Life During Wartime ***

Director: Todd Solondz
Cast: Shirley Henderson, Allison Janney, Ally Sheedy
Ciarán Hinds, Paul Reubens, Michael K. Williams, Michael Lerner
Dylan Riley Snyder, Christopher Marquette, Renée Taylor
Charlotte Rampling

Last we saw the Jordan sisters-Joy, Trish and Helen-they were going through some heavy issues. Joy, was trying to overcome her lover's suicide and find an emotionally balanced man, Trish was coming to terms with her husband Bill's arrest on charges of pedophilia and Helen was coping with the burdens of artistic expression.
The year was 1998, the film was Happiness and all these characters were being played by different actors.
It's impossible not to wonder why Solondz would want to revisit these characters in the first place. These weren't people you exactly wanted to spend more time with; they were damaged, cruel, painful to watch and most of the time impossible to empathize with.
Perhaps this is why he cast new actors, to provide these familiar people with different shades, to make their return easier to assimilate or is there something more metaphysical to all this and the drastic change is meant to symbolize how much these people have actually been transformed (it's also interesting to wonder if this film will appeal to those who haven't seen the original).
Joy is now played by Henderson who infuses her with an elfish vulnerability. The film starts in the same way Happiness did and for a second or two we wonder if Solondz is trying to parody his own movie. Joy even says she feels "just a little deja vu" and as the film advances, the screenplays throws in all sorts of meta references and stunt casting (Reubens plays the ghost of Joy's ex-lover and it's inevitable to avoid associating another character with Reuben's own past).
Janney's Trish is a sad combination of hope and regret, the actress tones down on the bitchiness of her predecessor and turns Trish into someone a bit more human. Her relationship with her son Timmy (Snyder) is the equivalent of the one her husband (Hinds) had with their son Billy (Marquette) in the prequel.
Watching her discuss rape with her child doesn't have the morbidness one would expect. It's not as if Solondz gets pleasure out of scandalizing, it just shows how these characters must cope with the complications of being parents, for what exactly can be defined as good parenting?
Are they better off by concealing sexual concepts from their children or are they doing good by being explicit about what goes on during intercourse. In fact one of the film's "twists" has a lot to do with misconception and mis-communication on this subject.
The overall theme of the film is the quest to fulfill the adage of "forgive and forget", Solondz asks us how are these characters supposed to act when their country is at war.
Timmy brings up terrorism all the time and he interrogates his mom's boyfriend (Lerner) about his opinions on matter he finds imperious.
But what are we supposed to make of the characters' coldness, emotional messes, perversions and such, when the fact is that the war mentioned isn't even being fought in their country?
Are they shielding themselves from accepting that maybe they too have responsibility in their own lives? Before they can move on and forget we have to wonder if these characters will be able to forgive themselves for starters.

The Road **1/2

Director: John Hillcoat
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smith-McPhee, Charlize Theron
Robert Duvall, Molly Parker, Guy Pearce, Michael K. Williams

After an unexplained cataclysm almost destroyed the planet, a man (Mortensen) and his son (Smith-McPhee) try to survive among the last remains of humanity.
They have to hide from people who became cannibals, look for food and find a way to get to the Gulf Coast where they think they will be safe.
Along the way they encounter several characters and problematic situations that force them to analyze if staying alive is really worth the risks.
Their only weapon is a gun with two bullets which they planned to use on each other upon reaching an extreme case.
Trying hard to be more than an apocalyptic "Paper Moon" the plot worries less about the lead characters' surroundings than about their relationship and how familiar traditions like father/son dynamics might be the only things that survive doomsday.
We see as the boy tries hard to grasp the loss of a world he never knew (he was born days after the tragedy began) and how the father copes with the memory of his wife (Theron) and how she chose death over life in a decaying world.
"Each day is more gray than the day before" narrates Mortensen even if we the movie was shot in a muddy palette by Javier Aguirresarobe which gives it a sense of dirtiness which inevitably makes us think that this is done with the eventual intention of purification on director Hillcoat's part.
The movie suffers from serious tonal unbalance as it travels from road movie with thriller elements, to intimate drama without ever justifying its choices.
Its most distressing problem lies on how much it tries to be a book. The screenplay was adapted from Cormac McCarthy's award winning novel and even if you haven't read it, you know the characters and actions were extracted from a novel.
The too poetic narration for example creates a weird separation between how Mortensen's character sees the world and how he refers to it.
More than haunting verses, his storytelling hints of insanity. When these words are paired with golden flashbacks involving Theron the film drifts to a place that isn't justified emotionally by the characters but suggests two different movies were made and then pasted together.
It's good that Mortensen gives a performance with enough power to distract us from the screenplay's inconsistencies.
He gives this man a tragic soul and most of his work is done with his eyes that peek from behind a huge beard and dirt. The man doesn't need big lines to evoke loss, despair and his immense love for the child.
Smith-McPhee comes off a bit obnoxious at times, but his performance makes sense given that he clings to his father and demands him to teach him all he needs to know.
The scenes where they just eat together and share seemingly insignificant moments are the ones where the whole movie is at its best.
Sadly Hillcoat never explores elemental things like why they have fought to stay alive for so long in a world that obviously won't last long.
The repercussions of such existential questions could've sparked debates of hope and human pride, but in "The Road" they are just as mysterious as the planet's destruction.
"Whoever made humanity will not find humanity here" says an old man (played brilliantly by Duvall) and hard as it tries the same can be said about this too mechanical movie.