BEN IS BACK

Julia Roberts     Lucas Hedges     Courtney B. Vance     Kathryn Newton     Alexandra Park

     As can be seen in the trailer, Ben (Hedges) pays a surprise visit to his family at Christmastime, making everyone nervous.  His mother Holly (Roberts) is thrilled to have him and assumes an air of optimism, whereas his younger sister Ivy (Newton) and stepfather Neal (Vance) are wary.  The two younger children are the only ones greeting him with glee devoid of concern.  Because for all her optimism, Holly still proceeds to stow away drugs from the medicine cabinet and jewelry items, prompting quizzical looks and comments from her daughter. Ben has been in rehab for an addiction, but reports his sponsor gave him permission to leave.  

     What follows is 24 hours packed with emotional upheaval, distress, many questions and conflicts, and a sprinkling of happiness.  I get the impression that the film offers a realistic look at what families go through when their child(ren) develop a drug addiction.  The agonizing question revolves around trust: When do you trust them and when do you not?  How do you tell when they are telling the truth and when they are lying?  How closely do you observe their every move?  

     It gets even more complicated when the addict’s intentions are noble, but he puts himself and his family at risk.  It never occurs to Ben that a simple shopping trip to get presents for his younger sibs would prompt a string of events.  (He can’t just put his name on presents his mother has already bought; that wouldn’t be honest—honesty is a primary goal in rehab.)  Nor does it occur to him at first, or to his family, that there are extended “side effects” to his addiction, i.e., people in town who want revenge for what he did in the past.  Like many addicts, he had to support his habit by dealing.

     Writer/Director Peter Hedges knows exactly how to bring the viewer along on the experience of an addict’s family visit, by keeping you guessing about the same things family members are questioning, especially when family members themselves are not always telling the truth.  I had to smile at the number of times a family member takes off on his/her own refusing offers of help from someone else.  At one point, Neal says to his wife, “We’re supposed to be a team!”  But she’s afraid he will deal with the problem in a way she disagrees with, so she acts as if everything is under control.  Yes, it gets so complicated.

The plot is engaging, one cares about the family from the start, and there are many clenched-teeth moments.  

     This is a film that may frighten you and depress you, but it is worth the strain in that it is informative about a problem that is currently plaguing our country in an epidemic.  Like the story in Boy Erased, it demonstrates that even in upper middle class prosperous families addiction can be their undoing.  It’s no longer just the poor and disadvantaged who have these battles to fight.  Watching moves like these are not only drama and thrillers, they are informative and helpful to those who may be going through the same things now, in the past, or in the future.  I appreciate that in Boy Erased, it is the father who takes the predominant role in helping his son and that it is the mother who takes that role in Ben is Back.  Both are good models, and both make clear that unconscious forces sometimes make them less than effective.

     Lucas Hedges (son of Peter Hedges) has much to boast about for his role in this film as well as recent others: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, Lady Bird, and Manchester by the Sea.  They all illustrate his acting range and quality of performance.  Here, he achieves a realistic mother/son connection with the acclaimed and experienced Julia Roberts, who can look beatific in gazing at her children, adopt a charming but genuine response to friends, and burst out with fury and determination in the face of dispute and conflict.  It’s a delight to watch her cast her spell on dozens of diverse roles.  

     Ben is Back is not a movie for everyone, but is for those who have social sensitivities and curiosity about the world around them.

One day in the life of a family blessed(?) with a surprise visit from one of their own.

Grade:  B+                                    By Donna R. Copeland

MOTHER'S DAY

Julia Roberts   Kate Hudson   Jennifer Anniston   Jason Sudeikis   Timothy Olyphant   

Britt Robertson   Margo Martindale   Aasif Mandvi

          Mother’s Day is for people who like sitcoms, and this will be a treat for them because it extends for two hours.  Sitcoms are noted for their canned laughter tracks, but this film has a script that is canned.  Pick any incident/joke/situation in sitcoms, and it is plugged in here somewhere, pulling your heartstrings one moment, making you laugh at another, pulling for worries and tears at still another, and on and on.  When a character goes to a vending machine for candy, it reminded me of how the filmmakers seemed to have gone to a machine for script scenes and pushed just about every button.

       We see a newly divorced couple where the ex-husband has taken a younger, more attractive wife, a successful career woman who has yet to experience the ultimate satisfaction of motherhood (but at least she’s not the stereotypical b----), a mixed race marriage, an adopted child as an adult looking for her mother (she can’t commit to a relationship until she finds her), and a Lesbian couple.  They all run into the usual problems—clearly of their own making—develop insight, make discoveries, and all of it is wrapped up into a tidy bow at the end. 

      On the more positive side, the actors’ skills in their art/craft are readily apparent.  Foremost is Julia Roberts (Miranda) as the charming, attractive product pusher on television.  She is Pretty Woman become wiser and more sophisticated.  (As an aside, Garry Marshall directed that and this picture.)  Britt Robertson (Kristin) is captivating in her portrayal of complex emotions and ambivalence.  Jason Sudeikis (Bradley) and Timothy Olyphant (Henry) are convincing as men at sea, feeling out of control in life.  Jennifer Anniston (Sandy) and Kate Hudson (Jesse) have been well schooled to expertise in their roles.  Margo Martindale (Flo) always meshes hand-in-glove with mothers of a certain type (although she is not by any means restricted in her range, e.g., on television’s “The Americans”, in which she plays a Russian spy.  Other supporting characters’ performances are exemplary, which may speak to Marshall’s direction and to Gail Goldberg’s and Barbara J. McCarthy’s casting.

      I have no idea what the premise is of Mother’s Day—it’s certainly not a weighty message.  I think that to some extent, it is Hollywood producers’ fantasy that somehow life bumps along, and everybody gains insight and a good heart and it will all turn out in the end.  Mothers will be tolerant and forgiving, divorcees will pull together putting the past behind them and becoming loving friends, and above all, mothers and children will be reunited lovingly. 

        So spake Zarathrustra.  Not.  Alas for this script, Zarathrustra observed that to plunge the depths of the world, creativity is required; a “recipe” as presented here is not sufficient.

A collection of stories that may or may not ring true.

Grade:  C-                                    By Donna R. Copeland

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY

Meryl Streep     Julia Roberts     Chris Cooper     Margo Martindale     Ewan McGregor     Sam Shepard 

Julianne Nicholson     Benedict Cumberbatch     Juliette Lewis     Abigail Breslin

       August:  Osage County is a rip roarin’ study of a family in Oklahoma that is perpetually on a tinderbox.  The slightest disagreement can erupt into a major battle, and the only way they see to keep the lid on is to hide all their secrets.  Of course, this is a strategy that always fails, but like the good neurotics they are, they keep using it, thinking it will work.  As the story proceeds, we learn that the cruel parenting we witness stems from troubled childhoods, and we see it spread like an infection from parent to child across generations.  As each secret is uncovered, it has an explosive effect on all involved.

     On a more elegant note, the ensemble cast is a study in streamlined acting that continually hums along as if they had worked together for years and filled out every detail.  At the center of the story—and the cast—is the consummate award-winning actress Meryl Streep, who plays the damaged matriarch in a family with three grown daughters who have come home to “comfort” their mother after a crisis.  Her sister is present as well, with her husband and son in tow.  Present as well is the recently hired cook/housekeeper who is a beacon of sanity in the dysfunctional, turbulent group.

     The screenwriter Tracy Letts (Killer Joe) has based the script on his play with the same title, which premiered on Broadway in 2008.  The transition from stage to screen is not always smooth, but Letts has achieved it without a hitch.  Most of the action takes place in the family home, a beautifully landscaped colonial mansion in the countryside near a lake, or in the cars of the arriving family members.  Clues about the underlying conflicts are seen from the beginning in the interactions between Violet (Streep) and her husband Beverly (Sam Shepard), followed by the arriving sister Mattie (Margo Martindale) and husband Charles (Chris Cooper) and each of the daughters’ families.  In the process of the unfolding drama, the viewer experiences the trapped feeling that each of the characters suffers from; at one point, a character says to another who is running away, “Where are you going?  There is no place to go!”  And we feel trapped as well because the action is so powerful.  Also because, in a larger sense, we identify with the fact that we are always a part of the family to which we belong; there is not ever, really, any escape. 

     John Wells, the director, has performed his function of creating a work of art from all the components of the film, with the actors and other crew, such as the cinematographer Adriano Goldman and musician Gustavo Santaolalla, whose work illuminates the ongoing drama. 

Clearly August:  Osage Country will be prominent in the upcoming award circuit soon to take place.

Grade:  A                                   By Donna R. Copeland