Certain Women

First Hit:  A very thoughtful film that deepens and, at times, darkens with feelings just as the Montana winter closes in.

This film is, in essence, three separate yet interrelated stories of three women and their relationship with their inner self, work and the world about them. The film opens with Laura Wells (Laura Dern), as an attorney, having an affair with Ryan (James Le Gros) who happens to be Gina Lewis’s (Michelle Williams), husband. The strength and intelligence of this film is displayed in this opening scene. Long camera shots letting scenes play themselves out with words being a secondary communication device. The camera focuses on the faces letting the audience peer within the character. Of particular beauty was the stark motel room, only seeing Ryan, through the oval wall mirror, while Laura laid on the bed, contemplating the events, her life and her feelings about it.

Laura finds herself enabling a client named Fuller (Jared Harris) who is lost after a work event that left him disabled and unable to continue working. He’s confused and refuses to believe that he gave away his rights for a tort suit against his former employer as explained by Laura. These scenes of enabling build up to where she finally changes the situation.

Gina is introduced to the audience as she is warming down from a run, smoking a cigarette, and walking through a forested path. She’s serious and thoughtful in her look as she enters a campground. We soon learn she’s the powerful one in her family consisting of her husband Ryan and daughter Guthrie (Sara Roder). There is a moment when Gina indicates she dislikes being made the villain in the family. She feels undermined by Ryan which shows up as they discuss obtaining sandstone for the home they are building from Albert’s (Rene Auberjonois) yard. The long shots on her face left me feeling haunted by the weight she is bearing.

We meet Jamie (Lily Gladstone) working on a horse ranch. She leads a quiet life tending horses, watching TV, and eating. The scenes of her existence were made more lively, and funny to the audience, by the Corgi that always chases her as she puts hay into the corrals for the horses. The darkness of where she lives and the barn mirrors the loneliness of her life. One evening she gets into her truck and ventures to a school where she quietly takes root in the back row of a class with four other adults. The others in the class know each other, she’s an outsider. Into the classroom walks a young lawyer named Beth (Kristen Stewart) and we learn she’s a newly minted lawyer and has driven 4 hours to teach a class on Student / Educational Law. She acknowledges she knows little about this but has been studying. All the students, except Jamie, ask questions that directly affect themselves and try Beth’s patience. By going to a diner after class Jamie and Beth learn more about each other. Again, the long camera shots on their faces was extraordinary in giving the audience a glimpse of what is going on within them. What is going on with Jamie is that she is falling in love with Beth.

This is what made this film strong. In male oriented films there are quicker camera movements and more cuts. There is more of an overt purpose in directing the story in a particular direction, here the audience finds their way into the story by studying these women through their faces and movements.

Dern was amazing as someone who is alone, competent, caring and struggling to not be an enabler. Williams was sublime as a beautifully powerful strong woman that is finding her way through family life and what it is she wants her home to be. Harris is interesting as the man who is confused and dismayed at his current predicament. His reliance on Laura is interestingly dependent. Le Gros is good as the detached husband who is dependent on his strong wife. Gladstone was amazing. I loved her quiet depth, her aching heart, and pragmatic persistence. She was so powerful in this film by saying so very little. Stewart was wonderful as the object of Jamie’s affection. One of my favorite exchanges was when Beth said that in her family, the highest job they could attain was being a shoe salesperson. That she became a lawyer was something she held on to with tenuous hope and the audience feels this. Auberjonois was exceptionally sweet as a man slowly losing his memory. Kelly Reichardt wrote and directed this with an eye for letting the characters show what is going on with themselves by letting the camera see them. A job well done.

Overall:  This film is not for everyone, but if you want to gaze into the depth of certain women, see “Certain Women”.

Inferno

First Hit:  It started interestingly and then simply fell off the table by an overly complex and poorly developed script, poor acting, and feeble direction.

I’ve not been a fan of any of the Da Vinci Code oriented films. The best was the first and quickly sank with Angles & Demons. It stays on this downward track with Inferno. Here we’ve got Tom Hanks reprising his character Robert Langdon, who knows more than anyone about Dante, his words, and other’s interpretations of Dante’s work.

The film starts confusingly with Langdon hurt in the hospital with a head injury. He’s confused and is being attended by a physician named Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones). We are also introduced to Billionaire Bertrand Zobrist (Ben Foster), who is convinced that the world is on the verge of collapse. It is 11:59 – one minute till the world collapses because of over population and environmental issues caused by the over population. To right this sinking ship, he wants to spread a virus that will wipe out earth’s population.

With these two plot setups; Langdon being attacked, having amnesia, and why he has a projection device showing Dante’s hell in a picture but the picture has been altered, and the other setup is Zobrist wants to destroy the world’s population. Added to this we have people trying to kill Langdon, the WHO (World Health Organization) trying to stop Zobrist, WHO agent Christoph Bouchard (Omar Sy) who appears to be on some other side, Vayentha (Ana Ularu) a motorcycle riding person wanting to kill Langdon, and Harry Sims (Irrfan Khan) a hired security consultant whose interest in anything is questionable.

Confused, you got it, and that is how the film unfurled itself. What really muddied up this story is that the writer and/or director wanted Langdon to have a tangential and unrequited love interest with WHO’s Elizabeth Sinskey (Sidse Babett Knudsen).

Some of the visual scenes were well shot which helped me to stay somewhat engaged with this lackluster movie. I also loved the, from the air, shots of Venice and Istanbul.

With a bad screenplay and poor direction Hanks was as bad as I’ve ever seen him. There just isn’t enough to be interested in or care about with his character. The device of having him slowly get his memory back during the first half of the film was a waste of Hanks’ talent. Jones character was better than Hanks, but I didn’t buy the shift in her role late in the film. It didn’t surprise me and it just didn’t work. Foster was OK as the guy predicting the end of the world. Khan’s role was sufferable and difficult to watch let alone buy. Knudsen was good in her role until it got to the emotional connection with Langdon, that part denigrated the character. Sy’s role didn’t seem defined and was unclear; it didn’t work for me. Ularu was in a poorly constructed and acted role. David Koepp wrote a horribly convoluted screenplay. Ron Howard knows how to direct so I don’t know what went wrong with the film outside of him just doing his best with the presented screenplay.

Overall:  If there is another film in this series I will not go see it.

Keeping Up with the Joneses

First Hit:  At times funny but it became more ridiculous as the story progressed.

The setup is that Jeff and Karen Gaffney (Zach Galifianakis and Isla Fisher), with their children, are a happy well-adjusted family in suburbia. He’s a human resources manager at a large company that employees much of the town. She’s a bathroom designer. Their boys have been sent to camp for the summer. An empty house near theirs is sold to the Joneses, Tim and Natalie (Jon Hamm and Gal Gadot respectively). From the beginning Karen suspects the Joneses are a bit odd and through some funny investigation, discovers they might possibly be spies.

The Gaffney’s continue their growing friendly relationship with the Joneses but their caution is rewarded and eventually the Gaffney's learn the truth about the Joneses. The rest of the film is how they team up to find out who, in Jeff’s company, is selling microchips to the enemy.

There are truly some funny bits, but then these behaviors get over played deflating the point of the behavior in the first place. The action scenes are OK but the car chase (Mercedes and motorcycles) was too long and not believable.

Galifianakis is funny and his behaviors that make him funny tend to be repeated more than needed. Fisher’s character is more interesting than Galifianakis by being inquisitive and less predictable. Hamm was solid as the undercover spy that wants his life to change. Gadot’s character was a little over done for me. More humor from her would have helped. Patton Oswalt was funny enough as Scorpion the villain. Michael LeSieur wrote a partially funny script but behaviors in scenes were repetitive. Director Greg Mottola had good actors but a script that failed to expand the story and characters.

Overall:  After watching the film, it is easily forgotten.

American Pastoral

First Hit:  Interesting look back into the 1960s and, although it was confusing at times, it did make me think about a powerful time in America.

If you grew up in the 1950s and 60s, you probably knew or had heard of “the guy” who was the most popular guy in school, was on all the high school teams, was a letterman on all those teams, and married the prettiest girl in class. They led the idyllic lives.

Here we have Seymour “Swede” Levov (Ewan McGregor) as that man. We are introduced to his legend through the 45th high school reunion where his the Swede’s brother Jerry Levov (Rupert Evans) speaks with Nathan Zuckerman (David Strathairn), a friend of his and Seymour’s. It is through Jerry telling Nathan the story that this film unfolds.

Swede marries Dawn (Jennifer Connelly) a New Jersey beauty queen. Because she is Catholic and Swede is Jewish, the Swede’s father Lou (Peter Riegert) wants to meet and question Dawn prior to their marriage. The Swede tells her to be strong during the meeting because this is what Lou admires. This discussion is well done and a strong scene in the film.

Swede ends up running the family business in Newark and is easily in the upper middle class. He and his wife move to a small rural town where they begin to raise their daughter Merry (Dakota Fanning). The film sets the ideal life with family dinners, mother and daughter working their cows, and even the birth of calves.

However, this pastoral scene starts to get darker as Merry begins to show her independence and anger towards the US Government’s involvement in the war of Vietnam and societies’ bent towards making money. I recall this attitude in many people including myself and the protest movements during this time. What complicates her internal struggle is that she also stutters. The psychologist they have tells Dawn and Swede that it is because she is struggling with her mom’s beauty and perfectness.

Merry runs away and is accused of blowing up the local rural post office (government facility) and killing the proprietor, whom the whole family knows. She disappears and Swede is distraught and beside himself and cannot let go that his daughter might have become part of an underground movement. Dawn begins to disappear from living, sells her cows and begins to slip into a deep depression.

From a filming standpoint, if feels over controlled and directed. The film is longer than needed to tell the story and this is a director issue as well.  To know what I mean watch a Clint Eastwood directed film and this one, Eastwood’s films are crisp, sometimes almost too crisp, and he gets the story told. In this film we have some long and languished scenes that supported the idyllic life they were living but some could have been cut or made shorter and made the film better. I also didn't believe the reasons for Merry’s stuttering and I don’t know if this was a screenplay issue or a directional issue.

McGregor was good as Swede but I also think his directing of himself got in the way of his performance. I did think, as a director, many of the scenes were well presented and setup well. Connelly was fantastic. I was mesmerized by her ability to put together a wonderful series of transitions as Dawn went from beauty queen romanced by the absolute best guy available, to a mother who cared, to cow farmer, to concerned and troubled mother, to depressed wife, and to remade wife through plastic surgery. Fanning was very strong in this very difficult and complex role. Although I didn’t fully buy her scripted logic for her actions, I bought how she made it work. Riegert was particularly good as Swede’s opinionated and robust father. John Romano wrote the screenplay from the Philip Roth novel. I do think there were some weaknesses in the script, and McGregor didn’t help this much.

Overall:  This could have been a stronger film with a crisper screenplay and clearer direction.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

First Hit:  Better than the first but still not quite as strong as other loner films, such as the Bourne series.

The first film was entertaining mostly because Tom Cruise (as Jack Reacher) is good at what he does, be intense, entertaining, and be Tom Cruise. One never loses the thought that it is Tom Cruise on the screen. In other words, it is Cruise with a character's name, in this case Jack Reacher. Not that this is bad, however there is never any doubt about who is starring in the film.

In Cruise films there always seems to be a scene where he's in a shower and the shot is a profile of the water hitting his head and then flowing down his face. It is generally to show is anguish and his human side before he gets revitalized to go out and do become the intense focused character he’s playing. This film is no different.

In this version of Reacher, the opening scene has Cruise assisting the government in rounding up a sheriff who is trafficking illegal aliens. This sets up Reacher as someone who gets the job done, even if it sets him up for additional issues. This opening also tells us that Reacher is smart, knows what is going to happen, and has a singular focus. The writer and director tell us all we need to know by telling the Sheriff what is going to happen in the next 90 seconds. The sheriff laughs, then realizes that Reacher has the last laugh.

The biggest flaw I saw at the beginning of the film was how did he have such a close working relationship with Major Turner (Cobie Smulders), the person who took his job in the Army? This was never well established and this little loose end bothered me throughout the film. The film made a big deal about them meeting for the first time, and that they had a phone relationship, but somehow it didn’t work for me. However, their on-screen chemistry worked and they were well match with intensity.

The plot is about Reacher and Smulders finding out who is using the US Government Military complex to perpetrate fraud why. It has to do with arms dealers, government contractors, and drugs. To move the plot, in an interesting and heartfelt way, Reacher is accused of not providing child support to Samantha (Danika Yarosh) who happens to attach herself to him and Smulders as they find themselves in the thick of a battle between the government’s MPs and the contractors.

Cruise is Cruise. He gives you all he has, he does it well but in the end it is never about the character but it is Tom Cruise. Smulders is very strong in her character and in her physicality. Yarosh is very good and I like what she brought to the film. Aldis Hodge was OK as a MP captain charged with bringing Reacher to justice. My favorite character in this film was Madalyn Horcher as Sargent Leach who helps Reacher with information as the story unfolds. Lee Child and Richard Wenk wrote the screenplay and it is works better than the first Reacher film, but all told it isn’t very strong. Edward Zwick did well to present this story and the characters in an interesting way, but it wasn’t an overall strong film.

Overall:  When you compare a film like this with a Jason Bourne film, the storyline, why it is shot, and the acting are far superior.