Being blind was powerful. It made me listen...

THE OA – "HOMECOMING"

Binge-watching Netlfix’s latest catalogue of original shows (from Grace and Frankie to Master of None) has become a sport for me recently. “Addiction” is probably a more apt way of putting it; after binging through one, I'm immediately compelled to pick up another. If 2016 was good for anything, it would be the re-branding of television. Safe to say the medium is thriving largely in part of the role Netflix has played in breathing fresh air back into television’s forgotten clout, getting audiences to take notice in the process. The OA is no exception to the studio’s success.

Like with Stranger Things, I decided to walk into The OA’s first cryptic episode “Homecoming” completely blind – avoiding trailers, reviews, tweets, even plot details. Brit Marling (Another Earth) – who I later learned wrote and created the OA series – was a captivating draw from the outset. “Homecoming” introduces us to her character Prairie, an icy and reserved young woman who takes her sweet time peeling off a very thick shell that harbors very puzzling secrets. The episode opens with Prairie being caught on film leaping off a bridge to what we can only assume to be her death. However, she later wakes up in a hospital bed where she’s reunited with her adoptive parents and quickly inquires whether or not she flat-lined. Instead, she’s reminded that she was registered blind before she went missing so her parents are naturally astonished to find that she’s regained her eyesight.

Prairie’s intriguing, but convoluted rabbit hole of a cold open begins to spiral from there. We aren't given much to go on aside from a mission she’s committed to carrying out involving a man named Homer, who flat-lined several years ago. Toward the end of the episode, she assembles a slapdash team of random individuals she’s encountered since waking up to assist her in “crossing a border that’s hard to define” in order to locate Homer. This team includes a high school bully-type named Steve (Patrick Gibson) who has an arc in the episode that ultimately meshes with Prairie’s after she seeks out his aid for Wi-Fi help to, of course, track down Homer. 

Once the team of six rendezvous for an odd ritual Prairie’s arranged, she narrates her Russian origins as Nina, triggering the opening credits a full 58 minutes into the episode. We learn that Nina was not born blind but chose the loss of sight as compensation for life after a tragic bus accident. She makes this deal with an Arabic-speaking necromancer (?) who warns her of far worse tragedies ahead. The episode ends on this bleak note and leaves one to either pick apart the story and piece together theories obsessively or hold their breath for the next episode. Luckily, unlike network television, Netflix blesses us with the ability to binge through the series opposed to waiting a full week to fill in the gaps.

I want to refrain from theorizing this early on, but with a show like this that offers so much yet so little right off the bat, theorizing is almost warranted. Prairie (or, the OA) seems to have mapped out a clear enough objective – find Homer – for the audience to chew on, but “Homecoming” leaves a little to be desired as far as what our other players’ aims are. Take her adoptive parents for instance, Abel and Nancy, played by Scott Wilson and Alice Krige respectively. Both turn in stirring performances during their limited screen time, but outside of the opening reunion sequence, these two gradually fade into the background to make ample room for Steve’s arc.

The biggest takeaway in this first episode is without question the motif of family, specifically parenting. We’re offered small tinges of several parental archetypes: Prairie’s anxious adoptive parents, Steve’s cold, punitive folks and even a glimpse at Nina’s father’s harsh parenting methods as well as his ties to the Russian underworld. But oddly enough, we get more insight into the mindsets of Steve’s parents (negligent and detached) and Nina’s father (stringent in making her less of a weakling suffering from night terrors) more so than we do the most pivotal pair introduced to us: Abel and Nancy, the ones supposedly traumatized by their daughter’s disappearance, yet barely an utterance of trauma out of them, especially Abel.

I’m sure their characterizations will develop in later episodes, it was just a tad odd how they quickly became absent after Prairie made her way back to them. I’d also like to see the show delve more into the theme of isolation and depression since the Ocean’s Six of sorts that Prairie has formed all seem to suffer from some sense of loss and detachment from the outside world, thus rendering them outcasts.

“You don’t want to go there until your invisible self is more developed anyway,” Prairie informs Steve to boost his morale after being rejected by a high school crush. Perhaps that line can be applied to “Homecoming” itself and more will indeed unravel and develop as the show progresses into its own "invisible self," for better or worse. 

7.5/10

She learns what it feels like to see color

EX MACHINA (2015)

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned; whether human or humanoid. Malevolent forces ride the undercurrent of Alex Garland’s 2015 sci-fi psycho-drama Ex Machina on every front, which focuses on budding programmer Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) who is selected by prominent software director Nathan (Oscar Isaac) to facilitate a Turing test on the company’s latest project: Ava (Alicia Vikander), an android programmed with sophisticated artificial intelligence.

The black box in Ex Machina lies within Ava’s ever-developing psyche and Garland utilizes much of her cagey nature to reach under his audience’s skin to implant a sense of doubt toward not only the suggested ‘protagonist’ Caleb, but also toward the suggested villain, Nathan. Confined in her small apartment (or rather, holding cell) we begin to sympathize with Ava and yearn for her liberation as much as she does. Enter psychological manipulation. As Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once said, “there are two ways to be fooled: one is to believe what isn't true and the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” Without spoiling the film entirely, one of our ‘protagonists’ falls prey to both.

Ex Machina is a procedural on certitude; both the audience and the film’s characters themselves are left scratching their heads wondering who is to be trusted and who is to be probed. By the end, the measures each of these characters take throughout are pinned by some sense of liberation (even those considered “human”) and Garland allows us to identify with their plights through clever dialogue; albeit oftentimes cold. The film’s sleek cinematography (on a fixed budget) and captivating score only add to this mood piece’s nerve-punching atmosphere, allowing Ex Machina's slow burn pace to ebb and flow in tension without overdoing any theatrics.

8/10

The sport of wrestling is a low sport

FOXCATCHER (2014)

I was lucky enough to attend this year’s Savannah Film Festival where I had the opportunity to screen director Bennett Miller’s (of Moneyball and Capote fame) latest feature Foxcatcher. Following the hype leading up to this film’s premiere for several months prior, I was somewhat skeptical about what path Miller had chosen to lead former Daily Show correspondent and The Office alum Steve Carell down with such sinister material to tackle. The actor, who is typically known for his screwier turns in both cinema and television, abandons that jokey facade for heavy amounts of prosthetic makeup and chesty, monotone speech to undertake the role of anguished multimillionaire and convicted murderer John E. du Pont.

In future, some may reminiscence back on Carell’s performance here as a model example of casting against type, but if one were to scrutinize the similarities between Carell’s du Pont and his Michael Scott – as silly, and rightfully so, as that may sound – they might see that perhaps this wasn’t the greatest departure Carell has traveled outside of his element. Both Scott and du Pont are stubborn as mules, both are known for their varying levels of sociopathic behavior, and both strive for notability. However, acknowledging their similarities without acknowledging their differences would make for an unfair evaluation. And unfortunately, du Pont’s darker demeanor proves to be Carell’s Achilles heel. His Michael Scott brand of comedic stylings manage to somehow shine through in a noticeable way, robbing away from what could have made for a brutal display of spite, malice and vengeance in the hands of an actor with less of a fluff streak. That said, it would be absurd to call this an utterly botched attempt; when Carell goes to bat for this role, he really goes to bat for it.

Those unfamiliar with the 1996 murder of Dave Schultz needn’t worry about digging into the finer details of the events in order to follow the proceedings; Miller scants with backstory himself, which ultimately works in the film’s favor in terms of enhancing its bleak tone and leaving an arid taste in viewers’ mouths walking out. In fact, despite the vast amount of acclaim pinned on Carell, Foxcatcher is more of a warped Cain and Abel tale hinged on the relationship between two brothers, Mark Schultz, played by Channing Tatum and his older brother Dave, played by Mark Ruffalo. Both brothers are renowned Olympic world championship wrestlers, alas, while Dave is enjoying the fruits of his labor and is happily married, Mark is in flux, yearning to accomplish more with his burgeoning wrestling career yet seemingly incapable of reaching any higher highs. This is where John du Pont steps in to properly shake things up for the brothers.

Receiving an unexpected invitation from du Pont to enlist and train on a national U.S. wrestling team with its eyes set on Seoul’s 1988 Olympic Games, Mark becomes stoked about revitalizing his prospects in the wrestling game. He later asks his brother to tag along on his latest pursuit after relentless persuasion from the obstinate du Pont, but David is unyielding in relocating without his family in tow. So the entire Schultz family winds up on du Pont’s massive estate outside of Valley Forge where the affluent wrestling enthusiast’s neurotic side comes into clearer perspective; be it through rigorous training, a worrisome fascination with firearms or delusions of grandeur that range from being the savior of American wrestling to being a skilled wrestler himself. This dismal portrait of du Pont is painted at an accelerated rate and done so in a manner that leaves little doubt of du Pont’s deteriorating mental state in viewers’ minds. What’s left somewhat cryptic would be the motives underlying du Pont’s final act of terror – the eventual homicide of Dave Schultz – but given Miller’s and Carell’s depiction of the man on screen, deducting any conclusion outside the spectrum of the “unbalanced affluenza-ridden sociopath” variety would seem moot.

The categorically winning quality of this film is unquestionably the stony tone it grounds itself in. Perhaps with ironic intention on the director’s part, Foxcatcher’s brilliance rests in knowing how masterfully Miller was able to transcend a film surrounding a sport as violent as wrestling – not to mention a film illustrating an act as violent as the one du Pont committed – into such statically cold territory. Referring to Foxcatcher as “hollow” might come across a tad disparaging or even harshly critical, but the word’s used here as more of a compliment than a reproach.

The film never once allows you to draw in too close to any of its key players (as to analyze them decisively enough) du Pont especially. His goals are clear, his troubles are sparsely hinted at, and his nature is ruthlessly industrious, but this is all shown on a surface level. Miller restrains himself from delving too far into areas of du Pont’s life and the controversy surrounding the infamous shooting of Dave Schultz itself – on some novel, introspective level – that the public themselves aren’t privy to. Some may consider this a major flaw as it leaves a substantial amount up to one’s imagination, but to the contrary, the fact that Foxcatcher leaves you with so much to chew on after that final shot is a sign of exceptional storytelling, the kind that never resorts to spelling everything out or underestimating the audience’s intellect.

8/10

Here is simple and happy. That's what I meant to give you.

BEGINNERS (2010)

While it might be the oddest comparison to make, I feel it’s more than warranted to bring up here: a few eons ago, I posted a short blurb on Jean-Luc Godard’s Two or Three Things I Know About Her, one of the French auteur’s more radical films which chronicles the prosaic day-to-day activities of an especially hollow housewife. My biggest gripe with the film was that any substantial plot that could have possibly livened up the housewife’s characterization was completely buried by Godard’s intrusive social commentary. The distance he places between his focal lead – the housewife – and his audience is vast and not once are we allowed the opportunity to feel any sympathy toward this woman's plight. Instead, we find a narrative dressed up in sermons that never hit home as hard as they should; largely because said sermons are being delivered to us in a wet, soggy cardboard box that we have no interest in opening because the subjects within are flat and stale.

During the first few minutes of Mike Mills’ Beginners, I might have wondered myself what any of the rambling above had to do with the romantic dramedy. But as the film progressed and its dry tone settled, I couldn't resist likening Mills’ approach in Beginners with the same approach Godard adopted whilst shooting Two or Three Things. While Beginners lacks the incredibly imposed documentary-feel most Godard films seem to pride themselves on, there's still an excess of fluff: mentions of the Bush Administration, social issues and adversities faced by gays and Jews and heaps of pop culture references to fit the film’s 2003 setting. These are all harped on by Oliver Fields (Ewan McGregor) in intermittent segments that don’t necessarily disrupt the film’s flow in the exhausting fashion Godard’s narration does in Two or Three Things, but bogs the film down a bit (needlessly) nonetheless.

Beginners is something of a mishmash of three different relationships that unfold over the span of nearly five decades. All three are recounted by Oliver and done so in a manner that is never sequential. The first – an account of his parents’ marriage – is somewhat vague as we never catch a glimpse of his father Hal Fields (Christopher Plummer) interacting in the mix. Instead we follow Oliver and his half-Jewish mother Georgia (Mary Page Keller) as they learn to cope with Hal’s questionable absence from home. It’s revealed shortly after Georgia's death that Hal is gay and has been aware of this since the age of 15. The second “romance” involves Hal and his younger lover Andy (Goran Visnjic) and could be considered a waste of an arc; its only purpose is to illustrate Hal’s experience embracing his new gay lifestyle as well as the emotional toils that come with being out at the ripe old age of 75.

Thankfully, this narrative isn't too domineering. The third arc between our protagonist Oliver and well-traveled French actress Anna Wallace (Mélanie Laurent), however, is. Naturally so, of course, but it’s this arc that stems right back to my initial gripe with Two or Three Things; the romanticism and humanity of this relationship is lost at the cost of Mills’ desire to quirk-ify the story with historical anecdotes – from Harvey Milk to Adolf Hitler – littered with still photographs and illustrations that, sure, have a place and a point to make, but this shouldn't come at the expense of our chief characters’ development. These gimmicks sort of quashed any interest I had in seeing Oliver and Anna wind up together in the end. I found myself remembering Beginners more for Mills’ stylish frills than any of the characters on hand. The silver lining: the deadpan contrivances here won’t leave you as arctic cold in the way Godard’s hate letter to consumerism does.

7/10

What have we done to each other? What will we do?

GONE GIRL (2014)

There’s really no clear cut way to review a film with such high intrigue like the brand Gone Girl puts on display without ruining its magic for those looking for an uncontaminated viewing experience. That's to say, without having read the source material from novelist Gillian Flynn – who also penned the film’s screenplay – or coming across a spoiler or two online. This is essentially why I’ve held off putting together a proper write-up for the film; analyzing this one in detail is a tricky undertaking. 

Directed by the always meticulous David Fincher, Gone Girl could almost serve as a companion piece to one of the director’s most – arguably – respected films Zodiac. Both exemplify how to get under an audience’s skin in such an unsettling way without bulldozing cheap thrills at you through the screen. In Gone Girl, the thrills have substance and are built up to – not added in arbitrarily – in a painstaking manner.

We find the stove set to low upon meeting Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) a magazine writer married to trust fund princess Amy Elliot (Rosamund Pike) who happens to be the inspiration behind her parents’ popular children’s book series titled “Amazing Amy.” The heat’s notched up a few degrees when Nick returns home one day to find his living room in complete disarray and his wife missing. After local authorities get involved, damning evidence against Nick – from financial woes to marital disputes – is revealed and suggests that he might be a prime suspect in his wife’s disappearance, bringing us to the film’s boiling point.

Gone Girl’s narrative style is hinged on diary entries written by Amy that catalog the many rough patches endured throughout her marriage with Nick. These entries are recounted in the form of flashbacks and are really all the audience is handed to go on in terms of piecing together “what really happened.” The novel apparently doles out an equal share of individual accounts – both Nick and Amy offer conflicting versions of their story – which likely renders the events that unfold a bit blurrier and gives the reader a harder time taking sides.

Flynn’s cinematic take is less balanced, however, and sculpts Nick as nothing short of an awkward scapegoat crashing his way into blunder after blunder. His responses to criminal accusations are flimsy, his history of infidelity is milked by a Nancy Grace-patterned doppelganger on television daily, and his brash behavior around Amy’s parents and “friends” does him zero favors in the "charm" department. Nick is in a bind and given little room to breathe – or properly defend himself from an unwanted media circus – whilst Amy’s version of their marriage is being held as scripture by detectives on the case. But as in most failed marriages, neither party is fully innocent, and it’s this nugget of truth that one must ponder before pointing fingers.

Having majored in journalism, I know firsthand how relentless the press can be and the wrath they can incite and the damage they can cause when covering stories similar to Nick and Amy’s. It can oftentimes be a traumatic scenario for the scrutinized victims targeted, but Gone Girl manages to almost make light of the proceedings. The area of biting satire this film falls in – noticeably so – by its halfway mark is that of pure, unadulterated social criticism. What’s depressing – or perhaps humorous depending on who you ask – is how Fincher nor Flynn really hold their magnifying glass devilishly close over the press or exaggerate the press’ motives and conduct with blatant malice. This is American media in its truest, nastiest form and as silly as the film becomes past a considerably wicked reveal, it remains a genuine portrait of how much influence the press has over a news-reliant society’s naiveté and how vital it is to take most headlines with a grain of salt. Given the pervasiveness of mass media in this day and age and how easy it is to access breaking stories riddled with fuzzy, unfounded details – and be consumed and swayed by them – simply by swiping your finger across an iPhone screen, the degree of influence is more than evident, and Fincher and Flynn have a real blast bucking the "news" machine in a most entertaining way.

But more entertaining than the character of “modern media” itself is none other than the Amazing Amy. While I normally stray away from commenting on performances, Rosamund Pike’s work here is worth mentioning. Without giving much away, I feel comfortable enough saying that she brilliantly embodies the idiom “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” Her haunting voice work over the flashbacks greatly complements Fincher’s direction and her deliveries elsewhere are deliciously dreamy with just the smallest pinch of menace that really demonstrate the makings of a sociopathic film character bound to be lauded as “iconic” years down the road. Kathy Bates in Misery-iconic. She knocks it clean out the park. Also deserving of a mention is Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor’s anxiety-inducing industrial soundtrack. Gone Girl marks Reznor’s third consecutive collaboration with Fincher – The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo being their first two joint efforts – and it by far stands alone as his most gripping outing with the director to date, which is only appropriate, seeing as how Gone Girl is high on the list of Fincher’s most gripping feature films.

 8.5/10

You are American; you think you can escape history

THE AMERICAN (2010)

There's a scene near the beginning of The American where George Clooney’s enigmatic Jack encounters a woman named Mathilde (Thekla Reuten) to discuss business pertaining to an assassination. Mathilde wants Jack to craft a custom-made rifle to be used in this assassination and Jack obliges her after requesting the rifle’s specifications in a suave, but monotone manner. The way this concise shop talk of theirs plays out is pivotal in that it sets the tone for the remainder of the film. It’s cold and mechanical much like the weaponry these characters handle for a living and offers no insight into their personalities. The audience is thus left with what’s on the surface; a shared interest (business) and little else.

As an obscure slow burn, American manages to work on somewhat of an atmospheric level thanks in part to Anton Corbijn’s (Control) gorgeous direction and keen eye for detail, but attempting to invest some form of emotional interest in Jack’s mission is where you begin to realize Corbijn's and 28 Days Later scribe Rowan Joffe's thriller slowly derail. The story (an adaptation of Martin Booth’s novel "A Very Private Gentleman") follows a particularly narrow line structurally. Jack, a hired gun who flees off to a remote Italian village following a botched assignment in Sweden is contracted with a final job through his handler Pavel (Johan Leysen) which involves designing the custom-made rifle mentioned earlier. During his stay, Jack is hounded by a Swedish assassin, considers seeking redemption with the aid of a local priest and falls head over heels for an archetypal hooker with a heart of gold. Each of these plot points, while not necessarily groundbreaking for the genre, might have worked to some degree on paper, but they lack weight on screen. None of what pans out during the course of this film is especially engaging, and therein lies the rub.

The Swede hired to kill Jack pops up intermittently and is only utilized as a tool to contrive tension here and there. The priest (Paolo Bonacelli) is introduced as a figure that might potentially play an important part in pushing the redemption angle, but his entire arc is ultimately squandered. And Jack’s relationship with dubious prostitute Clara (Violante Placido) suffers from an inadequate amount of character development, yet the film bookends on the notion that theirs was a passionate, yet tragic affair the likes of something Shakespearean.

It goes without saying that the film’s biggest hang-up is that each interaction referenced above is stale in execution, and a small share of the blame rests on Clooney’s uninspired screen presence. American is sort of akin to Michael Clayton in the sense that it’s a film that doesn't call for the actor’s trademark charm, but Clooney verges on being borderline comatose (as a contract killer, of all professions) it’s almost unnatural to think of him as anything other than a common tourist – despite some gratuitously placed tattoos. The script, of course, isn't without fault; ripe for a magnetic character study treatment, it fails to live up to its intrigue and makes little effort at cracking beneath the surface of Jack’s psyche.

At its best, American is reminiscent of Jean-Pierre Melville’s quiet thriller Le Samourai, a classic that also subverts the conventions films of its genre tend to abide by so often. Difference is, Samourai paces itself at a rate that holds the viewer’s attention with sequences that never stall the production, whereas American prolongs its more mundane elements (the assembling of a gun and its parts for instance) without much of a payoff substance-wise come the climax. Both low key shoot ‘em ups pride themselves on being succinct, but while one is firing on all cylinders, the other is firing on none.

6/10

Vows are spoken to be broken

MAP OF THE SOUNDS OF TOKYO (2009)

I could probably think of several worthier films to ring in the New Year with, but I’ve shelved this one long enough, so here we go. It seems that most films set in Japan – helmed by non-Japanese directors – share a common, irksome trait: the directors’ overzealous approach in exploring the cityscape, various customs and foreign lifestyles which, of course, is aesthetically pleasing, but ultimately transforms their work into a lengthy travelogue that turns out to be more taxing than enjoyable to sit through. Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation – which I really admired for its ethereal quality – suffered from “travelogue” syndrome in a few areas; focusing more on setting while leaving scant room for story, but at least Coppola was considerate enough to imbue some life into her script in terms of characterization.

With Map of the Sounds of Tokyo, Coppola’s fellow Japanophile Isabel Coixet (Elegy, Paris, je t'aime) not only managed to strike me as a travel agent under the guise of a filmmaker, but also as someone who seems overenthusiastic about bathing their film in ornate visuals to cover up a weak story. However, despite being a prime example of style over substance, what Map does well, it does extremely well.

The film opens with a gratuitous nyotaimori scene, showing a roomful of international businessmen eating sushi off the chests of five or six nude women, but radical feminists needn't concern themselves because Coixet makes sure to wag her finger at the practice by having the film’s soon-to-be griever Nagara (Takeo Nakahara) frown upon the display. But here’s the real kicker: the very same women are shown again in an arbitrary shower scene mere seconds after Nagara receives a distressing phone call informing him that his daughter has committed suicide. Not only is it one of the most out-of-place – and tasteless – scenes I’ve seen in, well, years, it’s also a mark of the poor craftsmanship and integrity that exudes in this film; not to mention the insufficient cultural research that was most likely doled out during production.

Nagara – alongside his faithful associate Ishida (Hideo Sakaki) – eventually discovers that his daughter’s suicide may link back to her recent breakup with David (Sergi López), a Spanish wine-seller based in Tokyo. Distraught over Nagara’s suffering, and personal matters of his own, Ishida hires Ryu (Rinko Kikuchi) – a fish-market employee who doubles as a hit-woman – to kill David and attain retribution. But Ishida’s act of vengeance is put on the backburner when romance blossoms between Ryu and her target.

What really threw me for a loop is how Coixet incorporates the film’s fifth player: a character simply referred to as “the narrator”, played by Min Tanaka, who gives a spectacularly nuanced performance, but like the rest of the cast, is cheated of better material. His intriguing setup in the beginning – from his observational musings of Ryu’s silent nature to his odd profession of audio engineer (one who records prosaic, but distinctive sounds) – is completely ousted the moment David and Ryu’s series of romantic trysts comes into play. Tanaka provides one hell of a compelling character, and it’s almost upsetting the way Coixet tunes out his potential. Having a narrator recount the story is swell, but if a director opts for the unconventional route and decides to play up the narrator’s role as a pivotal character, they should at least leave room for effective characterization.

The “love story” between Kikuchi and López that shadows any evidence of the narrator’s existence is largely forgettable, even bland compared to the quaint aspects of Tanaka’s few scenes. But like Tanaka, Kikuchi and López manage to somehow transcend the spiritless dialogue they’re given – animating flat lines in semi-coherent English – and their chemistry, while not electrifying, revolutionizes the norm. As I mentioned above, Coixet’s fixation here is clearly on visuals; capturing the colorful and “cute” features of Japan – all relatively embellished to re-establish the setting in case the viewer forgets – but her general handling of the scenery remains solid throughout, noteworthy even. Unfortunately, the compliments wane there. Pure technical exercise – and visual eye candy – opposed to an engrossing experience, Map of the Sounds of Tokyo exhibits ambition on the surface, but very little underneath.

6.5/10