BOOKSMART

Beanie Feldstein     Kaitlin Dever     Billie Lourde     Jessica Williams

Lisa Kudrow     Will Forte     Jason Sudeikis

     Take a peek at the generation coming up, just graduating from high school and finally developing perspective on where they’ve been and where they’re going.  Booksmart is something of a nerdy girl’s dream; one who is smart in book learning, but panicked to realize the night before high school graduation that she hasn’t lived.  She’s developed a slightly condescending attitude toward her classmates through the years, not realizing that some of them have been achieving just as much (i.e., headed for Harvard, Yale, etc.), but have been having fun and developing relationships all along.  She wants to salvage her life and is determined, even if she has only one night to do it. 

     The movie is meant to be a lighthearted window into the current younger generation (those of means, at least) with lifestyles that are self-indulgent, but not heartless.  Although there are scenes where the two main figures—the “nerds”—are characterized in unkind stereotypical ways, minds are changed when the girls loosen up and begin to mix with their classmates on a more even footing.  Some of this might be a little “pie-in-the sky” wishful thinking (most people with deep-seated impressions are not ordinarily so forgiving of those who are “different”), but it’s a good model for younger audiences to see how people can come together in permissive circumstances.

     Beanie Feldstein as Molly and Kaitlin Dever as Amy hold their own as starring characters who are confronted with a whole new world right in their hometown before they take off for Botswana or wherever—parts unknown.  They show the girls sparring, arguing, and coalescing, solidifying a friendship that will last forever.  Feldstein in particular sensitively conveys subtle changes in her character that develop as she gains insight.

     New director/accomplished actress Olivia Wilde is backed up by an all-female writing team (Susanna Fogel, Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Katie Silberman) in portraying diversity in an appealing light.  Tolerance is paramount here in going against your usual prejudices about intelligence, gender, and race—um…maybe not so much, class.  But there is a forgiving attitude throughout—especially with the hilarious Lisa Kudrow and Will Forte as Amy’s parents, but also other characters who change and forgive as they get more information. (Have you ever forgiven someone who vomited on you?)

     Music by Dan Nakamura and cinematography by Jason McCormick do their job of integrating elements of the film together into a meaningful whole.

A great date night movie for the young at heart—with substance.

Grade:  B                                   By Donna R. Copeland

TABLE 19

Anna Kendrick   Lisa Kudrow   Margo Martindale   Craig Robinson  

Tony Revolori   June Squibb   Stephen Merchant   Wyatt Russell

     This is a strange movie that doesn’t quite get off the ground.  It’s rather formulaic, as in quick alterations between humor, anger/meanness, tenderness, and love.  It tries to be funny by being shocking, but the jokes often fall flat, or are even embarrassing—as when a young man asks a girl he’s never met to go out with him and marry him…and, by the way, he has a big penis.  Stumbling, pratfalls, and bumping into things and wrecking things are likewise inserted to be funny.  There must be at least five or six people who fall down, and we’re supposed to laugh.  And the fighting between couples; this gets very tiresome. 

     The film takes place at a wedding, and opens with Eloise (Kendrick) vacillating between accepting or declining the invitation.  This is actually one of the more clever scenes showing real anguish and ambivalence; Kendrick can be very funny.  She is right to be torn because she’s bound to run into her ex-boyfriend Teddy (Russell), the brother of the bride with a new girlfriend.  She wants to go because she is a long-term friend of the bride, and was even helping with wedding plans when she and Teddy broke up.  Of course, in the end she decides to go, and is seated at Table 19.  We’re informed ahead of time that this is a table of misfits.

     The colorful make-up of the guests at Table 19 is a great set-up for a comedy.  Along with Eloise, there is the former nanny of the bride and her brother, Jo (Squibb); unhappily married owners of a diner (Kudrow and Robinson); an ex-con (Merchant) who is the uncle of the bride, and a young man (Revolori) desperately wanting to score, inappropriately egged on by his helicopter mother (Martindale) whom we only hear over the telephone.  This table is supposed to form the essence of the comedy, and some of their routines are as madcap as they’re supposed to be, but the filmmakers (writers Jay and Mark Duplass and director Jeffrey Blitz) never quite succeed in their aim to make this an all-out screwball comedy.  Which is a shame, since the cast is filled with talented actors. 

     Table 19 succeeds when it illuminates the back-stories of the characters, and we feel compassion for what they’ve gone through.  This is especially true of the ex-con when we hear what he did wrong, which is both funny and extremely touching at the same time.  Merchant pulls this off like the pro that he is.  Revolori (a hit in The Grand Budapest Hotel) plays his part extremely well, but the lines he’s given, which are supposed to be funny, simply aren’t.  Kudrow and Robinson are fine actors, but there is no chemistry between them, and it’s puzzling how the two characters could have gotten into a marriage.  Kendrick also does well, but it’s a role she has done many times before in playing characters that I suspect are very similar to her as a person.  I would like to see her pick up the challenge of roles that will be out of character for her, proving her great acting abilities.

Table 19 is mildly entertaining, but doesn’t achieve the sidesplitting screwball comedy to which it aspires.

Grade:  C-                                    By Donna R. Copeland

THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN

Emily Blunt     Haley Bennett     Justin Theroux     Rebecca Ferguson    

Luke Evans     Allison Janney     Edgar Ramirez     Lisa Kudrow

          We meet Rachel (Blunt) on the train, see her scribbling and drawing on a pad, and listen to what is going on in her head.  She is clearly upset and depressed as she sips on a gin drink and weaves stories about the people she sees through the windows of houses.  Some are mixed in with her own memories, for she used to live in that neighborhood with her ex-husband Tom (Theroux).  Tom is married to Anna (Ferguson) now, and they have a child.  But a couple she sees in another house captures her imagination and her wish for a perfect marriage.  She has decided they are very happy together, an ideal couple—until she sees the woman in the arms of another man on the porch one morning.  She is furious with the woman, who reminds Rachel that her own husband left her for another woman.

       We learn that Megan (Bennett) and Scott (Evans) are their names, which Rachel discovers when she reads in the newspaper that the woman is missing.  Imaginative Rachel weaves a story around what she has seen, and without distinguishing between her fantasies and reality, she inserts herself into the case by going to visit Scott and telling him that she saw Megan with another man one morning.  Furthermore, she claims that she knew Megan personally.

      The film is good in this aspect of illustrating how memory is constructive, not photographic, and that many times, humans are prone to over-interpret what they see when they don’t have all the facts.  It’s of value as well to see how misleading and destructive it can be for someone with the best of intentions to muddy the waters when they assert themselves into situations where they don’t belong.

          The Girl on the Train is a mystery and a thriller based on the popular Paula Hawkins novel.  It’s easy to see how it would attract filmmakers like Tate Taylor, the director, (and a hungry public as well) with its intrigue, mystery, scandal, and chameleon-like characters.  The problem, is to some extent, a function of its success, in that the characters and plot stretch credulity.  The book (which I’ve read) and the film would benefit from toning down a bit.  For instance, brutal scenes that take place in a populated area near a tunnel with a fair amount of pedestrian traffic are apparently not observed by anyone else.

          On the positive side, the cast is very good, especially the star Emily Blunt in her ability to capture the complex Rachel, an imaginative alcoholic who appears spacey and impulsive much of the time, but can be smart and show genuine love and caring.  Haley Bennett as the mercurial Megan lives up to her recent reputation for playing sexy, strong, beautiful women.  Cameo roles by Allison Janney and Lisa Kudrow attest to their strengths in pungent character roles.  Men are not regarded too kindly in this movie, but Justin Theroux, Edgar Ramirez, and Luke Evans do justice to their roles and show strength behind their weak characters. 

         I have to complain once again about psychiatrists and other professional counselors being portrayed by Hollywood unrealistically in touching and hugging their patients and seeing them in their homes.  Mental Health professionals are all trained in how to deal with romantic pulls and patients appearing at our doors without an appointment—something not dealt with realistically in this film.

         This is a film that will appeal to those who enjoy being pulled into a web of intrigue and excitement and don’t mind a bit of implausibility or being “played” by the novelist/filmmakers.

What is seen from a train may be enhanced by a vivid imagination.

Grade:  C                                    By Donna R. Copeland