A Private War

First Hit: First Hit: Rosamund Pike (as Marie Colvin) gives a deeply complex performance of a war correspondent who brought personal stories of war victims to the forefront.

War isn’t just about the leaders of countries with idealistic differences and the soldiers of those leaders; it is about the victims of this conflict. Colvin was a committed pioneer in going into conflicts and documenting, in newspaper articles, the stories of the families, wives, mothers and children of wars around the world.

The film begins with her covering the conflict in Homs, Syria, and then segues to some of the previous wars she covered in her career. Sri Lanka is where she lost sight in her left eye. This causes her to begin to wear a black patch that became part of her persona. Then the film takes us on tour with Colvin as she goes to various war zones in the world to see how she covered these wars and how she uncovered her powerful stories.

What we learn is that she was fearless in action although she felt fear. She was incredibly rebellious against authority whether it be the publication she wrote for, or with the leaders she interviewed. Watch her poignant questions to Libya’s Muammar Mohammed Abu Minyar Gaddafi, commonly known as Colonel Gaddafi. An outstanding scene.

Early on in her investigations she had difficulty finding a photographer that would work well with her. Then she happened on Paul Conroy (Jamie Dornan) who became a wonderful companion and friend to Colvin.

As for Colvin’s personal life, we see early on her defensive, reactive nature towards her former husband and people really close to her. She allowed few to get close and preferred to be harsh and flippant to the people who cared about her. She drank heavily (“started drinking at age 15”), and suffered from PTSD. For a short time, she took up residence in a hospital to help her deal and process the horrible events she lived through.

What we don’t get a deep dive on is Marie’s background. I kept wondering why she was so rebellious and reckless with her own life. Not only did she put herself in positions where she could be killed, she smoked incessantly and drank excessively.

However, through all this self-destruction she was able to relate to mothers (although she didn’t have children herself), and families with deep compassion which came out in her writing.

Pike was fantastic. When, in the credits, we hear the real Colvin’s voice, we notice that Pike got her voice perfectly. Dornan was excellent as Colvin’s photographer. It’s nice to see him in a non-villain role. Tom Hollander (playing Sean Ryan) as Colvin’s foreign correspondent boss was excellent. It must have been difficult to manage someone who had such a strong will while looking out for his reporter's health and welfare. Stanley Tucci as Tony Shaw, Colvin’s late in life lover was strong as the guy who accepted Colvin as she was. Corey Johnson (as Norm Coburn) a photographer that was always first one in and last one out of a conflict was fantastic. Nikki Amuka-Bird as Colvin's closest friend Rita Williams was wonderful. She was frankly supportive of Colvin. Marie Brenner wrote a strong script allowing Matthew Heineman to deliver this complex story in an engaging and powerful way.

Overall: I wanted more background about Colvin, yet I was blown away by the depth of the story of her in war zones.

What They Had

First Hit: Touching, poignant, funny, and unless you’ve been near the subject it might be difficult to understand this story.

This film is about he hard choices some families must make about putting parents into assisted care.

We begin with Ruth (Blythe Danner) getting up, putting on a robe and walking out the front door. The ground is covered with snow, there’s no one on the streets and she heads down a empty snowy street to get to somewhere in her past. Her husband Bert (Robert Forster) wakes up some time later, notices his wife is not in bed, gives a slight here we go again look that quickly turns to caring concern, and he bolts out the door looking for Ruth.

He calls his son Nick (Michael Shannon) who lives nearby, who in turn, contacts his sister Bridget (Hilary Swank). Nick goes out searching for his Mom, while Bridget flies back to her home town to see if she can help. Ruth has increasing stages of dementia and it is getting more difficult for Bert, who has a bad heart, to manage and care for his wife, but he’s stubborn. Nick, being close by, wants to get his mom into a care facility and his father into assisted living. Bert is vehemently resisting this sort of move. Compounding this is that Bridget has power of attorney and rarely there to see what Nick, Bert, and Ruth go through.

A subplot to the main story is that Bridget is in an unhappy marriage and has huge communication issues with their daughter Emma (Taissa Farmiga). Emma has been doing poorly in college, wants to quit and her parents are pushing her to continue.

Bridget and Emma fly back together so the audience knows this sub-plot will get attention as well.

The scenes between Bridget (aka Bitty) and Nick are dynamically interesting and full of great dialogue. Their interaction when they agree and disagree is right on target. I especially liked how Nick finally tells Bridget that she’s out of touch with their parents and how exhausted he is being an upscale bar owner and the “go to” person when there is an issue with Ruth—and there’s always an issue.

Bridget tries to be a mediator, trying to find a middle path but ends up alienating both Nick and Bert. When she has a huge argument with her dad about assisted care, she finally tells him that he’s never listened to her or asked what it is she’d like in life, including her marriage. This was an excellent scene because she was doing the same thing to Emma, not asking what Emma wanted and ignoring her.

Bitty’s clumsy attempt at a flirtation with an old high-school friend was excellent. I loved how he charged her an enormous amount for changing the locks. Bitty’s surprise look was perfect.

This film has a lot to say about how families navigate through the emotions and practicalities of a loved one with dementia.

Swank was excellent and teamed with Shannon had great scenes of brotherly and sisterly love and frustration. When Swank climbs into bed with Emma, a wonderful softening takes place. Shannon was excellent as the brother who was showing up and doing his best. That his father had no respect that he was a bar owner (“…you tend bar don’t you, you’re a bartender…”) and ran his own business was perfect. I especially loved when Bert finally came to see the bar and ordered a martini. Danner was amazing as Ruth. She really captured the look and sense of someone who had forgotten who her husband was and then would remember everything. She segued from one state of presence to another with sublime clarity of the role and the disease. Forster was excellent as the stubborn husband and dad that knows best about everything. When he gets up and realizes that Ruth has left the house, there is a quick moment of, shit not again look, that segues into I care and have got to find her. This quick set of expressions was perfect. Farmiga was very strong as Emma, the troubled daughter that wasn’t being heard by her parents and she’d had enough of living their expectations for her. Elizabeth Chomko wrote and directed this wonderful glimpse into a family struggling with how to deal with a loved one’s battle with dementia.

Overall: This film is not everyone’s cup of tea, however, it is an excellent film about a real issue many families face.

Wildlife

First Hit: Finely crafted story about a young man coming into his own while witnessing a failing marriage.

This was actor Paul Dano’s directing debut and he nailed it. When creating a complex, stylistic, story that depends on his actors' ability to convey a story, it’s important that the director get the most out of subtle yet powerful story.

It also is a benefit if the director has actors that can make the story come alive. In Wildlife, we watch Carey Mulligan (playing wife Jeanette Brinson), Jake Gyllenhaal (playing husband Jerry Brinson), and Ed Oxenbould (playing son Joe Brinson).

Jeanette and Jerry are a struggling to survive couple in Montana. It’s in the 1960s and they’ve moved there in hopes of bettering their life. Jerry has had problems keeping jobs and here he works for a golf course, but the owner thinks, as an employee  he’s overstepped his boundaries with customers. They fire him, and his despondence is in direct conflict with his natural ability to be friendly, optimistic, and ability to look for the upside. He's confused and hurting.

He and Jeanette help Joe with his homework because the moving from place to place has made it difficult for Joe to find traction in school. But as this story evolves Joe gets to grow and learn about himself and in this film, we see this slow, sure transition.

Jeanette, who has the second most screen time must find her place in life. When Jerry leaves them to fight fires because he needs to find some work. The tension in the family starts to really show when Jerry leaves to go fight fires. Jeanette, unhappy with his decision, finds work for herself and also begins to change her unsatisfied life. While teaching people to swim she becomes close with Warren Miller (Bill Camp) who is one of the more successful men in town. Looking for some security in her life, she begins to flirt with Warren.

Joe, watching all this, is confused. Getting a job as a photographer’s assistant, he begins to learn something about himself and his place in the family. Some of the conversations with his mom are very revealing in that they show how unsure Jeanette is about what to do as a parent and what will make her happy. When she asks Joe, if he likes his name, I thought the question alone was revealing.

The pacing of this film could use some help, but because the acting was so strong by all four main characters the uneven pace was easily overlooked.

Mulligan was excellent. This was a wonderful and revealing role for her. It showed extraordinary depth. Gyllenhaal was wonderful as the husband. His internal agony and outward optimism was wonderfully balanced. His loud outburst in the kitchen during one of their fights was jarringly perfect. Oxenbould was amazing as the young boy watching his family fall apart. His concern for his father, and love and support for his mom were wonderful. But watching his subtle growth in this story was perfect. Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan wrote a strong script, capturing small town 60s perfectly. Dano got excellent work from his actors.

Overall: This was an excellent, strong, and delicate film.

Bohemian Rhapsody

First Hit: Accurate or not, this film was fun, well-acted, engaging, and joyful.

Like many, I liked and enjoyed much of Queen’s music. The song Bohemian Rhapsody was one of those songs that broke new ground and confounded music executives. The development of having the audience be the music by stomping twice and clapping once in “We Will Rock You,” was brilliant. It became part of their anthem. And finally, “We Are the Champions” is a song that continues to be used world-wide by sports teams as well as lots of other groups.

This film’s focus is on Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek). Born with four extra incisors, his teeth gave him a unique look. His family’s religion, Zoroaster, gave him a homelife that was restrictive and eventually he changed his name from Farrokh Bulsara to Freddy Mercury to help him distance himself from his family and background.

The scenes when the band is figuring out songs together spoke a lot about how they co-created their music. They were misfits together as a group, and they claimed that much of their audience were the misfits in the world.

Freddie grew up confused about his sexual orientation. He did fall in love with Mary Austin (Lucy Boyton) who became his wife, ex-wife, lifelong friend, and supporter. It was with Mary that you could see Freddie relax and not need be “on.”

What made this film work was the music and how the band was always there for the music.

Although, there are misrepresentations in this film about Freddie, when he contracted AIDs, that wasn’t the point, it was about how this group of men worked together to create music together. It was about how Freddie represented Queen as their front man, and that they were a team of musicians.

Malek was sublime as Mercury. Although he didn’t actually sing any of the songs, he lip-synced perfectly while capturing the grandiose way Mercury was the front man for Queen. Boynton was excellent as Mercury’s female love. Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy, and Joseph Mazzello were extraordinary as Queen band members Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon respectively. Anthony McCarten and Peter Morgan wrote a wonderful story. Bryan Singer made this story come alive, but I’ve got to say, the music is the star right behind Malek.

Overall: Thoroughly enjoyed the power of Queen’s music and to add great acting by Malek and the band helped even more.

Can You Ever Forgive Me

First Hit: Excellent acting about a caustic, friendless author that finally finds her voice.

Lee Israel (Melissa McCarthy) is a biographer who is fixated on writing Fanny Brice biographies. She appeared once on the NYT Best Seller list but that was years ago. Her Agent tells her she’s got to change, but Lee, an obsessive alcoholic, likes her alienating way of living.

Then Lee loses her late-night editing job because she drinks and swears at her co-workers. Broke, with a sick cat, and behind in her rent she stumbles across an envelope with a typed and signed letter from a famous deceased author. She takes this letter to a book and artifact seller who gives her a few hundred dollars.

Realizing that she could sell forge letters with old typewriters and seasoned paper, she begins a quest of creating letters, signing them, and selling them to collectors and people who sell to collectors.

She befriends Jack Hock (Richard E. Grant) who is a homeless gay man at a bar who is also a drunk. Together the conspire to make and sell lots of these fake letters. Enjoying the fruits of their labor they eat well and Israel gets her old cat healed. Anna (Dolly Wells), one of the buyers of Lee’s fake letter, likes Lee and suggests they have dinner together. Sensing that Anna wants to get close, Lee blows her off but not before she accepts one of Anna’s short stories Anna would like feedback on.

This points out one of the incomplete and unsatisfying parts of the film. The film shows Lee reading this short story but never getting back to Anna. Another aspect of the story I would have liked more visibility into was why was Israel so cold, mean, and alienating towards people.

The forgeries are found out and the FBI is now after Lee. Getting caught through another one of Hock’s blunders, they create a plan to steal real letters and replace the real letters with her fakes.

As one imagines, she gets caught and is told to make restitution for her crimes. The result she now has something to write about and this story is the result.

McCarthy is sublime as Israel. She made this unlikeable character engaging, curiously interesting, and watchable. Grant was fantastic as the bon vivant wanna be that lived life on his charm alone. Wells was strikingly engaging as the bookseller who cared about Israel. I loved her trusting softness. Jane Curtin as Israel’s agent Marjorie was excellent, direct and forthcoming. Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty wrote a strong and engaging screenplay. Marielle Heller did an excellent job of directing this film except I would have liked some closure on Anna’s script storyline.

Overall: This was a crafted film with excellent acting.