Promising Young Woman: Beware her wrath

Promising Young Woman (2020) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated R, for violence, sexual assault, sexual candor, drug use and relentless profanity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.26.21

If revenge is a dish best served cold, then Carey Mulligan’s Cassie Thomas leaves dry ice in her wake.

 

Cassie (Carey Mulligan) still hasn't quite decided how to handle Ryan (Bo Burnham),
but there's no denying his ability to have spontaneous fun in an unlikely setting.

Cunning, calculating and crafty as if borne to treachery, Mulligan’s Academy Award-nominated performance is a marvelous display of graceful subtlety: something at which she always has excelled. She’s both hero and anti-hero, drifting from one side of that fence to the other, enchanting us just as much as she (ultimately) terrorizes her victims.

 

All of which is delivered with ghoulish glee by Emerald Fennell, also Oscar-nominated for both directing and concocting this deviously nasty dark-dark-dark comedy. It’s available via Amazon Prime and other streaming services.

 

We meet Cassie under lamentable circumstances: dressed to kill but just this side of dangerously intoxicated, makeup askew and swaying slowly while trying to remain upright on the sofa in a trendy bar. Easy prey for a trio of good-looking guys on the make (Adam Brody, Ray Nicholson and Sam Richardson).

 

One — seemingly the “compassionate fellow” — separates from the pack, solicitously asks if she’s all right, chuckles sympathetically at her efforts to sound coherent. Offers to take her home, brings her to his place instead. Laughs off her slurred, wavery protests. He gets increasingly, ah, fresh.

 

Benjamin Kracun’s camera rises above this scene, tightens focus on Cassie’s face. Her drowsy eyes abruptly snap into full awareness. 

 

And we think Uh-oh…

 

Returning home, Cassie withdraws a small notebook from a place of concealment, flips through pages and pages and pages of red and black hash marks, reaches the page in progress, and adds a vertical red line.

 

And we think Yikes!

 

Fennell’s Promising Young Woman is the ultimate #MeToo statement. It’s a righteously angry response to an appalling situation — campus rape — that has been ignored, concealed or denied for far too long. What’s most impressive is that Fennell refrains from preaching; despite the awfulness of what occurs here — and of what occurred years earlier — her film remains … well … entertaining. Amusing, even.

 

Stronger: A quiet triumph

Stronger (2017) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for frequent profanity, graphic injury images, and fleeting sexuality and nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.22.17

Some things transcend their real-world existence.

Football is a crowd-pleasing spectator sport; baseball is ... something more. Baseball inspires myth-making films such as The Natural and Field of Dreams. You simply can’t imagine football doing the same.

Jeff (Jake Gyllenhaal) takes a few tentative steps on his new prosthetic legs, much to the
overly eager delight of his helicoptering mother (Miranda Richardson, center), and the
cautious concern of his girlfriend, Erin (Tatiana Maslany).

Los Angeles and Chicago are cities. New York and Boston are ... dreamlike.

Boston’s intangible, ferociously indomitable spirit (“Boston strong!”) has much to do with the triumphant, fist-pumping exhilaration that powers Stronger, but director David Gordon Green’s fact-based drama likely will be remembered best for its quieter, intimate moments. Two will linger in my mind for a long time: one for its near-silent emotional intensity; the other for the heartbreaking wallop of an unexpectedly personal story, related by a late-entry supporting character.

Both are staged, lensed and performed impeccably; both are moments of pure cinema magic. And if the rest of Green’s film doesn’t live up to those high points, it nonetheless remains inspirational and thoroughly satisfying.

Stronger, based on Jeff Bauman’s best-selling 2014 memoir of the same title, depicts his agonizing emotional and physical struggle after losing both legs during the April 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. His saga captivates for all sorts of reasons; his being a survivor at times seems incidental.

Jeff’s presence at the finish line was sheer caprice; he “showed up” in an effort to win back the on-again/off-again girlfriend (Erin Hurley) who was running the race. In the blast aftermath, he likely would have died, were it not for the rapid intervention of Carlos Arredondo, a Costa Rican-born American peace activist who attended the marathon for his own deeply personal reasons.

Immediately upon regaining consciousness after surgery, still intubated and unable to speak, Jeff indicated — by writing — that he’d seen one of the bombers; his description of Tamerlan Tsarnaev helped police and FBI narrow down the suspect list.

All of which gives this film a hefty emotional center, although scripter John Pollono wisely focuses on the all-important relationship between Jeff and Erin. Everything else flows from that bond.

When the Game Stands Tall: Gridiron glory

When the Game Stands Tall (2014) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG, for mild intensity and brief violence
By Derrick Bang

Inspirational sports sagas are the ultimate feel-good movies; they engage our souls and pluck at the heart, particularly when adversity and underdog status are part of the equation.

And most particularly when they’re true.

Coach Bob Ladouceur (Jim Caviezel, center right), assistant coach Terry Eidson (Michael
Chiklis, center left) and members of the De La Salle Spartans react with undisguised
dread as the much larger and tougher members of the Long Beach Poly team take the
field. What follows is, by far, this film's most exciting chapter. 

Director Thomas Carter has fashioned a stirring drama from former Contra Costa Times sportswriter Neil Hayes’ 2003 nonfiction book, which profiled De La Salle High School football coach Bob Ladouceur at a point when his team had amassed a truly stunning streak of victories. Scripters Scott Marshall Smith and David Zelon have remained pretty close to established fact, allowing for the usual composite characters, one fast-and-loose modification of what happened when, and a needlessly melodramatic sidebar conflict between a young player and his overbearing father.

Those issues aside, Carter’s film is far more accurate than most that claim to be “inspired” by actual events; he respectfully captures the deeply spiritual tone that characterized Ladouceur’s entire coaching career, along with the atypically close ties and locker room candor that bonded the young players.

Yes, they really did take the field, at the start of each game, holding hands.

At first blush, star Jim Caviezel is a perfect fit for Ladouceur; as archive footage of the coach reveals, during the film’s closing credits, Caviezel looks and carries himself in much the same way. He adds the same heartfelt weight to the soulful pep talks that were typical of Ladouceur’s approach: “Winning a lot of football games is doable. Teaching kids there’s more to life, that’s hard.”

We don’t doubt, for a moment, that Caviezel’s Ladouceur genuinely cares about every single one of his players, off the field even more than on.

That said, Caviezel never has been an expressive actor, and those same closing-credits clips also show that the actor lacks the actual coach’s fire and passion. Caviezel is one of the acting community’s Mr. Cools, as his ongoing stint on TV’s Person of Interest reveals quite clearly. He’s dry and flinty, much like Clint Eastwood, and relies on half-smiles, grim silences and stern frowns to get his emotive point across.

Doesn’t always work. Co-star Laura Dern, as Ladouceur’s wife Bev, acts circles around him. She conveys greater emotional depth, in a few brief scenes, than Caviezel manages in the entire film. This is most apparent during the crisis that opens this story, as Ladouceur narrowly survives a heart attack that would have killed many men. Caviezel simply cannot sell the epiphany of Ladouceur’s initial post-recovery chat with his wife, as he acknowledges having been an absentee husband and father because of over-commitment to the job.

Nor does the film really address that issue, moving forward. Given Caviezel’s thespic limitations, that’s probably for the best.