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.

Review: Sirat

Image courtesy of Neon.

Oliver Laxe's "Sirat" was one of this year's surprise hits at the Cannes Film Festival and it's easy to see why. From its entrancing opening, set to throbbing techno music, the movie sets an ominous tone and rarely lets up for two hours.

The film's title takes its name from an Islamic bridge that separates hell from paradise and its story leads a group of characters from a place that all but two of them consider paradise to a road trip into hell. As the picture opens, a Spaniard named Luis (Sergi Lopez) and his young son, Esteban (Bruno Nunez), have wandered into a rave being held in the Moroccan desert to search for their daughter and sister who has been missing for months. They have intel that she might be attending the rave.

The opening scenes of the picture are hypnotic as the rave's organizers set up speakers in the desert and attendees began to trance out, most likely enhanced by drugs, to the pulsating music. Meanwhile, Luis and Esteban make their way among the crowd showing the picture of the missing girl to whomever is willing to talk to them.

They meet a group of misfits who have traveled to the rave by trailer and tell Luis of another rave in another part of the desert that they will later attend. They suggest that his daughter might be at that one if they don't see her at the current one. Shortly thereafter, the Moroccan military shows up to escort all of the partygoers out of there. We hear news reports of what might be a civil war breaking out nearby or even an international incident (one raver suggests they are on the verge of World War III).

But the band of misfits breaks away from the line of vehicles being escorted by the military and into the desert. Luis instinctively follows them and the two groups begin to rely on each other in the desert, even though it's never clear whether they should actually trust each other.

Halfway through the picture, something horrific occurs that is likely to scar viewers for life, not because it is graphic in its depiction but simply due to the horror of the moment. Other horrors will follow when the caravan of ravers and Luis find themselves in the midst of a minefield. This is a film that sets the tone early on through its haunting sound design and imagery as well as the sinister beat of the rave music and then halfway through becomes one of the year's tensest movies.

Laxe plays it close to the vest as to what it all means, but there's a scene later in the picture in which Luis and one of the misfits, Jade (Jade Oukid), listen to techno music and she explains to him the possible beauty to be found in hearing the music through damaged speakers. When he questions her love for the music, she tells him that "it's not for listening, it's for dancing." As the world seemingly erodes around us as it does for the characters in "Sirat" and they face their own personal horrors, one must keep dancing. What other choice is there?

"Sirat" is one of the year's unique moviegoing experiences - its breathtaking desert vistas and nightmarish sonic interludes make it feel like a party at the end of the world. While the film might occasionally give off the vibe of an Antonioni or Claire Denis picture, it also has a visual and storytelling style all its own. 

It's occasionally shocking and tense in a manner that recalls the classic "The Wages of Fear" and its excellent remake, "Sorcerer." And the little acts of kindness among its characters while facing horrific scenarios suggests a way forward when living through hell on earth. Moviegoers looking for something unique and memorable will likely be blown away by "Sirat."

Review: Nouvelle Vague

Image courtesy of Netflix.

Richard Linklater has recently released two movies about (predominately) 20th century artists - the first, "Blue Moon," was about the tragic life of American lyricist Lorenz Hart, while the other, "Nouvelle Vague," is about the exhilarating freedom of expression involved in the production of French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard's debut, "Breathless."

The picture, shot in gorgeous black and white and a 4:3 aspect ratio, depicts Godard (Guillaume Marbeck) as one might expect - much like Bob Dylan, a cypher who only gives away what he wants others to know about him and nothing more. 

At the film's beginning, Godard is the last of the Cahiers du Cinema critics - who would go on to change French cinema forever as they became directors - to make a feature film. When the picture opens, he is attending the Cannes debut of pal Francois Truffaut's (Adrien Rouyard) classic "The 400 Blows." 

The picture is populated with New Wave icons and actors in their orbit, including Eric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol, Jean-Pierre Melville, Agnes Varda, Jacques Demy, and Robert Bresson as well as legends Roberto Rossellini and Jean Cocteau. The actors portraying the leads of "Breathless" - Aubry Dullin as Jean-Paul Belmondo (he's a dead ringer) and Zoey Deutch as Jean Seberg - are particularly good.

Unlike "Blue Moon," Linklater's latest doesn't dig too deep into its lead character or prioritize thematic elements, but it's a charming and engaging film nonetheless. Much of this stems from Godard's refusal to play by the rules - ironically, "Breathless" would go on to be one of cinema's most cherished rule breakers, a film that challenged film's conventional modes of narrative, jump cuts and all.

The film shoot is planned for 20 days and its producer, Georges de Beauregard (Bruno Dreyfurst), and cast (especially Sebert) are put off by Godard's methods. He mostly works without a script and comes up with scenes for the film on a day-to-day basis. Rather than shoot all day like most films, he'll call in the cast to work for a few hours in the morning, decide that he's run out of inspiration for the day, and send everyone home. Of course, we all know that his film - and many of his other works - are expressions of genius, but those working with him at this moment consider him a madman.

"Nouvelle Vague" is Linklater expressing his love for the iconoclastic director and the French New Wave and it's the sort of picture that aims to interest viewers in the numerous great works of all of those depicted in the film. 

Viewers might not learn much about Godard in the process and the film follows the mantra of "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance": "When it comes to telling the truth or printing the legend, print the legend." So, yes, we see Godard in his trademark glasses, spouting off famous quotes for which he was known ("all you need for a movie is a girl and a gun") and speaking in cryptic quotes from others. But it's no matter: "Nouvelle Vague" is a highly enjoyable slice of cinema history and a love letter to the film movement that has inspired and influenced many of the greatest working directors today.