Bride Flight

First Hit: A satisfying, sad, and wonderful story of love and its complications.

On a historic post WWII DC 6 flight from Netherlands to New Zealand, a young man Frank (played by Waldemar Torenstra) is sitting in the same row as Ada (played by Karina Smulders). One look from each of them and they know and you know there is chemistry. Perfect.

On screen romances often times don’t work and this one is one of those that work. The film begins with old Frank (the elder played by Rutger Hauer) tasting wine from a barrel on his vineyard and with the joy of yet another great wine living in his heart, he dies while driving back to his home.

We are then taken back to the young Frank and his row mate sneaking longing looks at each other. On the plane are two other women sitting together, across the aisle, and two rows up from them. Esther (played by Anna Drijver) and Marjorie (played by Elise Schaap) are on their way to New Zealand to marry their fiancés, as is Ada.

Marjorie is outgoing, creative and full of vim and vigor. She flirts with Frank and the other men on the plane and it seems that she is masking a dark sorrow especially when she lights up her ever present cigarette. Esther is anxious to start her life and create a family with youthful enthusiasm and naivety.

Ada is quiet and is a farm girl who seems a little afraid of this next step. During the rocky plane ride, Ada and Frank find themselves holding each other as a way to soothe her anxiousness. On one of their stops Frank and Ada have a passionate kiss. Ada then tells Frank that she is marrying not for love but because she is pregnant with her fiancés child which was conceived while she was giving him comfort.

Landing in New Zealand, each begins their new life. We follow each of them and their interaction over the years. This part of the film is intercut with the three women coming to older Frank’s funeral.

Each of the stories has joy and heartbreak but in the end there is their friendship.

Hauer has a very small part as older Frank, but I smiled when I saw him on the screen. He has great presence. Torenstra is wonderful as Frank the ladies’ man, farmer, winemaker, and friend. Smulders is fantastic as the woman who didn’t marry for love but did find love in her life with Frank. Their scenes together were knock-down engaging. Drijver was excellent as the more conservative of the bunch. She lets herself fall fully for her fiancé but becomes heartbroken when she cannot bear children of her own. Schaap is wonderful as the woman who wanted Frank, had him for one night, but it wasn’t a mutual lasting attraction. She despised her fiancé and was well cast as the woman making it through life and her self-imposed hardships on her own. Marieke van der Pol wrote a wonderfully insightful screenplay about how love and circumstances around love can be fleetingly permanent. Ben Sombogaart directed this film with love and a visualization of a how the story would evolve through time.

Overall: This was a very enjoyable film and definitely worth seeing.

The Tree Of Life

First Hit: Parts of this film were amazing; the visuals were beautiful and occasionally brilliant but in the end it was unsatisfying and longer than needed.

Sitting in the theater I was incredibly impressed with the visuals put together by Terrence Malick to represent the largeness of life, the universe, nature, the human spirit and human beings.

A comparison of what this film was about would be Stanley Kubrick’s "2001: A Space Odyssey". I can and do occasionally watch that film again and again, I will not watch Malick's film again. Why? I think the point of the film got lost along the way.

I put the pieces of this film together as I watched but I realized that I could also take sections out and still have it make sense because they seemed needless. Mr. O’Brian (played by Brad Pitt) is married to Mrs. O’Brien (played by Jessica Chastain).

It is the 1950s and the rule of the day is spare the rod, spoil the child. They live in Waco Texas and have three boys. The film begins with a quote from The Book of Job, when God asks, “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation… while the morning stars sang together and all the angles shouted for joy?”

This is the theme of the entire film. Are we connected? Is there a beginning and end? Is there God? The quote is quickly followed by one of many colorful visual flames which are book markers throughout the film. While there is a whispering narrator asking the large insightful questions of the film, we enter a house and see Mrs. O’Brien reading a telegraph indicating her son has died.

There is anguish, the questions persist. Why would you (God) let him die? We bullet through time and see the older son Jack (played by Sean Penn) now an architect looking at a tree, asking questions, remembering his brother. We jump back and see young Jack (played by Hunter McCracken) as a troubled young man who struggles with his father and wondering why his father is so hard on him.

In the end, it comes together where the family is together in spirit and of Love. The film does a lot of communication without dialogue and is impressive this way.

Malick uses photos from the Hubble Telescope, and film clips of the Sun, Mercury passing by it, Jupiter, Saturn and other galaxies.

Penn is good as the oldest son and architect who brings the memories together. Pitt is amazing as a 1950’s father who works hard, never seems to find his way, and believes that the world is a difficult place to make your mark. He also knows that he doesn’t work at what he loves, which is music. Chastain, is etherically beautiful and outstanding as the stay at home 50’s mother who is subservient to her husband. McCracken is outstanding as the troubled older son growing up feeling unseen, misunderstood, and sad. Malick wrote and directed this with a focus on creativity but it lacks a pacing to keep the audience fully engaged the entire time. A sharper eye on editing and snipping celluloid would have made this unforgettable.

Overall: A good and interesting film, but it needed to be more crisp in its execution.

Something Borrowed

First Hit: Although not profound in anyway, this was an enjoyable film.

Like her mother Goldie Hawn, Kate Hudson has a light airiness about her. However, unlike Goldie who was deeply and innocently about fun, Kate has an edge about her.

As Darcy, this edge comes across as privileged entitlement. Darcy and her lifelong friend Rachel (played by Ginnifer Goodwin) have shared all things together. However Rachel has been the thoughtful one while Darcy focuses on herself while relying on Rachel to be at her side no matter what. Darcy’s blond, smiling, and outgoing assertive personality allows her to get most any man and thing she wants.

Rachel is down to earth, smart, and basks in the outgoing nature of Darcy. In all the reflections of their growing up together Rachel was always giving up something to have Darcy shine. When Rachel, who thinks she is unworthy of the attention of Dex (played by Colin Egglesfield), lets Darcy swoops in and entices this handsome, unassertive, and clueless man away from her, Rachel makes it OK for her feelings to be ignored and hurt – because it's Darcy.

Darcy and Dex decide to get married but Rachel’s best male friend Ethan (played by John Krasinski), pushes Rachel to tell Darcy and Dex that Rachel is and has always been in love with Dex. However, as Hollywood stories go, this wasn’t enough because Ethan is also harboring his unrequited love for Rachel.

The point of the movie is that both Rachel and Dex have allowed themselves to be controlled or manipulated by Darcy because of her powerful and engaging personality. They both have to learn about setting boundaries and living their truth.

When the truth comes out that Dex and Rachel love each other and that Darcy is pregnant with someone else’s child, this film’s universe begins to take shape into the ending we expect to see.

Goodwin is great at these roles as the girl who is good looking enough to get attention but is outshined by someone else. Therefore she begins this film by settling for less than what her heart deserves, but by the end of the film she gets what we all knew she could get if she would have asserted herself. I hope she will grow out of these roles as she is quite talented. Hudson is really good as the good looking girl who deserves the best looking guy because she is fun and is the overtly beautiful life of any party she attends. Egglesfield was really good in the most difficult role on the screen. He had to make us believe he was smart but also easily manipulated by his parents and Darcy. It worked, I believed it. He was smart and dense at the same time. Krasinski was superb as the friend whose longing heart was rarely heard. Jennie Snyder wrote this thoughtful and, at times, witty screenplay. Luke Greenfield directed this film very evenhandedly while keeping the story interesting and comedy poignantly at hand.

Overall: This film was better than I thought it might be because of the good acting.

Everything Must Go

First Hit: One of the better acted Ferrell films.

As many of you know from reading this blog, I’m not a Will Ferrell fan and I find most of his comedy to be about Will Ferrell acting like himself with a light façade of character portrait.

In “Everything Must Go” he showed that he can act well enough for me to forget that it was Will Ferrell on the screen but a real character. As Nick Halsey, he is a struggling alcoholic and top salesman with a large firm based out of Arizona In the opening sequence he is being fired for an incident he doesn’t fully recall during one of his slip-ups.

He pleads with his boss to give him another chance but then his boss reads off a long list of problems over the last few years and that he’s run out of chances. He comes home to find all his stuff on the front lawn of his house, his wife is gone, and the door locks have been changed. So what does he do, he starts drinking beer (his drink of choice) in the front yard in his favorite leather chair.

A young boy named Kenny (played by Christopher Jordan Wallace) who is riding his bicycle around the neighborhood stops and talks with him. He asks Kenny to watch his stuff while buys more beer. A woman named Samantha (played by Rebecca Hall) is moving in across the street and she befriends him as he sits outside his house drinking beer.

Nick has a sponsor who is a lieutenant on the police force. Frank (played by Michael Pena) tells him that he only has 5 days to get rid of the stuff on the lawn. So he gets ready to conduct a lawn sale.

In the end Nick gets that he needs to change his life and one of the things he realizes is that "Everything Must Go."

Ferrell is pretty good in this role. I actually forgot that it was Ferrell on the screen and became more engaged with his character. Wallace was wonderful as the young man who wanted a friend and found one in Nick. Hall was good as a steadfast woman hoping to save her marriage and as a neighbor who may end up like Nick’s wife. Pena was also good as Nick’s AA sponsor and friend. Laura Dern had a small role as an old high school friend of Nick’s and she did this well. Dan Rush and Raymond Carver wrote a strong script. There were a couple of misses, like Nick had his wallet when he went to the store, so the line to the police officers that his wallet was in his car, which was taken, was out of continuity. Dan Rush also directed this story and he had a pretty good feel for the story and characters in it.

Overall: A good film but it will have a limited audience.

The Beaver

First Hit:  An intense, well-acted and dark film which does bring some light to depression.

I was slightly amused at “dark film which does bring some light to depression”.

There is little lightness to depression but this film does bring this difficult state of mind into focus. As one who has gone through bouts of depression, the emptiness, listlessness, and lack of seeing any way out is powerfully embodied by Walter Black (played by Mel Gibson).

I’m sure anyone who lives with depression experiences it, or has it manifest, in differing ways. Here all Walter wants to do is sleep. His therapy is not helping nor are the pills given to him by the medical community. We only get small glimpse that he was once seen or perceived as happy through stories by his wife Meredith (played by Jodie Foster).

However, Walter is head of a family toy company that is going down the tubes. His wife supports him but only as she wants him to be. His older son Porter (played by Anton Yelchin) resents his father and is afraid he is turning out like him. He keeps sticky notes on the wall in his room listing all the similarities he has with his dad.

Walter’s youngest son Henry (played by Riley Thomas Stewart) feels invisible to everyone. This point is poorly demonstrated by his mother driving past her son when she goes to pick him up from school each day. Meredith kicks Walter out of the house and he ends up in a hotel with a few of his belongings, including a beaver hand puppet.

He drinks himself into a functional stupor and attempts to hang himself on the shower rod, but it fails. The puppet, on his hand, wakes him up with a different Aussie accent and begins to tell him that he should listen to The Beaver (puppet). The Beaver then becomes his constant companion talking in a live voice that has him engaging with the world.

He re-engages with his wife and youngest son and the people at work. The company becomes more successful because of an idea Henry and The Beaver tell him. Walter (and The Beaver) end up on talk shows but always with The Beaver talking. Meredith wants to have dinner with Walter but not The Beaver and it becomes disastrous.

In the end Walter has to take back his own life from The Beaver by severing their relationship and be open to his family seeing all of him again.

Gibson is either one of the greatest actors ever or he has a close relationship with depression. Regardless, to put that character up on the screen and make it real was powerful. Foster as his wife was good, but her tightness over rode a tender softness that also needed surfacing. However as director of this film she was fabulous. Yelchin as the older son who was living in fear that he’d become like his father was outstanding. Stewart was perfect as the young son that just believes that his dad is OK regardless if he’s the Beaver or not. Kyle Killen wrote a strong and risky screenplay that would have failed under another director and actor’s hands. Foster as I said was brilliant directing this cast and her understanding of the script.

Overall: This isn’t a pick-me-up type film but it is a very strong film about what many people struggle with.