A Cash Money Payoff
January 17, 2016
The Big Short (2016).
D: Adam McKay. DP: Barry Ackroyd. W: Charles Randolph & Adam McKay (Based on the book by Michael Lewis.) Starring: Christian Bale/Steve Carrell/Ryan Gosling/Brad Pitt/Marissa Tomei/Jeremy Strong/Hamish Linklater/Rafe Spall/Finn Wittrock/John Magaro/Max Greenfield/Billy Magnusson/Melissa Leo/Tracy Letts/Adepero Oduye.
Sandwiched between costume dramas and survival epics are a few films this award season based on large intricate real events. The Big Short is one of those and chronicles three different stories of the discovering of the housing market bubble that would lead to the financial crisis in America in 2008. A complicated system to even explain, The Big Short manages to be cynical, satirical, and directly engage its audience in understanding the bedrock of Wall Street.
Director Adam McKay, who wrote and directed both Anchorman films, received a gift from the Gods that his movie follows Martin Scorsese’s 2013 film, The Wolf of Wall Street. With the clear picture of a turned out Leonard DiCaprio in our minds as decrepit banker #85723 (number hypothetical), The Big Short can be self-aware that it is destabilizing a world just put on screen. In a delightfully silly, but helpful nod to Scorsese’s film Margot Robbie appears in a bathtub drinking champagne to explain to the audience some Wall Street jargon. These appearances of direct address to the audience are coupled with Ryan Gosling as banker Jared Vennett whose voice-over is sprinkled throughout the film. With dyed brown hair Gosling has a sickly orange glow to him and acts as a guide for the audience, a conceit that thankfully never gets overplayed.
In these ways McKay is in command of his material and plays with audience’s knowledge of the lifestyles of the rich and the famous. This includes music ques and the use of music videos to reiterate the complicity of media in the farce. Affirmations must also go to veteran female (!) editor Thelma Schoonmaker for a punchy style that isn’t overdone. In a fun twist she also edited The Wolf of Wall Street as the long standing editor for Scorsese. McKay’s vision was clearly deftly planned from the start.
McKay assembled a fine group of veterans to handle a wordy complicated script that does not ask for a tremendous emotional range. Rather Christian Bale’s Dr. Michael Burry is a subtle representation of a man whose brilliance does not necessarily compute to social skills. It is nice to see Bale in a produced down role, lacking capes and bellies galore. The center of the film however is Steve Carrell as hedge fund manger Mark Baum whose is the most emotionally conflicted character. This works because nearly everyone is so distracted with making money off of the destruction of American lives that his exhaustion and disgust plays true. Produced by Brad Pitt’s Plan B he does his duty by showing up for a part in it, making sure to remind his young protege’s of where their profits come from.
The Big Short is based on Michael Lewis’ novel inspired by these events. His books also became 2011’s Moneyball and 2009’s The Blind Side so his track record is certainly enviable. In the impending Oscar race this film is hard to compare to treacherously emotional journeys of other entries, but ultimately is a clever and investigative piece of filmmaking. The use of flickering images and cash money rap songs around sequences of characters walking through empty homes abandoned by their broke families sends chills. As I left the theater it was heard not to hear Polonius saying “neither a borrower nor a lender be” and not rush home to put my money under my mattress.
Such a Pretty Picture
January 12, 2016
The Danish Girl (2016).
D: Tom Hooper. DP: Danny Cohen. W: Lucinda Coxon. Starring: Eddie Redmayne/Alicia Vikander/Matthias Schoenaerts/Ben Wishaw/Amber Heard/Sebastian Koch. (Based on the novel by David Ebershoff)
2015 was certainly the year of high profile transgender projects and media attention. With shows like Amazon’s Transparent and Netflix’s Orange is the New Black winning awards and the birth of Caitlyn Jenner before us on TV, transgender images are abound.
In the 2000s they were mostly relegated to the side lines as TV movies like Girl Like Me or Soldier’s Girl were, but we shouldn’t forget the 2005 film Transamerica starring Felicity Huffman. This saw a woman play the male into female part rather than the opposite, rare are the film that deal with the female to male transformation like 1999 Boys Don’t Cry. This is certainly not a new subject in cinema as the brilliant Lawrence Anyways from Canadian direct Xavier Dolan proved again in 2012, but what is new is its profile. Big budget films that are given award season roll out and (let’s hope) a greater consciousness of what these projects mean to their audience. The Danish Girl is the newest member of this tribe.
Loosely based on the lives of Danish artists Lili Elbe and Gerta Wegener, the film is set in the mid 1920s in Copenhagen where the couple have already been married for six years. You don’t need to know much else, they paint and laugh and Einar (Eddie Redmayne) begins to express his desire to put on his wife’s clothes. His wife Gerta (Alicia Vikander) dresses him up one night as Lili and slowly through the next two hours Einar is abandoned and Lili takes over. Once again so much was revealed in the trailers there is little need to say much else.
Director Tom Hooper, responsible for The King’s Speech and the atrociously long Les Misérables, is at home with beautiful Copenhagen and working with his usual DP, Danny Cohen. Cohen shot the complicated Room (as well as The Program) and allows the landscape and city to really be seen. Yet it is the sort of film where everything is a bit too pretty and too clean. A devastatingly emotional journey for the two leads is enveloped in so much gorgeous costume drama that it starts to feel unreal. As a ballet fan though, the use of the ballet space is a delight, all those tutes strung up in the air.
The emotional center of the film is Vikander’s performance. Her loyalty to her husband and love and understanding of who he turns into traps her and gives Vikander the scenes to shine. Excellent in Ex Machina and Testament of Youth, she is partnered well with Oscar winning Redmayne. He will clearly need a vacation after such physically focused performances in this and Theory of Everything. Redmayne’s tall lithe androgyny makes him a great choice and he carries Lili excellently.
Ultimately, The Danish Girl also suffers because we get so little time with couple before this transformation begins. It’s all too ‘off to the races’ and we can’t catch up. Thankfully Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts does appear as Lili’s childhood friend and gives the couple a third party to weigh in on the drama. A calming powerful presence, Schoenaerts (who was excellent in Far from the Madding Crowd) provides balance through third act. Yet by the end everything is a bit too much and The Danish Girl turns a personal journey into a beautiful cold portrait.
A Matriarchal Underdog
January 10, 2016
Joy (2016).
D/W: David O. Russell. DP: Linus Sandgren. Starring: Jennifer Lawrence/Robert De Niro/Bradley Cooper/Édgar Ramirez/Virginia Madsen/Diane Ladd/Isabella Rossellini/Elisabeth Rohm/Dascha Polanco.
January is one of the best months for movies as there is a mad rush towards award season despite the pretense that filmmakers do not care about awards. A fun and debatable topic, this January has seen the release of Joy, a new film for Jennifer Lawrence. One that is not based on a YA novel or a comic book, a relief frankly.
This is the third collaboration for director David O. Russel with actors Lawrence and Bradley Cooper. The stellar Silver Linings Playbook won Lawrence her Oscar and the group reunited for 2013’s American Hustle. It is easy to understand repeat collaborations due to success, comfort, and creativity, but for me this has been fizzling out for awhile. Silver Linings Playbook was able to hold its audience until the end, drawing out its romance and drama in a way that felt fresh. American Hustle looked great and started off strong, but fell apart and left you feeling a bit bamboozled. Joy is a similar experience.
Starting off strong the film is narrated and structured by Diane Ladd who plays Joy’s (Lawrence) live in grandmother. As she reflects on the life of her seemingly favorite grandchild we get flashbacks of a character seen through the eyes of a loved one. Spunky and inventive young Joy is encouraged to make things, but her parents divorce spirals her to drop her dreams, fall in love, have kids, and eventually get divorced. Now the family breadwinner she struggles to return to her former inventive self. Using her daughters crayons one day she invents a self ringing mop that would become the now famed Miracle Mop.
Loosely inspired on the life of Joy Mangano, O. Russell reworked writer Annie Mumolo (who co-wrote Bridesmaids) original script so as to stray away from a straight biopic. Rather, Joy is a combination of women and Lawrence was free to create instead of imitate. Lawrence is full throttle here as she bears her burdens and stands up for herself. She’s not bad and her relate-ability works here, but there is a bit too much glamorizing for my tastes. She’s best in smaller moments of triumph like getting through a televised demonstration of her mop on the Home Shopping Channel than sauntering down the street in a pair of shades. Also please no more “She cuts her hair off in the bathroom herself then wins the day” scenes. Please!
Lawrence is surrounded by talent with De Niro getting some truly awfully patronizing lines that he manages to deliver convincingly. Édgar Ramirez is also great as her ex-husband/lounge singer Tony. The winner is surely Virginia Madsen as Joy’s anxiety stridden mother who never leaves her bedroom and watches soap operas all day. The importance of this fictional world and its visual conceit is never followed through. An fascinating echo of trapped pain and lost ambitions in generations of women. This is frustrating as most of Russell’s visual decisions disappear by the final act. Here he is working again with cinematographer Linus Sandgren who shot American Hustle, bearing its same faults in a way.
Ultimately, Joy is pleasing and infectious because it is essentially an underdog story. In a time of the active use of the word ‘feminism’ it is easy to route for a young girl who says when she creates that her gift is that she doesn’t “need a prince.” By the time her father says to her it’s his fault because he made her believe she could do anything you will want to punch something. Joy leaves you swinging your arms in triumph, but wondering if it couldn’t have been better.