KWIF = Kent's Week In Film... week-ish.
This Week:
May December (2023, d. Todd Haynes - Netflix)
Killers of the Flower Moon (2023, d. Martin Scorsese - AppleTV+)
Maestro (2023, d. Bradley Cooper - Netflix)
The Lost City (2022, d. Adam Nee, Aaron Nee - Netflix)
Last Night In Soho (2021, d. Edgar Wright - Netflix)
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Haynes' film is a fictionalization of this, meeting up with this very awkward family some 20 years later, where the facade of "normalcy" has to be plastered up every day. Helping bring us into this dynamic is actress Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman) who will be portraying Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Julianne Moore) in a new movie, and Gracie has agreed to let her into their life in hopes of getting sensitive representation in the picture.
Elizabeth spends time with the Gracie, Joe (Charles Melton) and the Yoo family, joining them for dinners and at work and at school, and if she picks up on the extremely awkward dynamics between everyone, she's very reticent to react to it. Gracie keeps trying to politely present her homelife, as well as her place in the town they live in as something natural, just your average family. She avoids any mention of drama, because if she were even to consider it, then there would be nothing but.
Gracie has a son from her previous marriage, Georgie, who was Joe's best friend until Joe was molested by his mom. Georgie is clearly fucked up by the whole event, and basically lives a drug-fuelled, care-free life, laced tightly with anger and rage. Gracie and Joe have three children of their own, their eldest has returned from her respite at college for the graduation of the middle child, while their youngest teen seems to have just become aware of their family history. All three kids are mortified to be Gracie's children, but do seem to have a very close bond with Joe that Gracie seems to ignore.
If it all sounds direly heavy, it is surprisingly anything but. Instead of capital-D drama, Haynes instead leans very, very hard into melodrama. It starts with the score, which is a mix of new compositions by Marcelo Zavros and re-orchestrated tracks of Michael Legrand's from the 1971 British period drama The Go-Between. I don't know if you could call music "gauzy" but those Legrand tracks are definitely that, like prototypical TV-movie-of-the-week overblown melodrama. Deep register piano keys reverberating, while higher register keys are slowly plunked in a pretty simple but ominous tune. The first real indication of what kind of movie this is finds Gracie opening the fridge door, cue the strong melodramatic piano chords (as if a big, important, dramatic reveal is about to happen), she stares into the fridge, and utters "I don't think we have enough hot dogs."
As Elizabeth makes her way through the supporting players in Gracie and Joe's life and history, while also spending extensive time with them both, a portrait of what their dynamic really is is revealed. Joe, despite being 36, a medical professional and seemingly a good dad, is still very much emotionally in a 13-year-old's mindset when it comes to his view of the world, and even moreso his relationship with Grace. She infantilizes him something fierce, acting as his mom and his wife and lover. The glimpses we get into their sex life are horrifyingly embarrassing for them both. Gracie, in her own way, is emotionally stunted. She's oblivious to others' needs and feelings, unapologetic to a fault, and incapable of seeing any flaw in herself. It's not ego, but repression, though it's clear deep down it's all resonating within her and she doesn't know how to reconcile it. The facade she keeps up, of everything being normal, is what she has to do to survive, but it keeps her at a distance from everyone, and it's clear she's still sort of preying upon Joe.
The dynamic between Moore and Portman is phenomenal. The scenes of Gracie and Elizabeth together -- as these two women do little else but study each other -- are fascinating. Gracie is perhaps jealous of Elizabeth's youth and freedoms, while Elizabeth basically is trying to become Gracie, to taste her life in a very unhealty way. It's all the more hilarious when we see the production Elizabeth is in at the end of the film, and how she's chosen to interpret Gracie for the role.
May December is an extremely watchable dark, dark comedy with just a hint of repugnance. It does present these characters with a sense of pathos, rather than being judgmental or damning, but at the same time, there is absolutely nothing flattering being said about this situation or the people involved. It's just as fucked up as you would think. But what a treat.
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There's been a lot of talk about how this film exposes this horrible history and puts a big old spotlight on it as prestige Oscar bait, much in the way HBO's Watchmen put a big spotlight on the Tulsa massacre (which happens, and is referenced, within the timeline of this story). It does accomplish that. But, to my continued dismay throughout its 206-minute runtime (!), it tells this story almost entirely through the eyes of white men. Those mainly being the morally inept Ernest Buckheart (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his vile uncle William Hale (Robert De Niro) whom he calls "King". On this Osage people's land, King is the deputy sheriff but also a civic leader. He has a warm smile and kind tone which fools all the Native Americans into believing him to be a just man, when in reality, behind the scenes, he's responsible for robbing their people of their land, their money and their lives.
King guides Ernest towards stern Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), and influences him into marrying her, but Ernest thinks he truly loves the woman, although he doesn't respect her enough to try and save her, or who she cares about, from King's machinations. Throughout the progress of the film, King has every member of her family killed in one way or another, and, through tampering with her insulin, poisons her slowly over time so that Ernest may inherit and keep her entitlements "in the family".
It is a long, long movie that is quite watchable in the Scorsese way, but, for me at least, not in the slightest likeable. I took great exception to how the film essentially sidelines Mollie for the majority of the picture such that we only ever see her grief, or her point of view of the events from a distanced lens. She is the female lead of the film, but she is a secondary character when, truly, the film should be about her. Ernest is a horrendous lead. I run pretty cold on DiCaprio most of the time, and while he truly he puts in the effort here, Ernest is just a dull, shitty person and following him around for 200 minutes is about as enjoyable as having a root canal. I'm obviously in the minority on this, but I think it was a fatal miscalculation having Ernest, and not Mollie be the lead of the film.
Of all the "Best Picture" nominees (I've seen 9 of the 10 as of this writing) this is my least favourite.
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Cooper writes, directs and stars in the picture, you can truly feel him reaching for that golden statue like a small child, desperate to get his grubby hands on one. But, if my inklings are correct, the effort was enough to earn him the nominations, as if to say "we see what you're doing, and good job, buddy", but also to say, "better luck next time" with a pat on the head.
This is a hot mess of a movie. It spans Bernstein's life from his early 20's up until his death (the worst Hollywood biopics tend to be those that dare to try and fit someone's life and/or carrer and/or accomplishments into 2 hours). As a result, Cooper decides to present this life as, basically, a series of vignettes. Short acts that feature a great conversation, or a dance sequence, or a marital spat, or one of Bernstein's great efforts behind the conductor's podium. 85% of the film revolves around Leonard's life and strife with his truest love Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan). I write "truest love" because Bernstein was bisexual, or pansexual maybe, but definitely his preference was men, excepting for Felicia, and just because he was married didn't mean he put any of his predilections aside.
Before seeing this film, I knew that Bernstein existed, but that about it. I might have been able to guess that he was a composer, maybe even a conductor, but I wouldn't have been able to give you a single credit to his fame (except his namedrop in REM's "It's the End of the World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine)"...which here becomes the tackiest needledrop in cinema since every needledrop in 2016's Suicide Squad). After seeing this film I know that Bernstein was a revered conductor and composed the music for West Side Story and really, really, really, really, really like fucking men. And that he really loved his wife, even when fucking men.
I don't feel at any point I ever got a true sense of who Leonard or Felicia were as individuals, only as a couple. I had a strong sense of their relationship because that is almost exclusively what this film is about, and frankly it's not tremendously enlightening. It's not boring, as the film moves way too quickly to get bored, but at such a rapid clip moving through someone's life (or someones' lives) it's hard to ever feel grounded or invested. I was often confused. I liken Maestro to being the first 10 minutes of Up stretched out over two hours, with a lot more men kissing.
Cooper, in his various vignettes, experiments with style and structure and it must have been pretty creatively rewarding, but as an audience member, I found it distracting from the first scene when it jumps from aged and wrinkled Bernstein into black-and-white squareboxed format. Later when Leonard and Felicia first meet, they talk in that 1930's His Girl Friday rapid-patter which is definitely a style choice, but feels completely put on and unnatural. This whole film, frankly feels that way.
Clearly Cooper has a deep love and fascination with Bernstein, but this movie feels like he watched Fosse/Verdon and said "that's the take for Maestro". But what Fosse/Verdon had was 10 episodes, as well as All That Jazz to back into the life of Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon. 2-ish hours is just not enough to get even close to that level of intimacy with Lenny and Felicia.
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In the year and a half since The Lost City debuted in the wake of covid and got swallowed up by the streaming machine, it's actually garnered itself a bit of a reputation as being... good? Yes, "good, question mark".
This one was a fairly low-key pretty big hit, quite surprisingly. We look at these sort of celebrity two-hander action comedies with a bit of disdain these days. If it's not a known property we're like, "why is this happening, exactly?". They used to happen all the time, pre-superhero dominance, but I think they're seen as old fashioned, and film goers get a bit cynical when studios try to force two movie stars together and just expect us to want to see it. Films used to be star driven, now they're IP or concept driven by and large. We've become wary of "celebrities".
If you've seen Romancing the Stone, this is basically a reformulation of that story. A romance writer finds herself in a situation not too far outside one of her plots, forced to partner up with a man she can barely stand, only to fall in love, find adventure and treasure, and defeat the bad guys. In this case, when Sandra Bullock's novelist Loretta Sage is kidnapped by billionaire Abigail Fairfax (Daniel Radcliff), it's Sandra's sweet, simple himbo cover model Alan (Channing Tatum) who comes to her rescue... or, rather, tries to come to her rescue.
It's a film that is smart misadventure, exposing the incompetence of the two leads, but also showing an ability to grow and learn on the fly, and get closer to each other as they're forced to rely upon each other. There is a 16 year age gap between Bullock and Tatum which makes for a great other-side of the usual Hollywood trope. It presents Alan's crush on Loretta in a puppy love sort of way until Alan becomes disillusioned when spending real time with her, only to come back around when she starts to break down her pretentions and emotional barriers.
Tatum is the absolute best at playing the "beautiful, sensitive meathead", and he dials it up to 11 here as perfect comedy. Bullock has a "mode" for these films and she falls pretty comfortably into it. She has been doing it for almost 30 years. Radcliff, with every role he takes, from farting corpse to novelty musician, continues to shake off the stink of Harry Potter, and he plays a wonderful entitled asshole that's part Dr. Evil, part Ron Silver.
In the end, Lady Kent said "I have to say...pretty good?"
Now, the question is do we watch the Julia Roberts/George Clooney two-hander Ticket to Paradise?
[Had to laugh revisiting Toasty's post and seeing him ask the same question as Lady Kent...why? But...we agree.]
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And yeah, the opening moments of ...Soho were very much hard for me to get into. It's not McKenzie's fault she's built the way she, but that sort of built-for-childrens-programming vibe is not something one can quickly settle into.
In the film McKenzie's Ellie Turner has been accepted to the London College of Fashion, but she's been raised poor and rural by her grandmother following her mother's suicide. She doesn't fit in at school, and dorm life is too aggressively social, so she rents a room in Soho with a strict elderly woman. Ellie has seen dead people before (she sees her mother sometimes, and thinks of it as a sign of good luck) but when she falls asleep in Soho, she lives a completely other life. She starts being there, in the glorious 1960's heyday, both following and sometimes inhabiting the life of Sandie Collins (Anya Taylor-Joy). Ellie loves the fantasy of it and it becomes her escape from crushing reality.
But the dream soon becomes nightmareish, with Sandie being bamboozled out of her chanteuse career, instead working burlesque and ultimately, unwillingly the sex trade. The men of the 60s all become monsters until Ellie sees a murder and becomes obsessed with it in the modern day. She has to question her own sanity when the worlds start to blur even when she's awake.
Wright has clearly fashioned ...Soho in the Italian Giallo fashion: murder mysteries that are usually bloodier, scarier, and sexier, sometimes with a paranormal bent, and typically finds a non-police or private detective in the role of solving the mystery or capturing the killer. Even in his usual fashin, this is a more stylized film for Wright, as he twists his narrative around visual concepts one would have found in the 60's and 70's but, challenging himself to push further. The colour palette of the film, especially in the 60's, is gorgeous, pink neon soaked with heavy black shadows. The mirror work, in the first act especially, is mind blowing: I'm sure it was practical but there's some definite movie magic going on there (a scene where Taylor-Joy descends down a mirrored staircase but it's McKenzie in the mirror is a triumph).
It's the third act then, when it goes full psychological and paranormal horror, that it becomes a bit too overblown. Without revealing anything, the finale is very muddy in its message about victims of violence and what justice means for them, and I think that's where the critical reaction was shaken. I can't help but think about Poor Things' narrative when watching this, even though I understand they're both portraying different times and intentions.
So, happy to have seen it, and will probably revisit in the future, but also, I get the disappointment with it, and I agree. And it seems Toasty and I agree as well.
But is it horror?
It kind of is, in the way that Giallo is a subgenre of horror. It's not out to jump-scare you but it is meant to be intense and frightening. So yeah, ish.
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BONUS
Kent's Oscars 2024 Best Picture Rankings:
- Anatomy of a Fall
- Poor Things
- The Holdovers
- American Fiction
- Oppenheimer
- Barbie
- The Zone of Interest
- Maestro
- Killers of the Flower Moon
to watch: Past Lives
I admitted I was wrong about Lost City :P
ReplyDeleteYES! So glad you brought up Fosse/Verdon because I was getting major F/V vibes from Maestro.