Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris (2022) [PG] ****

A film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net on July 12, 2022.

Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris matches the tone and aesthetic of one of those feel-good, highbrow art house films that were popular during the 1990s and 2000s. (It’s not quite on the same level as Enchanted April but is better than The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, both of which are apt comparisons.) It’s entirely inoffensive (not to mention a little boring) in its pursuit of a moment or two’s frothy confection. The film embraces the value of pursuing one’s dreams while extolling the virtues of haute couture. My guess is that it will appeal strongly to the Downton Abbey faithful.

The title is an example of truth in advertising; the narrative does indeed focus on the trip of a war widow named Mrs. Ada Harris (Lesley Manville) who travels to the City of Lights in 1957 after scrimping and saving enough (500 pounds) to afford her dream: a Christian Dior gown. In London, her aspirations are encouraged by her best friend, Vi (Ellen Thomas), and her would-be beau, Archie (Jason Isaacs). In Paris, she is aided and abetted by Dior accountant Andre Fauvel (Lucas Bravo), model Natasha (Alba Baptista), and the charismatic Marquis de Chassagne (Lambert Wilson). Standing in opposition is Dior’s manager, Claudine Colbert (Isabelle Huppert), an intimidating woman whose smile never goes deeper than her lips.

The film shows much the same reverence for the world of fashion as Paul Thomas Anderson’s slightly stuffier Phantom Thread. (Unlike the 2017 movie, this one doesn’t come burdened by Oscar pretentions.) It’s also a Valentine to Paris in the 1950s and the World of Fashion as it once was, when branding meant something more than a mere status symbol and before the industry devolved into the morass depicted in The Devil Wears Prada. (Christian Dior was still alive at the time of Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, and makes a few brief appearances, played by actor Philippe Bertin.)

Mrs. Harris’ character arc is sturdy but unspectacular, and more than a little bit of a cliché. Her husband, an RAF pilot, went missing a dozen years ago during the height of World War II. Early in the movie, she receives closure, albeit not of the sort she might have wished: his remains have been found and identified and he is now officially designated as KIA in a 1944 mission. Freed of his ghost, Mrs. Harris can concentrate on the business of living and begins the process of chasing an improbable dream. Along the way, she helps others find love and discover the courage to speak out. She wins over adversaries and sheds the aura of meekness that has shadowed her.

British character actress Lesley Manville, who has appeared in a bazillion TV series and more than a few feature films, will immediately be recognizable to anyone with any experience of U.K. exports. She has a startlingly large resume dating back to the 1970s when she debuted in the soap opera Emmerdale Farm. Manville quietly and efficiently inhabits a role that could easily have been played by Helen Mirren, Meryl Streep, or Judi Dench (had the filmmakers desired a higher profile name). The rest of the cast is eclectic, with name actors like Jason Isaacs (playing against type as an affable fellow and potential love interest), Isabelle Huppert (showing a bitchy side), Anna Chancellor (even bitchier), and Lambert Wilson.

One can safely assume that director Anthony Fabian is an Anglophile. The California-born filmmaker has lived all over and, although he went to school at UCLA, he has since relocated to London. Primarily a documentarian, this is his third feature. He understands the genre and adapts the source novel with a deft hand that will likely delight the limited target audience. Those outside that demographic may find Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris to be too staid and predictable – not entirely unwelcome but perhaps not worth the price of a theatrical admission. [Berardinelli's rating: 2.5 stars out of 4 = 62.5%]

Labels: comedy, drama, Paris, period

IMDb 71/100

MetaScore (critics=70, viewers=65)

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=94, viewers=90) 

Blu-ray 

Berardinelli's original review 

Last Night (2010) [R] ***

A film review by Kyle Smith for the New York Post on May 11, 2011.

Cheating is in the air in Last Night, but will it get between the sheets?

Keira Knightley and Sam Worthington play a successful Manhattan couple who start to fight when she suspects there’s a reason he never mentions a business colleague he’s been spending a lot of time with. Especially when she gets a glimpse of the other woman — and she’s Eva Mendes.

While he and his magma-hot associate are on a business trip in Philadelphia, she accepts an invitation to come out and play with her yummy French ex-boyfriend (Guillaume Canet) in New York.

Most of the movie unwinds over that evening, as each spouse tiptoes toward adultery in intercut scenes. Suspenseful though it is, the movie is quiet to the point of being sleepy, and Worthington is simply not working out as a screen star. He might be better-suited to some kind of job more forgiving of his blocky blankness, like modeling slacks.

For all its incessant soul-searching, Last Night also doesn’t have a lot to say about marriage, and what it does say is often wrong. The French guy is warned off the married woman by a pal who says he can’t compete with the years the marrieds have spent together — as if years don’t also serve to make people sick of each other.

Labels: drama, Keira Knightley, romance

Internet Movie Database

Metacritic 50/100 

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=54, viewers=64) 

Blu-ray 

Brideshead Revisited (2008) [PG-13] ****

A film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net

This is a classic example of a novel being condensed and edited to fit within the limited time allowed for a screen adaptation. The 2008 motion picture adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited clocks in at 135 minutes - not short, to be sure, but not epic length either. By comparison, the 1981 mini-series, which is considered by some purists to be among the best book-to-TV adaptations of all time, ran nearly eleven hours. Clearly, a lot of work was necessary to craft the shorter version from the same material that formed the basis of the longer one. The result, while not faithful in the strictest sense to the novel, allows the basic story to remain intact and exhibits respect for the characters.

The screenplay was co-written by Andrew Davies, who might be considered the dean of TV/movie adaptations of classic novels. His pen has scribed everything from Dickens to Austen to Waugh. Those familiar with his work will note his fingerprints here, as he attempts to accentuate sexuality without undermining the source material. Nevertheless, while there are flashes of skin and a more open acceptance of homosexuality than in the novel, Davies does not turn this into a costume drama of exploitation. It is, however, faster paced than the acclaimed 1981 version (adapted by John Mortimer). I will admit to having fallen asleep during more than one episode of that series during its original run. I stayed awake throughout the entire movie, although it's no use pretending that the film will be of interest to anyone who doesn't like British costume dramas. Brideshead Revisited has a lot to recommend it, but it's only going to play to a certain audience.

Brideshead Revisited opens in the pre-dawn of World War II with celebrated painter Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode) meeting old flame Julia Flyte (Hayley Atwell) while on a shipboard voyage returning to England. Their encounter causes Charles to flash back ten years to his time at Oxford. During his first days at the university, he meets Sebastian Flyte (Ben Whishaw), an eccentric and often drunk student. Despite their differences in class (Charles is middle-class, Sebastian is a member of the aristocracy), temperament, and religion (Charles is an atheist, Sebastian belongs to a devout Roman Catholic family), they become friends. Over the summer holidays, Sebastian invites Charles to visit his family's estate of Brideshead, and Charles becomes smitten by both the mansion and Sebastian's sister, Julia. Although their flirtations begin at Brideshead, the presence of Sebastian and Julia's mother, Lady Marchmain (Emma Thompson), holds things in check. But when the three travel to Venice to spend time with Lord Marchmain (Michael Gambon), the attraction between Charles and Julia finds form and Sebastian must cope with jealousy.

Class struggles form the backbone of many British period pieces but, in the case of Brideshead Revisited, religion is more of an issue than class. Lady Marchmain makes this clear during a scene when she informs Charles that she might be willing to countenance a marriage between him and Julia if the only things dividing them were class and money. However, his stance as an avowed atheist makes him an unsuitable husband. In Charles' view, no good can come of religion - not only does it ruin his chance to marry Julia, but its repressive nature has caused Sebastian to become an alcoholic. Sebastian cannot cope with the guilt associated with being a sinner and it shreds his conscience. In the end, however, Charles learns that his opinions about religion may not be fully informed.

The film exhibits the qualities - both good and bad - of the average Masterpiece Theater episode. The costumes and period detail are impeccable. The film spans the period between the late 1920s and the early 1940s with a sweep and grandeur that provides a sense of you are there. The acting is also uniformly strong (although it's hard to imagine any Oscar nominations springing from this well). On the other hand, there's a reserve to the way the characters are portrayed which makes empathy difficult. With respect to Charles, the protagonist, there's an emotional distance bordering on aloofness that can make him difficult to like and, at times, hard to understand.

The extreme compression of the novel results in some minor continuity issues, and there are times when important scenes feel rushed or a little out-of-place. The adaptation as a whole does not flow as well as the recent, equally condensed Keira Knightley version of Pride and Prejudice, which found a way to virtually eliminate certain subplots in order to keep the main story intact. There are times when Brideshead Revisited shows its seams. For those with an affinity for this kind of movie - and you know whether this applies to you - Brideshead Revisited is a worthy, although not superior, motion picture. [Berardinelli’s rating: *** out of 4 stars]

Labels: drama, romance

Internet Movie Database 6.7/10 

Metacritic 68/100 

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=62, viewers=64) 

Cadillac Records (2008) [R] ****

A film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net.

Cadillac Records, while not a musical in the traditional sense, is close to 50% musical content and 50% drama. Accordingly, it's about 50% good and 50% bad. The re-creations of some of the most noteworthy blues and early rock tunes from the '50s and '60s feature high-energy performances that do the originals proud. Sadly, the drama that accompanies them is hackneyed and poorly paced - the kind of thing that makes the average made-for-TV movie appear well constructed. There are plenty of small pleasures to be found throughout Darnell Martin's feature, but a compelling storyline featuring three-dimensional characters is not among them.

Cadillac Records is loosely based on actual events, but it takes significant liberties with the established record. It begins in the early 1950s in Chicago with the establishment of the Chess Record Company and ends some two decades later when the label's owner, Leonard Chess (Adrien Brody), sells. The film provides various highlights, in compilation-album style, of some of Chess' most memorable performers over the period when Leonard owned the label: Muddy Waters (Jeffrey Wright), Little Walter (Columbus Short), Howlin' Wolf (Eamonn Walker), Chuck Berry (Mos Def), and Etta James (Beyoncé Knowles). Many of these individuals are given short, dramatic arcs but none has enough screen time to develop much of personality or a bond with the audience.

The music offers the soundtrack of its two decades, with Jeffrey Wright covering Waters' I'm a Man and I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man; Beyoncé doing James' I'd Rather Go Blind, Once in a Lifetime, and the iconic At Last. Mos Def contributes Berry's Maybelline, Nadine, and No Particular Place to Go. Many of the songs are given full performances rather than brief 30-second clips. Stars like Wright and Beyoncé prove themselves able to handle both the singing and acting needs of their roles although, to be sure, the latter aspects are not taxing. Adrien Brody comes off worse than either, but that's probably because he isn't given an opportunity to sing.

One apparent problem with Martin's film is that there's too much material to be crammed into a 110-minute motion picture. The scope is overly ambitious, the net too is too wide. It would have been challenging to pick one of Cadillac Records' cast of big names and present a coherent, comprehensive motion picture with similar time constraints, but by choosing to place a half-dozen figures under the umbrella and include all the music, Martin has set herself up for failure. The movie is a mess but, in large part because of the music, it is something of an entertaining mess.

There are a few moving scenes. One features Muddy Waters' wife (Gabrielle Union) silently weeping while holding his child by another woman. She loves her husband and is willing to look the other way even for an infraction this deep. It causes one to wonder more about the mechanics of their marriage, but the film moves on at breakneck speed. Likewise, we are left to wonder about the depth of the affection between Leonard Chess and Etta James. We're provided with glimpses of it, most notably when he's trying to keep her alert after a heroin overdose but, like everything else, it is given short shrift.

Cedric the Entertainer, playing Willie Dixon, provides a retrospective voiceover that ties everything together. Every once in a while, his omniscient voice provides some needed transitional information, but this is a rare occasion when a little more narration might have helped. Cadillac Records exists mainly as a holiday throw-away for those with a deep and abiding love for the kind of music it showcases. Those looking for solid drama or complex song-and-dance choreography won't find it here. But for lovers of Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, and Etta James, there's enough to justify the price of a ticket. Or perhaps a better choice might be to spend roughly the same amount on a copy of the soundtrack. [Berardinelli’s rating: ** ½ out of 4 stars]

Labels: biography, drama, Fifties, music

Internet Movie Database 

Metacritic 65/100 

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=61, viewers=68) 

Blu-ray 

The Hangover (2009) [R] ****

A film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net on June 5, 2009.

The Hangover begins and ends conventionally but, in between, it's not afraid to go off the rails. Unlike most so-called comedies, this one can claim the virtue of being reasonably funny. It never tries too hard, the actors have a good sense of comedic timing, and none of the jokes are drawn out for too long. And, although The Hangover doesn't have the heart of, say, Knocked Up, it displays an affection for its characters that most comedies don't. I wouldn't go so far as to claim the men and women populating the production are three-dimensional but they escape the low orbit of simple caricature. There's a little more going on here than vulgar humor and that makes The Hangover worth the price of admission.

The film begins with a teaser: it's the day of the wedding, the groom is missing, and his friends are in the middle of nowhere. One guy puts through a call to the bride (played by Sasha Barrese) and informs her that he lost her husband-to-be and the ceremony, which is supposed to start in five hours, isn't going to happen. Cue the flashback, which rewinds events 48 hours. Now we meet the principals before their fateful bachelor party trip to Las Vegas. There's Dead Man Walking Doug (Justin Bartha), his best friends Phil (Bradley Cooper) and Stu (Ed Helms), and his soon-to-be brother-in-law, Alan (Zach Galifianakis). The goal is for them to drive to Vegas, spend the night gambling and drinking, and then go home the next day. Things don't go according to plan.

When Phil, Stu, and Alan awaken the next morning in their $4200-a-night suite, the place is a mess. A woman slips out the door before anyone else is conscious. A chicken is on the loose and there's a tiger in the bathroom. And whose baby is in the closet? Phil is wearing a hospital arm band. Stu has lost a tooth and gained a stripper named Jade (Heather Graham) for a wife. Meanwhile, the center of the action, Doug, is missing (along with his bed's mattress). When the bewildered trio (with infant in tow), who can't remember anything about the night before, take a claim check to the hotel's valet, he brings them a cop car - not the ride they arrived in. All this happens before a tire iron-wielding naked Chinese guy and Phil Collins-singing Mike Tyson make appearances.

The Hangover, directed by Todd Phillips (Old School), with a similar flare for the profane and potentially offensive, is as cleverly constructed as a comedy of this sort can be. The bulk of the film consists of Phil, Stu, and Alan attempting to reconstruct the lost night by following clues and re-connecting with people they don't remember (but who remember them). The humor grows out of these situations, and most of it is not of the intellectual variety. The biggest laugh results from a scene that's in the trailer, although it is funnier in context than it is as a snippet designed to lure people into the theater. The Mike Tyson cameo is truly bizarre, and it takes on an almost macabre air after the real-life tragedy that has recently befallen him. In the Air Tonight is now cinematically wedded not only to Tom Cruise and Rebecca DeMornay but to Tyson as well.

The lead actors play familiar types. Bradley Cooper, probably the most recognizable name in the cast (not counting Tyson) is the leader of the pack, although he avoids the asshole vibe that many such characters give off in other, similar films, thus making Phil more appealing than one might expect from such a slick individual. Stu is a nerd out of his depth who's tethered by a cell phone to his controlling girlfriend (Rachael Harris) back home. Ed Helms plays him like a refugee from a Judd Apatow film. Finally, there's overweight and socially awkward Alan, whose personality Zach Galifianakis milks for humor without voiding the character of all vestiges of humanity. Alan is weird in ways that are sometimes uncomfortable, and that's where about 50% of the movie's comedy originates.

The Hangover is unapologetically R-rated, although it's not as shocking as other recent raunchy comedies that have pushed the envelope. The majority of the nudity is provided by guys because, as is generally acknowledged, the naked male form is funnier than the naked female form. There is drinking and drugs, profanity, and bodily fluids, but nothing we haven't been exposed to before. The purpose of The Hangover isn't to boldly go where no comedy has gone before (although there is a subtle but unmistakable nod to Star Trek in the line I'm a doctor, not a tour guide), but simply to make audiences laugh. With so many comedies becoming increasingly less funny as a result of the rise of lazy, uninspired writing, that's a worthy goal. For a viewer in the mood for something rude, crude, and lewd, it would be difficult to find a more satisfying food. [Berardinelli’s rating: *** out of 4]

Labels: comedy

Internet Movie Database 

Metacritic 73/100 

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=68, viewers=80) 

Blu-ray 

The September Issue (2009) [PG-13] ****

A film review by Robert Ebert, September 9, 2009.

The magazine rack at 7-Eleven doesn't have many real magazines. No Economist, Vanity Fair, Discover or The New Yorker. It's mostly pseudo-magazines, about celebrities, diets, video games and crossword puzzles. Except for one: Vogue. The other day I bought the September 2009 issue, which ran to a little under 600 pages. That may sound like a lot to you, but actually it's a marker of hard times for the economy.

The September Issue is a documentary about the magazine's September 2007 issue, which set a record at well over 800 pages. Vogue is ruled by the famous Anna Wintour, who is said to be the single most important person in the world of fashion. When she says yes, it happens. When she says no, it doesn't. She says no frequently. She rarely deigns to explain why, but it would appear that most people believe she is right. She is always right about her own opinion, and in fashion, hers is the opinion that matters most.

The documentarian R.J. Cutler followed Wintour for months during the preparation for September 2007, which was expected to set a record. There cannot have been a page she wasn't involved with. This seems to be a woman who is concerned with one thing above all: The implementation of her opinion. She is not the monster depicted by Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada (2006), but then how could she be? I expect that one to have a sequel titled, Return of the Bitch.

Perhaps it was The Devil Wears Prada, based on a novel by one of her former assistants, that motivated Wintour to authorize this documentary. She doesn't otherwise seem like the kind of woman who craves attention, since, after all, she is the focus of the eyes of everyone who matters to her. She doesn't throw handbags at her assistants as Streep does in the 2006 movie, but then she knows too much about cameras to make that mistake.

What comes across is that she is, after all, a very good editor. Like Hugh Hefner, William Shawn, Harold Hayes or Graydon Carter, she knows exactly what she wants, and her readers agree with her. When she cringes at the sight of a dress, we're inclined to cringe along with her. The question arises: What possible meaning is there in haute couture for the vast majority of humans who have ever lived? None, of course. And few of these costumes must actually ever be worn, and then often for photo opportunities like Cannes or the Oscars or charity balls in Palm Beach. A woman cannot live in them. She can only wear them.

Yet there is a very great deal of money involved, because these inconceivably expensive dresses serve as the show cars of designers whose ideas are then taken down market at great speed by multinational corporations, as was shown happening to Valentino in the 2009 documentary about him. Today Paris, tomorrow Bloomingdale's.

Wintour rules Vogue with a regal confidence. No one dares to disagree with her, except for a Julia Childian former British model named Grace Coddington, who has been on the staff as long as Wintour and is as earthy as Wintour is aloof. The two women have a grudging respect for each other, perhaps because each realizes they need someone to push back. Coddington's gift is conceiving many of Vogue's wildly fantastical photo spreads. Wintour's gift is knowing how to moderate her enthusiasm.

We meet other members of her staff, including the court jester, Andre Leon Talley, the editor at large, who specializes in spotting young talent. He's very funny, but I didn't see Wintour smiling at him or very much of anyone else. I think she'd look pretty when she did. Old photographs show she has worn the same hairstyle since time immemorial, perhaps because to change it would be a fatal admission that she cares what people think. In public, she always wears the same dark glasses, which provide maximum concealment; armor, she calls it.

Although we see her taste constantly at work, the only definite things we learn about it are that she approves of fur and disapproves of black. She shows great affection in a scene with her bright daughter, Bee Shaffer. Otherwise, like the Sphinx, she regards emotion with disdain. [Ebert's rating: *** out of 4 stars]

Labels: documentary, fashion

Internet Movie Database

Metacritic 69/100

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=70, viewers=70)

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009) [PG-13] ***

Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol meets Casanova in this story of Connor Mead (Matthew McConaughey), a handsome womanizer who gets his comeuppance in a very unusual way. Connor is a successful fashion photographer who has slept with nearly every attractive female he's ever met. The women flock to him even though he insults them to their faces and treats them like disposable tissues, even breaking up with three of them at once in a conference call, while his newest conquest sits on his bed and watches.

Now, Connor's younger brother Paul (Breckin Meyer) is getting married. Paul idolizes Connor and invites him to be part of the wedding, although Connor is not really welcome since he's slept with every bridesmaid but one, and is very vocal in his condemnation of romantic love and marriage. The wedding weekend is taking place at the home of Connor and Paul's late Uncle Wayne (Michael Douglas), who raised the boys after their parents died in a car accident. Wayne was the consummate player, who taught Connor everything he knew about picking up women, tricking them into having sex and using their own emotions against them, with the result that Connor grew up oversexed and lonely, out of touch with his feelings, and without a clue about what women really want.

Then, the night before the wedding, Connor is haunted by Uncle Wayne, and by the ghost of Allison (Emma Stone), his first teenage conquest, who takes him on a tour of his romantic history so he can appreciate the heartache he's caused. Connor meets the ghosts of his many past, present and future girlfriends, and observes the end of his own life. He also sees the future ghost of Jenny Perotti (Jennifer Garner) who was Connor's first love, who's the bride's best friend and is in the wedding party, and for whom, Connor discovers, he still has strong feelings.

Co-written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore (Four Christmases), the screenplay feels somewhat derivative, although there is some witty and wonderful commentary on manhood, marriage and monogamy, and the cast does excellent work with what they're given. The basic premise of the story is that if you live a bachelor lifestyle, promise women something and don't deliver, your dreams will be haunted by your misdeeds and you will end up old, lonely and miserable, desperate for love and companionship. Directed by Mark Waters (Mean Girls, Just Like Heaven, The Spiderwick Chronicles) there's a clear story arc, good character development, fast pacing, tight editing, and some reasonably funny scenes that successfully avoid the descent into slapstick comedy. There's surprisingly good romantic chemistry between McConaughey and Garner, and the supporting cast includes Lacey Chabert as the bride, and Anne Archer and Robert Forster, as her mother and father. If you enjoyed films like What Women Want, Alfie, or Failure to Launch, then you'll probably enjoy Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. 

Labels: comedy, fantasy, reunion, romance, wedding    
IMDb 58/100    
MetaScore (critics=34, viewers=51)    
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=42, viewers=60)    
Blu-ray