Juror #2 (2024)

 

It would not be possible to write about this movie without the context in which I saw it. The world has changed so much in the last ten years, many of those changes are subtle and may go unnoticed by some people. I however, have noticed. I notice that theaters are often empty when new films are playing, that films which have some serious issue to discuss get ignored off of the screens that they manage to play on when they do get a release. I have noticed that it is a disparaging phrase to say "Your Dad will like it." In the last couple of years, there have been a few films I was lucky to catch in a theater, which almost certainly would have earned that back handed compliment, films like "The Covenant", "The Greatest Beer Run Ever" and "Fly Me to the Moon". These were films aimed at an mature audience, and they were lucky to get any screen time in a theater. While they are of varying quality, they deserved the time I was willing to give them, and they earned a lot more respect than some films which have been huge box office successes, but which are barely real stories or movies.  Whenever I have written about them, I have made an effort to give them serious thought (even when they don't deserve it, I'm looking at you "Barbie").  When I see a movie like "Juror #2" being dismissed as "Your Dad's new favorite movie", it frustrates me. Even when those are complimentary due to the old fashioned quality of a film, it sends a message to potential viewers that there is something here that is not for them.

Warner Brothers has made it clear that they feel the same way about this film. It is not for you. The have given it the most token of releases. It is on thirty-five screens around the country. As far as I can tell, in the state of Texas, where I live, it is on one screen in Dallas. Texas with thirty plus million residents, the second most populous state in the country, has one theater showing "Juror #2", the latest film from cinema treasure Clint Eastwood. I saw some spin on one entertainment site suggesting that this was a limited release because the film would only open in the single digits and that Warner Brothers did not want Eastwood to be embarrassed by a flop. If you believe that, let me tell you about the golden opportunity to invest in property in California City. Also I have a bridge you might like to buy in the New York area. 

I had to drive two hundred miles one way to see the movie in a theater opening weekend. That is three hours on the Interstate from Austin to Dallas. After the movie, I had the same three hour trip back. I can't say I would always make a trip like that to see a Clint Eastwood project, after all I skipped          "J. Edgar",  "Hereafter" and "15:17 to Paris" completely. Yet the disrespect that Warner Brothers has shown one of their most productive and creative collaborators was so offensive to me, I felt compelled to make the effort. Oh, and I am glad I did.

"Juror #2" is a thoughtful story about responsibility and justice. Nicolas Hoult stars as Justin Kemp, a man who has turned his life around and found sobriety, but who has been tested by brutal circumstances. He is committed to doing the right thing, but is faced with another test and it is one that has severe consequences for others. As we follow his story, we can easily identify with his dilemma. He knows the truth in a criminal case that he is serving on a jury for, but revealing that truth would be devastating to him personally but also to the two people who will be depending on him in the future. What is the right thing to do, where does justice come in?  Justin is also not the only one wrestling with these issues.

Maybe people will see this as an old fashioned movie because it feels like an update of "12 Angry Men". Courtroom dramas lack the fireworks of an action film or comic book movie, but they offer drama that can be completely compelling if told properly, and Eastwood and his team are doing that here. Screenwriter Johnathan Abrams, has constructed a plausible if unlikely scenario, for our central characters to confront.  What is even more plausible is the dynamic in the jury room. We don't get the same kind of character detail for most of the jurors that we did in "12 Angry Men", but we do get enough of their attitudes and opinions to understand the arguments that will ensue. Marcus and Yolonda are the two jurors that resist the direction that Justin tries to lead the jury in. They challenge his rationale for hesitating to quickly render a guilty verdict. We know that Justin is motivated both by seeing justice done and self preservation, but his strategies are exactly the temperate thinking that one would hope a jury would engage in before deciding a man's fate. 

There are complications in the process however, and Harold, played by J.K. Simmons , is both an ally to Justin's cause and a threat to him. So another set of ethical questions get raised in the story. I said earlier, that Justin and the jurors are not the only ones wrestling with these questions. Both the prosecutor and the public defender have serious moral conflicts that they face. The prosecutor is played by Toni Collette, who in an interesting side note, played Hoult's mother twenty years ago in the film "About a Boy". Faith Killebrew is being tested in a manner similar to that of Justin. One of the eternal issues in our justice system is the conflict over winning a case versus doing the right thing. Prosecutor Faith begins to doubt the validity of her own case. I try to avoid spoilers in these posts, so I will not provide any more details here, but let it be said that the resolution of the film does not leave anyone looking like a moral giant.

As usual, a Clint Eastwood film is polished and the craft in making it its impeccable. Director of photography Yves Bélanger, has worked with Eastwood before, and the film looks terrific in the courtroom scenes but even better when we get some exterior sequences. The dramatic moment that creates the whole plot is clear enough for us to understand what happened and still believe that Justin was uncertain of what took place. Clint skipped composing a jazz inflected score as he has done on some of his other projects, instead Mark Mancia provides a sparse set of musical elements that underscore moments in the film without drawing attention to itself. Longtime editor Joel Cox has done all of Eastwood's films since "The Outlaw Josey Wales" , he seems to understand perfectly the deliberate style that Eastwood wants. The movie moves at a pace that is efficient but not rushed. The visualizations of the big moments are not frantic and they play out as thoughtful narratives as a result. Cox is working with David Cox on this film, I'm not sure if they are related. 

Finally I want to take note of the performances. Nicolas Hoult has to hold the film together as a good man conflicted by a bad situation. We can see anguish underneath some of the choices that Justin is making in the film. There is also palpable fear registering as he confronts one of his fellow jurors over the decision they must make. Toni Collette starts the film with a slight Southern accent, the film is set in Georgia after all, but I don't think she was as committed to it in the later parts of the film. Outside of the accent issue however, her performance is strong, registering doubt and resignation at the right moments. Chris Messina plays public defender Eric Resnick, who convinces us that he is convinced of his clients innocence. He has a light touch with the guilt trips that he imposes on Collette's character, which seems to reflect the professional relationship the two of them were likely to have. 

This movie forces us to think on moral issues surrounding the way the justice system works. As most of us are aware, it is often an ugly process that emphasizes technical fidelity to the rules rather than finding a just result. The current internet outrage over the State of New York, seizing a squirrel and a racoon and destroying them, is an example of the same kinds of power issues this film presents. Regardless of who wins, everyone who wrestles with a pig ends up covered in muck. It's too bad that Warner Brothers decides that they wanted to tussle with film fans. So far Clint has stayed out of the marketing muck, and has stuck to drawing us a picture of the imperfections in all of us.  

400 Miles Round Trip

Nightmare Alley (2021)

 

I've been a big fan of the original "Nightmare Alley" from 1947 since I was a kid. The denouncement of that film is one of the great gut punches in movies. The lead character in that film is a charming heel, but he never seemed outright evil, rather just an opportunist. The Guillermo del Toro version makes Stanton Carlisle a much more malevolent figure and that makes the remakes payoff feel even more potent. The 47 version danced around the edge of crime but was not really a murder mystery. This updated version makes death a key component for all the characters, not just the pitiful mentalist who disappears pretty early in the story. 

The film is a slow burn that picks up speed rapidly in the last act. The set up of Carlisle and his assistant Molly is nice and completely believable. I like the fact that Molly takes things slowly and recognizes the dangers that Stanton is taking as he moves his mentalist act into "spook show" territory. The film may not resonate as much with contemporary audiences because the nature of technology and the media have rendered us cynical about all sorts of things, and we might wonder how anyone could be taken in by Carlisle's tricks. Although it seems that it is still true that Nigerian Princes requesting money still seem to get a response somewhere on the internet. The main reason I think this sort of thing can continue is that we are all like Stanton, we figure we are smarter than the other guy so no one can fool us. 

The two stories remain faithful up to a point, and then there is a break. I have not read the original novel so it is not clear to me if this is del Toro's addition or inclusion, but the character of Ezra Grindle played by Richard Jenkins is startlingly ominous, backed as he is by the thug-like but devoted presence of Holt McCallany as his strong right hand. This is not just a mark for the long con, but a potential land mine of a personality that could easily destroy the things Stanton and Molly have accomplished. Cate Blanchett is the seductive and treacherous psychologist who is both manipulated by and manipulating Stanton Carlisle. Her character presents another perspective on the need to be the smartest person in every room, and that motivation conflicts with Carlisle pretty effectively. It was not quite clear to me how she managed to create a chink in Stanton's armor, but there is a reason that the mentalist should not be drinking. 

The best thing this film has going for it is the production design. I may bot have been a big fan of "The Shape of Water", but I can't deny that it was an amazing looking movie. The carnival that is at the center of the opening act is almost as creepy as Willem Dafoe's character. The wagons and tents and the advertising flys all reek of authenticity and aging utility. The nightclub that Stanton and Molly appear in, is the epitome of the art deco entertainment venues that make me wish I could have lived in that era. Dr. Ritter's office has the wood inlay walls that scream power and success and there are little pieces of art, furniture and simple background that will draw you in like a magnet. There is a momentary shot of the Spidergirl attraction, and I like the fact that I was personally involved in building a few of those for carnivals and circus use back in the 1970s. 

The film is also populated with some great actors who are doing the kind of work that we expect of them. Toni Collette is sexy but diffident as she ages, David Strathairn is terrific as the pickled former mentalist with the secret Stanton longs for and the wisdom that Carlisle ignores. Roony Mara is earnest as heck as Molly. Mary Steenburgen has two scenes, the first is sympathetic desperation and the second is bone chilling mania, she was great. I would strongly recommend the film as long as you are aware that atmosphere take priority over action in the story. It will be playing in Black and White next month, I plan on going back for that version as well. 

Knives Out

In spite of the hype and overdone praise that this film has received, it is still a pretty basic "Who Done It?" Maybe there is a slight hint of a criticism of the 1% to make it seem socially relevant and topical. There is one scene where there is a direct discussion of current political events, but that feels like it will date the film rather than make it relevant. Writer/Director Rain Johnson would probably have been better off sticking to the traditional focus of a murder mystery, rather than trying to make it woke by including jabs at immigration policies and tax brackets.

The creative part of the film is the overlapping story of who is behind the investigation rather than who killed the victim. As told in a series of flashbacks, we see how the victim died, and it appears that there was a cover-up of an accident rather than a murder. It is only after motives get investigated that it becomes clear a crime really did occur. The intricacies of the plot are manifest in a series of vignettes that reveal what happened, what the suspects say about what happened, and what took place after those events. All of this gives a variety of actors a chance to strut their stuff on screen and create a collection of self centered privileged characters that we can smirk at for their foibles.

Christopher Plummer gets a second chance to play a rich octogenarian with issues surrounding his heirs. He turns in a slight but joyful performance. While he is not in the film long, there are some great moments that he shares with each of the main characters. Harlan Thrombey does not seem to be malicious in the decisions he is making regarding his family, but he is less concerned with his family than he is with his personal desires. Jamie Leigh Curtis, Don Johnson, Michael Shannon, Chris Evans, and Toni Collette all are given reasons to want to see him dead, but is he really murdered? What Johnson has done with his story is to find an alternative approach to the primary motivation. Daniel Craig as celebrated private detective Benoit Blanc is brought in to determine what really happened, but why he is there and who is paying is the mystery.

Ana de Arnas plays the old man's nurse/companion who becomes a prime suspect but also the victim of persecution. The fact that she comes from an immigrant family and is not part of the rich inner circle is the thing that tries to establish some social credentials. It's a shorthand plot device that works but in the long run, her families legal status is a distraction to the story rather than a justification for giving this movie any weight.  Michael Shannon and Toni Collette are the quirky spice in the blend. Don Johnson could have been playing the Chris Evans role thirty years ago, so it does feel like the casting decisions were right. Craig's accent is laid on a little thick but since so much of the film attempts a comic edge I guess it works well enough.

About halfway through, I figured out who the antagonist really is, it's not hard given the story structure. The real question is what are their motivations for choosing the course of action that was taken. The complex legal conundrum is brought up in the funniest scene where a welcome performance by Frank Oz, addresses the consequences of the dead man's will. The extended scene is where half of the laughs in the movie can be located, not because there are jokes but because characters act out of their natures. This is a place where Johnson's ideas stretch us a bit but do entertain us.

The film is a solid mystery puzzle and there are some good laughs to be had, but people suggesting that this is one of the great films of the year are over selling it to you. Go in with reasonable expectations of being entertained and you will be fine.

Hereditary

Whenever something comes to you with a great deal of advance hype, it is my advice to ignore it as much as possible. Inevitably one of two things will happen. First, the movie can live up to the hype which is great, but the experience of surprise is diminished and you feel less like the discoverer of something special, and more like another passenger on the hype train. The second outcome is even less satisfying.You find the film a disappointment and you struggle to reconcile the hype with your dissonant reaction to it. A24 Studio has released some films that I really enjoyed, including my favorite film of 2015. "It Comes At Night" was a horror based film from last year that I really liked. Another film that I saw streaming, that was referenced as a endorsement for this film was "The Witch". I was conflicted, because I hated that film. So where does "Hereditary" come down?

In spite of some excellent visuals and disturbing ideas that are very intriguing, as a movie, "Hereditary " ends up in the disappointment column. I was looking forward to this, it is promoted as being truly frightening, and Toni Collette is being given awards, six months before awards season begins. The performance by our lead actress will deserve some attention for sure, but the rest of the movie is a miss. It is bifurcated into a family drama/trauma story and a supernatural possession film. It works pretty well in the former capacity while having great visuals wasted in the later. Maybe I am being influenced by some recent film experiences too much because this movie reminded me of the incoherence of another movie experience I wrote and talked about a couple of weeks ago. An old horror film from 1971 begins incoherently, but as the film moves along, the ideas become a bit clearer so that you can see a plot thread while watching it. "Hereditary" has the same disjointed style but never coalesces into something tangible. I don't think a movie needs to spell everything out for you along the way, but if you want us to care about characters and dread the coming horror, an audience usually needs to figure out where they stand in regards to the events they are watching. I never could make such an inference.

Toni Collette is Annie, an artist who has recently lost her mother, a woman that she had a unsettled relationship with. Annie specializes in making miniatures of homes, museums, theaters etc. She recreates in detail, scenes from everyday like. She is working on multiple projects, one for a museum that she has done work for before, but also a few personal stories are being shrunk down to scale size often with sad detail. The opening of the film draws us into this story by taking us into a miniature of the house she lives in, only the perspective shifts and it is suddenly the real house and her family that we are seeing.  So from the outset, we have no clear idea if what we are watching is supposed to be real, or if it is a visualization of an idea that bounces between reality and one of the art pieces. At any moment, the story feels as if we are in a dream sequence or an extended vision. At one point Annie reveals that she sleep walks and has visions of events that are not real. There are a couple of dream, within a dream moments,and that is also creating uncertainty in perspective. What is nightmare vs. what is real, this is the basis for almost everything that happens in the story. As a result, the vision we get are like the dioramas she is creating, moments in time that may be part of something bigger or simple visions of something unpleasant. Without the ability to trust anything you are seeing, you will likely become a dispassionate observer rather than an empathetic companion to the characters.

My daughter and I discussed this and the analogy that we both felt reflected the story problem was to an essay being written for a college class. Each paragraph has unique points to it, some of which are frightening or disturbing. Another paragraph comes along with a different scenario, and often a different emotional element. The second paragraph has something to recommend it as well but it feels completely disconnected from the preceding material. As the following paragraphs repeat the process, the narrative feels disjointed. In the last paragraph the student tries to pull it all together so that we can see how everything is connected. Maybe in a paper you can get away with that, but when the whole plot of your movie has to be explained in the last two minutes of the film, that simply seems like bad storytelling. Let me illustrate with two episodes from the film. In one scene, there is a character who panics like a normal person would when an emergency occurs. A sudden unexpected development follows, and the traumatized  character is in shock, so much so that the extent of a horrifying accident is only passed on to others by their accidental discovery of it. That scene plays out beautifully, in a horrifying manner that is in fact disturbing. The follow up on it however feels so unreal as to be scripted from a completely different story line.  A second scene results in our main character revealing a personality quirk with another very disturbing story attached to it. It shows us that the character has a tenuous hold on reality. That hold is supposed to be the point of the story, at least that seems where it was headed, but again, we don't get a firm perspective until the end of the movie. Maybe if the film was structured like "Memento", it would work more, but it is put together like a haunting film, but the supernatural elements seem to show up out of left field after the traumatic sequence takes place. That supernatural element feels about a half hour too late.

Every time we start to build some suspense, the moment is undermined by the uncertainty of the character's reality. There are some images that should frighten us, but they have less impact because it could all be a dream again. When Annie creates a diorama of the tragic event from an objectivity point of view, it is a horrifying moment. When she is given a method to reach out to a loved one in the after life, it feels contrived. The other family members are only perceived from her viewpoint for most of the story. When the viewpoint shifts to the other characters, it seems like the film has suddenly changed. The tone is different and unsatisfying. Without a clearer backstory on the family relationships, it is hard to tell if the dynamics are new, problematic or simply typical. In a film like "The Exorcist" the audience participates and empathizes with as well as anticipating events in the characters lives. With "hereditary", I found myself saying "why?", even as I was looking at something that should be a horrifying moment to bring us into the story.

Hector and the Search for Happiness

If you saw the Ben Stiller version of "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", you will find yourself experiencing a strong sense of deja vu when watching this film. The concept is very much the same. A man who leads a good but maybe not fulfilling life, sets out to discover what is missing. It involves a lot of world travel and adventures and ultimately it leads back to love. I do want to give a shout out to the AMC Stubbs program for providing a coupon for two free tickets. Word of mouth will probably not turn this into a huge hit, but the offer did a good job filling up a theater for an early afternoon screening.

Simon Pegg has been in some of my favorite films in the last few years. He is comic genius in the Star Trek films and also Mission Impossible series. He is also the lead in the so called "Cornetto Triliogy" of "Shaun of the Dead", "Hot Fuzz" and "The World's End". He is able to mix his low key humor with a certain amount of pathos and channel it well in this film in which he is the principle character and on which the film focuses for it's entirety.

The movie does not break any ground but it is shot in some nice creative ways. There is a subtle use of animation for transitions between the episodes and the camera usually holds steady instead of floating around as it did in the Walter Mitty film. A combination of video screens, skype, CCTV also add a little bit of creativity to the way the movie is told. However, the movie is a very straight drama with some big slices of humor and there is nothing too surprising in any of it.

Hector's trip to China starts things rolling with a canard that everyone will be familiar with, befriending a lonely rich guy. Hector being naive in the world does not see the twist in his story that we see coming. His take on love ends up being sadder than he expected, but exactly what we expect. The most mundane part of the film involves his seeking enlightenment at a monastery in the lower Himalayas. This section has one of the two best jokes in the film, let's just say, check your calender before you climb the mountain. The most surprising section of the film involves his time in Africa, where he goes from supreme satisfaction, to fear, joy terror and joy again. The shortest segment and the one that works the best actually takes place on a plane. Even though the idea seems to be a stretch, it plays as the most thoughtful moments in the film.

The cast is full of names and faces that you will recognize.   Stellan Skarsgard is a banker, Jean Reno a drug lord, Toni Collette a lost love and Christopher Plummer is a fellow psychiatrist studying the same issue as Hector but with a very different approach.  Rosamund Pike is Hector's long suffering girl friend and she is lovely as usual but not nearly as compelling as she was in her other film this fall, "Gone Girl". The platitudes are nicely revealed and undermined and then confirmed as the story demands. It will leave you mostly satisfied, although not nearly as nourished as you would hope.