Hemingway & Gellhorn (2012) [TV-MA] ***/****

A film review by Michael Reuben for blu-ray.com on March 30, 2013

One's ability to enjoy director Philp Kaufman's HBO original movie Hemingway & Gellhorn greatly depends on one's tolerance for characters who make grand pronouncements and take themselves with utter seriousness. Contemporary viewers often balk at accepting such characters unless they're cloaked in an alternate reality that puts them at a comfortable distance - the remote past or perhaps a fantasy world such as Middle Earth or a galaxy far, far away. Should anyone of that nature pop up today, the immediate assumption is that they're a fraud, a pitchman or, worst of all, a politician.

Still, it wasn't so long ago that such people lived, worked and drew huge audiences without the aid of spin or publicists. Nobel Prize-winning author Ernest Hemingway was one of them, and so was his third wife, war correspondent Martha Gellhorn. Gellhorn was the only one of Hemingway's four wives to maintain her own career. As both mutual admirers and fierce competitors, the two were briefly a celebrity couple in the 1940s, until, like many celebrity couples, ambition split them apart. Hemingway died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1961 at the age of 61, whereas Gellhorn continued working well into her 80s. She died in 1998 of a drug overdose, after a long battle with cancer. As a condition of giving interviews, she would often insist that no questions about Hemingway be asked, saying that she did not wish to be a footnote in someone else's life. (The line appears near the end of Kaufman's film.)

Hemingway & Gellhorn is the result of years of painstaking research, not only in writings, letters and journals by and about the two writers, but also in film archives around the world. Using the latest digital technology, and without ever leaving the San Francisco Bay area, the production has seamlessly recreated a compelling story of two larger-than-life personalities whose collisions played themselves out against a background of cataclysmic events around the world.

You don't get a literary education from Kaufman's film; for that, you'd have to read For Whom the Bell Tolls, the novel that Hemingway wrote during the period portrayed in the film and dedicated to Gellhorn. Nor do you get a clear understanding of the history of the Spanish Civil War, the invasion of Normandy or any of the various theaters of World War II on which Gellhorn reported; for that, you'd have to read her dispatches or the history books that have used them as source material. What you do get is a sense of two exceptional, frequently difficult, sometimes dislikeable people, who had the drive to accomplish things that others couldn't and were willing to sacrifice everything in the process, including each other.

Gellhorn (Nicole Kidman) narrates the film as an elderly lady who gazes without blinking into an interviewer's camera. (The makeup that ages Nicole Kidman is the most convincing disguise I've seen since her Oscar-winning appearance as Virginia Woolf in The Hours.) Though American by birth, Gellhorn has lived in Britain for many years by this point and has acquired a slight English accent. Her voice has deepened from a lifetime of cigarette consumption. Establishing the distinctive tone of the older Gellhorn's voice is crucial to guiding the viewer through the film's shifting time periods and voiceovers, because the younger Gellhorn sometimes chimes in, reading her dispatches from the front.

Gellhorn meets Hemingway (Clive Owen) in 1936 in Sloppy Joe's bar in Key West, Florida, where she is visiting with her mother and brother. At the time, Hemingway is married to his second wife, Pauline (Molly Parker), with whom he has two sons, but he is always surrounded by a coterie of male friends, who, in the film, are represented by former bullfighter Sidney Franklin (Saverio Guerra). In this era, it is still possible for a serious author to become a celebrity, and currently at the height of his fame, Hemingway is enjoying the notoriety of a rock star. As aptly illustrated in the script by Jerry Stahl and Barbara Turner and faithfully portrayed by Owen, Hemingway's attitude toward his own public image is contradictory. He loves the spotlight, especially when it helps him attract beautiful women, but he also understands that fame is fleeting and ultimately unreliable.

Hemingway and Gellhorn reconnect the following year in Madrid, where Martha has gone to report on the Spanish Civil War for Collier's magazine. Hemingway was there supposedly as a reporter, but increasingly he becomes involved with a documentary film project by Dutch director Joris Ivens (Lars Ulrich) supported by American author John Dos Passos (David Strathairn). A motley crew of anti-Franco sympathizers end up staying at the same hotel, where their interactions are, by turns, comical, dangerous and sinister (the last quality being the special province of a Russian journalist, Koltsov, played by Tony Shalhoub). As their circumstances turn ever more perilous, the attraction between Hemingway and Gellhorn grows, and they become lovers.

The film follows the couple as they split and reunite across three continents and the island of Cuba, where they acquire a house called Finca Vigia. But Gellhorn has the adrenaline junkie's need to be where the action is. Instead of staying in Cuba with Hemingway while he is writing For Whom the Bell Tolls, she flies off to cover the war in Finland, where the Russians are invading. When she returns, Hemingway announces that he has divorced Pauline and proposes marriage, but for a honeymoon, Gellhorn insists on visiting China to cover the war between the forces of Chiang Kai-shek and the communists. With the greatest reluctance, Hemingway accompanies her. Later, he has himself hired by Collier's to cover D-Day, just so that Gellhorn cannot. She finds a way to get there anyway.

Hemingway's feuds with other male writers were legendary. At one point, Pauline refers to his rivalry with F. Scott Fitzgerald; the cruelty that Hemingway displayed toward Dos Passos is repeatedly shown in the film; and a famous incident involving a fistfight with the critic Max Eastman (Mark Pellegrino) is enacted in all its ridiculous detail. But no female writer ever gave Hemingway a run for his money the way Martha Gellhorn did, and at least in this interpretation, it is more than he can handle. When Gellhorn demands a divorce in 1944, Hemingway goes back to his old habits and marries another caretaker, Mary (Parker Posey), his fourth and final wife. In an overly rushed conclusion, Hemingway & Gellhorn compresses the sixteen years following the couple's divorce into a few minutes, as if Hemingway's productive life ended after he split from Gellhorn. (It didn't.)

Owen's portrayal of Hemingway treads a fine line between a realistic character and the iconic figure that the author himself deliberately cultivated after he became well-known. (One review at the time of the film's release mocked the script for having a husband address his wife as Gellhorn, but the real Hemingway was well known for such eccentricities.) As Gellhorn, Kidman has more room to maneuver, because her character is less familiar, but she also has the more difficult job of making comprehensible a woman who was unique, not just for her time, but in general. In his commentary, Kaufman expresses the hope that both scholars and the public will now reevaluate Gellhorn and her achievements. Hemingway & Gellhorn is an excellent beginning.

Labels: biography, drama, Nicole Kidman, romance, tragedy, war
IMDb 63/100
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=53, viewers=60)
Blu-ray

Genius (2016) [PG-13] ***/****

 A film review by Tom Russo for bostonglobe.com June 15, 2016

In Genius, great writing comes with bromance

Book editors get their big-screen due in Genius, a Colin Firth - Jude Law pairing depicting the close working relationship between venerable Scribner’s editor Max Perkins and 1930s literary luminary Thomas Wolfe. Adapted from biographer A. Scott Berg’s acclaimed 1978 portrait of Perkins, the film is surprisingly light on conflict and definitely goes a bit heavy on period bromantic bonhomie. Even so, it’s an intriguing study of the personalities and torturous process behind some of the early 20th century’s great writing.

Director Michael Grandage establishes the film’s vintage, chambers-of-import aesthetic straightaway with elegant images of Wolfe (Law) waiting in a Manhattan downpour for a pivotal meeting at Scribner, and Perkins (Firth) in his archive-like office, poring over Hemingway galleys. (In a great bit of character observation, Perkins always sports a fedora, even when editing at home in his PJs.) A connection is formed when Perkins agrees to read unheralded Wolfe’s sprawling, semiautobiographical draft of Look Homeward, Angel as a favor to a colleague. The staid, thoughtful editor finds himself unexpectedly swept up, first by Wolfe’s unconventional, poetic prose, then by the author’s outsize, exuberant Southern charm.

This dramatic dynamic is well played. It’s especially fun catching Wolfe’s over-the-top reaction to learning that he’s finally going to be published. Or Perkins’s bemusement at watching workers roll in a mountain of milk crates with the longhand scribbles for Wolfe’s epic follow-up, Of Time and the River. But other scenes, such as Wolfe taking Perkins to an uptown club to share the writer’s love for jazz, feel cutely overdone. Meanwhile, there’s a perfunctory narrative quality to the way that veteran screenwriter John Logan (The Aviator, Spectre) covers the duo’s eventual estrangement, never mind how closely this might hew to the facts.

More time is spent on Wolfe’s lover and benefactor, stage designer Aline Bernstein (Nicole Kidman), and her jealousy of the Wolfe-Perkins bond. But this, too, seems hurried, while corresponding drama with Perkins’s supportive wife (Laura Linney) feels superfluous.

Fittingly, what’s perfectly scripted and captured are the various small moments showing these hallowed novels as true works in progress. Just like any other writing, Perkins first has to go over Wolfe’s pages with a judicious red pencil. We see him life-coaching F. Scott Fitzgerald (Guy Pearce, sympathetically brittle), and talking shop with Hemingway (Dominic West, entertainingly macho). They’re fascinating touches that keep the film grounded, even when the tone drifts toward I Love Editing You, Man. [Russo’s rating 2.5 stars out of 4 = 62.5%

Labels: biography, drama, Nicole Kidman, period, tragedy

IMDb 65/100

MetaScore (critics=56, viewers=67)

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=59, viewers=64)

Lion (Australia, 2016) [PG-13] ****/*****

A film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net on Dec. 26, 2016.

Sometimes, it is said, truth is stranger than fiction. And, as director Garth Davis has perhaps discovered, filming such truths can be more difficult than filming fiction. Lion, based on the autobiographical tale of Saroo Brierley, tells of the author’s amazing journey from being lost at age five on the streets of Calcutta, more than a thousand miles from home, to his return journey as an adult to discover the place and people he left behind. By turns sad, frightening, and inspirational, the movie is impeded only by the difficulty of bridging the 25-year span between segments and accepting the older lead (Dev Patel) as a replacement for his younger self (Sunny Pawar).

Lion begins in a small village in India in 1986 where a young boy, Saroo (Sunny Pawar), works with his older brother, Guddu (Abhishek Bharate), to complete chores that will help their mother, Kamla (Pryanka Bose), put a little more food on the table. One day, Guddu tells Saroo that he will be traveling by train to a distant city to find work. Despite his young age, Saroo insists that he comes along. His stubbornness is such that Guddu eventually relents but, along the way, the two brothers become separated and Saroo eventually disembarks in Calcutta not knowing where he is, how to speak the language, or the name of the village he has come from. Fortune smiles on the confused and frightened young boy - he is eventually adopted by an Australian couple, Sue and John Brierley (Nicole Kidman and David Wenham), and grows up with only dim memories of his biological mother and siblings. A quarter-century later, an adult Saroo (Dev Patel), uses Google Earth to research his past and make the decision to seek out his birthplace and contact any surviving relatives. More than anything, he hopes to be reunited with his mother and Guddu.

Lion’s first half, which focuses on the young Saroo, is exceptionally well done. Davis effectively captures the boy’s fear and confusion at being separated from his brother then stranded in a strange country where he understands nothing, can’t speak the language and doesn’t know the culture. Non-professionally trained actor Sunny Pawar (who doesn’t speak English) conveys the essence of a child’s view of this big, frightening world.

The film loses traction when it shifts to the modern day. Although there’s nothing wrong with Dev Patel’s portrayal, there’s a disconnect between his interpretation of Saroo and Pawar’s. Admittedly, 25 years have passed, but it’s difficult for the viewer to accept these two actors as playing the same person. And, although Saroo’s trek back to the town of his birth is critical to finishing the film’s narrative arc, the character is less interesting as an adult than as a child and the story lacks the intensity evident during the first segment. Rooney Mara’s role as Saroo’s girlfriend, Lucy, is superfluous. She’s intended to illustrate the success he has achieved in assimilating and provide a sounding board for him but the part seems shoehorned in.

Although Mara is a poor fit for the storyline, the same can’t be said of Nicole Kidman, who puts aside her Hollywood stardom to take on a small, unglamorous role. This isn’t a flashy part but Kidman was drawn to the story and the real Sue Brierley (whom she plays) endorsed the Australian-raised actress to be her cinematic doppelganger. Although some of the key actors in Khandwa and Calcutta are professional, many are not. In the final scene, for example, there are no hired extras. Everyone is an actual resident of the area.

For Davis, the producers, and the cast, telling the story has been a passion. The documentary footage that closes the film was shot by Davis for a 60 Minutes special detailing Saroo’s life. Patel immersed himself in the history of his character in order to be better able to play him. And the production team refused to move the setting from Australia to America to acquire the support of a major studio (and the associated money). Lion represents a commitment from those involved and, flaws aside, it’s an amazing tale of resilience and determination. [Berardinelli’s rating: *** out of 4 stars]

Blogger’s notes: As a child, Saroo mispronounced his own name, so he grew up thinking it was Saroo, when actually it was Sheru, an endearing form of the name Sher which is Hindi for Lion.

If you want to take Saroo's journey yourself, simply google "ganesha talai india to kolkata india" Click on the map and start zooming in (+). You will be able to zoom in 14 or 15 times, shifting the map to keep Ganesha Talai in center, before you run out of resolution. Click the Satellite box in the lower left corner for an aerial view of Ganesha Talai.

It's interesting that Saroo remembered the word "Ganestalay" but never thought that it might be "Ganesh talay". There are probably hundreds (literally) of tiny villages named "Ganesh" or "Ganesha" in India. One example is the ashram of Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, named Gurudev Siddha Peeth, located near the tiny village of Ganeshpuri, seventy miles northeast of Mumbai.

Ganesh, or Ganesha is the name of the son of Shiva and Parvati. He is traditionally pictured as a boy with an elephant's head. The story is that Shiva impregnated Parvati but was away from home when the boy was born. When Shiva finally showed up, Ganesha, who was protecting Parvati, would not let him in the house. Angered, Shiva took Ganesha's head off with his sword, upon which Parvati told him that was his son, and what had he done? Shiva immediately began looking for a head to put on the boy's body and searched far and wide for a sinner he could kill, until he found a baby elephant who was sleeping with his head facing north. He killed the baby elephant, brought his head home and placed it on the body of his son Ganesha. True story. Wikipedia

Labels: biography, cross-cultural, drama, Nicole Kidman, reunion

Internet Movie Database 80 

MetaScore (critics=69, viewers=78 

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=73, viewers=85) 

Blu-ray 

Wikipedia 

Just Go With It (2011) [PG-13] ***

 
Danny (Adam Sandler) is an unmarried plastic surgeon in Los Angeles, whose practice consists of correcting other surgeons' mistakes and whose personal life consists of a series of one-night stands. Danny's assistant Katherine (Jennifer Aniston) is a single mother with two preteen children, who admires Danny professionally, while disapproving of his lifestyle. Life is good for Danny until he meets and falls for the much-younger Palmer (Brooklyn Decker). Palmer finds a fake wedding band in Danny's pants pocket, and rejects him because she feels guilty about dating a married man. As a ploy to win Palmer back, Danny convinces Katherine to pretend to be his soon-to-be ex-wife, befriending Palmer in the process. There are subplots involving Devlin (Nicole Kidman) a college friend of Katherine's, Eddie (Nick Swardson) Danny's cousin, and Katherine's two children.

There is little that is creative, unique or appealing about this film and it is a terrible waste of talent. The plot - man chases beautiful girl while oblivious to the attractive woman who loves him – has been done before, most successfully as a teen comedy, for example Some Kind of Wonderful. There is no romantic chemistry between Sandler and either Aniston or Decker, and the Wailea, Maui filming locations, while colorful and exotic, simply emphasize how devoid the film is of any real romantic tension. If you want to see Adam Sandler in a romantic comedy set in Hawaii, I recommend 50 First Dates with Drew Barrymore, but not Just Go With It. 

[Blogger's comment: My wife and I were actually living in Wailea, Maui in 2010 while this was being filmed. We observed sets being built in and around the Grand Wailea Resort, and my wife even glimpsed Jennifer Aniston taking a morning run. Regardless, this is a terrible film, but as often occurs, there's a complete disconnect between critics' ratings (2 stars) and viewing audiences (4 stars). Personally, I gave it ** out of 5 stars.]

Labels: comedy, Nicole Kidman, romance   
Internet Movie Database    
Metacritic 33/100    
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=37, viewers=70)    
Blu-ray1    
Blu-ray2

Nine (2009) [PG-13] ***

Nine is the story of Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis), an Italian film director in the mid-1960s, whose early films were beloved, but whose most recent ones are considered flops. Film industry journalists believe Contini has run out of inspiration, and the people around him who depend on him for their livelihood anxiously await his completion of a screenplay so they can begin shooting his next film.

His coterie includes his wife Luisa (Marion Cotillard) who was formerly his leading lady and now realizes that she is nothing special to him, his sexy, clingy, self-destructive mistress Carla (Penelope Cruz), his current leading lady and inspirational muse Claudia (Nicole Kidman), his level-headed, realistic costume designer Lilli (Judi Dench), his deceased Mamma (Sophia Loren) who continues to provide support and encouragement, his producer Dante (Ricky Tognazzi), and Stephanie (Kate Hudson) a Vogue journalist who throws herself at him.

Beset on all sides, Contini escapes Rome for a seaside resort in southern Italy, but the entire film crew descends on him, giving him no peace, pressuring him to write a screenplay, and to give new young actresses screen tests, until finally Contini is forced to admit that he is without inspiration, there is no screenplay and he has nothing more to give them.

This is a fascinating story about the unraveling of a man's life, told from the perspective of the women in his life. The film was adapted from the 1982 Broadway musical smash hit Nine, which was written by playwright Arthur Kopit, with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston, and which was itself inspired by Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical film 8½ , which starred Marcello Mastroianni as Guido, Anouk Aimée as his wife Luisa, Claudia Cardinale as his muse Claudia and Sandra Milo as his mistress Carla. The new film's cinematography is intentionally reminiscent of that found in Fellini's classic films of the 1960s such as La Dolce Vita, Boccaccio '70 and 8½. While the individual performances are excellent, the whole is definitely less than the sum of its parts. The film lacks a clear story arc as well as the surreal, dreamlike quality found in Fellini's classic films. I could not help feeling that this would have been much more successful as a mature drama, rather than a Broadway musical converted to a film musical. Regardless, if you enjoyed Moulin Rouge, Chicago and The Phantom of the Opera, you probably will enjoy Nine. 

Labels: drama, filmmaking, musical, Nicole Kidman, reunion, romance    
Internet Movie Database    
Metacritic 49/100    
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=51, viewers=58)    
Blu-ray

Australia (2008) [PG-13] ***

Out of Africa meets Pearl Harbor meets Quigley Down Under in this romantic action and adventure epic set in Australia's Northern Territory in 1939, just prior to World War II. Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) is a British aristocrat who has journeyed from England to force her husband to sell Faraway Downs, their 10,000 square mile cattle station, so they can pay off their debts back in England. But when her husband is brutally murdered, she realizes that the real threat comes from King Carney (Bryan Brown) a cattle baron who wants a beef monopoly and is stealing her cattle. Facing bankruptcy, Sarah decides to sell 1,500 head of cattle to the Australian army. Reluctantly she joins forces with Drover (Hugh Jackman), a rough-hewn stockman who is an outcast because of his friendships with aborigines, and the pair embark on an adventure to drive the herd north across hundreds of miles of the country's most desolate, yet beautiful, outback.

Despite a cattle stampede started by King Carney's hired gunmen, led by Neil Fletcher (David Wenham), Sarah and Drover complete the journey and arrive in the port city of Darwin. Soon afterwards, they witness its bombing by the Japanese naval forces that had attacked Pearl Harbor months earlier, thus marking Australia's entry into the war. Australia requires viewer patience due to its length and its occasional lapses into self-parody. The film features good performances from Kidman, Jackman, Wenham, Brown and Brandon Walters as Nullah, the half-caste boy who narrates the film and steals the hearts of Sarah and Drover as well as those of the audience. There is gorgeous cinematography and fairly good romantic chemistry between the ruggedly handsome Hugh Jackman and the delicately beautiful, porcelain-skinned Nicole Kidman. Co-written and directed by Baz Luhrmann, there are no real plot twists or surprises, good triumphs over evil, and the ending is uplifting. 

Labels: adventure, drama, history, Nicole Kidman, romance, western, WWII
Internet Movie Database
Metacritic 53/100
Tomatometer (critics=55, viewers=65)
Blu-ray

The Interpreter (2005) [PG-13] ***

A film review by James Berardinelli.

The Interpreter is a cut above the average politically-based thriller. Although the events depicted in the film are fictional (as is the country in which some of the action transpires), they bear a more-than-passing resemblance to incidents that have rocked African nations in recent decades. This makes the backstory more credible than what one might otherwise expect. The screenplay successfully develops suspense without relying on the bait-and-switch tactics that often leave a viewer dissatisfied with an unexpected twist. The Interpreter builds to a satisfying conclusion that will not inflict the average audience member with a case of cinematic whiplash.

The film is a little overplotted, and, as is often the case with movies of this sort, there is a coincidence that has to be absorbed in order for the story to work. Once the viewer gets over that hump, however, it's clear sailing. Veteran director Sydney Pollack, whose experience in the genre dates back to Three Days of the Condor, understands that thrillers work best when the characters are real, and, by casting Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn, two of the best working performers, he allows acting to transform the clichéd protagonists into three-dimensional individuals we come to care about.

Silvia Broome (Kidman) spent most of her life as a member of the affluent white minority in the African country of Matobo. As an adolescent, she lost her mother, father, and sister to a landmine. Now, she works as a translator at the United Nations in New York. Edmond Zuwanie (Earl Cameron), Matobo's president and the man Silvia blames for her parents' demise, is coming to the U.N. to make a speech designed to circumvent his being placed on trial for human rights violations. Late one night, when Silvia returns to her sound booth to retrieve some belongings, she inadvertently overhears a conversation between two men who are plotting to kill Zuwanie. And when they see her, she becomes a target.

Enter Secret Service agents Tobin Keller (Penn) and Dot Woods (Catherine Keener), who are called to investigate Silvia's story. Tobin is on shaky emotional ground. His wife was recently killed in a car accident and he is fighting to keep it together. At first, he is skeptical of Silvia's tale - considering her background as a political opponent of Zuwanie, it seems unlikely that she would come forward with information that might save his life. But, as he spends time with her, he begins to trust her, and, when there is an attempt on her life, he takes on the role of her protector. But there are things she isn't telling him, and her silence places both of them in danger.

The Interpreter pays a great deal of attention to the recent history and politics of its fictional African country. 28 years ago, when he came to power, Zuwanie was hailed as a hero. But, to quote the saying, power corrupts. The dictator's paranoia led to a ruthless purge of his supposed enemies, with many innocents being caught in the crossfire. The word genocide is spoken aloud, not just whispered. Now, two rivals work to overthrow Zuwanie, but he, and his henchmen, are aware of the threat they pose.

How fine is the line between a good thriller and a poor one? With a less accomplished cast, a director less sure of the material, and screenwriters who don't fill in as many blanks, The Interpreter could have been direct-to-late-night-cable B-movie fare. But it isn't. This is solid, welcome entertainment that doesn't rely on car chases and shoot-outs (although both are represented, after a fact) to generate tension. The first 60 or 70 minutes of the movie are primarily set-up. As the story moves forward, the characters' backgrounds are gradually revealed. Once we're into the second hour, Pollack ratchets up the pace a few notches and we notice a quickening of the pulse.

Although primarily designed to get the adrenaline pumping, The Interpreter also functions as a morality play, asking questions about the value of revenge (vengeance is a lazy form of grief, remarks a character at one point) and whether the taking of a life does anything to assuage emotional pain. And there's a low-key love story of sorts. Penn and Kidman both play damaged individuals who find a degree of solace in each other's company. The way they connect, and the limits they place upon how much comfort they seek, is believable. (It's interesting to note that Kidman, with her hair lightened almost to blond, bears a striking resemblance to Naomi Watts. This causes a déjà vu flashback to the Penn/Watts interaction in 21 Grams. That was another film in which pain, more than love, formed the foundation of a key relationship.)

There's a sense of unpredictability about some of the things that happen in The Interpreter, but at no time do any of these turns seem forced. Elements of the ending are facile, but nearly all of the loose ends are wrapped up, and we don't suffer through the kind of happily ever after epilogue that would betray The Interpreter's underlying dark tone. This is a finely balanced and crafted motion picture. Despite the PG-13 rating, which will allow admittance to audiences of all ages, Pollack and his screenwriters appear to have crafted this picture with adults in mind.

Labels: mystery, Nicole Kidman, thriller
Internet Movie Database
Metacritic 62/100
Tomatometer (critics=56, viewers=55)

Blu-ray

A Family Affair (2024) [PG-13] ***

A film review by Nell Minow for RogerEbert.com on June 28, 2024.

As mundane as its title, with characters whose color-by-numbers personalities and motivations shift randomly to fit a predictable storyline, A Family Affair is a low-wattage rom-com. As with last month’s streaming romance The Idea of You, this film features a gorgeous Oscar-winning actress as a middle-aged woman falling for a much younger superstar performer, with all the ensuing hijinks.

A Family Affair stars Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron play award-winning author Brooke Harwood and superhero franchise star Chris Cole, whose meet-cute is that Brooke’s 24-year-old daughter Zara (Joey King) is the movie star’s long-suffering personal assistant, on call 24/7 for everything from picking up his dry-cleaning and groceries to just-in-time delivery of the diamond stud earrings he gives to the girls he dates as break-up jewelry. Zara sees how self-absorbed and helpless Chris is, but she stays with him, hoping that he will deliver on his promise to help her career.

Zara still lives with Brooke, a widow for 11 years.  They are both very close to Leila (Kathy Bates), Brooke’s warm-hearted and supportive mother-in-law and Zara’s grandmother.

Zara finally gets fed up and quits her job, just as Chris is about to start filming another sequel in his popular Icarus series. Chris goes to their house to persuade Zara to come back. He meets Brooke, and soon, they are literally ripping each other’s clothes off, just in time for Zara to come home and discover them in flagrante delicto. This leads to what is supposed to be an amusing scene of Zara retching. It is not.

Horrified as Zara is, she agrees to return to work for Chris in exchange for an associate producer credit on his new movie and a promise that he will never see her mother again. He keeps the first promise but not the second, leading to the expected complications and confrontations.

There are no surprises here, but there are a few sharp observations and bright moments when screenwriter Carrie Solomon has some fun with the movie industry setting. The opening montage that establishes Chris as a huge star hits all the right notes, from the magazine covers (GQ, Vanity Fair) to the speculation about his dating life to a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and his appearance on Hot Ones. In a case of art imitating life, a scene of Chris taking an ice bath was inspired by real-life Zac Efron's bulking-up regimen for The Iron Claw.

Zara is on a first-name basis with the paparazzi who swarm outside his gate. The latest Icarus franchise film, repeatedly described as Die Hard meets Miracle on 34th Street with a little bit of Speed, is directed by a French woman who does not speak English, and Chris has to re-shoot a scene because they can’t have a gun in the trailer for a PG-13 film. When Zara gets stuck in traffic and is late getting to the restaurant where Chris plans to break up with his girlfriend, he complains that the wait meant he had to think of too many things to say. The big pink robot statue in Chris’s home is precisely the overpriced junk a young guy who is suddenly rich would think was cool.

But the idea of a show business pretty boy who is more lonely than entitled is stale, and this film desperately needed to make it fresh. After establishing Chris as self-absorbed and not very bright, we are asked to believe that he and an award-winning novelist with shelves of books would bond over her explaining that the character he is known for is named after the Greek myth of the boy who flew too close to the sun, promise each other to have meaningless sex, and then develop an enduring romance.

Their relationship never meets even the low bar for a suspended-disbelief pretty-people-smooching movie. Though King does her best to be harried, anxious, and horrified, Zara’s best friends, played by Liza Koshy and Sherry Cola, are more vibrant and interesting than she is. The last section is very weak, with an unnecessary mix-up, an overdue reality check, and a zigzag into a Hallmark-channel-like cozy white Christmas. The low point is a jarring confession that seems to be intended to make the Brooke / Chris connection more believable but seems like the kind of random punch-up that Zara and her screenwriter friend would jettison. [Nell Minow’s rating: 2 stars out of 4]

Labels: comedy, Nicole Kidman, romance
IMDb 54/100 
MetaScore (critics=43, viewers=46) 
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=40, viewers=44) 

Nell Minow's original review 

Speculation about Zac Efron's new face

Moulin Rouge! (2001) [PG-13] ****

A film review by Roger Ebert, June 1, 2001.

Like almost every American college boy who ever took a cut-rate flight to Paris, I went to the Moulin Rouge on my first night in town. I had a cheap standing-room ticket way in the back, and over the heads of the crowd, through a haze of smoke, I could vaguely see the dancing girls. The tragedy of the Moulin Rouge is that by the time you can afford a better seat, you've outgrown the show.

Moulin Rouge! the movie is more like the Moulin Rouge of my adolescent fantasies than the real Moulin Rouge ever could be. It isn't about tired, decadent people, but about glorious romantics, who believe in the glitz and the tinsel -- who see the nightclub not as a shabby tourist trap but as a stage for their dreams. Even its villain is a love-struck duke who gnashes his way into the fantasy, content to play a starring role however venal.

The film is constructed like the fevered snapshots created by your imagination before an anticipated erotic encounter. It doesn't depend on dialogue or situation but on the way you imagine a fantasy object first from one angle and then another. Satine, the heroine, is seen not so much in dramatic situations as in poses -- in postcards for the yearning mind. The movie is about how we imagine its world. It is perfectly appropriate that it was filmed on sound stages in Australia; Paris has always existed best in the minds of its admirers.

The film stars Nicole Kidman as Satine, a star dancer who has a deadly secret; she is dying of tuberculosis. This is not a secret from the audience, which learns it early on, but from Christian (Ewan McGregor), the would-be writer who loves her. Toulouse-Lautrec (John Leguizamo), the dwarf artist, lives above Christian, and one day comes crashing through the ceiling of their flimsy tenement, sparking a friendship and collaboration: They will write a show to spotlight Satine's brilliance, as well as truth, beauty, freedom and love. (I was reminded of Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor's motto in Singin' in the Rain: Dignity. Always dignity.) The show must be financed; enter the venal Duke of Worcester (Richard Roxburgh), who wants to pay for the show and for Satine's favors. The ringmaster is Zidler (Jim Broadbent), impresario of the Moulin Rouge.

Each of these characters is seen in terms of their own fantasies about themselves. Toulouse-Lautrec, for example, is flamboyant and romantic; Christian is lonely and lovelorn; Satine has a good heart and only seems to be a bad girl; Zidler pretends to be all business but is a softy, and the Duke can be so easily duped because being duped is the essence of his role in life. Those who think they can buy affection are suckers; a wise man is content to rent it.

The movie was directed by Baz Luhrmann, an Australian with a background in opera, whose two previous films were also experiments in exuberant excess. Strictly Ballroom made a ballroom competition into a flamboyant theatrical exercise, and his William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet updated the play into a contempo teenage rumble. He constructs Moulin Rouge! with the melodrama of a 19th century opera, the Technicolor brashness of a 1950s Hollywood musical and the quick-cutting frenzy of a music video. Nothing is really period about the movie -- it's like a costume revue taking place right now, with hit songs from the 1970s and 1980s (you will get the idea if I mention that Jim Broadbent sings Like a Virgin).

I am often impatient with directors who use so many cuts their films seem to have been fed through electric fans. For Luhrmann and this material, it is the right approach. He uses so many different setups and camera angles that some of the songs seem to be cut not on every word of the lyrics, but on every syllable. There's no breathing room. The whole movie is on the same manic pitch as O'Connor's Make 'em Laugh number in Singin' in the Rain. Everything is screwed to a breakneck pitch, as if the characters have died and their lives are flashing before our eyes.

This means the actors do not create their characters but embody them. Who is Satine? A leggy redhead who can look like a million in a nightclub costume, and then melt into a guy's arms. Who is Christian? A man who embodies longing with his eyes and sighs -- whose very essence, whose entire being, is composed of need for Satine. With the Duke, one is reminded of silent films in which the titles said The Duke, and then he sneered at you.

The movie is all color and music, sound and motion, kinetic energy, broad strokes, operatic excess. While it might be most convenient to see it from the beginning, it hardly makes any difference; walk in at any moment and you'll quickly know who is good and bad, who is in love and why -- and then all the rest is song, dance, spectacular production numbers, protestations of love, exhalations of regret, vows of revenge and grand destructive gestures. It's like being trapped on an elevator with the circus.

Labels: drama, musical, Nicole Kidman, Paris, period, romance, satire
Internet Movie Database
Metacritic 66/100  
Tomatometer (critics=76, viewers=90)   
Blu-ray 

Days of Thunder (1990) [PG-13] ***/****

A film review by Roger Ebert, June 27, 1990.

Days of Thunder is an entertaining example of what we might as well call the Tom Cruise movie, since it assembles most of the same elements that worked in Top Gun, The Color of Money and Cocktail and runs them through the formula once again. Parts of the plot are beginning to wear out their welcome, but the key ingredients are still effective. They include:

1. The Cruise Character, invariably a young and naive but naturally talented kid who could be the best, if he could ever tame his rambunctious spirit.

2. The Mentor, an older man who has done it himself and has been there before and knows talent when he sees it, and who has faith in the kid even when the kid screws up because his free spirit has gotten the best of him.

3. The Superior Woman, usually older, taller and more mature than the Cruise character, who functions as a Mentor for his spirit, while the male Mentor supervises his craft.

4. The Craft, which the gifted young man must master.

5. The Arena, in which the young man is tested.

6. The Arcana, consisting of the specialized knowledge and lore that the movie knows all about, and we get to learn.

7. The Trail, a journey to visit the principal places where the masters of the craft test one another.

8. The Proto-Enemy, the bad guy in the opening reels of the movie, who provides the hero with an opponent to practice on. At first the Cruise character and the Proto-Enemy dislike each other, but eventually through a baptism of fire they learn to love one another.

9. The Eventual Enemy, a real bad guy who turns up in the closing reels to provide the hero with a test of his skill, his learning ability, his love, his craft and his knowledge of the Arena and the Arcana.

The archetypal Tom Cruise movie is Top Gun, in which the young fighter pilot, a natural, was tutored by a once-great pilot and emotionally nurtured by an older female flight instructor before testing his wings against the hot dogs of his unit, in preparation for a final showdown.

In The Color of Money, the young pool player, a natural, was tutored by a once-great pool hustler and emotionally nurtured by an older female who had been around the block a few times, in preparation for a two-part showdown with (a) his hated opponent on the professional pool circuit, and (b) his Mentor himself.

In Cocktail, the young bartender, a natural, was tutored by an older bartender, before eventually meeting first an older female who taught him a thing or two, and then a younger but still more mature female who taught him how to forget them.

In Days of Thunder, all of these elements are present in an entertainment of great skill but predictable construction. The Craft is stock-car racing. The Mentor is played by Robert Duvall, as a veteran racing-team leader. The Superior Woman is a physician (Nicole Kidman), who is attracted to the raw energy of the hero but forces him to grow up by laying down the line of responsible behavior. The Arena is the auto-racing track, and the Arcana includes such lore as slipstreaming, RPMs, tire temperature and whether to pass on the outside or the inside. The Proto-Enemy is a driver named Rowdy (Michael Rooker), who challenges the hero to racing duels, including one that winds them both up in the hospital. The Eventual Enemy (Cary Elwes) is a driver named Wheeler who would like to run the hero into the wall and kill him. And the Trail is the Southern stock-car circuit, ending in the holy city of Daytona.

Days of Thunder was directed by Tony Scott, the same man who started this whole cycle by directing Top Gun, and the new movie shows the same mastery of the photography of fast machines. The movie's handicap is that auto racing is a boring sport visually unless you are standing close to the cars or they are crashing into each other. The rest consists of long shots of lots of anonymous cars dashing confusingly around the track, medium shots of two cars trying to pass one another, and close-ups of drivers looking as if they are experiencing a colonoscopy.

As Days of Thunder sees it, the principal strategy in stock-car racing consists of trying to sideswipe your opponent and push him into the wall, and Cruise's cars scrape the wall for easily half of the time they are on the track. Most of this racing footage is loud and fast enough to be exciting, however, and the off-track sequences are served by Duvall's usual laconic, sensitive performance; Randy Quaid as a used-car dealer who has faith in the kid, and Rooker as the perfect Proto-Enemy (he can look hateful and then turn it around with a smile).

Kidman has little to do as the love interest and doesn't make much of an impression. And Cruise is so efficiently packaged in this product that he plays the same role as a saint in a Mexican village's holy day procession: It's not what he does that makes him so special; it's the way he manifests everybody's faith in him. [Ebert’s rating: *** out of 4 stars]

Labels: action, auto-racing, drama, Nicole Kidman, romance, sport

Internet Movie Database 60/100 

MetaScore (critics=60, viewers=55)

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=51, viewers=72) 

Blu-ray