The Good Nurse: An unsettling diagnosis

The Good Nurse (2022) • View trailer

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

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang

If the American health care system doesn’t already make you nervous, watching this film will leave you hiding in a closet, whimpering like a child.

 

After Amy (Jessica Chastain) suffers a minor cardiomyopathy attack, Charlie
(Eddie Redmayne) talks her down from panic.

Because Krysty Wilson-Cairns’ screenplay — based on Charles Graeber’s meticulously researched 2013 true crime book of the same title — makes it abundantly clear that lawsuit-adverse corporate ownership of hospitals allowed perhaps the worst serial killer in history to continue unchecked for 16 years.

It can be argued — and this clearly is the point of director Tobias Lindholm’s slow-burn film — that this system is the bigger villain.

 

But such awareness arrives later. Our attention is drawn initially to Jessica Chastain’s richly nuanced, quietly compelling performance as Amy Loughren, a dedicated nurse in a large East Coast hospital. She’s the single mother of two young daughters — Maya (Devyn McDowell) and Alex (Alix West Lefler) — and works long hours during demanding ICU night shifts.

 

Amy also suffers from cardiomyopathy, a potentially fatal heart condition that manifests when her pulse rate spirals out of control. It requires surgical intervention, which she cannot yet afford; because she’s relatively new to this hospital placement, she’s still months away from the one-year vesting that’ll allow health insurance to kick in.

 

(The irony is not lost on us: a nurse, working at a hospital, who remain uninsured.)

 

Chastain’s slumped posture and frequently weary expression suggest a woman constantly battling total exhaustion. And yet Amy also radiates dignity and responsibility; she always lights up when with a patient, or comforting a family member; her ministrations are gentle, her compassion palpable. 

 

She isn’t merely a “good” nurse; she’s a great nurse. Chastain delivers one of those “all in” performances that makes her every move and spoken word compelling, and authentic. She feels like somebody living next door.

 

We meet Amy as she tends to an elderly woman with a serious skin condition: uncomfortable and debilitating, but not life-threatening. Lindholm and Wilson-Cairns take their time in establishing Amy’s routine: both during her overworked and understaffed hospital shifts, and at home, where Maya has become frustrated by her mother’s prolonged daily absences.

 

Relief finally arrives when Charlie Cullen (Eddie Redmayne) joins her unit. Amy shows him the ropes; he adapts quickly to this late-night shift’s demands. Redmayne makes him affable, observant and — most particularly — empathetic. Amy and Charlie bond during these long nights; she trusts him with her heart issues, and he becomes something of a cheerleader.

 

And also a friend, spending daytime hours with Amy and her daughters, who adore him.

 

Then the elderly woman dies, quite unexpectedly.

The Trial of the Chicago Seven: Unbelievable, but true

The Trial of the Chicago Seven (2020) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated R, for profanity, violence and drug use

By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.23.20 

Well, this one couldn’t be more timely.

 

Defense attorney William Kuntsler (Mark Rylance, center) and co-counsel Leonard
Weinglass (center left) do their best to protect the defendants — from left, Bobby Seale
(Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne) and Rennie Davis
(Alex Sharp) — from the blatantly biased behavior of their courtroom judge.

Writer/director Aaron Sorkin’s Netflix original, a depiction of events during the notorious “Chicago Seven” trial — which lasted five months after beginning Sept. 24, 1969, following the August 1968 riots outside Chicago’s Democratic National Convention — is by turns mesmerizing, astonishing, scandalous and horrifying.

 

While Sorkin makes no claim to rigid, documentary-style authenticity, it’s important to understand that pretty much everything depicted here — even the most outrageous behavior — did indeed take place. The timeline has been manipulated a bit, and Sorkin clearly punches up some of the behind-the-scenes dialogue for dramatic impact.

 

But be advised: Every time you’re inclined to think, Oh, that couldn’t possibly have happened … you’ll be wrong.

 

The often crackling verbal exchanges are volleyed by a powerhouse ensemble cast dominated by four actors: Eddie Redmayne, as Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) member Tom Hayden; Sacha Baron Cohen, as Youth International Party (Yippie) co-founder Abbie Hoffman; Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, as Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale; and Mark Rylance, as defense attorney and civil rights activist William Kunstler.

 

The latter represented the Seven during their kangaroo-court trial before the incompetent, blatantly racist and deplorably biased Judge Julius Hoffman (a chilling Frank Langella).

 

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is just as compelling — albeit in a more calmly determined manner — as lead prosecutor Richard Schultz, hand-picked for this assignment by newly elected President Richard Nixon’s attorney general, John Mitchell (John Doman, smugly condescending).

 

Jeremy Strong supplies mild comic relief as Yippie co-founder Jerry Rubin, who seems stoned during the lengthy proceeding. The remaining Seven are SDS member Rennie Davis (Alex Sharp); and National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (The MOBE) members David Dellinger (John Carroll Lynch), John Froines (Danny Flaherty) and Lee Weiner (Noah Robbins).

 

The Aeronauts: Deflated flight

The Aeronauts (2019) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG, for no particular reason
By Derrick Bang

This would have been a suspenseful adventure film in the 1950s or ’60s (allowing for the fact that the special effects technology required to make it, didn’t exist at the time).

Having just left the pomp and circumstance of their departure, scientist James Glaisher
(Eddie Redmayne) marvels at the showboating rowdiness of his aeronaut companion,
Amelia Wren (Felicity Jones).

Unfortunately, styles have changed in the intervening half-century, and director/co-scripter Tom Harper’s relentlessly (ahem) overblown approach feels clumsily retro and needlessly melodramatic. The script, co-written with Jack Thorne, also adds an aura of contrivance: quite unfortunate, as it undercuts the genuine marvel of authentic history.

Although claiming to be “inspired by a true adventure,” this film gives no indication that Eddie Redmayne’s character, James Glaisher, was a genuine 19th century meteorologist, aeronaut and astronomer. That makes his presence alongside Felicity Jones’ fictitious Amelia Wren a bit jarring, even though much of her character is based on earlier 19th century French aeronaut Sophie Blanchard.

(Blanchard died in 1819, when Glaisher was only 10 years old.)

The Aeronauts is set on Sept. 5, 1862, the date of Glaisher’s most famous ascent (actually in the company of fellow British aeronaut Henry Tracey Coxwell, but Jones’ Amelia Wren apparently is more cinematically pleasing). To a degree, the film takes place in real time, as the flight lasted only a couple of hours; Harper and Thorne maintain tension by intercutting this increasingly perilous action with flashbacks that shape our two lead characters, and the events that prompt their unlikely partnership.

James, a young Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, firmly believes that weather patterns can be predicted: a notion that his older colleagues find patently absurd. James insists that he can prove his theories by taking atmospheric readings at increasingly high altitudes — higher than anybody else has risen — but nobody is willing to bankroll or collaborate in such an endeavor.

Amelia, meanwhile, is a veteran aeronaut emotionally shattered by a previous flight that concluded tragically; she has withdrawn into a reclusive funk and has no intention of leaving the ground again. Her sister Antonia (Phoebe Fox) drags Amelia to a posh Meteorological Society function, where she meets James and — ultimately — is won over by his passion.

How their subsequent alliance secures financial backing is one of many details left irritatingly vague — ballooning is tremendously expensive, particularly when involving a craft of such immense size — although it seems to involve an investor played fleetingly by Robert Glenister (as Ned Chambers).

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald: Feloniously underwhelming

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018) • View trailer 
2.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and fantasy violence
By Derrick Bang

J.K. Rowling should have quit while she was ahead.

This newest glimpse into the Potterverse will be virtually impenetrable to first-time visitors, and even avid fans may have trouble keeping up. The information and character dumps are overwhelming, with Rowling — as scripter — apparently assuming that viewers will recall every little detail not only from this series’ first entry (2016’s Fantastic Beasts), but also bits and bobs from earlier Harry Potter adventures.

Having successfully infiltrated the French Ministry of Magic, in search of crucial information,
Newt (Eddie Redmayne) and Tina (Katherine Waterston) are about to be attacked by
guardian Matagots.

Which would be fine, if Rowling presented at least some pertinent detail and back-story along the way, but no; this is instant full immersion, and the tough luck for those unable to keep up.

But that isn’t the only problem. Director David Yates and editor Mark Day assemble this film quite sloppily, with multiple storylines hopping and skipping back and forth, in a manner as aggressively chaotic as the massive Chinese Zouwu that our hero Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) meets along the way. 

Some encounters flat don’t make sense. Even at 134 minutes, it feels like we’re seeing a Reader’s Digest condensed version of a much longer production, and that too much important stuff was left on the cutting-room floor.

There’s also a strong sense of déjà vu, with Rowling “borrowing” from her own work. This is most obvious when Newt and his “Auror” (magical law enforcement) companion, Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston), invade the French Ministry of Magic, with the help of some shape-changing polyjuice potion. One can’t help feeling the echo of Harry, Hermione and Ron similarly sneaking into the British Ministry of Magic, back in the day.

It’s too much been there, done that. And way too much talking and angst. Long-suffering unrequited love. A soul-tortured quest for personal identity. Elliptical, deliberately vague conversations where characters refuse to be candid with each other. Dangling clues that don’t amount to much, when answers are revealed.

Frankly, this film is a dull, boring slog. It’s not fun.

Nor is Johnny Depp’s Grindelwald anywhere near a match for Harry Potter’s Lord Voldemort. The latter was — remains — a scary force of true malevolence, and was played as such in those movies.

Depp’s Grindelwald, in great contrast, seems more constipated than sinister; his “dire” pronouncements are intoned with a slow, emotionless flatness that feels more like sleepwalking. Were it not for his weird eyes and spiky hairstyle, he wouldn’t even look fearsome. One cannot imagine him rallying hundreds of “pure-born” wizards to his world-conquering cause, as occurs during this film’s climax.

Which, be warned, is little more than a blatant set-up for the next movie.

Early Man: Aardman lite

Early Man (2018) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. PG, for no particular reason
By Derrick Bang

According to the whimsical minds behind Early Man, soccer’s origins go way back.

No matter how much trouble Dug gets into, he can depend on his best friend — his
pet prehistoric pig, Hognob — to save the day.

British director Nick Park and his Aardman production team, best known for claymation superstars Wallace and Gromit, go prehistoric with their newest project: a gentle comedy set at the dawn of time, when cave folk tremble from exploding volcanoes, woolly mammoths and Jurassic-size ... ducks.

The droll production is a smooth blend of Park’s traditional puppet animation and scale-enhancing computer effects. All the characters can be recognized as Wallace’s great-great-great-many-more-greats ancestors: most particularly buck-toothed Dug (voiced by Eddie Redmayne), the most curious and idealistic member of a small Stone Age tribe led by genial Chief Bobnar (Timothy Spall).

They’re a motley bunch of meek eccentrics unwilling to hunt any game larger than rabbits, despite Dug’s insistence that tackling a mammoth might keep food on the table a bit longer.

It’s important to note, just in passing, that no rabbits are killed or otherwise injured during the course of this story ... although Mother Nature isn’t nearly as kind to Dug’s even more prehistoric ancestors, during a prologue that reveals How Soccer Came To Be.

This is merely the first of many fanciful touches emanating from Park and co-scripters Mark Burton, James Higginson and John O’Farrell. The humor is typically British: dry and mildly snarky, often relying on anachronistic touches. As an example, when confronted with a plate of sliced bread, one fellow enthuses that “That’s the greatest thing since...” and doesn’t really know how to finish the sentence.

At times, one senses the spirits of Monty Python hovering overhead.

Fantastic Beasts, and Where to Find Them: A roaring good time

Fantastic Beasts, and Where to Find Them (2016) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for fantasy action violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.18.16

Daniel Radcliffe was a great Harry Potter, but Eddie Redmayne is a fantastic Newt Scamander.

When Agent Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston) brings Newt Scamander (Eddie
Redmayne, left) to the Magical Congress USA's Wand Permit Office, they're met by the
Director of Magical Security, Percival Graves (Colin Farrell), who regards this newcomer
with obvious suspicion.

Newt is the pluperfect misfit researcher — magizoologist, to be precise — who is far more comfortable with his beloved “fantastic beasts,” than he is with fellow human beings. Redmayne is appropriately disheveled, like an absent-minded professor who dressed in the dark; his bashful gaze is concealed beneath a mop of unruly hair, and he often rushes in blindly where mages fear to tread.

At the same time, he’s puppy-dog adorable, with an aura of vulnerability that proves deceptive, under certain circumstances. He may not be able to look a woman in the eye, but he’ll stop at nothing when one of his critters is involved.

More to the point — and just like the trouble-prone Harry Potter — Newt thinks nothing of breaking the rules, if he honestly believes the reasons are valid. Much to the dismay of the higher-ups at the Magical Congress of the United States of America (MACUSA).

J.K. Rowling penned Fantastic Beasts, and Where to Find Them in 2001, in between the fourth and fifth installments of her Harry Potter series. It actually was one of Harry’s textbooks: required for first-year Hogwarts students, in its 52nd edition when Harry, Ron and Hermione are assigned to read it, and complete with an introduction by Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore.

This “faux” research tome, compiled by Scamander, describes his research into magizoology, and provides detailed descriptions of 85 magical creatures found throughout the world. As an added droll touch, the pages includes scribblings, doodles and often snarky comments by Ron, who apparently suffered through its pages.

The book was a lark on Rowling’s part — something of a “bonus” for her readers — but not a trivial endeavor. More than 80 percent of the cover price of each copy sold benefited the charity Comic Relief, aiding poor children throughout the world.

Flash-forward to 2013, following the conclusion of the Harry Potter film cycle, at which point Warner Bros. announced that “Fantastic Beasts” would serve as a template for a new five-film series, depicting the many adventures and encounters experienced by Newt, as he developed the data that would lead to the debut publication of his textbook.

And the films would be scripted by Rowling herself.

The Danish Girl: An awkward transformation

The Danish Girl (2015) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for nudity and considerable sexual candor
By Derrick Bang

History is laden with fascinating people whose stories never make it into standard classroom curriculum, even at the college level.

We can be grateful, then, that movies often come to the rescue.

When Greta (Alicia Vikander, left) learns that her husband Einar (Eddie Redmayne)
enjoys posing in the guise of a woman, she begins to produce an entire series of
paintings that find favor with art lovers.

During the early decades of the 20th century, Danish artist Einar Wegener was celebrated for his landscape paintings. His wife, Gerda, enjoyed a steady career as a portraitist of prominent citizens, but recognition as an accomplished artist eluded her. This changed when Gerda began producing a series of Art Deco paintings of alluring, fashionably dressed women with distinctly almond-shaped eyes: in many cases, working with the same model.

The “model” later was revealed to be Einar, who had embraced this role as a means of validating a lifelong desire to dress and live as a woman: a wish so all-consuming that he eventually sought radical surgical intervention.

Today, Wegener is acknowledged as one of the first-known recipients of gender-reassignment surgery: a procedure most people probably don’t realize dates back to the early 1930s.

Einar and Gerda’s story has been dramatized with sensitivity by director Tom Hooper, the gifted British filmmaker who draws exemplary performances from his casts, and who turned The King’s Speech into such a droll, charming and effervescent slice of historical drama. Hooper elicits similarly strong work from stars Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander in The Danish Girl, but — alas — the film itself doesn’t live up to their memorably haunting efforts.

The problems are difficult to specify. At 120 minutes, Hooper’s film is a bit too long; the pacing also is extremely slow. Perhaps most noticeably, much as we admire Redmayne’s richly complex performance, Hooper and cinematographer Danny Cohen overuse tight close-ups, particularly of Redmayne’s mega-watt smile. To be sure, they’re varying levels of grins — nervous, bashful, triumphant — but, ultimately, a smile is a smile is a smile.

Strip 15 minutes’ worth of Redmayne’s smiles, and I’m convinced the entire film would play better.

But the issues go deeper. Lucinda Coxon’s script, adapted from David Ebershoff’s 2000 novel of the same title, is a bit sloppy with detail. This film has us believe that Einar’s transition from “closeted” female to surgically altered woman takes place in four short years, starting in 1926, when in fact Einar was “passing” as female by 1912. Compressing so many key events into this shorter time-span feels false and contrived: absolutely (I’m sure) the last impression Hooper would have desired.

That said, we’re no less transfixed by Redmayne and Vikander. Both cross that threshold that transcends acting, where we simply accept that they are the characters being brought to life.

Jupiter Ascending: Overcooked sci-fi slop

Jupiter Ascending (2015) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated PG-13, for violence, dramatic intensity and brief chaste nudity
By Derrick Bang

Back in the day — way back in the day — sci-fi pulp magazine covers were known for their wonderfully lurid images of scantily clad maidens being menaced by all manner of strange creatures, usually of a reptilian or insectoid nature.

With several nasty spaceships chasing them through the urban canyons of downtown
Chicago, Jupiter (Mila Kunis) and Caine (Channing Tatum) just barely manage to dodge
the laser blasts, thanks to his anti-gravity footwear, which allows him to "skate" on air.

Such covers generally accompanied thoroughly ludicrous space operas that were light on credible characterization or plausible plotting, and heavy on high-tech hardware and weaponry.

This laughably ridiculous flick belongs squarely in that sort of company.

In fairness, Jupiter Ascending isn’t as inane as the Wachowski siblings’ nadir, a spot forever and always to be occupied by 2008’s ill-advised big-screen adaptation of Speed Racer. (At least, one hopes they never plumb lower depths.)

At times, though, it seems a pretty close call. Despite some genuinely thoughtful “big ideas” that percolate throughout this clumsy original script, Jupiter Ascending will be remembered — if it’s remembered at all — for its howlingly dreadful dialogue and relentless, protracted, video game-style action scenes.

Rarely has an ordinary, flesh-and-blood human being endured such punishment, violated so many natural laws of physics, and emerged with nary a scratch. Heck, our heroine’s hair never even gets mussed. We can but roll our eyes, as she survives megascale carnage that should have pulped her fragile body many times over. Scores of times over. Hundreds of times over.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Outer space fantasies can be a tough genre to mine successfully; it’s difficult to qualify what separates an engaging, rip-roaring homage — such as the original Star Wars trilogy — from the sort of overcooked mess being served here. I guess the distinction becomes obvious only when filmmakers egregiously succumb to the dark side of the Force, as Andy and Lana Wachowski have done so ostentatiously.

And the silly names don’t help much.

The Theory of Everything: A beautiful mind

The Theory of Everything (2014) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, and too harshly, for dramatic intensity and mild suggestive material
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.5.14

It’s necessary, up front, to recognize that this film is adapted from Jane Wilde Hawking’s 1999 memoir, Music to Move the Stars: A Life with Stephen (extensively updated and re-published in 2008, as Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen).

During Cambridge's annual May Dance, Stephen (Eddie Redmayne) can't quite get into the
spirit of the event itself — for openers, he refuses to dance! — but his goofy charm
nonetheless makes an increasingly strong impact on Jane (Felicity Jones).

We therefore cannot be surprised by the saintly hue that Felicity Jones brings to her portrayal of Jane: devoted, compassionate and (particularly) patient beyond comprehension. To be sure, selfless caregivers certainly exist in real life: quiet heroes who rarely receive the admiration they so richly deserve. And there’s no doubt that Jane Hawking must’ve had a very hard life, during her early years with a husband succumbing to motor neuron disease (MND, which is related to ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease).

But no displays of impatience or hostility, no raging against the universe, no signs of crumbling on Jane’s part? Even if we acknowledge traditional British reserve, that’s a bit hard to swallow here.

Hard, perhaps, but not impossible ... thanks to James Marsh’s thoughtful, sensitive direction, and the incandescent performances by Jones and most particularly Eddie Redmayne. The latter looks, moves and sounds so much like Stephen Hawking, that at times it’s hard not to believe it’s actually him on the screen.

Most crucially, Redmayne captures Hawking’s goofy grin, sparkling eyes and irrepressible, Puckish sense of humor. After the MND robs the man of his limbs — and, eventually, even his ability to speak — Redmayne nonetheless continues to convey a wealth of emotion with faint head movements, raised eyebrows, a twitch of that famous smile, and his darting, ever-inquisitive eyes that miss nothing.

We’ve not seen an actor so thoroughly inhabit a physically challenged role since Mathieu Amalric’s portrayal of Jean-Dominique Bauby, in 2007’s equally fine The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

Bauby’s life changed in an instant, though, whereas Hawking — and his friends, colleagues and family — endured the heartbreak of his slow, debilitating slide into utter helplessness.

But we begin in happier times. It’s 1963, where Stephen is a cosmology student at Cambridge University: the mischievous, easily distracted member of a doctoral team being supervised by famed British physicist Dennis W. Sciama (David Thewlis, in a nicely understated performance). Stephen’s apparent disconnection from real-world requirements is a source of constant amusement to roommate and best friend Brian (Harry Lloyd), who probably has to remind his buddy to eat and sleep on a regular basis.