Sophie Jones (2020) [NR] ****

An edited film review by Roxana Hadadi for rogerebert.com on Mar. 8, 2021.

Is there ever a point at which grief gets easier? 16-year-old Sophie Jones (Jessica Barr) is going through it. Her mother has recently died. She feels tangible distance from her sister Lucy (Charlie Jackson) and their father Aaron (Dave Roberts). Every day feels like a struggle that just bleeds into another, and another, and another. Nothing feels right - and that unease, when coupled with Sophie’s adolescent sexual awakening, makes for a complicated mix that Sophie Jones tracks with rawness, poignancy, and slightly too much vagueness.

The film is a family affair, directed by Jessie Barr and written by Jessie and her cousin Jessica, who also stars in Sophie Jones as its titular teenager. The Barrs drew from their own personal experiences as adolescents who each lost a parent to cancer, and the result is that Sophie Jones feels deeply authentic in its understanding of grief. There are no grand blowouts here, no massively emoting moments. Instead, Sophie Jones rejects linear storytelling to operate more as a series of vignettes, spread out over two or so years, which follow Sophie as she struggles to mourn her mother, develop her own personality, and explore her sexual identity. We jump forward sometimes days, sometimes weeks, sometimes months, but the focus is always two-pronged: the inner sadness Sophie carries that she rarely shares with anyone else, and the outer sexual confidence - tiptoeing into aggression - that she displays as she jumps from boy to boy.

On the one hand, this centers Jessica Barr’s organic, naturalistic performance, allowing the actress space to work out the myriad oppositional complexities related to mourning and desire. When we meet Sophie, she’s opening the bag of her mother’s ashes, sifting through them with her fingers, and putting some in her mouth (something she’ll do as a defensive mechanism throughout the film). Is it macabre that in the next scene, she’s swiping on some lip gloss and sucking on a lollipop while proposing a hookup with classmate Kevin (Skyler Verity)? Maybe, but this sort of vacillation is Sophie’s new normal. She hasn’t been doing drugs, drinking, or engaging in self-harm, she tells a therapist - but what she doesn’t share is that her sexual experimentation is gaining her a certain reputation.

No interaction is exactly the same. There’s Kevin, who clearly has feelings for Sophie that go further than just their hookups; she shuts him down. There’s Tony (Chase Offerle) a senior who tells a friend of an acquaintance Kate (Sam Kamerman) that he thinks Sophie is cute; suddenly she’s planning to lose her virginity to him. There’s Riley (Tristan Decker) Sophie’s closest male friend, who has been by her side since third grade and who has never made a move - but whom Sophie tries to forcibly kiss in her car. Sophie’s grief and her sexual choices are probably interlinked, as Sophie’s worried best friend Claire (Claire Manning) suggests, but Sophie doesn’t care about being looked down upon by her classmates. So what if other girls laugh at her? So what if a random acquaintance pulls her aside to tell her she’s embarrassing herself? Could any of that really be worse than losing her mother? Sophie Jones doesn’t shy away from the reactions Sophie receives, but it refuses to judge her, either.

That’s an admirable, arguably essential, quality for coming-of-age stories; think of how other recent films in this subgenre, like Lady Bird, Skate Kitchen, and Hala, also treat their female characters with the respect that previous generations of films about young women often lacked. Sophie Jones equates being inside its character’s headspace with being close to her physically: tight shots of her profile as she drives around, a floating camera in her bedroom as she somberly thinks about her mother, and well-edited hookup scenes that capture her gleeful abandon or painful regret. But on the other hand, Sophie Jones sometimes stumbles in this narrowness. The film’s alignment with Sophie is so thorough that there are no scenes without her, which makes some of these time jumps disorienting. If we’ve been with Sophie this whole time, how did weeks just pass? When did the relationship she suddenly has with one of these guys occur? What happened in the time between, say, New Year’s, and when Sophie is suddenly getting ready to leave for college? The narrative connections are sometimes so hazy that Sophie’s behavior reads more as erratic than it does spontaneous, and additional plot details in the Barrs’ script might have better contextualized some of her personality shifts.

Nevertheless, this approach favors Jessica Barr’s inhabiting of the character she helped write, and that is undoubtedly the greatest strength of Sophie Jones. Watching it, I was reminded of Margaret Atwood’s quote from the novel Alias Grace: When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion. Nearly every scene in Sophie Jones is either meditative or combative in some way, and Barr nails the flickering, shifting, visceral emotions of adolescence. The deadpan way she says of oral sex, I could just bite his dick off if I wanted to, and then her little laugh afterward; her utterly unimpressed delivery of, This is sex? This is it?; the way her face shifts from tense rapture to barely veiled perturbation when Kevin asks her, You’re on birth control, right?; how she lets her sentences trail off when she’s tired of a conversation. Even when the script relies too much on her affect, the actress remains impressively self-possessed, and the film’s framing of her is evocative. Sophie Jones is a promising effort from both Barr women. [Hadadi's rating: 3 stars out of 4]

Labels: drama, high-school, teenager
IMDb 54/100
MetaScore (critics=72, viewers=tbd)
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=72, viewers=80)
Blu-ray
Roxana Hadadi review 

The Queen’s Gambit (2020) [TV-MA] ***** (updated January 25, 2023)

A film review by Allison Shoemaker for rogerebert.com on Oct. 23, 2020.

When you read the words Netflix limited drama series about addiction, obsession, trauma, and chess, the first adjective which springs to mind is probably not thrilling. But here we are, and The Queen’s Gambit, Scott Frank’s adaptation of Walter Tevis’ coming-of-age novel of the same name, absolutely demands the use of thrilling. Anchored by a magnetic lead performance and bolstered by world-class acting, marvelous visual language, a teleplay that’s never less than gripping, and an admirable willingness to embrace contradiction and ambiguity, it’s one of the year’s best series. While not without flaws, it is, in short, a triumph. And it is satisfying not just as a compelling period drama, a character study, and a feast for the eyes. It’s also, at its heart, a sports movie wrapped up in the vestments of a prestige TV series. Ask yourself this: When is the last time you fist-pumped the air over chess? Isn’t that something you deserve?

Odds are that Beth Harmon (the remarkable Anya Taylor-Joy) will earn quite a few fist-pumps as people discover Frank and co-creator Alan Scott’s excellent series. We meet Beth as an eight-year-old (Isla Johnson) when she’s left impossibly unharmed - physically, at least - by the car crash that kills her mother. Her father’s not in the picture, so Beth finds herself at the Methuen Home, a Christian school for orphans in Mt. Sterling, Kentucky. While there, she develops three things: a friendship with Jolene (newcomer Moses Ingram, excellent), a passion for chess, and a physical and emotional dependence on the little green tranquilizers fed to the children until they’re outlawed by the state of Kentucky. When she finally leaves the school, she’s got those last two things packed in her suitcase alongside a bunch of chess books, a sizable ego, some unexplored trauma, and no small amount of self-loathing. But it’s the game that drives her, sending her both to the heights of the competitive chess world and, increasingly, to her hoard of pills and the oblivion offered by alcohol.

In short, Beth has a lot to handle. Luckily, Anya Taylor-Joy is more than up to the task. Playing Beth from 15 onward, Taylor-Joy gives the kind of performance that only becomes more riveting the longer you sit with it. It’s a turn of both intoxicating glamour and precious little vanity, internal without ever being closed-off, heartbreakingly vulnerable and sharply funny, often at once. Much of the story hinges on when and how Beth is alone - and sometimes she’s most alone when surrounded by people - and Taylor-Joy’s performance is particularly remarkable in these moments. Scenes of Beth alone in her home, in a stranger’s apartment, on a plane, in her bed at night - they all hum with the kind of energy that only arises when one is truly unobserved. In this case, however, she’s creating that energy in a room full of cameras and crew members. That kind of honesty and release is the stuff of acting legend, like Eleanora Duse’s blush. It’s yet another high watermark in a young career already full of them, and somehow she’s never better than when Beth is sitting silently behind a chess board.

We’ll come back to those scenes, but it would be a mistake to assume that Taylor-Joy’s only great scene partner is the camera, gazing from across the 64 squares of the board. Frank and casting director Ellen Lewis assembled an ensemble of heavy-hitters, including the great Bill Camp as Mr. Shaibel, the isolated janitor who introduces Beth to the game, Thomas Brodie-Sangster (as Benny Watts) and Harry Melling (as Harry Beltik) two young men who are first chess rivals, then lovers and eventually allies in the chess world, the wonderful (if underused) Moses Ingram, and actor / writer / director Marielle Heller, who gives a hypnotic performance as the fragile, damaged, compassionate Alma Wheatley, the woman who eventually welcomes Beth into her home. There’s not a dud in the bunch; even the actors who show up for a scene or two at most give performances that feel fully inhabited. It’s a stunner of an ensemble.

And here’s a bonus: they all look incredible. The Crown is rightly praised for its sumptuous, detailed production design and costuming, and The Queen’s Gambit will likely find itself compared to its Netflix predecessor with some frequency. But for all the strengths of The Crown, it rarely showcases the kind of imagination on display here. Costume designer Gabriele Binder, hair and makeup head Daniel Parker, and production designer Uli Hanisch (the latter of Cloud Atlas, Sense8, and Babylon Berlin) do much more than capture the look and feel of the 1960s in the United States and abroad. They use that aesthetic to illuminate Beth’s mindset. When does Beth embrace the wilder aspects of ‘60s makeup? Why, when she’s balancing precariously on the edge and her thick eyeliner serves to make her look even thinner and more fragile. That’s one example of many. It’s incredibly thoughtful and stylish. Consider it isolated breakdown chic.

The aesthetic of Beth’s inner world is also explored, though to detail what that looks like and what it means is to diminish some of the pleasure (and anxiety) it engenders. Just know that it lends Beth’s struggles a visceral energy that most stories of addiction tend to either take for granted or overplay. And for the most part, that care and thoughtfulness is found in all of the tropes present in The Queen’s Gambit (and there are plenty of tropes - this is a sports movie in disguise, after all). That said, Frank’s largely excellent teleplays do occasionally stumble, particularly when it comes to race (Jolene deserves better) and gender. The latter is a shortcoming shared with Frank’s Godless - both have their hearts in the right place, but are perhaps not as thoughtful or insightful when it comes to sex, love, and the realities of a patriarchal society than they believe themselves to be.

Frankly, it’s hard to get too worked up about those shortcomings thought, especially when the chess starts. The chess! My god, the chess. Like any good sports movie, this character-driven period drama lives and dies by its editing. Editor Michelle Tesoro should go ahead and buy a bookshelf for all the hardware she’s about to pick up for The Queen’s Gambit right now; the chess sequences are all electric, and each in its own way. One will make you hold your breath. Two will likely bring you to tears. Some are funny. Some are infuriating. Some are, somehow, very, very sexy. Each is electric, and Tesoro and Taylor-Joy make them so through skill, talent, and precision. (Some credit here is also due to chess consultants Bruce Pandolfini and Garry Kasparov. I know very little about chess, but somehow The Queen’s Gambit convinced me otherwise and dazzled me all at once.)

Every truly great sports story has not one, but two beating hearts. There’s the sport itself, a game or competition in which the viewer becomes undeniably invested. And then there’s the player or players, someone whose life is much bigger than the game, yet is nevertheless somewhat consumed by it. The Queen’s Gambit has both those hearts, and both are racing. Frank, Taylor-Joy, and company never stop telling both those stories at once, and the result is a fascinating portrait of a young woman fighting to become the person she wants to be, battling for victory and for peace. When her journey brings her to Paris, she remembers the words of a woman who loved her and spends some time wandering museums, feeding her soul with something more than chess. Yet there’s never any doubt that somewhere, in some corner of her mind, she’s got her eyes on the board. What a privilege it is to see that corner and see the world’s beauty, all at once. [Shoemaker’s rating: 3.5 stars out of 4 = 88%]

Blogger's comments and links:

The ending scene takes place in Moscow early in 1968, the morning after Beth defeated Vasily Borgov to win the Moscow Invitational Tournament. She is on the way to the airport to leave Moscow, accompanied by her CIA handler, when she asks the driver to stop because she wants to walk. She walks down the promenade where she knows elderly gentlemen gather to play chess outdoors, and of course they recognize her and clearly they love her. For a girl who never knew her own father, and who had a father figure in the orphanage janitor Willian Shaibel who taught her to play chess, this is fulfillment - to be appreciated, even worshipped in Russia, a country obsessed with the game of chess. The first gentleman to recognize her then invites her to sit down. They set up the chess board, Beth removes her gloves, and the last word of the film is her saying sygrayem, pronounced sy.GRY.em, Russian for Let's Play. LINK

The Queen's Gambit ending explained; the major moments that wrapped up the story. LINK TO CINEMABLEND WEBPAGE

If the ending to the film made you tear up, you are not alone. It made Anya Taylor-Joy cry as well. LINK TO REFINERY29 ARTICLE

Beth Harmon's final word in the film is sygrayem which literally means Let's Play in Russian. LINK TO TRANSLATION WEBSITE

Magnus Carlsen (world chess champion since 2013) breaks down Harmon v Borgov final game from The Queen's Gambit LINK

 

The Queen's Gambit guide to Lexington, Kentucky LINK

Labels: chess, drama, Fifties, high-school, romance, rom-drama-faves, Sixties, teenager

IMDb 86/100 
MetaScore (critics=79, viewers=30) 
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=96, viewers=94) 

Allison Shoemaker review 

Soundtrack

 

 

Blogger's comments on the novel:

The Walter Tevis novel of the same name strongly resembles the TV series, especially in the use of dialogue and narration from the novel. However, there are some notable differences (SPOILERS AHEAD). While Beth visualizes games in her head, she does not visualize them on the ceiling of her room. Townes has a much smaller part in the novel, he is not identified as gay and he does not appear at the 1968 Russian Invitational Tournament in the last episode. Cleo, whom Beth meets in Benny's NYC apartment, is an American girl named Jenny in the novel. She is not at the 1967 Paris Remy-Vallon tournament that Beth loses to Borgov. In the novel, Beth participates in the 1968 Kentucky State Chess Championship and loses. In the miniseries she goes to the tournament, has an argument with Harry Beltik in the parking lot and does not participate in the tournament. Jolene does not contact Beth; Beth gets her phone number from Mrs. Deardorff at Methuen. Jolene is living in Louisville. She was a Phys. Ed. major at Kentucky State University and through her efforts Beth goes to a gym every day for several months, gets in shape physically and gets her drinking and Librium addiction under control.

 

Being a visual person and loving film, especially romantic drama and comedy, I have to say that I much prefer the miniseries. Now, if we were comparing a 243-page paperback novel with a 2-hour film it might not be a fair comparison, but we are comparing it with a 393-minute (6hr 33min) 7-part miniseries. If a person read at 37 pages/hr it would take just about the same time to read the novel or watch the miniseries and the miniseries gives a MUCH richer experience. I don't ever need to read the novel again and I've watched the miniseries at least four times - so far.

 

Having thought about it a little more, let me say the novel provides intellectual understanding; it supports and enriches the experience of the miniseries. The miniseries gives significance to the intellectual understanding provided by the novel. The novel especially helps us understand what is going on inside Beth's mind and body before, during and after tournaments. Also, Beth's relationships with Jolene, Alma Wheatley, Harry Beltik and Benny Watts are developed a little better in the novel. What is absent in the novel? Well, there are very few details about how Alice Harmon, Beth's mother, dies. There's no Cleo at Remy-Vallon in Paris. There's no Townes in Moscow. Also, the novel helped me understand how Beth financed her life, was able to buy out Allston Wheatley's equity for $7,000 and make the mortgage payments, from her tournament winnings. So the novel does have value.

 

There are any number of delightful little cookies in this series. For instance, after Beth is adopted in Episode 2, she accompanies Alma to Ben Snyder's department store in Lexington, to shop for clothes. On the way upstairs to the bargain department she is attracted by two mannequins displaying dresses, before being captivated by the display of chess boards. We learn that Beth likes nice clothes. And after she wins the Kentucky State Chess Championship in October, 1963, she buys the blue dress with her winnings and we see her wearing it when she and Alma go to the Cincinnati Open Tournament. But the other dress, the white and black one? She wears that dress to the U.S. Open in Las Vegas in 1966.

 

Episode 1 "Openings": The film being shown in the orphanage auditorium is The Robe (1953) starring Richard Burton and Jean Simmons.

Episode 3 "Doubled Pawns", 30:39: Beth and Alma are in their hotel room at the 1966 US Open in Las Vegas. Alma is watching a murder mystery on the TV The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946). Martha (Barbara Stanwyck) is talking with Sam Masterson (Van Heflin):

Martha: What do you want?

Sam: I think I've got one. I think I've got a gimmick. A gimmick is an angle that works for you. To keep you from working too hard for yourself.

* * * * *

Being a hopeless romantic, I was naturally disappointed with the lack of romance in the series, and so I have envisioned an eighth episode which takes place first in Moscow and later in Lexington, Kentucky. Beth gets out of her State Department handler's cab on the way to the airport not only because she wants to visit the park where the elderly men are playing chess, but also because she and David Townes are falling in love and have agreed to stay in Moscow together after the tournament ends.

So he comes to the park, and after she has finished playing her chess game, which she wins of course, she and David take a cab to the airport, pick up her luggage and find a smaller, less-expensive hotel to stay in. After a few days together seeing the sights in Moscow they board a plane and return to the U.S. Beth invites David to stay with her and eventually they get married.

It turns out that David was not really gay, as he tried earlier to explain to her. He was just confused. Is he bisexual? Who knows?

Before I Fall (2017) [PG-13] ***/****

A film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net on Mar. 3, 2017.

It takes a mediocre movie like Before I Fall to illustrate how brilliant Harold Ramis’ Groundhog Day is. Founded on the same premise, the movies show the variances that can result from different approaches. Groundhog Day uses comedy and wit to buffer its existential angst and cosmic sense of karma. Before I Fall, on the other hand, adopts an oh-so-serious tone and resorts to awkward melodrama to get the point across.

It’s Valentine’s Day and high school senior Samantha Kingston (Zoey Deutch) is doomed to live it repeatedly until she does whatever it is that Fate has decreed she must do to move on. It begins with her waking up to a song on her iPhone (not, by the way, I’ve Got You, Babe – the movie doesn’t have that sort of referential sense of humor) and ends with her dying in a car accident. Except, instead of waking up at the Pearly Gates, she returns to the beginning of the day with her memories intact. Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. After acclimating, Samantha varies things a little - dumping her three Queen Bee friends (Halston Sage, Medalion Rahimi and Cynthy Wu), trying to hook up with a nicer boy, etc. She eventually figures out that getting out of the loop involves doing something related to outcast Juliet Sykes (Elena Kampouris), but what?

The kind of repetition necessary to Before I Fall’s narrative is not only inherently non-cinematic but potentially deadly to the movie. Who wants to see the same scene presented over and over again with only small variations? And, although it’s unfair to compare Bill Murray to Zoey Deutch, a case can be made that Murray’s performance keeps Groundhog Day from slipping into the rut that derails Before I Fall.  For her part, although Deutch (most recently seen as Bryan Cranston’s daughter/James Franco’s lover in Why Him?) is appealing, she’s too old for the part. Halston Sage (in the best friend role), who’s actually a year older than Deutch, seems more age-appropriate for a high school student. Both are viewed as up and coming actresses and will likely appear in more impressive projects than this one in the near future.

The saccharine message of savor every moment is driven home with sledgehammer-like subtlety. Director Ry Russo-Young’s unwillingness to give the audience even a scintilla of credit (a sentiment I can fully understand) results in not only a voiceover that emphasizes the moral but a final act that embodies it. Somehow, Groundhog Day is able to convey something similar without it becoming obvious or intrusive. Is it fair to catalog all the times when the Ramis film does things better than this one? Possibly not, considering that Before I Fall has been fine-tuned for viewers who have probably never heard of Groundhog Day, much less seen it.  This movie is intended for girls between the ages of 10 and 16 and anyone outside that demographic is likely to have issues with parts of the script (or, in my case, pretty much the entire thing).

To be fair, there are occasional moments that succeed dramatically. These are typically the quieter, less histrionic ones. I appreciated the scenes between Samantha and Kent (Logan Miller), the prototypical nice guy trapped in the friend zone. There’s also something elegant about the way the movie ends. Overall, however, the lack of a compelling narrative thrust and inability to maintain an internal consistency about how the time loop works condemn this film to a fall from which it can’t recover. [Berardinelli’s rating: 2 stars out of 4]

Labels: drama, fantasy, high-school, mystery, romance, teenager, tragedy

Internet Movie Database 64 

MetaScore (critics=58, viewers=65) 

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=58, viewers=69) 

Blu-ray 

The Edge of Seventeen (2016) [R] ****/*****

A film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net on Nov. 17, 2016.

Motion picture coming-of-age stories are touchstones. The best are capable of transporting older viewers back to a time of life that many of us now view through rose-colored glasses. High school was never easy and that constant hasn’t changed. Those four mid-teenage years represent a cauldron of raging hormones, exploding insecurity, and academic pressure. It’s a wonder that anyone survives them. The Edge of Seventeen reminds viewers of the good, the bad, and the ugly. With a smart, perceptive script from first-time director Kelly Fremon Craig and an arresting lead performance by Hailee Steinfeld, the film rises to the top of a crowded genre.

In high school, everyone (even the popular kids) feels like an outsider, but Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld) has earned the label. Over the course of the movie, which tracks a period during her junior year, she learns that the path of survival has less to do with doing homework, losing her virginity, or making friends than it does with becoming comfortable in her own skin. Unsurprisingly, when she embraces that conclusion, the dark mirror lightens up.

Nadine is afflicted with one of the most catastrophic ailments any nerd-leaning child can have: a popular sibling. Her sports-star older brother, Darian (Blake Jenner), is beloved by the entire student body. Nadine and Darian have a fractious relationship that isn’t helped by her mother’s obvious preference for her male child. Despite feeling isolated since the death of her father, Nadine has found solace in the friendship of Krista (Haley Lu Richardson), the sister-figure she never had. Krista isn’t just her best friend, however, she’s her only friend. When a series of unfortunate events results in Krista and Darian hooking up, Nadine’s world implodes.

With the élan of a profane John Hughes, Craig effortlessly captures Nadine’s mindset. Viewed from a neutral perspective, she might come across as weird, petty, and self-absorbed but The Edge of Seventeen makes her sympathetic. It helps that’s she’s witty (in a Juno sort of way). There are times when the screenplay veers into comedy. The scene in which Nadine tells her teacher (Woody Harrelson) that she’s going to kill herself is amusing as intended. We don’t believe her even though, on some level, she may think she’s semi-serious. For teenagers, every day is a new drama and Nadine has just raised the curtain on Act III.

Hailee Steinfeld brings forth a Nadine whose peculiar charisma is impossible to escape. She’s the outsider we all would like to be: introverted and shy yet tough and independent. She wears her cynicism like a badge of honor. Steinfeld is perfectly cast. Since breaking on the scene at the age of 13 with an Oscar nomination for her part in True Grit, Steinfeld has been on everyone’s to-watch list. This is another example of the actress fulfilling her potential.  She is ably supported by Haley Lu Richardson as her best friend-turned-brother’s girlfriend, Blake Jenner as the universally adored Darian, Kyra Sedgwick as Nadine’s mostly-absent mother, and Woody Harrelson as the teacher we all wish we’d had in high school.

This isn’t a romance (although there are romantic aspects); it’s a coming-of-age drama. The screenplay cannily presents the narrative through Nadine’s perspective and, as circumstances force her to grow and change, we see things more clearly: betrayals that aren’t really betrayals, perfect lives that aren’t quite so perfect, and people hurt by her actions who don’t deserve the pain. All of this is largely transparent and that’s what makes the film so strong. We’re getting a lot more than we initially suspect. It makes the characters and the circumstances seem real. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that there’s an autobiographical aspect. The details are too carefully realized and the emotional balance so perfect for there not to be a personal investment by the writer/director.

Tone is as important as story for a movie like The Edge of Seventeen. The film wants to be likable and entertaining. It wants to make us laugh at times and feel deeply at others. It needs to mirror the wave-like peaks and troughs of teenage life, when one day can seem like the best day of one’s life until, an hour later, it’s the worst. For a veteran filmmaker, navigating the tricky waters of Nadine’s world might have proven a challenge but, despite not having a previous feature under her belt, Craig accomplishes it and, in the process, brings us one of the best movies of this genre in recent memory. [Berardinelli’s rating: 3.5 out of 4 stars]

Labels: comedy, drama, high-school, teenager

Internet Movie Database 73 

MetaScore (critics=77, viewers=77) 

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=79, viewers=79) 

Blu-ray 

O (2001) [R] ***

A film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net.

There are two ways to adapt Shakespeare into a contemporary setting. The first is to take the story and dialogue (perhaps judiciously pruned) and dump them wholesale into modern times. The second is to extract the essence of the material and re-work it for our era. Two recent screen versions of Shakespeare's plays have provided a case study in the contrast between these methods. Michael Almereyda's sluggish, borderline-incoherent Hamlet attempted the former with decidedly mixed results. Tim Blake Nelson's O, based on Othello, takes the latter route, and the result is a stirring and affecting piece of drama that retains the basic structure and thematic grist of its source while developing a plot and characters that speak directly to current-day movie-goers.

In its re-telling of Othello, O re-locates the story into a United States high school, circa 2000. In keeping with the violent nature of Shakespeare, O does not shy away from bloodshed. Quite the contrary, in fact - it embraces it, but not in an exploitative manner. In fact, the film actually provides a measure of insight into how teen violence can be sparked. A simple emotion (in this case, jealousy, but it could be another), unchecked and stoked, forms the foundation. Mixed with the rampant hormones of the teen years, this combination becomes as explosive and unstable as nitroglycerine. Doesn't it make more sense for us to view a thoughtful motion picture like O, digest what has to say, and open a dialogue with our children rather than abdicate responsibility and attempt to blame movies/TV/music (anyone except ourselves and society in general) for school violence?

The Othello of O is Odin James (Mekhi Phifer), the god of the Palmetto Grove Hawks basketball team. He's the lone black student in an all-white co-ed prep school, but he has a good heart, is smart, and is unstoppable on the court. He has won the love of Dean Brable’s (John Heard’s) daughter, Desi Brable (Julia Stiles in the role of Desdemona), and the respect of his teammates - all except one. Hugo Goulding (Josh Hartnett in the role of Iago) is keenly jealous of Odin - not because he's popular or has the affection of Desi, but because Hugo's own father, basketball team head coach Duke Goulding (Martin Sheen), considers Odin to be more of a true son than Hugo. The coach lauds the young black man while pushing aside his offspring, often humiliating Hugo in front of his teammates. This breeds resentment and hatred, and Hugo puts a plan in place to destroy Odin by sowing seeds of doubt about the legitimacy of Desi's love and fidelity. Odin, who is on some level insecure, reluctantly takes the bait.

Obviously, the single most memorable aspect of any Shakespeare play is the dialogue - the Bard is arguably the most quotable author ever to write in the English language. Yet, in an endeavor such as O, where all of those lines have been stripped away, we see the strength and universality of the themes present in the play. Certainly, there are contrivances in the plot, as there are in the original, but these are easily set aside as part of the process commonly referred to as the willing suspension of disbelief. The intent of director Tim Blake Nelson is not to create some bizarre dream world like the one of Ian McKellen's Richard III or Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, but to fashion a dramatic milieu that approximates high school in the '00s. At the same time, he is not looking for a hard-core, gritty reality - the story needs room to breathe.

Someone should introduce Julia Stiles to Kenneth Branagh. One could easily imagine the gifted, versatile Stiles fitting effectively into one of Branagh's Shakespeare adaptations. This is Stiles' third such endeavor, following in the wake of 10 Things I Hate About You (a modern-day telling of The Taming of the Shrew) and Almereyda's Hamlet. Josh Hartnett shows more range here as the tortured, manipulative Hugo than he evidenced in the whole of Pearl Harbor. And, in the title role, Mekhi Phifer allows us to see the good and the bad in Odin, the sports deity with the tragic flaw of jealousy. Supporting roles are filled by Rain Phoenix as Desi's roommate Emily, Elden Henson and Andrew Keegan as elements of Hugo's plan, and Martin Sheen, as the coach with the winning is everything mentality.

O was filmed in Charleston, S.C. in March-April, 1999. In fact, Julia Stiles, who was born on March 28, 1981, turned 18 during filming. The film was ready to be released in 1999, when Miramax Films, the company that owned the rights at the time, shelved it because they feared the controversy that would accompany it in the wake of the Columbine tragedy. Had the film been exploitative rather than thought-provoking, that would have been the right decision, but Miramax, fearing bad publicity, ignored the fact that this picture has a message. Eventually, Lions Gate picked up the rights and the movie was able to see the light of day. And that's a good thing for everyone who appreciates Shakespeare or a serious examination of the volatile issue of school violence. [Berardinelli’s rating: 3 stars out of 4 = 75%]

Labels: drama, high-school, Julia Stiles, romance, teenager, thriller, tragedy
IMDb 61/100 
MetaScore (critics=53, viewers=28) 
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=61, viewers=68) 
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McFarland USA (2015) [PG] ****

A film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net on Feb. 19, 2015.

The gold standard for inspirational teenage sports movies is unquestionably Hoosiers and, although McFarland USA falls short of the mark set by the iconic '80s film, it comes closer than most would expect. The reason is simple: McFarland USA, like Hoosiers, makes characters a priority. The film, directed by New Zealander Niki Caro, focuses on the people involved in the drama. The narrative doesn't saddle them with cliché-riddled subplots; it makes them and their concerns real. There are no paper villains wearing black hats and twirling mustaches. There are competitions (this is, after all, a sports movie) but they consume less than 15% of the running time.

The sport in question is cross country track. Coach Jim White (Kevin Costner) arrives in McFarland, California in time for the 1987 school year with his family - wife Cheryl (Maria Bello) and daughters Julie (Morgan Saylor) and Jamie (Elsie Fisher) - in tow. He's not here by choice, however; after being fired from three different schools for insubordination and losing his temper, he has run out of options. McFarland High is the only place willing to offer him employment. After one week, he has been fired as the assistant football coach but is kept on as P.E. teacher. He sees something in his students, especially the fleet-of-foot Thomas Valles (Carlos Pratts), which leads him to believe a cross-country track team might be successful at McFarland. His first task is selling it to the board of education and principal. The more difficult challenge is selling it to his would-be participants.

A pitfall avoided by McFarland USA is the Great White Savior trap. The citizenry of McFarland is primarily comprised of immigrants of Mexican ancestry - a character observes while driving down one of the town's streets: Are we in Mexico? As the story progresses, it becomes apparent that this is as much about McFarland saving Jim White as it is about him infusing the town with a sense of pride and self-worth. Achieving this balance allows McFarland USA to come across as genuinely inspirational as opposed to being sanctimonious.

McFarland USA has a distinction in that it's the rare sports movie directed by a woman. Caro's perspective is invaluable to the film's trajectory. Not only does she leech some of the testosterone out of the mix but she fixes the focus firmly on the characters - and not just the seven competing boys and their coach. The movie extends meaningful scenes to the mothers and fathers of several of the teammates and transforms their concerns into more than two-dimensional obstacles to winning a championship. McFarland USA has more heart and less cynicism than many sports movies. The inevitable Big Win is important but it's not everything. The overriding theme isn't one of overcoming the odds but of learning the meaning of family.

The production is (of course) based on a true story. The somewhat fictionalized chronology transpires in 1987 - recent enough for people and settings to seem familiar yet far enough in the past so things like cell phones and the Internet had not come into being. The movie doesn't seem like a period piece; until a date was mentioned, I thought it was happening in the present day (although Coach White's car should have been a clue that this isn't 2015). Like the recent Spare Parts, McFarland USA focuses on the immigrant experience, but this version is more politically correct in that the characters are in the United States legally. They lead hard lives (as illustrated in an effective scene where Coach White spends a day living in the shoes of three of his boys) in order to make living wages but no one is hiding from the government.

This represents the second movie to arrive in theaters within a month to feature Kevin Costner in a drama about race relations (the previous one being Black or White). His patented form of low-key acting is effective in this arena and he is effectively supported by a cast of unknowns and first-time performers (aside from Costner, the only name in the cast is Maria Bello). If there's a nit to pick about the supporting players, it's that the men playing the members of the McFarland Cougars are in many cases too old to be accepted as high school students. Carlos Pratts is an example - he was 28 when the film was made. His interaction with Morgan Saylor (who is 20 but looks age-appropriate for the 15-year old she's playing) may seem uncomfortable to some.

Invoking Hoosiers when discussing McFarland USA places this film in august company even when acknowledging the gap between the two. Sports movies in recent years have become generic and mostly uninteresting, with the typical complaint being that the on-field recreations are well-done but everything off-field is forgettable. McFarland USA reverses this by making the competitions the least interesting aspect. It has heart and is inspirational and, although those may be corny admissions, this is Disney and the film works as solid family entertainment. [Berardinelli’s rating: 3 out of 4]

The supporting cast includes Johnny Ortiz (Jose Cardenas), Martha Higareda (Lupe), Sergio Avelar (Victor Puentes), Hector Duran (Johnny Sameniego), Michael Aguero (Damacio Diaz), Rafael Martinez (David Diaz), Ramiro Rodriguez (Danny Diaz), Danny Mora (Sammy Rosaldo), Valente Rodriguez (Principal Camillo), Vanessa Martinez (Maria Marsol), Chris Ellis, Jr. (Coach Jenks), Omar Leyva (Señor Diaz), Diana-Maria Riva (Señora Diaz) and Eloy Casados (Dale Padilla).

Labels: cross-cultural, drama, high-school, sport, teenager

IMDb 74/100

MetaScore (critics=60, viewers=73)

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=67, viewers=84) 

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Wikipedia McFarland USA
Wikipedia Coach James "Jim" White

Finding Forrester (2000) [PG-13] ****

A film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net.

With next year's Oscar nominations set squarely in its sights, Finding Forrester arrives in theaters at the right time of the year (December) with the right kind of star power (Sean Connery, F. Murray Abraham, Anna Paquin) and the sort of feel-good story that audiences and Academy members appreciate. For director Gus Van Sant, this is the second time he has dipped into the well of inspirational storytelling; Finding Forrester displays numerous similarities to Good Will Hunting. And, even though the film's overall trajectory is formulaic, Van Sant does a good job of holding our attention for the two-plus hour running length.

Newcomer Rob Brown plays Jamal Wallace, a Bronx high schooler whose stunning achievement test scores and standout performance on the basketball court earn him the notice of officials at the exclusive Mailor-Callow Prep School, where he is offered a full scholarship as a junior. Jamal's mother (April Grace) and brother (Busta Rhymes) are thrilled by the offer, and, realizing that going to Mailor will allow him to advance his prospects, Jamal agrees to attend. Although his streetwise background makes him a social outsider amidst a sea of rich, pampered kids, Jamal's performance on the court and in the classroom earns him the respect of many of his teachers and peers, including Claire (Anna Paquin), the pretty daughter of the head of Mailor's board of directors.

Meanwhile, as a result of a dare, Jamal inadvertently discovers the whereabouts of the reclusive author William Forrester (Sean Connery), a former Pulitzer Prize winner who disappeared from the public eye after writing "the Great 20th Century Novel", Avalon Landing. Forrester owns an apartment overlooking the blacktop where Jamal and his friends play pickup games, and, one day, after making a brazen statement, the young man is forced to back up his words by sneaking into Forrester's apartment to steal something. He is caught in the act and accidentally leaves behind his backpack, which contains his journals. Forrester writes comments in the notebooks (the most frequent of which seems to be "constipated writing"), and returns the backpack. Thus begins a peculiar mentor/student relationship, with Jamal agreeing not to reveal Forrester's whereabouts in return for Forrester's instruction in the craft of writing. There is one condition, however: Forrester tells Jamal that he can ask "no questions about me, my family, or why there was only one book."

Like The Wonder Boys, Finding Forrester is about the interaction between a once-lauded writer and an aspiring pupil. However, there was more complexity in the Michael Douglas/Tobey Maguire relationship than there is in the one here between Connery and Brown. In addition, The Wonder Boys was more interested in genuinely exploring the creative process than Finding Forrester is. In this film, the only lessons we get are those that can be fit into a sound byte. ("Write the first draft with your heart. Re-write with your head. The key to writing is to write, not think.")

At the core of Finding Forrester is a familiar "buddy story" - about how a brilliant, outcast youngster simultaneously learns from and teaches life lessons to a weary old-timer. Forrester tutors Jamal about how to be an author; Jamal encourages Forrester to shake off his fear of the outside world. It is a time-honored formula that, when handled properly (as in Scent of a Woman, for which Al Pacino won an Oscar), can be effective and affecting. For the most part, Van Sant and his actors hit the right notes throughout Finding Forrester, making the experience of watching the film a pleasant one. The movie doesn't make any deep or profound statements, but its unhurried exploration of the interaction between the two leads is worth spending a couple hours in a movie theater.

As Jamal, Rob Brown displays a natural, unforced charisma. There isn't a hint of artifice in his performance, and it's easy to understand why the filmmakers chose him instead of a better established actor. For his part, the eternally watchable Connery doesn't test the limits of his acting ability to play the curmudgeonly Forrester (the portrayal isn't a mail-in, but it also isn't much of a challenge). This is a case when an actor's reputation works in the character's favor. As written, Forrester is an irascible, unpleasant fellow, but audiences are so used to liking Connery that it's impossible to accept that there isn't a heart of gold hidden beneath the aging author's thick skin.

Finding Forrester boasts a credible supporting cast. Anna Paquin is wonderful, although underused, as Claire, who becomes a possible love interest for Jamal. Given the character's potential and the degree to which Paquin grasps her psyche (watch her body language and look for the minute changes in facial expression), it's a shame that Claire wasn't given the opportunity for greater development. F. Murray Abraham brings his distinguished personality to the role of Finding Forrester's villain - Robert Crawford, an arrogant literature professor who believes that Jamal's writings are too good to be his own work. Crawford's crusade against Jamal leads to the climactic (albeit surprisingly low-key) speech-and-applause scene. (Its inclusion shouldn't surprise anyone - least of all those who have experience with this sort of film.)

With Finding Forrester, Van Sant appears to have put an exclamation mark on his intention to move into mainstream filmmaking, a statement he first made when he took the helm of Good Will Hunting. For the director of movies like Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho, Finding Forrester represents an opportunity not only to work with a modern-day cinematic icon but a chance to increase his clout in Hollywood. Viewers unaware of Van Sant's history will not be clued into it by anything found on-screen in this movie. Finding Forrester is well-made but conventional, and, depending on your mood, that represents either its greatest strength or its most telling weakness.[Berardinelli's rating: 3 stars out of 4; 75%]

Labels: drama, high-school, teenager
IMDb 73/100
MetaScore (critics=62, viewers=85)
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=65, viewers=78)
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The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012) [PG-13] ****/*****

A film review by Roger Ebert, September 26, 2012.

All of my previous selves still survive somewhere inside of me, and my previous adolescent would have loved The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The movie has received glowing reviews, and some snarky ones that seem to have been written by previous adults. The film is about an alienated high-school freshman who sees himself as a chronic outsider, and then is befriended by a group of older kids who embrace their non-conformist status.

The movie confirms one of my convictions: If you are too popular in high school, you may become so fond of the feeling that you never find out who you really are. The film is based on Stephen Chbosky's best-selling young-adult novel, which was published in 1999 and is now on many shelves next to The Catcher in the Rye. It offers the rare pleasure of an author directing his own book, and doing it well. No one who loves the book will complain about the movie, and especially not about its near-ideal casting.

The story, set in the early 1990s, tells the story of Charlie (Logan Lerman), who begins it as a series of letters to a friend. He enters high school tremulously and without confidence, and is faced on his first day by that great universal freshman crisis: Which table in the lunchroom will they let me sit at? Discouraged at several tables, he's welcomed by two smart and sympathetic seniors.

They are Sam and Patrick, played by Emma Watson in her own coming-of-age role after the Harry Potter movies, and Ezra Miller, who was remarkable as an alienated teenager in We Need to Talk About Kevin. Charlie makes the mistake of assuming they are a couple, and Sam's laughter corrects him; actually, they're half-siblings. Charlie is on the edge of outgrowing his depression and dork-dom, and is eerily likable in his closed-off way. One of the key players in his life is the dead aunt (Melanie Lynskey) he often has imaginary meetings with.

Patrick is tall, gangly and gay; Sam is friendly and lovable. Charlie gets a quick crush on her, but she explains she has a boyfriend and encourages his friendship. Through them, he meets the quasi-punk Mary Elizabeth (Mae Whitman), who definitely is interested in dating him, and a pothead named Bob (Adam Hagenbuch), who nudges Charlie toward adventures most teenagers have once in life, and few should have twice.

We learn a lot about their high school crowd by finding out they're instrumental in the local midnight showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. When Charlie is unexpectedly pressed into service playing a key role one night during their performance, it provides him with a turning point that may be contrived but is certainly entertaining.

Their crowd is artsy, outsider, non-conformist. They become the influence that rescues Charlie from his deep insecurity and his depression over the suicide of a friend; they teach him it's OK to be who he is. In his first year, he learns a little, very tentatively, about sex, drinking and drugs, and a lot about friendship.

He's also guided by Mr. Anderson (Paul Rudd), his English teacher, who steers him toward seminal books including, yes, The Catcher in the Rye. Why is it that English, drama and music teachers are most often recalled as our mentors and inspirations? Maybe because artists are rarely members of the popular crowd.

Labels: drama, high-school, romance, teenager

IMDb 80/100 

MetaScore (critics=67, viewers=86)

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=75, viewers=84) 

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