Review: Hamnet

Image courtesy of Focus Features.

There have been two great movies in recent weeks - Joachim Trier's "Sentimental Value" and, now, Chloe Zhao's "Hamnet" - that have examined how lived experience can result in great art, though the latter's example is of the more extreme variety.

Based on the novel by Maggie O'Farrell, "Hamnet" does what so many other films about the Bard have done - fictionalized a moment in the life of William Shakespeare to explain how he created one of his greatest works. The Oscar winner "Shakespeare in Love" was on the light-hearted side, while Zhao's film takes a moment of great anguish and connects fictional dots to explain how he wrote what is considered to be his greatest work, "Hamlet."

Much like Zhao's earlier films, "Eternals" notwithstanding, the film is attuned to the natural settings in which the story is set. The forested area in which Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) lives with his unsupportive father and stern mother (Emily Watson) almost feels like a character - much like nature does in the films of Terrence Malick - in the picture.

It is in the woods that he meets Agnes (Jessie Buckley), whom local lore has pegged as the child of a forest witch, and becomes entranced by her. Against both of their families' wishes, they marry and have three children, two of whom are twins. Those not looking for any of the story to be spoiled should read no further - however, it's no secret that Shakespeare was devastated by the loss of his young son, Hamnet.

It doesn't help matters between William and Agnes that the former must go away for long spells to London, where he is responsible for managing a theater where he puts on his plays. It's curious that the film basically makes no mention of any other Shakespeare work other than the one that we finally see enacted near the film's end.

This is a film - much like some of Zhao's others - that requires patience. It's what you might call a slow burn, but it pays off, especially when Agnes and her supportive brother (Joe Alwyn) make a surprise visit to the theater in the months after Hamnet's death and witness the first performance of "Hamlet." The filmmakers allow the production of the play to act as a means of healing between the brokenhearted Shakespeare and his wife in an extended scene that might have not worked in the wrong hands, but is extremely powerful here.

Mescal gives one of his best performances as Shakespeare, although his character feels more like a supporting role to Buckley, who gives one of the year's best and most devastating portrayals as Agnes. There's a fair amount of drama on display, not surprisingly, after the death of their child, but it's in two other scenes that each actor especially shines - Mescal as he impatiently gives direction to actors rehearsing for "Hamlet" and Buckley as she has what appears to be an almost spiritual connection to the young man playing the Danish prince onstage.

Much like the recent "Sentimental Value" - in which a movie director who has long been a non-presence in his grown daughters' lives writes a deeply personal screenplay as a means of healing his family through the creation of a movie - "Hamnet" also explores how lived experience can result in great art. In this case, of course, that experience is a tragedy - and one that experts on the life of Shakespeare might claim is a stretch to explain the creation of "Hamlet." Whether there's any truth in this fictional account is mostly unimportant because, as art, it works.

Zhao's "Nomadland" is among the best films of the 2020s so far, but her follow up - the Marvel movie "Eternals" - was widely considered a major flop (while I wasn't particularly wild about it myself, it's not nearly as bad as all that). If she was considered to be in need of a comeback, "Hamnet" is it.

Review: Jay Kelly

Image courtesy of Netflix.

"It's a hell of a responsibility to be yourself," Sylvia Plath said. "It's much easier to be somebody else or nobody at all." 

This quote appears before the credits of "Jay Kelly," Noah Baumbach's latest film that stars George Clooney in the titular role of an actor who has used his profession to mostly avoid responsibility for others, the result of which is that he has one daughter, Daisy (Grace Edwards), who runs off to be with her friends after graduating college, rather than spend the summer with him, and another, Jessica (Riley Keough), who actively avoids him.

The only person who appears constantly by Jay's side is Ron (a very good Adam Sandler), his personal assistant who believes that his client is also his friend but whom Jay points out collects 15 percent of his earnings. As the film opens, Jay has just finished shooting a movie and is about to jump right into another - something which we are led to believe is probably common for him to avoid much downtime - when Ron tells him about a film festival in Italy that wants to give him a lifetime achievement award.

At first, Jay balks at the idea of attending the festival, but thinks twice about it when he realizes that it gives him the chance to essentially stalk Daisy and her friends as they travel around Europe. Because Jay can't travel without an entourage, he is also accompanied by a number of others in his orbit, including his agent (Laura Dern).

But before all this takes place, two important moments occur. Jay learns that the director (Jim Broadbent) whom he viewed as his mentor has died and, at his funeral, he listens as the man's son talks at great length about how his father was rarely present in his life. Then, at the funeral, Jay runs into an old pal, Timothy (Billy Crudup), with whom he started out as an actor. The two go out for drinks and the scene quickly goes south.

Clooney has long been considered one of the last Hollywood movie stars and the portrayal of the lead character gets a lot of mileage out of this. There's a scene in which he's mobbed while boarding a train in Italy - something Clooney has likely experienced in the real world - which then morphs into an amusing sequence in which Jay holds court with all of the passengers in one of the train's cars and goes as far as inviting them to the reception for him at the film festival. 

This may be due to the fact that few others in his life have any intention to attend the festival. His father (Stacy Keach) briefly shows up but there are obvious signs as to why their relationship is frosty, and his daughters want nothing to do with the occasion. Ultimately, Jay only has Ron to depend upon to attend, but Ron often speaks to Jay in the same patient mantras that he also uses toward his young children, with whom he mostly conducts a relationship over the phone as he flies all over the place with Jay.

"Jay Kelly" keeps its central character at somewhat of a remove in the present but deepens his character as he reflects upon moments in the past - most notably, reminiscing on a scene with an actress (Eve Hewson) from a film early in his career and another in which his rivalry with Timothy becomes a little clearer. It's not until the film's finale that Baumbach takes the picture in a direction that's surprisingly sentimental, considering that the film is from the director of "The Squid and the Whale" and "Margot at the Wedding."

While I wouldn't rank "Jay Kelly" among Baumbach's best, it's a very well acted film that ends up packing an emotional punch when it needs to. Clooney is solid in the titular role, Keough makes her few moments onscreen count, and Dern is very good as always, but it's Sandler who steals the show as the devoted but understandably frustrated Ron. 

It's an overall thoughtful film that takes Plath's opening quote seriously as it observes the life of a man who felt the need to fill most of his hours and years pretending to be someone else to avoid having to be himself.

Review: Eternity

Image courtesy of A24.

People might debate over what the most consequential decision one is likely to make during one's lifetime, but "Eternity," a new romantic dramedy, explores what the most important choice is in the afterlife. 

The film feels like a more lightweight, albeit amusing, version of Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda's "After Life," in which people could decide what they wanted their own personal heaven to look like. In the opening scene, an elderly couple heads to a gender reveal party for a baby. Moments after arriving, the crotchety husband, Larry, chokes on a pretzel.

Larry (now played by Miles Teller) awakens in the afterlife and is escorted around by an agent, Anna (Da'Vine Joy Randolph), who tends to his needs and discusses with him how he'd like to spend eternity. His answer is with his wife, Joan, who in her old age was dying from cancer but who has not yet arrived in the same place where he is.

But soon enough, she does in a younger version of herself played by Elizabeth Olsen. All seems good until Larry realizes that Joan's first husband, Luke (Callum Turner), who had died in the Korean War, is also there and has been waiting 60 years for her to arrive, so that he and she could spend eternity together. 

The film poses the question: Should you spend your afterlife with the spouse with whom you built a life, had kids, and shared most of the important moments or instead with the one who got away, giving yourself a chance to experience a romance that was cut short by circumstances?

"Eternity," which was directed by David Freyne, is often a comedy but occasionally a drama as Joan faces the very real conundrum of which husband she'll spend the rest of her afterlife with and which one she'll cut loose. It doesn't go anywhere particularly surprising - it's easy to see early on which one she should choose - but it does so in an agreeable manner and the cast - especially Teller - is good.

There have been numerous other films about the afterlife and the choices that those who find themselves in it must make, from the aforementioned Kore-eda picture to "Defending Your Life" and the classic "Stairway to Heaven/A Matter of Life and Death." "Eternity" doesn't have a lot to say about what's awaiting us at the end. The film is a fantasy and one that is more on the absurd side - there are themed eternities that the dead can choose, from Paris World or Queer World to the more ridiculous (and creepy), such as Clown World.

Randolph is funny as Larry's agent and Turner does a solid job as the (mostly) stoic soldier who has been waiting for Joan for years. But it's Teller, who does a great job of a young man playing an old one at heart, and Olsen as the conflicted Joan who are the heart and soul of "Eternity." The film might be considered somewhat light fare, but it's an overall enjoyable time at the movies.

Review: It Was Just An Accident

Image courtesy of Neon.

Director Jafar Panahi is one of modern cinema’s greatest heroes. Arrested in 2010 on accusations that his work was propaganda against the Iranian regime, his family has since been threatened, he has been kept on house arrest and not allowed to leave the country, and banned from making movies for 20 years.

Regardless, he has continued to make films – one was even smuggled out of Iran on a thumb drive – and, for several years, the docu-dramas he made argued that since they were not exactly the types of narratives you’d expect in feature films, they didn’t count as movies. One was even called “This is Not a Film.”

Panahi won the Palm d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for “It Was Just an Accident,” a film that marks a return to narrative filmmaking and is possibly his most straightforward picture to date. It’s also likely his best.

The film opens on a desolate highway in Iran where a family of three – father, mother, and cute young daughter with a stuffed dog in tow and a love for the dance music on the radio – are making their way home. The car runs over a dog and the father (Ebrahim Azizi) gets out to check on the situation. He looks pained, but his wife tells him that “it was just an accident.” Moments later, the car begins having problems and he pulls over to a station to have it fixed.

At this point, the film switches from his point of view to that of Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), a worker at the station who pokes around in the shadows looking at the man who has just arrived. It appears that he recognizes him. Sure enough, he follows the man home and notes his address.

The next day, Vahid follows the man around in a van he is using from the station where he works. He strikes the man with the door of the van, knocks him unconscious, and throws him in the back of the van. When the man awakens, he and Vahid are in a desert area, where Vahid is digging a grave. The man is thrown in the grave and Vahid begins pouring dirt down on him.

The man, whom Vahid calls “Eghbal,” is accused of being a fierce torturer from the Iranian regime who tormented Vahid following his arrest for protesting working conditions. The man claims that he is not Eghbal and adds that the prosthetic leg he is wearing – Vahid says he’d never forget the squeak of Eghbal’s peg leg – was from a recent injury.

To be sure that he doesn’t have the wrong man, Vahid travels to see a friend who was also tortured by the regime. This man sends him to find a photographer, Shiva (Mariam Afshari), who was also a victim. She seems unwilling to talk to Vahid, especially after learning that he has Peg Leg stuffed in the back of his van.

As it turns out, she’s taking photos for the wedding of Golrokh (Hadis Pakbaten), another Peg Leg victim, and her fiancé, Ali (Majid Panahi). Golrokh drags Shiva into the van and they all set out to find yet another victim, a hothead named Hamid (Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr). A complication ensues from a phone call to the kidnapped man’s phone and the films takes some surprising turns.

For a movie about such heavy subject matter, it might surprise the viewer to find that “It Was Just an Accident” is often quite humorous. A detour to the hospital for unforeseen circumstances leads to a very funny series of moments in which Vahid must pay officials, nurses, and even the police, all of whom have credit card machines at the ready, and even buy a box of donuts for those tending to the surprise guest they pick up in the van. There’s also some humor to be found in a van full of people – including a bride-to-be in her wedding dress – driving around with a guy kept prisoner in a large box in the back of the van.

“It Was Just an Accident” is clearly a personal movie for Panahi, a victim himself of Iran’s regime, and Vahid – or any of the film’s characters for that matter, other than Peg Leg – often appears to be a stand-in for him. Iranian cinema is known for its slow pacing and dialogue-heavy scenes and Panahi’s latest fits into that mold. It takes some patience, but it pays off.

The film ends on a note that is both haunting and ambiguous. It’s up to the viewer whether it’s meant to be taken literally or instead merely a metaphor for what it feels like to be a victim who is forever haunted by something, in this case a sound not easily forgotten. Panahi has struggled against the Iranian regime for about a decade and a half, and his latest film is his most daring response and his best film to date.

Review: Wicked For Good

Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.

It might seem a strange comparison, but "Wicked for Good" - the second half of director John M. Chu's cinematic adaptation of the blockbuster Broadway musical "Wicked" - reminded me a bit of the second half of the adaptation of Stephen King's "It" from several years back. The first half of "It" was surprisingly good and did a nice job of setting the scene and introducing the characters, while the second half just felt loaded down with set pieces and the mechanics of plot (yes, I know that it followed the novel pretty closely).

So, splitting "Wicked" into two films - as they did "It" - was probably a good financial decision as this second film is likely to break box office records this weekend. It was, perhaps, not as a good of a creative decision.

Like that King adaptation, the first half of "Wicked" did a great job of introducing us to the characters - Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), Glinda (Ariana Grande), Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum), and various others. Watching the progression of Elphaba and Glinda's relationship was enjoyable and the actresses portraying them were very good.

There are several problems with this sequel, and one is that while the first half involved a lot of characterization and development of relationships and setting, this second film is almost all forward motion. One action follows another, which follows another. If "Wicked' had been one longer film, all of the action toward the end would have instead felt like the denouement after all of the aforementioned development in the first half of the movie.

Instead, we have one film full of development (the more interesting stuff) and one full of nonstop action. Also, the second act of the stage production - which is what encompasses "Wicked for Good" - was about 75 minutes, while this film is 137 minutes, and a decent amount of it feels like filler.

Another problem is that the first film got most of the best songs - especially "Defying Gravity" and "Popular," while the ones in this film just aren't as memorable. "There's No Place Like Home" and "For Good" are among the better selections.

Lastly, "Wicked" is all about Elphaba and her journey, but Erivo is mostly sidelined in this picture, while more attention is paid to Grande's Glinda. It helps that both actresses are just as good here as they were in the original, which makes the film an easier sit.

None of this is to say that I thought that "Wicked for Good" was bad or that I didn't like it. It's just that the first film did a solid job of adapting the musical to the screen, while the second film feels more like a sequel with a padded running time, the disappearance of its main attraction (Erivo) for large chunks of time, musical numbers that don't compare to the first outing, and an emphasis on exposition over character development or storytelling.

"Wicked for Good" will likely make a killing at the box office and fans of the first may well be as smitten with its second half. I thought the first film was a success, and its second half only successful in spurts. It's not bad overall, but had this been one long movie, it might have worked better.

Review: Sentimental Value

Image courtesy of MUBI.

Two things can simultaneously be true: Great art can make life more bearable and, to make great art, it helps to have lived experience. In other words, it sometimes takes some suffering to be able to produce the thing that makes suffering more endurable.

This concept is just one sliver of Joachim Trier's "Sentimental Value," which marks a high point in this director's career following "The Worst Person in the World," previously considered his high watermark. The picture is at once a dysfunctional family saga; a story obsessed with time, history, and place; a movie about making movies; a story about how art can possibly save your life - or, in this case, relationships; and how finding the truth in your art often comes from lived experience.

The film starts on a curious note as one of its lead characters, Nora (Renate Reinsve), narrates how when she was young a teacher asked her to imagine her self as an object and she chose her childhood home - which almost becomes one of the film's characters. 

The narration goes on to describe the changes in time to the house and its inhabitants, and throughout the course of the movie we learn of the tragedies and history that took place in that house when different generations of Nora's family lived there. This history contains an arrest by the Nazis, a suicide, a divorce, and a bond formed between two sisters - Nora and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas).

Shortly after this narration, we witness Nora, who's an actress, go through a complete freakout in which her stage fright - or possibly something else - prevents her from going on stage on the opening night of the play in which she's starring. After many uncomfortable minutes - and some assistance by other cast members, including her current lover, a married man named Jakob (Trier favorite Anders Danielsen Lie) - she manages to make it on stage.

Although neither Nora nor Agnes currently live there, they make their way to their childhood home for the funeral of their mother, a former psychiatrist. Out of the blue, their estranged father, Gustav (Stellan Skarsgard), a movie director who hasn't made a film in nearly 15 years, shows up. Neither of the sisters are particularly pleased to see him, but Nora especially takes every opportunity to avoid him.

But she agrees to have lunch with Gustav, who shocks her when he tells her that he has written a screenplay for a new film that he believes to be his best work. It's autobiographical, he plans to shoot it in their childhood home, and he offers the lead role to Nora. While he tries to downplay any similarities, it's clear that the character is based on his mother, who lived a somewhat tragic existence. However, Nora wants nothing to do with the project.

At a screening for one of his old films, a Hollywood starlet named Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning) is deeply moved and she introduces herself to Gustav. They spend a night wandering the beach and realize they are kindred spirits. Shortly thereafter, she is cast in the role that was originally written for Nora. Regardless of Nora's refusal to participate in the film, Gustav begins to maintain more of a presence - which it is noted was mostly missing from her and Agnes' childhood - in his daughter's lives.

The film is shot in such a way that it plays like a great work of literature. At the end of most scenes, there is a quick cut to black as if a chapter has ended. "Sentimental Value" seems to draw some obvious inspiration from the works of Ingmar Bergman, but while the film is melancholic, it is also often quite humorous. A joke involving the misrepresentation of the age of a chair in Gustav's house got a solid laugh during the screening I attended, but the inappropriate DVDs he purchases for Agnes' young son's birthday resulted in more than a few howls.

A film that is as talky as this one might seem to draw attention away from its impeccable craft, but Kasper Tuxen's lovely cinematography did not go unnoticed by me. The writing in the picture is strong and this is a film loaded with superb performances. Reinsve has been the lead in Trier's two most recent films and has knocked it out of the park both times, while Ibsdotter Lilleaas is wonderful as Agnes. Some of the film's best and most moving sequences involve the two sisters.

Fanning is very good as the American actress who tries - but can't quite seem to nail - the role that Gustav has written for his movie. Her scenes with Skarsgard are the other great pairing in the picture. And Skarsgard gives one of his finest performances as a man who has alienated most of those closest to him - watch him uncomfortably describe ad nauseam to his daughter why he can't stand going to the theater, her profession of choice, without groaning - but is still a person, like many of this film's characters, who is trying to do better.

"Sentimental Value" was one of the most acclaimed films of this year's Cannes Film Festival and it's easy to see why. This is an intelligent, complex, and beautifully shot and acted film about heartbreak, trauma, failure, forgiveness, and artistic expression. It's a film that is dialogue heavy but ends on a sequence in which no words are spoken, and yet so much is said. It's one of the year's best.

Review: Train Dreams

Image courtesy of Netflix.

Clint Bentley's "Train Dreams" is the best Terrence Malick movie not actually made by that director during the past however many years. It's a studied, patient film that observes nature and man's role in it - in this case, the story of a man who lived a quiet simple life as we watch from childhood to death and as he figures out how he is connected to the earth, which both gives to him and takes away.

It's easy to compare to a Malick film because of its dreamy nature and the way it observes landscapes and trees swaying in the wind and considers them just as important as the narrative. There's some voice over narration and a lot of quiet moments in which people wander the land and seem in awe and overwhelmed by its beauty and horror.

The film, which is the director's debut and is based on a Denis Johnson novella, follows the story of Robert Grainier (an excellent Joel Edgerton), who works as a train laborer in the early part of the 20th century, chopping down trees and helping to make way for the growing rail lines. Early in the film, he watches and probably doesn't do quite enough to prevent the murder of an Asian man by a group of whites. That man is one of the many things that haunts Grainier as we watch him move across the earth over the years.

In happier times, he marries a woman (Felicity Jones) and has a cute little daughter. His only true friends are a Native American man who runs a general store and shows him kindness, a fellow laborer (William H. Macy) who provides counsel on their chosen line of work, and a woman (Kerry Condon) who has been sent to his neck of the woods to study the land. Otherwise, Robert spends much of his time alone, especially after a tragedy occurs.

The film spans decades but, due to the solitary location where Grainier lives, we only figure out what era we're in when, at one point, a person watching a TV in the window of a store comments on an iconic moment of American history during the century's latter half. All the while, Grainier questions his place in the world, his relationship to the land, and how he is connected to it all.

The film ends with a sequence in which he finally begins to understand that connection in his older age. It's a lovely moment representing freedom for a character who has spent much of the time we're with him blaming himself for past tragedies and trying to find meaning in an existence in which much is decided by what amounts to a roll of the dice. 

People are lost to a horrific forest fire, while another just happens to be walking at the wrong time under a branch that is not sturdy. The Asian man is shockingly murdered in a scene that comes almost out of nowhere. During another, a man approaches a worksite and shoots another man who had been prattling on about religion just moments before. The beauty of the world that Grainier inhabits is often balanced by inexplicable moments of horror, brutality, or unfairness - kind of like the one in which we live now.

This is an impressive debut film with a visual style and overall tone that feels something like a poem - much like the work of Malick, whose "Days of Heaven" is an obvious reference point and inspiration. "Train Dreams" is the work of a confident filmmaker and it includes a number of strong performances, especially Edgerton in what is likely a career best. I'm anxious to see what Bentley does next behind the camera.