Review: Isle Of Dogs

Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox.

Wes Anderson indulges a number of his most frequent obsessions and stylistic tics in "Isle of Dogs," the director's second foray into stop-motion animation - following 2009's "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" - and the result is likely to cause great delight to the filmmaker's fans and youngsters alike. In regard to the latter, yes, the picture is way darker than your typical children's film, but it's a gamble worth taking for those who have kids. This is an often lovely - well, at least, narratively and thematically - film in which animal characters are more fully formed than a majority of the human ones.

The world of "Isle of Dogs" is fairly gloomy and depressing. As the film opens, we learn that in the future, the mean old mayor of fictional city Megasaki has banned all pups - as a response to a dog flu - to a trash-filled island that is crawling with vermin, rotten food, bugs, trash and dirty water. The mayor's orphaned ward, Atari (Koyu Rankin), steals a small plane and flies to the island to rescue his dog, Spots (voiced by Liev Schreiber).

Upon crash landing, the boy - whose Japanese dialogue is mostly not subtitled - meets a pack of wild dogs that includes the surly Chief (Bryan Cranston), who makes his distaste for humans known, as well as helpful Rex (Edward Norton), Boss (Bill Murray), King (Bob Balaban) and the gossipy Duke (Jeff Goldblum). Other pups on the island include the former show dog Nutmeg (Scarlett Johansson), Oracle (Tilda Swinton), Jupiter (F. Murray Abraham) and Gondo (Harvey Keitel). Frances McDormand lends her voice as a translator for the mayor, while Greta Gerwig is Tracy Walker, a foreign exchange student with a huge blonde afro who believes the mayor is shady and wants to do something about it.

There are a fair amount of intriguing ideas at play here that struck me as particularly relevant. By giving the dogs most of the speaking parts and not translating most of the human dialogue, Anderson's film forces the viewer to understand the experience of an outsider. And it's hard to ignore that the central concept of the picture - a specific group of individuals being forced out of society by a ruler who utilizes scare tactics to demonize them - bears some resemblance to our current age of nativism.

Some have complained about Anderson's take on Japanese culture - for example, the kid being named Atari or the fact that the opening sequence features some guys who look like sumo wrestlers banging gongs as the credits roll - and accused him of cultural appropriation. I don't get the sense that Anderson is being culturally insensitive here, but rather that he is attempting a sincere homage to a culture that he loves. If anything, the film often struck me as if it were lampooning the way that westerners might view a culture that was different from their own. On the other hand, I could have probably done without the multiple haiku scenes.

"Isle of Dogs" is, much like Anderson's other work, fussy in its details - and that is intended as a compliment, not a critique. In nearly every frame of the film, there's something interesting going on. The picture is often visually dazzling and constantly attentive to what is going on in the foreground and background. It's one of the most stunning animated films I've seen in a while.

The film is obviously a labor of love and one that took a significant amount of skill to bring to realization. The picture might not reach the level of thematic richness of Anderson's best work - namely, "Rushmore" and "The Royal Tenenbaums" - but it's a very well made, highly enjoyable and emotionally resonant addition to his body of work.

Review: Ismael's Ghosts

Image courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

"Ismael's Ghosts" is jam packed with some of the greatest talent that France currently has to offer - Marion Cotillard, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Mathieu Amalric, Louis Garrel and director Arnaud Desplechin, who is responsible for the wonderful "Kings and Queen," "My Golden Days" and "La Sentinelle." And yet, the picture doesn't quite work. In this case, it's not an issue of there being something missing - rather, it's a case of there being too much.

Desplechin's films have frequently followed the exploits of Paul Dedalus (played by Amalric as a stand-in for the director). This time around, Amalric portrays filmmaker IsmaelVuillard, who is in the middle of a movie shoot that he just can't seem to wrap. He is pals with an elderly director named Bloom (Laszlo Szabo) and Ismael's brother is named Ivan Dedalus (Garrel), so the Joycean references still abound, albeit in service of an odyssey that is all over the place.

Ismael is romantically involved with Sylvia (Gainsbourg) - who loves Ismael despite his faults - and we learn that his previous wife, Carlotta (Cotillard) - who is Bloom's daughter - disappeared some 20 years prior and is assumed to be dead. However, Carlotta nonchalantly appears one day on a beach where Sylvia is sitting, ingratiates herself and ends up moving in with Ismael and his current paramour. Despite being friendly at first, Carlotta eventually tells Sylvia that she intends to get her husband back, throwing everything into disarray.

Meanwhile - and this is a film that stockpiles in meanwhiles - Ismael is pestered by his producer pal Zwy (Hippolyte Girardot) to get his act together and finish his film. This leads to a lot of melodrama. At the same time, we get a glimpse of the film that Ismael is making about his estranged brother, a diplomat who is involved in some dangerous affairs in far-flung corners.

One of the problems with "Ismael's Ghosts" is that all of the various story threads do not flow into each other organically. The scenes with Garrel's spy missions - which are in Ismael's film, although we are unclear whether the scenes are based on Dedalus' life or fictional flights of fancy on Ismael's part - feel jarring when they butt up against the more somber scenes involving Carlotta's return. In fact, her story completely drops out of sight for large periods of time. The film is also often tonally imbalanced. At times, it plays Ismael's foibles for laughs, while at other times, scenes feel gloomy and, for lack of a better word, ghostly.

Desplechin is among France's better filmmakers. His filmography reached its zenith with the great "Kings and Queen," but a number of his other works - the mysterious "La Sentinelle," family drama "A Christmas Tale" and bittersweet Dedalus films "My Golden Days" and "My Sex Life... or How I Got Into an Argument" - are also very good. "Ismael's Ghosts" has some interesting moments, lovely camera work and decent performances, but there's entirely too much going on here - and it often feels as if the various pieces belong in several different movies.

Review: Unsane

Image courtesy of Fingerprint Releasing.

Clocking in at a tight 98 minutes, "Unsane" is a lean, economic genre entry from director Steven Soderbergh - one of the masters of such things - and its unnerving visual style is a result of the picture being shot on an iPhone with a crazy aspect ratio. At times, the picture feels claustrophobic, as it tightens the frame on protagonist Sawyer Valentini (Claire Foy), who is held against her will at a mental institution where she believes that her former stalker is employed. This style is fitting for a film about a person who is essentially trapped.

As the film opens, Sawyer is a rising star at a financial institution somewhere in Pennsylvania, living far away from her home in Boston and everyone whom she knows, including her doting mother (Amy Irving). We learn early on that Sawyer's move was the result of her having to get a restraining order against a stalker named David (Joshua Leonard), a man who became obsessed with her after she took pity on him while reading to his ailing father during some sort of community volunteering at a hospital.

But Sawyer also suffers from some form of depression. Early in the film, she visits a medical center and speaks with a shrink who seems sympathetic, but the scenario quickly becomes sinister as Sawyer is told to strip and undergo a variety of tests. Upon being asked by the shrink whether she ever considered suicide, she noted that she had given some thought as to how to pull it off successfully, but never intended an attempt. However, she soon finds herself committed for the night - and then for another seven days.

A fellow patient named Nate (Jay Pharoah), one of the few sympathetic figures in the hospital, tells Sawyer that the hospital regularly forces people to stay against their will and then milks their insurance company for money. Once that runs out - after seven days - patients are allowed to leave. To make matters worse, Sawyer begins to believe that David has a job at the hospital, although the film goes to some lengths to make the viewer wonder if her stalker's presence is a figment of her imagination.

One of the elements that makes "Unsane" interesting is that Sawyer is far from perfect. At times, in fact, she is outright unlikable, which is witnessed during one scene in which she dresses down an underling at her job because power suits her and another in which she essentially sacrifices another character's well-being to save herself.

"Unsane" is also unsettlingly timely in how it portrays how women who are victims are not listened to or written off. At nearly every turn, Sawyer's fate is determined by the whims of the men around her. Near the film's beginning, her leering boss mentions an upcoming conference and not-so-subtly suggests that they share a room. The doctor at the facility where she is held barely listens to her when she pleads with him to let her go, and spends much of their sessions looking at incoming messages on his cell phone. Sawyer is forced to rely on Nate, who believes and attempts to help her, and borrow the cell phone that he has smuggled into the facility. And, of course, there is David - a monster who drugs her and torments her in the hope that he can convince her to have feelings for him.

Yes, the setup is slightly preposterous - that David could get a job at the hospital where Sawyer is being held. Regardless, it makes for an intense thriller and there is a particularly powerful scene in which Sawyer - being held in a padded blue room - verbally rips into her stalker and makes him feel as small as she actually sees him.

Soderbergh vacillates between high budget studio films, medium range indie dramas and, on occasion, low budget items such as this one (or "Bubble"). "Unsane" might not be one of Soderbergh's best films - its ending wraps everything up a little too neatly - but it's a great case of how a solid genre entry can be made for scraps, especially when you have such talent - Soderbergh and Foy, who is great here - on board.

Review: Love, Simon

Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox

"Love, Simon" is winsome, charming and, yes, groundbreaking. The picture - based upon Becky Albertalli's novel "Simon Vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda" - is a mainstream teenage picture that is focused on a young man's coming of age story and, naturally, includes a romantic interest. The thing is that, in this case, the protagonist - Simon Spier (a very good Nick Robinson) - is a closeted young gay man who is trying to find the right circumstances to come out to his family and friends.

The film depends on fairly timeworn plot devices and, for lack of a better word, cliches - the chummy best friend of the opposite sex, a budding romance between two of the lead's other friends and a villain, who tries to blackmail Simon into breaking up two of his friends in order to pursue the fetching Abby (Alexandra Shipp). But while the picture relies on a formula that feels familiar in Hollywood dramas about teens, never before - at least that I can recall - has such a formula been utilized to tell the story of a gay kid. Typically, in these movies, such a character would be relegated as the witty sidekick.

As the film opens, Simon has been making email contact with another closeted gay kid from his high school who goes by the name "Blue" online. Neither knows the identity of the other, and this is the first budding romance that I can recall that primarily involves technology since Spike Jonze's "Her." Simon and Blue are confidantes and inspire one another to divulge their secrets to those close to them.

But first, Simon is blackmailed by Martin (Logan Miller), a theater kid who lusts after Abby and wants Simon to turn Abby's attention away from Nick (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.), Simon's soccer playing buddy who also has feelings for Abby. To complicate matters, there's also Leah (Katherine Langford), Simon's best friend who clearly has feelings for him.

One of the elements that makes "Love, Simon" interesting is that - much like last year's wonderful "Lady Bird" - the film doesn't always require its lead to be valiant. In fact, he gets rightly called out by his friends after they discover his subterfuge to help Martin, even if his cause - not being outed - is sympathetic. And one of the elements that makes the film so charming is how - also similar to "Lady Bird" - it has love for all of its characters, including minor figures - such as Simon's little sister, his parents, a dorky vice principal who thinks that he is hip and a teacher directing the school play who gets some of the best one liners.

"Love, Simon" is a warm, funny and well made youth drama. Some might say that it isn't as radical is it could have been, but I disagree. The fact that a Hollywood studio has made a mainstream teen dramedy in the style of a John Hughes film that applies many of the usual cliches - although well handled here - and placed them at the service of a story about a youth's coming out is, well, something.

This is a year in which the biggest hit so far is a comic book - no shocker there - but one made by and mostly starring African Americans. Now, this film - which has the makings of a sleeper - is another sign that Hollywood is finally starting to listen and studios' rosters are becoming more inclusive. So, yes, "Love, Simon" is a groundbreaker - but it's also a lovely coming of age story that I'd highly recommend.

Review: Thoroughbreds

Image courtesy of Focus Features.

Cory Finley's "Thoroughbreds" benefits from some moments of sardonic humor and solid performances by its two leads, but the film is an otherwise frosty faux provocation that never figures out its raison d'etre. The picture reminds me of the work of director Yorgos Lanthimos, whose debut, "Dogtooth," was an unsettling, absurd shocker that I really liked, but whose latest film, "The Killing of a Sacred Deer," was a picture that was clearly trying too hard to be disturbing in a deadpan manner. "Thoroughbreds" belongs in the same category as that film.

The film is at its strongest during the moments when its two leads - Lily (Anya Taylor Joy) and Amanda (Olivia Cooke - are navigating the terms of their uneasy, fraught friendship. Lily is a rich girl, whose Connecticut lawn is covered in ridiculously large chess pieces and has a mother who often appears barely there and a creep of a stepfather (Paul Sparks). Although we learn little about Amanda, other than that she slaughtered a family horse and ended up being institutionalized for a spell, it is clear that she is middle class. As the film opens, Amanda is being tutored by Lily, who is struck by the fact that her friend is incapable of feeling or eliciting genuine emotion.

Amanda shows Lily how to summon tears without actually feeling anything, and this scene is the closest to anything involving human emotions in the film. The only other character in the picture who exhibits what could be describes as heart here is a dopey drug dealer (the late Anton Yelchin), whom the two girls attempt to rope into a plot to murder Lily's awful stepfather, who is verbally abusive toward his stepdaughter and wife.

The film is based on Finley's own play, and the picture is primarily confined to several locations - mostly Lily's house, giving it a stagey vibe. But the film's biggest drawback is that is never makes much of a case for existing. Much like "Killing of a Sacred Deer" or Michael Haneke's grim "Funny Games," Finley's film portrays the upper class as bored, sterile and casually cruel, but its laughs are too few to call it a satire. Its ending is also relatively anticlimactic.

Ultimately, this is a well polished and decently acted movie that doesn't appear to have much to say. It's not quite a comedy, somewhat of a thriller and a cultural critique that is missing, for lack of a better word, a thesis. I can admire its performances and Finley's sharp writing, but "Thoroughbreds" is otherwise lacking a purpose.

Review: A Wrinkle In Time

Image courtesy of Walt Disney Studios.

Ava DuVernay's adaptation of Madeleine L'Engle's novel "A Wrinkle in Time" is a film I admire that is both visually stimulating and well intentioned, even if it doesn't completely work as a movie. It's the type of picture that many people have been calling upon Hollywood to deliver for years - a blockbuster with a diverse cast in which the heroes are mostly women of varying ages. It's also encouraging that the two films dominating the box office at this moment - this film and Ryan Coogler's "Black Panther" - were made by black filmmakers, one of whom is a woman. Hollywood has long passed over people of color and women to direct movies and it is heartening to see films being made that are more representative of both groups.

But while Coogler's jump to big budget blockbuster filmmaking has been a success, DuVernay's is less successful. On the other hand, while Coogler's first two pictures - especially "Fruitvale Station" - was very good, DuVernay's work - "Selma" and "13th," most notably - has been more substantial, in my opinion. So, it's a disappointment to say that "A Wrinkle in Time" is the first film in her oeuvre that could be considered a misfire.

One of the elements that works in the film's favor is its good-naturedness. The film's leads are good and conscientious people, and the picture takes an earnest approach to the material. Even the film's one human villain - a mean girl who torments Meg (Storm Reid), the film's protagonist - gets her shot at redemption, at least to an extent. In other words, this is a film that sees the good in others and mostly relegates evil to a nebulous being known as "The It."

I'm not going to delve too far into the scientific elements of the plot. But to summarize: Meg's scientist father (Chris Pine) disappeared four years prior to when the story is set after having discovered a way to travel the universe by using his mind. His wife (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is a fellow scientist and Meg's younger brother, Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe) - whose name is repeated more during the course of this film than Forrest Gump said his own - is considered a genius.

One day, Meg is approached by three otherworldly beings - known as Mrs. Which (Oprah Winfrey), Mrs. Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon) and Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling) - who tell her that her father is lost in the universe and that she can find him if she utilizes his method of travel via the mind. This, of course, leads Meg - who takes the journey with her brother and a young admirer named Calvin (Levi Miller) - to come face to face with "The It," during which she uses clues from the three Mrs. to complete her mission.

There are some great images in "A Wrinkle in Time" - a field full of flowers that move of their own accord and an eerie dimension in which Pine's character is trapped - but the film often overdoes it with the visual effects, often to the point of muting the story's drama. The filmmakers assembled a strong cast, but often leave them without much to do - Mbatha Raw mostly wears a look of concern, Winfrey makes pronouncements, Witherspoon is the ditzy Mrs. and Kaling's character can only speak via quotes by famous people.

DuVernay's previous works exhibited confident directorial control over their subject matter, whereas "A Wrinkle in Time" feels a little all over the place. For years, the book has been deemed unadaptable - full disclosure: I've never read it - and this picture, although charming and visually stunning in spurts, appears to prove that designation to be correct. It's a slight misstep from a great director.

Review: Red Sparrow

Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox.

"Red Sparrow" - based on the novel by Justin Haythe and directed by Francis Lawrence - has a grueling torture sequence that leads into a tense finale and clever plot twist. Unfortunately, these impressive 15 minutes are preceded by two hours of a mostly routine spy thriller. I've heard some raves about the book on which the film is based, but the movie comes off as merely a slightly grimmer version of "The Americans," albeit not nearly as good.

Jennifer Lawrence does her best in the role of Dominika Egorova, a ballerina whose career comes to a tragic end on stage after she breaks her leg. She is then swindled by her creepy uncle, Vanya (Matthias Schoenaerts), a top ranking official in Russian intelligence, into a mission during which she must seduce a rapey Russian enemy of the state, who is then killed while in her presence. Dominika is given a choice - die or become a "sparrow," a Russian spy who is trained to seduce her victims to obtain information from them.

Dominika is taken to a school where she and her fellow students are overseen by a merciless woman played by Charlotte Rampling who forces the students to engage in everything from fellatio to rape in front of the other students for the purpose of psychological training. Despite the pervasive threat of sexual assault, Dominika takes to the career move pretty well and shows that she is astute as a spy. This catches the attention of Vanya's supervisors, including one played by Jeremy Irons who may not be entirely trustworthy.

Dominika's mission becomes entangled with another being carried out by a CIA operative named Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton), whose penchant for not selling others out is observed in an early sequence during which he nearly ruins his career for the sake of saving someone else. Of course, Dominika and Nate are each assigned to tail the other, and their slow evolving "relationship" alternately appears faked and genuine.

One of the elements that keeps "Red Sparrow" from soaring is that the material - while certainly dark thematically - is also presented in one drab scene after the next. While watching this film, one might be led to believe that anything other than low level lighting is forbidden in Russia. Also, despite being in a majority of the film's scenes, Dominika is somewhat of a cypher. Yes, her character is supposed to be as such, but all we really know about her is that she's good at fending off creepy men and she doesn't want her ailing mother to suffer as the result of her actions.

"Red Sparrow" is certainly not a bad movie and its cast does what they can to enliven the proceedings. It's not until the film nears its finale that it picks up. The aforementioned torture scene is grueling, but adeptly filmed and choreographed. It's one of the more flinch-inducing hand-to-hand combat scenes of any recent movie that I can recall. There's also a twist in the picture's final scenes that is clever and expertly handled. Ultimately, it's a case of a little too late and a solid culminating 15 minutes can't quite carry the film. All in all, "Red Sparrow" is only a moderately effective spy thriller, but it has its moments.

Review: Foxtrot

Image courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

Apparently based upon an incident in which director Samuel Maoz sent his daughter some years ago to a bus stop to ride to school, only to learn that the bus was attacked by terrorists, and then later find out that his daughter had not boarded the bus, "Foxtrot" is an equally depressing and comedic film on the circumstances of fate amid the horrors of war. It's the type of film that builds and builds and eventually pays off, even if the building often takes a little longer than it should.

As the film opens, Israeli father Michael Feldmann (Lior Ashkenazi) and his wife, Daphna (Sarah Adler), receive a knock at the door from some Israeli military representatives, who tell the couple that their son, Jonathan (Yonaton Shiray), has been killed. Daphna faints and is taken to bed, while Michael sits and stews at the absurd bureaucratic response from the military folks who have shown up at his door. Their constant insistence that he drink water every hour on the hour - even going as far as timing his cell phone for him to alert him when it's time to take a drink - as a method of coping is both good for a laugh and unsettling.

"Foxtrot" is split into three thirds. During the first, Michael and Daphna deal with their grief and are told how their son's funeral ceremony will be carried out. Michael's brother attempts to help, but ends up being more of a hindrance. Then, something that shocks the couple even more than their son's death occurs. They are told that there has been a mistake, and that Jonathan is actually alive. This leaves Daphna euphoric and Michael furious at the military's bumbling.

We then cut to a desert scene, where several young soldiers are posted and spend days in boredom. The young men sit and stare as a camel crosses back and forth along the road, where they are tasked with inspecting cars that pass through. The young men take their pleasure by discussing naked women and masturbation - Jonathan provides a classic story involving his father, a Bible that survived the Holocaust and a nudie magazine - and watching a can roll through their place of lodging, due to its imbalance caused by sinking into the earth. If the first third of the picture took a little too long to get where it was going, the second half is partly humorous, but also fraught with tension. Then, during one of the young mens' inspections, a tragedy occurs.

The final sequence of the picture takes us back to Michael and Daphna, who have received further news about their son's whereabouts. The two of them smoke pot together and engage in long silences at their kitchen table. Although this sequence is the least action oriented, it's also the most successful. The film has utilized the tension of the first two scenes to arrive at this one, which is powerful and moving. "Foxtrot" then ends on a note that brings its two tones together in a scene that is absurdly tragic.

If "Foxtrot" is imperfect, it is because it's first third takes up more time than it should, while its second sequence could have gone on longer. It's the final third of the picture that acts as the heart of the film and is, therefore, the most effective and most powerful.

Maoz's previous film was "Lebanon," a picture that was set entirely in an Israeli tank. Both that film and "Foxtrot" prove that the director has a unique take on the modern state of Israel, although this film has a universal quality to it. With "Foxtrot," Maoz has taken a personal incident and used it to comment on the current state of affairs in his home country, the grieving process and the absurdity of war. And, for the most part, it works.