Mama

To put it plainly, the horror movie genre is very familiar with a fact that the rest of the world doesn't like to admit: children are scary as shit.  They don't have to be evil, like in The Omen, or a sign of bad tidings, like the girls that are always singing "One, two, Freddy's coming for you."  Even the best kids have moments where their innocence and lack of developed morals come together and make mature adults soil themselves.  Very few filmmakers use that as the core concept of their film, but that is basically what you get in Mama.

Lucas's (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) twin brother, Jeffrey (also Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) went nuts after the 2008 stock market crash, killing several people at work and then returning home to murder his wife.  No one ever saw Jeffrey or his two young daughters after that day, but they were presumed dead.  Lucas was all like, "When you presume, you make a pres out of me and...okay that doesn't work with this one."  He spent every dime he had paying bearded hillbillies (redundant, I know) to search the large, wooded area around Jeffrey's home for some signs of Jeffrey or his kids.  After five long years, the searchers finally found Jeffrey's car, wrecked on the side of a hill, and a dilapidated horror movie cabin nearby.  Inside, the searchers found childish drawings on the wall, along with a disgustingly large pile of cherry pits.  Oh, and they found a two-headed Gollum lookalike that actually turned out to be Victoria (Megan Charpentier) and Lilly (Isabelle Nélisse).

"Nasty little Hobbitses" - all of their dialogue, if I had any say in it

Naturally, Lucas was ecstatic to see his nieces again, even if they were feral, and he wanted to care for them.  His hard-rocking girlfriend, Annabel (Jessica Chastain) was less enthused, but went along with Lucas's wishes as best she could.

"Enthusiastically" would probably be overselling it

Since these children are obviously damaged, they initially spend their time in a psychiatric ward, under the care of Dr. Dreyfuss (Daniel Kash); Dr. Dreyfuss conducts many interviews and hypnosis therapies with Victoria and begins to learn about Mama.  You see, Mama is who took care of the girls for five years.  Mama protected them and loved them and, sometimes, scared them.  At first, Dr. Dreyfuss believes that "Mama" is a persona that Victoria adapted to act as a mother figure to her and her younger sister, Lilly.  But the more he hears, the less likely that seems to be.  When it comes time for the girls to be released into private custody, Dreyfuss works out a deal that allows the girls to live with Lucas and Annabel in a large suburban home, free of charge --- as long as Dreyfuss continues to have regular access to the girls, so he can learn more about Mama.  Even a doctor can tell the difference between an invisible friend and something...different.  Unfortunately, the good doctor doesn't tell anyone else about his theories, which results in Lucas being attacked by something in the house and falling into a coma.  That leaves Annabel on her own with two miniature people who have more in common with raccoons than her.  And, of course, Mama is there, too...

I know it's the weird figure in the background that is supposed to be scary, but that kid's smile creeps me out

As far as the acting goes in Mama, I am happy to say that the children are pretty good.  Their parts aren't very articulate, so it's not a breakthrough performance for either young actress, but so much of Mama depended on them being creepy and they totally pulled it off.  Megan Charpentier, being the older sister, had more to do, and she did it well.  She was creepy when she needed to be, she had some good screams, and her character's progression made sense.  Isabelle Nélisse was surprisingly good at playing feral.  It would have been easy for a kid her age to be hilariously bad in this role, especially since her character doesn't speak in sentences.  Nélisse not only managed to avoid being bad with her dialogue, she did a great job with her physical acting in this movie.  That is probably a big reason why she was the creepy kid in this movie.

It almost looks like she is pulling a corpse off the bed by the hair

How about the adults, though?  Despite playing a dual role, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau spends an awful lot of time off-screen.  I thought he was fine, but I don't know if he brought anything special to the role.  Jessica Chastain was the main character, though, and she got to play the POV character in this movie.  Chastain was fine.  It's hard playing the adult in a movie where the goal is for the kids to stand out, but Chastain kept things fairly subtle.  I got a little annoyed by her "What was that?!?" face always having a gaping mouth, and I thought it was funny how little her character, a professional musician, listened to music, but that's all I can really complain about.

Above: Chastain being startled by strange noises in the room.  They came from your guitar, dummy.

Daniel Kash was less impressive as the cold and calculating psychiatrist, if only because he gave the role no depth.  Speaking of one-dimensional characters, Jane Moffat was irritating as Aunt Jean; here is a character that loves the children, has a logical right to care for them, and would probably be a better parent than Lucas and Annabel, and what do we get?  A straight up bitch.  Such a missed opportunity.

I have to admit that I was impressed by first-time co-writer and director Andrés Muschietti.  Mama looked quite good, from just a cinematography standpoint, but Muschietti also used some clever camera tricks.  My personal favorite was a scene shot down a long hallway, allowing the audience to see into the girls' bedroom and another room simultaneously; the reveal at the end of that scene --- which you can see coming a mile away --- was damn well done, and effective, even if it was predictable.  I thought the general story had a good core to it; Muschietti and his brother came up with the story and screenplay, with Luther creator Neil Cross polishing it for an English-speaking audience.  There are some good semi-scary moments, but what I appreciated were the bits of unexpected tension.  Annabel closing the closet door (of EVIL!!!) instead of opening it, Lilly crawling silently around the house, Victoria's scary eyes in the dark --- those are the bits I will remember most about Mama.

Is it against the rules for movie monsters to kill people wearing Misfits shirts?  It should be.

That said, while there are many small moments that were great, the big scares in Mama didn't quite deliver.  Is there suspense?  Sure.  Are there startling moments?  Yes.  But this film doesn't build on them, and the momentum from scene to scene often gets lost.  

There are certainly some holes in the story, but they thankfully don't get too aggravating.  Why would abandoned children eat a cherry that is rolled across the floor to them from an anonymous source?  Because they are kids, and kids do dumb things.  Okay, fine.  Why would a character that wants to avoid pregnancy be worried enough to take a pregnancy test and then celebrate her non-pregnancy?

Who wouldn't want a little angel like this?

Why wouldn't she just be on the pill or have a nuva ring, or use condoms?  Because...musicians are impulsive, short-sighted sluts?  That's the subtext I'm reading.  Why would a psychiatrist let people live in a home for free so he can observe the children, but not have any video surveillance cameras in or around the house?  Because he is shockingly stupid?  None of these are bad enough to ruin the story, but they are annoying.

You might have noticed that I haven't spoken much about the titular monster in Mama yet.  That's because she's kind of terrible.  Mama is actually used very well by the director, when the audience just catches a glimpse of her here and there.  Unfortunately, the last act of the movie gives us a long, hard look at Mama, and it isn't pretty.

It's like "The Scream" came to life.  Only uglier.

Part of the problem with Mama's character is that she is obviously mostly CGI in a movie without a huge budget.  The other digital effects, particularly the weird moth-emitting wall spots, were solid, but Mama was left looking funny looking instead of frightening.  If they make a sequel (and this film was certainly profitable enough to merit one), fixing Mama's character design needs to be a priority.

Mama is a well-made PG-13 haunted house-type movie.  Given the rating and the first-time direction, I'm impressed.  Could it have been better?  Yes --- ratchet up the pacing a bit and/or make Mama look less stupid and you have something special.  But for a slightly younger horror audience, this isn't bad.

Zero Dark Thirty

Of all the Oscar-nominated films of 2012, none was as controversial as Zero Dark Thirty.  There were a few different reasons for this (most of which boils down to election-year political babbling), but the element that received the most discussion --- intelligent or otherwise --- revolved around the film's portrayal of torture as an effective interrogation tactic.  I certainly will not be as eloquent as some of those articles, but I will try to address the issue in a small way.  First things first, though.  I went in to Zero Dark Thirty as the final film in a marathon of Best Picture nominees.  I had high hopes, even though I wasn't in love with Kathryn Bigelow's last film, The Hurt Locker.  I heard that this was a film that asked a lot of tough questions and did not give comforting answers.  America has been fighting its War on Terror for over a decade now, and we still haven't gotten a movie that (in my mind, anyway) makes an awesome statement about it.  It may be a lot to ask of a movie, but that was what I was hoping for with Zero Dark Thirty.

Zero Dark Thirty is the somewhat true-ish tale of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden (played by the always delightful Ryan Reynolds).  Maya (Jessica Chastain) is a fresh CIA recruit in 2003, newly assigned to the task force that is trying to track down Bin Laden.  Right out of the gate, Maya is confronted with the harsh reality of torture.  One of her new coworkers, Dan (Jason Clarke), spends a good amount of time at a Black Box site, interrogating detainees.  Dan and his subordinates threaten, badger, and offer the occasional kindness in their quest for information --- aaand they also torture the shit out of their prisoners, too.  Waterboarding, humiliation, sensory deprivation, and just general abuse are some of the more colorful ways Dan elicits information.

Above: Dan, scraping some "torture juice" off his shoes

While no one is willing to dish on Osama Bin Laden, Dan and Maya managed to trick one detainee into naming a courier that delivers messages to Bin Laden. In and of itself, that little morsel of information doesn't mean much, but over the next few years, Maya is able to piece together a small piece of the larger picture.  If she is correct, and this courier is trusted with an important job, then that means he actually meets with the elusive Osama Bin Laden.  If that is true, then all Maya needs to do is track down this courier (who she does not have a picture or real name of) to find Bin Laden.  It's as easy as combing through literally tons of intelligence reports for a single clue over an eight-year span, while negotiating changing political and professional priorities and surviving a terrorist bombing.

She went in a novice and left a female David Caruso.  YEAAAAHHHH!

If nothing else, Kathryn Bigelow does an excellent job subverting expectations with Zero Dark Thirty.  This is less of a war movie or a manhunt than it is a police procedural.  In that regard, it's a pretty solid one.  Jessica Chastain fills the role of the obsessive person who just knows that they're right capably, and Bigelow does a good job making her look like the most capable person in the room at any given time.  When it finally gets to be Zero Dark Fifteen-ish, Bigelow shifts gears and reminds audiences that she knows how to add tension to military scenes.

What I found most interesting about Bigelow's approach to the material was that it felt surprisingly light on judgement.  The torture scenes seemed to affect the characters just as much as suicide bombers, or the final assault on Bin Laden's complex.  This could easily have been a propaganda piece, like The Green Berets, but Zero Dark Thirty strove for a much more documentary feel.

As a movie that is, essentially, a procedural with documentary tones to it, Zero Dark Thirty is not a great spotlight for acting.  Jessica Chastain was pretty good as the emotional core of the film, but even her fairly rounded character exhibited frustration more than anything else.  She did morph into a convincingly bad-ass intelligence agent, but I felt that the personal investment of the character --- which was mind-numbingly large --- didn't translate into her performance. 

Jason Clarke was impressive in a supporting role; the more I see of Clarke, the more I like him and truly believe that he's close to a breakout role.  He had one of the more despicable parts in the film, but he gave it some unexpected humanity, too.  Most of the rest of the film was filled with bit parts, and many of them were played by character actors.  Still, in the cast of thousands, there were some familiar faces.  On the political side of the plot, Kyle Chandler was (once again) a bureaucrat, Mark Strong was a sneakier type of bureaucrat, James Gandolfini was kind of a military bureaucrat, and John Barrowman essentially acted as Jessica Chastain's hype man with his sole line.  All of those are good actors, but only Mark Strong had an opportunity to show off any (which he did).  On Maya's team, Harold Perrineau made a very brief and very welcome appearance and Jennifer Ehle was pretty good as the intelligence character that always seemed to be wrong.  When the story turned to the military side of things, Chris Pratt and Joel Edgerton were the face of the strike team.  Pratt was surprisingly engaging as a slight goofball, while Edgerton played his part more through glaring than with dialogue.

Their haircuts match their characters

Okay, I've covered the plot, the direction and the acting.  What about all that torture?  On the one hand, I can agree (to an extent) with the argument that acceptance can be construed as condoning.  I honestly don't get where people are coming from when they say that the overall message here is that torture was necessary to find Bin Laden.  At worst, this film takes an indifferent stance on the issue.  Of course, the message is not that torture did no good, either; information gleaned through torture did eventually lead to the film's climax, but the methods are not shown as heroic or even necessary evils.  As with so much of Zero Dark Thirty, it would be so much easier to derive meaning and intent if this film had given in to machismo or back-patting nationalism.  Instead, the audience is subjected to extended periods of unpleasantness as the detainees are tortured on-screen.  If there is a message in Zero Dark Thirty about torture, I would argue that it is closer to "torture sure is messed up, right?" than anything else.

I was not sure how I felt about Zero Dark Thirty when it ended.  It certainly did not live up to my expectations, but that is not a bad thing.  This was a substantially different film than I was expecting, and I respected the emotionally-neutral choice of tone.  I would have preferred something that asked questions instead of simply reported issues, but that would have fundamentally altered Bigelow's documentary-feel.  I wish it had felt more immediate, though.  I was so separated from the emotions of these characters that the exits of Kyle Chandler and Jennifer Ehle had no impact on me, much less anything that happened to Jessica Chastain.  Everything just felt too impersonal.  That can happen in procedural dramas, but the main character's charisma or brilliance helps keep things exciting as the audience is drip-fed clues.  Chastain was at her best in conference room scenes, convincing bureaucrats to believe her.

There was a shocking amount of whatever you want to call this

For Zero Dark Thirty to work as a procedural, her best scenes needed to be her putting the pieces of the puzzle together.  This is a movie that could have done more, but also could have been truly insufferable.  Instead, it landed somewhere in the middle for me.

Lawless

John Hillcoat has made some gritty movies.  This is not a filmmaker given to sentimentality, and he's not afraid of capturing ugliness on film.  His last two films have impressed me, but fell just shy of being great; if there was just a little bit of spectacle added to spice up the bleakness, The Proposition and The Road would have been radically different.  Hillcoat's newest film, Lawless, prominently features Shia LaBeouf, which isn't necessarily a sign of quality or grittiness.  Lawless does have Tom Hardy, who I am quickly becoming a fan of, and the great Gary Oldman, who I love.  Adding Shia (which is Hebrew for "fluffy") to those two masters of transformation (as in acting, not turning into cars) and a frequently depressing director sounds like something worth watching.

Lawless is the true(-ish) story of the Bondurant boys, a family of moonshine makers/bootleggers in Prohibition-era America.  In Franklin County, Virginia, though, that was nothing special --- just about everyone either made their own moonshine or bought it from their neighbors.  Heck, even the police buy moonshine.  The Bondurants were different thanks to their reputation for toughness.  Well, thanks to Forrest (Tom Hardy) and Howard's (Jason Clarke) reputation, that is.  While those two have defied death and done things like punching Godzilla in the taint (I'm paraphrasing), their little brother, Jack (Shia LaBeouf) hasn't done much of anything.  With his brothers being local legends, that means that little Jack has a chip on his shoulder and big shoes to fill.  When the film begins, Jack's biggest problem is impressing a local girl and trying to make moonshine on his own.

The secret ingredient is urine

Things get significantly worse when a hot-shot Special Agent from Chicago rolls into town.  For the record, Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce) might have a badge, but he is not a good man or a lawful one.  He is brutal and his game is extortion.

But he looks so nice...!

Rakes and his boss want to run the moonshine business in Franklin County; if the moonshiners give Rakes money, then he won't have the police harass them.  Forrest isn't the type to lay down for anyone, though, and refuses to pay.  Cue the violence!

Shia competes in the 200M Outdoor Shootout

The acting in Lawless was uniformly good.  Shia LaBeouf was the point of view character, but he was clearly not the most important character.  Still, even though his character was kind of annoying and remarkably stupid at times, I thought LaBeouf handled the part well.  All his actions made sense (for him) and LaBeouf's comic timing lightened up the film considerably.  Tom Hardy was the true star, though.  Hardy has great physical presence on the screen and his crazy eyes are some of the best in Hollywood right now.  When you give him a part where he is supposed to intimidate people, he slips into it with ease.  They even try to make him less threatening by having him wear sweaters all the time and speak in grunts, but he is still magnetic on the screen.  It's rare to have a clearly violent character portrayed as a patient man, but Hardy manages to pulls it off.

The world's deadliest cardigan fan, after Bill Cosby

Jason Clarke was also pretty good; his part largely consisted of him looking haggard and wordlessly communicating with Hardy, but he still felt dangerous.  Having Guy Pearce play the villain was an interesting choice, because he doesn't really stack up well against Tom Hardy.  Thankfully, they opted to make him weird, creepy and condescending --- thoroughly unlikable, in other words, and very much Hardy's opposite.  And in case you're wondering, yes, he did shave the part into his hairline.  Jessica Chastain was solid as Hardy's romantic interest, although her character's choices pointed to some of the film's weaknesses.  Mia Wasikowska played Shia's love interest, and she was fine in an uncomplicated part.  Dane DeHaan had a solid supporting role as Cricket, the Bondurant friend who survived rickets.  It wasn't a flashy part, but a solid supporting role in an ensemble drama; if he keeps picking roles like this, DeHaan might wind up being a big deal.  Speaking of big deals, I was excited to see Gary Oldman's first scene, where he calmly shoots the hell out of a pursuing car with a tommy gun.  He didn't say a word, he just winked.  And it was awesome. 

You had me at "tommy gun"

After that, though, he has maybe three more minutes of screen time.  What a waste!  Gary Oldman --- one of this generation's greatest actors and over-actors --- playing a bad-ass gangster that follows murders with winks, and he's barely in the story at all?!?  Lawless, you're a wicked tease.

I've mentioned that John Hillcoat is known for his less than optimistic films.  Part of that has something to do with him getting Nick Cave to write two of his films (including this one), but it is also a very deliberate choice on the part of Hillcoat.  He has never been one for sentiment when depressing realism is available.  That is what makes Lawless such a departure for him; it doesn't try to sear your soul.  In fact, Hillcoat actually tries to play to the humor in the script.

Ha ha!  Jokes!

Most of the film's levity comes from the awkwardness of Shia LaBeouf's character, but the best bits come from Tom Hardy's minimal reactions to Jessica Chastain.  These aren't supposed to be thigh-slapping gags, mind you, but those lighter moments are a lot more amusing in the otherwise grim context of this story.  Hillcoat is not going to impress you with his cinematography --- although the man knows how to frame a landscape shot --- instead, he opts for capturing unpleasantness.  His primary tool is a willing cast, and I thought he did a great job directing them.  He also managed to make a graphically violent film that does not feel exploitative.  We get to see several characters serve as blood-puking punching bags, but the focus is more on the horror of the violence than on how awesome the aggressor is.  If anything, this movie is about how you rebound from violence, instead of how you actually fight.

Two out of three brothers agree: rebound with alcohol

Thanks to that attitude, we are not forced to witness any explicit violence toward women, even though there are opportunities in the story.  For that matter, the gratuitous sex scene would have been pretty tasteful, too, if it didn't have Jessica Chastain getting naked about half a scene too early.  Oh, well.  All in all, I think this was a nice step forward for Hillcoat as an artist, since he has stretched his style a bit with (more or less) success.

Lawless is definitely a violent film, which naturally means that there are plenty of action scenes.  The movie trailer makes it seem as if this is going to be a movie filled with gunfire, but the focus is instead on hand-to-hand combat.  The most gruesome scenes involve knives, boots, and brass knuckles.  For fans of gore, there are more than a few scenes where it looks like the fellow getting beat up will be picking his own teeth out of his crap over the next few days.  The gunplay is fairly anticlimactic by comparison.  Aside from Gary Oldman's tommy gun scene and Guy Pearce's powerful revolver, nothing cool ever happens with guns.  That fits the tone of the film just fine, mind you.  If you're looking for something that basks in gunfire like Tombstone or a John Woo movie, though, this may not be for you.

Taking care of boo-boos is much easier than gunshot wounds

The biggest problem with Lawless is the story itself.  Hillcoat does a pretty good job, given the script, and Nick Cave's script is pretty engaging for being based on a true story.  The focus is all wrong, though.  At its core, Lawless is about greed and power (personified by Guy Pearce) infringing on freedom and principle (personified by Tom Hardy).  Unfortunately, the main character was Shia LaBeouf's, and too much of the film centered on his attempts at romance and manhood. 

"You staring blankly reminds me of my last girlfriend.  Do you know Megan Fox?"

Due to that focus, the filmmakers never get around to addressing the motivations of Jessica Chastain's character; I think there was an opportunity for a great supporting actress role here, but it gets buried because it does not directly impact Shia.  His character isn't strong enough to carry a "fill the shoes of my brother" sort of story, and that becomes obvious as the plot ticks on.  I like the way this movie looks and feels, and I enjoy the acting.  The story is the unfortunate weak point.  For fans of Tom Hardy and bloody face punching, though, it is definitely worth a watch.

The Help

*** Included in Brian's Best and Worst of 2011 ***

Right before the Oscars, I saw all nine nominations for Best Picture in the theater.  In the span of two days.  Feeling exhausted after sitting the the dark all day is definitely a first world complaint, but it got a bit difficult at times, and ever since, I've had trouble sitting down and gathering my thoughts about those movies.  The nice thing about watching all nine films was that I watched movies that I would have otherwise avoided.  Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was definitely not on my list of movies to watch, nor was The Help.  But I did see them, even if tearjerkers are not my favorite genre, and each film taught me a valuable lesson.

The lesson: white women are evil

In the early 1960s, Skeeter (Emma Stone) is finally home after four years earning her degree at the University of Mississippi.  Skeeter is different from all the other girls she grew up with; aside from settling for "Skeeter" as a nickname, she also went to school to prepare herself for a job, not to hunt for a husband.  When she came home, she was expecting to be congratulated by the woman who raised her.  No, not her mother (Allison Janney), silly --- Constantine (Cicely Tyson), Skeeter's family's black maid. 

Above: Young Skeeter.  Not Pictured: Constantine's striped socks

Mom tells Skeeter that Constantine quit and moved to Chicago to live with her family, but doing something that would be plausible in any other story sounds suspicious to Skeeter --- at the very least, Constantine would have written her a letter, right?  Even setting aside that unsettling development, post-graduate life isn't exactly what Skeeter had in mind.  Her friends and family expect her to get married and have kids immediately, but she wants a career.  And the only job she could find in her field (writing) is as an advice columnist specializing in cleaning around the house.  Too bad she doesn't know the first thing about housecleaning.  If only Constantine was around, she would certainly help Skeeter by essentially doing her work for her!

"Maybe you can write about having Mommy dress you as an adult?"

But wait just a minute...there are other black maids in Skeeter's town --- perhaps one or more of them could give her helpful advice for her column?  Enter Aibileen (Viola Davis), maid to one of Skeeter's friends.  Aibileen agrees (after being allowed by her employers, of course) to advise Skeeter.  Spending time with Aibileen makes Skeeter more aware of her town's casual racism, and this gives her an idea --- Aibileen should tell her side of things, so people could learn about life from the perspective of "the help."  This had never been done before, so it was novel enough to get Skeeter's foot in the door at a book publishing house --- now, all she needed was a variety of hard-hitting and dramatic stories from dozens of "helpers."  That should be easy enough.  After all, it's not like this story takes place right around 1962 Mississippi, where any African American adult could lose their livelihood or their life just for standing up for their legal rights, right?  Oh, wait...crap.  Writing a book about the dirt behind the closed doors of her hometown might not be the safest idea anyone ever had for a book.

Great.  Now they need a lookout to go shopping.  Thanks, Skeeter.

In any conversation about The Help, the first thing that should pop up is the performances.  Viola Davis was excellent as the film's main character, even if it isn't necessarily the lead character.  Davis carries this film's emotional content, whether it be grief, heartbreak, a feeling of injustice, or pride.  Octavia Spencer is also very, very good as the sassiest maid in town.  I realize that the sassy black woman is not a rarity in film, but it's still a pleasure to see the role done right.  Emma Stone's Skeeter acts as the audience's point of view character, and I thought Stone did a fine job with what she had to work with.  I have my reservations about her character, but I'll touch on that in a bit.  Bryce Dallas Howard was suitably evil as the biggest racist and snob among Skeeter's friends; this wasn't a deep role, but Howard made sure that the character had absolutely no redeeming qualities.  Jessica Chastain was significantly better, balancing a ditzy character's foibles with some solid dramatic points.  I'm a little curious as to how her character's appearance was explained to her, but I guess it underlined her as a social outsider.

"Love that Joker!"

The rest of the cast falls in somewhere between bit parts and extremely brief supporting roles.  It was nice to see Sissy Spacek having fun with  her role; her reactions definitely improved a few scenes.  Allison Janney was solid, but I would have liked to see her do more.  For theoretically being such a pivotal character for Skeeter, Cicely Tyson didn't have much screen time, although she was still pretty good when she was given the chance.  Other actors, like Ahna O'Reilly, Chris Lowell, Aunjanue Ellis, and Mike Vogel showed up and did whatever the script required of them, although some of their characters seemed to make choices that were awfully convenient to the plot.

That convenience is part of what frustrates me about The Help.  While the film goes out of its way to bring up some very serious issues --- racism, domestic abuse, civil rights, etc. --- most of those issues are glossed over.  When the other maids come forward and contribute to Skeeter's book, some of them have very sad tales, but they are only minor characters in this story, and their sole purpose is to say something tragic and then fade out of the story.  The otherwise indomitable Minny is afraid of her husband's rage, and we see her cowering from his blows, but that entire subplot is resolved off-camera.  Other moments, like Chris Lowell's abrupt departure from the film, come out of left field, indicating that their characters are merely props for the main characters to interact with.

Above: three main characters, two props, and a bridge table

I hesitate to blame director Tate Taylor for these deficiencies, though.  This is a film with an enormous cast, most of whom are limited to a few lines and a single costume.  Taylor did a great job with his primary cast, given their roles.  He was able to tell the story simply, without getting sidetracked in unnecessary subplots, and he made sure to hit every possible emotional moment on the head.  The Help is going to try to make you cry, and it will probably succeed.  At the very least, it should disgust you with its (presumably) accurate depiction of racism in the American South in the sadly not distant past.  The camera work is nothing special, but the voice-over and editing are handled nicely.  Given the source of the story, Taylor handled this film about as well as anyone I can imagine, given the limitations of the story.

Don't be confused, though.  The Help is not a very deep or thought-provoking film.  It goes for an emotional response and gets it, but the message probably won't stick with you for long.  Part of this is due to the simplicity of the characters.  This is a film with good people (not racist or sexist) and bad people (racist bullies), with very little grey area; yes, there are two characters who fire their maids because a bossy racist pressures them to, but they're more cowards than racists or evil.  There are working stiffs (the maids and Skeeter) and there are privileged housewives (every other female character).  There are cowards and there are brave folk.

"Bless you, Skeeter, for using my talent to find you a job."

Even the simplicity doesn't explain quite why I felt manipulated by The Help.  This should be an empowering film because the protagonists improved their lot in life and fought a grave injustice.  Instead, I was kind of annoyed by Skeeter.  I know I am supposed to root for her because she's spunky, educated, and wants to fight racism, but she kind of sucks.  First of all, the film depicts her situation as being risk-free; I realize that racists could harm her, but she is never implied to be in danger.  Aibileen and Missy are clearly afraid, but Skeeter never appears worse than socially awkward.  Second, Skeeter shouldn't even be the main character.  The most interesting character in the film is Aibileen --- she is brave, smart, and Skeeter is essentially just transcribing her story --- but we have to sit through Skeeter's tale?  I would much rather have the film focus on Aibileen than deal with the Skeeter's epic romance that boils down to a guy saying "You're different from the other girls."  Maybe Skeeter would have been more palatable as the main character if the fate of Constantine --- which is treated like a mystery throughout the film --- wasn't incredibly obvious from the start and the resolution seemed to be delayed only by the main character making a conscious choice not to pursue the matter until the end of the film. 

The Help left me surprisingly cold.  It has a happy ending, where everyone you care about is moving onward and upward, and yet it just feels like Skeeter used some poor black women to help her get the hell out of podunk Mississippi, while Aibileen apparently plans to put "a white woman anonymously included my stories in an anthology" on her next job application.  This movie simplifies complex matters, almost to an insulting degree.  While I certainly don't advocate racism, I'm pretty sure that it comes in varying degrees; Bryce Dallas Howard was so unsympathetic that she could have passed for a Bond villain.  Thank goodness the racists weren't complex characters, otherwise the audience might have to think about an unsettling issue instead of just being relieved that things aren't as obviously racist today.

...although there is still a risk of tampered food.  Tip your waiters!

The Help is worth seeing for the acting alone.  It's an emotional film, but it is an uplifting one as well, provided you don't put a whole lot of hard thought into it.  Large chunks are predictable, but every so often something or somebody will surprise you. Is this a movie that I liked?  Not especially, but there were enough strong performances to make this worthwhile, at least once.

The Tree of Life

"Nants ingonyama bagithi baba.  Sithi uhhmm ingonyama:"  this is what was running through my mind five minutes after finishing The Tree of Life --- the opening lines to The Lion King's "Circle of Life" (yes, I had to look up the spelling).  Is that subliminal connection a good thing, or was my mind just trying in vain to make sense out of a notoriously difficult film?  Honestly, I don't know the significance of the song to this movie; I just found it amusing that that is where my mind wandered to as I pondered The Tree of Life.

This is not one of those movies that is going to reel you in by its narrative.  Essentially, the adult Jack (Sean Penn) is, in modern times, pondering his place in the world and the nature of man.  His mind flashes back to his childhood, raised by a strict and often angry father (Brad Pitt) and a saintly mother (Jessica Chastain), along with his two younger brothers.  The young Jack (Hunter McCracken) is very much like his father, while his brothers are very much like their mother.  And then this happens:

That, naturally, is followed by this:

...which, of course, leads to dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs and pretension, together at last

And then we resume Jack's stroll down memory lane.  No, you didn't miss anything.  Jack then winds up in a ridiculously remote location with doubtlessly metaphorical significance, we see some dead people, and now the movie is over.

Jack, busy ignoring that 127 Hours guy

If absolutely nothing else, The Tree of Life is designed to elicit a response from its viewers.  Confusion, hatred, love, whatever --- you're not left indifferent.  I saw it in the theater this weekend, and I was the only one of my group that did not absolutely loathe the film.  I could be wrong, but I believe my wife would have peed on Terrence Malick that night, given the chance.  The audience groaned whenever a fade to black became a fade-in, and this is one of the few movies I have seen in a long while where the audience --- filled with people paying to see a Best Picture nominee marathon, mind you --- wound up talking amongst themselves and giggling inappropriately.  I'm sure some people in that theater were absolutely blown away by Terrence Malick's most recent effort, but it was certainly not designed for the masses. 

The acting in The Tree of Life is universally solid, even when you're not sure what the hell is going on.  Brad Pitt handled a complex role as a do-it-yourself man that never did "it" good enough to be successful and happy; he is seen as an angry force of nature by Jack, but Pitt still makes this character sympathetic.  

Example: he doesn't eat this baby

Of course, to do this, Pitt sports the annoying under-bite he sometimes likes to use when playing Southern characters.  Jessica Chastain was also good as Jack's mother, but I didn't feel that her role was as compelling as Pitt's.  The only flaw she seemed to have was an inability to handle her husband's impotent rage, or at least protect her children from it; since the husband wasn't actually evil or physically abusive, though, that flaw isn't the defining point of her character.  Instead, she is the example of Heavenly Grace in this film.  There's nothing wrong with that, it just isn't too interesting from a character development standpoint.  Hunter McCracken did an impressive job as the troubled Young Jack.  He internalized a lot of struggles, and the way he lashed out at his parents felt true.  He's not a pretty kid, though.  Sean Penn just walked around looking mopey.  His character didn't have much time onscreen, but Penn still delivered a surprisingly bland performance.  I also liked Tye Sheridan as the sensitive, artsy brother, more because he was expressive than for any other real reason.


The acting was never going to be what made or broke The Tree of Life, though.  That depended entirely on writer/director Terrence Malick.  This is only the fifth film directed by Malick, although he has been directing since 1973, and it is based on a screenplay he began writing in the late 1970s.  Needless to say, Malick has put a lot of thought into this film.  Unfortunately for many viewers, none of those thoughts involved making this film easily comprehensible.  There is no denying that the cinematography in this film is absolutely stunning.  Even when you aren't sure what you are looking at, the images are impressive.

Above: nucleotides, maybe?

I also appreciated the complex acting Malick got from his cast in a film without a lot of revealing dialogue.  This is definitely a film that relies on the actions of the characters over their lines, and the performances were all good (with the exception of Penn), subtle and complex.


Having said all that, what the hell happened in this movie?  It jumps from a disjointed, nonlinear narrative about some kids growing up in the 1950s to an extended break (anywhere from 15-3000 minutes --- I didn't think to time it) with no acting, voice-over, or anything --- just shot after shot of outtakes from a planetarium laser show.  The images were gorgeous, but they didn't have any direct connection to the story.  And then dinosaurs happen, and I could hear audience members mentally checking out.

...aaaaand I'm done

I have no doubt that this sequence will become as famous/infamous as 2001's space baby.  So, if Kubrick pissed you off with that ending, you probably don't want to see a movie where that sort of sequence shows up in the middle without any explicit explanation.  

But let's ignore the cinematographic masturbation for a moment and focus on the rest of the film.  It's still incredibly obtuse.  There are many back-lit shots that the camera lingers on, but do not hold any explicit connection to the story at large.  And I hope you like trees, because The Tree of Life makes sure you notice them by holding still life shots for a loooong time, like Malick was waiting for the Ents to awaken or something.

Voice-over: "TREES, BITCHES!"

And I hope you like philosophical questions being whispered as voice-over, because that is something else this movie has in spades.  If I watch this again, I will have a hard time not calling out "Ricola" whenever Chastain or McCracken whispers sweet existential nothings in my ears.  There is also the confusing focus of the flashback scenes, where important things seem to happen (a neighbor's house burns down, somebody has a seizure, a brother dies at age 19, etc.), but are never really addressed again.  

If you hate The Tree of Life, I completely understand.  Personally, I can only take so much existential crap before my body starts rejecting it, and I can believe that this film has more than most people would like to handle.  However, I didn't quite hit my limit.  I thought this was a fantastically shot movie with interesting performances and a refreshing amount of directorial intent.  I didn't like it much, but I appreciate it for what it is.  It's hard to find a movie that so so obviously odd, that is striving so hard to tell a particular point of view instead of just going after emotions with broad strokes; The Tree of Life will probably end up like The Velvet Underground and Nico --- not many people will like it, but those that do will make their own films, or at least look for more challenging cinema than what Hollywood has to offer.  And that's a good thing for film as an art form and as a continuously evolving commercial product.  What kept me from liking the movie (believe it or not) was not the "history of life" interlude, but the core story.  I never connected to Jack; I found him repulsive as a child and completely uninteresting as an adult.  The issues he's dealing with are fairly universal, but I never felt emotionally invested in this philosophical lecture or in the characters involved.

Is Jack being shown affection or love?  I don't really care

Maybe I'm a little strange.  Well, I'm definitely strange, but it strikes me as odd that this, an obviously personal film that Malick put an impressive amount of time and thought into, would leave me almost indifferent.  Oh well.  Since it failed to entice me emotionally or philosophically and because the whole thing was pretty damn pretentious, I'm giving The Tree of Life

I will recommend this movie to anyone who is a big fan of 2001: A Space Odyssey or The Fountain.  Just don't make me watch it with you.


Now, if you have already seen the movie and are trying to figure out what it was about, here's my take:

Brian's story analysis of The Tree of Life

The movie boils down to the premise introduced by Jessica Chastain's character at the very beginning, the struggle between Grace and Nature; Grace (embodied by mommy) is kind and loving and wants everything and everybody to be nice and recognize the glory all around us, while Nature is competitive and very much based in the daily struggle of man.  Or you can think of it as Big Picture vs. Little Picture, whatever works for you.

You can also dumb the message down to "don't sweat the small stuff"

Adult Jack, for whatever reason, starts to reflect on his life.  He has always been more like his father (Nature) than his mother (Grace), and he's contemplating the value of what he has achieved as a successful businessman.  He wants to go back to that innocent time as a child when he felt in touch with Grace.  The flashbacks are shown in seemingly random snippets because that's how the mind reflects; when you remember something, it's usually a jumble of images, not a coherent and chronological retelling.  That also explains why seemingly important moments are glossed over; they did not directly impact Jack's memory at that time, so he just remembers being told to go inside when the neighbor had a seizure.  The yearning to go back to innocence also makes Jack question the place of man in the world, which leads to the whole Discovery channel acid trip.  Ultimately, Jack arrives at the moment when his father, Nature personified, went through the same life crisis and reevaluated his life.  The ending with all the friends and family, past and present, is Jack accepting his place in the world, with Grace.  It's the circle of life.

Nants ingonyama bagithi baba!  Sithi uhhmm ingonyama!