Movie Review: Orphan

Orphan ***
Directed By: Jaume Collet-Serra.

Written By: David Johnson.

Starring: Vera Farmiga (Kate Coleman), Peter Sarsgaard (John Coleman), Isabelle Fuhrman (Esther), CCH Pounder (Sister Abigail), Jimmy Bennett (Daniel Coleman), Margo Martindale (Dr. Browning), Karel Roden (Dr. Värava), Aryana Engineer (Max Coleman).

I cannot remember the last movie child that was as creepy as Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman) is in Orphan. Not even the title character in Joshua, the best creepy child movie of the decade, is as downright scary as Esther. (In Joshua’s defense at least a part of this is because that film was more ambigious about just how evil Joshua was, if at all). Even in her first scene in the film, where she is all innocence and light, there seems to be something missing in Esther that the rest of us have.

Esther is the film’s most complex and fascinating character, but she is hardly the only interesting one. Kate (Vera Farmiga) is a woman who probably should not have been allowed to adopt Esther in the first place. She is a recovering alcoholic with less than a year sober, still reeling for the death of one of her daughters at birth, and an accident that almost killed another of her kids. But she and her husband John (Peter Sarsgaard) have lots of money, so that probably helped to smooth the way.

So when Kate and John bring Esther home, they think that she will complete their family. And for a while things seem to go well, but soon Kate starts to think that there is some wrong with Esther. When she is around John, she is sweet and innocent, but when John is not around; Esther can be less than perfect. There is nothing that Kate can pin on her, but just always seems to be around when bad things happen. Farmiga, who essentially played this same role in Joshua, does a fine job here again. As always, Sarsgaard brings a degree of complexity that often seems to be missing in roles like his.

But it is Fuhrman who is really outstanding. Many child actors overdo a role like this, but Fuhrman perfectly captures her psychopath of a character. She is very convincing, both when she lies, and when she lets her mask down and allows us to see the real person underneath. She is great in the film - one of the best child actors I have seen in years.

The movie that surrounds these performances is predictable and a little sloppy near the end, where it devolves into a series of frantic chases and fights scenes, and of course the killer who keeps coming back to life long past the point when a normal person would have died. But director Jaume Collet-Serra is talented, and the visual look of the film is dark, but visually alive. The scenes involving the black light in particular are wonderful.

Orphan is a film with so many good things in it, that I am willing to overlook some of the things that do no work. I wish the writers had found a better way to end the film, instead of recycling one cliché after another. But since the clichés are so well executed, I hardly care. Orphan is an uncommonly good American horror film.

Movie Review: Funny People

Funny People *** ½
Directed by: Judd Apatow.
Written By: Judd Apatow.
Starring: Adam Sandler (George Simmons), Seth Rogen (Ira Wright), Leslie Mann (Laura), Eric Bana (Clarke), Jonah Hill (Leo Koenig), Jason Schwartzman (Mark Taylor Jackson), Aubrey Plaza (Daisy), Maude Apatow (Mable), Iris Apatow (Ingrid), RZA (Chuck), Torsten Voges (Dr. Lars).

Many comedians are very sad, empty people. They laugh to keep themselves from crying - or killing themselves. Hollywood has a long history of disturbed funny men - Fatty Arbuckle, John Belusi and Chris Farley to name but a few that ended tragically - but many of them have lead troubled lives. Judd Apatow’s Funny People is a movie that addresses this issue head on. George Simmons (Adam Sandler) is a famous comic actor and stand up comedian, who lonely, and has been ever since he blew it with the girl of his dreams, Laura (Leslie Mann), a decade before. He fills the void with meaningless sex with random girls who want to sleep with a famous person. When he is diagnosed with a rare, and usually fatal, form of cancer, he discovers that he has no one to turn to for support. Abandoning his movie career, he decides to go back to doing stand up for a while. But he is too depressed to write anything funny. While at a club one night he sees Ira Wright (Seth Rogen) perform, and likes him. Ira is struggling to make ends meet. He lives on the couch of his friends Mark (Jason Schwartzman), who is the star of a terrible sitcom called “Yo, Teach!” and Leo (Jonah Hill), who also does stand up but is getting more notice than Ira. Ira still has to work part time at a deli. George decides to hire Ira - to write jokes for him, and become his personal assistant. Ira is the only person that George tells about his illness.

If you’ve made it this far into the review, you’ve probably figured out that Funny People is not quite the typical Hollywood comedy. Like the first two films in his career, The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, Funny People mixes in a dose to drama with the comedy. And Funny People is in fact very funny. I laughed throughout the movie. Sandler, Rogen, Mann, Hill and Schwartzman are all wonderful comedic actors, who are capable of delivering one liners with the best of them, as well doing more character based comedy. When you add a supporting cast including Eric Bana, showing off some unexpected comedic flair and newcomer Aubrey Plaza, who is hilarious in a deadpan way, and you’ve got a huge cast capable of making you laugh at will.

But aside from the comedy - which is crude and hilarious (seriously, I believe I heard the word cock more in this movie than in any other film I have ever seen) - I do think that Funny People is perhaps Apatow’s most mature film. Unlike the other two films - where essentially the love of a good woman was enough to save two seemingly hopeless cases of arrested development - Funny People realizes that sometimes that is not enough. One of the most daring choices in the movie is to make Simmons an asshole. What’s more, he stays an asshole for the entire running time of the movie. Sandler makes him likable, because we like Sandler, but Simmons really is not that nice of a person. It is a wonderful performance by Sandler, who does not try to soften him at all and also because Sandler is not afraid of poking fun at himself. The movies that Simmons has made up to the point of his career he finds himself in, all resemble the earlier films of Sandler, and are mocked mercilessly. But Sandler, as he showed in Punch-Drunk Love and Reign Over Me, is not afraid to deconstruct his own image. And in Funny People he does so mercilessly. In real life Sandler seems to me a fairly together person - happily married with kids who stays out of the tabloids - but Sandler has undoubtedly seen people like Simmons before (some even appear in cameos in this movie) and he nails the character.

Seth Rogen has the other major role in the film, and he too is pitch perfect. It was not that long ago that Rogen was a struggling comedian, so I think that he identifies with Ira, and he certainly gives a wonderful performance. Rogen has grown as an actor over the past few years, maturing into a complete actor - not just someone who can deliver one liners. Leslie Mann, as she did in both of Apatow’s other films, delivers a realistic performance as a woman who is at a crossroads of her life. Her marriage is not great, but things with George were hardly perfect in the past, so they probably won’t be in the future.

But although I do think that Funny People is Apatow’s most mature film, I do not think it is his best. Like his other two films, Funny People is at least 20 minutes too long, but this time it feels too long, which the other two did not. There is some sloppy storytelling, as the movie moves from one section to another too quickly. The film does not always flow smoothly. At points, you do not always believe that the characters would do what they do in the film.

But these are minor complaints to what really is one of the most enjoyable films of the year. Apatow is one of the most original voices in comedy right now. He has had a lot of imitators in the past few years, but no one does it better than he does. I cannot wait to see what he does next.

Weekly Top Tens: Holocaust Films

There have been many, perhaps too many, films about the Holocaust made in the past few decades. Like any "genre" there are good, bad and great films about about this subject. Some are downright offensive, but some of the films on this list deserve their placement among the great films of all time. So here they are, the best films made about the Holocaust ever. I decided not to include documentaries, because honestly, I'm not quite sure how I would fit the masterpiece that is Shoah into this list.

10. The Reader (Stephen Daldry, 2008)
I know I will likely catch some flak for including this recent Oscar winner, since it was very controversial last year in it’s depiction of Kate Winslet as a German war criminal. I myself, questioned the films value, not necessarily on its on terms, but whether or not it should have gotten into the Oscar race. And yet, as the months have passed, I find that my mind often wanders back to strange, challenging film. This is a film about knowing what the right thing to do is, and yet still choosing the war thing. That the film makes Winslet’s war criminal understandable and sympathetic is not a flaw in the film, but rather one of its great strengths. It does not condone her actions, but does indeed explain them. She knows what she is doing is wrong, and yet she does it anyway. Later in the film, the main character faces a similar choice, and again chooses wrongly. Does this make the movie a study in moral relativism? I don’t think so, but it about the choices we make, and the consequences of those choices. Yes, The Reader is certainly a flawed film (perhaps even a deeply flawed film), but it is a film that stays with you as you try to piece together it’s moral puzzle – and that is even more rare than a great film.

9. The Diary of Anne Frank (George Stevens, 1959)
The best of all the many adaptations of the famed young girl’s diary, George Stevens 1959 is only marred by the bland and ineffectual Millie Perkins in the lead role. The rest of the cast though is exceptional – particularly Joseph Schildkraut as Anne’s father Otto and Shelley Winters as the alternately crude and sad Petronella van Daan. What continues to amaze me about the film is how Stevens was able to essentially keep all the action of the film in one cramped space for nearly three hours, and yet not have the film come across as either boring or too stagebound. The movie truly draws us into to its story, and its characters and devastates us with its all too well known climax.

8. Au Revoir, Les Enfants (Louis Malle, 1987)
There have been many (in fact WAY too many) films about the Holocaust told from the point of view of children, but Louis Malle’s Au Revoir, Les Enfants is far and away the best. At a French boarding school, a sympathetic priest agrees to hide three Jewish students and disguises them as regular students. The film’s main character, Julien, eventually discovers the secret, but by then he has already become good friends with one of the students. There is a key scene in a restaurant, where Julien’s new Jewish friend accompanies his family to dinner, and the French police kick a Jewish patron out. Although there appears to be much moral outrage, and even some backtalk to the police, most of the dinners do nothing. Eventually, the Gestapo will get wind of their being Jewish students at the school, and this is when Julien makes a terrible mistake. Au Revoir, Les Enfants was Malle’s own story – he was Julien, and the events of his childhood were forever etched into his memory, with guilt and remorse. It is an intelligent film – one that allows the children to act like children – sometimes petty and trivial things seem all important. The musical score, especially when the film repeats Julien’s tortured piano playing in comparisons to Jeans, is one of the best, and most memorable, I have ever heard. A truly great film by a master filmmaker.

7. Sophie’s Choice (Alan J. Pakula, 1982)
Meryl Streep’s performance in Sophie’s Choice is quite simply one of the greatest screen performances in history. She hits pretty much every emotion in this film – not just the scenes of torment that the film is famous for, but also those of joy, confusion and lust. The film is essentially a three person study, opening in Brooklyn in 1947, when a young Southern writer (Peter McNicol) moves to Brooklyn, and immediately befriends his neighbors – Sophie (Streep), a Polish-Catholic immigrant and Nathan (Kevin Kline), a crazed romantic. Only gradually does the film reveal it’s hidden depths, as it flashes back to Sophie’s past and her time at Auschwitz, where upon arrival she has to make the most impossible choice any mother has ever had to. Yet while many concentrate solely on Streep’s performance – and there is no doubt that it is a stunner and completely unforgettable – the film also makes time to make both McNicol’s and Kline’s characters into realistic people as well. The reason why the movie works as well as it does – both in the past and present – is because the characters that it draws are so real, so sympathetic, that you cannot help but love them, no matter what they do.

6. The Shop on Main Street (Jan Kadar & Elmar Klos, 1965)
Jan Kadar and Elmar Klos’ film is one of the most underrated of all Holocaust films. It concentrates on a man from Czechoslovakia who is assigned to take over a local business from an eldery Jewish woman once the Nazis have invaded. She thinks he has shown up for a job, and gives him one, because he does not have the heart to tell her the truth. When the Nazis start rounding up the Jews, he tries to protect her, with tragic results. The film is closely observed, quiet and heart breaking. An all but forgotten masterwork.

5. The Pianist (Roman Polanski, 2002)
Before Roman Polanski became infamous for being a world class filmmaker, having his wife murdered by Charles Manson, and becoming a convicted rapist, he was a Holocaust survivor. It took him decades before he was ready to address the issue head on, which he finally did in 2002 with his Oscar winning film The Pianist. While many of the early scenes are reminiscent of many Holocaust films, even if they are handled much better, the later scenes, which are often wordless, contain a power that is rarely found in film. This is one of Polanski’s best films.

4. Downfall (Oliver Hirschbiegel,, 2005)
Germany has had trouble dealing with the legacy of the Holocaust – just not in their country, but also in their art. Which is what made Oliver Hirschbiegel ‘s 2005 film Downfall such a major event. For one of the first times ever, a German film directly confronted Hitler and his merry men head on. The result is this surreal masterwork, set in the waning days of the war, with Bruno Ganz delivering an amazing performance as Hitler – moving troops around his maps, even if those troops have long since died, yelling and screaming as things start to fall apart. While the film may not directly show any of the camps, their legacy hangs over ever scene. That is what makes Downfall such a masterful film.

3. The Pawnbroker (Sidney Lumet, 1965)
As a Holocaust survivor now living in Harlem, Rod Steiger gives what could in fact be the best performance of his career. As a German-Jew Professor, he was dragged off to the concentration camps, where he watched his children die, and his wife raped and murdered. He has become numb emotionally, and keeps himself at a distance from everyone in his new home. People try and reach out to him, but he rejects everyone. The film has some thriller elements that do not work as well, but Steiger’s towering performance is quite an accomplishment, and makes The Pawnbroker one of the best films on the subject ever made.

2. Black Book (Paul Verhoeven, 2007)
Paul Verhoeven is probably best known for his hyper sexual, super violent American films like Basic Instict, Robocop, Starship Troopers and Showgirls. But far and away his best film is Black Book, a film he made in his home country of The Netherlands. The film concentrates on a beautiful young Jewish woman (brilliantly played by Carice Van Houten) who disguises herself as a gentile, and seduces a high ranking Nazi officier in order to help the resistence. Everywhere she looks, she finds anti-semetism, bigotry and hated. That she actually falls for the Nazi officier, who is one of the “good ones” makes the movie all the more complex. Black Book is a difficult film, a complex film that is morally ambigious and troubling. It is also a crackerjack thriller in the vein of Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious. It is an amazing film.

1. Schindler’s List (Steven Spielberg, 1993)
Sometimes the most clichéd answer is also the best one. Spielberg may go a little overboard at moments (the little girl in the red dress, the shower sequence, Schindler’s tearful final speech, etc), but the bottom line is that no feature film in history has done a better job at capturing the horror of the Holocaust. It’s depictions of the camps, of Amon Goeth’s evil, of Stern’s kindness, or Schindler’s opportunism, even it’s view of the Holocaust as a business, was all amazing. The black and white cinematographer by Janusz Kaminski is wonderful, the production design meticulous, the performances superb. Schindler’s List is one of the best films ever made.

August Month Preview

August is typically a dumping ground for studios to release a bunch of movies they know are crap, but hope they can make a quick buck off of. This year, it doesn't appear to be much different, yet there are still several wide release movies that I cannot wait to see.

August 7
G.I. Joe
I loved G.I. Joe when I was a kid, so no matter how bad the advance buzz on this movie is, I will be there on opening weekend. Does the film look bad? Yes, it looks godawful, and the fact that the director of The Mummy and Van Helsing is at the helm does not bode well for the film. But Dennis Quaid is usually good, and even if he isn’t, the film does feature Sienna Miller in a skin tight jumpsuit, so it cannot be all bad. Right? Anticipation Level: 5

Julie and Julia
I love Amy Adams and Meryl Streep, so even if this movie about cooking does not really look like my type of film, I will definitely see it. With those two in it, it cannot possibly be all that bad. Plus, the preview for the film looks rather amusing, and even though I wouldn’t count Nora Ephron as a great director, she knows her way around a chick flick. Anticipation Level: 7.

A Perfect Getaway
David Twohy is a talented director, even if the results do not always show on screen. Pitch Black was a very good low budget film, and Below was even better, even if no one ever saw the film. After the disaster that was The Chronicles of Riddick, Twohy is going back to something more modest with A Perfect Getaway. The film has a wonderful, tense trailer, and Steve Zahn, Milla Jovovich, Timothy Olyphant and Marley Shelton are all talented. Anticipation Level: 7.

August 14
Bandslam
Yet another high school “Battle of the Bands” movie, this one with Vanessa Hudgens – the least talented major cast member of the High School Musical movies. I cannot say that there is any reason that I could see myself watching this. Anticipation Level: 1.

District 9
The preview for this movie looks wonderful. An advanced alien race crashes land on earth, and is held captive for decades, even though they just want to go home. Cannot say I know much more about it other than that, and that Peter Jackson is a producer of the film. I have been waiting for this one for a while now. Anticipation Level: 9.

The Goods
Jeremy Piven doing what he does best – acting like a complete ass. The preview for the movie looks rather amusing, so I am sure I will catch up with the film at some point or another – especially since the supporting cast includes Ving Rhame, David Koechner and Ed Helms, but it’s not one I will rush out to see. Anticipation Level: 4.

The Time Traveller’s Wife
I absolutely loved the best selling novel that this film is based on, and with Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams in the lead roles, my interest is definitely peaked. What concerns me is how often this movie has been delayed and the fact that the only thing I have seen by director Robert Schwenke was the subpart thriller Flightplan. Still, I do really want to see this one. Anticipation Level: 8.

August 21
Inglorious Basterds
Far and away my most anticipated film this month. The reviews out of Cannes may have been somewhat mixed, but the people I trust the most think this could be Tarantino’s masterpiece. While I may sometimes think that Tarantino has to grow up a little, I cannot honestly say that I have ever watched one of his films and not absolutely loved it. The preview is great, and I cannot wait to see this one. Anticipation Level: 10.

Postgrad
Alexis Bledel is adorable, and I always love Michael Keaton, but this rather bland looking comedy about a girl graduating from college and not knowing what to do looks quite bad. I may see it if I am incredibly bored, but I think I may just go see Inglorious Basterds again. Anticipation Level: 2.

Shorts
I love Robert Rodriguez, and at least the first two Spy Kids movies were a lot of fun. But the third one, not to mention Shark Boy and Lava Girl or whatever the hell it was called sucked. I cannot be too hard on a man who tries to make movies to satisfy his kids, but that doesn’t mean I have to see the result. Anticipation Level: 3.

August 28
The Final Destination
The Final Destination movies have all been a lot of fun, since they basically consist of one brutal, funny death scene after another, done with skill, style and humor. The fact that this one is going to be in 3-D makes it a must see. High art, I am sure it isn’t. But I’ll still be there opening weekend. Anticipation Level: 8.

Halloween 2
In my mind, Rob Zombie is the most original American director working in the horror movie genre today. His first three films – House of 1,000 Corpses, The Devil’s Rejects and Halloween – were increasingly great horror films. I am interested to see what he does with this sequel, although the part I valued about the original – the opening hour which functioned as a backstory for Michael Myers – will be absent, so I am a little wary. Still, cannot wait though. Anticipation Level: 9.

Taking Woodstock
I will follow director Ang Lee anywhere, so even if this film got murderer at Cannes this year, it is still one that I am looking forward to. The preview looks hilarious, with Dmitri Martin, Emile Hirsh, Liev Schreiber and Imelda Stauton all making me laugh out loud. Even if it doesn’t turn out to be another Ang Lee masterpiece, it should at least be fun. Anticipation Level: 8.

DVD Views: 12

12 *** ½
Directed By: Nikita Mikhalkov.
Written By: Nikita Mikhalkov & Aleksandr Novototsky & Vladimir Moiseyenko based on the 1957 movie.
Starring: Sergei Makovetsky (Juror #1), Nikita Mikhalkov (Juror #2), Sergey Garmash (Juror #3), Valentin Gaft (Juror #4), Aleksei Petrenko (Juror #5), Yuriy Stoyanov (Juror #6), Sergei Gazarov (Juror #7), Mikhail Efremov (Juror #8), Aleksey Gorbunov (Juror #9), Sergei Artsybashev (Juror #10), Viktor Verzhbitskiy (Juror #11), Roman Madyanov (Juror #12).

Some stories never seem to grow old. Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men (1957) is one of the best legal thrillers ever made. It is about 12 men on a jury for a trial that we never see trying to sort out the details of the crime while coming up with their verdict. 11 men think the kid is guilty of murdering his father. One man, played by Henry Fonda, is not so sure. Over the course of the movie, he argue his case and slowly, jurors start changing their mind. Made during the McCarthy era, the movie was seen as an indictment of judging people based on preconceived notions. Whether or not the kid is actually guilty is never really solved adequately, but then it doesn’t need to be. The movie is about how the legal system requires that the prosecution needs to prove his case beyond a reasonable doubt. It is that reasonable doubt that is the key to the movie.

There have been more than a few versions in the 50 years since Lumet’s original, but none of them have even approached the original until Nikita Mikhalkov’s 12, which was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign language film in 2007, but is just now coming out for people in North America to see. It is one of Mikhalkov’s best films of his long, illustrious career. That is because while he stays true to the original film, he is not beholden to it. He expands the original story, and adds nearly an hour’s running time to the film. All the main hallmarks of the original film are still there - the lone juror who thinks there is reasonable doubt, questions about the knife and just how unique it is, whether the old man witness could have actually seen what he says he saw, and whether the old lady across the way had her glasses on or not. The characters are similar in broad strokes - from the angry man who views the youngster as a “dog”, to the goofy guy with the hat who just wants to get out of there, and the old man who seems at some points to the lone voice of reason.

But what makes 12 a wonderful film in its own right, and not just another remake, is because Mikhalkov has taken this old story for 1950s America and made it relevant to current day Russia. Instead of an inner city youth on trial, it is a Chechen refugee who is charged with the murder of his adoptive father, a former Russian military officier. Much of the additional running time is devoted to flashbacks to scenes from the kid’s hellish life before he was put on trial for his. Telling, the murder once again is never shown, so we never do really find out if the kid is guilty or not, although they certainly do put forward a more convincing case than they did in the original film. They add an additional twist at the end of the film, that I thought was pretty amazing, which I will not reveal here.

What I loved about the film is how it does not really try and hide some of the more theatrical, or even dated, elements of the film. There would never be a jury made up of 12 men anymore, something the film addresses by showing that the judge at the trial as a woman. It locks the jury in a school gymnasium, and doesn’t let them out for two hours and forty minutes. Each of the actors get a monologue however, where they both reveal secrets about themselves, and illuminate the trial. Instead of grinding the movie to a half, like many monologues do, but rather this is where the movie really soars. While all the versions of the story have been ensemble pieces, this film does the best job of completing integrating the cast. Perhaps that’s because while the actor with the Henry Fonda role still stands up to the rest of the jurors, after that, he becomes just another jury member. None of the actors are more important than the others.

What I found fascinating is the makeup of the jury. All of the men on the jury are of a generation that has lived much of their lives under communism, with secret trials and a justice system that was anything but transparent, and even though the Iron Curtain fell 2 decades ago, some still have the old attitudes (one keeps calling the others “comrades” before he corrects himself). The paranoia of the old days seeps into their discussion as it goes on. This is not just an American story that has been transplanted to Russian, but one that has been turned Russian to its core.

12 is a fascinating movie not because the result of the trial is surprising. Even if you have never seen any of the other versions of the story, you can probably figure out where the movie is going to end up fairly early. But 12 is a movie that doesn’t really depend on the suspense of the situation to generate interest in the film. It is a closely observed character study - not just of the 12 jurors and the kid on trial - but on Russian itself.

Movie Review: The Girl from Monoco

The Girl from Monoco ***
Directed by: Anne Fontaine.
Written By: Anne Fontaine & Benoît Graffin.
Starring: Fabrice Luchini (Bertrand Beauvois), Roschdy Zem (Christophe Abadi), Louise Bourgoin (Audrey Varella), Stéphane Audran (Édith Lassalle), Gilles Cohen (Louis Lassalle).

The title character of The Girl from Monoco, Audrey (Louise Bourgoin), is not as stupid as she first appears. Yes, she seems like a vacuous, empty headed, but gorgeous, TV weather girls, who doesn’t have much of an education, but she knows who she is, where her talent lies, and what she has to do to get what she wants. So when famous, wealthy lawyer Bertrand Beauvois (Fabrice Luchini) arrives in town to defend a wealthy widow of murder, she sets her sights on him. Because the murder was of a Russian immigrant with ties to the Russian mob, the defendant’s son hires Bertrand a bodyguard - Christophe Abadi (Roschdy Zem) for him. Christophe once dated Audrey, and knows what she is like. He warns Bertrand, but Betrand doesn’t listen. He is on the far end of middle age, and wants to believe that a drop dead gorgeous 20 something year old, who is adventuresome in bed to say the least, could actually fall in love with him, and is not just using him.

Anne Fontaine’s film calls to mind the work of Billy Wilder. There are elements of his comedies like The Apartment, as the movie is quite funny, yet never falls into the standard sitcom like aspects of many American comedies. But there are also elements of Wilder’s early film noirs - where a normal guy gets sucked into danger by a gorgeous, blonde bombshell, and does not realize it until it too late. What makes Fontaine’s film work is that her screenplay concentrates on making her three leads into complete characters, and the three lead actors are all wonderful.

Fabrice Luchini is a veteran French actor, who has worked steadily over the last 40 years. He is not the typical leading man, as he is not one of those men who get better looking with age. Like Wilder’s favorite actor Jack Lemmon, he has an everyman quality to him that makes you instantly believe in him. He becomes increasingly anxious as the movie goes along - he wants to get rid of Audrey, but she has a hold on him that he cannot shake. Roschdy Zem at first seems to be playing a fairly uninteresting character - that of the business as usual bodyguard who is a constant professional. Yet as the movie goes along, he surprisingly becomes the films most interesting character. He starts to care for Bertrand, and knows what Audrey is doing to him. He has an admiration for Bertrand and his career, and feels that it is a honorable profession, and sees Audrey as a roadblock. So no matter what Bertrand does, no matter how he treats him, he will do anything needed to protect him. As for Bourgoin as Audrey, she is simply remarkable. Yes, she is drop dead gorgeous, but her performance goes much deeper than that. She is tired of being a party girl, and sees Bertrand as her ticket out of her life. She manipulates him masterfully, and were it not for Christophe than she may have actually succeeded in her goal. You may not feel much love or sympathy for her character, but Bourgoin makes you understand her character.

I have a problem with the films ending however. I do not believe that Christophe would do what he does in order to protect Bertrand, and even if he would, I certainly do not believe that Bertrand would do what he does when he discovers the truth. For a movie that so carefully observes its characters for most of its running time, this is a major misstep.

But everything that comes before the ending is so good that I still think that The Girl from Monoco is worth seeing. It is uncommon to see a comedy this insightful, and one that observes it characters so closely. So while The Girl from Monoco may not be a great film, it is an interesting one.

Movie Review: The Stoning of Soraya M.

The Stoning of Soraya M. ***
Directed by: Cyrus Nowrasteh.
Written By: Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh & Cyrus Nowrasteh based on the book by Freidoune Sahebjam.
Starring: Shohreh Aghdashloo (Zahra), Mozhan Marnò (Soraya M.), James Caviezel (Freidoune), Navid Negahban (Ali), Ali Pourtash (Mullah), David Diaan (Ebrahim), Parviz Sayyad (Hashem).

The characters in The Stoning of Soraya M. are all either innocents, monsters or cowards. They are pretty much one dimensional all the way around. It’s a good thing that the story that they are involved in is so powerful and interesting, because the characters themselves would never really involve us. The director, Cyrus Nowrasteh is also lucky to have the great Shoreh Aghdashloo in the lead role. She commands the screen with her terrific screen presence.

The movie is set in Iran after the fall of the Shah, and the more fundamentalist government has taken over. Women have had their rights systematically stripped away, and some men relish their new power. One of these men is Ali (Navid Negahban), who lives in a small village and commutes every day into the city for his job as a prison guard. He is married to Soraya (Mozhan Marno), but doesn’t want to be anymore. He has struck a deal with a prisoner on death row - if he can save the prisoner’s life, then he can marry his 14 year old daughter. Ali wants to do this, but cannot support two wives, so he wants a divorce - but he also does not want to pay his wife anything. After trying some other options, he hits upon a plan. The town elders have asked Soraya to work for a recent widow, and so she spends every day in another man’s home. Ali accuses her of adultery, which carries the price of death by stoning for her. Everyone knows the charges are trumped up, but only Soraya’s Aunt, Zahra (Aghdashloo) stands up for her. The town Mullah does not want to speak out against Ali, because Ali knows some of the dark secrets in his past. The mayor knows it is wrong, but is too cowardly to do anything to stop it. The man who Soraya is accused of having an affair with at first tries to resist, but he is rather slow witted, and allows the Mullah and Ali to intimidate him into lying.

Since it is in the title, I do not think I am spoiling anything to say that Soraya does indeed get stoned to death, in a scene of incredible brutality that stretches out minute after minute as people take turns throwing stones at her. Her father, her husband even her two sons get in on the action, and then most of the town joins in. As Soraya becomes a broken, bloody mess, unable to move as she is buried up to her waist in dirt, the town cheers on her death.

What the movie succeeds in doing is showing just how brutal, and yes, backwards and sexist the practice of stoning to death is. The man who is accused of being with Soraya gets no punishment at all. The “trial” that is done to convict Soraya is done behind closed doors, where he is not even allowed to go in and present evidence in her own defense. The movie, which is told from the point of view of Zahra, as she describes what happened to a foreign reporter (Jim Cavizel) who she hopes will be able to tell the world what is going on. What the film doesn’t do is show how a lynch mob of this sort really forms. We see dozens of people cheering the stoning on, and some even actively participating in it, but we never really understand why they all partipate. Also, I think that the movie does too much to sanctify Soraya herself. I know this movie is based on a true story, but considering that much of it was most likely made up, I think some liberties could have been taken. We know from the outset that Soraya is innocent, but what if she wasn’t? Even If she did commit adultery, does she deserve to be stoned to death? The ending of the movie, with it’s typical, Hollywood style uplift and ridicilousness about tapes being exchanged just does not fit.

But even despite the problems I have with the movie, it is still a powerful, involving movie. There are cultural differences between us in the Western world and some of the countries in the Middle East. Some of those differences we need to respect. But the practice of stoning women to death is primitive and wrong - and should not be condoned for any reason.