MY MOVIE SHELF: Gattaca

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 68 Days to go: 46

Movie #372:  Gattaca

My son likes to ask questions. He always wants to know when a movie is set (and when it was made). About Gattaca, he asked where they were, and what that body of water is that Vincent (Ethan Hawke) is swimming in and where is that spaceship going to anyway. It’s hard to explain to him that not only are these things not identified in the movie, but that they don’t matter. He is very literal, and he likes details. But Gattaca is, at its core, a metaphorical story, so the particulars of time and place aren’t actually relevant at all. As someone who has a tendency to get bogged down in such details myself, I always love it when a storyteller is smart enough and bold enough to eschew them completely for the good of the tale. It’s such a simple answer to a confounding question, and yet it can be so difficult to do. Gattaca does it exceptionally well.

In voiceover, Vincent tells us all we need to know about this world. It’s a world in which natural pregnancies (“faith births”) are frowned upon for their risk and unpredictability. Vincent was one such child, and instead of focusing on the perfection and miracle of a newborn baby, society’s only interest is to predict the entire course of that child’s life through his genetic makeup. This profiling naturally leads to rampant discrimination. Even in Vincent’s own family, at the moment of his birth, his inferior status deprives him of being named after his father, despite being first-born. Society boils down to Valids versus In-Valids (or, invalids, which is a lovely little play with language that I quite enjoy). In-Valids are shuttered away to the sidelines, forced to work menial jobs and never having any kind of promise or potential afforded to them. In order to live a better life, Vincent takes on the identity of one Jerome Morrow (Jude Law), a former swimmer who broke his back and became paralyzed, who agrees to “rent out” his genetic material to Vincent.

This ruse involves a lot of work, as Vincent has to slough off all his excess skin and hair into an incinerator every day so as not to accidentally reveal himself. He even had to get bone extensions surgically implanted in his legs to allow for the height difference. Jerome, meanwhile, also has to slough off his skin cells, but for Vincent to leave as his own, since that’s how everyone’s identified these days. He also gives him blood and urine samples to evade detection from random tests and identity scans. It’s a huge endeavor that all comes very close to falling apart when a murder at the company where Vincent works threatens to expose him.

There’s a lot going on here, but mostly Gattaca is about the untapped potential in all of us. It’s about the unpredictability of what your future is or when you’re going to die being just as much good as it is bad. It’s about believing in yourself, yes, but also embracing the unknown. When Irene (Uma Thurman) admits to having some of Vincent’s DNA sequence (by which she means the DNA Jerome has provided Vincent to plant around his workspace), she offers to let him sequence hers by giving him a strand of her hair. He lets it go. “The wind caught it,” he says. He’s not interested in knowing what some geneticist says Irene is “supposed” to be, any more than he’s interested in anyone (including a police detective played by Loren Dean, who has a particular interest in Vincent) telling him what he can or can not do. That’s certainly a positive outlook on love and on life, but it’s also a positive outlook on society: Embrace our differences. Accept variety and imperfection. Take a chance.

There are aspects of Gattaca that absolutely can be taken as a pro-independence, “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” sort of film. And it is, in a way. But Vincent is only able to pull himself up by his bootstraps because he breaks all the rules and goes to horrific extremes to escape the bonds of his social class. For most of the In-Valids, that life is simply not possible. And that’s the real tragedy. Because who knows what could be lurking out there in the alleys, what potential greatness lays untapped? As Dr. Lamar (Xander Berkeley) says of his less-than-perfect son, “Who knows what he could do?”

And that’s what it’s all about, really. Nobody knows what’s in us but us. So leave it all out there. Give it everything you’ve got. And don’t save anything for the swim back.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Sherlock Holmes

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 82 Days to go: 56

Movie #358:  Sherlock Holmes

I’m not what you would call a connoisseur of Sherlock Holmes stories. Except for the personal favorite Young Sherlock Holmes, which came out when I was a tween and therefore highly suggestible, I don’t think I’d ever watched a single one until this Sherlock Holmes hit theaters. (Unless you count the odd Sherlock appearance/reference in things like Star Trek: The Next Generation, which I don’t.) I’d never read any the stories either, having just started delving into them here and there over the last few months. Sherlock was enough in the public consciousness that I knew the basics — his partner Dr. Watson, his nemesis Moriarty, Sherlock’s general look — but that was it. I wouldn’t say I was opposed to the notion of the stories or the character (I love detectives and mysteries), but previous iterations (save a dreamy teen reimagining) all seemed far too stuffy and inaccessible. Sherlock Holmes is anything but that.

Starring inveterate rogue Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock and my beloved Jude Law as Dr. Watson, and directed by the flashy, stylistic, intriguing Guy Ritchie, Sherlock Holmes piqued my interest from the start. And the trio did not disappoint. Obviously the chemistry of the two friends and partners is critical to the success of the film. The pair need to convey shared history, a great deal of comfort with one another, and enough friction to let you know their flaws occasionally irritate and annoy each other as well. They collaborate and engage each other’s intellect, but also, at times, barely tolerate their counterpart. It’s a delicate, well-worn balance to be struck, and Downey and Law both manage it beautifully. They might be my favorite on-screen couple, at least of the last decade.

Of course, Holmes and Watson each have romantic interests too. Not being familiar with the stories, I knew of neither Mary Morstan (Kelly Reilly) nor Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) before this film, but both women made the characters stand out for me — Mary being steady and upstanding, to pair well with Watson’s conventionality, and Irene being sly and mischievous, to provoke and arouse Holmes. (There’s even a reference to Moriarty, but, as is consistent with my experience, he’s not yet introduced to the mix, merely teased as a problem to arise later.)

For Ritchie’s part, the style of this Sherlock Holmes film, in particular, is brilliant. It’s almost too simple, really. In order to convey the meticulous and thorough calculations Holmes makes in his mind, Ritchie will stop an action sequence and show it to us twice — first in slow motion, as Holmes plans his attack in voice over, explaining every move, its result, and the underlying reactions, then at full speed so we can see the planned maneuvers as they are executed. It’s just such a smart, clever way to bring the mind of the detective to the screen, and Ritchie’s ease and experience with action makes it all go off without a hitch. It even makes the action easier to follow in an era when lots of action movies are too heavily edited to tell what’s happening.

I really liked this movie a lot, and I’ve seen it a bunch of times. It’s even sparked my desire to investigate new Sherlock stories (I love Elementary, and will one day get around to watching Sherlock) as well as read the original ones. It’s probably the best effect a remake or a reboot of a franchise can have — introducing new fans to the material, new consumers to the products. But it has to be a really good, quality, successful reboot, and Sherlock Holmes is definitely that.

 

MY MOVIE SHELF: The Holiday

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 237 Days to go: 242

Movie #140: The Holiday

After the first two high-profile directing jobs of Nancy Meyers’s career (What Women Want and Something’s Gotta Give), I would’ve told you — loudly and vehemently — that I was not a Nancy Meyers person. She’d written a thousand things I loved, so her writing wasn’t the problem. Her directing, however, drove me crazy. At least that’s what I assumed. Nowadays, though, I think I was wrong. I think those two particular movies just happen to be awful and that Nancy Meyers herself is an intriguing and prolific talent. It was The Holiday that started me changing my mind.

What Women Want and Something’s Gotta Give, while huge commercial hits, are terrible movies. Terrible. I will defend this stance forever. I will die on this hill. First of all, What Women Want is little more than a mockery of women. It demeans women and reduces women to a few silly quirks Mel Gibson can look ridiculous emulating or smirkingly exploit, and it in no way seems to make any kind of authentic or sincere statement about women, how they think, or what they want. It’s just awful. Something’s Gotta Give is better, softer and more forgiving and understanding to women, but it still bases itself entirely on the idea that gross, sexist Jack Nicholson is at all worthy of Diane Keaton’s love. Not only that, but it features an extended crying jag from Keaton that is clearly supposed to be funny but instead plays like women are ridiculous hysterical creatures. It’s a jokey cry; it’s an exaggerated, wailing cry. It’s awful as well.

The Holiday also features an over-the-top crying jag by Iris (Kate Winslet), but it offsets it with a woman named Amanda (Cameron Diaz) who overthinks everything and never cries. In this way, it creates two very specific women who react at times similarly and at times vastly different from one another with regard to failed romances. And by portraying these women as existing on a spectrum of emotions and tendencies, it instantly prevents them being seen as caricatures. Not only that, but it gives these women interesting and compatible men to fall in love with: Graham (Jude Law) and Miles (Jack Black).

The movie begins with Iris and Amanda both failing at a romantic relationship. Iris has been constantly strung along and toyed with by emotionally manipulative bad boy Jasper (Rufus Sewell) and Amanda has been blamed for her boyfriend Ethan’s (Ed Burns) cheating because of her highly rational, outwardly unemotional demeanor. When Amanda throws Ethan out and Iris learns of Jasper’s engagement moments after he was once again suggestively flirting with her and giving her hope, the two women are desperate to get away from their lives. Amanda finds Iris’s English cottage on a Home Swap website and they decide to switch houses — Amanda coming to Surrey and Iris going to L.A. — for two weeks surrounding the Christmas holiday.

Amanda almost immediately starts second guessing herself once she’s settled into the cottage, but changes her mind about giving up and going home when Iris’s brother Graham stumbles onto her doorway one night after meeting up with friends at the pub and drinking a tad too much. Suddenly Amanda finds herself in a situation where she can let go of thought and follow her emotions, and she and Graham have a lot of very sexy chemistry to urge things on.

Iris, meanwhile, meets Miles when he comes to Amanda’s house to pick something up for Ethan. They are cordially friendly, since Miles has a girlfriend, but when that falls apart, Iris is able to commiserate with him because she knows exactly how it feels to be discarded and to think you’re not worthy of being loved.

There are bumps in the road for both couples, but ultimately they find themselves happier than they’ve ever been. Amanda is able to find her heart, and Iris is able to find her gumption (thanks in no small part to a lovely B-plot about an old Hollywood writer played by Eli Wallach). Graham is able to find someone who doesn’t shrink away from how complicated his life can be, and Miles finds someone who is beautiful and easy to be with and who appreciates him fully. So it’s a movie not just about women who are unlucky in love suddenly finding it, it’s about men who struggle with love as well. Their stories are on equal footing. They mesh. It feels more like these couples coming together just fit rather than like a movie that panders to the idea of an emotionally stunted woman stumbling on a miraculous dream guy. It’s refreshing and lovely, truly.

I’m a big fan of Kate Winslet and Jude Law, so it was never a question I would find their performances more than capable, but Cameron Diaz and — especially — Jack Black can be wild cards. Thankfully, though Diaz’s arc has the gimmick of being occasionally narrated by Movie Trailer Guy thanks to Amanda’s job as a trailer producer (which, being a movie person, I thoroughly enjoy), the performance of Amanda is easy breezy. She’s neurotic, but doesn’t overplay her hand, and when placed in awkward situations with Graham, she handles them with aplomb. Even better, Jack Black is beautifully subdued here. Miles is a music composer, so Black gets to indulge a little bit when talking about movie scores, but other than that his performance of Miles is low-key and sincere. It’s delightfully understated work that really brings out his charm. It’s without a doubt my favorite performance of his. Ever.

The Holiday is a romantic comedy that really works for me in large part because it thwarts a lot of romantic comedy tropes. The romantic intendeds aren’t bickering opposites who come together at the end despite all logic, nor do they fall in love at first sight and instantly become a happy couple. These people are all honest, careful portrayals of characters who feel like they could be real, and the movie intentionally takes its time with them, building their relationships brick by brick, piece by piece. The closing moments feel earned and sustainable, and yet the movie still gives off the aura of happy, blissful fantasy that romantic comedies are made of. It’s a lovely film, and I hope Nancy Meyers has quite a few more like this in her.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Cold Mountain

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 304  Days to go: 293

Movie #69: Cold Mountain

Cold Mountain is almost two different movies altogether. At first, it is a slow, mournful tale of the delicate beginnings of love being snatched away from two shy, quiet souls at the start of the Civil War. Inman (Jude Law) goes off to fight, as all men of a certain age must. Ada (Nicole Kidman) waits for him to return. Things fall apart for both of them, and they can no longer bear this separation, even if they barely know what it’s like to be together. The movie — this first part — is an embodiment of sorrow and longing. It wrenches my heart with each sweeping vista and soaring note of its score. When Ada begs, “Come back to me,” I can feel her need as if it were my own. And then, suddenly, Ruby Thewes (Renee Zellweger) shows up and breathes life and hope into the whole wide world. It’s such a dramatic shift in tone, as I said, it’s hard to believe the two halves exist in the same film.

Mind you, the worlds of Ada and Inman — and Ruby, for that matter, and Sally (Kathy Baker) and Sara (Natalie Portman) and Stobrod (Brendan Gleeson) and nearly everyone else — is still swathed in misery after Ruby’s arrival. The war has ravaged the land, the population, and the whole society of the South. The people are at the mercy of the Home Guard and the marauding Yankees, both of whom viciously abuse the power they have over everyone else, acting solely in their own interests, to their own ends, for their own amusement. Ruby doesn’t change that. What Ruby does, however, is take action. She is not one to sit back and let life happen to her. She is a woman of strength and determination who will not abide foolishness or laziness or mistreatment. She saves poor Ada’s life, no doubt about it, simply with her force of will and take-charge personality. And she faces everything in front of her with integrity and verve. “I despise a flogging rooster.”

When Ruby discovers her father still alive, the first time, she is justifiably angry yet also thrilled. When she thinks he’s been foolishly killed again, she is mad and frustrated and heartbroken. When she finds him alive the second time, she is awash with relief and fear. Ruby is fully realized in this way, capable of experience a broad spectrum of emotions about a single event because of all that came before it. She has a past and a future and a strong presence equally matched by her point of view. I love Ruby. If I had another baby girl, I would name her Ruby in a heartbeat and sing to her all the time, “Ruby with the eyes that sparkle.”

The movie uses vignettes throughout to represent the passage of time, the changing conditions, and the various trials of both the folks back at Cold Mountain and Inman as he makes his way back there on foot. Like the dozens of letters Ada writes, we see a small sampling of events: the death of her father (Donald Sutherland), the continuing encroachment of the Home Guard, the crows in the well, Ruby’s firm and vital charge of the farm, Sally’s tragedy, and brief glimpses of happiness shared with Stobrod, Pangle (Ethan Suplee) and Georgia (Jack White). Meanwhile, Inman’s journey is long and arduous and fraught with danger. He encounters the Reverend (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) twice and is appalled how a man of God can be so full of sin. At Junior’s (Giovanni Ribisi) house, the inhabitants are dirty and debauched but rewarded for their dishonesty. Maddy (Eileen Atkins) saves Inman’s life and nurses him back to health, even though it could be a risk to her and even though she has very little herself. And the young widow Sara offers him shelter and allows him to comfort her, but shows no mercy to the Yankee soldiers who would show her none. All these people have been changed by the war, some becoming opportunistic and jaded, others becoming hardened but no less human, and Inman finds that he, too, struggles to keep his head above water and to still be a man worthy of someone like Ada waiting for him. All he wants is that peace and the quiet contentment of home. It keeps him moving forward, intent on fulfilling her request. “Come back to me. Come back to me is my request.”

The vignettes also work well in highlighting how Ada and Inman’s entire relationship is just a collection of moments — brief, stolen moments — and very few words shared between them. Their love, if they have one, is more idealized fantasy than reality, and yet it’s stronger and more compelling than everything else around them, as it keeps them both going — moving forward toward each other. Their reunion is similarly brief, similarly stolen. It’s the moment she realizes the man before her is him, the moment they talk by the fire, the moment they trade vows — “I marry you. I marry you. I marry you.” And it’s the sweet, fleeting moments of their lovemaking — the moment between marriage and death.

In 2004 I was in L.A. on Oscar night (of all Renee Zellweger’s performances, I’m so glad this is the one she got an Oscar for), standing outside the Vanity Fair party when Jude Law arrived. I fell in love with him as Inman — that quiet, simple longing and fortitude of his — and shouted “I marry you” three times across the throngs of photographers. But I’m not sure it counts if he doesn’t say it back. It’s just as well, though, because my husband now infuses me with that same feeling. Our lengthy separations (due to the nature of his job) keep me always looking forward to and longing for our time together, so much that I cherish it all the more. And every day I’m without him I fill myself up with all the things I’m going to say the next time we talk; I’m forever composing messages to him in my head. And if (God forbid) I ever were to lose him, I’d still be writing to him every day. That’s what love is, to me.

Cold Mountain is a film about the preservation and perseverance of love, about the constancy of it, even through hard times and tragedies. I carry that message with me, inside my heart, always. “I like that.”

MY MOVIE SHELF: Closer

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order, by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 307  Days to go: 295

Movie #66: Closer

“Plain. Jane. Jones.”

Closer is a beautiful, painful, raw, uncomfortable, wonderful film that explores the natures of truth, love, happiness and identity. Is it enough just to love someone? Or just to say you do? Is it enough to know someone? Even if they don’t know themselves? Is it better to know the thing that will hurt you, or to let it fade away and just follow your heart? Is that even possible?

Alice Ayers (Natalie Portman) is a lie. A fabrication. She’s a woman who reinvents herself as a barrier to being vulnerable, and so when she meets Dan (Jude Law), she becomes the woman he wants her to be. It’s not the woman she is, not technically, but it doesn’t mean she loves him less. Indeed, I think Alice is the one whose love is truest, most devoted, unconditional. She accepts Dan and loves him. She would have loved him forever, if he could’ve accepted it.

When Alice (and we) meet Dan, he is a schlubby, sad obituary writer who is dazzled and enthralled by her. She is worldly and knowing, confident and luminous. He simply wants to bask in her glow, she is so magnetic to him. She is drawn to him as well, perhaps by the way he looks at her, perhaps by what she sees in him, and they instantly fall in love. We don’t see their love story, though. The movie cleverly jumps ahead to the moment Dan meets Anna (Julia Roberts). Alice has changed him now, and he’s more confident. He wrote a book — a good one, according to Anna — and is poised for success. His sadness has been replaced by arrogance, and that arrogance leads him down a path that will overturn the lives of Alice and himself and of Anna and a doctor named Larry (Clive Owen) she has yet to meet.

The movie skips ahead in time at its whim, revealing only the times when there is change or turmoil in these four lives — specifically with regard to these four lives: how Dan’s obsession with Anna brings her to Larry and drives them apart, how Alice lives with the burden of it until she doesn’t, how Larry is vengeful and seeks to destroy them all. It only flashes back twice — to Anna’s anger- and pity-fueled meeting with Larry and to Dan’s discovery of Alice at the club — so even the audience doesn’t know what’s true or what’s not. Did Alice sleep with Larry? Or did Larry say that just to ruin Dan? Does Alice admit to it because she knows that’s what Dan’s fishing for and that he won’t accept the truth that nothing happened? We don’t know. What we do know is that his obsession (and Larry’s obsession, and the hostile, rage-filled competition between them) killed the last of Alice’s love. “I don’t love you anymore. Goodbye.” It’s a line she gives him in their first meeting, as the only way to leave someone, so it’s not a surprise when it comes and yet it’s devastating all the same — particularly to Dan, who is so broken and useless at this point. Everything that was good in him was Alice, but he killed it until there was no more Alice anywhere.

Natalie Portman is so perfect in this movie, it’s almost transcendent. She and Clive Owen both deserved Oscars for this. (Not that I have anything against Morgan Freeman or Cate Blanchett or the roles they won their Oscars for, but Morgan Freeman should’ve won for about a half-dozen other things and Cate Blanchett should’ve won for Elizabeth, so in a sense these were just career-recognition Oscars, which are always a tiny bit of a letdown because they detract from truly great performances by, perhaps, less-accomplished, less-known, less-revered actors.) In their ways, they are both so honest about their emotions and their motivations — he, constantly angry and graphic and crude, she, always calm and straightforward, yet sly and seeming evasive even when she’s not. They know Dan and Anna better than either Dan or Anna know themselves or each other. Larry uses it to his advantage, however he can. Alice accepts it for what it is and abandons it when it’s pushed too far.

Larry gets what he thinks he wants. Does he feel better about himself? Probably not, given his admission of as much when he offers a malicious trade to Anna. Is he happy? Is Anna? Do they pretend they are?

What about Dan? He’s back to being a miserable wretch of an obituary writer, smiling maybe his truest smile in the longest time when he happens upon the truth about Alice.

And where is Alice? Gone. Back to who she was before she met Dan, but different from who she was too — older, more mature, a little harder, and even more sure of herself. Is she better off? Probably. Is she happy? We don’t know, but I hope she is. Out of all of them, she deserves it the most.