House of Gucci: Dressed to Kill

House of Gucci (2021) • View trailer

4.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity, sexual content, brief nudity and violence

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.26.21

These folks would have been right at home in the 15th century, living next door to the Borgias.

 

Ridley Scott’s cheeky depiction of the Machiavellian treachery, manipulation, avarice and grasping ambition that roiled the fabled Italian fashion empire for two decades, is a showcase of bravura acting chops by five high-wattage stars. The narrative approach is simultaneously giddy, sordid and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, the latter due to the often arch script by Becky Johnston and Roberto Bentivegna, adapting Sara Gay Forden’s 2000 non-fiction book.

 

Patrizia (Lady Gaga, second from right) listens intently as Aldo Gucci (Al Pacino, far
right) waxes enthusiastic about his plans for the fashion empire, while — from left —
Paolo Gucci (Jared Leto), his wife Jenny (Florence Andrews) and Maurizio Gucci
(Adam Driver) listen, with varying degrees of interest.

Ah, the obscenely rich. They truly are their own repugnant species.

At its core, this is the saga of two fathers, two sons, and the scheming woman who — with impressive success — maneuvers them against each other. The latter is played by Lady Gaga, with a mesmerizing blend of dramatic intensity and voluptuousness rarely seen on screen since Marilyn Monroe’s reign. We hang on her every word, deed and sinuous shimmy; cinematographer Dariusz Wolski ensures that she’s framed and lighted — and frequently shadowed, within sinister darkness — for maximum carnality.

 

The setting is the late 1970s. Patrizia Reggiani is introduced working for her adoptive father, Fernando (Vincent Riotta), who runs a successful Italian trucking empire. Scott opens his film as Patrizia saunters to the trailer office on an average morning, in a form-fitting va-va-voom dress, deliberately teasing the drivers hosing down their rigs. It’s an entrance, by Lady Gaga at her most vampish, that tells us everything necessary about this woman.

 

Her family’s success allows Patrizia to mingle with the jet set; during a discotheque party, she chances to meet Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver). He’s shy and bookish, clearly uncomfortable in this raucous, libidinous environment; Driver is oddly endearing in this stammering nerd mode.

 

Patrizia seems unlikely to give him a second glance; indeed, her initial approach is mildly taunting, which embarrasses Maurizio even further. But her attitude abruptly shifts upon hearing his last name; we can practically hear the click of opportunistic hunger behind her eyes.

 

She subsequently stalks him. He’s surprised and flattered, and succumbs all too quickly. Really, he’s no match for her.

 

Maurizio takes her to meet his father, Rodolfo (Jeremy Irons), who with his bother Aldo (Al Pacino) controls the Gucci empire. But although Rodolfo carefully safeguards his 50 percent, wholly expecting Maurizio — studying to become a lawyer — to one day take his place, he has little to do with business operations. He’s distant, withdrawn and distracted by ghosts from his past.

 

Even so, Rodolfo is a shrewd, steely eyed judge of character, and he sizes up Patrizia in a heartbeat. “She is not the girl for you,” he cautions, in a stern tone that matches the gravitas Irons summons for the moment. But Maurizio, hopelessly in love, ignores this counsel.

 

The aftermath is severe.

The Last Duel: Grimly absorbing medieval drama

The Last Duel (2021) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for strong violence, sexual assault, graphic nudity and profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.15.21

Does actual truth exist?

 

Or is “truth” inevitably shaded by the perception and biases of the person claiming to present it?

 

Honoring a degree of chivalry neither man feels at this point, Jacques Le Gris (Adam
Driver, left) and Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon) clasp hands prior to the duel that
will leave one of them dead.

Director Akira Kurosawa famously explored this notion with 1950’s Rashomon, in which numerous characters deliver subjective, alternative and contradictory versions of having witnessed the murder of a samurai. Actual “truth” proves to be elusive.

Scripters Nicole Holofcener, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon — adapting Eric Jager’s 2004 historical study of the same title — have taken a cue from Kurosawa, with their intriguing approach to director Ridley Scott’s lavish new film. The “last duel” refers to the last official judicial duel permitted by the French King (Charles VI, at the time) and the Parliament of Paris, which took place on Dec. 29, 1386.

 

(Let me pause, to acknowledge mild surprise; I’d have expected such duels to continue for many centuries beyond that date.)

 

The death match resulted from Norman knight Jean de Carrouges’s accusation that his wife, Marguerite, had been raped by squire Jacques Le Gris, who denied the charge. When existing legal options for redress were thwarted by Count Pierre d’Alençon — under whom both men served, but who favored Le Gris — Carrouges cleverly (rashly?) demanded a “trial by combat,” wherein the survivor’s version of events would be “sanctified by God’s judgment.”

 

Interesting times, the 14th century…

 

This era has been persuasively established by Scott, production designer Arthur Max, and cinematographer Dariusz Wolski. Everything looks and feels authentic: the harsh, unforgiving landscape; the massive, fortified castles and estates; costume designer Janty Yates’ myriad creations for nobles, commoners and serfs; and the boisterous, bedraggled, grime-encrusted cast of many, many hundreds (if not the iconic thousands).

 

Damon’s scruffy, hulking Jean de Carrouges is bold, rash and a formidable warrior. He’s also emotionally adrift, having lost his wife and only son to the plague. Uneducated and unable to properly manage his estate, he’s forever behind in the “rent” owed Pierre d’Alençon (Affleck, initially unrecognized beneath curly blond hair and beard), which annoys the count.

 

Carrouges and Le Gris (Adam Driver) began as neighbors and friends; the latter became godfather to Carrouges’ ill-fated son. They serve in bloody battle together, an example of which opens this film: a brutal, gory scrum of iron-clad men bashing each other to death. With horses, swords, daggers and battle axes. 

 

Several such melees take place as the story progresses, staged for maximum impact by editor Claire Simpson, fight choreographer Troy Milenov and stunt coordinator Rob Inch. They’re not for the faint of heart.

 

As to where the relationship between Carrouges and Le Gris goes from there…

Star Wars, Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker: Breathless adventure

Star Wars, Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for sci-fi action and violence, and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang

I’ve no doubt fans will be dazzled by this long-awaited concluding chapter in George Lucas’ original nine-part serial — how could they not be? — but this film will resonate even more strongly with those who were between the ages of 8 and 25 back when the original Star Wars debuted in May 1977.

With the remnants of the massive Death Star II towering against the pounding waves of
an oceanic moon, young Jedi Knight Rey (Daisy ridley, left) and the evil Kylo Ren
(Adam Driver) duel to the death with their light-sabers.

The sense of closure here will be far more emotionally powerful for that group. 

One generation of Harry Potter fans grew up with the books (1997-07) and subsequent films (2001-11), but followers of The Force have lived with these characters for 42 years. For those folks, the dramatic impact of this new film’s final 15 minutes defies easy discussion. Suffice it to say, we get laughter, tears, anxiety, relief, regret and — most crucially — satisfaction.

Along with the knowledge — bottom lines being what they are — that we certainly haven’t seen the last of this galaxy far, far away (as the new Disney streaming service’s The Mandalorian demonstrates).

Getting to this film’s finale, however, is almost too much to endure at times. Goodness, but our heroes suffer!

Director J.J. Abrams wisely plays to the faithful with this ninth “original series” installment, following the pell-mell serial format that Lucas established four decades ago. The best Star Wars entries always have relied on the “divide and conquer” approach, sending individual characters on crucial sidebar missions, while the core plotline inexorably advances toward an appalling outcome. This prompts cross-cutting between events, simultaneously building suspense in numerous directions.

We hit the ground running, as always, and the pace remains frantic. Everything is propelled by John Williams’ exciting orchestral score, blending long-familiar character themes with plenty of fresh cues.

Our current heroes — led primarily by apprentice Jedi Rey (Daisy Ridley), reformed mercenary Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), and former First Order Stormtrooper-turned-good guy Finn (John Boyega) — learn that, horror of horrors, the “defeated” Galactic Empire’s evil-evil-evil Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid, returning to the role) still lives. Whether clone or spirit resurrected by foul Sith magic, the result is the same: Palpatine intends to resume his plan to dominate the universe.

To that end, he has overseen the construction of a massive fleet of First Order warships equipped with planet-killing cannons. Any world unwilling to be dominated … will be obliterated.

BlacKkKlansman: provocatively brilliant

BlacKkKlansman (2018) • View trailer 
4.5 stars. Rated R, for dramatic intensity, highly disturbing and violent images, sexual candor, racial epithets and profanity
By Derrick Bang

This is another one for the jaw-dropping Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction file: an audacious adaptation of a real-world event that simply wouldn’t be believed, had it not actually happened.

Detective Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver, left) stares in astonishment at the KKK
membership card that his police colleague Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) has
just received in the mail, after he politely asked — during a phone conversation, in the guise
of a dedicated white racist — that KKK Grand Wizard David Duke expedite the request.

Granted, director Spike Lee and his co-scripting colleagues — Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz and Kevin Willmott — have taken liberties here and there: changing some names, fabricating a few supporting characters, adjusting the time frame a bit. But the key details are just as they’re depicted in Ron Stallworth’s 2014 memoir of the same title, and the succinct elevator pitch can’t help raising eyebrows: the astonishing saga of how a black Colorado Springs police officer became a card-carrying member of the Ku Klux Klan.

But that isn’t the only selling point of Lee’s big-screen adaptation. He has shrewdly shaped BlacKkKlansman to make what went down in the 1970s sound like a foreshadowing of what’s happening right now. Occasional lines of dialogue leap off the screen, as echoes of today’s headlines.

A casual conversation partway through this film, during which Stallworth (John David Washington) smugly discounts any possibility of KKK Grand Wizard David Duke (Topher Grace) gaining traction on his desire to occupy the White House — Duke being described in contemptuous (but wholly accurate) terms that are equally relevant to the current racist Pretender-in-Chief — can’t help raising goose bumps.

At other times, in a neck-snapping shift of tone, Lee’s film is riotously hilarious … although our laughter tends to be nervous, at best.

That’s quite a balancing act: fascinating history, provocative social commentary, unexpected humor, and a terrifying glimpse of humanity at its worst. BlacKkKlansman triumphs on all those levels: alternating dynamic verve and swagger, with victory and heartbreak. It’s by far the most urgently relevant, shrewdly insightful and entertaining film of Lee’s remarkable career: quite an accomplishment, given his already impressive résumé.

It’s the early 1970s: Fresh-faced, Afro-coifed Stallworth becomes the first black officer in the Colorado Springs Police Department. It’s an early stab at racial integration that Chief Bridge (Robert John Burke) warns will test his new hire’s patience and resolve at every turn. And not just from an unknown percentage of local residents, but also from fellow cops such as the loutish Andy Landers (Frederick Weller, doing a great job at being teeth-grindingly loathsome).

Washington deftly establishes Stallworth’s character during this initial interview: calm, patient, insightful and — more than anything else — dignified. But he doesn’t wear the latter arrogantly, like a shield; resolve and a desire for mutual respect just sorta radiate from him. Yet when alone or briefly out of view, repressed frustration erupts like lava: quite jarring, the first time, given the Zen-like tranquility he has displayed up to that moment.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi — Galaxy-spanning excitement

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for intense sci-fi action and violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.15.17

The newest installment in the Star Wars franchise certainly doesn’t lack ambition.

At 152 minutes, The Last Jedi is by far the longest chapter in George Lucas’ originally conceived three-trilogy ennealogy. (I had to look that one up.)

Having been sent on a desperate mission to the obscenely opulent gambling planet of
Canto Bight, Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) and Finn (John Boyega) have decidedly different
views on how to locate their quarry.

It’s also the grimmest, with an emphasis on the word “Wars” that echoes last year’s Rogue One. The middle chapter of a trilogy inevitably is the most dire, as was established in 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back. This new film’s solely credited writer/director, Rian Johnson, clearly took that precedent seriously. We hit the ground running, with few pauses for breath.

But they’re important pauses. Johnson understands the value of dramatic highs and lows, and — most crucially — of leavening dire doings with well-timed dollops of humor.

When last we left our various heroes, the Nazi-esque First Order — having risen from the ashes of the evil Galactic Empire — was eradicating the peaceful New Republic, world by world. Aside from wishing to dominate the universe, the evil Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis) employed the Darth Vader-esque Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) to seek out and destroy all traces of the Jedi order.

The plucky Rey (Daisy Ridley), imbued with the mysterious Force, has journeyed to the remote oceanic planet Ahch-To, in order to find and train with the long missing Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). Former Stormtrooper-turned-good guy Finn (John Boyega), badly injured during a lightsaber battle with Kylo Ren, lies comatose in a medical stasis bed. Impetuous pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) and his faithful droid, BB-8, joined the Resistance forces commanded by Gen. Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher), as they celebrated the destruction of First Order’s massive Starkiller Base.

If all this seems a voluminous information dump, it’s merely the tip of the iceberg; subplots and sidebar characters reference everything back to 1977’s very first film. Four decades later, it’s extremely difficult for new viewers to jump into this saga, and even longtime fans may need an Internet refresher course.

(This being the era of binge viewing, I suppose the tried-and-true are expected to power-watch the previous seven films before embracing this one. That’s asking a bit much.)

Logan Lucky: Misfit heist comedy beats the odds

Logan Lucky (2017) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, and somewhat harshly, for brief profanity and crude language
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.25.17

Director Steven Soderbergh appears to have been bitten by the Fargo bug.

The droll, slow-burn Logan Lucky could be described as a cross between Soderbergh’s Oceans 11 and that iconic 1996 crime thriller — and its more recent, and ongoing, television adaptation — with additional regional absurdity supplied by an impudent original script credited to “Rebecca Blunt.”

Jimmy (Channing Tatum, right) employs a cardboard diorama to explain his "perfect
scheme" for robbing the heavily guarded underground vault at the Charlotte Motor
Speedway, as his brother Clyde (Adam Driver) reacts with mounting disbelief.

The quotes are intentional, because no such person exists. As yet, this film’s writer hasn’t been identified, although sources have suggested Soderbergh, or his wife Jules Asner, or several other possibilities. Certainly Soderbergh is no stranger to pseudonyms; indeed, he employs two for Logan Lucky, having supplemented his director’s duties as both cinematographer (under the name Peter Andrews) and editor (as Mary Ann Bernard).

The narrative here certainly displays Soderbergh’s long-established dry wit and arch sense of humor, and the film is guaranteed to delight viewers who appreciate the methodical build-up and eccentric characters that more frequently populate British quasi-comedies.

The storyline takes its time while bringing the primary characters to the stage. The setting is small-town West Virginia, where divorced, down-on-his-luck Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum) never gets to spend enough time with doting young daughter Sadie (Farrah Mackenzie, cute as a button). Jimmy’s intentions are good, but circumstances always interfere, much to the displeasure of ex-wife Bobbie Jo (Katie Holmes), now married to the insufferably wealthy — and insufferably smug — Moody (David Denman).

Jimmy spends considerable time commiserating with his brother Clyde (Adam Driver), who lost an arm during war service in Iraq, and now tends bar at a local dive rather oddly dubbed the Duck Tape. Clyde is convinced that every member of their clan is doomed by a longstanding “family curse,” hence his missing arm, and Jimmy’s injury-related limp, with similar misfortune stretching back generations.

Their sister Mellie (Riley Keough) sniffs at such nonsense, and well she should; there’s certainly nothing amiss in her life. Far from it: Aside from being a talented and popular hairdresser, Mellie is obsessed by cars to a degree that extends way beyond being able to quote make and model stats like a baseball fan; she also can hot-wire anything — and always carries the necessary supplies for such endeavors — and knows local traffic patterns, night and day, with the facility demonstrated by taxi-driving Stan Murch, in Donald Westlake’s marvelous Dortmunder novels.

London Has Fallen: Xenophobic propaganda

London Has Fallen (2016) • View trailer 
2.5 stars. Rated R, for relentless violence and profanity
By Derrick Bang

Aaron Eckhart’s Benjamin Asher surely is the unluckiest U.S. President in cinema history.

Bad enough that he only narrowly survived being held hostage by North Korean terrorists, in 2013’s deplorably violent and inexcusably jingoistic Olympus Has Fallen. Now, drawn to London to attend the state funeral of the British Prime Minister, President Asher finds himself targeted — along with half a dozen other Western European heads of state — by a lethal arms dealer who also is one of the world’s most wanted criminals.

When their helicopter is shot down by rooftop terrorists armed with Stinger missiles, ace
Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler, right) is the only man left to protect
U.S. President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart) from hoards of gun-toting thugs.

Fortunately, in both cases, ace Secret Service Agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) is on hand to save the day.

For the most part, director Babak Najafi’s London Has Fallen is the sort of bullet-laden action thriller that generally goes straight to late-night time slots on Cinemax and lesser cable/satellite movie channels. The plot is predictably silly, the good guys utterly indestructible — aside from those dispatched as sacrificial lambs — and the bad guys thoroughly reprehensible.

The difference, as was the case with this series’ first entry, is that London Has Fallen boasts a better-than-average cast, with Butler and Eckhart supported by Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett and numerous other solid character actors. But even good actors can’t do much with dumb scripts, a grim premise and vapid execution.

Najafi brings nothing to the party. His camera set-ups are humdrum, and he hasn’t the faintest idea how to build suspense. This is little more than run and shoot, run and shoot.

The (modestly) good news is that this new film isn’t quite as offensively pugnacious as its predecessor, which was scripted solely by Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt. They’re assisted this time by co-writers Christian Gudegast and Chad St. John, although I can’t imagine why four people were required to write such a simplistic, comic book plot.

On top of which, the flag-waving, gung-ho patriotism that Rothenberger and Benedikt established in Olympus is just as evident here, and perhaps even more so. Films of this nature are an embarrassment, with their suggestion that brave and resourceful Americans — and only Americans — are the one thing preventing maddened terrorists from invading and controlling the entire free world.

Which is to say, this script is offensively cavalier with its treatment of government officials — and their colleagues — from France, Italy, Germany, Japan and elsewhere. I guess the British should feel lucky that they get to help Banning. A little.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens — Everything old is new again

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for intense sci-fi action and violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.18.15

No question about it: J.J. Abrams definitely is one with The Force.

The writer/director/producer who so smartly revived the Star Trek franchise has done the same with Star Wars.

With nasty First Order storm troopers hot on their heels, Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Finn (John
Boyega) do their best to survive long enough to get a valuable little droid into the hands of
good-guy Resistance fighters.

After the most recent trilogy prompted a blend of disappointment, disgust and outright hostility — Jar Jar Binks, anyone? — fans could be excused the raised-eyebrow wariness that initially greeted news of fresh doings in that galaxy far, far away. But maybe there really is something to the all-pervasive Force, because — for several months now — we’ve been part of an escalating global awareness that Something Great was in the offing.

Indeed.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens isn’t merely a 30-years-later continuation of the universe-spanning saga that (technically) left off back in 1983, with Return of the Jedi. Abrams and co-scripters Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Arndt have delivered a new chapter that simultaneously advances the ongoing narrative, while strongly evoking, echoing and honoring everything that we loved about that wonderful debut, back in 1977.

Abrams sought out the best: Kasdan will be recognized as the writer who worked on both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi (not to mention Raiders of the Lost Ark). He lives and breathes this stuff; he also understands the delicate art of imitating Hollywood’s Golden Age serials — with their alternating dollops of melodramatic angst and cliff-hanging action scenes — without crossing the line into overly broad farce.

And, as befits the 30-years-later scenario, we’ve been granted a fresh — and fresh-faced — cast of new characters, possessing varying capabilities, and thrust into ghastly events with either reluctance or grim resolve. At the same time, fans will cheer the return of old friends, whether human, droid or Wookie.

It can’t have been easy to deliver a film that will please both newcomers and longtime fans with light-sabers drawn; Abrams and his crew pulled it off, and then some.

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.

Tracks: An incredible journey of the soul

Tracks (2013) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity, fleeting profanity and partial nudity
By Derrick Bang

We’ll probably never truly know why 25-year-old Robyn Davidson arrived in central Australia’s Alice Springs in 1975, and then spent two years learning how to train and manage the country’s remarkable wild camels.

No matter how harsh the environment, Robyn (Mia Wasikowska) resolutely rises each
morning and embarks on another daylong trek across the Australian Outback, accompanied
solely by four camels and her faithful dog.

She had endured a childhood marred by disappointment and tragedy — her mother having committed suicide when Robyn was only 11 — so it’s easy to believe that she had personal demons to exorcise, and things to prove to herself.

Nor are we apt to know what then prompted the young woman to embark on an ill-advised solo trek from Alice Springs to where the Indian Ocean lapped against the West Australian coast, accompanied only by four camels and her beloved black dog, Diggity. The 1,700-mile journey across the harsh and unforgiving Australian Outback took nine months, during which she easily could have died any number of times.

Some people embrace such trials for the sheer challenge; as the saying goes, they climb the mountain or cross the desert “because it’s there.” By her own admission, Davidson seems to have undertaken this trip as a journey of personal discovery: a way to become a better version of herself.

“When there is no one to remind you what society’s rules are,” she has said, reflecting back on her journey, “and there is nothing to keep you linked to that society, you had better be prepared for some startling changes.”

The truly remarkable thing is that director John Curran, scripter Marion Nelson and star Mia Wasikowska have managed to bring Davidson’s incredible journey to the big screen with equal emphasis on the glorious, majestically inhospitable Australian Outback itself, and the impact it had on this solitary traveler. Their film is both a beautifully composed glimpse of an often barren and yet beautiful land, and an intimate portrait of an angry young woman trying to find inner peace.

And she is angry, as we first encounter her ... impatient, brittle and quick to take offense, and yet also oddly vulnerable: a duality that Wasikowska conveys quite well. She nails Robyn’s surface contradictions: uncomfortable in the presence of other people, probably to the point of anthropophobia, and yet dependent upon them for jobs, favors and money. And resentful of that same dependence.

And yet when Wasikowska manages one of Robyn’s shy, uncertain smiles, it lights up her entire face: easy to see, then, why she and her unlikely expedition attracted the interest of the National Geographic Society, which agreed to fund her trip in exchange for photographic coverage.

This Is Where I Leave You: Too much left behind

This Is Where I Leave You (2014) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated R, for sexual candor, profanity and drug use
By Derrick Bang

Family dynamics can be messy, even disastrous ... which undoubtedly explains the popularity of stories with dysfunctional kinfolk.

It’s comforting to think that we’re not the only ones with a loser younger sibling, or a daft uncle, or a waspish parent.

When Hilary (Jane Fonda, center) reveals that her just-departed husband's final wish was
for his entire family to sit Shiva for a week, this comes as ghastly news to her estranged
children: from left, Wendy (Tina Fey), Paul (Corey Stoll), Judd (Jason Bateman) and
Phillip (Adam Driver).

Even more comforting, after a moment’s reflection, to realize that such situations must be quite common, if they wind up as popular books and movies that feel familiar to so many different people.

Novelist Jonathan Tropper has made a career of scathingly hilarious novels about hapless protagonists buffeted by crises involving careers, parents, siblings, spouses and other elements forever beyond their ability to control. Indeed, “control” — or the lack thereof — is Tropper’s go-to plotline: His classic protagonist is a guy who assumes he's got his act together, only to discover that catastrophe waits just around the corner.

No surprise, then, that one of Tropper’s books — This Is Where I Leave You — has migrated to the big screen, albeit with mixed results. Tropper adapted the novel himself, so we can assume he made a point of retaining key character arcs, comedic encounters and snarky one-liners. He also has the benefit of a large and talented ensemble cast: a collection of potential scene-stealers forever in danger of upstaging each other, much the way large and boisterous families frequently spin out of control.

But I’m not sure Shawn Levy’s overly broad, slapstick sensibilities make him the best director for this project. Subtlety isn’t in Levy’s vocabulary, as proven by uneven, overblown farces such as Date Night, the Steve Martin Pink Panther remake, and the ongoing Night at the Museum franchise. Tropper’s books resonate because of their unerring blend of comedy, pathos and redemptive self-awareness; Levy’s shrill, shrieking approach to humor tends to overwhelm everything else.

Which is a shame, because a dozen richly flawed characters wander throughout this often chaotic narrative, and we can’t help feeling that some of their best interactions got left behind. Instead, we’re treated far too often to (for example) a toddler who drags his potty chair from room to room, plunking onto the seat whenever the urge strikes, and then proudly displaying the results to everybody at hand. Us included.

Which, naturally, includes an episode of poop flung onto an unprepared adult.

When that sort of material emerges within the first 10 minutes of a film, we can't help expecting an overall tone that will undercut the gentler, redemptive moments to be found within Tropper’s script.

Frances Ha: Engaging portrait of an unfinished soul

Frances Ha (2013) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rating: R, for profanity and sexual candor
By Derrick Bang

Slowly but steadily, Greta Gerwig has been crafting wry and thoughtful portraits of today’s self-absorbed millennials ... and, more specifically, those who suffer from what has been branded Failure to Launch.

Mourning the apparent loss of her long-time best friend, Frances (Greta Gerwig) drowns
her sorrows in a good meal with Lev (Adam Driver), a sympathetic guy-pal who offers
the sort of superficial warmth that can obscure emotional pain ... if only briefly. What
Frances hasn't yet learned, though, is that true healing must come from within.

We’ve seen hints in her stand-out supporting roles in the remake of Arthur and Woody Allen’s To Rome with Love. Despite having (I assume) minimal creative control over those projects, and being limited to what those directors and scripts allowed, Gerwig nonetheless delivered an irresistible blend of quirky charm and wary vulnerability. The classic Greta Gerwig character — assuming it’s not too early to brand her in such a manner — always seems slightly out of phase with our world, her expression of cautious bewilderment suggesting that, to her, society and interpersonal relationships always are mildly out of focus.

Gerwig delivered a richer example of such a young woman in last year’s Lola Versus, but her often amiable performance was undone by a frequently cruel and tin-eared script that forced too much self-destructive behavior on a title character who clearly should have known better.

Cue the arrival of Frances Ha, a much more satisfying character study of a wayward New Yorker who — despite good intentions and often painful sincerity — just can’t get her act together. Gerwig had a strong hand in this 27-year-old woman’s development, having shared scripting credit with director Noah Baumbach. (They also worked together on 2010’s unsatisfying Greenberg.) The result feels far more credibly authentic than the erratic nitwit in Lola Versus.

Frances is the sort of forever flustered individual who will promise to do something, and then let the opportunity slip by; or will insist that she won’t do something, but then will. She’s simultaneously endearing and deeply frustrating, and numerous scenes in this film are uncomfortable and unsettling, as we worry over whether she’ll miss another promising opportunity, or yield to another impetuous, ill-advised decision.

She’s tone-deaf during social occasions, forever saying the wrong thing to the wrong people: not because she’s cruel or thoughtless, but mostly because she simply doesn’t pay attention to relationship cues, whether casual or formal. She’s much too self-absorbed: but, again, not in an unpleasant manner. She’s just ... well ... unfinished, somehow. And helpless to do anything about it.

But Gerwig’s performance is so endearing, and so genuinely sweet, that we can’t help forgiving Frances her many shortcomings (even as we groan over them). Watching her flail during an effort to describe wanting that “magic moment” between two soul mates — when eyes lock from opposite ends of a room, and a quick smile of acknowledgment cements the sort of bond that neither time nor God could disrupt — is poetry in motion. It’s a breathtaking, all-in scene: utterly mesmerizing, for Gerwig’s intensity. Watch how she works every square millimeter of her expressive face, from lips and chin to eyebrows.