Gone Baby Gone

So it seems to be true: Ben can do everything in Hollywood but act, and Casey is a fabulously gifted actor. Together the Affleck brothers have created a solid, affecting film that surpasses all expectations: it is a dark and gut-wrenching if by-the-book genre mystery (complete with the “I know what happened!” moment and solution denouement). The situation is beyond belief and some of the characters’ speechifying tests the limits. But the film turns into an ethical test in the second half, and it couldn’t be more effective. Without an ounce of manipulation, the film presents a moral question in which every side is both right and wrong, and choosing correctly couldn’t possibly be more important. The effect is staggering. There are weak points in the film, but they don’t diminish the film’s ultimate impact. Afflecks should be proud.

La Piscine

Somewhat stiff, occasionally smutty but generally unerotic, rather lazy crime “thriller”? I liked it, but the thing doesn’t move and the characters couldn’t be less compelling.

Blood Wedding

I love following threads from one experience to the next, and nothing’s better than when I catch one that leads me from film to music to literature and back again. A lifetime’s praise to Carlos Saura for opening up the world of flamenco to me; in the month or so between my last Saura film and this I’ve been listening to a lot of music, classical to popular, and returning to his cinema again just solidifies my new love. This film, which simply follows a company in rehearsal and only momentarily delves into the lives of individual dancers then gives way to performance, is as captivating and exciting as anything I have yet experienced.

Lust, Caution

But somehow, it all just doesn’t add up to a seamless, knockout whole. It’s the core relationship that undermines it, I think. Such an improbable development of feeling — deeper than playing predator and prey by turns, getting caught in one another’s webs — requires evidence by way of thorough character analysis that’s just not there. I just don’t believe — even as I enjoy the cinematic spectacle — that she and he both <spoiler spoiler spoiler>. I suppose the sex scenes which earned the film a NC17 rating in the US are meant to be shorthand for that (repression, passion, a shared fundamental psychology?), but there’s not much narrative or character development in them, and they’re repetitive in tone and content. Not for a moment do I believe Lee filmed the scenes merely for their own sake, merely as titillation, but whatever he did intend fell flat for me. I just don’t believe these characters’ actions half the time.

So what that leaves is a fiery erotic thriller and uncommonly beautiful war piece. That’s still plenty by any standard — just not quite the whole package.

Michael Clayton

Michael Clayton proceeds in a mostly linear fashion, but it begins at one point, folds back on itself five days earlier, and works its way back to that initial moment. It is in that retelling of the initial scenes, oddly, that the film earns its thriller credentials: by that point, the audience knows whether a feared moment will happen or not, and yet then my blood began pumping. In the hour and a half leading up to it, I would not call it a thriller exactly, but it is an equally riveting corporate drama of shifting allegiances, machinations, and flawed characters caught in the crossfire. It is the most flawed among them that pose the greatest threat: Tilda Swinton’s warbling, waffling, neurotic corporate attorney holds a bomb in her shaking hands; Tom Wilkinson’s possibly deranged top litigator prone to outbursts of mad-lib Shakespeare monologues has all the information under lock and key; George Clooney’s firm “fixer” is torn between debts to family, career and risky gambles, up to this point willing to sell out to the highest bidder. All three actors deserve awards attention, and their characters are amazingly well-drawn. The narrative unfolds in such a precise, perfect way, suffused with the best dialogue I’ve heard out of a Hollywood thriller in… well, maybe ever. This is stellar. Top-5 film now and likely still in the 10 by the time the book is closed on 2007.

Into the Wild

A lot of Penn’s choices as a director don’t really thrill me. Almost without exception, it bugs me when directors force the camera to emulate a character’s state of mind, like going fuzzy, shaky, and slo-mo when a character is intoxicated. If Emile Hirsch can’t show us that he’s going mad from starvation (and actually, he does just fine!) the camera shouldn’t make up the difference. Lots of little fancybits: split frames and picture-in-picture, characters looking straight at the camera but making no self-referential point, stuff like that. Stuff that leaps out at one because it’s out of the norm, but serves no purpose in the film, and so stands out as a glaring demerit. Less capable directors can make ok films just by staying quiet. Give Penn credit for putting his stamp on it, I guess.

It’s clear, though, that Penn has a lot of passion for McCandless’ story and the wilderness landscapes the young man journeys through, and I am glad my biggest fear was not realized: that this passion would translate into a destructive sort of hero-worship. No, enough characters are in place to question his motives and sanity that although Chris himself doesn’t learn the ultimate lesson behind his quest until it’s too late to reap the benefits, the audience has room to judge for itself all along. Although much of the presentation irks me (I also didn’t care for the episodic structure), ultimately I found this to be a deeply moving film, particularly as I suppose I learned a similar lesson myself around Chris’ age, thankfully after less trying experiences: that happiness is not real unless it is shared.

My Best Friend

Critics praised Julie Delpy’s 2 Days in Paris most for its unsentimental portrait of modern Paris, but while I appreciate that & do think it is the better film all things considered, I still fall head over heels for the bright, romantic Paris and jaunty accordion soundtrack in a thing like this! The plot — an all-business antiques dealer tries to find a best friend to settle a bet — is contrived, but handled maturely in Leconte’s hands: it’s a light film, but always human. Both Daniel Auteuil and Dany Boon are terrific in the rare guy film with no romantic asides to speak of, and even I can’t read homoeroticism into their growing bond, which is made of increasingly interesting stuff. Parts of it are weak — the too-long and too-obvious Who Wants to Be a Millionaire segment comes to mind — but overall it is a fresh and rewarding little comedy.

Over 21

A later wartime comedy, and a surprising winner, about a successful newspaper editor and his screenwriter/novelist wife who shift to life in army OCS, despite pushing 40 when everyone knows you can’t absorb anything over 21. It’s very funny (and should be, adapted from a Ruth Gordon play), warm and romantic (Irene Dunne singlehandedly and determinedly makes it so — I suppose she could embrace a lamppost compellingly and sensuously, as Alexander Knox is nearly that) and consistently entertaining. Recommended forgotten film.

Breach

It takes a pretty confident film to be consciously boring for its first 40 minutes. Somewhere around that mark, both the audience and the FBI agent investigating one of its own get a lot more information from the higher-ups, and the film takes a deft and permanent turn for the fascinatingly complex. While lackluster dialogue and thriller cliches intermittently dog the film throughout its runtime, it is ultimately a smart and engrossing political film, aided by a tremendously ambiguous performance by Chris Cooper as the man under investigation.

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