MOVIE REVIEW
The Fifth Estate (2013)
Frank Connor/Walt Disney Studios
Julian Assange's pre-emptive attempt to persuade Benedict Cumberbatch not to play the WikiLeaks founder in "The Fifth Estate" was probably a forlorn hope. As if Mr. Cumberbatch, now deep into that period when stars can be seen still visibly enjoying the work, was likely to refuse the opportunity of investigating a character as confounding and mannered as Mr. Assange. The actor's talent for mimicry has been put to good use before, but Bill Condon's film allows him to deploy it on a higher level altogether, and the results are a firework display. It's not his fault that the film comes not long after Alex Gibney's documentary "We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks," which covered some of the same ground in more eccentric and inventive fashion, and did so with a harder focus on Mr. Assange than "The Fifth Estate" can pull off.
Continue reading “Publish and Be Slammed” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Her (2013)
Warner Brothers Pictures
These days, neither Spike Jonze nor Charlie Kaufman seems to have much fun working apart from the other. At first glance, the premise of Mr. Jonze’s “Her” suggests a return to zany form following “Where the Wild Things Are”: The new film concerns Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix), a BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com writer who is in the midst of a divorce and developing romantic feelings toward Siri version 20.0, here known as Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson). While parts of it are hilarious just as one would expect, the rest of the film takes on a surprisingly somber tone.
Continue reading “Your Wish Is Its Command” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Congress (2013)
57th BFI London Film Festival
A divisive entry in Cannes Director’s Fortnight back in May and now a polarizing presence at 57th BFI London Film Festival, Ari Folman’s almost dementedly ambitious film could well antagonize some viewers with its scattershot approach to a variety of 21st-century concerns, from modern culture, to science, technology, aging and more. But for its sheer audacity and willingness to approach both philosophical concepts and a bewildering animation style, I’d argue it’s a film to be dissected and admired.
Continue reading “Being Robin Wright” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Jeune & jolie/Young & Beautiful (2013)
57th BFI London Film Festival
Prolific, dependable and remarkably consistent, François Ozon has built up an impressive body of work since his arrival onto the cinematic scene more than 20 years ago. His latest film certainly suffers in comparison to its predecessor, “In the House,” now seen as one of Mr. Ozon’s strongest and most successful works. But while “Jeune & jolie/Young & Beautiful” may be modest and even frustrating, it would probably be seen as a highly creditable drama from most other talents.
Continue reading “A Seasoned Paramour” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Like Father, Like Son (2013)
Sundance Selects
Family lies at the center of much of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s work. It’s at once the most personal and familiar subject matter, but is one that is riddled with nuance and unbounded complexity. Nature versus nurture is a story as old as the hills, but rarely has it been told with such heartfelt craft as in Mr. Kore-eda’s latest picture, “Like Father, Like Son.”
Continue reading “Life Swap” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Ida (2013)
38. Gdynia Film Festival
Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska) is a young nun on the brink of taking the vows that will sequester her from the world indefinitely. Her mother superior (Halina Skoczynska) generously advises her that she may want to connect with her only known living relative before being cloistered, so Anna subsequently acquaints herself with Wanda (Agata Kulesza), a hard-drinking, straight-talking 40-something dropout.
In the process Wanda reveals that Anna is in fact Ida, a Jew who was left on the convent’s doorsteps amidst the carnage of World War II. Thus begins a road movie in which two strikingly different characters embark on a journey of discovery, uncovering facts about their family history which have been concealed up by years of guilt, denial and obfuscation.
Continue reading “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Aunt” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Walesa: Man of Hope (2013)
57th BFI London Film Festival
The latest film from the remarkable 87-year-old Polish director Andrzej Wajda is ostensibly the conclusion to a trilogy of films about the ascendance of the Solidarity movement in late 20th-century Poland, a project which began back in 1977 with “Man of Marble.”
The first film in the series charted the emergence of a (fictional) socialist folk hero, Mateusz Birkut (Jerzy Radziwilowicz), a record-breaking bricklayer who would fall out of favor with the authorities before being gunned down in the (very real) workers’ uprising massacres of 1970. That traumatic incident would go on to inspire both Birkut’s son, metalworker Maciej Tomczyk — titular character in the 1981 film “Man of Iron” also played by Mr. Radziwilowicz) and the burgeoning Solidarity movement as it took hold across industrial Poland during the 1980s.
The final film in the series turns attentions to a real-life figure, Solidarity’s leader Lech Walesa (played by Robert Wieckiewicz in the film), who rose from a life of laborer’s anonymity to become not just the head of Solidarity’s hierarchy but also Poland’s first democratic president. The film charts his unlikely evolution from relatively unrefined hardhead to a charismatic and forthright figurehead, whose plain-speaking and brute obstinacy would see him inherit the role of shepherding Poland into a new post-Soviet era.
Continue reading “Spit and Polish” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Stray Dogs (2013)
William Laxton/
Homegreen Films and Jba Production
After following the lead of his contemporaries and working abroad, director Tsai Ming-liang (no relation) returns to a Taiwan as damp and dilapidated as ever with his latest, “Stray Dogs.” Although the film does feature stray dogs of both literal and figurative varieties, its English title doesn’t even begin to cover this story about a father with two children in tow. In fact, the original Mandarin title, “Jiao you” — which means “field trip” in English — is a much more apt description of the overall experience.
Continue reading “A Hole Is Not a Home” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
Alison Rosa/Studiocanal
Revisiting the struggling-artist archetype 22 years after “Barton Fink,” Joel and Ethan Coen this time place him squarely in the 1960s East Village folk scene instead of 1940s Hollywood. For all but two scenes (in fact, it’s an early scene that recurs toward the end), “Inside Llewyn Davis” has this time eschewed the noir for which the writing-directing brothers are best known and assumes the “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”-type odyssey.
Continue reading “Burn After Listening” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Diana (2013)
Laurie Sparham/Le Pacte
History has more or less made its judgment on Britain's former Princess of Wales, but what it will make of the current state of the biopic industry is anybody's guess. The double whammy of "Diana" and "Rush" in close proximity suggests that the English-speaking end of the genre can be easily rendered speechless, finding nothing left to say and apparently no new ways left to say it. Excepting some wild-card swerves like casting Cate Blanchett as an avatar of Bob Dylan, mainstream depiction of people in the public eye seems to have lost most of its audacity, unable to gain traction when fame means already being lost into the pulping machine of celebrity and voyeurism and prurience. No coincidence surely that documentarians are currently running rings around feature film makers when it comes to biography, or that those feature films are reduced to the most literal self-explanatory approaches to the material. You don't have to have met Diana Spencer to spot that the character in "Diana" is a sketchy outline, you just have to have met another human being. A scriptwriter can type "Diana feels nameless existential dread in a Paris hotel corridor" with a straight face, but see that exact thing and the floor opens up beneath you.
Continue reading “Royal Pain” »