Sunshine Cleaning

First Hit: Although the film felt a little uneven at times, I was really touched at moments by the breadth of feelings expressed in intimate scenes by both Amy Adams and Emily Blunt.

This is a film about a once popular high school cheerleader Rose (played by Amy Adams) who finds herself with a son who struggles at school, a father (played by Alan Arkin) who is still chasing dreams, and a sister Norah (played by Emily Blunt) who seems on the border of giving up, while she attempts to find her way through life.

The film begins and we see Rose working as a cleaning lady in a luxurious home. Her sister is getting fired, again, from a restaurant, and her son is getting kicked out of school. Life is difficult and Rose is deeply driven to find a way. She talks of going into real estate, yet nothing happens in this arena because she is busy keeping her family together.

Blunt plays her sister Norah as dark and troubled and clearly floundering. There are scenes of them separately watching old films on television and we later learn they are looking for a brief appearance of their mom in a very small speaking part in a TV movie.

This is a film about the trials of life and how people deal with them.

Amy Adams brings a complexity and truth to her character and in scenes where we watch her process new developments in her life or her family’s life she is transparently amazing. I fully enjoyed scenes with Adams and Blunt together, but was deeply touch by Blunt’s acting in a scene where she goes “trestling”. Arkin is good and accurately hopeful and crotchety at the same time. Under Director Christine Jeffs, the scenes were allowed to breathe which allowed Megan Holley’s story to evolve fully. The unevenness comes from places where the scenes don’t necessarily add to the film and include scenes with Rose’s married lover.

Overall: I liked this film, its theme of hope and perseverance.

Two Lovers

First Hit: A subtle yet powerful film which slowly evolved to depict the complications of a man learning how and whom to love.

Joaquin Phoenix, playing Leonard, is living at home. He works at the family dry cleaners. He is full of despair starting with the initial scene and moves between this state of mind and one of an extroverted “man about town” in others.

What prompts the bursts of openness is Gwyneth Paltrow who plays Michelle an addicted woman hung up on a married man. He thinks he can help her, save her. But doesn’t see that she really can only see him as a friend, someone to confide in.

On the other hand his father’s friend wants to buy the family business and it will affect Leonard’s future. This family friend also has a daughter named Sandra (played by Vinessa Shaw) who wants to meet Leonard. From their first meeting there is a connection between them, however the fireworks he has for Michelle out shines his honest affection for Sandra.

The film lets the difficulties of these two competing relationships play out realistically and with honesty. Leonard’s family continues to push Leonard in different directions with his father’s desire for success and his mother’s desire for his happiness. It ends up being a beautifully filmed play of realism.

James Gray directed this film with the full unfolding of the story as one usually sees in French films. There is no hurry to get to the end and each scene has a reason and fills out the story. Joaquin Phoenix gives a very strong performance and one actually senses the difficulties of having a bi-polar condition without being told this is his problem. You “get it” through the performance. Paltrow is dead on perfect as Michelle. She gives a very powerful performance of an addicted, to drugs and dream, woman who is looking to be saved. Shaw is beautiful and it was hard for me to believe no one wanted her as she expressed to Leonard early on, but as the story unfolded I realized her wanting to be a caretaker would turn off some men but was perfect for Leonard.

Overall: This is a strong film and is filled with great performances and the story unfolds with clear direction.

The Class (Entre les murs)

First Hit: I walked away with mixed feelings and emotions about the teaching techniques in French schools but I found the acting to be top notch.

At the beginning I was immediately drawn into slice of life view that French films use to set the tone of the film.

The initial scenes were of the teachers gathered in their teachers lounge with each of them introducing themselves to the other teachers stating their name, the subject they teach and how long they’ve been teaching at this school. The location of the school gave the impression that these were tough kids from a lower socioeconomic part of French society which gave grit to the teacher student interaction.

The film follows a single teacher through his days with the students in one of his classes. The one scene which affected me most was when one of the teachers bursts into the teacher lounge and is so upset about the teaching situation and the students that he goes into a tirade about why it’s useless to teach at this school with these students.

I thought the acting was very good in all cases. I think Director Laurent Cantet did an excellent job of eliciting life like performances from all the actors. They could have been their role in real life. I was especially taken by the students who were all amateurs and, from what I read, weren’t given lines per-se but roles to play with the ability to ad lib their scenes. It worked and they were excellent representing a wide range of attitudes. What was troubling about the film wasn’t about the acting but how French schools work. In one scene, the one that shifts the whole energy of the film, student monitors attend a student evaluation conference where student's grades and performances are discussed between the teachers. The student monitors took notes and then shared the negative teacher comments back to those specific students. I don’t know if French schools do this or not, but if they do it seemed to be a lightning rod for trouble because it set up a forum for retaliation and a negative tone. 

Overall: I may not have agreed with the way this teacher interacted with the students, like saying two girls were “acting like skanks”, but the quality of the roles and how they stayed within their roles was very well done.

Notorious

First Hit: This wasn’t a compelling story as to why Chris Wallace (The Notorious B.I.G. and Biggy Smalls) was so admired by rap fans. It seemed more to be a story about Sean “Puffy” Combs ability to make Chris famous.

It's hard to compare the two rap star oriented films I’ve seen; Eight Mile and this one Notorious. Eight Mile was a compelling the story of a man learning that transparency of one’s life and soul through his rap was his strength.

Notorious wanted to make a case for Chris being a real mover in the rap business while he matured and learned about life. However the films other characters, especially Sean “P. Diddy” Combs (Puffy), and Tupac Shakur kept drawing my attention away from this story with their own story.

I kept wondering how these other characters reach their success. There is no question about what Combs brought to the table by believing in B.I.G.’s talent, but B.I.G.’s tenure as a rapper was so short (Two Albums),

I left the film thinking that a good portion of his draw was based around the East Coast / West Coast rivalry not his talent or path. There isn’t enough history to make the case for greatness or a film.

The story basically sets us up by watching Chris getting caught in the draw of gold chains and “paper” (money) so he quits going to school to sell drugs on the street. As a side light, and a way to share his feelings and what he sees on the streets, he raps and in one scene bests the top street rapper. He ends up getting thrown in jail for dealing dope and comes out of prison hoping to find another way to make a living. He lays down a track that gets heard by Puffy who signs him.

Puffy becomes friends with Tupac Shakur. However Tupac is shot in the building where B.I.G. is recording and the East Coast / West Coast game is notched up a level. B.I.G., in hopes of changing the war, heads to LA for a Soul Train awards banquet and gets shot and killed.

I thought Jamal Woolard was good as The Notorious B.I.G. as was Angela Bassett as his mother Voletta. Other players were, at times strong including Naturi Naughton as Lil Kim and Julia Pace Mitchell as Jan. However, the story was inherently weak because there wasn’t a solid buildup as to why Biggy Smalls was so poplar or commanded the outpouring of fans (or this film) he commanded. The story kept getting split because it was Puff Daddy who was making the big lines at key moments (I.E. "You can’t change the world until you change yourself”) which Biggy repeats later.

Overall: This film didn’t have a big enough story to carry it though although Woolard did a fine job of capturing the public, and maybe private, Notorious B.I.G.

Defiance

First Hit: This film is about a great WW II story but as filmed it didn’t work very well and left me unsatisfied.

The story is about three Jewish brothers, the Bielskis who saved a hundred plus Jews from execution by the Germans.

The film begins with the brother’s parents being found dead because they were Jews and the cooperative cruelty of the local police and German soldiers. The brothers take to the woods in Belarus to hide. They know these woods like the back of their hands and it is here they are joined by other Jews escaping the tyranny of Nazi Germany.

The older two brothers Tuvia and Zus (played by Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber respectively) have a falling out about how they are responding to their predicament. Zus wants to fight the Germans and ends up joining a group of Russian soldiers while Tuvia wants to hide, live and protect the 100 + people who are with him in the woods. In the end Tuvia’s group has to flee their woodland home as they are discovered and attacked by German planes.

When the Russian soldiers start to retreat, Zus makes a decision to stick it out and continue the fight. In the climactic scene the brothers are together again fighting as they defeat a German patrol, then they march off into the woods together, again.

There are a number of large and small dramatic scenes between the brothers and between others in the group but it didn’t create a really engaging story and I don’t know if the problem was the story, script, execution, or direction.

Both Craig and Schreiber have a strong screen presence and when they are on screen they easily become the focus. Their acting was strong as was the acting by others in smaller parts. A lot of the film was shot in the woods which could have been part of the problem with the film. Although to do this story it had to be shot in the woods and it reminded me of films shot mostly in and underwater. Films in water lose a level of intensity because the action and drama becomes dissipated by limitations of the environment the actors are working in.

Overall: This film was a letdown and although interesting it wasn’t compelling.