Play the Game

Posted on April 26, 2010 at 12:00 pm

The players get played in a romantic buddy comedy with one important distinction — one of those players is the resident of an assisted living facility who gets some assistance he was not expecting when a frisky fellow resident slips him some Viagra. And that resident is played by Andy Griffith. Opie, I don’t think we’re in Mayberry any more.

Paul Campbell (“Knight Rider,” “Battlestar Galactica”) plays David, a car salesman whose standard operating procedure is spin, whether with the customers or the ladies. The one true thing in his life is his relationship with his grandfather, Joe (Griffith). David visits Joe regularly and makes sure he is well taken care of. And since David’s idea of being well taken care of includes female companionship (and more than companionship), David starts to coach his grandfather on how to get as much action from as many ladies as possible. Joe is not the quickest of studies. It has been a while since he dated. But he has one thing going for him — numbers. Most of the residents of the home are women, and it seems that almost all of them are very interested in some companionship themselves. And more than companionship. At least one of them, Edna (played by “Seinfeld’s” Liz Sheridan) is quite frisky. But we know she will not be The One because she has a funny old-lady name. Rose (“Everybody Loves Raymond’s” Doris Roberts), on the other hand, has a pretty name. And a pretty grand-daughter.

She has a pretty name, too — Julie (Marla Sokoloff of “The Practice” and “Dude, Where’s My Car?”). David tries his best maneuvers on her. But she manages to evade them and he finds himself caring about her.

It all feels thin and sit-com-y, in part because its quintet of performers are all associated with television. It slides uneasily from frothy rom-com to raunchy ew-fest, with sexual references and situations so explicit the film would have qualified for an R-rating without Griffith’s disinfectingly innocent line readings and the MPAA’s automatic assumption that geriatric sex is more comic than erotic. The plot twists are awkwardly handled. And Campbell is bland. But the film shows promise in its writer-director Marc Fienberg, whose affection for his senior citizen characters is palpable and whose commitment to making them real characters is appealing. Too often, older characters are one-dimensional, on screen just to pass along life lessons, usually involving their deaths. But even with the heightened rhythms of a broad comedy, these are vibrant, engaged, real people. Campell is bland by comparison. But Sokoloff is a find, and she makes Julie so appealing we can see how she has David wondering if he’s been playing for the wrong team.

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Comedy Romance

Crazy Heart

Posted on April 20, 2010 at 10:00 am

Jeff Bridges does not portray Bad Blake, a broken-down, once-successful country singer; he inhabits the role, showing us not just what is happening to the man on screen but everything, every success and every failure, every love and every loss that the man has had in his 57 years.

Blake once played arenas and was a mentor to Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell), who is now a huge star. He once had money, and his own band. Now he is lucky to get a one-night gig at a bowling alley, with a pick-up band for back-up.

Bridges makes us feel that Blake is someone we have known and listened to all our lives, as though just last week, driving in the car, one of his old songs came on and we said, “You know, I really used to like that guy. Whatever happened to him?”

Like the songs Blake sings (from Stephen Bruton and T-Bone Burnett), the story feels completely authentic and fully lived. We know at the very beginning, as soon as Blake pulls up to the bowling alley parking lot that he is destined to disappoint everyone, and that he knows it, too. And yet, he still has the power to surprise us, to beguile us, to make us think, against our better judgment, that things might be different next time.

Did this happen because he drinks too much or does he drink too much because it happened? Probably both. Substance abusers, even those who have some self-awareness, maintain their denial by compartmentalizing so they can reassure themselves that there is some part of their life they are not messing up. We see what’s left of that with Blake when he is on stage. He may spend the rest of his life hiding from others and even himself how much of his energy goes into obtaining and drinking booze and recovering from drinking booze. But he holds onto what was precious to him. He may skip rehearsal and duck off stage to throw up in the middle of a big number, but he will do everything in his still-considerable power to deliver to the audience. He can still muster some grace on and off stage.

Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a single mother and aspiring journalist, interviews Blake for an article. There is a strong attraction between them, her for what he has been and him for what he sees of himself in her eyes. An unexpected setback gives them a break to explore what they might be to each other, and Blake’s genuine connection to her son makes Jean even more vulnerable. But anyone who’s ever listened to a country song knows why Blake’s first name is Bad.

And anyone who sees this movie will know why Bridges’ first name should be Good. One of our finest actors has been given one of his finest roles, and that makes this a very good film to see.

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The Young Victoria

Posted on April 20, 2010 at 8:00 am

“The Young Victoria” is the story of a teenager who became a queen. Before she reigned for a record 63 years and gave her name to an age, she was a girl who was sheltered to the point of claustrophobia. Famously, her first order as queen was that her mother no longer sleep in her bedroom. Like all in power, she was beset with those who tried to pressure and manipulate her, but she proved herself to be wiser and more adept than many far more experienced when it came to staying true to her ideals and her commitment to her subjects. And perhaps even more rare among royals, she married a man with whom she was deeply in love, and was so true to him that after his death she wore mourning for the rest of her life.

Sarah Ferguson, who knows a great deal about being a young royal because she married and divorced the son of the current queen and is the mother of two of her grandchildren, has produced this sumptuous biography, making it respectful without being at all stuffy. Emily Blunt (“The Devil Wore Prada,” “Charlie Wilson’s War”) plays the young queen as naive but with a lively, curious mind, surrounded by corruption but able to recognize honesty and with the courage, even in an era when women were far from equal, to insist on her full authority as monarch. When she plays chess with her handsome distant cousin Albert (Rupert Friend), he tells her she should find a husband who will play the game of political intrigue with her, not for her. And she knows that he is someone she can trust.

It is very satisfying to see the young queen triumph over her enemies, especially the cruel bully who has dominated Victoria’s mother and hopes to rule as regent (Mark Strong). But it is even more satisfying to see her learn from her mistakes and especially to see her allowing herself to be vulnerable with Albert. She is not just a monarch but a young bride very much in love with her husband. Blunt is simply radiant and the film is stirring, touching, and inspiring.

An Education

Posted on March 30, 2010 at 8:00 am

Part of the charm of “An Education,” a bittersweet coming of age story based on a brief memoir by Lynn Barber, is how much we know what its main character does not. Jenny (an incandescent Carey Mulligan) is a teenager in 1961 London, over-protected by her overly-cautious and conventional parents and eager to be independent and to have adventures. She is used to being the smartest one in the class and so even more than most teenagers, she is convinced that she understands many important things her parents cannot possibly comprehend. She is eager to grow up, to seem sophisticated, to be sophisticated. She is innocent, filled with potential, willing to be taught — and she has no idea how powerfully attractive those qualities are to a predatory older man.

But we know that, and when David (Peter Sarsgaard) rescues Jenny and her cello from a rainstorm by giving her a ride home, we know she will confuse urbanity with wisdom, that she will think that because he lies on her behalf he will not lie to her. But the most important thing we know is that like Jenny, London is also on the brink of enormous changes. We know that a world of opportunities she could never imagine will open up to her. Unlike Jenny, we know she is going to be fine. After all, we know she went on to tell her story, in itself a triumph over whatever went wrong and whatever she lost.

Danish director Lone Scherfig perfectly captures London just as it is about to move from the drab, stiff-upper-lip, world of post-WWII deprivation to the brash and explosive era of mods and rockers, Carnaby Street and the Beatles, Twiggy, “The Avengers,” and Joe Orton. Part of what makes David so exciting is that Jenny believes that the only options available to her are teacher and housewife and the only examples of both she has seen appear dull and unrewarding. David gives her a glimpse of a life that is never dull. It is always shopping and parties and travel, pretty clothes and lovely restaurants. If in order to have all of that she must lie to her parents and defy her teachers, that makes it all the more exciting. It binds her to him even more, creating a set of rules that is just for them.

That is how it seems, anyway. The education referred to in the movie title tells us that she will learn some difficult lessons. But its conclusion reminds Jenny and us that it is only the end of her beginning. She thought meeting David was the beginning of her future; she learns that the real beginning only came afterward.

The screenplay by Nick Hornby (“High Fidelity,” “About a Boy”) is sympathetic but insightful, skillful in sketching in each of the characters. Sarsgaard also makes David more than a predator. Jenny is not just smarter than he is; she is stronger, too. As Jenny goes from school girl to dressed-up doll to the beginning of adulthood, from the make-it-do, wear-it-out modesty of her home to Paris hot spots, Production designer Andrew McAlpine and costume designer Odile Dicks-Mireaux show exquisite sensitivity in giving Jenny a look that tells the story. Every performance is a gem: Alfred Molina, proud but fearful as Jenny’s father, Emma Thompson, starchy as the headmistress, and Olivia Williams, a teacher who wants more for Jenny than she wants for herself (it must have been quite a challenge for hair and make-up to turn Williams into such a dowdy character). Rosamund Pike is utterly charming as a dim but kind-hearted party girl. And Carey Mulligan, in a star-making turn, makes this into one of the best films of the year.

Did You Hear About the Morgans?

Posted on March 16, 2010 at 8:22 pm

I have seldom seen the stars of a movie look as thoroughly uncomfortable as Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Grant in this drearily low-concept would-be comedy, “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” Parker plays Meryl Morgan, a Manhattan real estate broker so high-powered she is featured on the cover of New York Magazine, who has recently left her husband, Paul (Grant) because he cheated on her. Paul, a high-powered lawyer, has been trying to win her back with gifts and entreaties, but she is resisting.

And then they end up stuck together, unplugged from all of their various electronic devices and their supremely efficient assistants (wasting the talented Elisabeth Moss of “Mad Men”), and about as far away from Manhattan as you can get. They are sent to the small town of Ray, Wyoming by law enforcement authorities after they witness a murder to protect them from being the professional killer’s next victims. And so we’re in the land of city slickers vs the hicks as a form of extreme marital therapy. It’s all sit-, no com.

The jokes were old when “Green Acres” was new. New Yorkers can’t sleep out west because there are no sirens and car horns and they can’t breathe because the air is too clean! Isn’t it cute that people play bingo and shoot guns! (“Oh, my God, it’s Sarah Palin!” Meryl says when she sees Mary Steenburgen as a rifle-toting U.S. Marshall.) One lame stereotype after another (Meryl learns to shoot a gun and milk a cow! Paul squirts his own eyes with bear repellent! Hicks are all Republican and carnivores! Let’s bring everyone together for a dance and a rodeo!) only underscores how self-absorbed, annoying, and entirely unattractive the characters are and how much contempt the film has for its audience. Our primary motivation for wanting them to stay together is that it’s the best way to punish them for creating this awful film. Let them torture each other the way they tortured us.

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Comedy Romance