See How They Run

 

It's not everyday you get a real farce on the big screen. Lots of films have elements of farce and are quite enjoyable as a consequence. In the last year I would say "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent" and "Free Guy" are two examples of action films that have farcical moments in them. Most Wes Anderson films also feature the concept of a light, humorous play in which the plot depends upon a skillfully exploited situation rather than upon the development of character. "See How They Run" has the advantage of actually being a film about a play, which is eventually revealed to be a sort of play in itself. That is what makes it a true farce as far as I am concerned. 

The story concerns a murder that takes place during a negotiation to turn "The Mousetrap" into a movie. Those of you not familiar with the play simply need to know that it is an Agatha Christie murder mystery. It is also the longest running play in the history of theater, starting in 1952 and still playing on the West End in London to this day. This movie is not a filmed version of the play, but rather a take off on the plat, using "The Mousetrap" as a sort of touchstone or spine for the mayhem. It mocks the machinations of old Hollywood and they manner in which film makers try to take material and rework it to their own vision. The real clause in the contract granting rights to a cinematic version, states that such a film cannot be made until six months after the play closes in London. See how this is going to work?

Making use of techniques used by movies over the years, this film starts off being narrated by the stereotypical victim of these kinds of drawing room mysteries. The performance of Adrien Brody is fitfully droll and sarcastic, with just a little bit of surprise thrown in. The fact that he is in the film explains why his character is resurrected for several flashback scenes. Those kinds of scenes are also mocked in the film in a self reference that will be seen time and again in the movie. No spoiler here, but when you see the climax of the film, you will laugh out loud, hard.

The historical context of the story adds some fun twists to a murder mystery that is as convoluted as any written by Christie herself. I enjoyed having Richard Attenborough played on screen as a young actor treading the boards in the play. The Hollywood Cliché of the producer is only partially exploited, but the film director tries to compensate by being a cad and attempting seduction by casting whenever he can. Once the murder has occurred, the real stars of the film and the source of the greatest comic moments show up. Sam Rockwell is doing a Gary Oldman impression of a fifties era detective inspector. He is great playing the detached slightly alcoholic run of the mill, hardworking detective. He is partnered with eager beaver Constable Saoirse Ronan, who comically takes notes, jumps to conclusions and also plays the hero. There are bad puns, slamming doors, slightly missed moments when trailing a suspect, all of which will provoke a chuckle here and there. 

This sort of thing is hard to pull off in a film. So many times what works on stage simply seems frenetic on screen, but here the pacing is cool enough to let us enjoy the oddball characters and the silly assumptions. The final result is a charming little mystery that lampoons it's own roots in a gently comic way, and evokes enough laughter to justify going out to a theater to see it. I was pleased that the Tuesday Discount brought out a good sized crowd for this movie. It's great to hear laughter from a collective of souls in the dark.  

Little Women (2019)

For forty years, I have gone to a movie on Christmas day with my family. Some of those choices were terrific ways to spend a family holiday, including "Galaxy Quest", "Dream Girls", and "The Greatest Showman". Other choices were dismal failures that we had hoped would be good but were in fact sad failures; "Toys" and "First Family" being the biggest let downs. Occasionally we made a left field choice, a film we wanted to see but was not exactly holiday fare, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and "The Hateful Eight" come to mind, not exactly heartwarming.

In 1994, our first year in the new house, I took my seven and five year old daughters to see "Little Women" starring Winnona Ryder and Susan Sarandon. It was a very fond memory and it stood as a pretty definitive version of the film as far as I was concerned. I was not particularly excited about this new version, even when I knew that it would feature Saoise Ronan and be directed by Greta Gerwig. Although I admired their previous collaboration, "Lady Bird", I was not blown away by it the way so many others were. I saw a few flaws and it probably did not quite resonate with me because of my age and gender. Well none of that effected me with this adaption of the Louisa May Alcott novel, this is a luminous telling of the story that is flawlessly performed, very well written, and may be the most beautiful film you see this year.

I must shamefully acknowledge that I have never read the original novel, in spite of the fact that my wife identified it as her favorite book when she was younger.  As a consequence of this oversight I can't say for certain how faithful to the book the story is, but it certainly feels authentic. The one minor criticism I have of the screenplay and direction is the non-linear approach to the material. It is structured as a series of scenes, some of which flash back seven years and some which are contemporary to the setting after the Civil War. The ages of the actresses in the main roles are such that they can pass for teens or twenties , but we don't always know which period we are in. A haircut helps in a couple of places, but a few times it took several moments for me to be able to contextualize what was happening on the screen at that moment.

The strongest addition to the film as told by Gerwig, the screenwriter as well as director, is the detail in the lives of two of the sisters who were often overlooked in earlier versions. Actress Florence Pugh infuses Amy March with more personality than any of the other versions, and the script shows her at both her worst and best. She is loathsome as a vindictive little sister who takes revenge on her sisters creative efforts but she is noble when it comes to choosing a husband and redeeming a character she has herself condemned. Emma Watson as Meg March also makes what is often a cardboard role into an important part of the narrative. Eliza Scanlen is heartbreaking as the sister with the darkest story resolution, but regardless of those characters, it is still a story about Jo. Saoise Ronan is front and center even when she is not on screen. Her frustrating petulance is matched by the frustrating limitations placed on a young woman of the time. You can choose to see this as a feminist screed but that is a mistake, this is a pretty accurate portrayal of a woman's life in the mid 19th century of the U.S. Ronan manages to be fierce so often that it is a shock when she is so effective as pitiful and desperate in a confessional moment with her on-screen mother played by Laura Dern. 

Some attention to the technical production should also be made. The set design is realistic and detailed. The selection of locations feels authentic and the world that the women occupy, even in a place that is hard to replicate like New York in 1865, is convincing. The number of extras in a scene, the mix of roads that are paved and unpaved and the signage on the stores will pass very critical inspection.

There are a variety of supporting players, such as Chris Cooper (my second film of his within a week) and Meryl Streep. Timothée Chalamet as Laurie was presented in the least sympathetic way I have seen in the four screen adaptions I will have on the podcast, but he does have a nicely executed scene of personal despair when he is rejected by Jo as husband material.

Maybe the one other criticism I have of the screenplay is the way the resolution is presented as a hypothetical writer's plot device rather than an authentic romantic climax. It plays out on the screen nicely, but it does seem to be tampering with the story for modern reasons rather than fidelity to the work. (Again, that may be inaccurate since I have not read the book).

"Little Women comes at the end of the year for the usual reason, it is a prestige picture that is hoping fpr awards attention to enhance it's potential box office and audience response. This is a strategy that should work. The theater was packed, there was a smattering of applause at the end, but more than that, I think I will be with the majority of critics who see this as one of the best films of 2019.

Lady Bird

The characters portrayed in this film go to Catholic Schools and wear uniforms reflecting that status. Inspired by that vision and setting, I am prepared to make a confession. "Bless me internet for I have sinned. I am not a Catholic so it has been my whole life since my last confession,...I did not love this film."  Unlike Marion McPherson, I like Lady Bird rather than love her. After hearing so many podcast raves and seeing the 100% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes (which finally dropped today to 99%), maybe I was expecting too much. Don't get me wrong, this is a perfectly fine movie and it has some excellent qualities to share with us, but it is not a "perfect" film, although I can say it is an accurate and honest one.

One of the guys on the "In Session Film" podcast, said his only complaint was that "hella tight" sounded too early for 2003. He apparently is unaware that the term "hella" has been around the NorCal area since the early seventies and there was a No Doubt song that featured the phrase the year before. To me it sounded completely authentic to time and place. The one thing only that felt inauthentic was a sex scene where the girl keeps her bra on. I understand and respect the right of the film makers to present their story in a manner that is non-lascivious.  This is not an 80s teen comedy after all, but Saoirse Ronan is not Janet Leigh in the opening scene of "Psycho" released in 1960. The idea that a teen Lothario would be passive enough to ignore this undergarment is just ludicrous. Find a more modest angle, or use a bedsheet, which is a lot more probable, and that scene would still work without a topless shot.

I'm really not trying to pick at the film, that was just one minor example of the slight imperfections that people might overlook because they love so much of the rest of the film. Who can blame them? There is a lot to love about this movie. The actors are all pitch perfect.  Saoirse Ronan is deadpan funny in so many scenes that we ought to be laughing a lot. I did, but not as much or as deeply as I expected. Humor is subjective at times, and the contentious nature of her relationship with her mother Marion, while amusing, was also painfully expressed, which did not always deepen the laugh but soured it. The timing of the two actresses, Ronan and Laurie Metcalf, cannot be faulted. They are fine, it is the occasional bitter dialogue that sounds honest but hit my ear just a little too often as trying too hard. The same was true in a scene where "Lady Bird" confronts her best friend when being given the silent treatment. They both throw verbal jabs that are funny, but just a bit too perfectly set up.

Maybe the reason I am not quite as responsive to this is that I have lived this story to a large degree. Maybe I was off a year, but I have a daughter who longed to be going to school in NYC. She had a boyfriend who turned out to be something different than she had hoped. She worked as a barista to make cash so she could pay her own way. She was definitely smart but had work habits that held her back and she found friends late in her high school career in theater. The love/hate relationship was maybe more with her father than her mother, so the crisp dialogue in this film might just be too on the nose.

My favorite scene in the film involves Lady Bird's sudden realization that she doesn't want to fit in with her new friends. She wants to go to the prom. That was certainly the opposite of my child, who would never have bent her behavior to curry favor with a group of people she wanted to be "in" with, with only two exceptions, picking up cigarettes and automatically taking a position designed to irritate one or the other of her parents. Lady Bird has to come to realize that abandoning her friend Julie, played with a heart breaking degree of honesty by Beanie Feldstein,  was a big mistake, and it is one of several transformative moments in the movie. Lucas Hedges gets a second opportunity within just a couple of weeks to make a mark on the film business. His part here is deeper and more significant than his role as the neglected surviving sibling in "Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri", and the tenderness between Ronan and he is wonderful despite the bitterness that accompanies it.

Writer/Director Greta Gerwig has fashioned a very effective coming of age story. There are plot elements that you can see coming, and the lines are sometimes to dead on, but it is a great script and film. It is however, just another coming of age story. The performances, elevate the movie quite a bit but the heaping of praise on everything about the movie burdens the experience rather than sharpening it.  There is nothing to not like about the film but that doesn't make me love it. To take advantage of one of the most derided quotes in movie history, "Love means never having to say you"re sorry". My guess is that it is apparent how I feel. Sorry.