Irrational Man: The perfect crime?

Irrational Man (2015) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity, sexual candor and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang

Lively philosophical discussions can be vicarious fun, but — as this film’s title character frequently reminds us — the theories of Sartre, Nietzsche and Kant don’t hold sway in the real world of blood, sweat and tears.

And when somebody does take such concepts to heart ... well, that can be a dangerous thing indeed.

Despite gentle admonitions from Abe (Joaquin Phoenix), who is trying to be the
responsible adult, Jill (Emma Stone) allows herself to fall in love with him. And, truth be
told, Abe probably doesn't mind that much...

Woody Allen’s newest dramedy is another of his occasional musings on crime and punishment — with that deliberate nod to Dostoyevsky — to be placed on a shelf alongside 1989’s Crimes and Misdemeanors and 2005’s Match Point. In each case, we’re confronted with a character who tries to argue himself into a “just” crime ... whereupon, as viewers, we’re forced to confront how subsequent events challenge our own comfort zone.

It’s an unsettling notion, because we prefer our murderers to be easily identifiable lunatics along the lines of Charles Manson or Robert Pickton. No surprise, then, that Agatha Christie based her entire mystery career on the opposite notion: that casual killers likely live among us, cheerfully interacting with friends and neighbors on a regular basis.

But the bad guys and gals always get caught, in a Christie novel. Not necessarily so in real life, or in a Woody Allen film, where chance and circumstance might allow somebody to get away with murder. A sobering thought, and even more so Allen’s directorial approach makes things so light and droll.

Philosophy professor Abe Lucas (Joaquin Phoenix), emotionally damaged and forever awash in single-malt scotch, has accepted a summer session post at Braylin, a small East Coast college. He drags along a cloud of dark despair like a puppy on a leash, barely able to muster the will to show up for each day’s classes.

He’s a shattered idealist: a former political activist and impassioned deep thinker, who traveled the world and tried to help victims in disaster zones ... only to conclude that, for all his efforts, nothing changed. People continue to suffer and die; evil governments and corporations continue to aid and abet such misery. So what’s the point?

There’s also something mildly troubling, even dangerous, about Abe. This isn’t a jovial, rumpled university rascal along the lines of Michael Douglas’ Grady Tripp, in the 2000 adaptation of Michael Chabon’s Wonder Boys. Abe radiates anxiety like musk; we’re hardly surprised when, at a party, he impulsively seizes a pistol and horrifies everybody by spinning the chamber and playing Russian roulette with himself.

If I Stay: Existential angst

If I Stay (2014) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and sexual candor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.22.14

We certainly can’t imagine what it would be like, for a soul stalled between life and death — the likely wealth of conflicting emotions at play — but Chloë Grace Moretz makes a persuasive case.

In the aftermath of a horrific accident, Mia (Chloë Grace Moretz) gradually realizes that her
soul remains in limbo, able to watch but not affect the efforts being made to save her
comatose body, which hovers near death in a hospital bed.

As the young star of director R.J. Cutler’s adaptation of Gayle Forman’s enormously popular young adult novel, Moretz is a memorably tragic heroine: engagingly shy and vulnerable, winsomely sweet, undecided in the ways we all remember from our high school years, and then forced to confront a horrific tragedy that, inexplicably, places her in a position to make an almost impossible decision.

The question is the degree to which we get involved with her unusual plight.

Forman’s book is yet another entry in the currently popular sub-genre of “doomed youth” sagas, many recently adapted to the big screen, several of them this year. The current leader of the pack obviously is John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, but we also can point to Tim Tharp’s The Spectacular Now, John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and several books by Nicholas Sparks, among others.

Although this trend seems somewhat masochistic, I suppose enjoying a good cry is a lot healthier than wallowing in a gory slasher flick.

The book has been carefully and sensitively handled by scripter Shauna Cross, who came to our attention after adapting her own novel Derby Girl into 2009’s under-appreciated roller-derby drama, Whip It, which gave Ellen Page a similarly endearing character arc. “If I Stay” has the added benefit of strong casting in all the supporting roles, and I’m sure Cutler had a hand in that, given his position as one of the executive producers of TV’s sharply assembled Nashville.

Moretz’s Mia Hall is a school misfit: a quiet outcast who assigned herself that role, due to a (probably justified) concern that her peers wouldn’t think much of a girl who prefers the cello, Yo-Yo Ma and Beethoven to electric guitar and the gyrations of the newest “it” band. Mia also is something of an anomaly at home: Her father, Denny (Joshua Leonard), was the drummer in a punk band before becoming a teacher; her mother, Kat (Mireille Enos), was the ultimate groupie-turned-wife, who carted Mia to gigs as a toddler and reveres tough rock chicks like Deborah Harry.

And Mia’s little brother, Teddy (Jakob Davies), idolizes Iggy Pop.

Not that anybody in Mia’s family makes her feel like an outsider. Denny and Kat are warm, supportive, tolerant and wise ... frankly, the best parents anybody could imagine. But they don’t look, feel or sound like impossibly ideal archetypes; armed with Cross’ note-perfect dialogue, and assisted by Cutler’s deft direction, Leonard and Enos simply emerge as caring adults who relate to their daughter’s angst because, well, they never quite abandoned their own anti-establishment younger selves.

This story comes armed with several moral imperatives, including this biggie: To thine own self be true. Denny and Kat know this.