Review: "Manchester By the Sea"

When done right, no film genre can hit home for me quite as intensely as the family drama. I'm talking about the kinds of movies that, particularly in the late-1970s, into the 1980s, used to dominate the Oscars (often to the chagrin of those preferring something more visually compelling), not because they were sprawling epics or terribly "important" films but because the acting, writing and storytelling were so spot-on and reminded us vividly of our own family situations. I think of three Best Picture winners in particular - Kramer vs. Kramer, Terms of Endearment and, one of my all-time favorite films, Ordinary People.

In 2000, writer/director Kenneth Lonergan delivered a motion picture nearly on-par with those - You Can Count on Me, which gave Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo opportunities to turn in career-best work. Longeran's latest film, Manchester By the Sea, is even better than his 2000 effort.

In the film, Casey Affleck, in one of the year's very best performances, portrays Lee Chandler, an emotionally distant but easily agitated man who one winter day receives the worst of news - his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) has died from heart failure. Lee, who years ago left his hometown of Manchester, Massachusetts following another truly tragic incident, must return to that Cape Ann town to get his late brother's affairs in order. While going over Joe's will, Lee is stunned to discover that he has been named guardian to his teenage nephew Patrick (Lucas Hedges). Hardly prepared to take on those duties, and of course grappling with the death of his beloved brother, Lee also finds himself haunted by his Manchester past, unable to escape memories involving his ex-wife Randi (Michelle Williams), who still lives in the town.

Lonergan may have a hit-or-miss record as a screenwriter - among his credits are the middling Gangs of New York and flat-out dreadful The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle - but, when attached to the right project, particularly when he's directing to boot, he is a true master at crafting rich, real and engrossing characters and dialogue. Not a false note is struck here.

The acting, with the exception of a distracting Matthew Broderick cameo late in the picture, is first-rate all-around. Affleck dominates the film but Hedges is so impressive too - he reminded me a ton of both Timothy Hutton in Ordinary People and Michael O'Keefe in The Great Santini. Those two young men garnered Oscar nods (with Hutton winning) and I sure do hope Hedges can do the same. Williams and Chandler are fantastic too, albeit in far more limited roles, and there are many other great, small performances to be found throughout the film.

If I have a quibble with the film, beyond Broderick, it's a rather minor one - the picture's score, composed by Lesley Barber, is at times a nice one, complimenting scenes. There are key moments, however, when the music is curiously bombastic - in one critical scene in particular, it sounds like something straight out of The Phantom of the Opera. It's pretty bizarre but not bad enough for me to not give the film an...

A+

Review: "Rules Don't Apply"

With 14 Oscar nominations under his belt for directing, writing, producing and acting in his pictures, including one competitive victory (for directing 1981's Reds) and one honorary prize, Warren Beatty is unimpeachably among the most powerful and talented figures to have ever graced Hollywood.

Yet, for such a legend, looking back, the Beatty filmography is actually an awfully spotty one. For every tour-de-force production like Bonnie and Clyde and McCabe & Mrs. Miller, there's a supreme underwhelmer like Ishtar and The Fortune. Beatty's directorial efforts - just look at the classic likes of Heaven Can Wait, Bulworth and his Oscar-winning Reds - have generally been terrific...when he's allowed his name to be officially attached in the end. It is well-known Beatty called the shots on both Love Affair and Town & Country, both of which are depressingly dismal endeavors.

Rules Don't Apply, Beatty's first official directing-writing credit since Bulworth in 1998, falls somewhere toward the middle of the filmmaker's collective work. It's nowhere near as stunning as Reds or entertaining as Heaven Can Wait but nor does it induce the headaches that other Beatty works have.

Set in 1958, the picture opens with Marla Mabrey (Lily Collins), a devout Baptist beauty queen from small town Virginia, arriving in Hollywood, where she plans to become an actress. Under contract with the elusive entrepreneur and film tycoon Howard Hughes (Beatty), Mabrey spends her early days in La La Land getting acquainted with her driver, Frank Forbes (Alden Ehrenreich), who is also on the Hughes payroll. The two carry on a charming flirtation that tests their staunch religious beliefs and must remain hidden from Hughes, who forbids romance between his employees and actresses.

The film's opening, Beatty-free half hour marks a fine showcase for Collins and Ehrenreich, both immensely talented and charismatic performers, long overdue for such leading turns. While their chemistry is a delight, however, this section suffers a ton from poor editing, with abrupt cutaways as actors seem to be in mid-sentence and an overwhelming feeling that a hefty chunk of material was left on the cutting room floor. There is a scene, for instance, featuring the great Ed Harris and Amy Madigan in which the Oscar-nominees have virtually no dialogue. Scenes featuring Annette Bening as Mabrey's mother also feel trimmed to the bone. Perhaps this explains why Rules Don't Apply is officially, curiously billed as running two hours and thirty-eight minutes in length, yet in actuality only runs for about two - Beatty and his editors, no doubt, were taking a chainsaw to this thing at the 11-'o-clock hour.

The remaining hour and half of the film is largely dominated by Beatty's Hughes, who at this point in his life was a notorious recluse, clearly plagued by mental illness and in very hot water with the U.S. government. Beatty's performance is a true roller coaster ride - while I don't think his Hughes is quite as compelling as Leonardo DiCaprio's in The Aviator or Jason Robards' in Melvin and Howard, it's still an awfully convincing portrayal and his energy keeps the film from ever dozing off in his scenes. Beatty hits so many notes here, both tragic and funny, and has terrific chemistry with his leads.

While Beatty's performance is a memorable one for sure, however, his writing and directing are, I'm afraid, haphazard and unfocused. Yes, Rules Don't Apply looks fantastic - how could it not with the likes of Caleb Deschanel taking on the cinematography and Albert Wolsky designing the costumes - and the central trio of actors are terrific but these great things, all too much of the time, feel lost at sea in a choppily edited and convoluted endeavor.

Fans of the filmmaker need to see this. It is, after all, the rarest of occasions when we get a new Warren Beatty flick. And I'm certainly hopeful he goes on to write, direct, produce and star in more feature films - don't allow the disappointing reviews and box office receipts deter you! But yes, Rules Don't Apply, while sporting several worthwhile things, does feel like a bit of a missed opportunity.

C+

Review: "Nocturnal Animals"

Renowned fashion designer Tom Ford's directorial debut, the 2009 release A Single Man, often had the look, feel and depth of an Elizabeth Taylor White Diamonds commercial. It was saved and made worthwhile by the dazzling work of leading man Colin Firth, who garnered a richly deserved Oscar nomination (and, in my humble opinion, should have won). Firth managed to transcend the curious emptiness of A Single Man, a picture lavishly shot but exceedingly difficult to otherwise connect with.

Ford's sophomore effort, Nocturnal Animals, lacks a commanding performance quite on the same level of Firth's but does show some modest improvements on the filmmaker's end. About half of Nocturnal Animals, in fact, is a pretty damn great and exciting movie. But boy, it's a rough endeavor on the whole.

Without giving too much away, the picture, based on Austin Wright's 1993 novel Tony and Susan, opens with Susan Morrow (Amy Adams), a wealthy Los Angeles art gallery owner, receiving a manuscript in the mail, titled "Nocturnal Animals," from her estranged ex-husband Edward (Jake Gyllenhaal). While her hunky dud of a second husband (Armie Hammer) is away on business, Susan dives into the novel, which turns out to be a horrifying story about a man whose family road trip turns into a grisly nightmare.

Susan begins to see parallels between the story and her relationship with Edward and the film bounces around among present day, Susan's past with Edward and the story in the manuscript itself. The novel is lived out on screen by Gyllenhaal again, portraying the tortured lead protagonist, and features a dynamite, intense turn by Michael Shannon as a chain-smoking local detective.

The story without the story here turns out, by far, to be the most compelling material. Gyllenhaal and Shannon do career-best work and are supported by convincing turns from Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Isla Fisher to boot. Here, Ford shows a real knack for building suspense and crafting engrossing, empathetic characters. Abel Korzeniowski's sublime, Pino Donaggio-like original score and Seamus McGarvey's gorgeous photography compliment the director's efforts.

Problem is, that's only about half the picture. The other half, with Adams in the spotlight, is plagued by many of the same issues that dragged down Ford's first film. Here, it's all style over substance, with only the contributions of Korzeniowski and McGarvey to really write home about. Scenes involving Susan's eccentric art gallery colleagues are a snooze and, just as the scenes in the novel begin to give the picture a real lift, we get a momentum-killing cutaway back to Adams. Not that Adams isn't in fine form here but she isn't given nearly as the same opportunities as Gyllenhaal to let it rip and there are only so many distinct ways to capture Susan looking concerned or disturbed.

Watching Nocturnal Animals, I thought to myself, this is probably what The Hills Have Eyes or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre would have looked like...had Brian De Palma directed them. And crossed them with a cologne commercial. The film is worth a look for many reasons but, fair warning, it is kind of a mess overall.

B-

Review: "Loving"

In 1967, the landmark civil rights decision by the United States Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriage. The case was brought by Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple sentenced to a year in prison by the Commonwealth of Virginia for marrying each other. As a result of the court's ruling, the number of interracial marriages in the U.S. increased significantly over the years and decades to come and the decision was cited as precedent in future federal court decisions pertaining to the unconstitutionality of restrictions on same-sex marriage in the U.S.

Loving, the immensely moving new film written and directed by Jeff Nichols, follows Richard (the chameleon-like Joel Edgerton) and Mildred (Ruth Negga) as they are harassed and arrested by local authorities for violating the Commonwealth's anti-miscegenation laws. Richard and Mildred move to Washington D.C. to remain married and raise a family but yearn to someday make it back to their family and friends in Virginia. The couple at last sees some light at the end of the tunnel when the American Civil Liberties Union approaches the couple about filing the lawsuit against the Commonwealth that will ultimately lead to the 1967 decision.

The picture is so whole-heartedly convincing that it often looks and feels more like a documentary than a scripted, performed film. Edgerton and Negga do beautiful, lived-in work as Richard and Mildred and they're surrounded by a fine supporting cast, including Nick Kroll, Michael Shannon, Bill Camp and Sharon Blackwood. Nichols' efforts are completely spot-on, with countless aggravating, inspiring, sweet and even occasionally very funny moments. Not a false note is struck. Kudos too to David Wingo's fine original score.

Expect to see lots of Loving this coming awards season.

A

Review: "Arrival"

One of these years, Amy Adams, you will (at last!) take home an Oscar.

Adams, who during her career has stolen scenes from the typically commanding likes of Leonardo DiCaprio (in Catch Me If You Can), Meryl Streep (Doubt) and Joaquin Phoenix (The Master), plus delivered a number of terrific leading turns (Enchanted, in particular), is in exquisite form in the latest film from director Denis Villenueve, Arrival. It might well be her finest work to date, though I've yet to see her comparably acclaimed work in the upcoming Nocturnal Animals.

In the film, Adams portrays Louise Banks, a brilliant linguistics professor recruited by the U.S. military to lead its team of investigators in what has become a global race to successfully communicate with one of a dozen extraterrestrial spacecrafts that have touched down across Earth.

Banks, supported, among others, by a theoretical physicist (Jeremy Renner) and U.S. Army colonel (Forest Whitaker), comes face-to-face with the aliens - dubbed Heptapods - that have landed in the U.S. and works tirelessly to decode the creatures' complicated language. What, Banks hopes to discover, is exactly their purpose for being here? All the while, much of the rest of the world sinks into turmoil and war over these visits and Banks is incessantly haunted - and yet, quite often, helped - by memories of her deceased daughter.

The opening half hour of Arrival comes close to capturing that same awe-inspiring feeling we all had during the finale of Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, when Richard Dreyfuss' character, following an arduous journey, finally witnessed, in breathtaking fashion, the arrival of extraterrestrial beings. This picture is also awfully convincing in portraying just what the chaotic global reaction would probably be to such an event.

With that said, after the movie magic that is the first encounter with the extraterrestrials, Arrival has few additional goods to deliver. It stagnates. The picture, as a whole, does not prove as compelling or exciting as Villeneuve's exhilarating Sicario from last year and I found the constant back-and-forth with moments involving her late daughter both overly manipulative and a case of overediting.

Adams is spectacular throughout and ultimately keeps Arrival plenty afloat but, beyond her work, the first quarter of the movie and Bradford Young's stunning cinematography, I don't think the picture works nearly as incredibly as it should have. I suppose the most apt comparison to the film would be Robert Zemeckis' Contact, which also sported one hell of a leading performance (from Jodie Foster) and some intriguing ideas but otherwise looked and felt curiously sterile.

B+