INFINITE STORM

 Naomi Watts     Billie Howle     Denis O’Hare

            You will get chilled and exhausted as you watch this 127 Hours (Danny Boyle) type of thriller about a rescue in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.  Pam Bales (Watts) heads out for a day of hiking carefree.  Her friend notes that a storm is coming, and shouldn’t she stay home?  No, she treasures her time in the mountain wilderness for the healing she experiences after the heartbreaking losses in her life.  It’s a time when she can feel free.

            Pam notices when it starts thundering and snowing, but she keeps going undeterred until she realizes a blizzard is mounting, and she heads back down.  She has to pause from time to time, and experiences real terror when she falls into a deep hole.  Now and then she thinks she hears voices and even blows her whistle but gets no response. Then, she spots sneaker prints in the snow and soon comes upon a figure sitting on the edge of a mountain.  He is mostly unresponsive, so she says she will call him ‘John’ and assures him she is from Search and Rescue.  It’s clear from watching her that she knows what she is doing, and fortunately she had packed extra supplies in her backpack.  How the man is dressed is puzzling; he is wearing sneakers and casual clothes.

            Pam is able to rouse him and warm up his body; but there is something besides his clothing that is strange to behold.  He is very uncooperative, and on their descent when times get tough, he tells her, “I can’t do it!”  This is perhaps the most surprising aspect of the movie—someone who does not want to be rescued and consequently puts both him and his rescuer in danger.

            At times, the viewer will get disgusted when he behaves so childishly as a grown man.  Come to think of it, most children would put him to shame.  You wonder at her persistence in continually goading him when he clearly wants to sit and die.  He can’t inch his way on a log over a stream without falling in the water below.

            Naomi Watts is at her best in going about her business with determination.  (Kudos to her and the filmmakers for realistically showing the aging, stresses and strains in her face when she is normally seen as a beauty.)  We learn at the end of the film what is behind her determination, and where it might not have made sense before, it does now.  Watts is a treasured actor (King Kong, Mulholland Drive, 21 Grams, Birdmen) generally admired for her skills, and she shows “true grit” in this particular role where she must act as a therapist out in the brutal elements.  Billie Howle does a commendable job, albeit in an unadmirable role.

            Lorne Balfe’s music provides needed relief during the numerous tense moments of Infinite Storm, and Javier Aguirresarobe’s cinematography captures the brilliant snowy mountain landscape in a way that enhances the emotionality.  Polish female director, Malgorzata Szumowska (Never Gonna Snow Again), has won numerous awards in Europe, but is relatively new to the U.S. scene.  Screenwriter Joshua Rollins based the plot on the real-life experience of Pam Bales, a nurse whose story was recounted in a Reader’s Digestarticle by Ty Gagne.  

 

Dramatization of a heroic rescue in the White Mountains of New Hampshire by a mother/nurse/mountain guide.

 

Grade:  B+                            By Donna R. Copeland

LATE NIGHT

Emma Thompson     Mindy Kaling     John Lithgow     Hugh Dancy     Max Casella     Denis O’Hare

     You know those movies that are so funny you miss some of the lines because people are laughing?  That’s what Late Night is; Mindy Kaling’s script is chock full of sharp witticisms along with plain common sense that provokes thought and consideration about topical issues that elicit ambivalence and the need to squirm.  Emma Thompson’s characterization of a gorgeous, haughty night show host who is dependent on her writing team’s jokes and who gets gobsmacked by an inexperienced, “factory worker” with a heart makes this comedy many steps above most.  Kaling has a lo-ooong career ahead of her. One of the most challenging assignments in movies and television is that of making a comedy that is really funny but thought-provoking at the same time.

     Katherine Newbury (Thompson) has won awards for her late-night television show of ten years, but it seems to be getting stale and not keeping up with the times. As so often happens, a sudden social pressure makes the show runners start scrambling.  Diversity is one such concept.  “Hire a woman!” comes the pronouncement for the writing staff, and that’s how a Native American woman with little experience in comedy and coming from a chemistry laboratory gets hired for the “Tonight” show. 

     How Molly (Kaling) fits and doesn’t fit into this group becomes part of the story. But another part of it is how Katherine has to change in response to all kinds of forces coming after her.  

     Molly represents frankness and truthfulness, which is revolutionary in the entertainment world.  Not only that, she doesn’t observe the tacit rules of engagement, especially toward superiors. But the beauty of the writing is that Molly is usually right—no matter how much resistance she gets—in ways the audience will understand.  “Never give up” is the motto she pins to the wall behind her desk, but even she is put to task for this a number of times.

     Katherine is a fine example of a narcissistic person who doesn’t bother to know anyone else, is extremely intelligent, goal-directed, and able to let the verbal jabs fly in a barrage against anyone in her way.  As a listener rather than the target, her retorts are actually funny and highly entertaining.  They appeal to baser urges that we are not able to express nearly so well.

     The two female leads have an armada of different kinds of foes that women all over will recognize.  For Molly, it’s the clutch of male writers jealously holding on to their turf—even if it’s the ladies room that hasn’t been used because there haven’t been any women around.  (The show does a fantastic job in depicting the lame defenses males and whites give for their behavior.)  But it’s also the female boss above Molly who has the same prejudices in many respects the male writers have.  For Katherine, it’s the icy, all-business Caroline Morton (beautifully rendered by Amy Ryan), owner of the network, who is taking a ratings-only approach to scheduling/cancelling a show.  But most of all it’s her public, which she hasn’t bothered to “read” and listen to for years.  An entertaining—and provocative—aspect of the film is its emphasis in so many ways on listening.  Paradoxically, not listening is highlighted to show its importance.

     Use of social media and managing it makes this film even more contemporary.  It models how to deal with it in a way that works for you, rather than allowing it to work against you.  I was reminded of one of my esteemed bosses’ pronouncements to us:  “When in doubt, tell the truth.”

I can’t think of anyone who would not be affected by this film and inspired to do better.  (Ahem…well maybe I can.)

Grade:  A                        By Donna R. Copeland

NOVITIATE

Margaret Qualley     Melisso Leo     Julianne Nicholson     Dianna Agron     Denis O’Hare

      If you feel like you’ve sacrificed too much in your life, go see Novitiate and you’ll probably feel better by thinking you didn’t have it so bad.  (This excludes, of course, those who have been abused.)  Unless you are a Catholic since the before the ‘60’s, you may be surprised (as I was) at the stringencies young nuns had to experience in going through their training.  They’re required to efface themselves in every way one can imagine, following strict rules for every second of the day, and suppressing most of their human emotional experience.  I hope this has changed in the meantime.

     Young Cathleen (Qualley) seems perfectly suited for it, even though her family is not religious, but she is enrolled in a Catholic school, and after her father abandons the family, Christ seems like an ideal husband to her.  Where her sister novitiates struggle with ambivalence, she remains confident until…

     A parallel theme of the film about the novitiates is that of the Mother Superior (Leo), a woman who has been a nun for 40 years, and revels in her status as head of the convent.  She keeps very strict rules, and appears to take a bit of pleasure in the degradation of those who commit even slight infractions.  Decisions are easy for her in her black-and-white world; either there has been a sin that needs to be punished or—well, there is little of anything else, except actions that bore her, in which case, small penances are required.

     But Mother Superior is having a difficult time right alongside her novitiates; Vaticon II is being handed down by Pope John XXiii, in which major changes are decreed, such as that priests must face their congregation during the liturgy, there will be increased religious tolerance, nuns will be able to dress as they wish, etc.  Mother Superior resists these changes for three years, not letting anyone in her convent know about them, and believing until the end that they will not come to place.  When they do, she is devastated.

     This is a film about disillusionment—Cathleen’s early on, the Mother Superior’s, and several of the novitiates and those training them, but it’s also about change, and how adaptable people are in accommodating to it.  It’s understandable that someone who has achieved her identity in a specific system and then gets continually reinforced for it will resist any change in the order.  It’s also understandable that someone who buys into a system sincerely, then finds out that forces beyond her control go against it presents a major dilemma for her.  This is the beauty of the film; that it dramatizes real human dilemmas that come about as a result of decisions made, sometimes early in life.  And it doesn’t necessarily take a stand one way or another; it leaves that decision up to the viewer. 

     The focal point here is Margaret Qualley as Sister Catherine, the young woman trying to find answers to life through a system that promises hope.  It helps, of course, that she is gorgeous, but she is able to back that up with solid acting skills that convey the agony/puzzlement/irritation/naïveté of her character.  Beneath her Mother Superior garb, Melissa Leo proves herself once again a superior actor whose face tells all.  A nod should be given as well to Julianne Nicholson, who plays Catherine’s clueless mother who never gives up on her, even though she understands so little about how her actions brought her to this point with her daughter. 

     I congratulate Margaret Betts, writer/director, for her feature film debut.  Her awards at the Sundance Film Festival (Special Jury Prize, Grand Jury Prize) do not surprise in the interesting/educational/suspenseful script and direction of the film that moves at an ideal pace and utilizes the talents of the actors to the fullest extent.

This film about religious belief lets the viewer decide about issues.

Grade:  B+                                    By Donna R. Copeland