Movie Review: Seberg

Seberg ** / *****

Directed by: Benedict Andrews.

Written by: Joe Shrapnel & Anna Waterhouse.

Starring: Kristen Stewart (Jean Seberg), Jack O'Connell (Jack Solomon), Anthony Mackie (Hakim Jamal), Margaret Qualley (Linette Solomon), Colm Meaney (Frank Ellroy), Zazie Beetz (Dorothy Jamal), Vince Vaughn (Carl Kowalski), Yvan Attal (Romain Gary), Gabriel Sky (Diego Gary), Stephen Root (Walt Breckman).

 

Both Jean Seberg, the talented, tragic actress, and Kristen Stewart, the talented actress playing her, deserved better than Seberg – a tired biopic that ends up treating Seberg as a cipher in her own life. The life begins with Seberg on the set of Otto Preminger’s Saint Joan – where the fire set to burn her character at the stake, gets out of control, and ends up burning Seberg herself. The film uses it as a metaphor throughout the film – but it also stands out as being the only scene of its kind in the movie – the only one that shows Seberg acting, her desire to act, to express herself in that way. The film will barely bring up the rest of her career – there is a passing reference to Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless, which made her immortal, and a lot of potshots at Paint Your Wagon, but you would be forgiven if you didn’t know Seberg’s career for thinking that she was 1960s version of those women who are famous for being famous – instead of a talented actress, with ambitions all her own.

 

To be fair, the film isn’t really about Seberg’s career – but about her political activism. It’s the late 1960s, and she is leaving her husband and son behind in France to travel to L.A. to audition for Paint Your Wagon – where she meets Hakim Jamal (Anthony Mackie) – a leader in the Black Power movement, complaining to the stewardess about the treat the widow of Malcolm X is receiving in coach. This sets something off in Seberg – who offers to give up her own first-class speech, and poses for a picture doing the Black Power salute with Jamal and others when the plane touches down in L.A. It isn’t long before she’s travelling to Jamal’s home in Compton, apparently wanting to get involved in the movement – to have an affair with him.

 

This, in itself, isn’t a bad decision for the movie. Seberg’s involvement could have been fertile ground to make a movie – about whether she’s genuine, or she’s basically a tourist in the group, etc. But the movie quickly abandons that – and makes the odd decision to focus on Jack Solomon (Jack O’Connell), the young FBI agent, who along with his partner Carl Kowalski (Vince Vaughn) are assigned to monitor Seberg – and end up following her, tapping her phones, and basically gaslighting her, for years. Solomon, of course, falls for Seberg at this remove – and through that comes to believe what he is doing is wrong.

 

It’s probably the least interesting choice the movie could make – and ends up wasting an incredibly talented cast. Stewart isn’t given much to play – she slips into (justified) paranoia as the film moves along, but it’s basically one scene after another like Gene Hackman at the end of The Conversation – but without the conviction. O’Connell is a talented actor as well, but he cannot sell his transition for square fed, into sympathetic person – and it feels particularly hollow, since he isn’t convinced, he shouldn’t be screwing with oppressed minorities, as much as he falls for a beautiful woman. The film completely wastes the talents of Margarete Qualley – as Solomon’s wife, slowly realizing what is happening, and Zazie Beetz, as Jamal’s wife, who goes full psycho pretty rapidly. It gives Mackie, not the most expressive performer to begin with, wooden dialogue he cannot deliver. Strangely, Vaughn coms across best of any of them – he is a one note, square jawed, conservative Fed – but he appears to genuinely be one.

 

In the end, Seberg just isn’t all that interesting. It doesn’t really figure out its central character, nor does it really figure out what its trying to saying about the time and place she inhabits. It’s got a goldmine of a subject matter, and comes up with perhaps the least interesting approach to it.

Movie Review: Goalie

Goalie *** / *****

Directed by: Adriana Maggs.

Written by: Adriana Maggs and Jane Maggs.

Starring: Mark O'Brien (Terry Sawchuk), Kevin Pollak (Jack Adams), Georgina Reilly (Pat Morey), Éric Bruneau (Marcel Pronovost), Steve Byers (Gordie Howe), Ted Atherton (Louis Sawchuk), Janine Theriault (Anne Sawchuk), Owen Maggs (Mitch Sawchuk), Matt Gordon (Tommy Ivan), Jonny Harris (Phil Sullivan). 

 

If you wanted to make a dark, serious film about hockey – something in the vein of Raging Bull or The Wrestler – Terry Sawchuk may well be the perfect candidate for that sort of treatment. One of the greatest goalies the game has ever seen, he played for 20 years in the NHL – amassing multiple Stanley Cups and Vezina trophies, but also seeing his body getting banged up and broken. He had a wife and many children – but also cheated on her constantly, and fathered a child in one of those dalliances. He struggled with depression and alcoholism for his entire life – a troubled childhood and family contributing to it – and he died tragically young – at 40 – after a freak accident during a fight with a teammate/roommate. Sawchuck’s life and times could be turned into a brilliant movie - and I can see several different ways of approaching the material that could result in that brilliance. Unfortunately for all of us, the film Goalie, about Sawchuk, tells his story in the most clichéd, stereotypical way possible – resulting in a movie that tries to basically cover his entire life, but most the time during his career, in just under two hours. This results in an episodic that never pauses long enough for much depth.

 

For the most part, Mark O’Brien is good in the lead role. It’s a little strange that the actor basically plays Sawchuk over a 20 years period, and other than some additional scars he builds up over time, his appearance never changes. Still, O’Brien is fine as Sawchuk – the hockey player whose competitive nature led him to be one of the best, but also led to his temper running out of control at times. He isn’t quite as good in the home scenes – mainly between him and his wife, Pat Morey (played by O’Brien’s real wife, Georgina Reilly) – but that’s basically because the movie repeats a similar scene again and again – with Sawchuk drinking turning into a rage, and Pat threatening to leave, but never quite doing so until very late in the movie. There is much to work with here – and Reilly is also hung out to dry here. The same can be said for pretty much every other character in the film – the film spends more time with Jack Adams (Kevin Pollak) than anyone else other than Sawchuk – but I’m not sure it quite knows what to make of him. Legendary hockey players like Gordie Howe show up as supporting characters, but don’t really do much. I did like the “interviews” with people who knew Sawchuk scattered throughout the film. These are old men, looking back at their life, and Sawchuk’s, with a mixture of nostalgia and regret. The film doesn’t want to glamorize hockey – at least not too much.

 

The film was directed by Adriana Maggs, and there is enough here to suggest that better, deeper movie that could have been. She doesn’t romanticize hockey, shows just how much of a business it is, how people like Adams manipulates people like Sawchuk to keep making money, keep winning games, the personal consequences be damned, The film doesn’t romanticize Sawchuk either – doesn’t show his depression or anger as a necessary part of his skill as a player – it just made him a dark, less likable character.

 

The problem is that the film has to cover so much ground that it never dives deep on anything. It skips across the surface of a life that deserves a deep dive. I imagine a film about the final year of Sawchuk’s life – the legendary goalie, reduced to a backup who barely plays, whose body has broken down, who is still depressed and an alcoholic, whose wife has just left him – ending with his death because of that fight. That is the kind of deep, dark hockey movie Goalie only hints at being. It could have been great. Instead, it’s mediocre – which is a shame.

Movie Review: The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open

The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open **** / *****

Directed by: Kathleen Hepburn and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers.

Written by: Kathleen Hepburn and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers.

Starring: Violet Nelson (Rosie), Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers (Áila), Charlie Hannah (Cat), Barbara Eve Harris (Sophie), Sonny Surowiec (Taxi Driver #1), Jay Cardinal Villeneuve (Cory), Tony Massil (Neighbour), Aidan Dee (Jessa), James Angus Cowan (Cole), Anthony Bolognese (Jonah).

 

There are two women at the heart of The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open – both Indigenous, but with different levels of privilege. Rosie (Violet Nelson) is an overweight, pregnant 19-year-old, far away from her family, with a partner who doesn’t think twice of verbally abusing her on the street, and does worse when they are alone together. She meets Aila (Elle-Maija Tailfeathers) on the street during one of these instances of verbal abuse. She is half white, half Indigenous, and really wants to help Rosie. She takes her back to her house, and tries to talk her into getting help. She’ll get in a cab with her, and take her to a home for abused women. But she can only help Rosie if Rosie wants that help – and too many women feel that they cannot do better than their abusers – and where will they go, who will they be without them?

 

The film mostly takes place in real time – favoring long, unbroken takes as the two engage in awkward, stilted conversations. To Rosie, Aila is a well-meaning, white stranger – she has a nice home, a nice marriage, a nice career, and even when Aila tells her she is Indigenous as well, Rosie doesn’t quite hear it. To her, Aila is one of the privileged people, looking down at the poor Native girl, trying to help because it will make her feel better about herself. The audience knows this isn’t true – we see Aila at her gynecologist an opening scene, where her own problems come into focus. Perhaps if Aila could see fit to open herself up a little more, than Rosie may trust her a little more. But she remains guarded – as does Rosie.

 

The film was co-directed by Tailfeathers, and Kathleen Hepburn, who take realism as their major aim. The conversation that makes up the bulk of the film often falls into silence, Rosie is awkward and guarded – she mumbles many of her lines – not wanting to be too loud, perhaps the product of the abusive relationship she is in, knowing that would lead to more abuse. What she does tell Aila is bad enough – and makes it clear just how bad things are. Aila allows Rosie her anger, her sadness, her guardedness, perhaps a little too much. She apologizes a lot, and even if she means well, she can only reach out so much to Rosie.

 

The two lead performances are perfect for what they are. The direction adds to the realism, as does the real time aspect of the movie. This is the rare two-hander of a movie that doesn’t feel like a play – you couldn’t do this on stage very well, because of all the silences and mumbles. Instead, the film explores what Indigenous identity – particularly female Indigenous identity – in two very different forms, from very different vantage points of class and privilege.

 

The films ending hits hard, even though, like the rest of the film, it doesn’t push – doesn’t insist you have a certain reaction, doesn’t try and beat you over the head with its message. It also doesn’t wrap everything up in a nice bow either. Sometimes, things cannot be fixed – no matter how well-meaning people are.

Movie Review: Frankie

Frankie ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Ira Sachs.

Written by: Ira Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias.

Starring: Isabelle Huppert (Françoise Crémont, AKA Frankie), Sennia Nanua (Maya Andoh), Ariyon Bakare (Ian Andoh), Vinette Robinson (Sylvia Andoh), Jérémie Renier (Paul Gagne), Brendan Gleeson (Jimmy), Pascal Greggory (Michel Gagne), Carloto Cotta (Tiago Mirante), Ana Brandão (Luciana), Marisa Tomei (Ilene), Greg Kinnear (Gary), Manuel Sá Nogueira (Pedro), Máximo Francisco (Bento), Joana Cunha Ferreira (Joana), Júlia Guerra (Ermelinda). 

 

The family has gathered is the picturesque Portugal town of Sintra – beautiful mountains, old churches, cobblestone streets, etc. – all because Frankie (Isabelle Huppert) is dying. She had cancer a few years ago, and now it has come back, and spread – she likely won’t last out the year, but while she still can, she wants everyone is one place for a nice vacation. That is the premise of Ira Sachs’ Frankie – a perfectly pleasant, if dramatically inert, film in which characters talk a lot, but nothing ever really gets said, nothing gets resolved, it all just gets pushed a little further down the road. In that way, I suppose, the film is much like life – except in life the dialogue isn’t as stilted, and your small problems really do feel like big ones because they’re yours. Here, even the big problems don’t seem to matter very much.

 

Sachs has assembled a terrific cast, so even if the film goes nowhere, it’s a pleasurable nowhere. Huppert is one of the greatest actresses alive, and here she is playing, well, one of the greatest actresses alive. She’s there with her husband Jimmy (Brendan Gleeson – a fine actor, who is given little to do but look glum), her son Paul (Jérémie Renier), who is an asshole, but not an interesting one. There’s also Jimmy’s daughter Sylvia (Vinette Robinson), her husband Ian (Ariyon Bakare), who she is, once again, thinking of divorcing, and their daughter Maya (Sennia Nanua), who smartly, gets away from the family for an afternoon romance at the beach. There’s also Frankie’s friend Ilene (Marisa Tomei) – a film hairdresser, who was working in Spain on the new Star Wars movie, who Frankie thinks would make a good match for Paul, unaware that Ilene would be showing up with Gary (Greg Kinnear). Oh, and Frankie’s first husband Michel (Pascal Greggory), who only realized after the divorce that he was gay. And a tour guide shows up for a while to talk about his own strained marriage.

 

Frankie unfolds at a very leisurely pace, and essentially what happens is that the different characters pair up at various times, and have very meaningful conversations – unless of course, the conversations are anything but. Some of the characters don’t even know each other, but that won’t stop them. They go around and around – talking around Frankie’s illness, more than they talk of it, hinting at plans, but not committing to any of them, etc. It’s all very pleasant for the most part – although many of the monologues, and there are quite a few, end up sounding stilted – either because the actor (or character) isn’t a native English speaker, or because they’re poorly written, or perhaps both.

 

The film ends up feeling small and inconsequential. I’m not saying that every movie has to feel like some massive statement on some important topic, but you kind of want to feel as if the director has something to say, something to impart. In this case though, it doesn’t really feel like it. It feels more like Sachs and co-writer Mauricio Zacharias, came up with this scenario, enjoyed the location, enjoyed the characters and the actors, and just decided to shoot it all. It does have a great final shot – but as it was playing, I kept wondering when Frankie would do something, anything – and it never quite does.

Movie Review: The Cave

The Cave **** / *****

Directed by: Feras Fayyad

Written by: Alisar Hasan, Feras Fayyad.

 

The Cave is one of those rare movies that can both inspire you and devastate you about your fellow humans. It is a film about selfless heroes, working in an underground hospital in Syria, tending to the wounded who are able to make it there – through a series of underground tunnels – even though the odds they face are staggering. Lots of people are dragged there, and it’s already too late for them – many others don’t have much hope. Most of the doctors in the area have already fled – but some have stayed, a few students, quite of few of them women, and they do their best to save lives, comfort children, and just try and get their people through another day. It is inspiring to see their selflessness. The film can also leave you feeling hopeless and depressed – for all of their work, things still do not end well.

 

The film was directed by Feras Fayyad, who also directed Last Men in Aleppo (2017) – which, like The Cave, was an Oscar nominee for Best Documentary. That film was about volunteer with the White Helmets – the team who went around in Aleppo after bombings, and tried to dig survivors out of the rubble to save their lives – and another of those films that can leave you inspired and crushed at the same time. This time, the film takes place in Eastern Ghouta – but the situation is basically the same. The Syrian regime, and their Russian backers, are bombing the civilian population to get at the rebels, causing a massive humanitarian crisis, which the rest of the world thinks is really very sad, but hasn’t really done anything about.

 

The central figure in The Cave is Dr. Amani Ballour, a pediatrician, who is one of the young, female doctors who have stayed behind to staff this hospital. She has a lot of patience in her – doesn’t even get mad at the male patients who get mad at her, wishing there was a male doctor managing the hospital, and telling her that her place should be at home raising children (you would think they would be grateful for the assistance – but you’d be wrong). She is kind and patient – does her best to save as many lives as possible, to comfort the children who come in screaming and crying and covered in dust and blood. You cannot say that she is upbeat or optimistic – but she certainly doesn’t give up.

 

As with any movie about Syria, there are moments and shots that you cannot forget, that engrave themselves into your brain, and won’t let go – the other wailing over her dead son, angry at him for dying for instance. The film also covers the panic and devastation that resulted when the government gasses their own people – how the hospital had to deal with the people effected and protect those who were not.

 

The film was released the same year as another wonderful documentary about Syria – For Sama – which is also about the selfless actions of doctors trying to save lives, and specifically how it is women who are doing a lot of the front-line work. Both films are wonderful – and should be seen – even if both basically end the same way – with the only thing left to do is leave if you can. The Syrian humanitarian crisis has been well-documented for years now – I’ve lost count of how many documentaries on it I have seen by this point. In the future, we marvel, and feel ashamed, of just how little we did.

Movie Review: Mickey and the Bear

Mickey and the Bear **** / *****

Directed by: Annabelle Attanasio.

Written by: Annabelle Attanasio.

Starring: Camila Morrone (Mickey Peck), James Badge Dale (Hank Peck), Calvin Demba (Wyatt Hughes), Ben Rosenfield (Aron Church), Rebecca Henderson (Leslee Watkins). 

 

After re-watching Five Easy Pieces (1970) for the first time in years a few weeks ago (spoiler alert – it’s still a masterpiece), I re-read Roger Ebert’s Great Movies Essay about that film from 2003, and was struck by Ebert calling it the “first Sundance movie” – in part because in the years since Ebert wrote that, Sundance movie has become almost as cliched as mainstream movies – as they’re always full of movie stars, looking for some cred, by acting in a quirky film (I generalize, of course, but so many times out of Sundance we hear about a surefire audience hit, only for it to get ignored when it comes out a few months later, as it’s the same as last year’s surefire hit, that was also ignored). I bring this up at the beginning of a review of Annabelle Attanasio’s Mickey and the Bear, not because it’s as good as Five Easy Pieces (it isn’t) – but because I think that like Five Easy Pieces, it wouldn’t fit in as nicely in the Sundance of 2020 as it would have when Ebert wrote his great movie essay. Mickey and the Bear is the type of movie that Sundance would deem “too small” (which is why it’s a SXSW film), too small for something like the Independent Spirit Awards, and basically too small for most audiences to ever hear of the film – which is why, despite good reviews last fall, it basically came and went from theaters quickly without attracting much notice, and is now streaming, where too few people will watch it. It is a small film – but it’s a real film, in that it’s a film about real people, dealing with their real lives. As small as that is, it taps into something all too rare in movies these days – that everyday drama can still make for great movies.

 

Mickey is played by Camilla Morrone, and she’s a just turned 18-year-old girl from Anaconda, Montana – who outwardly seems satisfied with her small town life, her smalltown boyfriend, and what promises to be a small-town life. Her mother died of cancer a few years ago, and her father, Hank (James Badge Dale) is an Iraq war veteran, suffering from PTSD, is an alcoholic and addicted to oxycontin, and basically doesn’t leave their trailer, where he plays video games all day, unless it’s to go drinking. Mickey meanwhile goes to high school, holds down a job, and takes care of Hank – who tries to be very fun, very cool, but is an insecure mess.

 

Mickey does have bigger dreams for herself though – even if she doesn’t let anyone know about them. They are small in the grand scheme of things – a plan to go to San Diego City College, and leave this behind, but she worries about leaving. Will she be good enough? Will she have enough money? What will become of Hank without her? When she meets Wyatt (Calvin Demba), a transplant from the UK, she starts making small moves away from that small-town life, but will she really pull away.

 

The movie is no more dramatic than that really. Her friend is already pregnant – already has her life set ahead of her, and Mickey sees that her life with Aron will basically be the same. Hank makes fun of Aron but is clearly not threatened by him in any real way – if Mickey is with him, that means Mickey is still here. He is threatened by Wyatt however – which makes him act in more extreme ways with him.

 

The performances here are key. Morrone is excellent in the first movie role I will remember her for (apparently, she was in Eli Roth’s Death Wish – but I have already forgotten that film). What she does here is sensitive, subtle, quiet and devastating. Dale is just as good as Hank – an insecure mess of a man. Yes, you feel sorry for him – and you should – but over the course of the movie, as you see more sides of him, you realize he doesn’t even want to get better – isn’t even trying. You expect there to be a scene where he encourages Mickey to leave him for her own good, but what you get the exact opposite – him begging her to stay. In a small role Rebecca Henderson is excellent as the psychiatrist at the hospital that Hank refuses to see – she knows precisely who he is.

 

The film is the directorial debut of Annabelle Attanasio, and it’s an excellent debut. She has confidence in her screenplay, and her actors – she holds shot a beat longer than you may expect, and they sink in. I think the ending perhaps pushes a little too far – there is a lot that happens in a single cut that the film doesn’t explain, but I kind of feel it should have – it pushes a little too hard. But it’s that push that Mickey needs. She can stay in Anaconda and have nothing – or she can at least try to get out. That can be messy and can involve doing things that hurt others – but at some point, you have to choose between hurting them, and hurting yourself.

Movie Review: Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Portrait of a Lady on Fire **** ½ / *****

Directed by: Céline Sciamma.

Written by: Céline Sciamma.

Starring: Noémie Merlant (Marianne), Adèle Haenel (Héloïse), Luàna Bajrami (Sophie), Valeria Golino (La Comtesse).

 

The history of cinema really is the history of the male gaze – of male directors and cinematographers photographing mostly beautiful women in ways that make them beautiful to their own eyes. It hasn’t always been great at showing women as they see themselves, certainly not in ways or eroticism. Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire then is a necessary corrective – an example of a love story about women, for women, written and directed by a woman, and with a female cinematographer as well. Part of the reason why Portrait of a Lady on Fire feels so alive – so fresh, so new – is because we are seeing the central pair through a completely different lens than we normally are privy to. This highlights the importance of diversity behind the camera – with giving more people than just straight white men the chance the direct, because the result can be as exciting – as new, as fresh, as Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

 

The film takes place during 1700s, on a remote French island. It’s here where Marianne (Noémie Merlant) has been brought with the express purpose of painting a portrait of Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) by her mother, a countess (Valeria Golino). Héloïse’s older sister has recently committed suicide – throwing herself off of the impossibly gorgeous cliffs on the island – instead of marrying the nobleman from Venice, who she has never met, picked out by her mother. The Countess hopes to salvage the arrange by marrying off Héloïse to the man instead – and simply needs the portrait to send to the Nobleman for his approval. Héloïse was supposed to spend her life in a convent – the life ordained for second daughters at this time – and doesn’t want to marry the man. One portrait painter has already been fired, because Héloïse refused to pose for him. So Marianne is supposed to keep her true purpose secret – she’s there to walk with Héloïse apparently – all the while taking her in, so she can paint her portrait. This results in an okay, but lifeless, portrait of Héloïse – good enough for the Countess’ purposes, but not for Marianne who destroys the portrait, and the ruse comes out. But Héloïse surprises everyone by saying that she will pose for Marianne after all – and as the Countess leaves for a weak, the two of them – joined in the vast house by the young, and unwittingly pregnant maid Sophie (Luàna Bajrami) the love affair begins.

 

It begins really with the pair of them just looking at each other. The long hours spent with Marianne staring at Héloïse, taking her in, getting to know all the small details about her. It’s one of the most erotic scenes in the film when Héloïse calls Marianne over to the place where she is posing for her – and lets her know that all the while when Marianne is watching Héloïse, Héloïse is watching Marianne in return. The love affair then begins with these looks – looks that gradually change, become something more – and more charged. Sciamma wisely waits a long time before anything physical happens at all – the foreplay between them simply building the erotic tension. It all comes spilling out one night at a beach party the three women attend with the local women from the island – who sing with a chorus of voices and clapping, gradually building to a crescendo, that simulates sex itself.

 

When the love affair eventually does become physical, it’s still not in the way we may be expect it to – and just about the furthest thing away from something like Blue is the Warmest Color as is possible. It isn’t a film that lacks nudity – but it is one that shows us that nudity in ways that are different from normal – women flat on their backs for instance, or the playful way she upends expectations of what we’re seeing with a close-up of an armpit.

 

The film calls to my many other of the great romantic films you can think of – Jane Campion’s The Piano for instance, but without the questionable sexual ethics, or Todd Haynes’ Carol for the way in which every look is so charged with erotic energy, or Call Me By Your Name, for the way these two share this secret world that just the two of them can know about. I was also reminded of Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence – for the way in which much of the important stuff is left unsaid, and the fleeting nature of the relationship itself, that is doomed for failure, but will mark both for life.

 

But it is, ultimately, its own film. Sciamma has been a promising director for a while now, and she takes her art to the next level here. The beautiful, painterly cinematography by Claire Scanlon is some of the best of the year (she had a great year, also shooting the wonderful Atlantics for Mati Diop). Merlant’s performance is wonderful – a more independent woman, in a time where there were few, taught to see things not as a man does, but as she does. Haenel is even better as the more innocent, but enigmatic Héloïse – who is given one of the best moments of the year, in the films haunting, tragic final shot that goes on seemingly forever. It’s also a deeply political film, without ever being overt about it – Sophie’s desire for an abortion, and the lengths she and the others go to procure one for her, is never questioned – it’s presented as yet another way in which women and their bodies were controlled then, and remain so now. It is a stunning achievement by Sciamma – and vaults her up among the best directors working today.

Movie Review: Synonyms

Synonyms *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Nadav Lapid.

Written by: Nadav Lapid & Haim Lapid.

Starring: Tom Mercier (Yoav), Quentin Dolmaire (Emile), Louise Chevillotte (Caroline), Uria Hayik (Yaron), Olivier Loustau (Michel), Yehuda Almagor (Yoav's Father), Gaya Von Schwarze (Tamar), Gal Amitai (Eyal), Idan Ashkenazi (Roey), Dolev Ohana (Amit), Erwan Ribard (Tolga), Yawen Ribard (Tolga's Son), Iman Amara-Korba (Yasmina), Christophe Paou (Raphaël). 

 

One of the funniest lines – repeated a few times – in Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar winning Parasite is “It’s so metaphorical” – and I couldn’t help but think of it when watching Nadav Lapid’s Synonyms, which is nothing if not metaphorical. That’s not entirely a good or bad thing here – but it’s certainly something I couldn’t help but think, because seemingly every scene, every interaction and line, is steeped in metaphors and symbolism in ways that sometimes work, and sometimes don’t. This is a film about a young Israeli man, who moves to France because he has decided he hates his home country and their militarism – his mandatory army service didn’t go well. But he also realizes, during the course of the movie, that he isn’t French either – and even if he were, it isn’t that their hands are clean of those same problems either.

 

The movie deliberately begins in ends with scenes that echo each other. In the opening, Yoav arrives in Paris, and at an apartment he is apparently renting for the night, lets himself in, takes a bath, and when he gets out, realizes that someone has broken in, and stolen all his stuff – so he is quite literally naked and alone. He will eventually be rescued in a way by Emile (Quentin Dolmaire) and Caroline (Louise Chevillotte) – a kind of quintessential young, beautiful, privileged French couple. Their first interaction lets you know that Yoav will eventually fuck at least one of them. Emile gives him clothes and money – and Yoav heads back out into Paris, to his new apartment – but will be drawn back, time and again, to Emile and Caroline. You may well be reminded of the love triangle in Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers here – although this film doesn’t go quite that dark, and Bertolucci’s film handled it better – mainly because I don’t think Caroline here has much depth – she is basically a caricature of the beautiful young French woman. The movie ends again at an apartment door – this one literally shut, forever, no matter what Yoav tries.

 

From there, the film kind of lashes out in all different directions. It is episodic in many ways – and writer/director Nadav Lapid will sometimes spend a lot of time on a particular subplot, and then just abandon it when it’s run its course (Yoav’s work at the Israeli embassy for instance, and his brief friendship with another Israeli young man, whose idea of his country is vastly different). The one constant in the film is Yoav himself – played in quite literal balls out performance by newcomer Tom Mercier, who isn’t afraid of, well, anything. He lashes out in righteous, but impotent, anger throughout the movie. He doesn’t really know what he wants – just that at the moment anyway, he’s pissed at where he comes from. The character is said to be based on Lapid himself as a young man – and you can certainly see elements of many of the characters from Phillip Roth novels over the years. You feel sorry for him – at least at first – although as the movie progresses he reveals more disturbing aspects of himself, more toxic masculinity. I’m sure Yoav would love Todd Phillips’ Joker.

 

I was constantly fascinated by Synonyms, without every quite loving it. It doesn’t quite have the satisfying ambiguity of Lapid’s last film, The Kindergarten Teacher (remade, quite well, a couple years ago with Maggie Gyllenahaal – although the original is better). The film tries to have it both ways – it wants to seem to be loose and ragged, like its main character, but everything in it feels so calculated to be read as deep. It is very metaphorical – but for the most part in movies, films that truly work like that, make you forget about as you watch. You never do with Synonyms.

Movie Review: Jay and Silent Bob Reboot

Jay and Silent Bob Reboot ** / *****

Directed by: Kevin Smith.

Written by: Kevin Smith.

Starring: Jason Mewes (Jay), Kevin Smith (Silent Bob / Kevin Smith), Harley Quinn Smith (Milly), Aparna Brielle (Jihad), Alice Wen (Shan Yu), Treshelle Edmond (Soapy), Chris Hemsworth (Chris Hemsworth), Val Kilmer (Reboot Bluntman), Matt Damon (Loki), Ben Affleck (Holden McNeil), Rosario Dawson (Reggie Faulken), Melissa Benoist (Reboot Chronic), Joe Manganiello (Bailiff), Shannon Elizabeth (Justice), Justin Long (Brandon St. Randy (Lawyer), Kate Micucci (Mooby's Employee), Jason Lee (Brodie Bruce), David Dastmalchian (Nervous Cop), Joey Lauren Adams (Alyssa Jones), Diedrich Bader (Con Security Guard), Craig Robinson (Judge Jerry N. Executioner), James Van Der Beek (James Van Der Beek), Jason Biggs (Jason Biggs), Frankie Shaw (Prosecutor), Fred Armisen (Uber driver), Molly Shannon (Joline), Keith Coogan (Keith Coogan), Tommy Chong (Alfred), Mickey Gooch Jr. (Holly Roller), Chris Jericho (Klan Leader), Brian O'Halloran (Dante Hicks), Jennifer Schwalbach Smith (Miss McKenzie Mooby's Manager), Method Man (Himself), Redman (Himself), Donnell Rawlings (Captain), Ralph Garman (Ted Underhill).

 

As we end another decade, I think back to 20 years ago, when I read an article about the crop of young filmmakers that emerged in the 1990s, and who is most likely to become the next Martin Scorsese – not necessarily in having the same vision as Scorsese, but in becoming that universally respected and admired filmmaker. The usual suspects you would expect to see were on the list – Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, etc. – and another name was on it as well – Kevin Smith. 20 years later, that may sound absurd – but it didn’t at the time. Smith had become a DIY filmmaking hero with Clerks – which was not just a great DIY movie, but a great movie itself. He had gone to the studio after, with Mallrats, and had a bad experience – returned to a lower budget for Chasing Amy – still his best film, even if some of the critiques of it are valid, and then made his most ambitious film to date with Dogma. Smith seemed poised to become one of the major filmmakers of his generation. 20 years later, I think it’s fair to say that it didn’t happen that way – Smith returned to his comfort zone for Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, tried to mature a little with Jersey Girl, then returned to his comfort zone with Clerks II, tried to do a kind of Judd Apatow film with Zack and Miri Make a Porno, tried out the director-for-hire thing with Cop Out, tried to reinvent himself as a horror movie filmmaker with Red State, and then kind of settled into a strange place of doing podcasts and speaking engagements, and occasionally making some strange horror/comedy hybrids like Tusk and Yoga Hosers – the latter of which is the one Smith film I have never see (and I’m not even sure I ever had a chance to see if I wanted – it’s currently not available on any streaming platform in Canada I have access to). And now, once again, Smith has returned to his comfort zone with Jay and Silent Bob Reboot – which essentially has the same plot as Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, but with an even more star studded cast, and clearly a lot less money to spend. It is, undoubtedly, the least ambitious thing Smith could do as a filmmaker after all these years.

 

Jay and Silent Bob Reboot is, in short, a very lazy film in which Smith reunites yet again with Jason Mewes, and the two play their famous Jay and Silent Bob characters. They discover, once again, that Hollywood is going to make another Bluntman and Chronic movie, and once again, they hit the road to Hollywood to try and stop it. This time, though, when they reach Chicago, and Jay reunites with his long lost girlfriend Justice (Shannon Elizabeth), he discovers he has a daughter – now 18 – named Millie, and played by Smith’s real life daughter Harley Smith. So instead of the four cat suit wearing diamond thieves that travelled to California with them in the other movie, Jay now travels with his daughter, and her diverse friend group – although he doesn’t reveal who he really is to Millie.

 

As is the case with many Smith movies, the movie is a series of self-aware jokes, and cameos by famous actors, some playing characters they’ve played for Smith in the past, some playing all new characters. With this much talent on display in front of the camera, it’s hard to say that the movie has no charm or now laughs – it does – but it really does feel like Smith made this movie as an excuse to hang out with all his buddies again, and churn something out to make some money. Including a bunch of self-aware jokes about how lazy reboots are doesn’t make this one any less lazy – hell, Fuller House has jokes about how lazy reboots are, so Smith wins no points from me on that front.

 

Clearly Smith has made this movie for himself – and for his ever loyal fan base, who has allowed his to coast on his success from the 1990s, with continued support throughout the years. Die hards of Smith – the target audience – will likely feel that they got their money’s worth here – an excuse to sink back into their comfort zone in a movie that does challenge them in any way, and basically repeats what Smith has done before – and better. For someone like me – who really was a huge fan of Smith back in the 1990s (admittedly, as someone who was 13 when Clerks came out, I was in the perfect demographic for Smith’s humor) every new Smith film just serves to remind me that I really do think Smith could have become a great filmmaker. It was there in those early films – and once in a while, it’s there in the later films – I liked Clerks II more than most, thought that had he continued down the path started by Red State he could have become an excellent horror filmmaker, etc. As a fan of Smith’s, but not one of his diehards, it’s hard to be disappointed that this is where everything led to.

 

And yet, in a scene late in Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, Smith kind of answers why this happened as Jay and Silent Bob talked to Holden (Ben Affleck) from Chasing Amy – who basically what describes what being a father means to him, and he can assume, what it means to Smith. That the youthful ambition he felt has faded since becoming a father – and wanting what his best for his kid. And to be fair, Smith really does seem happy – he seems like he is enjoying his life, his marriage, his kid, his career and everything he does. So maybe we can acknowledge that it really does seem like Smith has won at life – because if being happy isn’t the meaning of life, then I don’t know what it. It wasn’t what was best for his career as a filmmaker clearly – but hey, if it works for him, go for it. Personally though, I never felt more checked out as a Kevin Smith fan.

Movie Review: Honeyland

Honeyland **** / *****

Directed by: Tamara Kotevska & Ljubomir Stefanov.

 

Honeyland opens with one of the most breathtaking and beautiful sequences of the year. Hatidze, who lives in rural Macedonia, climbs a large, rocky mountain slowly, going down narrow paths and steep passages, and then stops in front of some rocks, chips away at them, and finds what she is looking for – a thriving hive of wild bees. She takes the bees, and transports them back to her home – where she’ll seal them in a very similar setup they had in the wild. She is a wild beekeeper – the last of her kind – and she is able to keep up this delicate balance because she is the only one around, and because she follows a simple rule – she takes half the honey, and leaves the other half for the bees who made it. She gets the money from selling their honey, and they get to stay happy and fed. And then, the neighbors move in.

 

Honeyland is a documentary that simply sits back and observes Hatidze, and eventually the neighbors, as their conflict slowly grows. Hatidze has been here for years, all by herself except for her mother – now in her mid-80s, and stuck in bed for years. She seems relatively happy in her isolated life – either going about her busy, or taking the hours long walk into the city to sell her honey, and buy what they need to survive. She views the neighbors suspiciously when they arrive – but ultimately does want to be friends with them. She bonds with the kids, and at first the parents. But then the father starts his own honey business – with honey from breeders. Hatidze tells him to stick by her rule – take half the honey, and leave the other half. This isn’t just good for him, but vital for her – if his bees lose all of their honey, they will attack her bees to take theirs. He, of course, doesn’t listen.

 

This is a beautiful film – that opening sequence is breathtaking, but the entire film looks gorgeous – directors Tamara Kotevska & Ljubomir Stefanov and their cinematographers seem to have taken some lessons from Terrence Malick about the best time of day to shoot and much of the film has a beautiful, golden hue to it. They also smartly start their film with these very quiet sequences – so when the large, boisterous family eventually does come, it sounds deafening to those of us in the audience.

 

Tamara Kotevska & Ljubomir Stefanov don’t interfere with anything – we don’t even hear them ask any questions of Hatidze, although they get some answers out of her that show some regrets – like when she talks about not having a son to one of the neighbor’s kids, or complains to her mother that she didn’t agree to marry her off when she had matchmakers around all those years ago. They also don’t interfere in other instances – ones that may make you squirm – as the bees get riled up and sting – not just the adults in the film, but also the children, who we see swollen at points.

 

But ultimately, Honeyland is a movie about the changing times – the conflict inherent in capitalism, and the way people use and abuse finite resources until no one has anything left. It’s also a portrait of a dying way of life – a way you may not even be aware existed in the first place. And it’s all wrapped up in a beautiful and stunning package. This is one of the year’s best documentaries.

Movie Review: Clemency

Clemency **** / *****

Directed by: Chinonye Chukwu.

Written by: Chinonye Chukwu.

Starring: Alfre Woodard (Warden Bernadine Williams), Aldis Hodge (Anthony Woods), Richard Schiff (Marty Lumetta), Wendell Pierce (Jonathan Williams), Michael O'Neill (Chaplain Kendricks), LaMonica Garrett (Major Logan Cartwright), Vernee Watson (Mrs. Collins), Danielle Brooks (Evette), Dennis Haskins (Mr. Collins), Richard Gunn (Deputy Warden Thomas Morgan).

 

Watching Clemency, I was reminded of Werner Hezog’s extraordinary documentary Into the Abyss from 2011 – his best documentary since Grizzly Man, and one of his best ever. Both films are about the death penalty – but ultimately go to a place rarely explored when the death penalty is discussed – the effect it has on the people tasked to carry out the executions themselves. In effect, the state is ordering them to kill another human being – and while one can certainly argue that they don’t have to take the job knowing that it will entail this, you also have to wonder about the type of people who could do this job for years on end and not be effected by it. They would be inhuman.

 

The main character in Clemency is Warden Bernadine Williams, played in a remarkable performance by Alfre Woodard, who over the years has overseen 12 executions – and this movie will begin and end with an execution. The first one is botched – the paramedic cannot find a vein to put the needle, there is bleeding out, it is a horrific site that no one can forget. And yet, Bernadine remains stone faced throughout and after. She is not an unfeeling monster – we see the effect it has had on her life in scenes with her husband, Jonathan, played by Wendell Pierce, who calls her an empty shell. She has tried to protect him for the dreams that make her sit bolt upright in bed at night, and have her fleeing to the safety of the couch to watch infomercials all night. But that can only last for so long. Jonathan wants to retire from being a teacher – wants them both to retire – and be happy living out their lives together. But Bernadine cannot do that – and cannot really express why she cannot.

 

The film follows the path of Anthony Woods (Aldis Hodge) – a young black man who has been on Death Row for 15 years now, and who has exhausted all of his appeals. His lawyer, Mary (Richard Schiff) is still fighting for him – but he knows it’s a long shot. They have no legal avenues left to go down, except to ask for Clemency from the Governor – who isn’t likely to grant it. We hear about Woods’ case mainly in passing – how it was a robbery gone bad, and a police officer was killed, but how even if the jury convicted Woods of being the man who pulled the trigger, that is based on very shaky evidence – and there is a lot more evidence to point at Woods’ co-conspirator. That may not be a good legal case – but it’s certainly a moral one. For Bernadine though, it doesn’t really matter. She is not there to decide Woods’ fate – Marty can get mad at her all he wants, but doing so won’t stop what happens to Woods. And Bernadine is the same facts only person when she talks to the victim’s parents – Dennis Haskins and Vernee Watson – as she is with Marty. Her hands are tied.

 

This is the second film by Chinonye Chukwu – and she is an extraordinary director, letting scenes play out mostly quietly, with subtle moments telling us what we need to know. In Woodard, she finds the perfect actress for Bernadine – one of those great character actresses who is normally great in everything, but doesn’t always get the attention she deserves (the fact that she was barely in the Oscar conversation this year is absurd – a fault of voters yes, but also the studio who had the Grand Jury Prize Winner from Sundance, and barely released it in the final days of 2019, essentially burying it). Most of her performance’s greatness is in her subtle looks and movements – the way she recoils from Jonathan, the way she tries to pretend she isn’t drunk at the bar, the way she lets down her assistant warden (Richard Gunn) in a scene that tells us everything we need to know about them without telling us anything explicitly. The way Bernadine is imprisoned, much like her inmates, in that prison – and never gets out, even while at home. It all leads to a remarkable three-minute shot near the end of the film entirely on Woodard’s face which tells us everything.

 

I wouldn’t say that Hodge is equally good as Woods – but that’s because Woodard is extraordinary. He gets a few speeches himself – but is mainly silent, unable to speak when the Warden comes to talk to him, unable to really process what is going on. There is extraordinary scene between him and Danielle Brooks, playing his old girlfriend, who comes to see him to let him know – for the first time – that he has a son. It is a showcase for Hodge, yes, but even more one for Brooks – who pours herself into what is essentially a cameo, and delivers the good.

 

Clemency deserved better than it got from its distributor – it deserves to be seen and debated, and taken seriously. It’s basically been buried in the rush of year end films, all vying for Oscar nominations – one of which was Just Mercy, which also didn’t break into the Oscar conversation, but is making some decent money at the box office. Clemency is as challenging as Just Mercy is not. If you can see it, do so. It should be in the conversation at this time of year.

Movie Review: 1917

1917 **** / *****

Directed by: Sam Mendes.

Written by: Sam Mendes & Krysty Wilson-Cairns.

Starring: George MacKay (Lance Corporal Schofield), Dean-Charles Chapman (Lance Corporal Blake), Daniel Mays (Sergeant Sanders), Colin Firth (General Erinmore), Andrew Scott (Lieutenant Leslie), Mark Strong (Captain Smith), Claire Duburcq (Lauri), Benedict Cumberbatch (MacKenzie), Richard Madden (Lieutenant Blake). 

 

Sam Mendes’ 1917 is primarily a technical achievement – and one that really cannot be denied. It is the latest film to try and fake its style as a single long shot stretched over its entire runtime (not quite, it cheats in the middle when the main character is knocked out cold for who knows how long, but how long should the camera of stayed trained on an unconscious man?). This isn’t a new idea – Birdman did it just a few years ago, Hitchcock did it in Rope in 1948, and Aleksandr Sokurov actually did all of Russian Ark in one take, no faking. Hell, 2019 also offered Bi Gan’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, which featured a 58-minute single shot, in 3-D for added difficulty. Still, what Mendes and cinematographer Roger Deakins accomplish in 1917 is quite impressive – and they’ve picked the right story and setting to make their strategy work, and seem (at least slightly) less of a gimmick. There are drawbacks to this technique of course – the main ones being it doesn’t allow for as much character work, or even story beyond the propulsive nature of the mission, to make much of an impact. You’re dazzled by 1917 as you watch it, but after you may be at a loss to explain the larger messages of the film – or whether it even has them.

 

As the title implies, the film takes place in 1917, during WWI, and focuses on two British soldiers, given a perilous, and perhaps suicidal, mission. They have to make it to the front, and tell MacKenize to call off his planned attack at dawn the next morning – it’s a trap the Germans have set, and will lead to a massacre if it’s carried out. For added stakes, one of the men assigned – Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) has a brother among the men who will be killed. It’s just Schofield’s dumb luck that he was next to Blake when the assignment came in, and was forced to go along for the ride.

 

The faked single long tracking shot is especially effective in the early going, when Blake and Schofield have to walk through their own trenches, filled with men – bloodied and bruised, exhausted from fighting the Germans for every single inch of no man’s land. The trenches make an ideal place for long tracking shot – Kubrick knew this in Paths of Glory – and they make the most of it. It also works remarkably well when the pair start having to cross no man’s land – they’ve been told the Germans have abandoned it, but you never be sure. As they make their way across the muck, they stumble over barb wire, and dead bodies that cannot be retrieved. The scale of the lives lost becomes clearer.

 

As the film moves along, the technical achievement doesn’t waver. There is a mesmerizing shot late in the film where of the men runs towards the camera, while other run perpendicular to him, and bombs go off, and he has to stay on his feet. It is a brilliantly executed shot. It is also, unfortunately, one of the times that happen increasingly in the movie that seem completely implausible. As the film moves along, it feels like Mendes feels he has to keep upping the ante, upping the danger, and while all the scenes are exciting, they don’t exactly feel plausible, and it makes the already thin story and characters feel all the thinner.

 

I will say that the two leads – George McKay in particular – do more in their roles than you may think, given that so much of the film is running, jumping, shooting, dodging, ducking, etc. The film is at least partly about the horror of war – and how all you can do is try and survive it.

 

1917 works amazingly well when you watch. What Mendes has done, with Deakins, is worthy of praise – and the other design elements are as well. In particular, Thomas Newman’s score is one of his best, and does a lot of emotional heavy lifting, as well as to heighten the suspense and excitement. And yet, it was never a film where I forgot about the technique being used – where I never stopped looking for the cuts for instance (some are easy to spot, some nearly impossible). It is an amazing technical accomplishment, and a very good film. A great film would make you forget just how amazing a technical accomplishment it was.

Movie Review: Just Mercy

Just Mercy *** / *****

Directed by: Destin Daniel Cretton.

Written by: Destin Daniel Cretton and Andrew Lanham based on the memoir by Bryan Stevenson.

Starring:  Michael B. Jordan (Bryan Stevenson), Jamie Foxx (Walter McMillian), Brie Larson (Eva Ansley), Tim Blake Nelson (Ralph Myers), Rafe Spall (Tommy Champan), O'Shea Jackson Jr. (Anthony Ray Hinton), Claire Bronson (Mrs. Chapman), Darrell Britt-Gibson (Darnell Houston), Rob Morgan (Herbert Richardson), Drew Scheid (Linus), Tonea Stewart (Mrs. Coleman), Rhoda Griffis (Judge Pamela Bachab), Denitra Isler (Evelyn), Steve Coulter (Judge Buren), Karan Kendrick (Minnie McMillian), Lindsay Ayliffe (Judge Foster), Michael Harding (Sheriff Tate), C.J. LeBlanc (John McMillian). 

 

It’s hard not to think of To Kill a Mockingbird when watching Just Mercy – and not just because it takes place in Monroeville, Alabama, home of Harper Lee, and several characters tells protagonist Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) that he should visit the Mockingbird Museum – it being “one of the great Civil Rights landmarks in the South). It’s because the story told here, set in the late 1980s and early 1990s, about Stevenson, an idealist, Harvard educated lawyer from Delaware, who comes to Alabama to work with Death Row inmates who are mostly poor, mostly black, and some event innocent, hits those Mockingbird notes so heavily that it’s clear that co-writer/director Destin Daniel Cretton wants you to think of To Kill a Mockingbird, the book and the movie with Gregory Peck throughout.

 

I don’t think that comparison helps Just Mercy very much. For one thing, as good as Michael B. Jordan is here – and he’s very good, and there are times you sense he wants to take his character in a more interesting, darker direction than the movie allows, he isn’t Gregory Peck in Mockingbird – a towering performance, and a prototype for this type of role. For another, Peck’s Mockingbird came out in 1962, Lee’s novel earlier, and for its time and place, it was daring. But this is 2019, and yet for the most part, Just Mercy plays like a movie that could have made at any time since the Civil Rights movement. It isn’t particularly daring, it isn’t particularly challenging, and it’s the type of film about black suffering that lets everyone off the hook. The racist bad guys are clearly racist – so white viewers aren’t going to question their own actions. There is a lot of talk about the system here, but I don’t think the film does a particularly good job of depicting systematic racism – the racism that results in more black and brown people on Death Row in the first place. It is a film about white racism, that lets white people off the hook – even the prison guard in the film who exerts his petty power to punish Stevenson when he first enters the prison, comes around after he gets to know some black people, perhaps for the first time.

 

We’ve seen all of this before – and yet, in the hands of Cretton and Jordan and Jamie Foxx – as Walter McMillian, a man sentenced to death for a crime he clearly didn’t commit, even as the film hits all the clichés we know it’s going to hit, it still works. Jordan has become one of the best, and certainly most charming, of actors working in American film today – and he’s very good here, whether he’s being a sympathetic ear for McMillian’s family, or delivering arguments in court, or watching another of his clients (a man who is guilty) die in the electric chair. It’s the type of role that Denzel Washington in the 1980s or ‘90s would do – or Sidney Poitier in the 1960s – and Jordan plays it very well. There are moments where you sense Jordan wants to go farther here – wants to tap into the black anger that made his performance in Black Panther so good, so conflicted. But that may take the character, and the movie, into some places that would make the white audience uncomfortable – so the film doesn’t go there. Foxx is better – particularly early – when he believes there is no hope for him, when the system is rigged against him. He’s also quite good later, in the more clichéd scenes this story requires – but it’s those early scenes I remember.

 

And yet, the film may be better in its depiction of smaller character. Brie Larson, who real breakthrough role was in Cretton’s great Short Term 12, is wasted here as Stevenson’s co-worker, although she’s such a good actress she still leaves an impression in the way she carries herself, the way she smokes a cigarette, etc. Sheriff Tate (Michael Harding), the man responsible for McMillian’s arrest, is a one note villain, and the D.A. Tommy Chapman (Rafe Spall), who wasn’t in office when McMillian was convicted, but now defends the trial, isn’t much better. But the two best characters – and perhaps performances – in the film are more minor characters. Tim Blake Nelson is typically great as Ralph Myers – a poor white man, a career criminal, and the only real witness or evidence against McMillian – whose story is so ridiculous no one should have believed it. He is all false bravado at first, and you are prepared to hate him – but gradually, you see him as a victim as well – the system uses and abuses poor people of all colors. And Rob Morgan is truly exceptional as Herbert Richardson – another of the Death Row inmates, and one who is guilty – he planted a bomb that killed a young woman. Stevenson takes his case anyway, and tries to get a stay – Richardson was a Vietnam vet, with mental health issues stemming from the war – circumstances that were not brought up, but perhaps could have lessened his sentenced. Morgan only has a few scenes – but you will remember him, his slow, stuttering talk, and his final moments long after the rest of the movie fades.

 

Just Mercy works on its own terms, I guess. I just wish it had more ambition – that it recognized the way things have changed since To Kill a Mockingbird, and took more chances – even if it means making a thornier movie with less mass (white) appeal. There are moments here where you see what this film could have been – and I wish would have been.