(500) Days of Summer

First Hit: I liked this film because it felt thoughtful. And, although the ending is telegraphed, the acting, sequencing of the scenes and direction kept the story alive and fresh all the way through.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Tom Hanson a young man who believes that true love only happens once in a lifetime. When he meets Summer Finn (played by Zooey Deschanel) he immediately feels that cosmic, this is it, connection.

The story is about their 500 days together which go from this first meeting until their last meeting. The film plays scenes in different orders. Sometime showing an early scene and transitioning to a later scene with an expansion of the idea or concept they are grappling with.

At other times the film plays a later scene first then transitioning to an earlier scene showing where the idea or concept first came into their relationship. This technique was very effective for this film and kept me focused and interested.

The story, overall, is effective and brings out what happens in many budding relationships; one person feels more than the other. There is an honor in each having their point of view which plays out well in this film and was enjoyable to watch.

Gordon-Levitt was excellent as was Deschanel. They played well together and one could feel the right level of chemistry between them to make this film work. Marc Webb directed this well written screenplay by Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber.

Overall: A very nice interesting film that plays out in some very wonderful scenes by competent actors.

The Stoning of Soraya M.

First Hit: Very interesting story and topic but just adequate direction and acting take away from its raw power.

This is the true story of a woman named Soraya (played by Mozhan Marno) who is an unhappily married Iranian woman with four children, two boys and two girls. Her husband wants a divorce so he can be with a 14 year old girl he’s taken a liking to and who captures his lusty interest.

Soraya’s aunt and friend is Zahra (played by Shohreh Aghdashloo) who tries to guide her through this difficult time. Zahra is also one of the town’s keepers of the flame of freedom for women. Although the Shah of Iran is gone, the country's new government headed by Ayatollah Khomeini strongly supports a strong Islamic path which cracks down on women and their rights.

Zahra is against this crackdown and finds herself being the only person supporting her niece. Soraya, the niece, is concerned that she will not be able to support herself if she agrees to a divorce from her husband Ali (played by Navid Negahban).

Ali presses forward and constructs false evidence that his wife is having an affair with a man whom she was assisting as a housekeeper after his wife died. After concocting this evidence with the town’s Mullah (played by Ali Pourtash), who also tried unsuccessfully to seduce Soraya, they force others to bring evidence (spoken – no physical evidence) against Soraya. Her punishment for adultery is death by stoning.

All of the town’s males participate in this event with her father throwing the first stone, then her husband and then her two sons. The chanting of "Allahu Akbar" for justified violence during the stoning set a powerful tone of abdicating real responsibility for their primitive actions.

Zahra, relays this story to a French journalist who visits the town the following day and in keeping with her character Zahra wants this story told to the world. The French journalist Freidoune (played by James Caviezel) leaves the town and country and writes this bestselling novel.

Unfortunately, most of the acting was only fair to good, which took away the power of the story and film. The director wasted time in this film which was exemplified by the very slow graphic killing of Soraya. His timing resulted in a very hard to watch stoning.

And even though this story is focused on the stoning, it is really more about how people twist and manipulate religious law and their greed for their own benefit. I would have preferred more story here than to the elongated scenes of the stoning.

Much like Passion of The Christ (Caviezel was also in that film), pounding human cruelty to make a point can sometimes take away from the intention and actions that led to the cruelty.

Overall: This film tells a "needed to be heard" story, but doesn’t do it really well nor does it do it justice and this is unfortunate.

Cheri

First Hit: This film dragged and dragged and dragged.

Michelle Pfeiffer plays Lea de Lonval an aging courtesan who, unlike her contemporaries, still has her looks, charm and beguiling sexiness. For some reason, and I don’t know why, she hooks up with the son of one of her peers Madame Peloux (played by Kathy Bates).

The boy, nicknamed Cheri (played by Rupert Friend), is misguided, lazy, and lost. When Cheri is 19 years old, Peloux brings the two together for the benefit of his education. They stay together for 6 years. During this time neither of them outwardly admits their love to each other nor do they share deep intimate thoughts.

Their life together is drinking, eating, and sex. Additionally, Cheri gets his need to be held and nurtured fulfilled. And Lea, she has a young man with whom she controls and doesn't want much more from her than companionship. Who cares? Not me. Nothing in the dialogue made this relationship important or interesting. From the beginning the end was telegraphed.

Towards the end of this tedious film Cheri gets married to a younger woman but, then and only then does he really realize how much in love he is with Lea. The same is true for Lea, she tries other young men, but they aren’t Cheri. They finally admit their love but must part. Again, who cares?

Pfeiffer is beautiful and is the best thing in this film. She doesn’t have to act older or younger than she is and she does this beautifully. Friend is mediocre and brings little charm or reason for his being someone anyone would desire. Bates is totally unbelievable as aged courtesan and is simply mean and controlling for the most part.

Overall: The best line of the film was uttered by Pfeiffer and had something to do with; once you’ve tasted youth, you’ll always go back. But then again, so what.

Revanche

First Hit: A wonderfully acted and interesting film.

The opening segment with the initial credits is very reflective of the film. The scene is of a quiet pond shot from a dead steady camera while the reflection is dark, clear and unmoving.

An object is dropped onto the water’s surface, the splash is followed by beautiful concentric circles rippling out. This reflects how one event in our life has ongoing repercussions.

The film tells a story about one such event and it uses two couples to tell it. The primary couple is an ex-con named Alex (played by Johannes Krisch), who works for a pimp that runs a whore house and he is in love with Tamara (played by Irina Potapenko) one of the whores.

She is younger, she is good at her job, and there is a connection between the two that is palatable, believable and honors each of the characters. The secondary couple is a policeman and his wife. They are building a life together, have a nice home and, as we discover, are having a difficult time having a child.

The depth and expression of Alex and Tamara’s relationship is outwardly expressed by his looking towards her for trusted companionship and sex, while she looks to him for life guidance and cocaine. The depth and shallowness of their relationship is real and is delivered in realistic scenes which outline their lives.

The policeman and his wife’s story is not as well defined but you know there is tension between them because they don’t feel like their life is complete. The couples connect in two ways, one connection is between Tamara and the policeman, while the second is between Alex and the policeman’s wife.

These connections, the realistic scenes, the pacing, the dialogue, the strong characters, and the silence draws the audience in and allows them to explore the characters and themselves.

Krisch is wonderful as Alex, showing tenderness and growth through the whole film without losing his edge as a loner who has done prison time and yet has a strong work ethic. Potapenko is very good at expressing both her being streetwise and her naiveté of life. I loved that there wasn't any music in the film. There was either dialog, silence, or the sound of movement of some kind. Dramatic parts weren’t filled with music to create enhanced drama, there is none in life and therefore there is none in this film. Götz Spielmann, the director, let the dialog, acting and storyline move the film forward.

Overall: This film is about, right, wrong, revenge (Revanche), trust and forgiveness and in telling this story it did a very fine job.

Easy Virtue

First Hit: A very disappointing film despite two wonderful actors.

The story is basically about the elder son in the Whittaker family named John (played by Ben Barnes) who is off gallivanting in the south of France when he spies a slightly older American woman Larita (played by Jessica Biel), who has just won an auto race in Le Mans.

They fall madly in love and he brings her home to meet his parents (Mr. and Mrs. Whittaker played by Colin Firth and Kristin Scott Thomas respectively). Mrs. Whittaker despises Larita, as does her daughters, because she is a woman of the world, brash, American, and without refined English behaviors.

Mr. Whittaker is quiet, a bit sarcastic, and in his own world. He doesn't care much for anyone in the house except himself. The house, a very large rambling English estate is falling into disrepair and everywhere you look there are signs of the heritage and estate falling apart.

The audience quickly sees that John is a naïve love struck son who Mrs. Whittaker expected to save them from ruin. However, John is clueless and even when he gets a clue, he has no skills to change their fate. What happens during the rest of the film is meaningless except for the exchanges between Mr. Whittaker and Larita and Mr. Whittaker and Mrs. Whittaker.

One scene which exemplifies the ridiculousness of the film is when Larita accidentally sits on and kills the family dog. Not only does she sit on it once, she sits on it 3 or 4 times and then tries to hide the evidence.

Jessica Biel was miscast, misplaced and misdirected. Scott Thomas was good but a far cry from her previous film “I’ve Loved Her So Long”. Firth was very good and is what kept the film interesting. The writing and direction was extremely poor and it is as if this film didn’t know what it wanted to be, a comedy or drama of which it achieved neither. The rest of the cast, especially the Whittaker girls, were distractions and unbelievable.

Overall: This film made little sense, the chemistry between Barnes and Biel was unbelievable and embarrassing which are probably the feelings Noel Coward would probably feel with this film supposedly being based on something he’d written.