THE NEST

Jude Law     Carrie Coon     Oona Roche     Charlie Shotwell

     This movie is odd, with the title being the strangest part.  Associations to a nest are normally that of a stable, comfy, nurturing place with a family altogether.  The story starts out like this, although with a few signs that there might be fundamental problems—a mother consistently late in getting the kids to school, a father needing to defend yet another major move in a short amount of time.  But the parents are basically there for the children; the father is earning enough for a very comfortable living, and the mother trains horses and teaches riding.  What could go wrong?

     Rory (Law) is excited about a new job prospect, which would mean moving the family from New York to London.  His wife Allison (Coon) is not enthusiastic, and tries to talk him out of it.  But he’s a salesman by nature, and off they go.  He secures property with a huge old mansion and enough space to build stables so that Allison can have a business of her own and not work for someone else. He has joined a firm in which he also has his own business.  He’s pumped up with investment ideas and seems on top of the world.  The rest of the family is a bit more skeptical, but adjusting.  The story is about what happens next.

     Sean Durkin, writer/director (as well as Martha, Marcy, May, Marlene), has created a moral of a story that dissects a family with underlying flaws to show ways of coping and probable outcomes when the father is a dreamer, the mother is practical-minded, and the kids desperately try to cope with their differences.  The actors are all well cast, and have chemistry that conveys a believable family going through life changes, and showing the type of stress associated with transitions, a teenager in the house, and a sensitive younger brother.  

     Jude Law has been a major talent beginning in the ‘80’s and best known recently for the HBO TV series, “The Young Pope” and “The New Pope.”  He fits hand-in-glove with the Rory character here, showing loads of charm in business and at home and warm relationships with his wife and his children, even his wife’s daughter.  He clearly adores Allison, bringing her coffee or tea and gently waking her up in the mornings.  Carrie Coon is less well known, but carries off the role of the spunky woman who grew up perhaps underprivileged, but has managed to navigate the waters of the wealthy—most of the time.  Under stress, Coon shows how the veneer falls away, and she reverts back to old antics.  Both younger actors—Roche and Shotwell—give highly convincing performances that enhance the movie’s value.

     The hardest part of The Nest is watching it when you see family members making mistakes and you can easily visualize the outcome. But I think it’s a good movie for younger audiences who might be able to profit from a story not uncommon among families of today.

    Now on Netflix.

 

Welcome to a “golden” family’s experience when stressed beyond a certain limit.

 

Grade:  C+                                    By Donna R. Copeland 

CAPTAIN FANTASTIC

Viggo Mortensen   George McKay   Samantha Isler   Annalise Basso   Nicholas Hamilton   Shree Crooks   Charlie Shotwell  

Kathryn Hahn   Steve Zahn   Frank Langella   Ann Dowd

            Get on board the bus.  This will probably be one of the more unusual rides you’ll make this year in the movies—along with Hunt for the Wilderpeople.  It’s basically about a father who wants to make everything right (perfect, perhaps) for his wife and children, so he takes them to live in the wilds of Washington State and carefully instructs them in survival skills such as:  Securing, growing, and preserving food; administering first aid; maintaining physical fitness; self-defense; education (and boy! do they learn philosophy, government, and politics!); and music.  I’m sure I left something out, but you get the point.  These are kids who would put the regular American student to shame.

            Everything is going well (although we don’t know the back-story until later), and then a tragedy occurs, which makes their world topsy-turvy.  In order to talk about the rest of the movie, I have to spoil what it is—the mother dies.  But she doesn’t die at home—that wouldn’t present any practical problems beyond heart-wrenching grief—she dies at a hospital near the home of her parents who are decidedly Christian and have no sympathy for the lifestyle she (who has become a Buddhist) and her husband have chosen.

            What follows is a resounding clash of cultures, which is used to comment about society today, at least in the U.S. and maybe in much of the western world.  The immediate dilemma for Ben is that the children desperately want to go to the funeral, which Leslie’s father has forbidden.  It’s also a dilemma because he has Leslie’s will which specifically states what is to happen after her death.

            For all Ben’s (Mortensen) sage planning and execution of the “ideal world”, he underestimates how much different the world he has created is from the real world.  We see the incredible training and education he and his wife have provided for their children, but perhaps it’s because of the absence of the feminine influence when his wife Leslie (Trin Miller) goes to the hospital for an extended stay, Ben begins taking more risks than he should, e.g., climbing steep mountains during a thunderstorm, and over-applying his socialist philosophy by teaching the kids how to rob a store.

            All of this comes to bear in the last part of the film, which entails a complex and near-disastrous resolution, but an excellent one, nevertheless.

            Having been a fan of TV’s “Silicon Valley”, I was shocked to see that one of the actors in that show wrote and directed this film, Matt Ross.  It’s especially humorous because the character he plays on TV is shallow, without many social/moral values.  Clearly, Ross does have social/moral values, and wants to caution us about our current society.  Do our children know what the Bill of Rights is?  Could our children survive in the wild?  Do we really have an appreciation and respect for nature?  This is basically what Captain Fantastic is about.

            I understand that when signing on to this project, Mortensen wanted to assure that the tone and message of the film was quality based, and there would be no "bad guys."  After his discussions with Ross, they made sure, for instance, that the child actors could actually slaughter a sheep for food and play musical instruments.  Mortensen himself maintains a garden at home.

            Important to acknowledge is the contribution of Alex Somers to the music of the film, which elevates and perfectly captures every scene. 

There are so many reasons to see Captain Fantastic.

Grade:  A                                    By Donna R. Copeland