Short Take: "Young Adult" and "A Dangerous Method".

The biggest problem with all of Jason Reitman's movies is that his characters never humanize the nifty, clever concepts they represent. Juno for example, never really was more than a smart-ass teenager who failed sex-ed, Ryan Bingham from Up in the Air failed to becomes something more than a symbol of the recession and  his female sidekicks in that one, were flat portrayals of society's insistence that women must play either whores or ice-queens. 

It results pleasantly surprising then to find a real human being in what posed to be Reitman's most artificial character yet. Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) had all the potential to become a caricature: a beautiful but emotionally hollow divorcee, who writes young adult fiction and decides to visit her hometown just to get her high school boyfriend (Patrick Wilson) back.

Yet what Theron does defies expectations of both the character and the actress' own ability to use her beauty to construct an even more beautiful performance. Mavis is quite an ugly person, she drinks too much, holds contempt for everyone she knows and seems to have no regard whatsoever for anything or anyone that isn't her. As written by Diablo Cody, Mavis has remained trapped in eternal adolescence, she is the ultimate "mean girl". As played by Theron she is a flawed human being who has earned a right to be this way. The actress doesn't look for easy explanations, other than the fact that Mavis is truly a unique person who can not be defined by societal standards. It's a pleasure to see Theron, for once, collaborating with her extraordinary physique; she doesn't hide it under makeup, prosthetic pieces or miner wear, she owns up to it in such a way that during the movie's most tender scene, she actually allows herself to be "ugly" selfconsciously. She also displays a knack for comedic timing (she and Patton Oswalt make the most unique comedy duo of 2011) and if anything else, she proves that the best acting comes from within. Check out the last scene in this movie, you never get to hate and love someone this much.

Christopher Hampton's screenplays often boast astonishing literary pedigree and more often than not feel almost too pompous in their achievements. While this might've worked perfectly for the nihilist seducers of Dangerous Liaisons it truly feels misguided in A Dangerous Method, a film that like Liaisons and Atonement, features a fascinating menage a trois through which the author explores the darkest desires of the human mind.
The issue is that this time around, the characters are real life people and quite notorious for that matter. The plot centers on the relationship between Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) and her psychoanalysts: Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen). Spielrein goes from being Jung's patient, to becoming his mistress which leads to melodramatic consequences and her eventual treatment with Freud.
For decades, David Cronenberg has been one of the most consistent researchers of what moves human sexuality and what desire consists of. It makes sense then that he would try to get to the essence of it by studying the men who obsessed over this as much as he did.
If Cronenebrg movies prove something is that the erotic element can be completely removed from intercourse and added to different elements. "Pleasure is never simple" adds one of the characters in this movie and the truth is that Cronenberg has been much more successful in exploring the complicated turns of sexuality in movies like Crash and even A History of Violence which successfully links the thrill of crime with the jolt achieved during an orgasm.
The film feels too polished for the subject it explores and its intellectualism is too often stalled by Hampton's excessive theatricality (the screenplay was based on his eponymous play). Perhaps the problem is that the movie is stuck between wanting to be a biopic and an auterist essay. Needless to say so, the cast is truly extraordinary with Mortensen creating a Freud for the ages. The actor infuses the famed analyst with his knack for knowing more about a character than he lets the audience knows. Watching his subtly passionate attempt to convince Jung of his beliefs is a true joy to watch and considering he could've spent the movie smoking cigars and mimicking Freud, his performance taps into something far more extraordinary.
The movie however owes itself to Knightley's brilliant work who as Spielrein gives the best performance of her career. Allowing her body to transform itself as Sabina endures the pain of her disorder, the actress disappears only to then blossom as her character finds new hope through intellectual development.

Grades
Young Adult ***
A Dangerous Method ***

Swoon (Russian Style).

Won't Anna Karenina be absolutely breathtaking?

Style Sunday.

*drools* 

I.

KNOW.

RIGHT.

This Dior clad beauty and more were discussed by Nathaniel and I over at The Film Experience.

Go read it now!

"What I wouldn't give to have tired of you?"

Last Night ***

Director: Massy Tadjedin

Cast: Keira Knightley, Sam Worthington, Eva Mendes, Guillaume Canet

Stephanie Romanov, Daniel Eric Gold

When did Keira Knightley become such a fascinating actress? Her performance in Last Night sneaks up on you in completely unexpected ways, proving that she's become one to watch. In the film she plays Joanna Reed, a modestly successful, but insecure writer married to real estate agent Michael (Worthington). Minutes into the running time the young couple arrive at a party where Joanna meets Michael's new coworker, the voluptuous Laura (Mendes), she watches her husband and this woman together and becomes convinced that they are having an affair.

Back home they engage in a discussion where she tries to squeeze the truth out of her husband, however she wants to hear the truth she thinks is real.

Massy Tadjedin's Last Night then slowly begins to show its true colors, it's not a standard drama in how it follows a chronological order, instead it's more of an exploration of what shapes our lives as adults and an oneiric study of what exactly constitutes love after marriage.

Some scenes are insterspersed with other scenes to highlight specific passages or to make us doubt what we are watching. This happens mostly in latter scenes where Joanna goes out with former lover Alex (Canet) while her husband is away on a business trip with Laura.

Director Tadjedin may not always be subtle, in fact some of these bits are enough to make your eyes roll as we can tell that she does indeed like some characters more than others and there are some stories she wished she'd pursued more.

Why then does she seem to punish some of the characters by condemning them to lives they obviously do not want? The truth is that the director faces these truths as absolute and wonders why have we created the need to adjust ourselves to the unwanted?

Last Night goes beyond being a Closer redux about how adults in romantic relationships hurt the hell out of each other and turns into a clever questioning of the power of love. Notice how she quietly reveals her interest in discovering whether two loves can live within the same heart. It's fortunate for the audience that she gives Knightley a real chance to show her chops and it's her character that haunts us the most after the movie ends (the last two minutes are a thing of real beauty).

To be fair though, everyone in the cast is superb, Worthington tries to imprint his character with a bit of mystery and turns out delivering a performance of troubled feelings, Canet has to do little more than smile to make us woo and wish we could leave our entire lives for him and surprisingly Mendes turns in some stunning, affecting work as the femme fatale who might not be one at all.

Last Night is a delightful reminder that movies about adults don't need to have screenplay gimmicks in order to catch our attention, this film, like having too much wine leaves you lingering on a cloud of fuzzy guilt and craving for more the following night.

Sheet-y Saturday.

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.

Unlike the rest of the planet I don't want to have Ryan Gosling's babies but I'm loving the old-school masculinity he brings to this new poster for Drive.

Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn who won the mise-en-scene prize at Cannes the film is a throwback to B movies and macho films so the poster embodies this effectively. Gotta love the unashamedly tacky pink font and Gosling's dirty look. I wasn't a fan of Refn's last film but this one seems quite promising.

Is this really the best they could come up with? They should've at least tried to do something like the cup and two faces psych trick. This is just so blah.

Kudos to whoever decided Keira Knightley's delicate frame looked so big it seems she can kick Viggo and Fassy's asses.

What's your take on these? Crazy to see Keira kick some Freudian ass?

Never Let Me Go ***½

Director: Mark Romanek

Cast: Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley

Andrea Riseborough, Sally Hawkins, Charlotte Rampling

Never Let Me Go begins with a title card that reveals we're about to take a trip to a past that never existed. One where human beings had finally found a way to cure disease and life expectancy had grown to 100 years.

This past also meant a different route had been taken and some had obviously suffered; however, we almost immediately understand that this isn't an exploration of the ethical rules and alternate history that shaped this events but merely a snapshot of a few lives trapped in it.

The scene then changes to Hailsham school, a seemingly idyllic boarding school where quite simply, clones were raised to donate organs during their adulthood.

Twenty-nine year old Kathy (Mulligan) narrates her own story, first within the confines of Hailsham and later in the "outer world". We see how as a child (played seamlessly by Isobel Meikle-Small) she develops a crush on the introverted Tommy (Charlie Rowe) and how, after they learn about the nature of their existence (in a perfect scene with a devastating Hawkes), their lives only seem to take a minor twist, as Kathy's friend Ruth (Knightley) begins a romantic relationship with Tommy.

Why the plot focuses more on the friends and not the secret they've just learned about their fates is one of the many things that make this such an enigmatically, beautiful piece.
Director Mark Romanek shoots Alex Garland's screenplay (based on Kazuo Ishiguro's novel) with the utmost trust in that there is an entire universe contained in what we are not seeing.
The matter of fact-ness with which these young people embrace the source of their existence is so unromantic that we are forced to wonder if we shouldn't in fact envy them, for they have already solved dilemmas that have plagued human kind since its start?
Where are we going? Where do we come from? Why are we here? Because of Romanek's precise hand and elegant formalism we see the characters' reactions as something that just couldn't have been any other way. These people have not been raised in the same way the rest of society was.

This makes it absolutely fascinating to watch as they try to fit in the world they only know through horror stories and eventually through duty. The cast does a terrific job in creating all these subtleties that don't entirely give them away but help establish the fact that they aren't as the others.
Knightley for example, seems to always hesitate before she does something. This hesitation is minimal and the actress disguises it beautifully giving us just enough. The plot may sometimes try to turn her into a villainous creature, or an antagonist to be more precise but because of the actress' committal to the role we see that this is just her nature.

Same with Garfield, whose contained performance doesn't really scream "romantic lead" but his quiet grace makes for something irresistible in the context.

In one of their best scenes together we see Tommy and Ruth have sex, as she acts like someone she must've seen on a movie, he covers his face unsure as to how he should be acting.
It's strange and somewhat off-putting that the filmmakers never really try to make us "understand" what's going on. We get a grasp that there's an entire hierarchy at work and that there must be harrowing stories to be told about these clones, yet by choosing to concentrate on these three characters we are being made part of the society that's beyond Hailsham.

As Ruth, Kathy and Tommy begin to get entangled in their very own way of love and survival, and the mood becomes more quietly moving and not macabre, we realize that this isn't a film about clones, it's a metaphor about existence itself.

Therefore Ishiguro, Garland and Romanek have gotten away with telling us the story about our own existences and making us believe we're watching something completely external. Once we begin to think about this, we are moved to explore if there is anything really natural about the things around us.
Is love, for example, a game we invent just to keep ourselves entertained while we await our demise? Do we not too sometimes stop fighting against a fate we have determined has been written in stone for us?

The movie's themes are embodied beautifully by Carey Mulligan's performance. Through her simple performance we realize that the fact she accepts her fate with such resignation makes the film's events all the more heartbreaking.

And it's ironic that the film should even result moving when everything about it is so sterile and distant.

Then it clicks on us, nothing in the movie is heartfelt because how could it be? When a heart is something that can be so easily extracted from us at any time.

Style Sunday.

I swear it's not my intention to have Carey Mulligan in every edition of this series but the girl sure can dress. She's the epitome of effortlessness cool in this Vionett tunic with a risky pattern that might've made other women look like a hippie art teacher from New Mexico.
The hair and makeup are flawless.


Keira Knightley is a complete vision in this simple Chanel dress. At first glance nothing seems entirely interesting about this look and some might say the creamy color washes Keira's pale complexion but look closer and you will notice hundreds of little pears holding the whole thing together.
For those who think pearls work better until you're an older lady this look kicks that conception right in the butt. The heavy black shoes to anchor the entire look are a stroke of genius!

What do you guys think about these two?

Sheet-y Saturday.

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.


The teaser was already a bit disappointing (with the whole I want to be Shrek vibe) and now is it just me or does the poster for Tangled seem completely icky?
All that hair! That conspicuous opening! It would've been a more appropriate poster for something like Teeth maybe...


Thanks to this magnificent new poster for Never Let Me Go I am now desperate to read the novel (best of the decade! according to the elegant quote from Time magazine)
Movie posters usually go one of two ways lately: creating specific concepts or terrible Photoshopping.
Rarely do we get movie stills as part of the campaign (I'm assuming this is a movie still by the way) and this one in particular has so much to say!
The beauty of the moment captured is that we don't know whether the characters are running to something or from something.
When to that you add the refreshingly odd sense of nostalgia brought by the peer and that genius stroke of typography genius in the "go" and we have something that promises more than I'd expected.
Will it deliver?

Seen anything good at your theater lobbies lately?

The Duchess **1/2

Director: Saul Dibb
Cast: Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes
Hayley Atwell, Dominic Cooper, Charlotte Rampling

In the year 1774 Georgiana Spencer (Knightley) was married to William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire (Fiennes).
After becoming Duchess, Georgiana became one of the most influential women of her time. She was a style and fashion icon who also took political matters at hand, despite the fact that women weren't allowed to vote, and supported the American Revolution among other controversial causes.
She also had to endure her husband's distance as he demanded a male heir from her, his constant infidelities and eventually even had to acknowledge his mistress, Lady Bess Foster (Atwell), as part of their family.
Georgiana eventually took a lover as well: Earl of Grey, and eventual Prime Minister and famous tea flavor, Charles (Cooper). If this all rings a bell it must be added that Georgiana was Lady Diana Spencer's great-great-great-great aunt.
The genealogical link invites us to wonder if the film's intention is to point out the Spencers bad luck with royal marriages, lead us to sigh about how little has changed in the role of women or just serve as an E! True Hollywood Story, two centuries in the making.
In what might be as close to a Princess Di biopic as we're getting any time soon, Dibb's adaptation of Amanda Foreman's biographic novel, is a gorgeously designed, fascinating, albeit aimless, portrait of womanhood in both the realms of royalty and society.
Since the characters are at the service of a director and a screenplay who have no real idea what is it they want to say, it's amazing how they deliver such amazing performances.
Knightley, who just keeps getting better and better, infuses Georgiana with a wit and charm beyond her time.
Barely a child when the film starts, by the conclusion she has evolved into a woman who's lived through more than what is expected of someone her age. The screenplay suggests that she was highly effective as a political advocate, but the only evidence we get of this is in the defiance Knightley gives Georgiana.
The film rarely shows us episodes outside her immediate space (Knightley is featured in almost every scene) and because of this our impressions of the character rely on some title cards, other characters' dialogues and mostly Knightley who perhaps doesn't need external help to make us perceive what everyone else saw in the Duchess.
Perhaps the most affecting quality about her character is her palpant disappointment when she realizes that her fairy tale is over. "Does he love me?" she asks to her mother (Rampling) after she learns of her bethrotal. The glow in her eyes as painful as her neglect to wonder if she loves him back.
Her change can be detected years later when she cynically agrees "how foolish of me to think I could converse with my husband", with this Knightley disappears as Georgiana emerges.
Atwell is wonderful as Lady Bess, because in all her Pompadour glory she makes it impossible for us to completely hate her, somehow we even begin to understand her choices.
But perhaps the character that stays with you the most is the Duke. The person we were supposed to see as a monster becomes in Fiennes expert hands as much a tragic figure as the heroine.
At film's start the Duke barely says a word and moves in a predatory way. During the honeymoon scene as he disrobes his wife he wonders why are their clothes so complicated. When she suggests that fashion is the only way left for women to express themselves something in his eyes suggests a sudden sadism in getting rid of them and just getting to the act.
We later begin to grasp the fact that his monstruosity was in fact that of a complete generation in which men were brought up to believe in mysogyny (with much support from the women themselves it must be said).
Fiennes mannerisms let us see that this is a man who finds it easier to express love to his dogs than to creatures he grew up thinking were meant to procreate.
"I love you in the way I understand love" he says to his wife and in one moment of revelation the film turns upside down making us wonder how much, if, either of them are to blame for the unhappiness in their lives.
Fiennes barely needs to speak to provide a touching portrait of why the political currents mentioned through the film are needed in the world.
Their characters are reminders of the need to evolve, which is why it's sad that "The Duchess" tries so hard to be so much at once without being anything.
When Georgiana attends the theater, a group of men sketch her picture which later appears in the papers as if they were winking "Hello" and "People" tabloid-ness from the screen.
We see little of what it is that made these people who they were and in the end the film never does justice to the historical people and to the absolutely brilliant actors playing them.

The Edge of Love **

Director: John Maybury
Cast: Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller, Cillian Murphy, Matthew Rhys

Loosely inspired on events in the life of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (Rhys), "The Edge of Love" is a period romance striving hard to become this year's literary masterpiece, specifically "Atonement" (hell, even their ad campaign compares itself to Joe Wright's film).
It opens in London during the Blitz were the luscious singer Vera Phillips (Knightley) performs in an underground venue, almost making people oblivious to the horrors going up above them. She runs into Thomas at a bar after a decade long absence. The poet was Vera's first love and as she starts to rekindle her feelings for him she meets his wife Caitlin (Miller).
Despite their inherent rivalry the trio begins a strange relationship, even moving in together, until Vera begins receiving the attentions of dashing soldier William Killick (Murphy) who she consequently marries to the disapproval of Thomas and without being convinced she really loves him.
William then is sent to combat, leaving his wife behind as she battles between who is it she really loves, with the hopes she chooses him in the end.
What should've been a traditional romantic plot is turned by director Maybury into a stale essay of the consequences of war and an unflattering portrait of Thomas.
Most of the events seem like excuses for cinematographer Jonathan Freeman to lens everything in a stunningly beautiful light; and truly who are we to complain when everything looks as if a vintage postcard had come to life?
But while the actors look at their best, the characters remain drained of any real emotion and motivation.
This happens because most of the plot turns around two notions: first that Thomas exudes such charm and is so irresistible that he can inspire two smart women to live in platonic poligamy while truth is that Rhys' performance is so uninspired that he can't even pass off as even talented for most of the film, much less impossible to live without, and we're supposed to buy his mad genius just because others say it's there. The second notion is that William is such a disposable character that the simple hope of an "I love you" can be the engine for his life.
In a way Thomas is a modern character, extracted from a contemporary film while William plays out like a Robert Taylor character of the era.
And it's truly a shame that the film fails to involve us emotionally because the women are exquisite. Miller had never been so visceral and rapturous, she almost disappears into Caitlin and in some demanding scenes she underplays her every move.
Knightley on the other side just keeps on growing as a performer, here she sings, beautifully (Angelo Badalamenti's compositions suit her perfectly) and during one key moment after an air strike hits London, she goes from frightened to sensual (and convinces you that she must be cast in a musical soon!).
The rest of the film has her rehashing her role from "Atonement", especially every time she whispers that "come back to me" line; but near the end you realize her character has turned into a full blown woman.
Maybury's debut film was also a free spirited take on the life of a celebrated artist, they both were visually daring and had some remarkable performances, but were emotionally drained.
It's sad and disappointing that "The Edge of Love" barely stays on the sidelines.

A Different Shade of Keira.