Silver Linings Playbook

(David O. Russell, 2012)

with Caitlin, Academy Theater, NYC, 1/7/13

7

The first thing that strikes you about Silver Linings Playbook is its speed.  The dialogue is punchy, the transitions are jagged and fast, and the whole thing moves in a way that even well-made thrillers usually don’t, and character-driven dramedies almost never do.  This pace is exciting.  It’s also funny.  It lets you know right away that you’re in good hands.

That sense of assurance never leaves the movie, though eventually it slows down a bit and becomes a little more conventional.  As in The Fighter, David O. Russell is doing a nice little tightrope act between humor and pathos, between realism and fairytale, but Silver Linings Playbook is a richer, warmer, and more rewarding film.  It’s a film that makes room for minor characters, that appreciates them and loves them as complete, flawed human beings.  It’s a film in which John Ortiz makes us laugh at his sheer quiet desperation, in which Chris Tucker reminds us how charming he can be, in which Australian Jacki Weaver plays a Philadelphia housewife with effortless verisimilitude and boundless compassion.  Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence invest their oddball love affair with wonderful conviction, vulnerability, and anger.  They don’t bicker because that’s part of the formula; they bicker because they’re terrified.  Silver Linings Playbook is an original, a movie with a voice, a movie with a point of view, a movie with heart and with something to say.  It’s bracing to watch.  Do yourself the favor.

Rain Man

(Barry Levinson, 1988)

with Graham Stone, Barn Screening Room, 1/2/13

6

It’s strange to finally see this movie after years of knowing it by reputation.  Watching it now, you’d never peg it as a box-office smash or a Best Picture winner.  It’s a sweet little relationship drama, dated and repetitive and slackly paced, with strong lead performances and a really awkward supporting turn by Jerry Molen (also a co-producer on the film).  The driving sequences lack all sense of dynamism; it’s amazing to think that they passed muster in a high-profile film not so very long ago.  Rain Man does what it does well enough, but after twenty-five years of near-legendary status, it can’t live up to the hype.

Les Misérables

(Tom Hooper, 2012)

with Dad, Devin, Darcy, Caitlin, and Christine Gray, Redstone Cinemas, 12/26/12

5

It doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone involved in Les Misérables that adapting a Broadway musical into a blockbuster movie might require making some actual changes.  Do they replace some of the awkward speak-singing with dialogue?  Nope.  Do they cut one or two (or three or four) of the more obviously superfluous musical numbers?  Nope.  Choose a protagonist?  Nope.  Decide what their main storyline is?  Don’t be ridiculous!  What they do is slavishly follow the structure of the stage play – which is ironic, since that play was itself based on a Victor Hugo novel, and naturally took whatever liberties were necessary in order to make the material stage-worthy.  The filmmakers don’t have the same vision or courage, so they content themselves with producing a kind of cinematic companion to the 1985 theatrical production.  It’s a shame, because the actors – Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway in particular – bring an extraordinary vulnerability to their roles.  Performances like this deserve to be in a real movie.

White Christmas

(Michael Curtiz, 1954)

with Dad, Mom, Devin, Darcy, Caitlin, and Christine Gray, on DVD at Cache 6, 12/23/12

5

A silly old chestnut, but better than I remembered.  Some of the musical numbers are truly awful, and the love stories are pretty perfunctory (and very perfunctorily resolved), but there’s a lot of charm here, even though Bing Crosby is pretty much a smug bastard, and Vera Ellen is pretty much a Barbie.  Rosemary Clooney brings some real gravity and feeling to her role, which is impressive considering how thin the script is.  Oh, and there are some great songs too.

Jack Reacher

(Christopher McQuarrie, 2012)

with Dad, Devin, Darcy, and Caitlin, Redstone Cinemas, 12/22/12

4

I’m not sure what Jack Reacher is trying to be, exactly.  It often acts like an escapist action thriller, but sometimes it’s a dark drama about mental illness and the trauma of war.  The tone slips around all over the place – at one point going as far as farce.  Some scenes are unnecessarily long, and others are just plain unnecessary.  There’s a lot of clever and effective stuff here – and Werner Herzog makes a dynamite villain – but Jack Reacher is too conflicted about its intentions to ever really coalesce.

Anna Karenina

(Joe Wright, 2012)

with Jenn Haltman, Brooklyn Heights Cinema, 12/16/12

6

A lush, boldly experimental take on Tolstoy’s classic, whose failings are mostly those of the original novel.  The depth of Anna’s attraction to Vronsky is never quite explicable – especially when Anna is sensible Keira Knightley, her husband is charismatic Jude Law, and Vronsky is the same vapid pretty-boy we remember from the book.  Also, her descent into ignominy and despair is so foredoomed that it rapidly becomes tedious.  Still, there’s much to admire here, including Knightley’s sensitive fierceness, Law’s tightly reined passion, Matthew McFayden’s exaggerated joviality (I swear, I never would have recognized him from Pride and Prejudice), and Domhnall Gleeson’s wounded-puppy guilelessness.  There are also some thrillingly stylized moments – though perhaps not quite enough to make for a unified aesthetic.  In short, Anna Karenina is a bit less than the sum of its parts, but the parts are gorgeous, and it’s therefore worth a look.

Everything Must Go

(Dan Rush, 2010)

with Darcy, Caitlin, Dad, and Theo Meneau, Barn Screening Room, 11/24/12

6

A warm, winning, modestly scaled dramedy, with a protagonist as admirably stoic as he is pathetic, petulant, and addicted.  Will Ferrell’s performance captures the character’s charm as well as his bitterness; we like him even when he’s making terrible mistakes.  The ending is a little muddled, but other than that, Everything Must Go is a well-crafted and humanistic little movie.

Arsenic and Old Lace

(Frank Capra, 1944)

with Jenn Haltman, on DVD at Jenn’s apartment, 11/16/12

4

It’s strange how little time this high-concept comedy spends on its high concept.  No sooner is the zany premise established than a murderous long-lost relative turns up, and everyone is understandably too distracted to recall the original conceit.  There’s precious little illusion of reality in Arsenic and Old Lace, so the stakes are pretty low, and the laughs are pretty tepid.  Still, it’s amiably daft, and you have to give it credit for that.