French Exit: Comme ci comme ça

French Exit (2020) • View trailer

2.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity and sexual candor

By Derrick Bang 

Few films follow their source as closely as this one: not really a surprise, since scripter Patrick DeWitt has adapted his own 2018 novel.

 

Newly arrived in Paris, having fled Manhattan ahead of creditors, Frances (Michelle
Pfeiffer) and her son Malcolm (Lucas Hedges) wonder what they're going to make
of this new life.

Add a director — Azazel Jacobs — who clearly studied at the altar of Wes Anderson, and French Exit becomes a slice of absurdist eccentricity: a character study filled with people who (mostly) seem to exist slightly out of phase with the real world.

 

The degree to which they’re likable or sympathetic — as opposed to annoying and contemptuous — will depend on your ability to laugh at their foibles. In fairness, moments in this unhurried narrative are laugh-out-loud funny … but they’re few and far between.

 

To cases:

 

Despite years’ worth of warnings from her accountant, Manhattan socialite Frances Price (Michelle Pfeiffer) has exhausted the inheritance left when husband Franklin died 12 years earlier.

 

“My plan,” she insists rather vaguely, “was to die before the money ran out.”

 

Which means that she gave no consideration to leaving anything for her directionless adult son, Malcolm (Lucas Hedges), who has put his own life on hold, in order to be her faithful companion for the same 12 years. (Nice mother, eh?)

 

Given the way Pfeiffer swans condescendingly through every scene, we immediately realize that this is typical of Frances, who rarely (never?) considers anything — or anybody — beyond herself. She’s all appearance and no substance, given to grand gestures of generosity — such as inappropriately huge tips — solely because they call attention to herself.

 

Acting on her accountant’s advice, she quietly (and quite illegally) sells everything in her lavish home, converts the proceeds to Euros, and accepts a suggestion to move into a Parisian apartment owned by best friend Joan (Susan Coyne, as one of this saga’s “normal” characters).

 

Where Frances supposedly will “figure things out.”

 

Malcolm somehow has accumulated a fiancée along the way: Susan (Imogen Poots), a nice young woman who quite reasonably cannot understand why he’s abandoning her in order to follow his mother. Their parting does not go well; Malcolm pauses outside the restaurant, looking back inside at her, clearly having no clue how to do the right thing … or even what that might be.

 

The Father: Not for the faint of heart

The Father (2020) • View trailer

4.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and occasional profanity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.16.21  

This one is very hard to watch.

 

Not in the negative sense; director Florian Zeller’s film adaptation of his award-winning 2012 stage play — available via video on demand — is fueled by a powerhouse performance from Anthony Hopkins, cast as a mischievous 80-year-old whose grip on reality is unraveling. Hopkins’ performance is heartbreaking; the path his character walks is absolutely shattering.

 

Anthony (Anthony Hopkins) is all smiles and good manners when introduced to Laura
(Imogen Poots, left), who's being interviewed by Anne (Olivia Colman) to become his
caregiver. But the moment Anne's back is turned...

Consider this a companion piece to Julianne Moore’s Oscar-winning — and similarly distressing — performance in 2014’s Still Alice (although I wouldn’t recommend watching them back to back). The comparison isn’t entirely apt; Moore’s Alice spends the bulk of her film fully aware that she’s sliding into Alzheimer’s, whereas Hopkins’ Anthony has no knowledge of his condition.

 

Zeller’s non-linear and provocatively disorienting play was designed to give audiences a sense of what dementia looks, sounds and feels like; his film is similarly disconcerting. There’s no “beginning” to speak of; we’re simply dumped into Anthony’s world, for the most part confined to the flat that he shares with his divorced daughter, Anne (Olivia Colman).

 

She has fallen in love anew, and intends to join her new man in Paris. But she worries about her father, knowing that he shouldn’t be left alone. But Anthony is defiant, and refuses to put up with the caregivers Anne keeps bringing into the flat. His “trick” is to be charming and solicitous when meeting each new possibility — as with Laura (Imogen Poots), the one we witness — and then, later, to bully, frighten or antagonize them into quitting.

 

But I’ve already created an impression of linear progression, and that’s far from true. Zeller and cinematographer Ben Smithard favor establishing shots down the flat’s long hallway, and we never know whose voice — or presence — will manifest at the distant end. Anne’s clothing — and even age — shift. At one point, a man (Mark Gatiss) pops up in the living room, contentedly reading, looking like he belongs there.

 

Anthony misplaces things, most frequently his beloved watch. He forgets that he squirrels it away in a hidey-hole, to prevent it being stolen; Anne reminds him of this, and he erupts in a fury, incensed that she knows about that “secret” stash.

 

He frequently laments the absence of his other daughter — Lucy, his “favorite” — and wonders aloud why she never visits, oblivious to the pain such remarks cause Anne.

Green Room: Viciously suspenseful

Green Room (2016) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for brutal graphic violence, gory images, profanity and drug content
By Derrick Bang

This is a nasty little chiller ... in the best possible way.

That said, writer/director Jeremy Saulnier’s gory survival saga definitely isn’t for the faint of heart. The unsettling premise is reasonable enough to be quite scary on its own, and the vicious, suspenseful execution is the stuff of nightmares. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here...

As Amber (Imogen Poots, far left) looks on with grim satisfaction, Reece (Joe Cole) attempts
to persuade a trapped skinhead into explaining what the hell is going on; the rest of Reece's
friends — from left, Tiger (Callum Turner), Sam (Alia Shawkat) and Pat (Anton Yelchin) —
wait to see what will happen next.

Saulnier burst onto the scene with 2007’s high-camp gore-fest, Murder Party, which evoked pleasant memories of 1992’s Dead Alive, Peter Jackson’s early-career exercise in similar bad taste. (Well ... pleasant memories for those who go for such things, anyway.)

Saulnier got a lot more serious with his second outing, 2013’s Blue Ruin, which made respectable noise at Cannes and numerous other film festivals. Clearly, he was a filmmaker to watch, and Green Room — his newest exercise in nail-biting tension — is further proof. It belongs in the grand tradition of Straw Dogs, Assault on Precinct 13 and even Night of the Living Dead, all of which trap small groups of people in enclosed spaces, vastly outnumbered by evil forces determined not to let them escape alive.

Things begin quietly enough, as we meet the scruffy members of a hardscrabble punk band dubbed The Ain’t Rights: vocalist Tiger (Callum Turner), guitarist Sam (Alia Shawkat), bassist Pat (Anton Yelchin) and drummer Reece (Joe Cole). They’re nearing the end of a road trip/tour that has netted some artistic satisfaction but little in the way of cold, hard cash; they’re tired and discouraged.

This introduction is handled economically by Saulnier, who in a few quick scenes tells us everything we need to know about these twentysomethings. Pat is the philosopher; Sam keeps everybody in line; Tiger and Reece are the hardcore punkers. Minor larceny aside — clandestinely siphoning gas, when they lack the funds to fill up their van — they’re reasonably decent folks: just another enthusiastic quartet of musicians trying to get noticed.

After a potentially lucrative gig falls through, they accept a replacement booking, to play an afternoon set at an isolated, rundown club deep in the Oregon backwoods. Their arrival is greeted with quiet suspicion by the locals, many obviously of the skinhead/white supremacist persuasion, but the club manager — Macon Blair, as Gabe — seems friendly enough.

That Awkward Moment: That sinking feeling

That Awkward Moment (2014) • View trailer 
1.5 stars. Rating: R, for relentless profanity and sexual candor, and brief nudity
By Derrick Bang

If writer/director Tom Gormican’s loathsome little flick reflects Generation Y dating practices to even the slightest degree, I sure feel sorry for Millennial women.

Jason (Zac Efron) blows his first encounter with Ellie (Imogen Poots) by incorrectly
assuming that she's a hooker (merely one of this inept film's many ham-fisted plot
complications). Although she quite reasonably takes offense at this weird
accusation, she nonetheless agrees to a second date. Yeah, right...

The misleading publicity push notwithstanding, Gormican’s film isn’t the slightest bit funny; it’s merely vulgar and morally repugnant. And that Gormican thinks it should be funny is even worse.

That Awkward Moment is precisely the sort of cinematic bomb one expects to be dropped during the January doldrums.

Gormican has no previous credits, save as one of the countless co-producers on last year’s Movie 43, which sank without a trace. I can’t imagine how he secured financing for this misogynistic twaddle, nor do I wish to meet the studio producer(s) who somehow saw merit in his script.

On one level, this clumsy mess is merely another entry in the arrested-adolescent-males-behaving-badly sub-genre typified by high-profile comedies such as the Hangover series, last summer’s This Is the End and any Will Ferrell project. But Gormican’s film isn’t even good enough to be that bad; his dialogue is strictly from hunger, and he has a terrible sense of pacing and narrative flow.

One must be wary of any movie that opens as its main character questions his current “predicament” via a profanity-laced voiceover; it’s a sure sign of very bad things to come ... and Gormican quickly lives down to worst expectations.

That Awkward Moment is particularly abhorrent, however, because unlike the other comedies cited above — which have nothing beyond crude slapstick nonsense on their agendas — Gormican apparently wishes to extract a gentler romantic comedy, complete with hearts-and-flowers conclusion, from a storyline that can’t begin to support such an outcome.

Rewarding this narrative’s three losers for their reprehensible behavior isn’t merely artistically suspect; it’s insulting to every woman of any age who foolishly wanders into this flick.

Fright Night: Bloody good fun

Fright Night (2011) • View trailer for Fright Night
3.5 stars. Rating: R, for gore, violence, profanity and mild sensuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.19.11


1985's Fright Night was a macabre delight: a smart blend of nerd humor and unexpectedly gory shocks, which made it a minor classic in the horror comedy sub-genre.

This one's better.

Fending off an angry vampire (Colin Farrell) with a cross only works if the
wielder truly believes in God's power ... and in this secular age, and
particularly in sin-laden Las Vegas, devout religious faith in hard to come
by. That's likely to be a problem...

I can cite several reasons for this sequel's success, starting with director Craig Gillespie's crisp pacing and Marti Noxon's slick script, cleverly adapted and updated from Tom Holland's 26-year-old storyline. But the true star of this version is, well, the star: Colin Farrell, who makes one of the best, baddest and most bodaciously bloody vampires the genre has spawned.

And mind you, we're talking a long history of fangsters.

Farrell isn't merely spooky; he's primal and feral in a way that suggests he might have been around long enough to give nightmares to our distant, cave-dwelling ancestors. His malevolent, mocking smile is chilling, and his best bit of physical business — amid numerous — is a tendency, at startling moments, to pause, sniff the air and (we know, with sick fear) register the presence of a nearby victim.

He radiates an aura of menace and tightly coiled power, even under apparently mild circumstances. We'd not be the slightest bit surprised if he seized two ends of a motorcycle, effortlessly lifted it off the ground and then ripped it in half.

But while Farrell deserves considerable praise, I don't want to short-shrift the rest of the cast. Everybody here does a great job, whether looking nervously out windows, dispensing mordant one-liners or fleeing for their lives. And, throughout, Gillespie never loses track of the all-important blend of comedy, tension and splattered viscera.

Indeed, Gillespie is a sneaky sod, just like this story's creature of darkness. This film has a deceptively mild first act, lulling us into a sense of false security, until a tension-laden sequence that climaxes with a ghastly surprise that's guaranteed to propel most of you from your seats. (Buy your tickets quickly, before too many twits spoil the surprises.)