Stan & Ollie

Sometimes it is just nice to sit and watch a film that can entertain you without any explosions, car chases, political satire or smug irony. "Stan & Ollie" is the sort of picture that adults used to be able to see at a movie theater. Most films of this sort get shuttled off to a streaming service where older audiences can enjoy them without having to mix with the youthful riff raff. Fortunately, some film makers are still interested in providing a theatrical experience and some older audiences are still interested in venturing out of the house on a Friday night.

This is basically a biopic about one of the great comedy duos of the Twentieth Century. I do worry a little about the next generation having no context for films however, when the young lady taking my popcorn order asked me what I was going to see and I told her, she asked "What's it about?"  Of course my students probably think the same think when I ask who or what is Post Malone? So the problem does flow both directions, but I don't work at a radio station or record store, she is working in a movie theater. I guess since she is not at the ticket counter, the only product she needs to worry about are the Sour Patch Kids.

Anyway, that is neither here nor there. This movie focuses on a period of time where Laurel and Hardy were past their prime. It opens with a flashback to 1937 when at their height, they are involved with a contract dispute at RKO. Fifteen years later, they have returned to Great Britain to do a theater tour of their bits live on stage. It seems as if this is primarily to set the stage for a film project being put together but it has a whole set of events surrounding it to make it worth investigating. Unlike "The Sunshine Boys", this is not about two old timers who hate each other getting back together out of necessity. The two have had their differences but are still deeply connected to each other and have many warm memories and patterns that they play out. There will be a boiling point over some old issues, but that is not the main focus of the story, it is about how these two men complement one another and value their professional relationship.

If you need another reason to be irritated at the Academy Awards, take note that the excellent script, production design, make-up and performances were all ignored in this years list of nominees. I have nothing against Willem DaFoe, and I have not seen the movie for which he has been nominated, but if he gave a better performance than John C. Reilly or Steve Coogan, then he should be the favorite, and I know he is not. These two actors have embodied the real life characters so well that the physical transformations that come with hair and make-up are almost unnecessary. The genteel mannerisms, the quiet voiced frustrations of real life, seem to be legitimate extensions of the more exaggerated screen presence of the two. The two actors also play out scenes from Laurel and Hardy's repertoire with sincerity and aplomb.  The two leads are matched by actresses playing their wives who are equally excellent, although we have a harder time confirming veracity because we know those characters less. Shirley Henderson, who most of you will recognize as Moaning Myrtle, plays Ollie's wife Lucille. She is as loving and engaged with her husband as a woman can be. Nina Arianda is Stan's wife Ida, a domineering and aggrandizing presence in the life of the comedy duo. 

At the end of the film, you can feel your heart being warmed as everything resolves itself in a manner that reasserts the love that these two have for each other. It also feed our desire to see the two as true friends rather than just business partners forced into a relationship of convenience. The movie does not move mountains or dazzle us with technique. Rather, the film allows the actors to communicate as their characters, and we get to feel like we are there. After seeing the film, you will almost certainly want to bath in the waters of the nearly 200 hundred features and shorts that the two did together. That is reason enough to love the film. 

Philomena

This a a film to stir your blood if you have any sense of injustice. Regardless of your faith or political leanings, the history of harsh treatment of pregnant young women in Ireland in the first half of the last century is not a happy one. Whether it was the horror show projected by "the Magdalene Sisters" ( a film that has received much criticism for it's accuracy) or the more mundane heartlessness of the abbey shown in this film, it does appear that strict moral adhesion to a philosophy was emotionally cruel. This film is actually a pretty sad story despite the humor that is highlighted in the trailer above. There are moments of levity but at it's heart, the film concerns the indifference of a couple of institutions to the people that they serve.

The first of those institutions are the convents that took in women abandoned by their families and then misused them. I have not done enough research to know if this is just typical Catholic bashing or if this was standard operating procedure. I do believe that the film shows a strength of faith by the title character that would be hard to preserve if there was not a foundation of goodness somewhere. From a more modern perspective, unwed pregnant women are not something to be hidden away and their children taken from them. From a perspective of the times, it might seem that the children were given treatment in their best interest and that the expectation that the women would simply accept the results was normal. What is not normal is the desire to cover up past sins when relevant information is deliberately withheld. I watched and was unhappy when the children were taken, but I did not see that as an act of evil. Later in the story, when we discover that at least some officials in the hierarchy deliberately withheld information from parents and children, the shroud of evil is draped on those characters. The way the story is revealed in the film seems to be dramatically effective, regardless whether it is accurate or not.

The second institution that is criticized here is the world of journalism. The author of the book that the film is based on is portrayed as the lead character of the film. The screenwriters have not been shy about displaying his flaws as a human being. As an outcast from the privileged class of journalists at the high levels of government, he seems to have disdain for the idea of a human interest story and for anyone who would be interested in reading one. The pompous fall back of writing Russian history after a fall from grace might make him seem less of a failure from the class that he sees himself in, but it was clear that the rest of the world had little use for it. The nice part of the story is that he is forced to recognize that there is worth in the stories of others who are not czars, commissars, or members of an oligarchy.

Judi Dench is marvelous as the elderly woman seeking her lost child. She conveys a rueful manner at those times that the imagined image of her child  appears in her mind. She is also a peppy retired nurse with simple enthusiasms and a warm human nature. I know people who speak to the employees of a restaurant or hotel and make friendly conversation. They sound very much like the chipper Philomena Lee does in those sequences in Washington D.C.Where the misanthropic and jaded journalist sees a person of pitiful or limited imagination, most of us would see a warm hearted soul, willing to share something of herself and learn something from others. Although it is not the journey that will get the most attention, the story of the journalist is just as significant to the film as that of the mother trying to find the lost child from her past.

Steve Coogan plays the writer Martin Sixsmith and he does a good job of reflecting his conflicted loyalties to his journalistic roots and the feelings of his newly acquired friend Philomena Lee. The flashback sequences to the 1950s Irish Convent feel authentic in tone and they certainly look like they might have been filmed at a location where time has stood still. The film is well made and tells the story efficiently, although it does tend to take a couple of political shots, those are largely minor sucker punches that anyone could expect from the authors point of view. There are elements of the final resolution with the adopted sister and the long time lover that I thought needed to be expanded upon, but on the whole it was a rewarding experience for the acting talents and the sad set of stories that make up the whole purpose of the film.