Movie Review: Freaks

Freaks **** / *****

Directed by: Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein.

Written by: Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein.

Starring: Lexy Kolker (Chloe), Emile Hirsch (Dad), Bruce Dern (Mr. Snowcone), Grace Park (Agent Ray), Amanda Crew (Mary), Ava Telek (Harper Reed), Michelle Harrison (Nancy Reed), Matty Finochio (Steven Reed).

 

I am not a spoilerphobe – not really anyway. I don’t spend my time policing what everyone says in their reviews for spoilers, and I don’t get that upset about them – knowing full well that there are any number of masterpieces I knew the “surprises” to before watching them and it didn’t ruin them. Having said that, typically if I know I’m going to see a movie, I don’t read many reviews of them before I do – trailers already give away too much, so why add more? I do get a general sense of the critical reaction is, and then look away. One of the reasons I did this was because of a tweet by critic Sam Adams in the wake of 10 Cloverfield Lane where he basically said if you liked knowing nothing about the movie going in, you could have that experience with every movie if you just didn’t pay attention to the pre-release hype.

 

I bring all this up at the top of my review for Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein’s Freaks because it’s a film that’s been on my radar since TIFF 2018 – where a few critics (Glen Weldon, Tasha Robinson) talked about it briefly, and I filed it away for later use. The film came and went in theaters very quickly a few months back, and now it’s available on VOD – and I watched it, knowing next to nothing about it – other than the basic premise – a girl and her dad, living in an old house where she cannot go outside, and Bruce Dern as a creepy ice cream man. That is the best way to see Freaks. I assumed it was a horror movie – I assumed wrong. I’m not sure it’s a particularly original movie – but I do know I enjoyed watching it unfold, as up until the last act, the film surprised me with its narrative developments – to go along with fine direction, writing and performances. You should see this movie knowing just that.

 

Now, if you’re still here, I assume you have already seen Freaks, or don’t care about spoilers. That basic outline of Freaks is what happens – 8-year-old Chloe (a very good Lexy Kolker) lives in a dilapidated dump with her paranoid father (Emile Hirsch) – who refuses to let her outside for any reason, and only goes out occasionally himself – telling her that the people out there want to kill them. They do have stacks of money somehow though – and strangely, Chloe seems to know the neighbor’s names, and at the very least is aware of Mr. Snowcone (Bruce Dern) who often sits outside their house in his ice cream truck, and even drops off a homemade book for her. For a while, you wonder if this is going to be a movie about an abusive, mentally ill father – someone who believes people are out to get him, when really they aren’t. But slowly, we start getting hints that the outside world isn’t normal – that there really may things that aren’t right outside.

 

Basically, what Freaks becomes is the third alternate superhero/villain origin story of the year – and the best following Brightburn and Fast Color. It smartly limited our point-of-view’s to Chloe’s, so that we understand how wrong everything is well before she does – but not quite why. Gradually things snap into focus. It’s like the origin of every one of the X-Men – hinted at here and there in the movies, or covered in a minute, but expanded to 104-minutes – and ending on a note where you’re not sure if you’ve watched the origin of a hero, or someone who will be destroy us all.

 

Writer/directors Lipovsky and Stein smartly keep things fairly low-tech for most of the film – there was clearly a special effects budget – but not a huge one – and they save it for the final act, when the cats out of the bag of just what is happening, and why. Until then, they’ve crafted a tense little thriller – one that keeps you on your toes. I was honestly a little disappointed in the final act – I wanted them to push things further than they do, get weirder, and instead they play it fairly straight. Still, the movie is really effective, surprising and entertaining – all the more the less you know heading into it. It’s a pleasure to be surprised like this in a movie.

Movie Review: Maleficent: Mistress of Evil

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil ** / *****

Directed by: Joachim Rønning.

Written by: Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster and Linda Woolverton.

Starring: Angelina Jolie (Maleficent), Michelle Pfeiffer (Queen Ingrith), Elle Fanning (Princess Aurora), Harris Dickinson (Prince Phillip), Sam Riley (Diaval), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Conall), Ed Skrein (Borra), Robert Lindsay (King John), David Gyasi (Percival), Jenn Murray (Gerda), Juno Temple (Thistlewit), Imelda Staunton (Knotgrass), Lesley Manville (Flittle), Kae Alexander (Ini), Judith Shekoni (Shrike), Miyavi (Udo), Warwick Davis (Lickspittle).

 

The original Maleficent (2014) wasn’t a particularly great movie, but it was at least an interesting one – and one of the few times in recent years in which Disney tried to actually do something new when updating an animated classic to the real of live action. Perhaps they realized that Sleeping Beauty (1959) is mostly a snooze other than the villain – Maleficent – so making a movie about her was the only logical thing to do unless you wanted to make another snooze. And yet, for all the flaws in the film, there were genuine moments of human emotion – like Jolie’s Maleficent awakening to find that her wings have been stolen from her – a moment made deliberately to resemble a rape victim’s trauma – but in a way the kids in the audience wouldn’t quite pick up the same way. The Maleficent of that film was more of an anti-hero than a villain – certainly the King, and his army were worse than she was, and only Princess Aurora herself (Elle Fanning) was an innocent – something even Maleficent eventually realizes.

 

We didn’t really need a sequel to that film – but it made money, and it was Disney, so of course we got one. And the initial look at the films seems promising – a film in which Angelina Jolie and Michelle Pfeiffer go toe-to-toe certainly sounds promising. And yet, outside of the films best sequence – an extended dinner scene in which Pfeiffer, the queen of a nearby kingdom whose son, Prince Philip, wants to marry Aurora – in which Pfeiffer does everything in a passive-aggressive way to anger Maleficent, we are mostly denied the awesome toe-to-toe that could have been. What we have instead is an another CGI fueled action movie – one in which a giant battle pretty much takes up the last third of the film, before they can slap the happy ending on. We spend so much time on this battle that the film all but abandons any pretense of examining the effects on its characters – flattening them all into bland and forgettable stand-ins for good and evil. Jolie herself seems shunted to the side for far too long here – she spends time with her own kind, in their hidden world, when Pfeiffer is planning and carrying out her genocidal rampage. The movie doesn’t really forget about her – but it almost does.

 

The movie also, probably by accident, ends up being more retrograde in its outlook than Disney has tried to be in recent years. They have tried, even in movies with Princesses, to not tie everything together with a wedding and a happily ever after, but that’s exactly what happens here – where right after a massacre, essentially both sides come together for a wedding that will fix everything – the one and only bad person has been vanquished, so just get over it I guess.

 

The film makes poor use of its talented cast, and the CGI isn’t really up to snuff either – it’s fairly lackadaisical and by-the-numbers, offering nothing all that imaginative. It stands out as a pretty big disappointment after the first film – which was hardly a masterpiece, but tried to do something different for Disney. With this film, it seems, they’re more comfortable with the same old same old.

Movie Review: Aladdin

Aladdin ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Guy Ritchie.

Written by: John August and Guy Ritchie.

Starring: Will Smith (Genie), Mena Massoud (Aladdin), Naomi Scott (Jasmine), Marwan Kenzari (Jafar), Nasim Pedrad (Dalia), Navid Negahban (Sultan), Alan Tudyk (Iago), Billy Magnussen (Prince Anders), Imran Yusuf (Omar), Amir Boutrous (Jamal), Maya Saroya (Ese), Jordan A. Nash (Barro), Minhaz Zee (Razaq the City Guard), Song-Hung Chang (Ahmed).

 

One of the previews I saw when I took the family to see Disney’s live action Aladdin remake this weekend was for Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, the second film in the series starring Angelina Jolie as Disney’s Sleeping Beauty villain. I said to my wife then that at least with those films, as flawed as the first one was, that Disney was at least trying to do something different – trying to have a new take on a classic. The biggest problem that films like Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast a few years ago, is that there doesn’t seem to be much of a reason for them to exist. They are essentially just completing remaking animated classics – that kids are still watching, still loving, in an effort to make more money from existing Intellectual Property. The songs are the same, the action beats are the same, the costumes, the characters, everything is the same. They do add to the stories – Beauty and the Beast was 45 minutes longer – this one is just about 40 minutes longer. They added a few new songs here – the biggest one being for Jasmine, which was part of a larger effort to give Jasmine more agency, and more to do, than the films from 1990s did. That’s a good thing. And yet, for the most part, I sat watching this film – which wasn’t particularly bad, but wasn’t particularly good – and wondered if we all wouldn’t have had a better time sitting at home and watching the Blu-Ray of the animated version for the 10^th time. The answer is no – and not just because I don’t like leaving the house.

 

Relative newcomer Mena Massoud has the title role, and he’s is rather bland and forgettable. He isn’t bad by any means; he just doesn’t stand out. He’s an okay singer, an okay actor, but has a minimal screen presence – you don’t really ever feel much for him. Naomi Scott is a legitimately wonderful Jasmine – that she is drop dead gorgeous is undeniable, but she has real charisma and presence, and she can really sing. She makes what is basically a fairly forgettable new song and turns into something quite good. You really want her to be the focus of the movie – as she is the best part. As for Will Smith as the Genie, well, he does what he was asked to do. He was clearly told to go big, bigger if possible than Robin Williams, which was already probably too big for the movie to contain it. He goes really big from his first scene, and that keeps getting bigger. His musical numbers are okay, I guess – he isn’t the world’s best singer, but he does it okay. Marwan Kenzari as Jafar just isn’t quite as menacing as his animated counterpart.

 

The film was directed by Guy Ritchie, but apart from a couple of moments where he goes full slow motion with it (for reasons that aren’t clear) – he seems to have muted his style. This is both good and bad – good because Ritchie has at times in his career he goes overboard with style, completely overwhelming the material, bad because it makes Aladdin seem like even more of a faceless corporate product than it otherwise would be. Watching it, you see the competence of the filmmaking on every level, but you don’t really feel like anyone involved feels anything personal connection with the material. It’s all just a job – something churned out cynically for money. While it’s true that all movies – particularly all movies made for this much money, by companies like Disney – are made for money, the best of them still feel like something someone is making because they believe in it. Here, it all just feels like a job.

 

The film is big and bloated – it goes on for 129 minutes, which as mentioned is much longer than the 90 minutes of the original, but other than a few nice moments with Jasmine and her handmaid (played by SNL’s Nasim Pedrad), there isn’t much of a reason for that added runtime. It’s a movie cynically made to separate those who grew up with Aladdin from their money – hopefully taking their children, so another generation will fall in love with the movie. It may work at that – in that kids will watch the animated film, and love it. As for this film, yeah, it will pass the time for kids – and they may well like it. I cannot imagine too many of them feeling the same way about this film as their parents feel about the original though.

Movie Review: The Man Who Killed Don Quixote

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Terry Gilliam.

Written by: Terry Gilliam and Tony Grisoni.

Starring: Adam Driver (Toby Grisoni), Jonathan Pryce ("Don Quixote"), Stellan Skarsgård (The Boss), Olga Kurylenko (Jacqui), Joana Ribeiro (Angelica), Óscar Jaenada (The Gypsy), Jason Watkins (Rupert), Sergi López (The Farmer), Rossy de Palma (The Farmer's Wife), Hovik Keuchkerian (Raul), Jordi Mollà (Alexei Miiskin).

 

It’s a miracle that Terry Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote exists as a film at all. He’s been trying to make the film for 25 years – the one time previously he started to shoot the film, things went horribly wrong, resulting in the very good documentary Lost in La Mancha, which documented just what went wrong. The film is dedicated to John Hurt and Jean Rochefort – two previous actors cast as Don Quixote at various times, and both of whom are now dead. But Terry Gilliam never gave up – and he finally got to made his dream project. For that alone, I admire him and the film itself. I am just a little confused though that how a film a filmmaker has been making in his head for more than two decades still ended up being such a mess. True, it’s Gilliam – and its late Gilliam at that. He hasn’t really made a non-mess of a film since 12 Monkeys (1995) – but even so, sometimes when he makes a mess, it’s a wonderful mess like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Here, it’s just a mess.

 

The film stars Adam Driver as Toby, a commercial director, in Spain to shoot a commercial which references Don Quixote (because, of course, commercials often reference books a few centuries old). It’s his first time back in Spain since he shot his student film – The Man Who Killed Don Quixote – in which he cast a local farmer (Jonathan Pryce) to play the famed delusional hero. When he meets up with the man again, he is shocked because that farmer now really does think he is Don Quixote – and he sees as his Sancho Panza (the actor who played him in the student film is now dead). Soon, they are off on a weird quest of sorts themselves – as Toby is running from the police, and his bosses, and the girl he was involved with when he made that film, Angelica (Joana Ribeiro) who he then abandoned. She has now become the kept mistress of a rich man – but in a way seems happy in her captivity, which makes Toby say some truly awful things to her.

 

What else can I say about the plot of the movie? I think an exchange late in the film pretty much sums it up when Don Quixote tells Toby to follow the plot, and Toby responds “There’s a plot?”. That’s accurate, because while a lot of things happen in the movie, I’m not sure you could describe it as a plot as such. Gilliam isn’t really interested in that. What he’s basically doing is making a movie about how trying to tell the story of Don Quixote can drive one mad in and of itself – it’s driven Jonathan Pryce mad, it’s caused Toby to sell out and become cynical, etc. In a very real way, Gilliam has made a film about how trying to make this film was maddening.

 

Is that enough though? If you didn’t know the story of what Gilliam went through to get here, would this movie look at all interesting, or would it simply just look like a complete and total mess. There are elements I admire to be sure – Adam Driver is giving it his all here, and you have to admire that a star like him, with any number of projects he could choose, has continually decided to work with interesting filmmakers, especially a mad one like Gilliam, and follow him in his quest to tilt at windmills. And Jonathan Pryce is in fine form as Don Quixote – who has to play a couple levels of madness – the madness of Quixote, and the madness of his real person playing Quixote. Pryce has delivered a few performances in the last few years – Listen Up Philip, The Wife and now this – that remind you just how good he can be in the right role.

 

I admire Gilliam for sticking with this – for never letting this die completely, and to finally getting to make the film he wanted to. At the same time, it’s another film in the vein of The Brothers Grimm, Tideland, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and The Zero Therom though – a complete mess. None of them are without interest, but none of them also seem to be able to harness the madness like Gilliam can when at his best - Brazil, The Fisher King, 12 Monkeys. But A for effort Terry.

Movie Review: The Kid Who Would Be King

The Kid Who Would Be King *** / *****

Directed by: Joe Cornish   

Written by: Joe Cornish.

Starring: Louis Ashbourne Serkis (Alex), Denise Gough (Mary), Dean Chaumoo (Bedders), Tom Taylor (Lance), Rhianna Dorris (Kaye), Nathan Stewart-Jarrett (Mr. Kepler), Noma Dumezweni (Mrs. Lee), Rebecca Ferguson (Morgana), Mark Bonnar (Mr. Jeffreys), Angus Imrie (Young Merlin), Alexandra Roach (Miss Foster), Nick Mohammed (Mr. Hyde), Patrick Stewart (Adult Merlin), Myra McFadyen (Punto Patty), Genevieve O'Reilly (Sophie). 

 

Joe Cornish’s fairly low-budget debut film, Attack the Block, garnered the type of attention that many first time directors can only dream of. His Spielberg in the 1980s film – about a group of kids from the projects in London fighting off an alien invasion, got the attention of the right people – he was one of screenwriters alongside Edgar Wright of Spielberg’s underrated Tintin movie, and also worked with Wright on Ant-Man, before being replaced. But you couldn’t help but wonder why he was taking him so long to make his own sophomore film as a director – Attack the Block came out in 2011 after all, and usually you want to strike when the iron is hot. So at long last, earlier this year, came his next film – The Kid Who Would Be King - which is funny and charming, and more involving that it really should be, but also kind of disappointing given that Attack the Block felt so fresh. Yes, the film deserved better than it got at the box office – where it was pretty much ignored (even, sad to say, by me) – but those expecting Cornish to do something bigger and better than Attack the Block in his second film have to be somewhat let down that he only accomplished the former of those two things.

 

The film is a modern day take on the legend of King Arthur, and stars Louis Ashbourne Serkis (son of Andy) in an incredibly charming performance as Alex. He is being raised by a single mother, has only one real friend – Bedders (Dean Chaumoo) – and is picked on by bullies at school. His father left a while ago, leaving a gap in his life, and like many children abandoned by a parent, he imagines his absent father had good reasons to do so – and may well be a hero out there. Then, through a series of events too complicated to go into here, Alex finds Excalibur – and therefore becomes the rightful heir to the Arthur legacy. He is shocked to discover however that he will actually have to do something about it when Merlin (Angus Imrie), taking the form of a 16-year-old kid, informs him he needs to build an army to fight against Morgana (Rebecca Ferguson), who is going to return because the world has become so divided.

 

All of this sets into motion an adventure film that may well play like comfort food for those nostalgic for the 1980s and films like The Goonies, but actually want to share it with their own children, which they cannot do with something like Stranger Things. The film is charming, as far it goes, with a good cast of young, diverse actors filling out the roles behind Alex. The action sequences – featuring armies of the undead – are also quite well handled by Cornish and his young cast, with impressive special effects.

 

The film has more than its share of problems however. At just over two hours, the film is far too long and repetitive – you want them to just get on with it a little bit, and get to the good stuff. Poor Rebecca Ferguson – more than capable of playing a campy role like Morgana – doesn’t really have anything to do here, and lacks any real presence as a villain. You also think that Cornish may play with the Arthur stuff a little more than he does – he is basically just drawing parallels and leaving it at that.

 

Still, for kids, The Kid Who Would Be King will more than get the job done – if they aren’t the restless type anyway. It is fun and charming and well-acted, and shows us a world in which kids have to save everything, because the adults just don’t understand what they’ve done. They are essentially saving us adults from ourselves – and isn’t that timely right now. I just wish the whole movie was a just a little bit better. Attack the Block was – and hopefully, his next movie will be as well.

Movie Review: Shazam!

Shazam! *** ½ / *****

Directed by: David F. Sandberg.

Written by: Henry Gayden and Darren Lemke based on the character created by Bill Parker and C.C. Beck.

Starring: Zachary Levi (Shazam), Mark Strong (Dr. Thaddeus Sivana), Jack Dylan Grazer (Freddy Freeman), Asher Angel (Billy Batson), Djimon Hounsou (The Wizard), Adam Brody (Super Hero Freddy), Faithe Herman (Darla Dudley), Meagan Good (Super Hero Darla), Grace Fulton (Mary Bromfield), Michelle Borth (Super Hero Mary), Ian Chen (Eugene Choi), Ross Butler (Super Hero Eugene), Jovan Armand (Pedro), D.J. Cotrona (Super Herp Pedro),Marta Milans (Rosa Vasquez), Cooper Andrews (Victor Vasquez), Ethan Pugiotto (Thad), John Glover (Mr. Sivana), David Kohlsmith (Young Billy), Caroline Palmer (Billy’s Mom).

 

With Woman Wonder, Aquaman and now Shazam, I think it’s clear that DC got the message that their shared universe of comic book films needed to lighten up a bit if they were going to move forward. They took their lead from Nolan’s Batman films – but those films are almost a breed unto themselves, and trying to replicate it on a mass scale was a dismal failure in films like Man of Steel, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad and Justice League. I don’t hate all of those films – but they were definitely too dour, too dark, too morose to make me want to spend 20+ films in that Universe – which I’ve (mostly) gladly done in the Marvel Universe. So DC reset, and tried to lighten up a little bit. Nowhere is that more apparent than in Shazam – which is a big, goofy film about how much fun it would be to be a kid who turns into a superhero on command. In terms of ranking it in the DC Universe, it’s no Wonder Woman – but it’s a lot better than the rest.

 

In the film, Billy Batson is a 14-year-old foster kid – who got separated from his mother at the fair one day, and never found her again, although he’s never stopped looking. He has just been moved to his latest foster home – run by the loving Rosa and Victor (Martha Milans and Cooper Andrews) – who are already raising four foster kids – the college bound Mary, the largely silent Pedro, gamer Eugene, adorable Darla, and the superhero obsessed Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer). Billy doesn’t much want to be there – but for now he has no choice, and once he is transported to a strange world, given strange powers by a Wizard (Djimon Hounsou) and transported back again, he finds Freddy’s knowledge of all this stuff to be quite helpful.

 

Because now, Billy can transform himself into a superman like person simply by saying the word Shazam. When he does this, he is now played by Zachary Levi – who was the right choice to play this role, which is essentially a child trapped in a superhero’s body. Of course there is a bad guy – Dr. Sivana (Mark Strong) – who as a child was deemed unworthy by the Wizard of having those powers, but has spent his life trying to get back there in order to get the dark side of these powers. And of course, the two will eventually square off – but not before Billy learns some valuable life lessons about home and family, etc.

 

Like many origin stories, Shazam has to do a lot of heavy lifting in terms of establishing powers and character relationships, etc. instead of just focusing on its story. While it would be true to point out that we’ve seen things like the montage of Levi trying to figure out what powers he has before, it would also be true to point out that here, it’s more fun than most of the time, as it really doesn’t feel like a big, dumb goofy kid playing around. While the movie does establish that there will eventually be a conflict between Shivana and Shazam – I wish it felt somewhat more organic. Basically, it just kind of feels like Shivana sits around and waits until the movie is ready for him to confront Shazam, so we can get to the climax.

 

I had some other problems as well. While this is certainly the lightest movie DC has made to date, I wish it were even lighter. There is a truly violent and scary scene when Shivana storms in to confront his father in a board meeting – and unleashes his beasts based on the seven deadly sins (which by the way, seems like a missed opportunity, because they are look like the same black, smoky blobs to me) – and it ends with heads being bitten off, and more violence they you’d expect. If ever there was a superhero custom made to be kid friendly, this is it, but I guess when you hire the director of horror films Lights Out and Annabelle: Creation, you should expect some more horror movie type violence. Still, it feels like a missed opportunity to open the audience up to more people – and given that the violence and scares don’t really add much to the film, it’s a disappointing decision.

 

Still, Shazam is mainly a fun film from beginning to end, and it’s nice to see DC lighten up a bit – even if I think it would better to lighten up even more. This is a goofy superhero film – and I mean that as a compliment.

Movie Review: Dumbo

Dumbo ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Tim Burton.

Written by: Ehren Kruger based on the novel by Helen Aberson and Harold Pearl.

Starring: Colin Farrell (Holt Farrier), Michael Keaton (V. A. Vandevere), Danny DeVito (Max Medici), Eva Green (Colette Marchant), Nico Parker (Milly Farrier), Finley Hobbins (Joe Farrier), Alan Arkin (J. Griffin Remington), Joseph Gatt (Neils Skellig), Deobia Oparei (Rongo), Sandy Martin (Verna The Secretary), Sharon Rooney (Miss Atlantis), Lars Eidinger (Hans Brugelbecker), Roshan Seth (Pramesh Singh), Michael Buffer (Baritone Bates), Sarah Bennani (Lindsay), Douglas Reith (Sotheby).

 

The most interesting thing about Tim Burton’s Dumbo is that the director has seemingly made a Disney film about how evil Disney is. That’s a choice to be sure, and just about the only thing in Dumbo that is really of interest. This film is almost exactly twice as long as the 1941 animated original from Disney, and makes the strange choice to essentially shunt the animal characters to the background in favor of an expanded human story that never really clicks. There is, as is always the case with Burton, some great Production Design and Costume Design, but little else that really brings the film to life. You can still tell its Burton there directing this – but like most of what he’s done in recent years, it feels hollow compared to his best work.

 

The story is set just after WWI, when Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell, doing an interesting accent) returns from the war, minus an arm, and returns to the circus where he is a stunt horse rider. His two kids – Milly and Joe (Nico Parker, quite good, although given not much to do and Finley Hobbins, who I have already forgotten) are there to greet to him, but his wife died while he was away. The ringleader, Max Medici (Danny DeVito – the best performance in the film) sold off his horses while he was away to try and stay solvent, so now Holt is put in charge of the elephants – including Mrs. Jumbo, who is very, very pregnant. Soon little Dumbo will come out, with his huge ears, that get him mocked and laughed at by everyone. That is, until Milly and Joe figure out that Dumbo can fly using those ears. The tragedy of the film is when Dumbo and his mother are separated (we all remember the hug through the bars in the original – redone here, with nowhere near the impact) – and his desire to be with her again. But before we get there, we have to go to Coney Island – where conman V.A. Vandevere (Michael Keaton) shows up – to buy Medici’s circus, to get his hands on that famous flying elephant and bring him to Dreamland – which is essentially Disneyland – to be his latest attraction. This excursion to Dreamland at least allows the Production Designer to have a field day, and gives us Eva Green – who once again is one of the best things about a not very good Tim Burton movie (I want Burton to make a great film again for a few reasons – one of them is to give Green a role her talent actually deserves).

 

The special effects in Dumbo are pretty good – without ever quite being great. Dumbo, the character, looks best when he is doing the least. They have clearly styled him to look like many a Burton outcast before him (I was shocked to discover the performance of Dumbo was not done by Johnny Depp doing motion capture) – and he is adorable, and you immediately like him. Yet, I’m not sure they ever quite nail the flying elephant thing – he doesn’t quite soar the way he should, and the flying scenes are more awkward than anything else.

 

Also, while I get why Burton and company decided to tell a human story here – and not have the animals speak – it kind of overcomplicates the story in a way that it doesn’t need to be overcomplicated. Afterall, at its heart, Dumbo is the story of a kid who misses his mom – and if done right, that story will work every time. Here, there are so many characters you don’t care about – some many talented actor, doing not such great work – the biggest disappointment being Keaton, reuniting with Burton for the first time in decades, and just kind of phoning it in – that the simple story that has continued to make children and their parents cry for nearly 80 years now gets lost somewhere in the mix.

Movie Review: The Changeover

The Changeover *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Miranda Harcourt & Stuart McKenzie.

Written by: Stuart McKenzie based on the novel by Margaret Mahy.

Starring: Timothy Spall (Carmody Braque), Melanie Lynskey (Kate Chant), Lucy Lawless (Miryam Carlisle), Nicholas Galitzine (Sorensen Carlisle), Erana James (Laura Chant), Kate Harcourt (Winter Carlisle), Benji Purchase (Jacko Chant), Ella Edward (Nicky Green), Thomasin McKenzie (Rose Keaton).

 

The Changeover is an interesting genre film that feels perhaps like it missed its moment – had it come out at the height of the Twilight phenomenon, it would have made for a very interesting companion piece and corrective to those films. It is based on a book, which is a few decades too old to be classified as Young Adult, but that’s precisely what it is. The film is a coming of age story about a young woman, and yes, there is a supernatural, otherworldly hot guy in her class – and she is drawn to him – but ultimately, the teenage heroine of the movie has to do things for herself. It is about her coming to harness her own power – and really trust in herself. It’s certainly a better movie than any of the Twilight films – and nowhere near as many people will ever see it.

 

This is a fairly low-budget, New Zealand project – which won’t help it win any viewers – but also doesn’t hurt the movie at all. There are supernatural elements to the film, but not the kind that require any sort of special effects budget – and the cinematography and sound design do a lot of the heavy lifting here in establishing mood. This is a quiet film in many ways, and one that is more unnerving than anything else.

 

The story is about Laura (Erana James), a teenage girl being raised by a single mom (Melanie Lynskey) – who has to spend much of her free kind watching her little brother Jacko (Benji Purchase). The story is about how Laura needs to save Jacko from Carmody Braque (Timothy Spall) – who, well, he’s something. When you first meet him, you aren’t quite sure what kind of creep he is – or even if he is a creep. Laura certainly doesn’t trust him, but she isn’t sure she can trust her own instincts (something she will have to learn to do). But there is something supernatural about him – and she senses that, because there’s something supernatural about her as well – as we can tell when she is drawn to Sorensen Carlisle (Nicholas Galitzine) – that hot, but somewhat creepy guy, from high school. He comes from a family – his mother (Lucy Lawless) and grandmother (Kate Harcourt) – who will become important later, as they help Laura get in touch with whatever it is inside of herself that she can tap into to save Jacko.

 

I don’t really want to spoil the exact nature of the powers anyone in the film has – it’s kind of fun to see Laura come to grips with what she is, and then figure out what she can do. It’s even more refreshing that this is a film that can tap into those powers without the film devolving into more CGI soup – that most genre films end up as. The film is part romance, part horror, part fantasy – but it’s low-key in all three. The romance part is the least convincing – it’s hard to argue that the strictures of YA novels requiring a love interest hurt the film, since the book it is based on came out before YA novels were a thing, but that is what it feels like. There is never any real believable connection between Laura and Sorensen – and filmmakers Miranda Harcourt and Stuart McKenzie don’t really seem all that interested in developing that any further anyway.

 

But otherwise, The Changeover is an effective little film. It’s the type of film I wish more teenage girls would see instead of junk like Twilight – or whatever it is now – as it is really about Laura learning to trust herself, trust her inner voice, trust in her own powers – and that is far more of a powerful, and empowering message, than anything those other films have to say.

Movie Review: Border

Border *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Ali Abbasi.

Written by: Ali Abbasi & Isabella Eklof & John Ajvide Lindqvist based on the short story by Lindqvist.

Starring: Eva Melander (Tina), Ero Milonoff (Vore), Jorgen Thorsson (Roland), Ann Petren (Agneta), Sten Ljunggren (Tina’s Father).

 

A warning before I start the review proper of Ali Abbasi’s Border – this is a very strange film, and one that will probably work best if you go into it completely cold. It works much better in the early scenes of the film, when you’re trying to figure out what the hell is going on, then it does later in the movie, when it explains everything. Quite frankly, the explanation of what is happening and why is ridiculous – but then again, it’s probably just about the only thing that could explain what leads up to it. It is an extremely odd film – and for that I admire it, despite my misgivings about where it seemingly ends up – which seem to be growing the more I think about the film. Okay, so you’ve been warned – and while I’ll try and stay away from spoilers, it’s hard to tell what exactly is a spoiler, and what isn’t in Border.

 

Anyway, the film stars Eva Melander as Tina – a woman who works as a border agent in Sweden, who has an uncanny ability to sniff out – literally – when people are hiding something. This isn’t just stuff like drugs – she isn’t a drug sniffing dog – but she can tell their emotional state, and when therefore, when they’re hiding just about anything. Her co-workers may admire her ability, but they’re still off put by her – the constant sniffing, her brusque manner, and quite frankly her looks. While she is clearly all there mentally – she looks, well, different, from everyone else. She doesn’t have much of a social life either – she lives with a man who raises dogs, but they are not romantic in any way. There are a few other, slightly more reserved friendships (that seem to be there basically for plot) – and an aging father in a retirement home, whose memory is fading. Then one day at her job she meets Vore (Ero Milonoff) – and can tell he is hiding something, although they cannot find it on him – even after going through, well, everything. He flirts with her – and, well, it’s clear that whatever Tina has that effects the way she looks, Vore has the same thing. It isn’t long before he has moved into her guest house, on her remote forest property – much to Roland’s chagrin. Her abilities also attract the attention of the police, who want her help to track down a child pornography ring.

 

Most of what happens aside from the relationship between Tina and Vore is a distraction though – and not really necessary ones. It’s clear from their first interaction that there is something between them – that the pair are drawn to each other. Tina senses, not incorrectly, that Vore knows things that she doesn’t – and she wants to find out what those things are. Whereas Tina is painfully shy and awkward, and takes every sideways glance, or half overheard comment to heart – Vore doesn’t seem to notice, or care, what people around him think.

 

The opening scenes in Border are the best – when director Ali Abbasi is detailing Tina’s regular life, and she and Vore are (almost literally) sniffing each other out. The makeup work done to the two lead actors is impressive – the type of work that gets a small foreign film like this an Oscar nomination for Best Makeup (Sweden also submitted the film – which won the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes for Best Foreign Language Film – good luck with that one!). As the film moves along, it becomes both more of a fairytale of sorts, and a police procedural. You may very well wonder why Abbasi has decided to tell two entirely separate plots in the movie – but he has a point, and unfortunately, it’s more conventional than I would prefer.

 

Yet Border is such a strange film, and offers so much that is unconventional, that perhaps the more conventional ending and storytelling in the third act is too be expected. There is an even more daring, less conventional film, lurking somewhere in Border than this is – and that’s the film I would have loved to see. But perhaps, that would all just be too weird.

Movie Review: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald ** ½ / *****

Directed by: David Yates.

Written by: J.K. Rowling.

Starring: Eddie Redmayne (Newt Scamander), Katherine Waterston (Tina Goldstein), Dan Fogler (Jacob Kowalski), Alison Sudol (Queenie Goldstein), Ezra Miller (Credence Barebone), Jude Law (Albus Dumbledore), Johnny Depp (Gellert Grindelwald), Zoë Kravitz (Leta Lestrange), Carmen Ejogo (Seraphina Picquery), Claudia Kim (Nagini), Callum Turner (Theseus Scamander), Victoria Yeates (Bunty), Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (Skender), Kevin Guthrie (Abernathy), William Nadylam (Yusuf Kama), Joshua Shea (Young Newt Scamander). 

 

One of the reasons why the Harry Potter movies got better over time is that as the series progressed, the books they were based on got longer, and various screenwriters and directors had to edit them down to their essentials. Yes, you miss some of the side plots and details the books provided, but once the books got too big to recreate faithfully in their entirety onscreen (which started in the third installment – also when original director Christopher Columbus stepped away), the storytelling became leaner – and better. This wasn’t exactly the case with the original Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) – although that felt spent so much time world building (and creature building), that the plot almost felt second hand anyway. The job of the first film then was to establish this world, our main character Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), the shy, awkward, stuttering lover of all creatures, before the rest of the series (apparently, there will be five in total) can really start telling the huge story it apparently wants to tell.

 

Perhaps that’s why Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald feels so bloated, and can only occasionally capture the magic that the Potter series at its best could muster. There are so many characters in this film and so many subplots, that just trying to keep up with the exposition takes up most of its runtime, leaving precious room for anything else. There are a few moments where that magic does kick in – and you feel those same feelings that the Potter series can muster, but two films and over 4 hours of runtime into this series, it kind of feels like when you start watching a Netflix show your friend has told you “gets really good around the 6^th episode, you just have to power through until then” – except this time, you’re just taking it on faith that the good stuff will actually get here at some point.

 

The basic plot of this film is that Grindelwald (Johnny Depp, doing a more muted version of his usual shtick), who was arrested at the end of the last film, escapes at the beginning of this one, during a nighttime transfer where they were supposed to be taking him from America to England (speaking as someone who watched all 11 Michael Myers Halloween movies last month – stop transferring prisoners! They always escape!). This escape sequence is perhaps the best in the movie – and the one filled with the most visual imagination (probably also because it’s the lone time in the movie that we go longer than 30 seconds with someone having to explain something to someone else). The newly freed evil wizard’s plan is to unite all the Pureblood wizards, and lead a revolt against the Muggles of the world, so that wizards can take their proper place in charge. The only wizard powerful enough to go up against Grindelwald is, of course, Albus Dumbledore (played here by Jude Law) – but he keeps insisting that he “can’t” – and we get hints in brief flashbacks to his teenage years when Dumbledore and Grindelwald were “closer then brothers” (why this series seems to pussyfoot around just coming out and saying Dumbledore is gay, and Grindelwald was his lover, I have no idea – since JK Rowling herself said he was gay a decade ago, and yet in the books/movies themselves, they don’t do anything accept have him exchange meaningful looks, and look off into the distance like he’s Heath Ledger hugging Jake Gyllenhaal’s shirt at the end of Brokeback Mountain). So, of course, he enlists Newt Scamander into the mission – which isn’t to fight Grindelwald exactly, but to find Credence Barebone (Ezra Miller), the angry, powerful young wizard obsessed with finding his true identity and harness his power, who is key to Grindelwald’s plan.

 

That, of course, should be enough plot for this movie – but it barely scratches the surface. The movie also brings back Newt’s lover interest, Tina (Katherine Waterson, who is far better in the film than her role should allow), who is also on Credence’s trail. And Newt’s brother, Theseus (Callum Turner), who works for the Ministry of Magic, and is engaged to Leta Lestrange (Zoë Kravitz), who Newt was once in love with. And Tina’s delightfully ditzy sister Queenie (Alison Sudol), and her muggle boyfriend Jacob (Dan Fogler). And Credence’s new friend, Nagini (Claudia Kim) – who we know will become Voldemort’s Snake. And that still leave a few more subplots, and other characters – and a couple of side trips to Hogwarts for good measure – out of what happens in the film.

 

What happened, I think, is that somewhere along the way J.K. Rowling has fallen in so love with the dense mythology she has created for her world to exist in – and she wants to put it all on screen. To be fair, it is a good mythology, and there’s lots of interesting things to dig into. And yet, with the original series, you had screenwriters like Steve Kloves around to take all that mythology, and trim it away – so it’s there in the background, and lets the actual story play out in the foreground. Here, it’s almost as if the background is all there is.

 

Do I have hopes for this series still? Sure. There are still elements I quite like – the original creatures are more often than not delightful, I like Redmayne has the shy, quiet center of the film, and I like some of the supporting characters as well. Even Johnny Depp didn’t bother me as much here as he has in some of his more recent work, because he’s dialed back the strangeness to a more acceptable level. And maybe, now that the filmmakers and Rowling have spent so long setting everything up, they can finally get down to giving us what we actually want out of these movies

Movie Review: The Nutcracker and the Four Realms

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Lasse Hallström and Joe Johnston.

Written by: Ashleigh Powell suggest by the short story by E.T.A. Hoffmann and the ballet by Marius Petipa.

Starring: Mackenzie Foy (Clara), Keira Knightley (Sugar Plum), Matthew Macfadyen (Mr. Stahlbaum), Jayden Fowora-Knight (Phillip), Tom Sweet (Fritz), Ellie Bamber (Louise), Morgan Freeman (Drosselmeyer), Helen Mirren (Mother Ginger), Eugenio Derbez (Hawthorne), Richard E. Grant (Shiver), Misty Copeland (Ballerina Princess), Anna Madeley (Marie Stahlbaum).

 

When you take on a story like The Nutcracker – which has been told countless times before – you have to try and figure out what, if anything, different you can do with the story. If you’re just going to retell the same story again, than what is the point of doing it at all? Disney’s The Nutcracker and the Four Realms attempts to take the original story, and do something different with it – you have to give it that – but ultimately what it concocts it a pretty, hollow shell of a movie. It wants to be classical in its story, but also add the glossy, CGI sheen that Tim Burton has brought to movies like Alice in Wonderland, but the result doesn’t really work. There are good elements here to be sure – the costuming is mostly great and Keira Knightley is a blast as Sugar Plum Fairy, but the film never settles on what it wants to be. It is too complicated for its own good, and yet all that complication adds nothing to the depth of the film. It isn’t surprising that the film is credited to two different directors – who didn’t work on the film at the same time (the original director Lasse Hallstrom, wasn’t available for reshoots, so Joe Johnston stepped in) as the film doesn’t feel like anyone involved really had a vision of what the finished product should be.

 

The movie keeps the old time setting of The Nutcracker, and continues to focus on a little girl named Clara (Mackenzie Foy, who is quite good here). It’s Christmas, but she is sad because of the recent death of her mother. Yet, her father (Matthew Macfadyen) still insists on going to the lavish Christmas party being thrown by Clara’s godfather, Drosselmeyer (Morgan Freeman). It’s while there, that Clara is led into a magical land – that reminded me a little or Narnia – a world she discovers her mother was the Queen of. It has been split into four Realms – one for flowers, one for snowflakes, one for candy and one for amusements. It’s this last land which is the problem – led by Mother Ginger (Helen Mirren), it is in open revolt, at war with the rest of the Realms. Clara’s guide to this is Phillip (Jayden Fowora-Knight) – the Nutcracker, I guess. The story involves a complicated quest to get a key – one that will open the last Christmas gift her mother left Clara, but will also help the other Realms protect themselves from Mother Ginger. Oh, were it only that simple.

 

There is a lot of CGI in the film – the Mouse King here is literally a giant mouse made of thousands of little mice working together for example, and there are some amusing clowns in the world of Amusements, that act as Russian nesting dolls in their acts. And life sized toy soldiers come to life. They always feel like CGI though – that same high gloss, high sheen CGI looks that screams fake. The costumes look great though – you have to give the film that.

 

And you also have to acknowledge the greatness of what Keira Knightley does here as Sugar Plum Fairy. She has a high pitched, squeaky innocent voice, a wicked smile and laugh, and she’s clearly having the time of her life playing this role. And it is a great performance – in the first half, and after the twist in the second half, it gets even better (even if the transition to each half doesn’t make much sense).  This is one of those performances that almost makes the movie worth watching by itself. Almost.

 

Perhaps, I am being too hard of the film. It is made for children after all – and my two girls (seven and four) both quite liked the film (I was worried the four-year-old was too young – and she may have been a touch, but not much – no trauma has been done). There is a tribute to the ballet roots of the story in the film – and over the end credits – and that works better than the rest of the movie. So, for them, the movie worked. But it’s not really all that good either. It’s more the type of film you throw on Netflix during Christmas to distract the kids as you get the thousand things done that you need to during the season, than something you’ll actually enjoy.

Movie Review: How to Talk to Girls at Parties

How to Talk to Girls at Parties ** ½ / *****

Directed by: John Cameron Mitchell.

Written by: Philippa Goslett & John Cameron Mitchell based on the short story by Neil Gaiman.

Starring: Elle Fanning (Zan), Alex Sharp (Enn), Nicole Kidman (Queen Boadicea), Ruth Wilson (PT Stella), Matt Lucas (PT Wain), Alice Sanders (Spinning Jenny), Abraham Lewis (Vic), Joanna Scanlan (Marion, Enn’s mother), Elarica Johnson (Dark Stella), Jessica Plummer (Celia), Natalie Lauren (Rhonda), Rory Nolan (Young Enn).

 

I don’t know why there seem to be increasingly long gaps in the directing career of John Cameron Mitchell – but I’m not too happy about it. His directorial debut, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, was pure punk rock energy – and was also quite moving. His second film is my favorite of his work – the sexually explicit and sexually adventurous Shortbus – perhaps the only movie that used real sex and didn’t feel cheap or exploitive – because ultimately it was more about pleasure, and the goofiness of sex, than anything else. When he did a stage adaptation of Rabbit Hole – with a great Nicole Kidman performance – he showed a sure hand at straight drama – and delivered a devastating movie, that I have no idea why more people didn’t see. That was eight years ago now though, and we’re only finally getting his fourth film – How to Talk to Girls at Parties. It has all the energy you would want from a John Cameron Mitchell film – but not a whole lot else. That energy goes a long way however, as do the performances. I don’t think the whole thing ultimately adds up to anything – but it’s hard to hate it.

 

It’s the early 1980s in Croydon, England – and the film centers of Enn (Alex Sharp) and his two friends – who are teenage, British punks – the affable and goofy kind, not the kind who would do anything scary or mean. They are more mocked than anything by the other local punks – but even then, it’s mainly in a friendly way. After a show, they stumble around looking for the after party – and that is how they find a house full of strange creatures that they assume are punks of a different sort. They are not. Instead, they are aliens – here for tourism purposes (I think, it’s kind of unclear) for a short period of time before travelling back to where they came from. In order to survive, they must eat their young (again, don’t ask). It’s here Enn meets Zan (Elle Fanning) – who wants to rebel against her Parent Teachers as she calls them – and gets 48 hours to hang out with Enn and learn “all about the punk”.

 

The movie lucked out in getting Fanning to play Zan. Fanning is one of the best young actresses out there – she has been building up quite a resume in the past decade (Somewhere, Super 8, Ginger & Rosa, The Neon Demon, 20th Century Women, The Beguiled) – and she’s only 20. The role of Zan is a dangerous one – it risks being so blank that the fact Enn falls in love with her could be seen as misogyny – that he loves her because she’s stupid. But Fanning makes Zan lovable and sweet – she’s not blank in a dumb way, but a curious one. Hers is the best performance in the movie – although she gets good assists from Nicole Kidman, as the local punk queen, going gloriously over the top, and Ruth Wilson, as a the leader of the so called Stellas – part of the aliens who have some interesting sexual practices. Alex Sharp is kind of like a lost puppy dog as Enn – so you’ll either fall for him, or find him incredibly annoying.

 

The film movies along with buoyant energy for its first two thirds – including a wonderfully weird song that Zan and Enn sing in the punk club that I won’t soon forget – and is definitely staged for people who liked the more outlandish musical moments of Hedwig, the movie. You keep wondering though just what exactly the movie is building to – what precisely it has to say about anything. Ultimately, it is a story about literature star crossed lovers, but does it have any real insight into them? Into anything?

 

Sadly, the answer to that seems to be no. How to Talk to Girls at Parties is fun and entertaining in fits in starts – but it doesn’t really go anywhere, or do anything. I’m sure it will become a cult hit in some circles – it’s based on a Neil Gaiman short story after all, and Mitchell has his own cult following. But when it ended, I was wondering what the point of it all was. It’s a movie full of energy – and not much else.

Movie Review: I Kill Giants

I Kill Giants ** / *****

Directed by: Anders Walter.

Written by: Joe Kelly based on the action graphic novel by Kelly and J.M. Ken Niimura.

Starring: Madison Wolfe (Barbara Thorson), Imogen Poots (Karen Thorson), Sydney Wade (Sophia), Rory Jackson (Taylor), Zoe Saldana (Mrs. Mollé), Noel Clarke (Mr. Mollé), Jennifer Ehle (Mrs. Thorson), Ciara O'Callaghan (Theresa Tuzzo).

 

Watching I Kill Giants is a frustrating experience, mainly because as audience members, we’re ahead of the movie almost every step along the way, and it’s gets boring to wait for the movie to play catch-up. This is a movie that all but tells the audience outright that it isn’t telling you everything you need to know about it at the beginning, so that it can spring that on you at an opportune moment to try and draw tears from you. It doesn’t work. As the movie progresses you also get the feeling that what it’s really depicting is a fairly serious mental illness that the film is unwilling or unable to address head on. There are things to like about the movie to be sure – but they don’t make it any less frustrating.

 

The pre-teen heroine of the movie is Barbara Thorson (Madison Wolfe) who wears bunny ears wherever she goes, and spends her time stalking about in the woods and the beach near her home, setting traps and bait out in order to capture giants. She is the protector of her town from these giants – or so she says – and has a powerful Warhammer in her pocketbook in which to slay them. No one at school likes her – they think (not without reason) that she’s weird – which has made her the target of a nasty bully Taylor (Rory Jackson). At home, her brother is a loud, obnoxious teenager who spends his time on videogames, and her sisters Karen (Imogen Poots) tries to hold everything together, while holding down a job as well. She isn’t doing well either. Barbara makes one friend early in the film – Sophia (Sydney Wade), a recent transplant from Leeds, England – who knows no one else. The school psychiatrist, Mrs. Molle (Zoe Saldana) wants to help Barbara – who treats her, as she treats everyone else, with utter contempt.

 

Spoiler Warning Ahead for the Next Paragraph

 

It doesn’t come as much of a surprise when late in the film, it is revealed that the giants Barbara sees is much like the monster seen in the recent film A Monster Calls – which is a manifestation of the boys fears about his cancer stricken mother dying. I didn’t particularly love that film either – but I think it handled the melding of the fantasy and realistic elements together far better – mainly because it doesn’t really try to hide that fact from the audience, and because everything the boy actually does – in the real world – makes some degree of sense. As I Kill Giants progresses, Barbara does more and more outlandish things – becomes more and more unreasonable – or delusional if you will – and pushes herself well beyond the point that makes any sort of sense. In both films, children are using elements they better understand to come to grips with the enormity of death – but in I Kill Giants, the girl is literally fighting “giants” during a hurricane.

 

There are elements of the movie that deserve praise. For a small budget movie, director Anders Walter does a very good job with the special effects. Yes, they giants are often seen at a distance, through fog, behind trees, etc. – but that’s just smart moviemaking, and it’s effective in the way it builds tension. Young Madison Wolfe really delivers a deeply committed performance as Barbara – it is a slightly scary performance of a disturbed young woman. Sydney Wade is quite charming as her concerned friend as well.

 

Still, for the most part I found I Kill Giants frustrating. We know the secrets the movie is hiding, and I always get annoyed when a movie basically pokes you for 90 minutes telling you it has a secret it isn’t going to tell you until they want to. A good twist comes out of nowhere, and makes complete sense. When you telegraph a twist from the start, it’s almost impossible for it to have the same impact. In the case of a film like I Kill Giants, which deals with such dark, complex and serious issues, the whole thing feels kind of cheap and manipulative.

Movie Review: A Wrinkle in Time

A Wrinkle in Time *** / *****

Directed by: Ava DuVernay.

Written by: Jennifer Lee based on the novel by Madeleine L'Engle.

Starring: Storm Reid (Meg Murry), Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Dr. Kate Murry), Chris Pine (Dr. Alex Murry), Reese Witherspoon (Mrs. Whatsit), Oprah Winfrey (Mrs. Which), Mindy Kaling (Mrs. Who), Levi Miller (Calvin), Deric McCabe (Charles Wallace), Michael Peña (Red), Zach Galifianakis (The Happy Medium), Rowan Blanchard (Veronica), André Holland (Principal Jenkins).

 

It would be easy to nitpick Ava DuVernay’s film version of A Wrinkle in Time to death. The film is deeply flawed in ways that are immediately apparent when you watch it, and grow in your mind as you look back over it. A decade ago, I probably would have cynically written off the film as overly earnest and cheesy – and a decade from now, I may well do the same thing. But at this moment, I had the perfect way of viewing DuVernay’s A Wrinkle in Time – and that is through the eyes of my almost seven year old daughter, who sat next to me throughout the film, at times astonished by what she was watching, and at other times deeply relating to what was up there. It’s not enough for me to think that A Wrinkle in Time is a great movie – hell, it may not even be a very good movie. But watching her watch the film, and then talking about it after made me grateful that such a film exists.

 

The film stars newcomer Storm Reid as Meg Murry, an unpopular girl, somewhere in the 12-13 year old age range, who is still reeling from the disappearance of her physicist father Alex (Chris Pine) four years earlier. Along with her mother, the two had developed a theory about the ability to travel through space and time – using only your mind. And then, he vanished (gee, I wonder what happened?). One day, Meg meets three interesting women – Mrs. Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon), who is cheerful and a little ditzy, in a lovable Glinda the Good Witch kind of way, Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling), who is very wise, but speaks almost entirely in quotes by geniuses, and Mrs. Which (Oprah Winfrey), who is basically Oprah spewing her brand of inspirational positivity. Along with her genius little brother Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe) and the boy she has a school girl crush on, Calvin (Levi Miller), she embarks on her own journey across space and time to find her father – going from one amazing planet to the next, meeting one amazing character after another.

 

Some of this works better than others. The special effects in the movie are hit and miss – I have a hard time believing it was a budgetary issue, since this is a Disney film – yet I think we can all agree that a sequence involving a character turning into a giant, floating lettuce leaf doesn’t really work. There are lots of special effects sequences that do however – especially when the movie finally reaches its last stop in the rescue mission. DuVernay relies perhaps too heavily on close-ups throughout the film – it can became distracting at times. The characters are mostly thinly written, and the talented cast isn’t always able to overcome that. Witherspoon mainly does – in part because it seems like Mrs. Whatsit is a role tailor made for her skillset, so she is mostly a delight. Poor Kaling cannot do much with a character than has to end every sentence with the name of a famous writer, and the country they are from. I’d be tempted to write off Winfrey as stunt casting – except because of the nature of what Mrs. Which says, I’m not sure anyone could make the role work better than Oprah does.

 

Besides, the movie stays grounded because of a really good performance by young Reid. It is a difficult role for her to play, one that requires elements of the fantastical, and yet grounded in real life insecurities and anxieties of little girls everywhere. I think this is what my daughter related to more than anything. She’s a sweet kid (and before you think I’m just looking at her through rose colored, parents glasses, let me say that my other daughter, who is 4, is a holy terror, who my wife and I joke we will one day have to visit in prison) who nervously applied to, and had to write an essay to get onto her school’s “Kindness Crew”. This film’s wholly, unironic embrace of kindness and goodness, as well as embracing every part of you – even your flaws – is something we don’t see very often – and we never see directed towards little girls (rarer still, to see it directed at African American girls – but I digress). This is a rare film that was made specifically for her. The elements that make it cheesy or easily laughed off by more cynical people, are exactly why she embraced it.

 

This doesn’t excuse the movie for its storytelling faults, or other mistakes along the way, but it goes a long way to mitigating them for me. When I looked around the movie – in the background – I also saw a world that DuVernay has created that perhaps is as fantastical as the other planets – an idealized vision of our world – perhaps the one created by Warriors like the film described. Yes, I can be cynical – but I find it impossible to be so with this film, which I got to see through the eyes of my daughter who saw something greater than herself up there on that screen – and wanted to be a part of it.