinklage and Haley Bennett reprising their starring roles; Schmidt also handles the script. And while Rostand’s story seems an unlikely candidate for musical resurrection, the same could have been said of (among others) Les Miz and Evita … and “unlikely” certainly didn’t damage their popularity.

 

That said, this Cyrano is an awkward beast. Many of Aaron and Bryce Dessner’s songs aren’t memorable, and several interrupt/interfere with the on-screen action in the manner of all clumsy musicals.

 

On the positive side, Dinklage owns this film; his performance is a masterpiece of carefully nuanced expressions and body language. He puts heart and soul into even the most trivial of lines, and his frequent displays of silent, earnest anguish — it’s that sort of story — are heartbreaking.

 

Bennett’s work is similarly charismatic, albeit on a different level. Her Roxanne shimmers with giddy, joyous delight at everything she encounters: most particularly when she swoons over her desire to be swept away by passionate, soul-deep love.

 

Wright’s touch, with the accomplished assistance of frequent cinematographer colleague Seamus McGarvey, is stunning. All of their visual tricks are in evidence: the sliding walls and lengthy tracking shots; the arresting framing of scenes and characters; and the expansive, ethereal depiction of war. (Think back to their work on 2007’s Atonement.)

 

When things work here, they work extraordinarily well.

 

Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen often enough.

 

The setting is Paris, the year 1640. Roxanne attends a stage performance in a theater hosting an audience that ranges from the cream of Parisian society to thieves, pickpockets and cutpurses. She’s escorted by the powerful Duke De Guiche (Ben Mendelsohn), who craves her in a way that is slimy from his first words; rashly heedless of this, Roxanne flirts as a means of enjoying his wealth and status, while having no intention of marrying him.

 

She chances to lock eyes with newly arrived King’s Guard recruit Christian (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), buried within the rabble-rousing theatergoers. The connection is instant and electric, but he’s swept away by the crowd.

Hillbilly Elegy: Survival of the fittest

Hillbilly Elegy (2020) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated R, for profanity, violence and drug use

By Derrick Bang 

Family ties, even when the dynamic is volatile, can be intractably strong.

 

It’s biological: We’re conditioned to love our parents, even when doing so is self-destructive.

 

Lindsay (Haley Bennett, left), J.D. (Owen Asztalos) and their grandmother (Glenn Close)
watch helplessly as events spiral out of control, thanks to an increasing police presence.

As a child, James David (“J.D.”) Vance was an unlikely candidate for escaping his working-class origins, while shuttling between small-town Ohio and the grimly struggling Appalachian environment of his grandparents; that challenge alone would have seemed insurmountable to most.

 

Toss a toxic mother into the mix, and the boy should have been doomed.

 

But he didn’t merely survive; he thrived, eventually graduating from Ohio State and obtaining a Yale Law School degree. He depicted this journey in his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy; the book became a best-seller and a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, embraced as a revealing glimpse of the white working class.

 

Under the sensitive guidance of director Ron Howard and scripter Vanessa Taylor — Oscar-nominated for co-writing 2017’s The Shape of Water — Vance’s saga has become an absorbing and frequently gut-wrenching Netflix original film. The narrative glides smoothly between two time periods: J.D.’s realization, as a young teen (Owen Asztalos), that his mother has serious problems; and his reluctant decision, while at Yale (now played by Gabriel Basso), to return to the home he has tried to forget, in order to navigate a fresh family crisis.

 

The film is dominated by two powerhouse performances: Amy Adams, as J.D.’s unstable, unkempt and vicious-tempered mother Bev; and Glenn Close as her mother Mamaw, who becomes J.D.’s surrogate parent. Both actresses chew up the scenery in grand style, but never to a degree that feels exaggerated or baroque. 

 

The story’s power comes from the persuasive depictions of both women: Bev, most frequently unpleasant, but with unexpected bursts of motherly kindness; Mamaw, most often caring, in a tough-love manner, but quite capable of unleashing her own demons.

 

At first blush, though — as we meet young J.D., visiting his grandparents with his mother and older sister Lindsay (Haley Bennett)  — the overall dynamic seems protectively loyal. The occasion of an extended family photo gives Howard an opportunity to flash through a series of similar photographic portraits, stretching back generations: a clear message that this Appalachian clan has long been proud, defiant and caring of its own.

 

But this is the final day of a summer vacation under the watchful gaze of Mamaw and Papaw (Bo Hopkins). When Bev drives her two children back home to Middletown, Ohio, the dynamic shifts. Lindsay decamps to the company of her boyfriend — and soon to be husband — Kevin (Jono Mitchell), leaving J.D. in the sole company of his mother.

 

Along with her revolving door of male companions (apparently an ongoing thing, since the boy got his last name — Vance — from husband No. 3).

Thank You for Your Service: Gratefully sincere

Thank You for Your Service (2017) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for strong violent content, relentless profanity, sensuality, drug use and fleeting nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.27.17

Some true-life stories wait patiently for big-screen exposure.

Others beg for attention. Repeatedly.

At first, being home is a happy relief for, from left, Solo (Beulah Koale), Will (Joe Cole)
and Adam (Miles Teller). Sadly, all three soon will fall prey to mounting anxiety and
other forms of severe psychological distress.

Hollywood long has addressed the challenges faced by returning military veterans, starting with 1946’s deeply moving The Best Years of Our Lives, an Academy Award-winning Best Picture made immediately in the wake of World War II. Since then, each war — and every generation — have been acknowledged by similarly earnest dramas: Coming Home, Gardens of Stone, Born on the Fourth of July, In the Valley of Elah and many others.

To that cinematic honor role we now add Thank You for Your Service, director/scripter Jason Hall’s heartfelt adaptation of Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post journalist David Finkel’s 2013 nonfiction book of the same title.

Hall’s approach is straightforward and bereft of typical war-film flash. The story has no nail-biting tension, in the manner of The Hurt Locker and Dunkirk, nor is this a senses-assaulting bloodbath akin to Saving Private Ryan and Hacksaw Ridge. The brief combat sequences linger just long enough to make their point. Such choices are consistent with Hall’s desire to tell an uncomplicated story about regular guys who struggle to regain their souls, after leaving Iraq behind.

The story, set in 2008, focuses on three members of the 2-16 Infantry Battalion in Baghdad, as they muster out and return to their Stateside lives in and around Topeka, Kan.

Sgt. Adam Schumann (Miles Teller), an instinctive “bomb sniffer,” has completed his third deployment and — honoring a promise to his wife Saskia (Haley Bennett) —agrees to stay home this time. Tausolo “Solo” Aeiti (Beulah Koale), in contrast, can’t wait to re-up ... much to the consternation of his wife, Alea (Keisha Castle-Hughes).

Will Waller (Joe Cole) has been counting the days until he can rejoin and marry his fiancée, Tracey (Erin Darke).

Schumann and Aeiti are actual individuals who figured prominently in Finkel’s book. Waller is a construct, inserted to convey one of the many other “homeward bound” sagas that Finkel gleaned during his extensive research and numerous interviews.

The Girl on the Train: Runaway directorial excess

The Girl on the Train (2016) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated R, for violence, nudity, sexual content and profanity
By Derrick Bang

90 MINUTES IN:

“One more close-up,” I grumble, to Constant Companion, “and I’m gonna throw something through the screen.”

Wanting to help an increasingly confused Scott (Luke Evans), Rachel (Emily Blunt) explains
what she saw one recent morning commute, when she glanced out the train window. But
in truth Rachel isn't certain herself, and this indecision will come back to haunt her.

Truly, by now I can catalog every pore on Emily Blunt’s face. Rarely has a cinematographer been ordered to provide so many tight-tight-tight close-ups, to the serious detriment of his film.

Nor is this the only one of director Tate Taylor’s transgressions. He also relies on lengthy pregnant pauses, as if worried that we viewers are unable to keep up with the story.

Then there’s the matter of the changing first-person narratives, and the frequent flashbacks, all of which are labeled in portentous capital letters (i.e. SIX MONTHS EARLIER). This technique may have worked in Paula Hawkins’ best-selling novel — “the thriller that shocked the world,” the film poster modestly proclaims — but it’s a serious hassle on the big screen.

Employing flashbacks or alternating points of view would have been fine; doing both simultaneously was beyond Taylor’s ability. At times, it’s difficult to determine whether we’re experiencing flashbacks belonging to Rachel, Megan or Anna.

All of which is a shame, because these intrusive directorial tics and hiccups detract from star Emily Blunt’s impressive performance. Her Rachel is a tapestry of disorientation, shame, fear and uncontrolled bursts of fury. Blunt persuasively handles Rachel’s many moods and transformations, making this poor woman, by turns, despicable, vulnerable and heartbreaking.

And by this point in the film, things are beginning to make sense; Rachel’s savage mood swings no longer seem random.

Which, sadly, points to Taylor’s most serious miscalculation. His pacing is so leaden, his extended takes so prolonged, all those pregnant pauses so protracted, that he telegraphs the story’s “big reveal” by giving us too much time to deduce it.

In a nutshell, Taylor has destroyed the suspense present in Hawkins’ book. He made the story boring.

The Magnificent Seven: Guns a'blazin'

The Magnificent Seven (2016) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, and somewhat generously, for relentless violence and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.23.16

This premise has been bulletproof ever since Akira Kurosawa introduced it, back in 1954.

It’s not merely a great set-up for an action epic; it also plays to our idealistic belief that everybody — no matter how bad their behavior — yearns for an opportunity to become heroic in the eyes of people not familiar with their past deeds. A chance at redemption, and generous self-sacrifice.

Having determined to transform a community of farmers and townsfolk into a defensive
army of sorts, the "Seven" grimly assess their recruits. From left, Jack Horne (Vincent
D'Onofrio), Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier), Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), Goodnight
Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke), Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington), Josh Faraday (Chris
Pratt) and Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee).

Can’t miss.

Nor does it, in director Antoine Fuqua’s muscular remake of 1960’s American adaptation of Kurosawa’s classic Seven Samurai. With Denzel Washington top-lining a cast of scene-stealers every bit as engaging as the characters they play, and some narrative tweaks that make their shot at moral salvation virtually impossible — or is it? — this new Magnificent Seven delivers on the promise of the adjective in its title.

That said — and acknowledging the narrative adjustments made by scripters Nic Pizzolatto and Richard Wenk,  in keeping with 21st century sensibilities — all concerned should be ashamed of themselves, for failing to better acknowledge the core story concept by Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni. Pizzolatto and Wenk didn’t concoct this concept out of thin air, and it’s annoying to see them claim sole screen credit during the opening titles, as if the entire inspiration were theirs, and theirs alone.

Humph.

(But I digress...)

The story begins in the tiny post-Civil War community of Rose Creek — a truly stunning set built by production designer Derek Hill and his crew — where the townsfolk have been invaded by ruthless carpetbagger Bartholomew Brogue (Peter Sarsgaard), who has established a destructive gold-mining operation only a few hundred yards from the local church.

Brogue and his hired thugs have made life unbearable, but that isn’t sufficient; he has decided to destroy the community in order to expand his mining efforts ... and he couldn’t care less that this means driving hard-working farmers off their properties. In a prologue that sets new standards for heinous behavior, Brogue and his men hijack a town meeting and make their point brutally clear.

Do we loathe Brogue, in the space of a few swift minutes? Oh my, yes; rarely will you find a villain played with such callous élan. Sarsgaard is coldly, chillingly vile: a truly memorable performance.