Four stars. Rated PG, for no particularly reason
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.10.17
This one is pure magic.
Wholly enchanting.
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| Elaine (Michelle Williams) marvels, each evening, that her son Ben (Oakes Fegley) has crammed even more stuff into the amateur natural history museum disguised as his bedroom. |
Director Todd Haynes orchestrates
this slice of fantasy with the exquisite touch of a master conductor who
understands the importance of each note played by every instrument. The music
analogy is apt, because this film’s many delights include Carter Burwell’s
amazing score: a continuous symphony of drama and delight that tells the story
just as skillfully as the talented cast.
Haynes uses everything: images,
sounds, music, color, puppetry, sketches and much, much more. All are blended
with grace, whimsy and a true sense of wonder (with apologies for riffing on
the title).
Such a talent for imagination —
along with a delicate touch — are essential for anybody embracing the challenge
of bringing a Brian Selznick book to the big screen. Martin Scorsese succeeded
masterfully, with his 2011 adaptation of The
Invention of Hugo Cabret (the film title shorted to Hugo). Now Haynes has duplicated this feat.
Selznick adapted his own book
this time, and we shouldn’t be surprised by his skillful scripting debut. His
“bookmaking” novels, replete with illustrations, are de facto screenplays to begin with: presented with a master
raconteur’s gift for filling the readers’ minds with their own private movies.
I hesitate to explain anything, because Haynes and Selznick
coyly tease and toy with us viewers: establishing little mysteries that
surround the two primary characters, while mischievously using the cinematic
form to dangle clues via sidebars, dreams, flashbacks and all manner of
narrative trickery.
Our protagonists are Rose
(Millicent Simmonds) and Ben (Oakes Fegley), rebellious young adolescents
somewhat askew from social norms. Both are lonely; both have transformed their
bedrooms into veritable museums of stuff, all carefully notated, indexed and
catalogued. Both are curators — an important term, for what follows — of their
possessions, and of their discontent.
Rose endures a privileged life
with a disciplinarian father (James Urbaniak) who shows her the warmth he might
bestow upon a house plant. She finds solace by filling her bedroom with
impressively detailed cityscapes constructed from paper and glue, and by
scrapbooking the career of actress Lillian Mayhew (Julianne Moore).
Ben, having just lost his mother
to a traffic accident, chafes at having to live with his aunt, sharing a room
with his snotty cousin. Flashbacks reveal the bond that Ben shared with his
free-spirited mother, Elaine (Michelle Williams), and the patience with which
she puts up with his bedroom having grown into what feels like a branch of the
nearest natural history museum.
But she stayed mute on one
subject that dominates Ben’s thoughts: the identity of his father, who remains
a nameless, faceless unknown. She
knew, but always put Ben off, promising to reveal all “when the time was
right.” Now, of course, the “right” time never will come.
Ben lives in the rural Minnesota
community of Gunflint Lake; it’s the summer of 1977.
Rose lives in Hoboken, New
Jersey; it’s early autumn in 1927.
