FRENCH EXIT

Michelle Pfeiffer     Lucas Hedges     Valerie Mahaffey     Imogen Poots

Susan Coyne     Isaach De Bankole     and the voice of Tracy Letts

     Could there be a more unlikely group to be together in Paris?  The movie takes a while in getting you/them there. It starts out with Frances Price (Pfeiffer) learning—although not for the first time of being told—that she is out of money.  Obviously, from her home, to the way she is dressed, and the places she frequents, she is used to high style living.  She takes her financial manager’s advice and sells her valuables, giving her a tidy sum of money, which would last a lifetime for a frugal person. That, Frances is not.  

     When her best friend Joan (Coyne) learns of her plight, she offers her apartment in Paris, which she rarely uses.  This creates a new problem for Frances' devoted son Malcolm (Hedges), who has just become engaged but hasn’t told her.  It quickly becomes apparent that Malcolm is completely dependent on his mother for money, so he has to tell his fiancé Susan (Poots) goodbye the next day—but of course he wants her to wait for him, even though he has no idea when he will return.

     What is sure to be a capricious journey with this mother-son duo constitutes the plot, involving very odd and unpredictable people pulled into their story as they proceed across the sea on a ship and arrive in Paris, smuggled cat in tow. But the most unpredictable of all is seductive Frances.  She (artfully played by Pfeiffer) tops them all in eccentricity.

     The movie is a farce that one can enjoy (Oh, for the theater popcorn in these Covid-19 times!) by not taking it too seriously and if you can vicariously enjoy living a carefree life with stacks of Euro notes resting on the shelf in your closet.

     Not entirely without some degree of redeeming value, the movie shows honesty among the homeless, waiters, and other average citizens, who try to give back absurd amounts of cash liberally distributed by our heroine.  Emotional health, forgiveness, and honesty come from the effusive Mme. Reynaud (Mahaffey), the type of woman Frances has in the past spurned with a flip of her sarcastic tongue.  

   Interestingly—and perhaps quite intentionally—references to death become a theme throughout this bizarre movie in its appearance in Frances’ overall plan, another dead husband, and séances with Frances’ own dead husband and his association with her black cat.  Perhaps the black cat is a warning about choosing a compromised lifestyle over a more comfortable one.

 A light confection, French Exit will amuse those who are at least a bit philosophical about life.

 

Grade:  C+                                    By Donna R. Copeland

THE WORLD TO COME

Katherine Waterston     Vanessa Kirby     Christopher Abbott     Casey Affleck 

     An admirable feat of artistic production, The World to Come takes us on an unexpected journey through two marriages in the 19^thCentury full of grief and ineptitude lit up by an uncommon love.  The two couples live on isolated farms in New York.  We first meet Abigale (Waterston) and Dyer (Affleck) who live a seemingly ideal life on a mostly prosperous farm with their young daughter.  Well, it’s not really ideal; Abigale, a writer with keen sensitivities, finds her reticent, mechanically minded husband rather dull.  She is nurturing, and he values her care and tells her as best he can, but she clearly feels something missing, especially after the loss of their daughter.

     Then one day her closest neighbor Tallie (Kirby) visits unexpectedly, and the two strike up a friendship.  Their conversations are typical of housewives of the time, and inevitably touch on their husbands.  But there’s a spark, a spark that is felt not only just between the two women, but it reverberates outward through their small group.

     The writer Jim Shepard is known for his wide-ranging research of subjects he’s interested in as well as his fascination with difficult-to-explore emotions. Most striking in The World to Come are the number of times husbands and wives cannot seem to express what they’re feeling.  For the women, it’s circling around without committing too much; for the men, its terse monosyllabic utterances.  The way out in this story are the poetic musings of the women when they talk with each other when they’re alone.  And by the excitement the women feel when they meet contrasted with the pedantry characteristic of the men’s conversations when they converse and even when they talk with their wives.  Much of this production’s success lies in Shepard’s capturing the emotional valence among the characters, leaving the viewer in suspense.

     Director Mona Fastvold’s skillful assemblage of actors and crew for the production should earn her a place among the up-and-coming filmmakers, along with her sense of pace and sustaining suspense in the plot.  Katherine Waterston, Vanessa Kirby, and Casey Affleck are by now well known for their skill and attraction as leading actors, and they with Christopher Abbott deliver the kind of performance called for by the script. A significant contribution is lent by the musician Daniel Blumberg, with his dirge-like ominous tunes alternated with Andre Chemetoff’s  beautifully rendered pastoral sequences to capture the landscape and give us some relief

     This could have been a totally depressive film, but the lyrical—sometimes elegiac—dialog and cinematic crafts elevates it to something beyond, something more like a tonal poem.  It’s certainly not tied solely to a 19^thCentury story; it speaks to our wonderings and speculations about marriage today.

 

This is a film for lovers of art and poetic expression capturing psychological truths about human nature through the ages.

 

Grade:  A                                    By Donna R. Copeland

THE MAURITANIAN

Jodie Foster     Shailene Woodley     Benedict Cumberbatch    Tahar Rahim 

     “This is a true story” we are told at the very beginning.  That was smart to insert that sentence, because in the course of its telling, it’s so hard for most of us to believe what we see. We’ve certainly read/heard accounts of what took place at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, but to actually see it (what we see, of course, are actors playing the roles) as it was occurring is another thing altogether.  

     We are introduced to one of the inmates before he was captured, when he was visiting his family after being away.  He is charming and likes to crack jokes, but we can also see that he is thoughtful and smart, having won a scholarship to study in Germany when he was a teenager.  Clearly, he has a close relationship with his mother, and when he is called away from the party, he reassures his worried mother that he will be back.

     But that will actually be a much longer time than he realizes, because he gets arrested, flown to black sites around the world, and eventually ends up in Guantanamo.  

     When lawyer Nancy Hollander (Foster) is approached with the case, her law firm discourages her from taking it, but being committed to civil rights, she takes it on with the sole intention of seeing that the accused (Mohamedou Ould Slahl, played by Tahar Rahim) gets a fair defense.  She invites one of her younger colleagues, Teri Duncan (Woodley), to join her.  

     By chance, when she is visiting Mohamedou in Guantanamo, the lead prosecutor Stu Couch (Cumberbatch) recognizes her in an airport shop, and the two have a drink and short chat with one another.  This is before either of them has been given files to read in preparation for the trial.  When these files are made available to them, they discover that they are so redacted, it will be impossible for either of them to make their case.  It turns out that they are going to have to go through the courts to get the unredacted files.

     Director Kevin Macdonald is skillful in telling a story on film, using timing and informational material to greatest effect in keeping the viewer attuned and in suspense.  He has proved this in his previous films (e.g., State of Play, and the documentary Touching the Void); and in Mauritanian, he exploits these features so that we must endure frustrations and the trying of patience right alongside the characters.  Some of the brutal scenes are so realistic, I imagine many will turn their heads to look away, as I did.

     The cast is strong.  Jodie Foster is entirely believable as someone who is serious and committed to the principles of her profession.  Shailene Woodley, whose character calls for more emotion is likewise authentic playing a younger attorney who clearly admires her superior.  It’s a surprise to hear Benedict Cumberbatch with a Texas accent, but he pulls it off nicely within a personality long trained in the military.

A graphic tale about prisoners held by the Americans at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Grade:  A                                                By Donna R. Copeland

MINARI

Steven Yeun     Yeri Han     Yuh-jung Youn     Alan S. Kim     Noel Cho

 

     Minari is very much a true-to-life story of a family from Korea trying to achieve their dreams on a farm in Arkansas. Writer/director Lee Isaac Chung weaves into a complex mosaic all the many experiences of immigration, including the blending of cultures, marital disagreement and conflict, cross-generational attempts to understand, differing religious beliefs, the complications of aging, and—to top it off—the seeming capriciousness of weather.  

Right from the beginning, we see that Monica (Han) disagrees with her husband Jacob (Yeun) about uprooting the family from California where they both worked in a dull chicken processing company in favor of buying land for a farm.  He feels stifled and wants to achieve something more, but her biggest concern seems to be about their young son who has a heart condition.  

     As if that were not enough to worry about, Monica wants her mother (Youn)—who is pretty much alone in Korea—to come live with them.  Not only does she miss her mother, she knows it will be advantageous to have her as a babysitter for David (Kim) and Anne (Cho).  It means that the household will be crowded in a mobile home, and David is resentful about sharing his room with his grandma who snores, smells strangely, and has weird ideas and unorthodox behaviors.       David simply can’t understand having a grandma who doesn’t make cookies and who swears.

     The strength of the movie lies in its demonstration of the adaptability of humans in objectively difficult situations to accommodate one way or another. The family does get some moral support from the locals, which helps; and it’s nice to see a film show how Americans can be welcoming to immigrants.

     The actors—especially Steven Yeun with his expressive face—make up an ensemble that presents an utterly believable family, with conflicts alternating with loving support, particularly in a crisis.  Noteworthy is young Alan Kim as David, who clearly shows what he is thinking and feeling from disgust to sheer enjoyment and mischievousness. Director Chung can take claim for much of the cast’s success in his impressive direction, for which he won both the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at Sundance Film Festival.

 

This is a quiet, emotionally profound drama with so many complicating elements woven in it makes for a captivating story that will hold your attention.

 

Grade:  A                                    By Donna R. Copeland

JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH

Daniel Kaluuya     LaKeith Stanfield     Jesse Plemons    Dominique Fishback

     Betrayal of one’s own can be considered one of the most egregious of sins, and this film about the Black Panthers in the 1960’s does an excellent job in charting the beginnings of such a compromise, the experience of the betrayer, and some of the after-effects for the perpetrator.  The story is told from William O’Neal’s (Stanfield) point of view, and puts the listener in a bit of a dilemma, at least during the first part.  You see he is a hustler, but he has wits and charm, so unless you already know who he is, you might be drawn to him.

     Fred Hampton (Kaluuya), the deputy chairman of the Black Panthers from 1966 to 1969, has a different kind of charm, one built on honesty, sincerity, and commitment to a cause for other people.  It’s easy to see why he might be a threat to the FBI at the time, being truly a black messianic figure who was winning over thousands of followers. He became the chairman of the Black Panthers in Chicago in the 1960s primarily because he was a skillful orator, an alliance builder, and recognized the needs and frustrations of Black people.  He was an earlier Black Lives Matter leader at a time much less receptive to such causes.  

     Director Shaka King and his team have created a very fine production that shines a light on a very dark time in U.S. history, outlining events and giving shape to the characters involved and what they were about in terms of their personal lives as well as the aims and workings of the Black Panthers.  It allows those of us who heard about them primarily in the news to fill in the gaps and see their human-ness beyond the revolutionary rhetoric.  

     Daniel Kaluuya has already achieved a reputation for his previous roles in Get Out and Black Panther, and he is winning accolades again for his performance here.  Those eyes! They tell so much of what he is intending to convey, that with his soft voice and purposeful carriage, he can deliver stunning performances.  In this film, my eyes were drawn more to the Judas character because it is much more complicated.  Stanfield portrays the divided loyalties and ultimate survival instincts of a traitor skillfully, showing the pangs of guilt and ability to deny facing up to possible repercussions of his actions.  Jesse Plemons—not an admirable character here, as in his other films—shows well the man who speaks the party line, ignoring his personal opinions. 

     Judas and the Black Messiah is of historical significance and instructive to those wanting to be informed about politics in the 1960’s, specifically in regard to the Black Panther group.

 

Judas and the Black Messiah is an account of the Black Panther group in the 1960’s, which highlights what it was up against with the FBI.

 

GRADE:  A                                                By Donna R. Copeland

 

LAND

Robin Wright     Demian Bichir     Sarah Dawn Pledge     Kim Dickens

     Unexpectedly, a beautiful story of love lost and found—but not in the usual sense. Robin Wright has long been one of my favorite actresses, and now she proves her talents in additional ways.     Congratulations to her for directing her first feature film, which reflects her sensibility in choosing this particular one.

     The first scene is remarkable for setting up the story.  Edee (Wright) is in a therapist’s office without much hope of it helping her.  She has come as a favor to her sister Emma (Dickens) after a trauma she can’t seem to work through.  She soon comes up with her own solution, which wouldn’t make sense to most of us, but is psychologically sound, given what we learn about her later.

     Edee chooses to buy property in the mountain wilderness of Wyoming sight unseen. After she is guided there by the realtor on her first visit, following her chucking her phone, she sends him away, saying in response to his concern, “I’ll be fine.”  Her first upset occurs when the city girl cannot find a can opener at dinnertime.

     How on earth, you wonder, is she going to survive?  The story of that and of the myriad dangers she encounters is the heart of the film.

     To counteract the spikes in apprehension and bouts of misery, Bobby Bukowski’s cinematic, probing photography and the lyrically soothing music of Ben Sollee and Time for Three, buffers our experience of a deeply human story that could be depressing. 

     But part of that story is seeing Edee learning how to do for herself in isolation: fishing, hunting, repairing her cabin—making do.  But “no man [or woman] is an island”, and everyone needs others at some point. That is where Miguel (Bichir) enters the picture.  Bichir is the perfect actor for the role with his Hispanic/American Indian appearance, his unassuming manner, and purveyor of genuineness.  At one point, when she asks him why he was helping her, his reply is, “You were in my path.”  The two work out the definitive boundaries about what notto ask each other.  And although he honors this to a T and is willing to share a bit, she remains adamant:  No news of the outside world.

       The movie Land has many truths, with a well-written script by Jesse Chatham and Erin Dignam, who provide points of view from both male and female perspectives.  (Another appeal, I’m sure, to Robin Wright.)  This could easily have been a “chick-lit” film, but avoids that by making both sexes heroic.   

This is a film for everyone, really, and might make an interesting conversation piece for those choosing it for their date night flick.

 

Grade:  A                                    By Donna R. Copeland

SON OF THE SOUTH

Lucas Till     Lex Scott Davis     Lucy Hale     Julia Ormond

Brian Dennehy     Cedrick the Entertainer    Shamier Anderson

 

     This is a movie like many we’ve seen before about the blatant racism of the Deep South during the time of the early civil rights movement in the early 1960’s. It’s based on the memoir (The Wrong Side of Murder Creek:  A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement) of Bob Zellner a young man at the time who lived in Alabama and was bound for college in the north, but kept being drawn into the movement by activists and circumstances.  He’s an older man by the time of movie preparation, but was consulted on the script by Barry Alexander Brown and Constance Curry (co-author of the book).

     Bob Zellner (played by Lucas Till in a fine performance) simply wants to visit a local Methodist Church for information for his high school essay, and ropes in a few of his friends to go with him.  He seems very neutral, having been brought up by a father who left the KuKluxKlan after a sojourn in Russia where he became acquainted with Negroes and a grandfather (Dennehy) still wholly committed to the Klan, and Bob is now ready to make up his own mind.  

   But in the Sixties, it was almost impossible to remain neutral; either one was for or against negroes, and it’s chilling to listen to the hatred toward black people spewed out by southerners in the film.  We see some of Bob’s friends gradually fade away as he makes new friendships that are more meaningful for him.

     As a result, in his openness to new ideas and people, Bob is transformed, although not without some pain and suffering.  The movie does a good job in illustrating the divisions among family and friends when race becomes such an urgent issue.  It’s odd for our ears to hear “you can’t kill him because he’s [white and] from Alabama!” and to see the division among life-long southerners when confronted with this dilemma.

     Son of the South is not quite successful in at least a couple of ways.  One is that it is more of a revisiting of an issue rather than something new that we’ve never seen before in so many films (Just Mercy, Selma, Loving, Get Out, Fruitvale Station, e.g.).  (Not that I’m saying we shouldn’t be reminded; it’s still moving to see the film.)  The other is related to the script and to the actors not sounding like real people.  At times, it’s like listening to actors reading a script in the first round. The experienced actors have no problem, but others clearly sound like they are reading for an audition.  

A film to remind us of the struggles and heartbreaks activists endured in the Civil Rights Movement.

Grade:  C+                                    By Donna R. Copeland