The Way Back

First Hit: This is a very well done film about redemption.

There are lots of films made about someone redeeming themselves after having a difficult time. Not all of them do it well; this one does.

Here we have a well-crafted storyline that evolves as the character evolves. By slowly revealing the depth of Jack Cunningham’s (Ben Affleck) angst, the audience is interested and wants to know more with each passing frame.

In an early opening scene, we find him in a liquor store buying a box full of beer and hard liquor. It is a holiday, and he’s heading over to his sister’s home. The stop at the store is telling because the store proprietor seems to know him, and the amount he’s purchased is unquestioned.

Cunningham is an alcoholic. He works in construction. After work, he stops by a dive bar where he is well known and makes idle bar talk and jokes with other patrons. On those nights, he’s help home by a fellow customer.

While showering the next morning, he’s got a can of beer in the soap holder, and while the water washes over him, he pounds down another beer before he’s even out of the shower. We see this scene multiple times; it is his habit. We also see him on the job with his ever-present metal coffee mug, which isn’t filled with coffee, but vodka. He drinks on the job.

Jack doesn’t care about much except Angela (Janina Gavankar), his ex-wife, which we discover because he calls and leaves a message on her phone. He also shows enthusiasm when he visits his sister Beth (Michaela Watkins) because he enjoys and appears to love, and care about, her two children.

Outside of these two things, he lives a day to day existence of going to work, going to the bar, and being led home to fall asleep in his clothes. He begins each day with a shower and a beer.

He gets offered a part-time job coaching the local high school team because he was their best player some twenty years prior. Back then, he was so good he was offered a full scholarship to Kansas University but didn’t take it. We learn why, in an intimate conversation with one of his basketball players.

Watching Jack decide to try this coaching job was another great scene. He downs at least two six-packs of beer while holding his phone next to his ear, practicing his speeches as to why he can’t take the coaching job. Outstanding scene.

It’s little scenes like this that make this film work well. Another such scene is Jack’s lunch with Angelea and their subsequent joint attendance to a friend’s son’s birthday party. Powerful scenes that open the door to the story a little bit farther.

The basketball scenes are some of the best I’ve seen shot for a film because they were very realistic to high school basketball. The movie gets it right with the noise of the gym, the anxious players, and the boys' willingness to buy into someone that knows basketball. Jack knows how to motivate them, as he motivates himself into caring about something more than his loss.

Affleck is amazing. His performance, by far, is the best acting by a man this year. Because of his very own public battle with alcohol, he makes this character real. He shows us that we know that he knows what it is like to carry the demons of addiction around. Gavankar is terrific as his former wife, who wants to move on with her life. She shows equanimity in both loving her former husband and reviling his behavior as an alcoholic. Watkins is superb as Cunningham’s sister. Her wistful ways of sharing her wish for her brother to seek help, are spot-on. The boys on the basketball team were outstanding. Brad Ingelsby wrote a dynamic screenplay that takes us on a road of discovery. Gavin O’Connor showed great and deft skills by giving the audience the right amount of information in each new scene to let the audience engage in this story as it unfolds.

Overall: This film shows how a film can be crafted by someone who cares about the story they want to tell.

Waves

First Hit: I’m not always a fan of revolving cameras and frame sizing to create a feeling, but this time it worked.

In an opening scene, Alexis (Alexa Demie) and Tyler (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) are driving in a car. They are young, the music is blaring, and they are drunk on their love for each other and being young and alive. The camera keeps going in circles creating a feeling of erratic motion, and that something is going to happen. I kept holding on to my armrest thinking that an accident was coming soon. It didn’t.

This opening scene gave me a sense that the film was going to be a roller coaster of feelings because of all the joy in this scene and the spirit of impending doom riding in the background.

Tyler lives with his father, Ronald (Sterling K. Brown), his stepmother Catharine (Renee Elise Goldsberry), and sister Emily (Taylor Russell). They are clearly middle class, and as a black man Ronald is very proud of his work ethic, what he’s achieved, and makes a point of instilling his driven work ethic in his children.

Tyler is on the wrestling team in high school. Ronald is very engaged with his son’s wrestling. He works with Tyler by practicing wrestling moves in their garage. He pushes him to be the best wrestler on the team. They not only practice wrestling moves in their garage; they also lift weights together, and they challenge each other while working out and wrestling. In one telling scene during a school wrestling match, after Tyler pins his opponent for a win, his father tells him if he would have made different moves, he would have pinned his opponent 20 seconds sooner.

So it wasn’t only about the win, but how fast and what moves Tyler performed in each match that was challenged by Ronald. What Ronald doesn’t know is that Tyler is hiding a shoulder injury from everyone, and the doctor is quite clear that the injury is so severe that he’ll have permanent damage if he continues to wrestle.

Tyler likes to party with his friends and is very popular at school. He and his girlfriend Alexis spend a lot of time together and are sexually active. During one text message exchange, she tells him her period’s late.

As the film proceeds, the pressure is building up in Tyler; his father is riding him to be better, his shoulder is irreparably damaged, which could cause him to lose his college scholarship, and his girlfriend is pregnant. His drinking is getting worse, he’s smoking more pot, and taking lots of pain pills. His life is spinning out of control.

When Tyler and Alexis go to the abortion clinic, she changes her mind and says she wants to keep the baby. Tyler goes ballistic, they get in a massive fight in the car, and she breaks up with him.

The tension in the film is enhanced by the use of different camera movements, image focus slipping, and color splashes only add to what is about to happen.

Violence breaks out, and Tyler finds a reason to express the rage within and without thinking hurts the people he loves and who love him. The tensions in Tyler’s life build to a point at which he can no longer control them. He commits a violent act, is arrested, and is sentenced to decades in jail.It ends up in an act to which he finds himself arrested and sentenced to jail.

Shortly after that, Tyler’s sister Emily, who has been nearly a forgotten person in the family, meets Luke (Lucas Hedges). The early scenes of their meeting and getting to know each other are magnificently done. They feel real and authentic to the characters. Both are damaged in different ways. Luke because of his father’s alcoholic rages and because his father left him and his mother. Emily, because she’s the forgotten one in the family and is now embarrassed because she’s the sister of her once-popular imprisoned brother.

When the film moves into this new story, the relationship between Luke and Emily, I started wondering where it was headed. Then I started worrying about Emily because she began to party and experiment with pot in the same way her brother did. I thought more trouble was brewing.

However, the story unfolds towards the power of forgiveness and speaking openly and truthfully. As Emily supports Luke in his healing, she, herself, is being healed.

I am not a fan of camera movement becoming a significant part of the story, but for some reason it worked. I could have used less of the swirling circular motions, but it did add to the sensation the film was attempting to make.

Also, as I recently wrote, I reviewed a different film recently, I’m not a big fan of changing the image size on the screen as a way to affect the viewer. But again, here it worked. At times it was letterbox style, other times almost portrait, like what one sees from a phone video, and at other times it was full screen. This is a story about a family on a journey through love, tough times, tragedy, and forgiveness, it worked.

Harrison Jr. was compelling as the young man attempting to live up to his father’s ideals, failing, and spiraling out of control. The angst leading to his lashing out is probably familiar to many a young man. Russell was sublime as Harrison’s younger sister, who had to come out of the shadows to be seen and own her own life. Demie was wonderful as Harrison’s girlfriend, who didn’t want to be controlled and wanted her feelings to be heard and honored. Brown as Harrison’s dad was terrific. His portrayal of a man who was blinded by his own work and not seeing the effect it was having on his wife and kids was convincing. Goldsberry was terrific as the stepmother who empathized with the kids and struggled to find her place when her husband refused to be empathic to her pain. Hedges was excellent as Russell’s boyfriend, who reached out in her time of need, and in turn was supported by her when he needed to deal with his own past. Trey Edward Shults wrote a strong and powerful script which he then in-turn directed. As a director he knew what he wanted, and I, for one, liked what he did.

Overall: This film captured the power of love and forgiveness over the expression of anger.

The Art of Self-Defense

First Hit: Oddly compelling, crudely violent, and situationally funny are my takeaways from this film.

Jesse Eisenberg is an intense person. One look at his eyes, the way he moves them, the way he looks at anything, the intensity is the primary projected feeling.

In this story, Jesse plays Casey, a quiet accountant, working at a somewhat sizeable innocuous firm. We see Casey make awkward attempts to talk with three other men in the break room. These men talk about things in a silly testosterone way: “Let’s do some pushups,” and talking about their sexual exploits. In these gatherings, Casey has nothing to offer, stammers, and leaves the break room with a tail between his legs sort of way.

He goes home to his dachshund, his closest friend. One night, needing to get dog food, he walks to the store and is attacked by a group of people on motorcycles. They almost kill him. Having lots of sick time and unused vacation time, he stays home to heal. Hesitantly he ventures out of his home and walks into a Karate dojo run by a Sensei (Alessandro Nivola).

Casey finds that taking classes helps his self-esteem, and he begins to gain confidence. However, there seems to be an underlying agenda in the dojo. Anna (Imogen Poots), who is a brown belt (one under black), teaches the children classes but appears to be in disfavor with sensei. We don’t know why.

This disfavor is very pronounced when sensei gives awards out (new colored belts and stripes) on a celebration day. Favoring brown belt Thomas (Steve Terada) over Anna for black belt, Anna eventually gets revenge by beating Thomas to a pulp in one of their dojo practice sessions.

Eventually, Casey feels the power of his newly acquired yellow belt and takes over the testosterone boys club at work, punches his boss in the throat, and puts female breasts on his computer screen’s desktop. Of course, he gets fired from his job. In addition to this, by prompting from sensei, he changes the language he’s learning from French to German. French, says his sensei, is a loser feminine language and German is more powerful and masculine.

Then, Casey, prompted by sensei, kills an unsuspecting stranger because sensei tells him he’s sure that this man is one of the people who mugged him months earlier. This and the killing of his dog leads Casey to start investigating sensei and his cohorts.

This is where the film spins slightly different from its original axis and heads in a somewhat different direction. The question becomes, will Casey find his strength by standing up for his version of truth and justice, or will he go his own way and become a law-abiding citizen?

Eisenberg is always interesting to watch. I don’t often relate to his intensity, but he never holds back on being someone who is thinking and thinking deeply. He does this well in this story. Nivola is rather good as sensei. He brings a required level of force, making this role believable. Poots was excellent as the women who wouldn’t be denied in her quest to live unafraid. Terada is outstanding as sensei’s favorite student. Riley Sterns both wrote and directed this film. I thought the concept was good and some of the scenes superbly funny and intense.

Overall: I didn’t leave the theater with a positive feeling.

Creed II

First Hit: For something that started in 1976 and having 7 previous films, it holds together well enough.

Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) is getting long in the tooth, still wears that funky round hat that makes his head a roundish funny shape, and is managing Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan). He managed Adonis in the last film as well.

As champion, Adonis is having a good life and decides to ask his longtime partner Bianca (Tessa Thompson) for her hand in marriage. What makes this set of scenes so good is that he asks Rocky how he asked Adrian, his now deceased wife, for her hand in marriage. For those who saw the Rocky series of films, we can always recall the way Rocky worked up his nerve to ask for her hand. It was hilarious then and it brought up a wonderful memory now.

Adonis’s father Apollo was killed by a Russian fighter called Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) and Rocky, in a fit of rage, fought Ivan and beat him. Ivan’s loss made him become a disrespected person in Russia. So much so that his wife Ludmilla (Brigitte Nielsen) left him for a high-level government official. Raising his son Viktor (Florian Munteanu) alone, he trains Viktor to fight to get the championship belt back and to make the name Drago great again.

Rocky doesn’t want Adonis to fight Viktor because he’d be doing it for the wrong reason. Ignoring Rocky’s advice Adonis fights Viktor.

The fight and boxing ring shots were very good. The story is way to telegraphed which takes away from the film. The nice touch is Rocky reconnecting with this son Robert and grandson Logan.

Stallone is strong as Rocky, a character that he created and enhanced over the years. I loved him bringing the bouncing ball back into a couple of the scenes. Jordan is excellent as Adonis. His softness with Bianca belies the way he makes a living. Thompson is very good as a hearing-impaired musician. Lundgren was very good reprising his role as Ivan. Munteanu was excellent as Ivan’s son Viktor. He showed a great sense of loyalty to his father and it came through during the film. Nielsen was fun to see and she still commands the camera with her powerful look. Phylicia Rashad reprised her role as Adonis mother and Rocky’s close friend. Juel Taylor and Sylvester Stallone wrote a good and predictable screenplay. Steven Caple Jr. did a good job of directing this predictable story with finesse.

Overall: I wasn’t enthralled with this version of the Rocky series.

I, Tonya

First Hit: A very engaging story, supremely well-acted, and one of this years best films.

I loved how this film effectively dances between talking directly to the audience through interview cameras and commenting right at the audience during dramatic scenes, while giving us a straight up film. Breaking the plane between the story and the audience isn’t always done very effectively, but here it is perfect.

Tonya Harding (Margo Robbie) was well known as a rough, scrappy, and physical ice skater in the mid 1980’s through the mid 1990’s. She was raised by her abusive mother LaVona (Allison Janney) who threw her on the ice rink because that is all the seven-year-old Tonya wanted to do.

According to the film, LaVona hit Tonya, once threw a knife at her, but most egregiously never showed any empathy, love or caring towards Tonya. All she kept harping on was that she spent all her waitressing money on Tonya’s skating. She was so cold and mean that Tonya grew up knowing nothing about what a supportive, caring, or loving relationship might even look like.

What kept Tonya going through life was her ability to skate and skate well. She was the first woman to ever land a triple axel (3.5 spins in the air landing backwards on the outside edge of the skate) in a competition as well as completing two triple axels in a single competition. As a competitor, she was heads above everyone else in technical merit, scoring the first perfect 6.0 in the U.S. Championships. However, her hard scrabble background was reflected in her presentation scores. Because she was less graceful than physical and had poorly created handmade costumes, these scores were always low. Lastly, she also suffered from asthma which, at times inhibited her ability to skate with inner ease.

The worst and defining moment of her career was when her husband, Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan), helped to plan a physical attack on Tonya’s chief skating friend and rival Nancy Kerrigan (Caitlin Carver). The actual attack by Shane Stant (Ricky Russert) on Kerrigan’s knee was set into motion by Gillooly’s closest friend Shawn Eckhardt (Paul Walter Hauser). This attack was to give Tonya an advantage at the U.S. Championships and Olympics.

The film used faux, current day and after the fact, interviews of Tonya, Jeff, Shawn, and LaVona to set up certain sequences and sections of this story. The ice skating scenes were well done and effective in showing Tonya’s skating style. Having remembered watching these performances back when they actually happened, they conjured up the direct memories effectively.

Robbie was exquisite as the hard scrabble, poorly educated, and socially inept Tonya. Robbie did some of the skating scenes, and her ability to own Tonya’s physical presence while channeling her inner struggles was what made this work. Janney was beyond amazing as the uncaring emotionless LaVona. She was almost scary and her sitting in the faux interviews with the bird picking at her ear was inspired. Stan as the poorly educated and impulsive Gillooly, whose name became a verb for knee beating, was excellent. Watching him smolder, ready to burst into anger, reflected his inability to help Tonya. Hauser was perfect as the self-promoting dolt who was proud that he made history by hurting Kerrigan. His insistence that he was in international spy and agent was excellent. Julianne Nicholson as Tonya’s skating teacher and trainer, Diane Rawlinson, was excellent. Her slightly distanced engaged caring in working with Tonya and LaVona when Tonya was young and later, as an Olympian, was wonderful. Steven Rogers wrote an excellent screenplay. Craig Gillespie’s direction was spot on perfect. The vision came alive on the screen and I was fully engaged from the beginning.

Overall:  This was truly a fun, empathetic, and engaging story and film about Tonya Harding.