The Friend: The best one imaginable

The Friend (2024) • View trailer

Five stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.6.25

How do you explain death to a dog?

 

Writer/directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel have done a rare thing, in adapting Sigrid Nunez’s award-winning 2018 novel. They’ve retained the book’s heart, while making the story more accessible to a general audience.

 

Iris (Naomi Watts) reluctantly realizes that her massive canine companion likely won't
be able to handle a revolving door.

It’s immediately obvious that this film celebrates authors and the written word; the central character’s stream-of-consciousness narration is laden with epigrams, quotes from famous novels (and movies), philosophical musings and sardonic bon mots. All help paint an increasingly layered portrait of a soul in crisis.

Iris (Naomi Watts), a successful author, lives in a 500-square-foot, rent-controlled, upper-floor Manhattan apartment that she “inherited” when her father died. She teaches creative writing at a nearby college, silently enduring her students’ efforts to critique each others’ efforts; she seems not to pay attention, but misses nothing.

 

Her best friend and longtime mentor, Walter (Bill Murray), is an elder statesman in New York’s literary scene. We meet him during a lively dinner party, where he regales everybody with the saga of how — while jogging one morning — he glanced up a park hill and was transfixed by a “magnificent beast.”

 

Then, abruptly, he’s gone.

 

The subsequent funeral is well-attended by numerous friends, along with ex-wife No. 1 (Carla Gugino, as Elaine), ex-wife No. 2 (Constance Wu, as Tuesday) and his current widow (Noma Dumezweni, as Barbara). Elaine and Iris were college mates, back in the day, and Walter was their professor: an unapologetic, old-school womanizer.

 

His only child is a twentysomething daughter, Val (Sarah Pidgeon), fathered with yet another woman.

 

Despite the serial philandering, and a tendency toward condescension, Iris adored him. His absence worsens the writer’s block that has long delayed her next project: a collaborative effort with Val, to comb through Walter’s voluminous correspondence, in order to produce a book of essays. That project was suggested by Walter, as a means to take Iris’ mind off her long-unfinished next novel.

 

Iris goes through the motions, during the next few days, grief etched on her face. Then she’s summoned by Barbara, who has a “delicate matter” to deal with: getting rid of Walter’s dog, Apollo.

 

“You were his contingency plan,” she tells the genuinely surprised Iris, who knew nothing of this.

 

But the request is impossible. Iris has no pets, and if she did, it would be a cat. More crucially, her apartment building doesn’t allow dogs.

Penguin Bloom: Truly soars

Penguin Bloom (2020) • View trailer

3.5 stars. Rated TV-14, for dramatic intensity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.19.21  

Never underestimate the healing power — or sensitivity — of an attentive animal.

 

Even an unlikely one.

 

Sam (Naomi Watts) cannot reconcile her current condition with the robust, physically
active woman she used to be: a past lovingly documented by dozens of photos
taken by her husband.

During a 2013 family holiday in Thailand, Sam Bloom leaned against a second-story balcony railing; the rotten wood shattered, and she fell to the concrete patio below. Although lucky to survive, the damage to her spinal cord left her paralyzed from the chest down.

 

Perhaps worse, the accident also crushed her spirit. As time passed, the previously active career nurse, and happily married mother of three rambunctious young boys — raising this family on Sydney’s Northern beaches, where she ran, swam, biked and surfed every chance she got — spiraled ever downward into a miasma of despair.

 

And then … a miracle.

 

Australian director Glendyn Ivin’s Penguin Bloom, based on the popular 2016 memoir co-written by Sam’s husband Cameron and Bradley Trevor Greive, is a charming adaptation of the unlikely incident that turned Sam’s life around. Shaun Grant and Harry Cripps’ script is quite faithful to actual events … as should be expected, given that Sam and Cameron “Cam” Bloom are co-executive producers.

 

But — and this is important — their involvement has not buried this film beneath an insufferably noble or sugar-coated patina. Ivin unerringly maintains a careful balance, blending heartbreaking anguish — a family in serious danger of unraveling at the seams — with, unexpectedly, hope and gentle humor. The film gets its power from two cast members: Naomi Watts, as the beleaguered Sam; and newcomer Griffin Murray-Johnston, making an impressive acting debut as eldest son Noah.

 

The story is told from their point of view, either individually, or as part of the shared family dynamic; as a result, Watts and/or Murray-Johnston are in pretty much every scene.

 

They easily hold our attention.

 

As does the third crucial cast member. Who has wings.

 

Ivin begins his film with Sam at low ebb, and sinking lower; details of her accident emerge later, via Noah’s tormented voice-over. He can’t understand why his mother has withdrawn into herself; she can’t understand why everybody else doesn’t acknowledge that she has become worse than a burden, but an entirely useless human being.

 

The Glass Castle: A shattering family dynamic

The Glass Castle (2017) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, and generously, for dramatic intensity, family dysfunction, children in peril, and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang

And I thought Detroit was hard to watch.

(It is. So’s this one.)

As Friedrich Nietzsche observed, That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.

Rex (Woody Harrelson, center), ever the ludicrous idealist, attempts to put a positive
spin on the dilapicated shack that his family is about to call hom; everybody else — from
left, Lori (Sadie Sink), Brian (Charlie Shotwell), Jeannette (Ella Anderson), Rose Mary
(Naomi Watts) and Maureen (Eden Grace Redfield) — is justifiably appalled.

Jeannette Walls must be pretty damn strong.

Walls’ riveting — and frequently heartbreaking — 2005 account of a childhood spent with nomadic and unstable parents remained a fixture on the New York Times Best Seller list for an astonishing 261 weeks. The book is a deeply personal memoir told with grace, perceptive intelligence and unexpected wit; it leaves readers not only with great respect for Walls — and her three siblings — as survivors, but also emphasizes the spiritual importance of closure and forgiveness.

Most readers undoubtedly finished the final pages with awe, thinking, You’re a better, nobler soul than I, Ms. Walls.

Her book has been transformed into an equally compelling film by up-and-coming director Destin Daniel Cretton, who with co-scripter Andrew Lanham has distilled the crucial essence and vitality of Walls’ book, while miraculously finding the heart of a saga that feels unrelentingly tragic. Granted, he had help: not only from his three primary stars, but also from an impressively well-selected collection of young actors.

Everybody turns in a masterful, thoroughly persuasive performance. Which, of course, makes the film that much harder to watch.

Cretton begins his film in 1989. Jeannette (Brie Larson) is polished, poised and refined: every inch a late twentysomething Manhattan journalist, regaling friends and professional acquaintances with often hilarious tales of her encounters while penning the “Intelligencer” column for New York magazine. She’s engaged to marry David (Max Greenfield), an ambitious financial advisor on the fast track to Big Apple aristocracy.

But we sense something. Jeannette is too elegant: less a human being and more a porcelain doll. Larson’s features are frozen, and she moves with a stiffness that suggests fragility, and the possibility that she might shatter at any moment.

A chance encounter during a late-night taxi ride home calls up memories, at which point Cretton establishes the format for his narrative: Jeannette’s saga will bounce back and forth, from present to past, until the two intersect.

The Book of Henry: A fascinating read

The Book of Henry (2017) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.16.17

Films don’t surprise me much any more.

This one did.

The Book of Henry is a captivating convergence of premise, cast and execution: a beguiling “little” drama filled with big ideas, carefully shepherded by a director and writer who maintain unerring control throughout.

While Mom's away, the boys will play: Armed with a vacuum cleaner, toilet plungers,
goggles and gallons of packing "peanuts," Henry (Jaeden Lieberher, left) does his best
to put a smile on the face of younger brother Peter (Jacob Tremblay).

Trust is in short supply these days, from all sorts of quarters. It seems like people and things too frequently disappoint us, and that’s equally true of films that betray our faith and intelligence. Not so The Book of Henry. Barely half an hour in, it became clear that scripter Gregg Hurwitz wasn’t going to miss a step with his enchanting narrative, and that director Colin Trevorrow’s guiding hand would monitor all the elements with the precision of the Rube Goldberg-esque contraptions concocted by the story’s title character.

In short, I gave my trust to Hurwitz and Trevorrow, and they didn’t let me down.

Eleven-year-old Henry (Jaeden Lieberher) shares a bedroom with his younger brother Peter (Jacob Tremblay) in a pastoral suburban town in upstate New York. Their mother Susan (Naomi Watts), a single parent, toils as a waitress at a tiny diner, alongside co-waitress and feisty family friend Sheila (Sarah Silverman).

Susan is forgetful, immature and only mildly educated: still stuck in post-adolescence, all these years later, and more big sister than parent. The preternaturally serious Henry, in stark contrast, has the family well in hand; he’s charismatic, shrewdly intuitive and super-smart. (He prefers the term “precocious.”)

On a typical weekday evening, Susan spends hours playing video games; Henry sits quietly at a table, paying all the bills and keeping an eye on the stock market.

He also keeps an eye on Christina (Maddie Ziegler), the girl next door who sits at an adjacent desk in his classroom. Normally a friendly, cheerful lass, of late she has grown quiet and withdrawn, frequently half-concealing her face beneath her hair. Her step-father Glenn (Dean Norris) — also a single parent, and the local police chief — seems ... well ... tightly wound.

All three kids are creative. Christina dances; Henry and Peter spend lots of time in their tree house, in the woods behind their home. This kids’ heaven has been assembled from all manner of found materials — no doubt engineered by Henry — and filled with toys, gadgets and discarded junk waiting to be transformed into something spectacular. Best touch: the tree house entrance is a re-purposed refrigerator door, complete with bottles held within its shelves.

Divergent: Allegiant — Sci-fi twaddle

Divergent: Allegiant (2016) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated PG-13, for violence, dramatic intensity and shadowed nudity
By Derrick Bang

With apologies for the unavoidable pun — given that Miles Teller is one of this film’s stars — you could get whiplash trying to keep up with the shifting character loyalties here.

This person is a good guy. Oh, dear; he’s really a bad guy. No, he’s only pretending to be a bad guy; he’s actually a good guy. Damn; he really is a bad guy.

Having escaped from what has become a mess back in Chicago, our heroes — from left,
Christina (Zoë Kravitz), Tris (Shailene Woodley), Four (Theo James), Caleb (Ansel Elgort),
Tori (Maggie Q) and Peter (Miles Teller) — confront the massive wall that separates their
city from the outer wasteland known as the Fringe.

That person is dedicated to the cause of peace and freedom. Hmmm, she seems to have hidden megalomaniacal tendencies. Uh, hang on; is that a glimmer of conscience? No, false alarm; she’s genuinely deranged. But ... then ... how can she lead a kumbaya hug in the final scene?

Our heroine is smart, brave and resourceful. Actually, she’s rather naïve and foolish. Well, hey, cut her some slack; she really is a dedicated and stalwart heroine. No, she’s genuinely stupid and unbelievably gullible, and doesn’t deserve to be leading her companions into constant peril, let alone suckering us viewers into tolerating yet another two hours of nonsense driven almost entirely by her personality flaws.

If all this sounds strained, random and utterly bewildering ... there’s a reason for that.

Like at least one other current big-screen franchise derived from young adult fantasy lit — and, God knows, we’ve been drowning in them lately — the Divergent series feels like everything is made up from one moment to the next. We can’t really blame novelist Veronica Roth, on whose books these films are based; as the film series has progressed, the scripts have, ah, diverged significantly from their respective sources.

Mostly, though, it remains a case of diminishing returns. Whether we’re discussing the Twilight series, or Divergent, or (definitely the worst) Maze Runner, or even The Hunger Games, each new film in its respective franchise has been notably weaker. In part, it’s because the various scripters and directors have deviated too much, abandoning elements that made these young heroines and heroes interesting in the first place, in favor of mindless running, fighting, jumping, fighting, arguing and more fighting.

But the bigger problem does lie with the original book authors, who failed to construct these alternate realms with adequate creativity, plot logic and continuity. Time and again, I’m reminded how vastly superior J.K. Rowling is, not only as a writer and world-builder, but as a novelist capable of fabricating fully dimensioned characters not only with her core protagonists, but with supporting players and casual bystanders.

From books one through seven — and films one through eight — Harry Potter’s adventures flow smoothly and logically, with impressive continuity elements that signify very, very careful planning. People don’t think or act stupidly in Rowling’s fantastical realm.

I sure wish the same could be said here.

While We're Young: Sly social commentary

While We're Young (2014) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity
By Derrick Bang

Getting older is difficult enough, in terms of physical and emotional challenges, without having to worry about the need to remain “relevant.”

In the aftermath of a truly silly consciousness-raising experience, Josh (Ben Stiller) and
Cornelia (Naomi Watts) attempt to make sense of the previous evening, to determine
whether any useful insight might have been achieved. Sadly, they've a ways to go before
any genuinely helpful epiphanies.

Perversely, though, that issue has become more challenging in our modern world, with cultural and technological imperatives changing not by the decade, not even by the year, but at times — seemingly — by the month. More than ever before, it feels like only agile young minds have a hope of keeping up.

But is “keeping up” really that important?

Intellectual obsolescence is the core issue of Noah Baumbach’s newest character study, but the writer/director actually has much more on his mind. Part comedy, part drama and all biting social commentary, While We’re Young is a perceptive take on 21st century fortysomethings who worry that life is passing them by ... or, worse yet, long ago left town on the last bus.

Mid-life crises are nothing new, of course; every generation crosses this more-or-less halfway point with varying degrees of the same angst. But Hollywood didn’t really discover the genre until 1955’s The Seven Year Itch, and most of the topic’s classics are more recent: 1973’s Save the Tiger, 1979’s Manhattan, 1999’s American Beauty and 2004’s Sideways come quickly to mind.

While We’re Young definitely belongs in their company. Baumbach has an unerring ear for troubled interpersonal dynamics, dating back to his Oscar-nominated script for 2005’s The Squid and the Whale. That said, some of his subsequent films — however insightful — spent too much time with unpalatable or downright mean-spirited characters; it’s difficult to embrace any message when delivered by, say, the misanthropic title character in Greenberg.

But Baumbach’s approach has been gentler of late, starting with the forlorn misfit played so winningly by Greta Gerwig, in 2012’s Frances Ha. Maybe it’s because Baumbach is gaining maturity not merely as a filmmaker, but also as a person; it can’t be accidental that he’s the same age as his protagonists in While We’re Young, definitely his kindest — and therefore more approachable — film to date.

We meet Josh (Ben Stiller) and Cornelia (Naomi Watts) as they nervously try to interact with a newborn: not theirs, as we quickly discover, but the first child of best friends Fletcher and Marina (Adam Horovitz and Maria Dizzia). As displayed so expressively by Watts — Cornelia tries, but doesn’t quite succeed, to hide her agitation — this moment is a crisis, and not merely because it revives painful memories of their own failed attempts to have children.

No, it’s a crossroads. Just as marriage leaves still-single friends feeling isolated, new parents with kids instantaneously join yet another social clique that simply doesn’t allow for childless members ... no matter how polite the lip-service.

Just like that, Josh and Cornelia feel left out.

Insurgent: Incomprehensible

Insurgent (2015) • View trailer 
2.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for intense action and violence, mild sensuality and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang

They’re all blending together.

Dystopian, post-apocalyptic societies cobbled together after some undefined catastrophe, and ruled by corrupt aristocratic elites; resourceful teenage rebels, blessed with special talents, determined to destroy the system, and forced to undergo cruel, violent and flat-out weird mental and/or physical trials; lots of running, jumping, shooting, and killing; the frequently shed tears.

Having been captured by Candor supervisor Jack Kang (Daniel Dae Kim, left), Tris
(Shailene Woodley) and Four (Theo James, center) propose a "trial by truth" to verify that
they're not civilization-destroying traitors, as has been claimed by the (genuinely) evil
Erudite leader.

I no longer know whether I’m watching the next installment of The Hunger Games, the Divergent series, or The Maze Runner.

And, frankly, I’m losing interest. Been there, endured that.

Sadly, the just-released Insurgent bears the brunt of my apathy, thanks primarily to the clumsy, tin-eared script credited to Brian Duffield, Akiva Goldsman and Mark Bomback. They’re a poor substitute for Evan Daugherty and Vanessa Taylor, who did a far superior adaptation of last year’s Divergent, the first film in Veronica Roth’s trilogy.

This new film resembles Roth’s second novel in little more than name; great, gaping chunks of exposition and numerous supporting characters have been lost or ignored, and significant plot points have been changed beyond recognition. Not that the narrative has much of a plot to begin with; this film is little more than running and fighting, whether in environments real or imagined.

Indeed, the latter crop up so frequently that it becomes difficult to distinguish whether Tris (Shailene Woodley) is in genuine danger, or being victimized by one of the evil “SIM” (simulation) environments, or whether we’re once again being suckered by another of her own nightmares.

The latter are particularly irritating cheats, and director Robert Schwentke opens with just such a sucker play: a rather blatant indication of the highly disappointing film to follow.

All of which is a shame, because Woodley gave us a particularly plucky, intelligent and engaging Tris in the first film: a heroine worthy of our respect and admiration, as she rallied when confronted by the truth of the world in which she lived. She’s much less admirable in this second outing, reduced to an insecure, reckless and weepy shadow of her former self.

I understand that this is driven, to a great degree, by the subtext in Roth’s second novel: Tris has become plagued by self-doubt, worried that she’s a “curse” to anybody foolish enough to befriend or love her. The crux of her evolution, in this saga’s second chapter, is the necessity of overcoming such anxiety: rejecting this doom-laden view of herself.

Unfortunately, Schwentke overplays the “despair” card; Woodley’s Tris cries too often, and our impatience soon overwhelms all else ... much the way we groaned over how Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss became so uncharacteristically impotent, in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1. That just felt contrived and wrong, and the same is true here.

Birdman: A dark comedy that soars

Birdman (2014) • View trailer 
4.5 stars. Rated R, for relentless profanity, sexual candor and brief violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.31.14

This isn’t merely a movie; it’s a bravura display of cinematic pizzazz as mesmerizing as its three starring performances.

This one demands repeat viewing. First time out, you’ll be overwhelmed by the stylistic approach — dazzlingly so, to the point of wanting to applaud — and then you’ll need a second round to better appreciate everything else going on.

When Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton, left) learns that co-star Mike Shiner (Edward
Norton) has hijacked some of his best personal material for a lavish newspaper interview,
raw fury propels the two men into the sort of laughably flimsy fist-fight that one would
expect from two guys who haven't the faintest idea how to throw a punch.

We’ve never seen anything quite like this.

Granted, director/co-scripter Alejandro González Iñárritu borrows respectfully from predecessors going all the way back to Robert Wiene (1920’s silent The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), with strong nods toward Alfred Hitchcock (1948’s Rope), Roman Polanski (1965’s Repulsion) and Paddy Chayefsky (1976’s Network).

Much more recently, Joe Wright attempted similar cinematographic trickery with 2012’s Anna Karenina, but with far less success; the stage-bound stylization called too much attention to itself, at the expense of the story.

But that, too, is the genius of Iñárritu’s Birdman: The audacious approach is part of the story, indeed the throbbing heartbeat of an exhilarating descent into artistic madness, whose pulse is amplified by a score devoted solely to Grammy Award-winner Antonio Sanchez’s percussive drumming.

That latter affectation is jarring at first, particularly as Sanchez’s efforts become pervasive, his shifting tempos altering the story’s rhythm and pace in a manner normally handled by cutting wizardry. But editors Douglas Crise and Stephen Mirrione seemingly have very little to do in this film, because cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s brilliantly composed scenes are — like our central character’s relentless fever dream — one long tracking shot.

Yep. For 119 minutes. Over the course of this narrative’s roughly three days and nights.

Not entirely true, of course, which is why that word — seemingly — is so crucial. Despite having the appearance of a single extended take, Iñárritu, Lubezki, Crise and Mirrione collaborate quite cleverly to convey this illusion ... just as everything that happens on a Broadway stage is pure artifice.

Except when it isn’t, which is the whole point here. Even before we dive into his rapidly unraveling psyche, Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) has lost the ability to separate his actual life from what takes place on stage; his performer’s artifice may be the only thing helping him cling to whatever remains of his sanity. Indeed, how many actors, stretching back centuries, have insisted that they only come alive each night, when they hit their marks ... their vivid, full-color nighttime dreams far more real to them than the washed-out black-and-white of their actual lives?

St. Vincent: Quite a character

St. Vincent (2014) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for sexual candor, mature thematic content and occasional profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.24.14

Bill Murray gets more emotional complexity out of a dangling cigarette, than most actors could generate via three pages of dialogue.

Intending to teach an all-important work ethic to young Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher), Vincent
(Bill Murray) orders the boy to mow the yard ... despite the fact that actual blades of grass
are long gone, leaving nothing but dirt and dust behind.

He fires on all cylinders in this cheerfully caustic dramedy from writer/director Theodore Melfi, as polished a feature debut as one could hope for. (While he also co-wrote and directed Winding Roads back in 1999, that never made it past the film festival circuit ... so it doesn’t really count.)

Murray’s sterling presence aside, this film also boasts the best curmudgeon/trusting little boy dynamic since Billy Bob Thornton terrorized young Brett Kelly, in Bad Santa. But this film’s Jaeden Lieberher is a much stronger actor ... in his first film role, no less.

Cranky old coots are a cinematic staple going all the way back to W.C. Fields, who quite notoriously admitted to liking children “if they’re properly cooked.” More recent examples include Jack Nicholson, in As Good As You Get, and Clint Eastwood, in Gran Torino.

The hallmark of a truly sublime performance, however, comes with an actor’s ability to embrace and re-invent a timeworn cliché: to utterly own what once was a stereotype, and make it his own. Murray’s work here is just that sort of revelation.

His Vincent is a crusty, ill-kempt slob who occupies an equally dilapidated house in one of Brooklyn’s fading Sheepshead Bay side streets. An average afternoon involves several losses at the local racetrack, where quietly dangerous loan shark Zucko (Terrence Howard) warns about past-due debts, after which Vincent kills the rest of the day on a well-worn stool at a bar where everybody knows his name. And that he drinks too much.

Meals are an afterthought. The one treasure in Vincent’s life is his fluffy white cat, Felix, who definitely dines better than his master. Even after-hours sessions with his favorite stripper, a Russian “exotic dancer” named Daka (Naomi Watts), are more formality than pleasure; Vincent can’t even be bothered to stop smoking, or remove his clothes, while, ah, doing the nasty.

We’re somehow unsurprised to see that Daka is quite pregnant, not that this has slowed her strip club routines. Much. Yet. Watts has a great time with this feisty role, mangling the English language with straight-faced aplomb. Daka also is the only person who routinely stands up to Vincent, giving as good as she gets.

The Impossible: A compelling battle for survival

The Impossible (2012) • View trailer
4.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for dramatic intensity, horrific mass injury and fleeting nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.25.13

Félix Bergés and Pau Costa have been deservedly lauded for their special effects; the replicated tsunami — which killed more than 230,000 people in 14 countries, on Dec. 26, 2004 — is completely terrifying, as depicted here on the screen.

Battered by a wall of water, and injured in ways they haven't yet realized, Maria (Naomi
Watts) and her eldest son, Lucas (Tom Holland), struggle just to keep their heads
above the surface. As for the rest of their family ... they've absolutely no idea.

But these images, although breathtaking and grim, aren’t the strongest element of director Juan Antonio Bayona’s film. That honor belongs to Oriol Tarragó and Marc Bech, who designed and edited the chilling sound effects. Indeed, that’s how The Impossible opens: on a black and silent screen, with a rising, gurgly sort of rumble that intensifies until we scarcely can stand it, wondering precisely what the sound signifies.

We imagine the worst, our minds racing in ghastly directions, this directorial choice far more powerfully placing us “in the moment” than what might be shown.

Then we nearly jump out of our seats as a passenger jet screams into the suddenly illuminated frame, taking our protagonists to what they expect will be an idyllic Christmas holiday in Thailand.

This won’t be the last time Bayona unsettles us with his imaginative application of sound and sound effects. He plays us masterfully, utilizing every element at hand: visual, aural and psychological. The result is impressive, if arduous: often quite difficult to watch.

And it sure makes the star-laden, so-called “disaster flicks” of the 1970s look damn silly and superficial, by comparison.

Sergio G. Sánchez’s screenplay is based on the events as experienced by María Belón, Quique Alvarez and their three sons: Lucas, Tomas and Simon. They’re played here, respectively, by Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor (renamed Henry), Tom Holland, Samuel Joslin and Oaklee Pendergast. The actual family is Spanish; the script’s one major deviation from fact is to re-cast them as British.

This isn’t merely a concession to box-office popularity, Watts and McGregor undoubtedly being perceived as a draw. This cinematic family’s pale skin and clearly privileged manner — Henry’s high-level job in Japan allowing the luxury of their global travel — more visibly shorthands the cultural divide, once tragedy strikes.

And that’s important, because — as recently confirmed by Simon Jenkins, who was 16 when the tsunami hit, and was compelled by this film’s release to write a letter to The Guardian, over in England — this casting decision stirringly amplifies the generous, selfless behavior of the Thai survivors who, in the immediate wake of the catastrophe, did everything they could to offer assistance.

Jenkins’ letter speaks glowingly of the “profound sense of community and unity” that he experienced: “The Thai people had just lost everything — homes, businesses, families — yet their instinct was to help the tourists.”

J. Edgar: Too contrived an agenda

J. Edgar (2011) • View trailer for J. Edgar
2.5 stars. Rating: R, and rather stupidly, for brief profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.11.11


A fascinating film could be made about the life of notorious FBI autocrat J. Edgar Hoover.

J. Edgar, sadly, is not that film.

As Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer, background left) and J. Edgar Hoover
(Leonardo DiCaprio, background center) look on, FBI "wood expert" Arthur
Koehler (Stephen Root) carefully examines bits of the ladder used when the
Lindbergh baby was kidnapper. Koehler insists that he can match the ladder to
the plant where the wood was milled, and therefore confine the kidnapper's
movements to a specific geographic area.

Scripter Dustin Lance Black’s approach to this seminal 20th century figure is boring. Yawningly, crushingly boring.

I expected much better from Black, who won an Academy Award for his screenplay to 2008’s Milk. Unfortunately, in this case he focuses far too much on the clandestine affair between Hoover and longtime associate/companion Clyde Tolson.

Yes, we can lament the fact that Hoover and Tolson lived during unenlightened times, when “the love that dare not speak its name” was something to be concealed, particularly by men in power. And Black certainly intends that we consider the irony that one of the country’s most powerful men, a trader in dirty secrets himself, kept a whopper of his own.

But that would presuppose that Hoover is a man worthy of our sympathy, which isn’t the case. His intelligence, determination and maniacal patriotism notwithstanding, Hoover was — and is, as portrayed here by Leonardo DiCaprio — a venal, arrogant control freak, blackmailer and political kingpin every bit as corrupt as the headline-making gangsters his nascent Federal Bureau of Investigation helped bring down in the 1930s.

Hoover does not deserve our compassion, nor does he deserve the strawberry-lensed portrait that director Clint Eastwood grants him. And this Hoover certainly doesn’t merit the gentle keyboard theme that dominates the soundtrack: a lyrical eulogy that sounds much like the poignant piano ballads Eastwood composed for The Bridges of Madison County or Million Dollar Baby, but is completely out of place here.

The leaden pacing aside, this film’s other major problem is tone and focus: Both are completely wrong. Black suggests that the complicated relationship with Tolson was the single most important element of Hoover’s character, closely followed by his equally troubled relationship with a domineering mother (Judi Dench, at her waspish best) who’d rather have a “dead son than a daffodil.”

This is one view, and certainly a contributing factor to the elements that stoked Hoover’s growing paranoia, desperation and thirst for control. But Hoover obviously was far more than that, and Black utterly fails in his depiction of the man’s professional career: his genius for organization, his sharp political savvy, his quite accurate insistence that agents of law enforcement need investigative resources superior to the criminals they hope to apprehend.

What emerges is no more than a truncated, Readers Digest Condensed Books version of a very complex life: little more than surface gloss given minimal depth by DiCaprio’s performance.

Fair Game: Cheaters prosper

Fair Game (2010) • View trailer for Fair Game
Four stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for brief profanity and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang


I can’t imagine how he did it.

You’re wakened in the middle of the night by soft rustling and an empty spot in the bed; you hasten downstairs just in time to catch your wife quietly leaving, suitcase packed. She smiles apologetically, sorry to have bothered you, explains that all the necessary details for the next few days are on a note on the refrigerator.

After her life has been ruined by a heinous news leak, Valerine Plame (Naomi
Watts) and her husband, Joe Wilson (Sean Penn), argue over how best to
"fight back" ... and, indeed, whether it's even possible to successfully wage
a war of words against the White House.

You stare at each other. You finally break the silence, voicing the thoughts that must run through your mind every time this scenario takes place: Where are you going? How long will you be gone? How would I even know if something went wrong?

Her gaze softens; she pauses, then gives the answer that is part rote, part edict, part private joke: “I’m going to Cleveland.”

Except she isn’t, and you both know it.

Valerie Plame and her husband, Joe Wilson, must have repeated this ritual scores of times. She never went to Cleveland; as a member of the CIA’s covert ops team, she’d frequently wind up halfway around the world. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, as leader of the agency’s Joint Task Force on Iraq, she was responsible for infiltrating Saddam Hussein’s weapons program.

Back at home, though, Plame was simply a wife and mother, raising two young twins with Wilson: a former ambassador to Niger, acknowledged hero after facing off Hussein in the immediate wake of Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Their friends knew her as a venture capitalist; she tended to remain quiet during the politically charged conversations that took place when they invited folks over for dinner.

Director Doug Liman and screenwriters Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth begin Fair Game quietly, almost casually, sketching the workaday dynamic between Plame (Naomi Watts) and Wilson (Sean Penn). They’re polar opposites in temperament: She’s calm and methodical; he’s brash and impulsive. She knows how and when to remain silent; he can’t help calling somebody an idiot if the conversation moves into “stupid territory.”

The International: Bad credit risk

The International (2009) • View trailer for The International
Three stars (out of five). Rating: R, for violence and profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.13.09
Buy DVD: The International • Buy Blu-Ray: The International [Blu-ray]


Given that big-bank CEOs have fallen somewhere south of Nazis and Islamic fanatics, on the scale of villains we love to hate, The International should have had everything going for it as a slick, fast-paced popcorn thriller.

Having almost caught the shadowy assassin responsible for countless clever
murders, Interpol agent Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) is horrified to see the
fellow roar away in a car, after first having struck one of the good guys.

Indeed, it begins well enough. The global conspiracy is appropriately sinister; the strings are pulled, Illuminati-style, by clandestine, high-powered individuals with the clout or financial control to compromise any legal pursuit; our heroes are fueled by the grimly determined knowledge that they're pursuing a just and noble cause.

Then everything goes to hell in the third act.

I've long been disenchanted by a certain type of thriller that inevitably concludes when a lone-wolf hero triumphantly annihilates his top-dog opponent, having previously mowed down all underlings. But however briefly satisfying such a denouement might be, it comes with a nasty hitch: If all the bad guys have been killed, nobody is left to corroborate our protagonist's version of events.

Depending on the type of story — if, as often is the case, our hero has operated "outside the law" — you couldn't script a worse finale, since only unpleasant options remain for what happens to this character 10 minutes after the film's narrative wraps up.

Well, yes, actually; you could script a worse finale, and Eric Warren Singer did so here. Having reached the final few scenes in The International, one is left with the inescapable realization that nothing has been accomplished. The heroes have wasted their time, and we've wasted our time watching them do it.

Director Tom Tykwer — still well remembered for the verve of his 1998 break-out cult hit, Run, Lola, Run — seems far more involved with a superbly choreographed shoot-'em-up at New York's Guggenheim Museum, than he is with irritating details such as bringing his film to a reasonable conclusion.

Granted, it's a helluva setpiece — with staging, style and tension to burn, not to mention a clever nod toward that old "enemy of my enemy is my friend" mantra — but it's a weak sequence on which to hang an entire movie.

Honestly, Clive Owen was a lot more fun in 2007's utterly ludicrous Shoot 'Em Up. At least that film had the good sense not to take itself seriously.