Review: Dear Evan Hansen

Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.

A lot of hatred has been thrown at the big-screen adaptation of the surprise Broadway hit "Dear Evan Hansen," and while, yes, it has its issues and is a far cry from the excellent previous film about youth angst from director Stephen Chbosky - his lovely adaptation of his own novel, "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" - it's not the atrocity you might have heard it is.

Much of the vitriol aimed at the picture - which, at 137 minutes, is a bit long and the transitions into song from dialogue are occasionally a little awkward - seems to be centered around the fact that Ben Platt, who is 28 years old and starred in the Broadway production, doesn't look like he's in high school. At the same time, he looks young enough, so this isn't one of those Luke Perry situations, if you know what I mean.

Secondly, many of the reviews have pegged the lead character, Evan (Platt), as some sort of megalomaniacal villain, whereas he's instead a young man who's nearly crippled by social anxiety, and the role he takes in a community's grieving over the death of another young man who almost nobody knew actually starts from a good place, even if later it spirals out of control, and Evan seems to like that the dead boy's family sort of adopts him (his own mother, played well by Julianne Moore, works at a hospital and isn't home as much as she'd like to be).

The story is basically this: Evan has no friends, and neither does Connor (Colton Ryan), who's own anxiety causes him to lash out and occasionally act violently. Evan has a crush on Connor's sister, Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever), although there's some confusion regarding her character because she appears to be younger than Evan and Connor, but then she graduates at the same time as Evan late in the film.

Anyway, Evan is assigned by his psychiatrist to write inspirational letters to himself - which begin "Dear Evan Hansen" - as a way to combat his social anxiety. After printing one of the letters out one day, Connor gets to it first at the printer and refuses to give it back to Evan. Later that day, Connor commits suicide and his grieving parents - Cynthia (Amy Adams) and Larry (Danny Pino) - mistake Evan's letter to himself as a suicide note written from Connor to Evan. They assume Evan was his only friend.

Although he tries to explain that he wrote the letter, Evan recognizes that Connor's parents need to believe that Connor wasn't alone and had a friend, so he plays along with their belief that Connor wrote the letter. This then creates sympathy from the student body toward Evan and Connor - both of whom were previously ignored by other students - and eventually makes Cynthia, Larry and Zoe begin to consider Evan as one of the family after they spend time with him. A romance also blooms with Zoe.

As Evan's lie snowballs, a fund is started in Connor's name by an enterprising, but also socially anxious (albeit outwardly gregarious), young woman named Alana (Amandla Stenberg), who wants Evan to take part in the group to help raise funds for a park that will be named after Connor at an orchard where he apparently used to like to spend time.

One of the film's problems is that it doesn't appear to know what to make of Evan. As I'd mentioned, his original reason for lying about being Connor's friend was to comfort Connor's distraught parents, who believed their son didn't have a friend in the world. Yes, Evan eventually begins to benefit from this arrangement - with Zoe's affections as well as an offer made by Connor's parents to Evan's mother later in the movie - but he never comes off as the conniving, self-centered villain in which some reviews have painted him.

And Platt's age isn't as much of a distraction as the occasional awkward segues from dialogue into songs, and the way these scenes are shot - quite often, two people sitting on a couch singing to each other. The songs themselves are OK, but the performers give them their all. Moore is convincing as Evan's proud mother, who doesn't like the fact that people believe she is too poor to pay for higher education for her son - by the way, it always makes me laugh how the homes of the "poor" are depicted in movies, and this film is no exception. Other supporting performances were noteworthy as well - especially Nik Dodani as Jared, Evan's only other sort-of friend, who provides some levity.

With his "Perks of Being a Wallflower" novel and film, Chbosky showed some real mastery of the coming-of-age genre, but while "Dear Evan Hansen" is overly long and not on par with that film, it's neither the complete fiasco that some might have you believe it is. In the way it depicts social anxiety among young people and the feeling of loneliness among outcasts in high school, it has its heart in the right place. It's a film that means well and hits some of the right notes, even if others don't ring as true. It's somewhat of a mixed bag, but it has its moments.

Review: The Eyes Of Tammy Faye

Image courtesy of Fox Searchlight.

Michael Showalter's "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" adapts the 2000 documentary of the same name into a feature film that pretty much follows the same story, although it features a feat of acting by Jessica Chastain, who undergoes the most shocking transformation I can think of since Charlize Theron's turn in "Monster."

It's a pretty decent film, even if it all feels pretty familiar. The story tells the rise and fall of Jim (Andrew Garfield, who very effectively lays on the smarm here) Bakker and his wife, the heavily-made up Tammy Faye (Chastain). As a young girl, Tammy Faye felt the calling of the Lord, but wasn't allowed in her mother's (Cherry Jones) church, where the older woman was the organist, because her mother had gone through a divorce. They basically needed an organist, so Tammy Faye took the brunt of the punishment, and it's an early example of her coming up against the sexist views of the church.

In school, Tammy Faye is drawn to Jim, who can certainly quote scripture, but often does so to explain why God wants him - and Tammy Faye and, hell, everyone - to prosper, and not to suffer needlessly on this planet. In other words, he makes all sorts of justifications for the ridiculous amount of wealth he'll acquire through the empire that he and Tammy Faye - who's really the saleswoman in the couple - build together.

But first, they must go through Pat Robertson, played by Gabriel Olds as an old stick-in-the-mud compared to Jim and Tammy Faye's affected exuberance, who has the market cornered on televangelism in Virginia. They get jobs on his TV network, and gradually draw an audience, thereby allowing them to eventually break off on their own to start PTL (Praise the Lord), a TV network with religious programming that basically also sells the product of Jim and Tammy Faye, much in the way that Donald Trump's presidency wasn't so much a platform for his adopted political party, but rather a way to consistently give himself attention.

Jones's somewhat icy mother figure may not have been warm toward her daughter, but she's not wrong when she criticizes Tammy Faye's lifestyle, although she's later quick to accept a fancy coat. Meanwhile, there are other forces with which to contend, including the homophobic, back-stabbing Jerry Falwell (Vincent D'Onofrio, also physically disappearing into the role), who is rubbed the wrong way by Tammy Faye's overt "feminism," which is basically just her voicing her opinion now and again among the boys' club of televangelists and religious charlatans.

One thing with which I'll credit the film: It spends a decent amount of time portraying Tammy Faye as an unlikely ally for the LGBTQ movement of the time, often sticking up for homosexuals during arguments with people like Falwell, who spits out hatred toward Democrats, feminists and LGBTQ people. And there's a touching sequence during her talk show in which she brings on a gay man with AIDS (this is the 1980s) and chastises parents who'd turn their backs on their children because of their sexual orientation.

Naturally, I was a little leery of this, but sure enough Tammy Faye apparently was a long-time supporter of gay rights and marched in gay pride parades, despite being married to Bakker, who, well let's say, wasn't, despite accusations that he was closeted.

Then, of course, we get the rise-and-fall scenario we typically get in movies about celebrities who rise and, yep, fall. It's all a little too familiar and the last 20 minutes or so tend to drag it out a little more than is necessary - although there's a good scene in which we once again get reminded of how much of a snake Falwell was. 

Carrying the entire picture on her shoulders is Chastain, who gives a superb performance here, capturing Tammy Faye in all her bubbly enthusiasm, but harboring melancholy just below the surface. A scene in which she catches her husband and some crew members making fun of her behind her back is near devastating, and it's hard not to feel sympathy for her, even though she wasn't likely too in the dark about her husband's shady business dealings.

"The Eyes of Tammy Faye" isn't a great biopic, but it's pretty decent, and it features some strong performances. No, it doesn't deviate too much from the documentary on which it was based, but it also doesn't play too much like a greatest hits package of that previous film to become dull. Expect Chastain to get mentioned around awards time. She deserves to be.

Review: Blue Bayou

Image courtesy of Focus Features.

Justin Chon's "Blue Bayou" may be short on subtlety, but it's long on emotional impact in its tale of American injustice. The film opens with a powerful scene in which Antonio (Chon, who's also the lead in the film) is answering questions at a job interview. He's asked where he's from, and his answer is Baton Rouge (the film is set in New Orleans). But no, the interviewer is interested in where he's from, which, of course, is Korea, although he was adopted by an American family at age 3 and never saw his Korean mother again. When his past criminal record - for stealing motorcycles - is brought up, he knows he's not getting a job with this particular mechanic, who dismisses him with particular unkindness.

Antonio is helping to raise a young girl named Jessie (Sydney Kowalske), who's not his but the daughter of his wife, Kathy (Alicia Vikander), although for all extents and purposes he's her father. She recognizes him as such, and not her police officer father, Ace (Mark O'Brien), who routinely harasses Kathy for not allowing him to see his daughter. He left them years before and now wants privileges to which he doesn't appear entitled.

Antonio works as a tattoo artist and is a pretty responsible guy. It's obvious that he's a good father to Jessie, and early in the film we learn he and Kathy have another child on the way. During an argument at a grocery store, Ace shows up with his racist partner (Emory Cohen), who instigates a fight with Antonio and arrests him. Before Kathy knows what's going on, Antonio has been turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, despite his having a tattoo customer pal in that agency and the fact that he has been in the United States since he was young.

The film follows Antonio and Kathy as they attempt to navigate the legal system with a well-meaning, but not particularly effective, lawyer (Vondie Curtis-Hall), and Antonio considers going back to earning money through some illegal means to pay the lawyer's fees. Also, Antonio is called upon to seek out his adoptive mother to act as a character witness, although there's some apparent history there that he doesn't want to revisit.

Meanwhile, there's a subplot involving Antonio's friendship with a cancer-stricken Vietnamese woman named Parker (Linh Dan Pham), and in a lesser movie their relationship might have gone in an unnecessary direction or simply been fodder for tear jerking scenes, although there are certainly a few of those. Instead, these scenes are among the most compelling in the film, especially since Dan Pham brings such humanity to the character, rather than making Parker a walking cliche.

At times, "Blue Bayou" lays it on a little thick. Cohen's racist cop is over the top - and while believable in the depths of his cruelty, the legal conundrum for which he sets him self up late in the film is, perhaps, a bit of a stretch. There's also an extended airport farewell sequence that is powerful, but dragged on a little too long and a bit heavy on the melodrama. 

But, ultimately, "Blue Bayou" is a compelling character study that hits home in its depiction of modern America as the self-described land of the free, but where draconian bureaucracy usually dwarfs decency, common sense or fairness when it comes to those who have made their way here from other lands, sometimes with no say in the matter. The film may not be subtle, but it's effective.

Review: Cry Macho

Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

Clint Eastwood has had a long, illustrious career in front of and behind the camera. He's 91 years old, and in his early 70s had a run of some of his best films - including "Mystic River," "Million Dollar Baby," "Gran Torino" and his World War II double feature, "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters from Iwo Jima." So, it can be forgiven if some of his late, late work - such as "The 15:17 to Paris," "Richard Jewell" and his latest, "Cry Macho," are not quite on par with some of his best movies (on the other hand, the somewhat recent "The Mule" was solid).

"Cry Macho" - which Eastwood has apparently long wanted to adapt from Richard Nash's 1975 novel - plays somewhat like a greatest hits package of some of the director's recent efforts. Much like "The Mule," it features an aged man (Eastwood) getting himself mixed up in a situation that runs afoul of the law, and features a storyline, much like "Gran Torino," in which he mentors a younger man who needs some direction.

In this case, the young man is a boozing cockfighter named Rafa (Eduardo Minett), who carries in tow a fighting bird named "Macho," which also happens to be a character trait that Rafa holds in high esteem. Rafa lives with his wealthy mother in Mexico - although we are told there is abuse in the household, the specifics are never quite clear - but his father, Howard (Dwight Yoakam), who lives in Texas and hires Mike (Eastwood) for horse training work, wants him to come live with him. Mike was once the king of the rodeo, although this backstory is only mentioned in passing.

For reasons also not exactly explained, Mike owes Howard for hiring him at a time when Mike was suffering from the deaths of his wife and daughter - which are only fleetingly mentioned - and drinking a lot. Therefore, he guilts Mike into driving down to Mexico to convince Rafa to ride back across the border to come live with his father. The story, which is set in 1979, has little more in the way of specifics or plot than that, other than an extended stay in a small Mexican town, where Mike and Rafa get to know the kindly owner of a cantina named Marta (Natalia Traven), who cares for the children of her deceased daughter.

Although built around cliches, the scenes in which Mike and Rafa begin to make a home, of sorts, at Marta's while hiding out - they're on the run after Mike essentially takes Rafa away from his mother and the duo steal a few cars, including one from Rafa's mother's henchman - from police. These scenes have an unhurried feel, and are the best in the picture, especially because it gives the audience a break from the constant back-and-forth between Mike and Rafa while on their road trip, which typically involve exclamations from an excitable young man (Rafa) met with grumpy answers from an old codger (Mike). 

The film's story and characterizations often feel a little slight - we know little about Rafa other than that he feels abandoned by both of his parents and that he loves Macho, whereas Mike is a compendium of other characters the actor/director has played in other late Eastwood films. The women in the film are one of two extremes: Rafa's oversexed, overbearing mother (the scene in which she tries to seduce Mike is probably the worst in the film) or the saintly Marta, whose romance with Mike doesn't exactly feel organic, although there's a nice last shot in the film that mostly makes up for any flaws in their relationship.

So, while "Cry Macho" is more on par in terms of quality with "Richard Jewell" or "The 15:17 to Paris" than the slew of great films Eastwood made between 2003 and 2014, it also has its charms. "Jewell" suffered from being too ideological, while "Paris" was lower in quality due to spotty acting. "Cry Macho" fares better in most departments over those two films, but it still feels like a slight Eastwood movie. It's likable enough and revisits some themes the director has prioritized in his later work, even if it's not one of his best of that era.

Review: The Card Counter

Image courtesy of Focus Features.

Writer-director Paul Schrader continues his winning streak - an apropos metaphor - with "The Card Counter," which follows "First Reformed," one of the director's great pictures about tortured men. His latest is rich in atmosphere and style, and while it's about a man who lives a shadowy life playing cards, that's not all that the film's about.

William Tell (Oscar Isaac) is the name that the card counter gives himself and, yes, this makes reference to the famed fable, but it's also an appropriate name, considering that poker players often look for the "tells" of other players to defeat them in the game. William is hard to read. We know he has a dark past, which is revealed slowly throughout the course of the film. At its beginning, he's being released from an eight-year prison stint, and we learn that it had something to do with his being an interrogator in the Middle East during the most recent wars.

Upon being asked by La Linda (Tiffany Haddish), a good hearted poker tour bankroll representative, why he spends most of his hours in dark casinos playing poker, he simply replies that he likes to play the game. But another conversation with a young man named Cirk (Tye Sheridan) leads to William explaining the notion of "tilting," which is when one is in power, but slowly losing control. He compares the tilting he experienced as an interrogator with the tilting one might experience in gambling. It appears that he overindulges in the latter to prevent himself from indulging in worse behavior.  The nonstop gambling prevents him from giving in to darker urges.

William takes to Cirk after the young man recognizes him at a casino. Cirk's father was in William's unit in the Middle East and went on to become abusive before committing suicide. Cirk's proposal to William - to kidnap and torture the leader of the unit (played by Willem Dafoe), who got off scot free, while others like William went to jail - doesn't exactly entice the older man, but William understands the pain Cirk feels and sort of takes him under his wing, bringing him along on the gambling tour, but not quite showing him the ropes.

The film has an intense vibe because it always seems as if William - who projects an almost too-cool demeanor - might snap or Cirk might draw him into a dangerous scenario. The picture is filled with moody, haunting scenes of dark casino rooms where William plays cards, and is scored with melancholic songs by the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's Robert Levon Been. This all helps to enhance the film's haunting qualities.

At the center of it is Isaac, whose tensely low key performance is the type of under-the-radar acting that often gets ignored for flashier performances by critics. His portrayal here often struck me as a man who was working overtime to come off as nonchalant, but seems ready to explode in the wrong situation. Haddish and Sheridan give solid supporting work.

Schrader has long been a chronicler of disturbed men - he's responsible for the fantastic scripts for "Raging Bull" and "Taxi Driver" (which, much like Isaac's character here, keeps a journal from which we often hear excerpts), and has directed a number of very good to great movies, such as "American Gigolo," "Blue Collar," "Affliction," "Light Sleeper" and the 2018 critical smash "First Reformed." William Tell is another tortured soul that fits right into Schrader's wheelhouse. 

"The Card Counter" is the definition of a slow burn. It's a taut, moody drama with thriller qualities, and has a central character who remains compelling throughout because he is, like Haddish's character points out, somewhat of an enigma. The film ends in a place where you might expect it to, but there's a final shot that Schrader holds on for what feels like a long time, and it reminded me that the director has been a long-time obsessive of French filmmaker Robert Bresson's movies, which, much like Schrader's more grueling films, are works of humanism. "The Card Counter" is well worth your time.

Review: Nine Days

Image courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

Here's a feature debut that displays great imagination and much promise. Edson Oda's "Nine Days" seems to be inspired somewhat by Hirokazu Koreeda's 1998 film "After Life" - which imagined a staff of people who help the recently deceased to craft a scene of meaning from their lives and re-stage it, so that they could spend all of eternity reliving it - but has a unique vibe all its own.

It's a strange, occasionally melancholic and deeply felt drama about two individuals - Will (Winston Duke) and Kyo (Benedict Wong) - residing in a small clapboard house in a desert who have an unusual task. But more on that in a minute. When we first meet Will, he is watching a series of screens in the house, following the daily lives of various people with whom he's apparently familiar. 

There's one woman - a concert violinist named Amanda - in whom he's particularly interested. So, he's shocked and devastated when, on the way to a concert performance, she seemingly - and willfully - crashes her car into a wall, killing herself. Kyo tries to comfort Will, telling him that he's not to blame and that his "choice" of Amanda was still the correct one. We soon learn all about Will's choices.

Shortly thereafter, a group of individuals of varying personalities - a jokey guy named Alexander (Tony Hale), a seemingly angry and cold individual named Kane (Bill Skarsgard) and a spunky young woman who comes off as an old soul named Emma (Zazie Beetz), among others - show up at Will's doorstep. We learn that over the course of nine days, he will meet with them, provide them with tests, ask them to write essays and take part in other tasks before he is able to choose one of them to move forward.

As it turns out, the people are all souls in waiting and Will gets to choose one of them to live a life on Earth in a human body. This may sound contrived, and visions of sentimentality might form in your mind, but this is really not that kind of movie. In fact, it's often closer in nature to the aforementioned "After Life" or Michel Gondry's work - especially "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" - in terms of its quirkiness and level of introspection. In other words, it's the real deal.

Kyo tries to convince Will that Emma is the one - and, for sure, she seems the winner of the bunch. She's soulful, kind and appreciative without being too groveling, unlike Alexander, for example, who's always trying to warm Will up with a beer or a joke. But something about Emma seems to bother Will - does she remind him too much of Amanda, his former, tragic favorite, or even himself?

We learn that Will was once chosen himself, and spent time on Earth. But while he was a person of promise, it never materialized for him, and his life was awash in failure. He recalls one glorious moment as a young man when he delivered a speech during a play in school, and that scene is recalled during a lovely moment near the film's end that took me a moment to realize what was actually going on.

"Nine Days" is a movie that poses some interesting questions, but isn't too concerned with providing its audience answers. It's the type of film that asks you to consider, not come up with a response. And while its story is fanciful and cosmic, its visuals are low-key enough to be charming. It doesn't try to overstimulate visually while presenting its grandiose ideas. 

It's surprising that this is a feature film because it's the type of picture that takes risks and is thoughtful on a level that typically comes from experience. Oda's debut shows the birth of an original voice, and it's one that - like the souls-in-training who show up at Will's door - shows a lot of promise.

Review: Together

Image courtesy of Bleecker Street Media.

You know that couple everyone avoids at social gatherings because they always bring drama and, if you're not careful, they'll somehow rope you into it? Sure you do. Now imagine spending the COVID-19 pandemic stuck in a house with them and their silent child. 

To be fair, director Stephen Daldry - who previously was responsible for such solid movies as "Billy Elliot" and "The Hours" - whittles down the pandemic to about 90 minutes, but it's more than enough time to spend with the characters named He (James McAvoy) and She (Sharon Horgan), and the film often feels like it lasts longer than it does.

The filmmakers make a few major mistakes: For starters, the film feels incredibly stagey and there's little in the way of camera movement. Much of the picture is a series of static shots in which the two leads - who do as best they can with the screenplay and characters they've been handed - deliver lengthy monologues, tirades, whatever you want to call them.

Worse, the entire film is like an extended therapy session in which the bickering couple - who hated each other before the pandemic, and their anger toward each other is exacerbated while being cooped up inside for a year - break the fourth wall and talk directly to the audience. For the entire film. Most of the film is them sniping at each other and, occasionally, shouting over each other.

She is an apparent liberal who works with the needy, while she accuses him of being a Tory. Whether he is is never uncovered, however, he's the type of capitalist who thinks because he pulled himself up by his bootstraps from humble beginnings and has accumulated some wealth that he is somebody special. There's an early scene in which he brags about insulting a grocery store worker because she refuses to sell him some vegetables that might have come into contact with a COVID-19-infected person.

Of course, as the film goes on, the characters begin to show some subtle changes, although the one constant is the bickering. There's a real change of heart for one character that occurs late in the film, but while it's welcome, it doesn't exactly feel organic. 

There's at least one scene that's fairly powerful involving the parent of one of the couple catching and dying from COVID-19, and the two actors handle that difficult moment with aplomb. Unfortunately, it's followed shortly thereafter by one of the film's worst scenes - a sequence in which one of the characters, as usual talking directly to the camera, delivers a lengthy monologue on how poorly Britain handled the pandemic, and the scene plays like a TED Talk, often feeling like a sequence in which someone explains to you just how seriously you are not taking COVID-19... as if anyone they'd need to reach would be watching this film.

There are a few moments of levity and a scene in which the characters discuss their relationship in refreshingly frank terms late in the picture. But by then, it's too late. "Together" is like being stuck with two somewhat annoying people as they dissect their tattered relationship for you - without you, of course, being able to get a word in edgewise - and nothing that is said is particularly enlightening. There are, I'm sure, good movies to be made about the claustrophobic effect the pandemic had on people stuck inside the house around the world. But this ain't it.