David O. Russell's film Silver Linings Playbook defies pigeonholing. It has been billed by some as a romantic comedy, but considering this is a film about people with psychiatric issues falling in love, it would be downright wrong to compare it to such light and fluffy fare as Sleepless in Seattle. Also, the last film I can think of that featured a romance between two people with mental issues, The Other Sister, took the hallmark-card approach and turned out to be a complete dungfest. It would not be fair to call the film a dramedy, either, because that would simply conjure up images of so many late-90s early 00's TV shows without really showing just how nuanced this movie is.
Pat Solitano (Bradley Cooper), a former high-school substitute teacher, has just spent eight months in a mental hospital, having been diagnosed with bipolar disorder shortly after he nearly beat to death his wife's lover upon finding the two of them in the shower together. He goes home to his father, Pat Sr. (Robert De Niro) and his mother Dolores (Jacki Weaver) and remains intent on winning back his wife Nikki (Brea Bee) despite the fact that she has taken out a restraining order on him. He gets in shape, mainly by running (it is hinted but never shown that he used to be overweight), he reads the books that Nikki teaches to her high school class, even though some of them, such as Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, upset him to the point of having episodes of anger. His parents try to talk him out of his quest, and Pat Sr. repeatedly tries to get him to watch football games with him, claiming that Pat Jr. is a good luck charm for their home team, the Philadelphia Eagles.
As he tries to settle back into his old life, Pat Jr. meets up with an old friend, Ronnie (John Ortiz), whose wife Veronica (Julia Stiles) a co-teacher of Nikki's, invites Pat to dinner. There, he meets Veronica's sister Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence) a widow who has also recently lost her job. Tiffany, like Pat, is a former mental patient, having been a sex addict, and in fact she propositions him on the night they meet, making Pat extremely uncomfortable, and he leaves. He encounters her again and often, though, as she apparently jogs the same route as he does. On the advice of his psychiatrist (Anupam Kher), Pat befriends Tiffany, who then offers to help him by giving Nikki a letter from him. In exchange, however, she wants him to be her partner for a dance competition.
Caught between his own obsession with winning back his wife, his father's preoccupation with his own superstitions (he bets money on an Eagles game in order to win enough money to put up a restaurant and get out of bookmaking, and Pat Jr. becomes instrumental to his winning the bet) his extremely rigorous dance training with Tiffany and his growing attraction to her, Pat finds himself learning a lot more about life, love and family than he would have ever imagined possible.
To my mind, a good portion of this film is a somewhat stressful viewing experience. Pat Jr.'s bipolar disorder is put on full display, and his shouting episodes and verbal exchanges with Tiffany that resulted in her yelling made me feel distinctly uncomfortable. It's actually testimony to Cooper's acting that he is able to evoke such feelings of discomfort because I, for one, completely bought his performance. It was particularly easy to empathize with him because the incident that put him in the hospital was one which could drive just about anyone to violence; in Philippine law he could actually have killed both his wife and her lover in that instant and gotten off with an extremely light penalty, plea of insanity or not. Not only that, but his love for his wife and his desire to win her back feel genuine and earnest, even though the audience and every other character in the film know that there's little to no chance of that actually happening.
Jennifer Lawrence, who received an Oscar for her performance, doesn't take her character off the deep end like Cooper does, but gives a richly nuanced performance as the widow of a policeman who dealt with the grief of her loss by having sex with everything that moved. As young as Lawrence is, there's a real depth to her character, an effect she achieves by delivering a performance that is judiciously understated. One of the scenes in which she really shines is the one in which she tells Pat Jr. how her husband, Tommy, died. There are no histrionics, no raised voices, and no tears, but Lawrence conveys the dull ache of losing someone she loves in that scene; it's possibly some of the most powerful interplay between the two characters, and Cooper picks up the ball and runs with it. The chemistry between these two is astounding, and they play these roles perfectly.
Another perfect bit of chemistry is evident in the performances of De Niro and Weaver as Pat Sr. and Dolores, Pat's loving parents. Their characters have it the worst as they catch the brunt of Pat's episodes, of which there are more than one throughout the film, and the way they portray their characters' love for their poor son is one of the more touching parts of the movie; I'm a fan of family dynamics that are played out well, and this has to be one of the best I've seen in awhile. They're also at the center of one of the film's few plot twists, arguably the best one. Like I said, the parts of the film that have Pat shouting and basically letting his illness get the better of him are pretty tough to sit through, but De Niro's Pat Sr. and Jacki Weaver's Dolores help ease things a little bit.
A truly pleasant surprise here was a wonderfully low-key performance Chris Tucker as Danny, Pat's best friend from the mental hospital. Yes, I'm talking about Chris "Rush Hour" Tucker, who finally demonstrates that he can actually act, or do anything that doesn't involve yelling at Jackie Chan or doing a shriller version of Eddie Murphy. It wasn't quite award-worthy in the same way that the performances of his costars were but it was nicely nuanced and if this is the kind of performance audiences can expect from Tucker I would genuinely like to see him in more movies.
Credit goes to Russell, for whom this film is apparently very personal considering his own son has been diagnosed as bipolar (and who has even been described as bipolar himself by George Clooney, who worked with him on 1999's Three Kings, an experience he reportedly described as one of the worst of his life) who extracted such fine performances from so many actors and who even wrote their lines. He took a really brave approach to a complex, very difficult story to tackle and managed to come up with something wonderful.
Ultimately, enduring Pat's hardship vicariously is worth it, and though I won't spoil the ending, suffice it to say that this is one thing the film has in common with the more traditional romantic comedies like Sleepless in Seattle or While You Were Sleeping. The thing about this movie is that, more than any of the other "rom coms" I actually felt, upon coming to the satisfying ending, that I had earned it.
4.5/5
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
VFX Houses in Trouble
My first impulse was to post my thoughts on yesterday's Academy Award winners and I will get around to that in my next post, but instead I thought of sharing my thoughts on a topic close to the hearts of fans of big popcorn movies like myself, and it's the fact that a number of our beloved visual effects vendors appear to be in some serious financial trouble.
It was a sad moment when the visual effects crew for the film Life of Pi went up to receive one of the film's four Oscars, and the leader of the team and designated spokesperson Bill Westenhofer, during his acceptance speech which was unfortunately cut short, disclosed that the visual effects vendor for the film, FX house Rhythm & Hues (previous Oscar winner for Babe: The Gallant Pig and The Golden Compass), was facing bankruptcy, similar to what happened to Digital Domain, the vendor that James Cameron started, not too long ago.
Movies, especially the kind that make a billion dollars at the global box-office, owe a lot to their visual effects crews. As another blogger pointed out, without the effects work of R & H, Life of Pi would just have a kid on a boat in a water tank. There would be no open sea, and no tiger. Ang Lee has talked at length in interviews about the challenges of adapting a fantastical novel once deemed "unfilmable." Well, had it not been for R & H, Life of Pi would have remained unfilmable, unless Ang Lee had dared to actually put his star at sea in a boat with a man-eating tiger for company.
VFX are hugely important, even in movies without fantastical creatures or giant robots, because they make possible things that would otherwise not be possible without building enormous sets or putting the actors or stuntmen in peril, among other things. Life of Pi is an extreme, and therefore appropriate, example of just how important VFX has become over the last several years, but there are many, many others.
For all of that, apparently paying the vendors is one of the last things on some studios' minds. Apparently, unless an effects vendor is Industrial Light and Magic, they're not worth paying up front. Truth be told, I don't even known if ILM get paid up front.
Of course, some vendors have seen the writing on the wall, particularly the simple fact that labor is cheaper overseas, and outfits like Sony Picture Imageworks (the Spider-Man movies) and even the aforementioned ILM have set up shop in Asia, with SPI having offices in India and ILM setting up in Singapore. As an Asian I may yet see my countrymen benefit from this trend as VFX houses come flocking to this region looking for cheap labor. The technology transfer and transmission of know-how may yet mean top-class VFX coming from the Philippines someday.
What saddens me, though, is that these men and women are clearly the unsung heroes of today's blockbusters, and Hollywood, a multi-billion dollar industry, has clearly not been giving them their due.
Anyway, if all the VFX houses in Hollywood have to pack up and move to Asia, I hope they are able to keep their heads above water, and that above all else, they maintain their standard of quality which, over the years, has made Hollywood blockbusters so much fun to watch.
It was a sad moment when the visual effects crew for the film Life of Pi went up to receive one of the film's four Oscars, and the leader of the team and designated spokesperson Bill Westenhofer, during his acceptance speech which was unfortunately cut short, disclosed that the visual effects vendor for the film, FX house Rhythm & Hues (previous Oscar winner for Babe: The Gallant Pig and The Golden Compass), was facing bankruptcy, similar to what happened to Digital Domain, the vendor that James Cameron started, not too long ago.
Movies, especially the kind that make a billion dollars at the global box-office, owe a lot to their visual effects crews. As another blogger pointed out, without the effects work of R & H, Life of Pi would just have a kid on a boat in a water tank. There would be no open sea, and no tiger. Ang Lee has talked at length in interviews about the challenges of adapting a fantastical novel once deemed "unfilmable." Well, had it not been for R & H, Life of Pi would have remained unfilmable, unless Ang Lee had dared to actually put his star at sea in a boat with a man-eating tiger for company.
VFX are hugely important, even in movies without fantastical creatures or giant robots, because they make possible things that would otherwise not be possible without building enormous sets or putting the actors or stuntmen in peril, among other things. Life of Pi is an extreme, and therefore appropriate, example of just how important VFX has become over the last several years, but there are many, many others.
For all of that, apparently paying the vendors is one of the last things on some studios' minds. Apparently, unless an effects vendor is Industrial Light and Magic, they're not worth paying up front. Truth be told, I don't even known if ILM get paid up front.
Of course, some vendors have seen the writing on the wall, particularly the simple fact that labor is cheaper overseas, and outfits like Sony Picture Imageworks (the Spider-Man movies) and even the aforementioned ILM have set up shop in Asia, with SPI having offices in India and ILM setting up in Singapore. As an Asian I may yet see my countrymen benefit from this trend as VFX houses come flocking to this region looking for cheap labor. The technology transfer and transmission of know-how may yet mean top-class VFX coming from the Philippines someday.
What saddens me, though, is that these men and women are clearly the unsung heroes of today's blockbusters, and Hollywood, a multi-billion dollar industry, has clearly not been giving them their due.
Anyway, if all the VFX houses in Hollywood have to pack up and move to Asia, I hope they are able to keep their heads above water, and that above all else, they maintain their standard of quality which, over the years, has made Hollywood blockbusters so much fun to watch.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
A Defining Moment in Cinema: Steven Spielberg's Lincoln
There are movies that make a good impression on people when they first come out in theaters and even on home video not long thereafter. They are reviewed well and do well at the box-office, but are later consigned to cable television obscurity and are only remembered by ardent film buffs. Then are also movies that are well-regarded, embraced by audiences and critics alike, and which are remembered kindly by many members of the public long after they have left theaters.
Then, there are the classics.
These are films that, no matter how many years pass, survive the test of time, films which are not only respected but are revered because they are so well-made that they transcend constraints of time, budget and quirks of any one performer or filmmaker. I like to think that a lot of films I regard well fit this bill, and I would also like to think Steven Spielberg's Civil War epic Lincoln is exactly the kind of film historians will be talking about decades from now when they talk about how movies should be made. This movie is epic in every sense of the word.
Rather than spanning the entire life of the 16th President of the United States of America or even the over four years of civil war that nearly ripped the country apart around the middle of the 19th century, the film focuses on one pivotal point in that war, specifically January 1865, when the United States Congress was set to vote on the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would abolish slavery.
President Abraham Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis) had previously emancipated the slaves in 1863, but this was through a declaration of an executive in his capacity as commander-in-chief (Lincoln admits in the film that one way of looking at his proclamation was a confiscation of the property of the rebelling Southerners) and it was widely anticipated that this action would be invalidated by the civil courts, which made it indispensable to enshrine abolition in no less than the fundamental law. However, the task of securing the votes needed to pass the amendment was monumental considering that, apart from several trusted members of Lincoln's Republican Party, including hardcore abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones), there were nowhere near enough congressmen whose vote Lincoln could count on for the measure. It is initially argued that the amendment could destroy the pillars of the Southern economy and end the war, but when the President learns that, with or without the amendment, the South is already interested in negotiating for peace, he fears that the opportunity to enshrine the amendment in the Constitution and thereby eradicate slavery for all time may pass, and never come again. He then realizes he is in a race against time to get the amendment approved by Congress, and he has to resort to every trick in the politician's playbook to get the votes he needs by the end of January.
Though this is the first time director Steven Spielberg and lead actor Daniel Day-Lewis have worked together, there is one thing the two men have in common that made this collaboration one for the ages; if neither of them had ever made this film they would already both be regarded as all-time greats in their respective fields. These are men whose legacy in the film industry as legends is completely secure. That they therefore took the time and effort to come up with this masterpiece is something for which I, for one, will be eternally grateful. I haven't followed that much of Day-Lewis' work, but as someone who has seen the majority of Steven Spielberg's films over the last three decades I would like to opine that this is one of his best.
Spielberg, working off a script by Tony Kushner, (who reportedly fudged some facts, as reported by, among others, writer Maureen Dowd), told the story of a leader who had seen his character tested to its very limits by a war that nearly ripped his country apart, and who still managed to do what was right rather than resort to what was easy. The film is utterly compelling because of the dimensions it gives the late President Lincoln. This was a man who was willing to buy votes of Congressmen who did not see eye to eye with him, a man who threatened to throw his wife (Sally Field, also in an inspired performance) in an insane asylum after she grieved for the loss of their son, and who was willing to stop his own son from enlisting in the army while multitudes of fathers were losing their sons to the war. In short, this was a very human portrayal of a man often regarded as a larger-than-life figure. Spielberg is in top form here, as are his usual collaborators like composer John Williams, whose noble brass cues are the perfect underscore for a film that deals with lofty concepts like equality of all before God, and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, who lends his lenses to some of the most subtly gorgeous work I have seen on the screen in a while. A good example of the magic that Spielberg and Kaminski weave, my favorite shot of the film, is the one in which Lincoln and his son Tad (Gulliver McGrath) stand in the window of the White House on the morning of the vote. It's a climactic scene, but at the same time there's a wonderful sense of serenity to it.
If Spielberg and his crew brought their A-game to this film, Day-Lewis rewrote the rules of the game; he absolutely disappeared into the role. His achievement was particularly notable because his was not the only good performance here; the film is rich in wonderful supporting performances by the likes of David Strathairn as Lincoln's secretary of state, the aforementioned Lee Jones and Field, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as his son Robert, Lee Pace as a rival democratic congressman Fernando Wood, Jared Harris as Union Army General Ulysses Grant, Jackie Earle Haley as Confederate Vice-President Alexander H. Stephens, and especially the trio of James Spader, John Hawkes and Tim Blake Nelson who play Lincoln's crack team of negotiators, whose sole task is to cajole or bribe as many congressmen as they can to get the requisite number of votes. Fine performances, every one, but Day-Lewis stands head and shoulders above every one of them because at no point did I think of him as being anyone other than Abraham Lincoln. No other actor, even the unknown actors they would cast as superheroes or iconic characters, has ever given me that kind of experience.
What really struck me about the film was how, apart from the first few minutes which, to my mind, dragged a bit, the entire narrative was impressed with a sense of urgency regarding the vote on the amendment, notwithstanding the fact that, clearly, anyone with half a brain could figure the outcome. The incumbent president of the United States is a black man, after all.
Not only that, but for me the film works not just as a dramatization of history but as an allegory for the fine line that elected officials must tread, and occasionally cross, when serving their duty. Sometimes it's not always a question of doing what's right at a given moment in time; sometimes it's about waiting for just the right moment, or, in some instances, creating the moment. Sometimes, in order to be able to push the policy that's needed, especially policy which goes against the grain, there is a need for patience, for craftiness, and in some instances, even ruthlessness.
The film is not so much apologetic as it is unflinchingly honest about the things that "honest" Abe was ready to do; in this case, the political maneuvering that actually took place was an ignoble means to a noble end. It's not the most altruistic reasoning, but considering what Lincoln and his Republican Party achieved with their arguably-less-than-ethical tactics at the time, that is to say, they helped pave the way for the civil rights movement that would evolve continually over the next century, it is hard to argue with the results. Politics is always ugly business, but with this film Spielberg shows that a huge part of the statesmanship of Abraham Lincoln was knowing when it was worth using the bad to achieve something genuinely good.
Ironically enough, one of my favorite scenes in the film is arguably the least believable, one which was most likely put there for its metaphorical value rather than any historical accuracy. The film opens with a particularly brutal battle in the civil war, showing black soldiers from the Union Army brutally fighting white Confederate soldiers. As Lincoln interviews two of the veterans from the battle, both black men, one (Colman Domingo) lavishes him with praise and thanks for what he has done, but the other (David Oyelowo) takes him to task for what he feels are unfulfilled promises. Each of the soldiers represents an extreme, the first being a constituent content to heap praise on his leader, and the second being the constituent ready to hold the leader accountable for all of the promises he has made. Would that we could all address our elected leaders the way the second man did.
It's doubtful that there will ever again be a leader like Abraham Lincoln, but thanks to Steven Spielberg, worldwide audiences will have a glimpse into what made him a great man. Not only that but Spielberg has just reminded everyone why, in a world full of up-and-comers like Ben Affleck, Chris Nolan and J.J. Abrams, he is still very much at the top of the heap.
5/5
Then, there are the classics.
These are films that, no matter how many years pass, survive the test of time, films which are not only respected but are revered because they are so well-made that they transcend constraints of time, budget and quirks of any one performer or filmmaker. I like to think that a lot of films I regard well fit this bill, and I would also like to think Steven Spielberg's Civil War epic Lincoln is exactly the kind of film historians will be talking about decades from now when they talk about how movies should be made. This movie is epic in every sense of the word.
Rather than spanning the entire life of the 16th President of the United States of America or even the over four years of civil war that nearly ripped the country apart around the middle of the 19th century, the film focuses on one pivotal point in that war, specifically January 1865, when the United States Congress was set to vote on the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would abolish slavery.
President Abraham Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis) had previously emancipated the slaves in 1863, but this was through a declaration of an executive in his capacity as commander-in-chief (Lincoln admits in the film that one way of looking at his proclamation was a confiscation of the property of the rebelling Southerners) and it was widely anticipated that this action would be invalidated by the civil courts, which made it indispensable to enshrine abolition in no less than the fundamental law. However, the task of securing the votes needed to pass the amendment was monumental considering that, apart from several trusted members of Lincoln's Republican Party, including hardcore abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones), there were nowhere near enough congressmen whose vote Lincoln could count on for the measure. It is initially argued that the amendment could destroy the pillars of the Southern economy and end the war, but when the President learns that, with or without the amendment, the South is already interested in negotiating for peace, he fears that the opportunity to enshrine the amendment in the Constitution and thereby eradicate slavery for all time may pass, and never come again. He then realizes he is in a race against time to get the amendment approved by Congress, and he has to resort to every trick in the politician's playbook to get the votes he needs by the end of January.
Though this is the first time director Steven Spielberg and lead actor Daniel Day-Lewis have worked together, there is one thing the two men have in common that made this collaboration one for the ages; if neither of them had ever made this film they would already both be regarded as all-time greats in their respective fields. These are men whose legacy in the film industry as legends is completely secure. That they therefore took the time and effort to come up with this masterpiece is something for which I, for one, will be eternally grateful. I haven't followed that much of Day-Lewis' work, but as someone who has seen the majority of Steven Spielberg's films over the last three decades I would like to opine that this is one of his best.
Spielberg, working off a script by Tony Kushner, (who reportedly fudged some facts, as reported by, among others, writer Maureen Dowd), told the story of a leader who had seen his character tested to its very limits by a war that nearly ripped his country apart, and who still managed to do what was right rather than resort to what was easy. The film is utterly compelling because of the dimensions it gives the late President Lincoln. This was a man who was willing to buy votes of Congressmen who did not see eye to eye with him, a man who threatened to throw his wife (Sally Field, also in an inspired performance) in an insane asylum after she grieved for the loss of their son, and who was willing to stop his own son from enlisting in the army while multitudes of fathers were losing their sons to the war. In short, this was a very human portrayal of a man often regarded as a larger-than-life figure. Spielberg is in top form here, as are his usual collaborators like composer John Williams, whose noble brass cues are the perfect underscore for a film that deals with lofty concepts like equality of all before God, and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, who lends his lenses to some of the most subtly gorgeous work I have seen on the screen in a while. A good example of the magic that Spielberg and Kaminski weave, my favorite shot of the film, is the one in which Lincoln and his son Tad (Gulliver McGrath) stand in the window of the White House on the morning of the vote. It's a climactic scene, but at the same time there's a wonderful sense of serenity to it.
If Spielberg and his crew brought their A-game to this film, Day-Lewis rewrote the rules of the game; he absolutely disappeared into the role. His achievement was particularly notable because his was not the only good performance here; the film is rich in wonderful supporting performances by the likes of David Strathairn as Lincoln's secretary of state, the aforementioned Lee Jones and Field, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as his son Robert, Lee Pace as a rival democratic congressman Fernando Wood, Jared Harris as Union Army General Ulysses Grant, Jackie Earle Haley as Confederate Vice-President Alexander H. Stephens, and especially the trio of James Spader, John Hawkes and Tim Blake Nelson who play Lincoln's crack team of negotiators, whose sole task is to cajole or bribe as many congressmen as they can to get the requisite number of votes. Fine performances, every one, but Day-Lewis stands head and shoulders above every one of them because at no point did I think of him as being anyone other than Abraham Lincoln. No other actor, even the unknown actors they would cast as superheroes or iconic characters, has ever given me that kind of experience.
What really struck me about the film was how, apart from the first few minutes which, to my mind, dragged a bit, the entire narrative was impressed with a sense of urgency regarding the vote on the amendment, notwithstanding the fact that, clearly, anyone with half a brain could figure the outcome. The incumbent president of the United States is a black man, after all.
Not only that, but for me the film works not just as a dramatization of history but as an allegory for the fine line that elected officials must tread, and occasionally cross, when serving their duty. Sometimes it's not always a question of doing what's right at a given moment in time; sometimes it's about waiting for just the right moment, or, in some instances, creating the moment. Sometimes, in order to be able to push the policy that's needed, especially policy which goes against the grain, there is a need for patience, for craftiness, and in some instances, even ruthlessness.
The film is not so much apologetic as it is unflinchingly honest about the things that "honest" Abe was ready to do; in this case, the political maneuvering that actually took place was an ignoble means to a noble end. It's not the most altruistic reasoning, but considering what Lincoln and his Republican Party achieved with their arguably-less-than-ethical tactics at the time, that is to say, they helped pave the way for the civil rights movement that would evolve continually over the next century, it is hard to argue with the results. Politics is always ugly business, but with this film Spielberg shows that a huge part of the statesmanship of Abraham Lincoln was knowing when it was worth using the bad to achieve something genuinely good.
Ironically enough, one of my favorite scenes in the film is arguably the least believable, one which was most likely put there for its metaphorical value rather than any historical accuracy. The film opens with a particularly brutal battle in the civil war, showing black soldiers from the Union Army brutally fighting white Confederate soldiers. As Lincoln interviews two of the veterans from the battle, both black men, one (Colman Domingo) lavishes him with praise and thanks for what he has done, but the other (David Oyelowo) takes him to task for what he feels are unfulfilled promises. Each of the soldiers represents an extreme, the first being a constituent content to heap praise on his leader, and the second being the constituent ready to hold the leader accountable for all of the promises he has made. Would that we could all address our elected leaders the way the second man did.
It's doubtful that there will ever again be a leader like Abraham Lincoln, but thanks to Steven Spielberg, worldwide audiences will have a glimpse into what made him a great man. Not only that but Spielberg has just reminded everyone why, in a world full of up-and-comers like Ben Affleck, Chris Nolan and J.J. Abrams, he is still very much at the top of the heap.
5/5
Monday, February 18, 2013
Facing the Music: A Review of Flight
People who have grown up with filmmaker Robert Zemeckis' movies arguably know him best for either his Back to the Future trilogy or his Oscar-winning film Forrest Gump. Younger audiences may know him best for his motion-capture animated films like The Polar Express and A Christmas Carol. As someone who belongs to the first group and whose kids belong to the second, I was somewhat stunned by Zemeckis' latest film, Flight, starring Denzel Washington, which marks his first return to live-action filmmaking since he filmed Tom Hanks and a Volleyball in the 2000 smash hit Cast Away.
Flight is the story of veteran airline pilot William "Whip" Whitaker (Washington), an alcoholic who manages to conceal his addiction from his colleagues until, on a flight from Orlando to Atlanta, the plane he is piloting breaks down in mid-flight and he is forced to crash land it. His feat of crash-landing the stricken plane is no less than miraculous, but of the 102 people on board, six die, while Whitaker and the survivors land in the hospital. Whitaker wakes up to learn he is being hailed as a hero for his actions, but it is not long before he learns that, due to alcohol content of his blood, which was drawn from him immediately after the crash, he is now under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) for criminal negligence. Fortunately, Whitaker has in his corner his good friend Charlie Anderson (Bruce Greenwood) who also happens to be the current pilot's union representative, and hot-shot attorney Hugh Lang (Don Cheadle), both of whom work overtime to shift the focus of the investigators to what they are certain were flaws in the aircraft. In the meantime, Whitaker has to keep a low profile, and while doing so he finds succor in the embrace of Nicole (Kelly Reilly) a drug addict he meets while recovering at the hospital whose struggle with drugs mirrors his struggle with alcohol, although unlike Whitaker, Nicole knows she has a problem and is determined to do something about it. As the date for the NTSB hearing draws nearer, Whitaker grapples with his addiction and the threat of having his entire life unravel.
Denzel Washington, widely regarded as Hollywood royalty, has made a career out of playing many kinds of characters, but for all of his efforts to show his range he has tended to gravitate towards nobler characters, as shown by his portrayals in films like Crimson Tide, The Hurricane, Remember the Titans, The Inside Man, The Book of Eli and Unstoppable. Even when he played characters who weren't necessarily sympathetic, like corrupt police officer Alonso Harris in Training Day or real-life drug dealer Frank Lucas in American Gangster, Washington seemed to imbue them with a nobility that arose from their utter conviction in what it was they did. Fine performances, sure, but there was, to my mind at least, the slightest edge missing.
That has changed with this picture. Whip Whitaker is, to my mind, hands-down the most agonizingly complex, thoroughly messed-up character Washington has played to date, and if any doubt lingers as to this man's capacity to turn in a truly bravura performance, this film completely and irrevocably erases it. Whitaker's journey is an absolutely gut-wrenching experience and it is Washington who makes it so. Washington played a man grappling with alcohol abuse before, in the military drama Courage Under Fire, but what he did there pales in comparison to his work here. This is, to my mind, the performance of a lifetime, and I think Zemeckis and screenwriter John Gatins should be proud to have extracted this out of an actor who, all things considered, really did not have anything left to prove.
Though he certainly didn't need the help, Washington is ably abetted by a solid supporting cast, with Reilly's Nicole in particular providing a striking foil to his addict in denial with her addict seeking redemption. This little-known British actress who was most recently seen by mainstream audiences as John Watson's wife in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes movies turns in a wonderfully understated but deeply moving portrayal of a woman driven to addiction by her loneliness and who desperately wants to find her way back from the ledge. In Whitaker she finds the comfort and affection she seeks, but she struggles when she sees him refusing to come to terms with his own problem. It really says something that she manages to hold her own against an actor who is giving the performance of his career. Greenwood and Cheadle, certainly no acting lightweights, certainly make their presence felt, as do John Goodman as Whitaker's buddy and drug dealer Harling Mays and Melissa Leo in a very brief turn as NTSB investigator Ellen Block, but this film truly belongs to Washington.
Zemeckis is an old hand at extracting excellence from his actors; he helped Tom Hanks get his second consecutive Oscar for Forrest Gump and even managed to snag him a nomination for Cast Away, so it's not necessarily a surprise that this director knows how to get the very best from his performers. This film, however, is a marked departure from the fairy-tale-like buoyancy of Gump and the comparatively lighter tone of Cast Away; the power of the performances is such that characters like Whitaker and Nicole feel like raw, open wounds, wounds which can make audience members like me wince.
This film is quite unlike anything audiences have ever seen from director Robert Zemeckis or star Denzel Washington, but as far as I'm concerned,if people want to see some of the finest work either of those two has ever put on the screen, they would do well to watch this movie.
5/5
Flight is the story of veteran airline pilot William "Whip" Whitaker (Washington), an alcoholic who manages to conceal his addiction from his colleagues until, on a flight from Orlando to Atlanta, the plane he is piloting breaks down in mid-flight and he is forced to crash land it. His feat of crash-landing the stricken plane is no less than miraculous, but of the 102 people on board, six die, while Whitaker and the survivors land in the hospital. Whitaker wakes up to learn he is being hailed as a hero for his actions, but it is not long before he learns that, due to alcohol content of his blood, which was drawn from him immediately after the crash, he is now under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) for criminal negligence. Fortunately, Whitaker has in his corner his good friend Charlie Anderson (Bruce Greenwood) who also happens to be the current pilot's union representative, and hot-shot attorney Hugh Lang (Don Cheadle), both of whom work overtime to shift the focus of the investigators to what they are certain were flaws in the aircraft. In the meantime, Whitaker has to keep a low profile, and while doing so he finds succor in the embrace of Nicole (Kelly Reilly) a drug addict he meets while recovering at the hospital whose struggle with drugs mirrors his struggle with alcohol, although unlike Whitaker, Nicole knows she has a problem and is determined to do something about it. As the date for the NTSB hearing draws nearer, Whitaker grapples with his addiction and the threat of having his entire life unravel.
Denzel Washington, widely regarded as Hollywood royalty, has made a career out of playing many kinds of characters, but for all of his efforts to show his range he has tended to gravitate towards nobler characters, as shown by his portrayals in films like Crimson Tide, The Hurricane, Remember the Titans, The Inside Man, The Book of Eli and Unstoppable. Even when he played characters who weren't necessarily sympathetic, like corrupt police officer Alonso Harris in Training Day or real-life drug dealer Frank Lucas in American Gangster, Washington seemed to imbue them with a nobility that arose from their utter conviction in what it was they did. Fine performances, sure, but there was, to my mind at least, the slightest edge missing.
That has changed with this picture. Whip Whitaker is, to my mind, hands-down the most agonizingly complex, thoroughly messed-up character Washington has played to date, and if any doubt lingers as to this man's capacity to turn in a truly bravura performance, this film completely and irrevocably erases it. Whitaker's journey is an absolutely gut-wrenching experience and it is Washington who makes it so. Washington played a man grappling with alcohol abuse before, in the military drama Courage Under Fire, but what he did there pales in comparison to his work here. This is, to my mind, the performance of a lifetime, and I think Zemeckis and screenwriter John Gatins should be proud to have extracted this out of an actor who, all things considered, really did not have anything left to prove.
Though he certainly didn't need the help, Washington is ably abetted by a solid supporting cast, with Reilly's Nicole in particular providing a striking foil to his addict in denial with her addict seeking redemption. This little-known British actress who was most recently seen by mainstream audiences as John Watson's wife in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes movies turns in a wonderfully understated but deeply moving portrayal of a woman driven to addiction by her loneliness and who desperately wants to find her way back from the ledge. In Whitaker she finds the comfort and affection she seeks, but she struggles when she sees him refusing to come to terms with his own problem. It really says something that she manages to hold her own against an actor who is giving the performance of his career. Greenwood and Cheadle, certainly no acting lightweights, certainly make their presence felt, as do John Goodman as Whitaker's buddy and drug dealer Harling Mays and Melissa Leo in a very brief turn as NTSB investigator Ellen Block, but this film truly belongs to Washington.
Zemeckis is an old hand at extracting excellence from his actors; he helped Tom Hanks get his second consecutive Oscar for Forrest Gump and even managed to snag him a nomination for Cast Away, so it's not necessarily a surprise that this director knows how to get the very best from his performers. This film, however, is a marked departure from the fairy-tale-like buoyancy of Gump and the comparatively lighter tone of Cast Away; the power of the performances is such that characters like Whitaker and Nicole feel like raw, open wounds, wounds which can make audience members like me wince.
This film is quite unlike anything audiences have ever seen from director Robert Zemeckis or star Denzel Washington, but as far as I'm concerned,if people want to see some of the finest work either of those two has ever put on the screen, they would do well to watch this movie.
5/5
Sunday, February 17, 2013
2013: Sequels Galore, yet Again
After the smorgasbord of great Hollywood movies I was treated to last year, with several thoroughly enjoyable films, whether they were blockbusters like The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, Skyfall or The Amazing Spider-Man or awards bait like Argo, Les Miserables or Life of Pi, nearly everything out this year, at least for the first half of it, inevitably feels like warmed-up leftovers.
This is no small part owing to the fact that for yet another year in succession, the market is being flooded with sequels, prequels, and reboots.
Iron Man 3, for example, which will kick off both the U.S. summer movie season of 2013 and "phase 2" of Marvel Studios' films, which is designed to lead into the sequel to The Avengers in 2015, looks like a pretty solid action movie, but coming as it does off the heels of a movie as huge as The Avengers, it inevitably feels like an inferior product. The same may be said for Thor: The Dark World, but considering that there has only been one other solo Thor movie and considering further that TTDW is out much later this year, the feeling may have subsided by then.
People talk about Man of Steel as the next big thing having Christopher Nolan's name on it and all, but the trailer has done very little for me, personally. It's just a lot of things blowing up and a guy flying, which is not anything we haven't already seen before. Not only that, but rather than take the opportunity to introduce characters from the comics like Darkseid or Braniac, it seems that Warner Brothers have instead recycled General Zod from the 1980 sequel to the original Superman movie. Finally, people seem to forget that while Nolan's name is on the credits, it's Zack "Sucker Punch" Snyder sitting in the director's chair. The best I can feel about this film is cautiously optimistic, but again, it's not lighting my world on fire.
Twentieth Century Fox, the last of two studios that actually still have the rights to make films based on Marvel Comics independently of Marvel Studios, will be coming out with The Wolverine this July, but one wouldn't know it, looking at their marketing material, or the dearth of it. Star Hugh Jackman's series of awards nominations for his work in Les Miserables is the kind of publicity that can't be bought, and yet, all Fox has to show audiences of the upcoming film are a couple of pics of shirtless Hugh and a one-sheet poster. Not only that, but considering that a lot of the X-Men film buzz these days seems to revolve around Bryan Singer's returning to the X-Men franchise with next year's X-Men: Days of Future Past, The Wolverine seems all but forgotten. If people are as indifferent to this film as I am, Fox only has itself to blame.
Then, of course, there are other sequels/prequels flooding the market like G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Fast and Furious 6, RED 2, A Good Day to Die Hard (which is actually already in theaters), Grown-Ups 2, Monsters University and The Smurfs 2, among many others. While I'm looking forward to the Trek Sequel, I must say there is little else on the upcoming slate of films that is singing to me, save perhaps for Guillermo del Toro's giant-monsters-vs-giant-robots film, Pacific Rim. Even that film looks like Godzilla meets Transformers.
Truth be told, the film I'm most looking forward to this year is Ron Howard's Formula One epic Rush, which is actually less likely than any of the films I've mentioned to set the box-office on fire. Apart from being a Formula One fan, I can't help but be excited by a film that is actually trying to show the audience something new.
This is no small part owing to the fact that for yet another year in succession, the market is being flooded with sequels, prequels, and reboots.
Iron Man 3, for example, which will kick off both the U.S. summer movie season of 2013 and "phase 2" of Marvel Studios' films, which is designed to lead into the sequel to The Avengers in 2015, looks like a pretty solid action movie, but coming as it does off the heels of a movie as huge as The Avengers, it inevitably feels like an inferior product. The same may be said for Thor: The Dark World, but considering that there has only been one other solo Thor movie and considering further that TTDW is out much later this year, the feeling may have subsided by then.
People talk about Man of Steel as the next big thing having Christopher Nolan's name on it and all, but the trailer has done very little for me, personally. It's just a lot of things blowing up and a guy flying, which is not anything we haven't already seen before. Not only that, but rather than take the opportunity to introduce characters from the comics like Darkseid or Braniac, it seems that Warner Brothers have instead recycled General Zod from the 1980 sequel to the original Superman movie. Finally, people seem to forget that while Nolan's name is on the credits, it's Zack "Sucker Punch" Snyder sitting in the director's chair. The best I can feel about this film is cautiously optimistic, but again, it's not lighting my world on fire.
Twentieth Century Fox, the last of two studios that actually still have the rights to make films based on Marvel Comics independently of Marvel Studios, will be coming out with The Wolverine this July, but one wouldn't know it, looking at their marketing material, or the dearth of it. Star Hugh Jackman's series of awards nominations for his work in Les Miserables is the kind of publicity that can't be bought, and yet, all Fox has to show audiences of the upcoming film are a couple of pics of shirtless Hugh and a one-sheet poster. Not only that, but considering that a lot of the X-Men film buzz these days seems to revolve around Bryan Singer's returning to the X-Men franchise with next year's X-Men: Days of Future Past, The Wolverine seems all but forgotten. If people are as indifferent to this film as I am, Fox only has itself to blame.
Then, of course, there are other sequels/prequels flooding the market like G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Fast and Furious 6, RED 2, A Good Day to Die Hard (which is actually already in theaters), Grown-Ups 2, Monsters University and The Smurfs 2, among many others. While I'm looking forward to the Trek Sequel, I must say there is little else on the upcoming slate of films that is singing to me, save perhaps for Guillermo del Toro's giant-monsters-vs-giant-robots film, Pacific Rim. Even that film looks like Godzilla meets Transformers.
Truth be told, the film I'm most looking forward to this year is Ron Howard's Formula One epic Rush, which is actually less likely than any of the films I've mentioned to set the box-office on fire. Apart from being a Formula One fan, I can't help but be excited by a film that is actually trying to show the audience something new.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
The Slow Transformation of the Global Blockbuster
At first glance, Ang Lee's Oscar-nominated film The Life of Pi and Danny Boyle's Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire seem to have very little in common save two things: their casts are predominantly Indian, and they are bona fide global blockbusters.
However, looking more closely, one sees that neither film really the ingredients for a "traditional" Hollywood blockbuster; there were no name actors, neither was based on a widely-known pop-culture property such as Harry Potter or the Transformers,(although both films were based on successful novels), and also both were ultimately feel-good movies, they quite conspicuously broke a number of Hollywood conventions, perhaps one of the most conspicuous of which is that there are no Americans in either film, whether as characters or actors (the white guy in Life of Pi was a Canadian played by a British actor), and no Westerners (i.e. Americans or British) in lead roles.
About the only "traditional" blockbuster ingredients of Life of Pi were the heavy use of digital visual effects and the now virtually-ubiquitous 3-D.
The fact that each of these movies managed to earn around $400 million around the world (Slumdog slightly less, Life of Pi much more) despite the absence of most traditional blockbuster ingredients is a remarkable development that, to my mind at least, suggests that global movie audiences are ready for greater variety in their blockbusters. Not only that, but it goes to show that when giving movies the green light studios would be wise to think way beyond the shores of North America. Even "traditional" Hollywood blockbusters these days get most of their bank from outside the United States and Canada. Of the top 20 worldwide blockbusters, only one, The Dark Knight, earned more from its North American grosses than from the rest of the world. That is a remarkable statistic considering that decades ago, most Hollywood studios were principally preoccupied with how American audiences would embrace their movies.
One might even argue that the need to pander to white Americans, which is the logic behind the controversial "whitewashing," or the practice of replacing Asian characters with Caucasian ones so that white actors can play their roles, a practice which has stained several Hollywood productions such as the 21, Dragonball: Evolution,and The Last Airbender, is no longer necessary to ensure a film's box-office viability.
The fact that both Slumdog Millionaire and Life of Pi have each handily out-grossed each and every one of the aforementioned films at the global box-office, apart from the wide critical acclaim they have garnered, should, in my humble opinion anyway, give Hollywood executives plenty to think about the next time they option a popular property that doesn't have an American or a white person in the lead role.
For example, author Neil Gaiman's popular novel Anansi Boys was recently optioned as a possible motion picture, but according to reports the producers wanted to replace the book's predominantly black cast with a white one, despite the fact that Anansi is actually an African Spider god and the movie is about his two sons. In a wonderful display of creative integrity, Gaiman reportedly said no to the whitewash. Of course, one hopes the producers will consider more choices for casting the role than Will Smith.
The possibilities are actually pretty exciting, when one really thinks about it; maybe now Hollywood might actually consider casting the long-planned-but-now-stuck-in-development-hell live-action adaptation of Akira with, if not Japanese actors, then actors of Japanese descent, should talks to make the adaptation ever resume. Maybe in a few years suits will see that there's no need for a whitewash.
The bottom line: it's becoming increasingly clear that it's no longer just the Americans' dollars that matter to Hollywood, which remains the world's favorite purveyor of motion pictures, and this means that we non-Americans out here now have reason to hope that when they make those motion pictures we love, we can actually start to see actual, rather than token, diversity on the screen.
However, looking more closely, one sees that neither film really the ingredients for a "traditional" Hollywood blockbuster; there were no name actors, neither was based on a widely-known pop-culture property such as Harry Potter or the Transformers,(although both films were based on successful novels), and also both were ultimately feel-good movies, they quite conspicuously broke a number of Hollywood conventions, perhaps one of the most conspicuous of which is that there are no Americans in either film, whether as characters or actors (the white guy in Life of Pi was a Canadian played by a British actor), and no Westerners (i.e. Americans or British) in lead roles.
About the only "traditional" blockbuster ingredients of Life of Pi were the heavy use of digital visual effects and the now virtually-ubiquitous 3-D.
The fact that each of these movies managed to earn around $400 million around the world (Slumdog slightly less, Life of Pi much more) despite the absence of most traditional blockbuster ingredients is a remarkable development that, to my mind at least, suggests that global movie audiences are ready for greater variety in their blockbusters. Not only that, but it goes to show that when giving movies the green light studios would be wise to think way beyond the shores of North America. Even "traditional" Hollywood blockbusters these days get most of their bank from outside the United States and Canada. Of the top 20 worldwide blockbusters, only one, The Dark Knight, earned more from its North American grosses than from the rest of the world. That is a remarkable statistic considering that decades ago, most Hollywood studios were principally preoccupied with how American audiences would embrace their movies.
One might even argue that the need to pander to white Americans, which is the logic behind the controversial "whitewashing," or the practice of replacing Asian characters with Caucasian ones so that white actors can play their roles, a practice which has stained several Hollywood productions such as the 21, Dragonball: Evolution,and The Last Airbender, is no longer necessary to ensure a film's box-office viability.
The fact that both Slumdog Millionaire and Life of Pi have each handily out-grossed each and every one of the aforementioned films at the global box-office, apart from the wide critical acclaim they have garnered, should, in my humble opinion anyway, give Hollywood executives plenty to think about the next time they option a popular property that doesn't have an American or a white person in the lead role.
For example, author Neil Gaiman's popular novel Anansi Boys was recently optioned as a possible motion picture, but according to reports the producers wanted to replace the book's predominantly black cast with a white one, despite the fact that Anansi is actually an African Spider god and the movie is about his two sons. In a wonderful display of creative integrity, Gaiman reportedly said no to the whitewash. Of course, one hopes the producers will consider more choices for casting the role than Will Smith.
The possibilities are actually pretty exciting, when one really thinks about it; maybe now Hollywood might actually consider casting the long-planned-but-now-stuck-in-development-hell live-action adaptation of Akira with, if not Japanese actors, then actors of Japanese descent, should talks to make the adaptation ever resume. Maybe in a few years suits will see that there's no need for a whitewash.
The bottom line: it's becoming increasingly clear that it's no longer just the Americans' dollars that matter to Hollywood, which remains the world's favorite purveyor of motion pictures, and this means that we non-Americans out here now have reason to hope that when they make those motion pictures we love, we can actually start to see actual, rather than token, diversity on the screen.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
An Epic Musical Brought to the Big Screen: Les Miserables
There's something incredibly democratic about motion pictures. No matter how expensive they get, they will always be cheaper than watching live stage musicals on Broadway and West End. Not only that, but it's much easier to screen movies around the world than it is to ship whole casts and crews or musicals to different countries. Inevitably, then, to adapt popular stage musicals into films, means introducing them to a much wider audience than they have ever known. Often, the magic translates, as shown by the success of such landmark films as West Side Story, The Sound of Music, and more recently, Chicago and Dreamgirls.
It's a genuine tragedy, then, when a film that should have resonated with cinema audiences the way it has done with theater audiences turns out to be a misfire of one sort or another. In the last several years have been almost as many failed or disappointing musical adaptations, like Evita, The Phantom of the Opera, Rent, Sweeney Todd, Nine and Rock of Ages, as there have been successes.
Adapting the Broadway smash hit Les Miserables was a challenge movie and stage producers wrestled with for years, with the film seeing a revolving door of directors and stars over a period of nearly three decades. Well, if the box-office figures and the plethora of awards nominations (and wins) are any indication at all, I'd say director Tom Hooper and his cast, led by Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe and Anne Hathaway have pulled it off in spectacular style.
What did I think of it?
Well, I have not seen the stage musical, so I cannot judge it by those standards, but as a filmed narrative it worked just fine for me.
Les Miserables is the story of Jean Valjean (Jackman), a man imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread who ends up spending nearly two decades in prison because of an attempt to escape his first sentence. He is finally granted parole with the stern warning from police constable Javert (Crowe) that any recidivism will land him right back in the penitentiary. Valjean is now obligated to show any potential employer his parole papers, which results in him being unable to get work anywhere. Down on his luck, he is taken in by an aging bishop (Colm Wilkinson). He attempts to rob the Bishop, but even when he is caught the bishop clears him of wrongdoing. Moved by this generosity Valjean vows to change his life.
Years later, Valjean enjoys a different life as a factory owner and small town mayor. One of his employees, single-mother Fantine (Hathaway) finds herself caught between her jealous co-workers and her lascivious foreman and, because Valjean, distracted, does not take action, Fantine ends up on the street. Meanwhile, Valjean learns from Javert, who does not recognize him, that another man has been caught and will soon serve a prison sentence for having skipped Valjean's parole. Conscience-stricken, Valjean strides into court declaring his identity, although at first he is not believed.
Meanwhile, desperate to earn money for her child, Cosette (Isabelle Allen) whom she has entrusted to two very unsavory innkeepers, the Thenardiers (Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter), Fantine resorts to prostitution. In time, she grows ill, and on one occasion when a potential patron of her causes a commotion, Valjean happens to see her and, upon recognizing that she is the factory worker he did not help, is wracked with guilt. He takes her away to a hospital, even as Javert, who also happened to be on patrol in the area, spots him. Javert, having heard of Valjean's confession, follows him to the hospital and confronts him immediately after Valjean promises the dying Fantine that he will care for Cosette. Valjean escapes once more, and upon recovering Cosette from the Thenardiers, goes into hiding for several years.
Years later, civil discontent brews as the events leading up to France's June Rebellion of 1832 are set in motion. Marius Pontmercy (Eddie Redmayne) is the son of aristocrats but who has joined a group of students plotting a revolution. Eponine (Samantha Barks), the Thenardiers' daughter, is his neighbor who is secretly infatuated with Marius. When Marius finds himself infatuated with the grown-up Cosette (Amanda Seyfried) events take place that will yet again draw Jean Valjean out of hiding and towards his final destiny.
To my mind, Jackman is the glue that holds the entire production together. It has all the trappings of an epic, with lavish cinematography, art direction and costume design, but without a commanding lead it would all have gone to naught. Fortunately, Jackman is more than equal to the task at hand, and his Valjean is a marvel to behold. From his physical transformation to his soaring solos Jackman is every inch the star of this show. Sure, Hathaway, in her brief turn as Fantine, leaves quite a lasting impression and there are some other outstanding performances like that of Barks as the lovelorn Eponine, and child actor Daniel Huttleston as the pint-sized revolutionary Gavroche, but it's Jackman that people will remember when the lights come back on. There's a lot of talent going around; Wilkinson was actually the original Jean Valjean in the first stage production in West End and on Broadway, and his turn in the small but pivotal role of the bishop provides a wonderful way for him to leave his mark on the production he helped kick off many years ago. Redmayne and Seyfriend give creditable performances as Marius and Cosette. In just about every case, even those of the actors of whose performances I was not a fan, the intensity of the performance really shows.
There's been quite a bit of criticism of Russell Crowe's take on the self-righteous policeman Javert, and to be honest I do not think it's fair. Crowe is definitely outshone, quite far and away, by Jackman, Hathaway and a number of others but I do not echo the criticism that he is ill-suited for the production. There's actually a consistency to the way he sings and his character's personality; Javert being such a straight-laced policeman it makes sense for him to go through most of his life without the internal conflict that tears away at so man of the main characters. Of course, I'm not really going to great lengths to apologize for the man; he does belong to a band and he is a musician of some sort, so quite arguably he should have brought his A-game with him. Still, to my mind his performance was just fine; if nothing else, he did not drag the production down.
Apart from the actors/singers, I found the production itself to be rather breathtaking. While some of the set pieces were put to waste during a few of the song numbers with their gratuitous closeups, the attention to detail that went into the recreation of Paris in the early 19th century was still pretty evident, and there were a number of sweeping shots that helped emphasize for the people sitting in the movie house that this was not the kind of spectacle they could witness at the theater. The opening number of "Look Down," which features Valjean and his fellow prisoners hauling a shipwreck to shore, is a striking example of what is only possible in the movies.
Of course, there will probably be the usual crowd of people haughtily asserting that the film does not hold a candle to the musical, despite the inclusion of players from the musical such as Wilkinson as the bishop, Frances Rufelle, the original Eponine, as a prostitute, and feature film debutante Barks who has already done Eponine on West End. Well, they can cling to that belief all they want, really because there is absolutely no arguing with them. After all, they probably knew this film would be terrible before a single frame was even shot.
The thing about this film, though, is that by taking Victor Hugo's novel to a much broader audience than the musicals ever did, in a sense it embodies the spirit of the story as a love song to the masses of the disenfranchised and hopeless far more faithfully than its staged counterpart. It has, to paraphrase one of the best-known anthems from the film, made it that much easier for everyone to hear the people sing.
4.5/5
It's a genuine tragedy, then, when a film that should have resonated with cinema audiences the way it has done with theater audiences turns out to be a misfire of one sort or another. In the last several years have been almost as many failed or disappointing musical adaptations, like Evita, The Phantom of the Opera, Rent, Sweeney Todd, Nine and Rock of Ages, as there have been successes.
Adapting the Broadway smash hit Les Miserables was a challenge movie and stage producers wrestled with for years, with the film seeing a revolving door of directors and stars over a period of nearly three decades. Well, if the box-office figures and the plethora of awards nominations (and wins) are any indication at all, I'd say director Tom Hooper and his cast, led by Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe and Anne Hathaway have pulled it off in spectacular style.
What did I think of it?
Well, I have not seen the stage musical, so I cannot judge it by those standards, but as a filmed narrative it worked just fine for me.
Les Miserables is the story of Jean Valjean (Jackman), a man imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread who ends up spending nearly two decades in prison because of an attempt to escape his first sentence. He is finally granted parole with the stern warning from police constable Javert (Crowe) that any recidivism will land him right back in the penitentiary. Valjean is now obligated to show any potential employer his parole papers, which results in him being unable to get work anywhere. Down on his luck, he is taken in by an aging bishop (Colm Wilkinson). He attempts to rob the Bishop, but even when he is caught the bishop clears him of wrongdoing. Moved by this generosity Valjean vows to change his life.
Years later, Valjean enjoys a different life as a factory owner and small town mayor. One of his employees, single-mother Fantine (Hathaway) finds herself caught between her jealous co-workers and her lascivious foreman and, because Valjean, distracted, does not take action, Fantine ends up on the street. Meanwhile, Valjean learns from Javert, who does not recognize him, that another man has been caught and will soon serve a prison sentence for having skipped Valjean's parole. Conscience-stricken, Valjean strides into court declaring his identity, although at first he is not believed.
Meanwhile, desperate to earn money for her child, Cosette (Isabelle Allen) whom she has entrusted to two very unsavory innkeepers, the Thenardiers (Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter), Fantine resorts to prostitution. In time, she grows ill, and on one occasion when a potential patron of her causes a commotion, Valjean happens to see her and, upon recognizing that she is the factory worker he did not help, is wracked with guilt. He takes her away to a hospital, even as Javert, who also happened to be on patrol in the area, spots him. Javert, having heard of Valjean's confession, follows him to the hospital and confronts him immediately after Valjean promises the dying Fantine that he will care for Cosette. Valjean escapes once more, and upon recovering Cosette from the Thenardiers, goes into hiding for several years.
Years later, civil discontent brews as the events leading up to France's June Rebellion of 1832 are set in motion. Marius Pontmercy (Eddie Redmayne) is the son of aristocrats but who has joined a group of students plotting a revolution. Eponine (Samantha Barks), the Thenardiers' daughter, is his neighbor who is secretly infatuated with Marius. When Marius finds himself infatuated with the grown-up Cosette (Amanda Seyfried) events take place that will yet again draw Jean Valjean out of hiding and towards his final destiny.
To my mind, Jackman is the glue that holds the entire production together. It has all the trappings of an epic, with lavish cinematography, art direction and costume design, but without a commanding lead it would all have gone to naught. Fortunately, Jackman is more than equal to the task at hand, and his Valjean is a marvel to behold. From his physical transformation to his soaring solos Jackman is every inch the star of this show. Sure, Hathaway, in her brief turn as Fantine, leaves quite a lasting impression and there are some other outstanding performances like that of Barks as the lovelorn Eponine, and child actor Daniel Huttleston as the pint-sized revolutionary Gavroche, but it's Jackman that people will remember when the lights come back on. There's a lot of talent going around; Wilkinson was actually the original Jean Valjean in the first stage production in West End and on Broadway, and his turn in the small but pivotal role of the bishop provides a wonderful way for him to leave his mark on the production he helped kick off many years ago. Redmayne and Seyfriend give creditable performances as Marius and Cosette. In just about every case, even those of the actors of whose performances I was not a fan, the intensity of the performance really shows.
There's been quite a bit of criticism of Russell Crowe's take on the self-righteous policeman Javert, and to be honest I do not think it's fair. Crowe is definitely outshone, quite far and away, by Jackman, Hathaway and a number of others but I do not echo the criticism that he is ill-suited for the production. There's actually a consistency to the way he sings and his character's personality; Javert being such a straight-laced policeman it makes sense for him to go through most of his life without the internal conflict that tears away at so man of the main characters. Of course, I'm not really going to great lengths to apologize for the man; he does belong to a band and he is a musician of some sort, so quite arguably he should have brought his A-game with him. Still, to my mind his performance was just fine; if nothing else, he did not drag the production down.
Apart from the actors/singers, I found the production itself to be rather breathtaking. While some of the set pieces were put to waste during a few of the song numbers with their gratuitous closeups, the attention to detail that went into the recreation of Paris in the early 19th century was still pretty evident, and there were a number of sweeping shots that helped emphasize for the people sitting in the movie house that this was not the kind of spectacle they could witness at the theater. The opening number of "Look Down," which features Valjean and his fellow prisoners hauling a shipwreck to shore, is a striking example of what is only possible in the movies.
Of course, there will probably be the usual crowd of people haughtily asserting that the film does not hold a candle to the musical, despite the inclusion of players from the musical such as Wilkinson as the bishop, Frances Rufelle, the original Eponine, as a prostitute, and feature film debutante Barks who has already done Eponine on West End. Well, they can cling to that belief all they want, really because there is absolutely no arguing with them. After all, they probably knew this film would be terrible before a single frame was even shot.
The thing about this film, though, is that by taking Victor Hugo's novel to a much broader audience than the musicals ever did, in a sense it embodies the spirit of the story as a love song to the masses of the disenfranchised and hopeless far more faithfully than its staged counterpart. It has, to paraphrase one of the best-known anthems from the film, made it that much easier for everyone to hear the people sing.
4.5/5
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