Mr. Harrigan's Phone: A flawed connection

Mr. Harrigan's Phone (2022) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity, occasional profanity and fleeting drug content

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.14.22

We’ve moved into what Ray Bradbury dubbed “The October Country”: the time of year when the boundary thins, and all manner of phantoms, wraiths, apparitions and presences meddle in the affairs of mere mortals.

 

Although Mr. Harrigan (Donald Sutherland, right) initially wants no part of an iPhone,
he quickly becomes seduced when Craig (Jaeden Martell) demonstrates some of the
gadget's many features.

Hollywood always responds appropriately.

Mr. Harrigan’s Phone hails from the gentler side of Stephen King, and director/scripter John Lee Hancock’s faithful adaptation is ideal for folks who prefer their cinema chills to be slow-burn unsettling, rather than in-our-face gory. Think The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption and The Body (which became Stand By Me on the big screen).

 

This is more of a mood piece. Indeed, the lengthy first act is a touching and completely “normal” character drama, of the sort that King always establishes so vividly in his fiction.

 

The year is 2003, in a fly-speck town in semi-rural Maine, where Craig (Jaeden Martell) lives with his father (Joe Tippett); both still grieve over the untimely loss of Craig’s mother. When Craig gives a reading during the weekly Sunday church service, it impresses reclusive local gazillionaire Mr. Harrigan (Donald Sutherland), who — with failing eyesight — hires the boy to read novels aloud to him.

 

The selections are broad: Dickens’ Dombey and Son, D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, among others. Given that Craig is somewhat withdrawn himself, he isn’t bothered by Harrigan’s gruff, authoritarian demeanor.

 

Following a long career during which he made his money by ruthlessly buying and shredding other companies, Harrigan has reached his twilight years with no friends or family; his only companions are a tight-lipped housekeeper (Peggy J. Scott, appropriately prim) and somewhat surly gardener (Thomas Francis Murphy).

 

Craig always finds Harrigan in his favorite chair, in a book-laden study adjacent to a glass-walled conservatory filled with orchids.

 

Sutherland and Martell are marvelous in these early sequences. Sutherland sits in an imperiously regal pose: commanding quietly but firmly; gazing watchfully, as if Harrigan expects the boy to cower and bolt at any moment. But Craig doesn’t wilt under his host’s hawk-like gaze; if anything, the dynamic makes the boy more curious.

Cruella: Ninety-eight Dalmatians short

Cruella (2021) • View trailer

3.5 stars. Rated PG, for dramatic intensity and mild violence

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.11.21

This is not your grandparents’ Cruella De Vil.

 

Actually, I’m not sure whose Cruella it is.

 

Horace (Paul Walter Hauser, left) and Jasper (Joel Fry) recognize that their equally
larcenous partner, Estella (Emma Store), also has the talent to become a famous
fashion designer ... but the chances of that actually happening seem quite remote.

Director Craig Gillespie’s fresh take on the character — available in movie theaters and via Disney+ — isn’t merely an origin story; it’s an historical re-write. The script — which apparently required five (!) credited writers — has absolutely nothing to do with 1961’s animated film or Dodie Smith’s 1956 novel, aside from borrowing the names of a few characters.

Which therefore begs the usual question: Why employ a well-known pop-culture character at all, if there’s no willingness to honor its roots? Why not simply create a fresh character, and start a new franchise?

 

On top of which, why update a beloved and still-popular children’s story, when the resulting new film is aimed more toward adults, and is likely to bore younger viewers?

 

Hollywood never ceases to bewilder.

 

All this said, Cruella is entertaining — to a point — thanks in great part to Emma Stone’s flamboyant, scenery-chewing performance as the title character. She’s ably supported by the hilariously kitschy efforts of production designer Fiona Crombie and costume designer Jenny Beavan (along with “eyewear designer” Tom Davies, who, quite deservedly, gets his own separate credit).

 

Gillespie and editor Tatiana S. Riegel romp through all these sets and locations with the giddiness of children on a particularly lavish theme park ride: all manner of extended takes, smash close-ups, cockeyed camera angles — cinematographer Nicolas Karakatsanis also deserves a bow — and other visual tics and hiccups.

 

No question: Cruella is fun to watch.

 

For about an hour. Giddiness, for its own sake, isn’t sustainable.

 

At 134 minutes, Gillespie’s self-indulgent film is at least half an hour too long. The momentum begins to wane as we hit the midpoint, and thereafter it’s definitely a case of diminishing returns. The second half never induces outright boredom, but the thin plot does get tedious.

 

Cruella narrates her own saga — Stone’s off-camera voiceover — which begins with a rebellious, erratic childhood that matches her alarmingly unusual hair color. Dad is long gone; her mother Catherine (Emily Beecham) is at wit’s end, trying to deal with her unruly daughter (named Estella at this point, and played by Tipper Seifert-Cleveland).

 

After the school demerits hit critical level — a very droll montage — Estella finally perceives how her behavior is traumatizing her mother.

 

Eager to embrace a promised new beginning, mother and daughter hit the road … but first Catherine stops at an impossibly posh and massive estate, to meet with somebody inside. Disobeying the order to remain in the car, Estella sneaks around the lavish garden and is just in time to witness a disastrous encounter between her mother and three savage Dalmatians.

 

(Done tastefully, despite the horrific result, which is necessary to advance the plot.)

 

A Dog's Purpose: Sit and stay for this one!

A Dog's Purpose (2017) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG, for dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.27.17

If this film doesn’t tug at the ol’ heartstrings, you’ve no business calling yourself human.

W. Bruce Cameron’s 2010 novel spent just shy of a year on the New York Times bestseller list, and — if released back in the day, when movies hung around for more than two or three weeks — this big-screen adaptation likely would have done the same. Even so, it’s a welcome bright spot in the January doldrums dominated (as usual) by stinkers held over from the previous year.

Ethan (Bruce Gheisar) and his new dog Bailey quickly become inseparable, the latter
finding this boy — his boy — the perfect "guide" for how best to maneuver through a
world of people, and their confusing, often peculiar behavior.

That said, the book’s fans may be a bit surprised. Although Cameron worked on the screenplay — assisted by Cathryn Michon, Audrey Wells and Maya Forbes — significant liberties have been taken with his original narrative. But that’s part of the book’s magic: The premise easily lends itself to manipulation, and as long as the crucial plot elements are retained — which they have been — the result is no less beguiling.

On top of which, Swedish director Lasse Hallström is precisely the right talent for this adaptation. Looking back over his glorious career, I see that he has helmed many films that continue to rank among my favorites: My Life As a Dog, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, The Cider House Rules and Chocolat, up to the under-appreciated Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. Hallström has a thoughtful, sensitive touch that ensures the successful delivery of poignant material, without slopping over into overly sentimental treacle.

Make no mistake: His new film is boldly, unapologetically manipulative. But Hallström’s handling is so gentle, and the premise so irresistible, that we forgive such calculation.

On top of which, A Dog’s Purpose also benefits from sensational narrative work by Josh Gad, who voices the canine protagonist throughout its many lives. An entire generation will forever remember Gad as the voice of Olaf the snowman, from Frozen, but — as this film demonstrates anew — his expressive talents are so much greater than that one role.

The wrong voice, the slightest false line reading, could have ruined everything, but Gad never misses an emotional note. He imbues this canine character with just the right blend of playfulness, confusion (over “weird” human behavior), instinctive devotion, and the sense of wonder that belongs solely to trusting, innocent beings.

Cameron’s core premise — the story’s gimmick — is that a single canine soul endures through a series of dog bodies, remembering the experiences from each of its lives. All the while, it wonders why it has been graced with a place in our world, and — as the title suggests — what its purpose might be.

The first round is abruptly, shatteringly brief: Hallström signaling, right from the start, that this tail-wagging tale won’t be all sweetness and light. The next round initially seems similarly dire, until unexpected rescue: Thus, 8-year-old Ethan Montgomery (Bryce Gheisar) becomes the owner of a rambunctious Golden Retriever puppy. Ethan’s mother (Juliet Rylance) couldn’t be happier; his tightly wound father (Luke Kirby) ... not so much.