Fences (2016)

Adapting a stage play to a film is difficult and takes a certain kind of magic. Fortunately director/star Washington is up for the task. He finds a way to bring a cinematic sense to the production. Filming August Wilson's own adaptation of his play, Washington makes the dialogue and characters of Wilson's play belong on the big screen.

Fences is a showcase for at least 2 actors. He knocks the first out of the park, giving his most inspired performance in decades (yes I am including the overrated Training Day). He becomes the consummate Troy and plays all the dimensions of this multifaceted character perfectly. He hasn't lost any of his screen presence or his pure talent. He is remarkable in the kind of complex role which would fall flat if not executed so expertly.

And then he does himself a large favor by casting the undeniably incredible Viola Davis opposite him. Again, Rose is a very difficult role to pull off. It takes someone of Davis' stature and talent to pull make her truly work. And work she does. Fences becomes a showcase for two of the best actors working in Hollywood today, parts which are truly deserving of their powers. I could just watch the two of them go on and on.

Fences isn't an easy story to tell. It's not about easy to compartmentalize people. It doesn't have a resolution which makes everything okay. It is about pain, loss, missed opportunities, injustice, hurting the ones we love. It is powerful, powerfully directed, and powerfully acted. Fences is the real deal.

And it's worth it just to see Washington and Davis show us all how it's done.

Fences
Starring: Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Stephen Henderson, Jovan Adepo, Russell Hornsby, Mykelti Williamson
Director: Denzel Washington
Writer: August Wilson

Lion (2016)

I was all over the place while watching Lion, the film about an adopted man searching for his birth family by using his memories and google maps. It's based on a true story, and like many "based on true stories" often feels more like an emotional manipulation machine than a movie. Lion, at times works wonderfully, in quite different ways, and at other times, feels like it's falling apart.

The film starts out with Saroo at the start of his young life, establishing his idyllic yet impoverished life in India. The film glorifies his poverty into something romantic. This was conflicting for me from the beginning. I get that it is about memory and perhaps Saroo would remember this time with rose coloured glasses. He is investing in his past a certain romanticism and associating that with a culture he is embracing. But simultaneously it is devoid of any real experience of true poverty. There is little risk or danger to his life, not explored in any real way. The excuse is that this is based on his 4 year old mind remembering it, a mind which has no clue of a different life which might be available to him. Still this feels like an excuse to me to make his remembrances as sentimental as possible so that the movie can deliver its full emotional impact by the end. It feels a bit dishonest.

Then we start an adventure, and adventure which is probably the strongest part of the film. Young Saroo is separated from his brother and he is plunged into a world he doesn't understand. Kolkata is completely foreign to Saroo, no one speaks his language, homeless children are everywhere so his being lost isn't unique. He can't pronounce his home properly so no one can find his family. It is heart breaking, pulse racing, and shot as beautifully as anything in the film. Finally some horrors enter into the story. The orphanage is horrible and terrifying. The streets are cold and unforgiving. Again this makes sense in terms of the film's agenda. He has been expelled from Eden and thrown into the wilderness.

He is soon adopted by an Australian family. They are also idyllic, yet the film's handling of this part felt so forced. The issues in international adoption are so complex but the film presents this section so simply. Again, an excuse could be that we are seeing things through Saroo's eyes and his experience is a simple one. But his adaptation to Australian life is glossed over and (other than the film flirting with presenting his experience as different from the other boy adopted by his parents) Saroo suffers nothing in the transition. This part felt the most false of anything in Lion.

Finally the part of the film sold in the trailers begins. Saroo who has completely abandoned his Indian identity stumbles upon his feelings in a contrived way. I have no doubt it happened similarly to how it is presented her. The contrived feeling comes from the way the film dumps it on us. His romance with a white American girl is charming but once again the film doesn't know how to effectively express the growing chasm between then in a realistic way. I think Saroo's growing distance from his family and his partner despite their explicit support for his quest would have been fascinating but the film fumbles in completely.

The film never truly explores the dissonance for a crossculturually adopted person.  Adoption in movies is always presented in such a romantic way. The larger culture treats adoption as quaint and lessor than biological family creation and all of this would play into Saroo's story. But none of it is explored. There is this terrible scene where Saroo's mother is portrayed as a noble white savior which rang completely false. The film never recovers from this either as Saroo resolves his multiplicity of family love with a simple phone call at the end. It's designed to just make us all feel good, and to make us all cry like a Hallmark commercial.

The ending of the film feels completely dishonest and cheap. Everything has built to this "turn on the waterworks" moment which I believe would have been far more emotionally powerful if it hadn't been for the manipulation. Seeing scenes of the real Saroo with his real birth mother introducing her to his Australian mother is a moment which could have been lovely but here just feels so exploitative. This sort of situation is extremely complicated and not just a "make cute" moment for movie audiences to fawn over.

The cast is remarkable. Dev Patel does his strongest work here and the younger Saroo, Sunny Pawar is a vision in each of his scenes. There were times I felt the cast was communicating more than the film would truly allow them to.

I feel horrible slamming this ending as in so many ways, the story behind Lion is truly beautiful. I love the idea of how complicated our identities are, how enriched they are through the creation of families of choice, the complications of adding racial and class issues into the mix, and the way human strength and love can overcome so much. I believe all that is here in this story but I feel Lion missed the boat on most of it in exchange for something more palatable, something that would have it's audience leaving with the kind of happy tears movie goes love.

Lion
Starring: Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman, Sunny Pawar, Roony Mara, David Wenham
Director: Garth Davis
Writer: Luke Davies

La La Land (2016)

"How are you gonna be a revolutionary if you're such a traditionalist? You hold onto the past, but jazz is about the future."

There isn't an ounce of pretension or cynicism in La La Land. This isn't a self-aware modern musical which winks at us as it cribs from musicals of the silver screen. There is full on sincerity in the way La La Land embraces its cinematic roots. But it isn't a love letter to Hollywood's past either. "This is about jazz. It's about conflict and compromise and it's exciting." Director Damien Chazelle, who threw unabashed jazz in our faces in Whiplash, makes a cinematic equivalent of jazz with La La Land. And like a jazz musician, who takes the melodies and patterns of what's come before and transforms them into a non-linear revelation like nothing we have heard before, Chazelle takes the ideas and images of what we are used to and takes them to new places.

The film opens with a musical number, rooted in the 21st century reality but styled after a 40s musical. But it soon dissolves into something very un-Busby Berkeley. And as the film progresses you see you aren't in store for a typical Hollywood romance decorated with hummable songs. What is awaiting you is something far more fascinating and unexpected.  

His Los Angeles, his Hollywood, is neither glamorous nor depraved. It is grounded in a very real sense of everyday America. The Dream Factory is just that, a factory. People work there and live their lives. Sometimes it gets in their way, sometimes it pays the bills, sometimes it sustains them in what they are trying to do. It is both beautiful and mundane, and it is here that we follow a love story, a love story which doesn't go the way we think it will.

Gosling and Stone have wonderful chemistry and they take on the soft shoe aspects as well as the vocal stylings in a charming, if imperfect, way. More importantly they handle the pathos superbly.  An argument about half way through is painfully real as it careens out of control. It is through glances, through brief smiles, the two are able to connect to each other, to us. The combination of all this is what makes us fall in love.

Composer Justin Hurwitz creates a lovely, rambling, and innovative score/song score. There is a tone here that captures Chazelle's vision perfectly and fits with the characterizations Stone and Gosling bring forth. Musicals need to work as musicals and La La Land triumphs here. Again the music is strongly jazz influenced so it won't feel like a "Hollywood musical" as much as it would have if they had gone a different way. Instead it meanders more and satisfies by sounding wholly original. I dare you to get City of Stars out of your head... or want to... It's just too lovely.

La La Land isn't what you expect. It will take you on a different journey than what you are expecting. For those up for the ride it will be beautiful and fairly mindblowing. For those who need it to be something it's not, it will disappoint.

Sometimes hype can ruin a film. Long before it's release, La La Land was deemed to be something magical, unique, unforgettable. This went on so long, by the time it came out, were we still capable of seeing it's magic or had we already rejected it as being too good to be true? A film like La La Land truly isn't like anything we've seen before, despite how it pays homage to so much that is familiar. It is the kind of film which will stick with you if we aren't too cool to appreciate it.

So everything you've heard about La La Land is true, it's just not in the way you would think. It is one of the best films of 2016. It just may be a big surprise despite the hype.

La La Land
Starring: Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling, John Legend
Writer/Director: Damien Chazelle

Sing (2016)

I am clearly not the target audience for Illumination Studio's films. Their films are always all concept with little delivery. They are popular (The Despicable Me series, The Secret Life of Pets) but I find them hollow, cliched, and forgettable. Sing rang the same for me.

Fart jokes, fat shaming, cliched characters and plots. In an age when animation is featured in some of the most innovative films being made (Kubo and the Two Strings, Inside Out, Zootopia) predictable, pedantic story telling is a disappointment. But this is about the music. This is a film about how music and theatre inspires our dreams. How does it do on that front?

Well... the music is one of the most disappointing aspects of the film. It's not just that I found the excessive use of recent pop songs to be frustrating (it dates the film in a way that will not help it's legacy) it's that they barely let any of the songs play out. The film takes the approach that "more is more." Let's pack as many top 40 hits into this as we can in the hopes that will make the crowds love us!! So we hear a little but of that, a little bit of this. The film never lets us connect to the music. Movies where music is an essential element tend to the story tend to repeat themes, embedding the melodies into our hearts, connecting the music to the story. Sing doesn't bother with this. It just throws as many songs clips as possible at us and when it does feature a couple songs near they end they are forgettably bland. Sing commits the worst crime a musical can, it leaves you not wanting to hum the songs as you leave.

Don't let me spoil it for you but the estranged son and father reconnect (despite the film not giving them any honest feeling reason to), the neglectful husband (and another neglectful boyfriend) finally see the worth in their wife/girlfriend when they sing, and the the shy girl finds her groove when she gets on stage. I know. Shocking right?  For folks who like their entertainment blandly safe and predictable Sing is your thing.

It just really, really isn't for me.

Sing
Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Matthew McConaughey, Scarlett Johansson, Seth McFarland, Taron Egerton, Tori Kelly, John C. Reilly
Director: Garth Jennings
Writer: Garth Jennings

Toni Erdmann (2016)

A parent never stops worrying about their child, never stops taking care of them. That's the thesis behind Toni Erdmann, the German-Austrian film about a man who goes on a quest to connect with and then save his adult daughter who appears to be going through the motions of adulthood without connecting to anything or anyone.

Winifred is a "character," the kind of often thinks they are more fun then they are. He means well but his approach is awkward. Inspired by the death of his dog he goes off in search of his "successful" business woman daughter and inserts himself into her life. She, in her own awkward, unable to connect way, reaches back but it isn't until he creates a new character to play in her life that they start to have a relationship again.

What is notable here is that even that relationship isn't completely cohesive. Erdmann doesn't attempt to find that Hallmark moment where daughter and father connect, finding what each one is missing. Well not really. The film goes to great lengths to make sure that even that is terribly awkward. The beauty here, the thing I believe audiences are responding to, is that essential awkwardness. The climax of the film has to be an office party which Ines decides will be naked, making everyone completely uncomfortable only to have her father show up in what can only be described as a bargain basement wookie costume. She chases him down across town in her robe to hug him. That is the moment of catharsis Toni Erdmann strives for.

And Erdmann makes us wait for it.  The tension is what makes the payoff work and so director Maren Ade stretches her film out, shooting long scenes with little action and often meaningless dialogue. It's clear what she's doing there, we are looking for meaning in a grey, empty landscape. She plays into this, not in a way that's not watchable, but in a way that baits us. The pay off is also somewhat understated. Again this is the point. It's not the kind of film which will leave you cheering. It is more to get in touch with that feeling of emptiness.

And in that emptiness there is a bit of a smile. Peter Simonischek and Sandra Huller are charming in a fumbled sort of way and you do leave feeling they have reached a certain peace with themselves and perhaps we can share in that peace a bit too despite how disconnected our lives may be at any given time.

Toni Erdmann
Starring: Peter Simonischek, Sandra Huller
Director: Maren Ade
Writer: Maren Ade

Assassin's Creed (2016)

I can enjoy a good B-movie. If it can build up its believable world, take me on a fun adventure, and commit itself to its story without being too dumb, a B-movie can be a great time. Often the problem with B-movies isn't their lower budgets or absurd plots, but a lack of commitment to their ideas. They end up becoming carbon copies of what we've already seen before. Sometimes they rise above that and give us an original and entertaining ride. For the first half of Assassin's Creed, I thought we were getting the latter.

With a bigger budget and star power than these sorts of films are used to, Assassin's Creed starts off with an advantage. Also it's source material has a bit more of a cinematic narrative than other video games may have. And to begin the film doesn't do a bad job. Sure there are the hallmarks of B-movie-dom, like an anachronistic metal inspired soundtrack and ADHD cinematography, but the film makes it all work. It sets up its world, it's story, well and Fassbender and Cotillard rise above the material enough to get us invested. Some great action propels us through the story and we're off.

But the second act falls apart. The plottings of the film's various factions start to make less sense. People act irrationally poorly, clearly simply trying to get us to the next plot point, and then it all ends in a rather abrupt and anti-climactic way. Assassin's Creed ends up being fairly unsatisfying. Perhaps if it hadn't been so hastily edited, or if the second half of the film had been more solid. Assassin's Creed isn't a total failure but it's not great and it's easily forgettable. Something tells me it's not going to lead to as many film sequels as games.

Assassin's Creed
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson, Charlotte Rampling, Michael K. Williams
Director: Justin Kurzel
Writers: Michael Lesslie, Adam Cooper, Bill Collage

Jackie (2016)

When we lose someone we love, life can seem like it stops, like nothing makes sense anymore. Jackie is the story of a woman going down the rabbit hole after her husband is shot in front of her. From the horror movie score to the way director Pablo Lorraine films her dead on, unflinchingly vulnerable, one's sense of reality is distorted, things don't make sense as they should. Jackie the person is experiencing a unique tragedy and she flounders to survive.

There is a moment which best sums up the chaos this human is experiencing. She is walking through a deserted white house, surrounded by classic luxury, wearing her iconic designer fashion, covered in blood, her face a mask of disbelief. She is alone in Camelot. It's stunningly horrifying, in 60s technicolor. She is impossibly beautiful and unbelievably strong. Who has to live this kind of tragedy in such a public way?

Jackie acknowledges that it is a personal reflection. Based on a famous interview she gave for Life Magazine, Jackie the film begins with Jackie herself explaining she is going to tell her version of events. She is defiant. She is angry. She is dignified. She endures horror, the spectacle of her family's life coming into stark focus as the world goes crazy around her. She survives it through a combination of fragility, strength, and wit. We see it through her eyes, as it all falls apart, and as she struggles to hold on.

Portman proves she remains one of her generation's greatest actors. This is a home run, knock it out of the park sort of performance. It works on all levels, viscerally, subtly, emotionally.

Jackie is downright unsettling most of the time, as it should be. It covers a brief period of this woman's life, a period of immense pain, a period so many have focused on for so long but never on what she was enduring at the time. Jackie is all about her and her journey through a personal hell which was so exploited publicly.  Beautifully shot and powerfully performed, Jackie is about surviving and doing so gloriously.

Jackie
Starring: Natalie Portman, Peter Saarsguard, Billy Crudup, John Hurt
Director: Pablo Lorraine
Writer: Noah Oppenheim

Passengers (2016)

This is a spoiler filled review so if you don't want the film spoiled, stop reading.  The film spoiled my mood so I'll spoil the plot. Also it's necessary to get at what is so distasteful about Passengers.

Essentially Passengers is about turning an "abduction" into a romance. The film has it's main character, who is presented as a lovable, wonderful everyman (as Chris Pratt always plays), do the equivalent of abducting a woman because he deems it necessary for him, has him admit that's what he's done, has her rail at him for doing it, and then excuses it all because he's such a nice guy and he looks like Chris Pratt.

WTF!?!?!

This is simply not acceptable. The film never has the parties process the crime he has committed. he never makes amends. His redemption comes from doing something else, unrelated, which is noble, proving that he's not such a bad guy really... even though he did something horrible and never atones for it. He says "I'm so sorry" so I guess that makes it okay. No it does not.

The film is pretty much completely ruined by the time it gets to its ultra-contrived ending, but if it hadn't been, the stupid ending would have ruined it right there. Perhaps if he had died, if he knowing he had done something terrible, had offered himself to save her and actually paid that price, without her absolving him first, perhaps then it would have...

Oh who are we kidding. The whole thing is disgusting.

This could have worked. If this film hadn't been an apology tour for a man entrapping a woman. If the film had revealed the crime as a plot twist and the tone was one of horror, if the film had shown her falling under some sort of Stockholm Syndrome spell, if it had that darkness to it, perhaps it could have worked as a disturbing allegory. But instead it is a romance. A romance!?!?! Between a criminal and his victim.

Nope. Just nope.

Passengers
Starring: Chris Pratt, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Sheen, Laurence Fishbourne
Director: Morten Tyldum
Writer: John Spaihts

Bad Santa 2 (2016)

Lighting doesn't always strike twice. Bad Santa is a holiday classic. It never ceases to make me laugh or entertain me around the holidays. Returning to this story should have been a Christmas miracle but it ends up being krampus nightmare. While the original was a filthy piece of genius, striking just the right balance of disgusting and funny, Bad Santa 2 just falls completely into the disgusting pile and seems to have no clue how to be funny.

Perhaps the idea had run its course. Perhaps there is only so much funny in a vile, drunk Santa Claus.

Okay likely not. The idea is a gold mine. This is just a complete failure on capitalizing on the opportunity. There is an art to making dirty jokes. Without that art its just dirt. And this one is missing any of the funny. I barely cracked a smile. 

I think I should just go back to the original and enjoy that one more season.

Bad Santa 2
Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Kathy Bates, Tony Cox, Christina Hendricks, Brett Kelly
Director: Mark Waters
Writers: names redacted to protect the innocent...

Southside With You (2016)

Part way through Southside With You I began to realize just how much I was falling in love with Barack and Michelle Obama, the people, not the first couple. This telling of their first date, may be framed like a romantic comedy, but is different in the way it specifically focuses on two people who are smart, passionate about justice, and share thoughts on culture, art, literature. This is the kind of date I love. This speaks to people like me whose idea of a great date involves a social justice discussion.

Director Richard Tanne colours his quiet directorial debut with lush colours, showing the loveliness of the Southside of Chicago, a place often not painted in that light. He places his romantic subjects in a place of pain and beauty, providing the background of the people he is narrating. This is about reminding us that these two people are people, with dreams, faults, passions. It is their very humanness, their finding of each other, which is our insight into seeing them as something more than President and First Lady. Seeing them as people like us.

Embedded in this day is the people they long to become as well as the backgrounds of where they came from. But also there is the microcosm of what they have achieved. Much of the film focuses on the barriers Michelle has faced as a black woman in her career. For me it is Tika Sumpter, as Michelle Robinson, who truly stands out. The film celebrates her passion, her energy, her strength so that, like in the best filmed romances, you can't help but fall in love with her.

Also important is the way Tanne grounds his story in a specific time and place. Whether it's Miss You Much or Do The Right Thing, Tanne gives us all a reference to 1989, especially for those of us who remember that year. This first president of my generation, and a woman who shares my passions and beliefs, are the kind of people that I understand. I watch them connect in a way that reminds me of how I connect with other minds who share my passions. For me, seeing Southside With You was seeing something I related to, a meeting of minds, the kind that's sexy, romantic, and exciting.


Southside With You
Starring: Tika Sumpter, Parker Sawyers
Director: Richard Tanne
Writer: Richard Tanne

Barry (2016)

Now that the Obama administration comes to an end we are all looking back with our revisionist history processing what we experienced. It turns out none of the garbage predicted in Obama's America (a right wing take down film which barely veiled its racism) came true. What is true is that this period in history will be examined and explored for the depth of its impact.

As will the man. Already we've seen his relationship with First Lady Michelle Obama explored in the film Southside With You and now we have a dramatized exploration of a man coming into his own. Barry focuses on Obama's college years and posits this is the essentially formative period for the man who would eventually revolutionize a nation. It's argument, that Barack (Barry) Obama truly began to face the systems and practices which he would eventually challenge and is pushed on to his eventually course, is well made. Barry is both fascinating deconstruction of the American state, and entertaining biopic.

At the centre of this is Devon Terrell who pulls off one of those performances which both imitates the real life person he is playing, and creates a truly original character. "Non-fiction" isn't truth. There is always interpretation, perspective, agenda, in any "based on real events" movie. The essential difference between propaganda and historical chronicle is the honesty with which the subject is explored. Barry succeeds both in Terrell's performance and writer Adam Mansbach and director Vikram Ghandi's approach to truth.

Barry is effective in the way it shows its audience the challenges Barry faces, from the microagressions to the insurmountable barriers. It breaks down exactly the kind of nation the USA was in the Reagan era both its beauty, its horrors, and its vast in between. It also demonstrates quite effectively just what an accomplishment his election truly is.

This is an all American story. Not in the way blind patriots like to think of the all American story which glorifies at the cost of truth, but in the way it explores a nation through the eyes and experiences of one man, a man who ends up being one of the most consequential men in that nation's history.  It is beautifully filmed, richly performed, and a delightfully watchable story. 

Netflix has some winners and losers in its stumble towards producing original films and this is definitely the former.

Barry
Starring: Devon Terrell, Ashley Judd
Director: Vikram Ghandi
Writer: Adam Mansbach

Collateral Beauty (2016)

Imagine you had a cast that included Helen Mirren, Kate Winslet, Edward Norton, Naomi Harris, Kate Winslet, and Michael Pena, all headed up by Will Smith giving a tearful performance about a man whose 6 year old daughter passes away. How could you mess that up?

Watch Collateral Beauty and find out.

Collateral Beauty just doesn't work. It keeps trying to be something profound and meaningful but it is crafted in such a pedantic manner that it all feels just too orchestrated. Nothing about Collateral Beauty feels honest or real. Writer director Allan Loeb's style is to shoot everything concretely. Forcing you into corners as the audience so that you have to see things a certain way. There is no subtlety to his artistry and it's all very heavy handed. So is his script which very clearly draws out its parallels, it's twist and turns almost to make sure the audience gets his point. He hits us over the head with his schmaltz.

So instead of feeling any of what he's trying to express, we instead feel rather numb.

Everything lines up all too perfectly in Collateral Beauty. The character playing "death" is set up to speak to the character who is dying. The character who is playing "love" has a character who has screwed up love fall for her. And it's like this on and on. None of it feels organic but instead it feels set up. Then when the story reaches the third act, everything just falls in place so easily. Solutions are found. Wounds mended. The film does nothing to earn any of those resolutions but by this point you don't care.

The real sadness of Collateral Beauty is how you assemble this fine a cast and make them all feel like they are slumming.

Collateral Beauty
Starring: Will Smith, Helen Mirren, Kate Winslet, Edward Norton, Naomi Harris, Kate Winslet, Jacob Latimore, and Michael Pena
Director: Allan Loeb
Writer: Allan Loeb

Rogue One a Star Wars Story (2016)

When my generation makes movies, we pull from our collective memories and nostalgia for our childhood and reinvent it in grown up ways. The franchise film, a staple we grew up on, has evolved beyond popcorn entertainment into something which delivers an emotional power, explores themes important to us, connects to a wider narrative, and entertains like nobody's business. One of the biggest beneficiaries of this movement is the Star Wars series, which has come into a glory no one expected. Rogue One takes what was started in The Force Awakens and runs with it.

The Force Awakens made an effort to revisit and reinterpret the motifs, themes, and choruses that make up the Star Wars universe. Rogue One, freed from the main narrative, gets to take those ideas into new directions. Director Edwards manages to make a film that is clearly a part of the Star Wars canon but feels like something completely new.

Rogue One is a war movie. There is no doubting that war is hell watching Rogue One. It also demonstrates the way war implicates us all. There are no easy lines between good and evil here. Lucas pulled from 40s war films for his dog fight inspired space battles but Edwards makes an actual war movie, one where people die, principles are compromised, heroes make questionable choices.

Part of the magic of Rogue One is how Edwards has not only made a movie which stands alone and takes the Star Wars themes in new directions, he has made a movie that is intricately linked with A New Hope in more ways than one would expect. It is a remarkable balancing act, but one which he pulls off masterfully. This film and A New Hope are both made stronger by being so linked. We live in an age where movies are being made to be connected to each other. Sometimes this is done in a clumsy manner but other times it is done in a way that makes the film offer more than it could on its own. Rogue One is brilliantly in the latter category. Characters which are familiar add a depth of consequence to the story we are witnessing, and reverberate in scenes which will happen in later films. Also the actions of characters here impact the way we see events in other films, series.

I heard someone say that after seeing Rogue One you will immediately want to rewatch A New Hope and you will see it with new eyes. I believe that is very true. Yes there are easter eggs (an intercom paging Captain Syndulla) which will make a fanboy's mouth water, but there are also fascinating relationships through which the experience of war is explored. Often it takes the fantastic, an "unreal" story, to get us to reflect on our real world. And Rogue One is that fantastic (both in the literal and vernacular meaning) story. It lives a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, but also in our hearts and minds today.

Rogue One
Starring: Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Alan Tudyk, Donnie Yen, Wen Jiang, Ben Mendelsohn, Forest Whitaker, Riz Ahmed, Mads Mikkelsen, and James Earl Jones
Director: Gareth Edwards
Writers: Chris Weitz, Tony Gilroy

Captain Fantastic (2016)

Captain Fantastic feels like it cheats quite a bit. It's central theme, the conflict between the ideals of its lead character, the way he is seen by the world around him, and the disconnect between those world is never honestly explored. Instead the film follows a series of fairly archetypal moments to a rather safe and pedestrian conclusion making it all seem a bit pointless. It's beautifully shot and powerfully acted pointlessness.

Pointlessness isn't a problem in itself. But when a story tackles an idea and then doesn't do it justice, the lack of meaning stands out. The film isn't entertaining enough on its own without the exploration of ideas, and exploration that is barely done.

What I mean by this can best be described through summarizing the events. Viggo Mortensen plays a man who has chosen to live and raise his family outside society but comes into conflict with the society he abhors when his wife passes away and he and the children have to confront the world he has taught them to not only deconstruct but resist. This should be fascinating but for me the confrontations feel so cookie cutter, so predictable. Each scene is structured to make a point. There is little subtlety or complexity to the clash of civilizations.

The film lets us feel sympathetic to him but not empathetic. It never makes him more than a well intentioned freak. And the world he is resisting. It's problems are never explored properly. The risk to the children is all one sided. I think if Captain Fantastic had found a way to show the risk that exists for children every day, as opposed to only when they are outside the system, it would have been a more interesting film.

When the inevitable climax comes it all just feels too easy. Mortensen surrenders fair more quickly than feels honest or organic. And the catharsis at the end also feels a bit of a cheat, like it comes out of left field. The trajectory of the film, even if it did feel too plotted, gets tossed aside and things settle into a safe resolution that is just too easy.  It is lovely to watch and the interactions with the cast are quite engaging. 

Captain Fantastic doesn't fail, it just never becomes something more interesting, as interesting as it could have been.

Captain Fantastic
Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Frank Langella, Ann Dowd, Kathryn Hahn, Steve Zahn
Director: Matt Ross
Writer: Matt Ross

Miss Sloane (2016)

Democracy is broken and Miss Sloane is a breakdown of how. It is an indictment of money and influence in American politics, a portrait of everything that is wrong with Washington. And it is fairly compelling entertainment. Structured as a gladiator match Miss Sloane is battle royale between evil and not so evil. And the ending, the sucker punch, is as satisfying as any twist ending you'll see.

Director John Madden (Shakespeare in Love, The Most Exotic Marigold Hotel) takes the esthetics of an Aaron Sorkin script filmed by Oliver Stone and pares it down, both in pacing and rhetoric, to a more palatable pace. He lays out all the pieces, gives us just enough suspense and drama, and then nails the final hit.

Jessica Chastain is getting a lot of praise for her role. I think she's a very talented actor and here does competent work but nothing about her performance here blew me away. Fitting with the film, which seems to be intent on making its story accessible, Chastain's performance is clear and hits all the right notes, but never felt dangerous. Like the title of the film, about as vanilla as they come, the film is clever and succinct but never revolutionary. If only the characters actions could be translated to the real world.

Miss Sloane remains both entertaining and elucidating. Madden and company have delivered a strong film. The most disappointing part was leaving the theatre knowing little was going to change.

Miss Sloane
Starring: Jessica Chastain, Mark Strong, Alison Pill, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Sam Waterston, John Lithgow
Director: John Madden
Writer: Jonathan Perera

Nocturnal Animals (2016)

I love beautiful films.

Sure there are reasons at times for films to be visually plainer, subdued, muted. But when a film is truly exciting to watch it pulls me in. There are directors which have a style which is optically exciting and designer turned director Tom Ford has become one of my favorites with his shocking Nocturnal Animals.

But this film's appeal is not just in how beautiful it is, but in how much Ford skillfully and artfully uncovers a visceral fear that is lurking right under the surface of a polished life. This is the most Lynchian film I have seen not directed by David Lynch. I find his work often focuses on the evil just under the surface and Nocturnal Animals taps into that very grown up horror.

Nocturnal Animals is often difficult to watch. It deals with humans inhumanity to other humans. In some cases because that inhumanity is right in our faces, and unflinchingly so. In other cases because it is palpably right behind the characters' eyes. That is often even more unsettling. Nocturnal Animals is fairly unforgiving. Most films give us a safety valve, we know that the terrible we are contemplating won't quite come to fruition. But this films doesn't have that. It goes there.

So much of what makes this work is the amazing cast. Adams, Gyllenhaal, Shannon, and Taylor-Johnson are all breathtaking. They are asked to do quite a bit of powerful work by Ford and they all step up to the task. Like the gorgeous but extremely cold world Ford creates for his story to play out, each of these performers play the best and worst in themselves (well... Taylor-Johnson is just completely horrible in a way that I didn't think he had it in him).

Nocturnal Animals punched me in the gut. It disturbed me and it thrilled me. It spoke uncomfortable truths. And it ends with one of those endings which just... it's a quiet yet moving ending. Interestingly one of the slightest of slights ends up having one of the most powerful punches. Nocturnal Animals beats you up, and you'll love it.

Nocturnal Animals
Starring: Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Isla Fisher, Armie Hammer, Laura Linney, Michael Sheen
Director: Tom Ford
Writer: Tom Ford

London Road (2015)

We tend to think musicals are about light subject matter but that's not always true. They often deal with complicated plots and themes (Rent, Hamilton) and even gruesome murder (Sweeney Todd). So the idea of London Road isn't so out there. It is also not unheard of for a film to take it's script from actual transcripts of a real life event (The Laramie Project). London Road takes the idea of a musical and mixes it with verbatim style to create a very unique experience, one which is not very comfortable (which is good) and puts us in a unique space which is both heightened reality and clearly unreal (also, very good).

Because exploring the idea of murder and the way it disrupts the lives of communities should be both honest and unnerving. London Road, both its script and the lyrics to its music, are taken from actual transcripts of interviews with people living in the community affected by a series of murders of sex workers in their area. The words of the people there are powerful. They are angry, ignorant, passionate, terrified, compassionate, and very human. The film isn't really about the murders at all but the community reaction to them. Fear and discomfort with violence, sex work, strangers. It all comes out in the confessions. It's endlessly fascinating.

And it's sung. It's the music which is both brilliant and a bit broken about London Road. Singing the words of the citizens, keeping the rhythm of their speech, in rather unmelodic songs, keeps the film from feeling trite. It's always off putting. This is essential to the point of the film but it takes away from the watchability of the story. You certainly won't leave London Road humming the songs. You'll leave feeling uncomfortable with what you just saw. And that's mostly the point. Because we shouldn't be comfortable with murder. And we shouldn't be comfortable with the reactions we have to such crimes.

One of the final songs is titled Everyone Smile. It is both ironic and sincere. There is healing represented but also a certain effort to brush things under the rug. I think this is what works best about London Road. The way it constantly walks both sides. It doesn't shame its subjects, but doesn't placate them either. It doesn't justify or blame. It just honestly explores how we process something as unimaginable as murder.

London Road ends up being something very unique. It mostly worked for me, especially as it built to its finale, its melancholy and confused conclusion.

London Road
Starring: Tom Hardy, Olivia Coleman
Director: Rufus Norris
Writers: Alecky Blythe, Adam Cork

Your Name (2016)

I am drawn to movies about connections between disparate people. Throw in a little mystery, a quest to connect, and you've got a story that will hook me. The anime film Your Name is a lovely little fable which explores the ways we are connected across time and space, across gender and class. Think Sense8 meets The Lake House but done in fairly traditional anime style and you approximate Your Name.

Your Name falls short of perfect. I found there were moments where the film just tells you plot points instead of showing them. The initial experience of the leads switching bodies is shown, but there there is a TV like title sequence which just informs us of their connection and their adjustment to it. It loses its organic feel here. It really did feel like we were watching an episode of an angsty teen drama instead and were getting up to speed on what happened "last week."

Also, the animation oscillates between stunningly beautiful (like something out of a Ghibli film) and cheaply awkward, like television anime. There are times I wanted to just soak in all the amazing visuals and other times I felt short changed.

Still, as an overall package, Your Name succeeds.  There is something undeniably beautiful about the idea of being connected to someone living a very different life. And the passion the film builds to reach that connection, despite the occasional short cuts it takes, is palpable. Your Name is the sort of film which will have you sit with it for a while, reflect on its meanings, and make you dream a bit bigger.

Your Name
Director: Makoto Shinkai
Writer: Makoto Shinkai

Allied (2016)

Spoiler alert, this film is about someone dreaming of moving to Medicine Hat. Okay, perhaps is there more to the film than that, but it does put things into perspective doesn't it?

Director Robert Zemeckis has directed some of my favorite films. He has also directed a number of fairly forgettable inconsequential films. Lately he's been on a roll making solid, entertaining films and this little pot boiler is another. The is she or isn't she question is played for just the right amount of suspense. This war time mystery is light but satisfying, even if it does go off the deep end a little by the ending.

Zemeckis' main strength are his visuals. After being blown away by The Walk last year, this guy can take me anywhere. His sex in a sandstorm scene is brilliant. The whole film has a fairy tale, heightened realty feel which makes it somewhat magical. We are being transported. That's the point. It isn't overly deep, complicated, or remarkable. It's just a pulpy story with a lot of good meat to chew on.

The main failing of the film is the lack of chemistry between its stars. The whole plot hangs on the pair being in love and I'm not sure I ever bought it. I think it all could have been more powerful and engaging if we felt the love and weren't just told it was there.

Still, Zemeckis keeps his pacing tight, gives us a lot of great stuff to look at, and weaves a satisfying yarn that is just enough to carry you through.  Not his best stuff, but solid. And it ends in a Medicine Hat which appears far more ideal and picturesque than I've ever seen it.

Allied
Starring: Brad Pitt, Marion Cotilliard, Jared Harris
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Writer: Steven Knight

The Edge of Seventeen (2016)

Yes Hailee Steinfeld exudes charisma and has the chops to carry each scene, the entire movie, all by herself. Yes a movie starring her about teenage angst should be something beyond the average teenage angst movie. Is that movie The Edge of Seventeen? Not really. The film has a great deal of potential but keeps falling into predictable and rather boring traps.

The biggest problem with The Edge of Seventeen is that is feels like it's always trying too hard. From the oh-too-cool costumes, to the "edgy" camera angles, to the clever banter between characters, The Edge of Seventeen thinks it's hipper and more original than it is. But its plot keeps falling into safe territory where things work out like we expect. Its dialogue, for all it's hip repartee, is overt and obvious. They avoid anything too difficult, asking the audience to fill in gaps. And then it all gets wrapped up predictably easily. The Edge of Seventeen feels like we've seen it all before.

And there's an uncomfortable thread running through the film of how Steinfeld's character ignores the incredibly hot and perfect asian guy (Hayden Szeto playing Erwin) who crushes on her, fascinating on a terribly uninteresting white kid instead. The only reason that there appears to be for why we aren't supposed to see the asian guy as a viable love interest is... well... cause he's asian. Sure she learns in the end (cause the film has a predictably happy ending where solutions come all to easy) but even then we don't get to see Erwin as the hunk the other boys in the cast are. It's all a but unseemly. 

The Edge of Seventeen isn't terrible. Steinfeld's personality carries it, and there are charming moments, mostly involving Erwin. But it often felt like it should have been better.

The Edge of Seventeen
Starring: Hailee Steinfeld, Kyra Sedgwick, Woody Harrison, Blake Jenner, Hayden Szeto
Director: Kelly Fremon Craig
Writer: Kelly Fremon Craig

Moana (2016)

We associate the word "princess" with Disney animated movies. We all carry with us the baggage of how we understand that word. For some it is pejorative while for others its really not. In Moana it feels like Disney is playing with what the word can mean, redefining the word for a jaded audience at war with conflicted understandings and values associated with the word "princess."

Moana is a princess in the most literal definition of the word. She is the female heir to the ruler of her land. She has very little of the trappings we associate with princesses (there are scenes which show her leaving certain princess like objects behind) and the expectations around her are not close to the cliched princess expectations. There is no expectation to marry, there appears to be very little attention paid to her dress and appearance, and she seems expected to lead. Even the somewhat new, but becoming cliched, idea of the reluctant princess dreaming of shuffling off the sheltered life to have an adventure, is tossed aside, Moana's quest is in service to her people. Her compulsions are based on a desire to serve. Moana is like no Disney princess come before. Disney is giving us something new.

Her adventure is closer aligned with a hero quest but even that breaks the confines of that genre. Her triumph and success on her mission comes from an act of love not war. She is not a warrior either. She may be a voyager, but not a conqueror. Her victory is based no on defeating a foe or villain but loving it. I believe it isn't a spoiler to say that Moana not only deconstructs the idea of princess but of hero as well. Her strength and power lie in her ability to not fight.

Moana is visually gorgeous, with most scenese fully exploiting the beautiful physical world of Polynesia. One of the strengths of good animated films is their creation of worlds for their story to live in and Moana triumphs there. Another strength is in the music. A traditional Disney animated musical, the wonderful songs advance story and are essential to the movie's characters and plot, not just thrown in for entertainment value. Broadway genius Lin-Manuel Miranda teams with Oceanic songwriter Opetaia Foa'i to create beautiful songs which create an essential grounding in the culture and landscape. My main complaint with Moana, is highlighted in the catchy tune You're Welcome. This is the vehicle for introducing the film's likely to be very popular breakout character Maui, the demi-god voiced by Dwayne Johnson.

I pretty much hated everything about Maui.

I know that he will be a crowd pleaser and will be featured in all sorts of Disney themed paraphernalia in the future but he made me cringe. I find Johnson's shtick to be grating at the best of times, and, like the Genie from Aladdin (whom I love), Maui is one of those characters which is just the actor thinly disguised. He's corny, fairly crass, with an insincere character arc. He also acts as dues ex machina a few times saving the plot for no real authentic reason. While I know I am very much in the minority here, Maui could have ruined the movie for me if the rest of it wasn't so good. I much preferred the moments when Moana was on her own adventure.

However, ignore me. Everyone will love Maui and Johnson's antics. And regardless of how you feel about him, the rest of the film is undoubtedly great. This is another wonderful addition to Disney's legacy of animated features and will likely be a favorite for a long time.

Rules Don't Apply (2016)

I've never understood the fascination with Howard Hughes. They keep making movies about him, the latest being Warren Beatty's surprisingly funny story about a two young people who come to Hollywood to try to "make it." Yeah that's a cliche story too, one that I'm not usually interested in. But I think what surprised me most about Rules Don't Apply is how Beatty made me enjoy a story I had absolutely no interest in.

The story arc of Rules Don't Apply starts out as predictable as they come. Two young people with big dreams meet, are forbidden from being together but feel the need to anyway. The first half of the film is something we've all seen before. What makes it work is how entertaining the whole thing is despite itself. Future Han Solo Alden Ehrenreich (who has been amazing in everything I've seen him do) and former Snow White Lily Collins have a great chemistry and both play it to the hilt with remarkable success. Even Beatty, finally appearing as Hughes (a rather safe, lovable Hughes, but an addicted recluse just the same) has an enjoyable presence. The whole thing plays like a classic, 50s rom com, the kind RKO used to make.

But the second half looses its way a bit. It starts taking itself too seriously, starts to meander and get too involved in making us care. When it was just an enjoyable romp it was entertaining. The film doesn't have the gravitas to be dramatic and falls a bit flat when it tries to. Fortunately Beatty saves it with a very classic feeling ending right out of an Audrey Hepburn film.

Beatty throws star after star at us throughout. Alec Baldwin, Steve Coogan, Candace Bergan, Oliver Platt, Martin Sheen, Ed Harris, Paul Sorvino, and even Beatty's wife Annette Bening all play small yet clever roles. It adds to the 50s studio film feel to see a stable of stars paraded before us. Beatty films his whole film in dimly lit, lush tones like we're watching Walt Disney speak to us from his pristine office. The whole feel of old time cinema is there, especially in the driving scenes.

So overall, Rules Don't Apply is far more enjoyable than it should have been all things considered. Not a great film, and it sags a bit near the end, but it remains mildly amusing, and a great showcase for Ehrenreich, despite being about nothing of real interest.

Rules Don't Apply
Starring Alden Ehrenreich, Lily Collins, Warren Beatty
Director: Warren Beatty
Writer: Warren Beatty

Loving (2016)

There is a moment about half way through Loving, director Jeff Nichols' retelling of the true story of the couple who changed American law for interracial couples, that shows just how much he gets. The couple is driving and they desperately, yet tentatively, reach for each other's hands, holding on for dear life. It's a small gesture, but a profound one. And it speaks volumes about its subjects and their story.

Everything I have read about the Lovings (the last name of the white man and black woman who were arrested for nothing more than being married to each other) is that they were very quiet people who weren't looking to be heroes. Nichols brings this approach to his masterfully filmed tribute to them. His film is quiet, beautiful but unassuming. It doesn't try to be a grand epic. It's not a court room drama. It's not a horror film of white power lynchings and attacks. It is a very simple, gorgeous, lyrical portrait of a couple who love each other and never waiver in that love. It is the power of that love which changes a nation.

Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton employ the same approach, giving restrained yet powerful performances. Negga moves her head lyrically, smiling a peaceful smile, exuding the strength of someone whose power comes from love. Edgerton looks like his fight is always draining him of everything he has. He just wants to love his wife and take care of his family. Never has a last name been so appropriate for so much. That is the power of this story and the power of a film which resists doing anything but letting this couple's story be told.

Other approaches would have been to follow the legal process more closely. There would have been television style drama in that for sure. Perhaps the brutality of the supremacists around them would have made for some exciting, edge of your seat thrills. None of that is in loving. All of it is peripheral. Nichols lets you feel the real fear of being different in a region where that isn't okay. That hand holding says it all.  The legal process is discussed but kept to the sides. Nichols in interested in who these people are. We are interested in seeing their love.

Because that is what wins the day. There are always arguments for hate, disguised and prettied up by those who want to maintain power. Loving doesn't allow room for that by focusing on what you can't argue with, the love of a family which doesn't alter when alteration finds. And that is the lovely, quiet triumph of Nichols' film Loving. It is everything is should be and it's glorious.

Loving
Starring: Ruth Negga, Joel Edgerton, Michael Shannon
Director: Jeff Nichols
Writer: Jeff Nichols

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)

Some fictional worlds have an infinite amount of space for narratives. J.K. Rowling just proved that her wizarding world, once inhabited by Harry Potter, is one of those worlds.

Jump back 100 years (ish) from Potter's time and a young British wildlife expert with a bit of a clumsy streak has unleashed magical creatures while visiting New York on a research trip. This is the very basic premise which kicks off a rich and exciting adventure. Like she showed us in the latter Harry Potter books, Rowling is not only interested in telling adventure stories, she is interested in grand, epic morality plays with complicated layers of analogies to our real and unfortunately not magical world.

There are two things going on here. First, an adventure story about Newt collecting all the creatures he let loose while he meets charming friends to go on that adventure with. And second a political drama about the constructs of social oppression. The film's climax is a moving and remarkably accurate depiction of the violence done against people who are different due to zealotry and the struggle for power.

Charming and awkward, Redmayne is the perfect Newt Scamander, reluctant and odd action hero. He is so reluctant he often seems quite slow to act, a common tool to advance the plot which feels entirely in character. I did feel his rag tag group of hangers on were a little vanilla. I'm not sure any of them have the charisma of a Hermione Granger or any Weasley. If there is a fault in the film it is found here. We may not love these characters as much as others in this universe.

As the plot's evil is revealed, it becomes dark and quite terrifying. The implications of beatings and abuse makes this about a very real evil, the magic side of it is sidelined. There is the cultural purity movement and it's willingness to co-op religion to do its dirty work. There are also the political apologists looking to cover it all up. Fantastic Beasts is astutely accurate in its exploration of our real world through the lens of a magical adventure.

The film's greatest strength is here. It is in the moments of torment portrayed so wonderfully by Ezra Miller that the film reaches its real emotional punch. The film requires a certain amount of understanding of the history and future of this shared universe to get all that's going on and I worry something would be lost on audiences less familiar with the interrelations. Scamander's connection to the Lastrange family, for example, is one that has real meaning for those who are in the know. The film is just richer with a greater understanding.

Does the marriage between Rowling's adventure tale and her world building opus completely work? Perhaps it could have been balanced a bit more perfectly. But in the end its richness is there for those who have a passion for it.

A warning to those who have experienced abuse, especially to members of the LGBTQ community who come from communities which were not affirming of their identities. The film has a strong metaphorical story arc exploring this. It could be difficult for those who have experienced that kind of abuse to see it represented on the screen.   

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller, Colin Farrell
Director: David Yates
Writer: J.K. Rowling 

Billy Lynn's Long Half Time Walk (2016)

Billy Lynn's Long Half Time Walk is an exploration of the way American culture fetishizes and mishandles veterans. Told from the point of view of young soldier who has returned home a hero, we witness the superficial way America pays tribute to him, juxtaposed with the battles he experienced for real. The film forces us to reckon with what it means to "support our troops" and the stranger in a strange land feeling many soldiers feel upon returning to the country they are supposedly fighting for.

There are two main reasons why I felt Billy Lynn didn't quite work. The first is the choice to film in a rapid frame rate. As far as I am aware this is the first major release since The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey to use a significantly higher number of frames per second than the average film. It has a jarring effect and there are times when it is used effectively here (more on that later). But generally it makes it seem like you are watching cardboard cut outs of actors layered two dimensionally on top of one another. This pared with director Ang Lee's choice to film most scenes in uncompromising close up makes the audience feel put off.

The second piece is the casting. For some reason (perhaps the film's frame rate) so much of the cast feels remarkably wooden. The choice to cast first timer Joe Alwyn in a role like this, one where the camera, in hyperHD, is focused so tightly on him, seems foolharder. He doesn't appear to be up to the task. His performance often feels forced, uninspired.  Under the grueling demands of a film shot like Billy Lynn Alwyn doesn't pull off a realistic role and since he's the centre of the film he pulls it all down. But it's not just him. I am not a fan of Kristen Stewart, Garret Hedlund, or Vin Diesel as actors (I know that puts me in the minority) and here I found all their performances wooden, lifeless, and generally unbelievable. All of this, in high def no less, makes the film feel emotionless and "performed."

However the film doesn't outright fail. There are its moments. The centrepiece of the movie, the Half Time Show where the soldiers are trotted out on stage like show ponies and exposed to the triggering effects of the commodification of their war experiences, is strikingly powerful. This is where Lee's choices make sense. We are on that stage. We are in the battles. We are exploited by our nation, just like these soldiers. It comes together. It makes sense. It is a stunning moment that needs to be seen on the big screen.

There is a personal moment which I feel the film did well. Billy Lynn's romance with a cheerleader he meets briefly crumbles predictably around him and he's wounded. In that moment, Not only does Alwyn redeem himself, the film does too. Our "love" of our vets isn't based on us placing value on their service, it's on our ideological desire to justify the horrors we participate in. It's in the cheerleaders face, a lack of ability to to truly humanize Billy.  She needs him to be something safely imaginary. Him as a person is far too much for her to invest in. Our soldiers as human beings are too hard for us to manage as we send them off to war.

Billy Lynn's Long Half Time Walk is a noble effort with moments of brilliance but it doesn't hold an audience's passion for long enough. While I appreciated what they were trying to do, they didn't quite make it have the emotional punch it needs to get its point across.

Billy Lynn's Long Half Time Walk
Starring: Joe Alwyn, Kristen Stewart, Garrett Hedlund, Vin Diesel
Director: Ang Lee
Writers: Jean-Christophe Castelli

The Handmaiden (2016)

The Handmaiden is a con about con artists. It's that fun sort of movie where everyone is playing everyone else. As the audience we follow their schemes, watch the back and forth, the lunges for upper hand. We also are struck by the incredible visuals laid out for us, the kind that balance being absolutely gorgeous and uncomfortably shocking. We are both seduced and anxious. We know not all is alright but are irresistibly drawn to what we are seeing. Park Chan-wook masters the art of beating us up while we love it. He plays us and it is lovely.

The film starts out one way, lulling us into a certain level of security. The film is lovely at this point, and its story is immediately engrossing. But it feels rather familiar and safe at first. Chan-wook pulls the wool over our eyes, not giving us a clue he is going to smack us upside the head with a story that goes beyond what we are expecting. When he gets there the film becomes something that you watch with your eyes wide open.

The Handmaiden, like other Chan-wook films, will take you on an extraordinary ride. It takes the grifter plot genre but makes it into something new. Not only is there his exciting, energetic story telling style, there is his embrace of an uncomfortable erotic esthetic which blends sex with violence, pain with pleasure, love with betrayal. He starts us off, just pushing things to a line, but soon he is far over it and the audience is just made to experience.

And he finds something completely lovely there. Min He Kim is a strong, incredible centre to this film. She opens up like a flower, revealing far more than we first see. The entire cast is strong but so much of the film is centred around Min He Kim and her robust performance. 

The eroticism in The Handmaiden is beautifully dangerous, subversive, and empowering all at once. Chan-wook doesn't shy away from showing it all, appreciating the darker and more nurturing elements of sexuality. His film is a bit triumphant, in fact, for love. I wasn't expecting that quite so much.

The Handmaiden is one of the strongest, most entertaining, most riveting films you'll see all year. It is not for the faint of heart, but the experience is a rich one for those who can take it on.

The Handmaiden
Starring: Min-Hee Kim, Kim Tae-Ri, Jung-Woo Ha
Director: Park Chan-wook
Writers: Park Chan-wook, Chung Seo-kyung

Manchester By The Sea (2016)

It's been a while between this film and writer/director Kenneth Lonergan's last hit You Can Count On Me. This may be a good time to use the expression "it was worth the wait." This solid piece of story telling is moving and enjoyable.

Lonergan's style is very laid back. He not only films his story in a subtle, restrained manner, he writes it that way too. He focuses on the mundane things. This is a story about loss, but most of the time we watch people carry on with their lives - run errands, microwave food, talk about nothing - while everything remains simmering under the surface. There are moments where things bust out, but never too much. It's a perfect tone for white people restraining themselves. And yet it's powerful.

A good example of this style, a moment of Lonergan's cleverness and quiet power, is we see a character pack up pictures of their dead children. We don't see the pictures, we don't see the emotion, we just know that's what's happening and what is happening for that character in that moment. It is remarkably effective.

Casey Affleck is a triumph here too. He plays the central character in the same manner and Lonergan directs him. He plays it all behind his eyes. There is always so much going on for him, and within him, and he communicates it all to us without any bravado. Even his few moments where it can't be held in any longer are painfully restrained. He connects with his fellow cast members but it is his solo scenes which are the most riveting.

Manchester by the Sea, like You Can Count On Me, is a film which just needs to play out. It isn't clear from the beginning where it's going to go or how it's going to end. In fact I would argue it doesn't end anywhere near where you think it's going to. But it never feels dishonest. It is completely satisfying. I hope Lonergan doesn't take so long before he makes another movie this good.

Manchester By The Sea
Starring: Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler, Lucas Hedges
Director: Kenneth Lonergan
Writer: Kenneth Lonergan

Arrival (2016)

Arrival is one of those deceptive films that is not about what you think it is going to be about. It will likely come as no surprise that Arrival is not your average alien's arrive movie. It's not Independence Day or even a more cerebral take like The Day The Earth Stood Still or Contact. Arrival is about something else entirely. The film uses the idea of first contact with aliens to provide a key to unlocking a completely different story.

After seeing the film I believe most would fee the title Arrival doesn't even refer to the aliens at all, but about something else.

Arrival is about our choices, our free will. It is also about language and the way culture, words, politics, affect who we are. But mostly it is a profound, moving, brave, exploration of choice. As the film's mobius strip of a story began circling back on itself, the true emotional power of the film came into focus for me and it felt like a revelation. It would have been easy to play the climax for a gotcha moment but director Villeneuve doesn't go there. Instead he opts for a quiet awakening, letting the film's message flow over you.

Villeneuve's approach is lovely yet rather understated. He apes Terrance Malick a little letting his camera float freely in space around his characters while we hear their inner thoughts, but with a more restrained narrative. Sometimes his narrative is so tight it feels a bit rushed. There are developments which just seem to come from nowhere. Never does the movie feel that the humans learn the alien language in a believable way. We are just to accept that they do. I get that's not the point of the film, but it does feel a bit jarring, especially because Villeneuve spends so much time reveling in how beautifully the alien's communicate. I felt there was a disconnect between how well Arrival's "distraction" plot was handled and how well it's actual plot was.

Amy Adams is, as she often is, truly engaging. The film's whole story centres on her and the film requires an actor with her strength. She pulls off an amazing performance which cannot be over praised. She is the lynch pin that overcomes any narrative or pacing problems. She is placed in the awkward space between the film's various tones (the militaristic themes, the intimate domestic memories, the unearthly environments) and brings them all cohesively together. It is she who makes the story of the film come together.

Arrival is a quiet little treat which provides that delicious food for thought you'll be chewing on for a while afterward. This is the sort of film to see with friends and to plan after movie drinks/snacks for discussion. Arrival is for thinkers and dreamers and for those who don't mind feeling a little melancholy.

While not perfect, Arrival is beautiful, inspiring, and disquieting. It is biting off a lot more than we expect to be chewing so be ready. But in Villeneuve and Adams' hands, the film and its story become quite manageable, digestible, while remaining profound.

Arrival
Starring: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forrest Whitaker
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Writer: Eric Heisserer

Elle (2016)

Paul Verhoeven's films' reputation proceeds them. Robocop, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, and (yes, even) Showgirls, hold a certain fascination to many but his unsubtle, often insensitively gauche style left me more bored than "shocked." His idea of envelop pushing is usually less about exploring dark, complicated characters, and more about showing body parts. Therefore his newest film, which is everything a Verhoeven film should be but usually isn't, ends up being such a surprise.

Elle pushes the envelop in fascinating ways. I imagine it will be polarizing based on how unflinchingly it embraces its central character who refuses to be morally pure. It is like all those times Verhoeven crafted insultingly simplistic portraits of vengeful women, he was learning how complex and rich a female lead could actually be. He has manifested that in Elle, a shockingly intricate study of a woman who will neither be victim or hero.

As played by the exquisitely pitch perfect Isabelle Huppert, Michele is nothing binary. She is neither good nor evil, victim nor perpetrator, sympathetic nor reviled. Elle is 4 dimensional and I was never sure what she was going to do next. Huppert is up for the task of such a rich character, bringing her to unflinching life.

Elle wrestles with sexual assault and the ways it is destructive and often beyond the reach of justice. Verhoeven chooses not only to witness it (no surprise that he does not leave the attack off camera), but to relive it, experiencing different iterations of the violence. But this is where he convinced me of what he was doing. It was never exploitative, never eroticized. It was explicit yes but always clearly violent and not sexual. He captures the idea that rape is not about sex but about power. His transactions are clearly a battle. And Michele's choices are never the cliches of how victims react. She forges her own path, one with questionable motives. Elle has us struggle with what she does. She is not hero. She is not villain. She is a woman pursuing her path as she sees fit. For the man who crafted the problematic Catherine Tramell to produce such a richly drawn character as Michele, is a remarkable thing.

Elle is not going to be for everyone. It is going to be difficult for many to watch in terms of its graphic nature and its exploration of morality. When I say "graphic" I am not using the world to compare this film to the level of violence and sexuality we are seeing in many (often less complicated) films. I am referring to the raw and calculated way the film (and Michele herself) go through the assault and through the aftermath. The film doesn't endorse her but it does ask us to go along with her which will make many uncomfortable. It is also very fascinating whether we are comfortable or not.

Elle
Starring: Isabelle Huppert, Laurent Lafitte
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Writer: David Birke

Trolls (2016)

Oh the Irony. Dreamworks studios made the mark in the animated world with Shrek, a film which parodied the "fairytale" optimism of the dominant optimistic trends of western animation at that time. I never felt Shrek was very successful at that but it certainly cashed in at the box office. Well now they have come full circle with their latest animated epic, a film which unabashedly celebrates being "happy."

Trolls is what you would get if you made a movie out of all those meaninglessly inspiring memes, cat posters, and slogans about hangin' in there. It has the emotional depth of a greeting card, the originality of day time TV, and the soundtrack of radio stations with "lite" in their names. It will pretty much make it hard for you to keep you popcorn down.

And there is a part of me angry with the message that you just need to find happiness inside yourself. We all see those memes flying around that shame us for not feeling good enough. Ugh. This is that movie. And it's just not very entertaining. The jokes are obvious. The tunes vanilla. The story predictable and boring.

A lot of corporate media is about promoting products. There are those films which are based on properties with a real fan following, people who love the stories, characters, adventure. There are those which are really just about putting a piece of intellectual property in the minds of shoppers. A good comparison of that is The Lego Movie, a film which was really just about selling Lego but ended up being about so much more. Trolls is not The Lego Movie. Trolls is just about selling. Selling products and selling "happiness." Or at least selling a message that if you're not happy you're just not trying hard enough.

I wouldn't recommend bringing kids to Trolls. There is an audience for this, those who just want mindless escapism which bullies us into humming along with the happy song. Some just really want that. If that's your thing, I guess this is for you. For the rest of us, there are better films to see.

Trolls
Starring: Justin Timberlake, Anna Kendrick, Zooey Deschanel, Russel Brand, Gwen Stafani, James Cordon
Directors: Mike Mitchell, Walt Dohrn
Writers: Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger

Hacksaw Ridge (2016)

I have never touched a gun and I doubt I ever will. I was struck by the irony of a film maker like Mel Gibson making a film paying tribute to a pacifist and his convictions. This sentimentalized biography of Desmond T. Doss, a real life American soldier in World War II who, due to his faith, refused to touch guns or kill, but signed up to join the American Amry as a medic, is a sometimes overly fawning love letter to Doss and his bravery, but also to his strength as a pacifist.

The film celebrates his refusal to back down in the face of all kinds of aggression, from his comrades in the army to the violence on the battlefield, Doss is painted as a pillar or resistance to a violent world. His heroism is defined through the lives that he saves, not takes. How refreshing.

Gibson's film falls in to many of the traps that "based on true story" films fall into. Doss often seems to wonderful to have been real, his flaws never truly explored, his relationships all to perfect. It also focuses on Doss and his heroism without critiquing the violent world around him. So while he is praised, the violence he is opposed to isn't deconstructed. We are to admire him for his stand without having to embrace his principles. It has the overall effect of sapping some of the emotion that could have been there.

Gibson's treatment of the Japanese "enemy" is at best dismissive, at worst outright racist. In Gibson's world, the American army was made up of handsome young white men. Not only are the Japanese soldiers never humanized, their lives aren't valued. Doss saves a few only to have a fellow soldier almost brag that they "didn't make it."

Gibson's approach puts an almost fairytale feeling all over this story. Many scenes seem structured quite conveniently and don't reach a level where they feel authentic. For example, Doss' court martial scene seems completely contrived, despite it actually having happened.  Despite the graphic depictions of war violence the film remains somewhat aloof from reality. I honestly feel this has to do with Gibson's reluctance to critique the war itself. It is an odd balance to celebrate a man who refused to kill without coming down on the killing that's happening.

What Gibson does well is his depiction of the WWII battlefields. The battle scenes are vicious and visceral. I think this is how it should be. If you are going to depict war, you should depict it, not some sanitized version that gives us a pass on the lives that are lost.

So for me Hacksaw Ridge is a mixed bag. I appreciated the depiction of the cost of war and of the argument supporting Doss' non-violence. I struggled with the film's tacit acceptance of war and it's slaughter, especially towards America's "enemies." Another plus is Vince Vaughn's charming "Sarge," a performance definitely worth catching. 

Hacksaw Ridge 

Starring: Andrew Garfield, Vince Vaughn, Sam Worthington, Luke Bracey, Hugo Weaving, Ryan Corr, Teresa Palmer, Richard Pyros and Rachel Griffith

Director: Mel Gibson

Writers: Andrew Knight, Robert Schenkkan