Movie Review: Spider-Man: Homecoming

Spider-Man: Homecoming *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Jon Watts.

Written by: Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Daley and Jon Watts & Christopher Ford and Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers based on the Marvel comic by Stan Lee & Steve Ditko.

Starring: Tom Holland (Peter Parker / Spider-Man), Michael Keaton (Adrian Toomes / Vulture), Robert Downey Jr. (Tony Stark / Iron Man), Marisa Tomei (May Parker), Jon Favreau (Happy Hogan), Jacob Batalon (Ned), Zendaya (Michelle), Laura Harrier (Liz), Tony Revolori (Flash), Gwyneth Paltrow (Pepper Potts), Donald Glover (Aaron Davis), Bokeem Woodbine (Herman Schultz / Shocker #2), Tyne Daly (Anne Marie Hoag), Abraham Attah (Abe), Hannibal Buress (Coach Wilson), Martin Starr (Mr. Harrington), Garcelle Beauvais (Doris Toomes), Michael Chernus (Phineas Mason / The Tinkerer), Michael Mando (Mac Gargan), Logan Marshall-Green (Jackson Brice / Shocker #1), Jennifer Connelly (Karen / Suit Lady).

 

Mark me down as one of those crazy people who thinks we didn’t really need a third Spider-Man franchise started in the last 15 years, and one of those even crazier people who thinks that even if we did that, we don’t need it to connect to the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is already bursting at the seams with many memorable heroes, and one memorable villain. I think it’s doubtful that a Spider-Man movie will ever top Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 – which remains one of the great superhero movies ever made, mainly because it’s done with the boring origin story (I was never much of a fan of Raimi’s original Spider-Man), but hadn’t gotten to the going through the motion phase of the third installment. While Raimi knew he was making franchise films each and every time – and knew sequels were possible, they weren’t inevitable, so he could work on telling his own story. I didn’t dislike the Marc Webb Amazing Spider-Man films like many did – I may even argue the first one is a better origin story than Raimi’s first one – but they were wholly unnecessary. Perhaps the best thing to say about Spider-Man: Homecoming is that they don’t cast some poor sap to play Uncle Ben to tell Peter that “With great power comes great responsibility” before being shot.

 

Ok, now, I’m just being an asshole, because that isn’t the best thing about Spider-Man: Homecoming (it is, however, a relief) – which overall is – like most of the films in the MCU – a fun, entertaining film, a breezy, entertaining way to kill a couple of hours and have a hell of a lot of fun. No, it isn’t as good as Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 – but perhaps it’s the second best Spider-Man film so far, so there’s that – and while the film does take pains to connect itself to the larger MCU – starting right where the fight in Captain America: Civil War, which introduced this Spider-Man, left off – there is hope that in the future, it won’t be quite as beholden to it.

 

So, the good news is that there is no Uncle Ben, no radioactive spider bite, not hour of a kid discovering his powers, and thinking that they’re supercool, before he gets in over his head using them. He pretty much already starts there, when he stumbles across some thugs selling some powerful weapons, built using alien technology. He follows along this path, and it leads to Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton, because apparently the message of Birdman is that all actors should do Superhero movies) – who 8 years ago in 2012 (yeah, I know, that doesn’t make sense –just role with it) was kicked off the sweet salvage he thought he had cleaning up after Loki attacked New York – and got pissed. Now, he and his crew get all the alien tech they can, make weapons out of it, and will sell it to anyone. Peter tells Tony Stark about it, but he doesn’t seem to care, so Peter decides it’s all on him to stop him – despite the fact that Peter also pretty lives in a 1980s John Hughes movie version of high school, where he and his nerdy best friend, Ned (Jacob Batalon) pine after the pretty Liz (Laura Harrier), even if we know Peter’s real love interest is eventually going to be the cynical Michelle (because she is played by teen star Zendaya).

 

The film was directed by Jon Watts, whose previous film was the low budget indie Cop Car, which wasn’t a bad film by any means, although it is the type that makes you wonder why they hired him to make a Spider-Man film. He handles the movie well for the most part – I thought the action sequences moved a touch too quickly at times, but at least didn’t succumb to rapid fire editing, so that’s a plus. I almost preferred the films action climax – where for reasons to complicated to get into here – Peter has to wear his very low tech suit, as opposed to the high tech one he had for the rest of the film – as everything did feel a little bit more like I was watching a human and a little bit less like I was watching a computer program.

 

As Peter, Tom Holland delivers a fine performance – he perhaps whines a little too much, but then again, he’s a teenager, so that’s kind of his thing. He’ll be a good Spider-Man for a while, and hopefully, they’ll let this one age a little bit before thrusting us back in high school with a fourth iteration of the character. Keaton is nicely menacing, and refreshingly, he has rather down-to-earth motivations, rather than world domination or an obsession with infinity stones – which oddly, has been driving this larger franchise for nearly a decade now, and no one much seems to care if they ever pay that off. Can Robert Downey Jr. take some time off from Iron Man though? I know he’s seemingly the only major actor in this franchise who appears to have lost in interest in doing anything else other than play Iron Man (and isn’t that just a little bit sad), but I could use a break from his Tony Stark for a while.

 

I know this review probably sounds harsher or more cynical than I intended it to. Spider-Man: Homecoming really is a fun movie, and I would gladly watch another installment of this Peter Parker fighting bad guys (especially if that bad guy turns out to be Michael Mando, from Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul, as setup in this film). It’s hard not to be a little cynical about these movies though isn’t it, which are more money and rights issues, etc. than actually making good movies. If they do make good movies, that’s a plus for the studios, not an imperative. This time, it’s a plus, so I guess we should be happy with that and move on to Thor: Ragnorok in a few months.

Movie Review: Bokeh

Bokeh * ½ / *****

Directed by: Geoffrey Orthwein & Andrew Sullivan.

Written by: Geoffrey Orthwein & Andrew Sullivan.

Starring: Maika Monroe (Jenai), Matt O'Leary (Riley).

 

The movies have long been obsessed with the end of the world – so much so, that both the Hollywood special effects extravaganza version and the indie movie low-key version have both essentially become clichés – in the later, the world goes out with a whimper, in the former with a bang. Bokeh is definitely the later – an indie film about an American couple on vacation in Iceland, who wake up one morning to find that the city is completely empty except for the two of them. Is this the rapture? After all, everything else is still there, and there are no bodies. They try and contact people back home, and they can’t – the internet hasn’t been updated since the previous day. As far as they can tell, they are utterly alone in the world.

 

Bokeh wants to be a profound and beautiful film about the experience. The later it certainly is, as there are many dreamy shots of the beautiful countryside in Iceland, the lights in the sky, etc. At times, the film seems to want to be a low key version of a later Malick film – going for the same result, with less twirling, and there are moments of quiet beauty throughout the film. As for profound, not so much. The film doesn’t really do much with its premise once it establishes it. The runtime feels like it has been padded with unnecessary actions – like when Jenai (Maika Monroe) decides that she must check every house she comes across – and then just as quickly abandons it.

 

The film really is about this young couple – one who hasn’t been together for all that long (this is their first trip together), who, like all couples, eventually get to know each other perhaps too well. Being the literal last two people on earth speeds the process along somewhat, and you have to wonder if the differences between them that become untenable throughout the film would have been revealed at all had they had some sort of other outlet – other people to interact with. Often, early in a relationship, you do see little wrong with the other person, and you devote yourself to that relationship at the expense of all others. It’s only gradually, you begin to ease back on that.

 

As a seed of an idea for a movie, that’s not a bad one, and I guess I could see it working – especially as a short. The problem with Bokeh is that even at just 95 minutes it feel ponderous and slow. Even though little happens in the movie, it feels like it pounds its message into your head again and again. The two lead performances are pretty good – I particularly like Monroe, although I wonder if that is some residual goodwill from films like The Guest and It Follows – but then again, neither is given much to do. The ending feels rather pat and predictable – again, for a film with such little going on, they sure do like their foreshadowing. Basically, while I was intrigued with the premise, I just kept waiting for the film to do something interesting with it, and it never really did.

Movie Review: The Big Sick

 

The Big Sick **** / *****

Directed by: Michael Showalter.

Written by: Emily V. Gordon & Kumail Nanjiani.

Starring: Kumail Nanjiani (Kumail), Zoe Kazan (Emily), Holly Hunter (Beth), Ray Romano (Terry), Anupam Kher (Azmat), Zenobia Shroff (Sharmeen), Adeel Akhtar (Naveed), Bo Burnham (CJ), Aidy Bryant (Mary), Kurt Braunohler (Chris), Vella Lovell (Khadija), Myra Lucretia Taylor (Nurse Judy), Jeremy Shamos (Bob Dalavan), David Alan Grier (Andy Dodd), Ed Herbstman (Sam Highsmith), Shenaz Treasury (Fatima).

 

I’ve never been much of a fan of romantic comedies – which peaked sometime in the 1930s, when great directors like Ernst Lubitsch, Howard Hawks and George Cukor were making them, and haven’t much evolved since, except to make everything less funny and charming. The Big Sick. For the most part, romantic comedies have followed the very same path – two impossibly attractive white people, with really cool jobs, fall in love, but something holds them apart for most of the movie, until in the end, they fall into each other’s arms and the film ends, just as the real work for their relationship should be starting. The new romantic comedy, The Big Sick, doesn’t exactly reinvent the wheel when it comes to romcoms – but it does feature two important twists in it – the first being that the male star of the film, Kumai Nanjiani, isn’t white, and comes from a Muslim family, and the family pressure on him to do what they want (i.e.: an arranged marriage) feels stronger than normal, and second is that the female star of the film – Zoe Kazan – spends most of the film in a medically induced coma. As far as obstacles to a traditional romantic comedy couple go, either of these would feel much more real than most romcoms, but the duo combined results in a film, that somehow feels organic, even as it mines (almost) every romantic comedy cliché it can.

 

It probably shouldn’t be all that surprising that the film has the ring of authenticity, since it was written by Nanjiani and his wife Emily Gordon – and was based on their own courtship. It would pretty much have to be a true story, because otherwise you wouldn’t believe it. The story follows Nanjiani, as he plays a version of himself, a struggling standup comedian, who is lying to his parents about his plans to take the LSTATs (he has none) and his interest in all the young Pakistani women who just happen to “drop in” whenever Kumail goes to his parents for dinner. He knows that, like his brother, he probably will marry one of them sooner or later, but he’s hoping it’s going to be later. When he meets Emily (Kazan) at the comedy club – when she heckles him (or as she says, “Woohoos” him) they both think it’s only going to be a fling, but then they just cannot stop hanging out together. They both have secrets – he holds his closer to his chest that she does – and eventually it all comes out, and they break up. And then, the coma. Kumail feels guilty, and wants to be at the hospital for her – even after her parents (Ray Romano and Holly Hunter) arrive – which gives lots of time for awkward conversions to ensue.

 

Almost everything about The Big Sick works. Nanjiani’s point of view as a secular Muslim in America, grappling with his more conservative family and their expectations, and what he really wants, would be enough to fuel most movies – in particular because the screenplay takes time to make his family’s point-of-view come across as more reasoned than it might otherwise. As Emily’s parents, both Holly Hunter and especially Ray Romano give great performances (to be fair, they may well be equally great performances, but we’re used to seeing Hunter this good as a feisty, little firecracker of a woman, which she does to perfection, but Romano’s more laid back routine, adds a dimensional to his usual sad sack persona). The standup comedy stuff – and the friendships Nanjiani has within that world – also ring true as well.

 

There are certainly nits to be picked here – the biggest one being that someone, even though the real life Emily co-wrote the movie, her character feels underwritten – Kazan breathes a lot a life into the role, but I wish they may have taken a second to explore her post-coma outlook more. The film does feel a little long (Judd Apatow is one of the producers after all) – even if director Michael Showalter keeps the pace up nicely. A cynic could complain that the film is a little too overly engineered to be a manipulative crowd-pleaser as well.

 

But only a real cynic could truly dislike a film like The Big Sick – which is funny and sweet and insightful and just downright entertaining. It doesn’t reinvent the romantic comedy as much as it tinkers with it – but here, that’s enough.

Movie Review: American Anarchist

American Anarchist *** / *****

Directed by: Charlie Siskel.

 

The Anarchist Cookbook was written in the early 1970s by an angry, 19-year-old young man named William Powell. The book combined information on weapons and combat, and how to make explosives, that Powell culled together from information he found in military pamphlets at the library, as well as Powell’s rage filled rantings calling from armed revolution in America to overthrow the corrupt system. It was published by a sleazy publisher looking to make a quick buck – and immediately caused controversy – a controversy that has never really gone away, although there have been long periods of time in the almost 50 years since it was published where it lies dormant. Powell himself sold off all the rights to the book for $10,000 at some point in the 1970s, so even though the book keeps on being published, he isn’t seeing any more profits. He has largely stayed out of the spotlight ever since.

 

The documentary American Anarchist is essentially all about Powell as he talks to director Charlie Siskel about why he wrote the book, and what he’s done with his life since. It seems like he quickly grew out of his anger – as many young men do – and became a teacher – one who often worked with kids with emotional problems. He seems more embarrassed by the book than anything else – he certainly no longer agrees with it, and thinks his angry rants in the book are now drivel. The book has affected his career – schools he applied to be more often than not sent copies of the book anonymously, which often sunk his chances from being hired. He seems like a quiet, intelligent well-educated, polite man. He has also mastered the art of denial – he has essentially buried his head in sand to almost all the incidents that his book may have help to inspire. He says he didn’t know of any of them until a friend of his saw Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine – and wrote to him about how the book was mentioned in the film, as being an influence on Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. At that time, he wrote a message for Amazon to put on the book’s page, saying he wants to the book to die a “quick and quiet” death. He wrote an op-ed for The Guardian 12 years later essentially arguing the same thing, when they approached him in the wake of another school shooting, in which the Cookbook was said to inspire.

 

Powell’s pleas of ignorance clearly are not enough for director Siskel – who grows increasingly frustrated throughout his conversations with Powell – as he pushes harder and harder (I would argue at some point, too hard) to get some sort of reaction out of Powell. He lists all the incident he could find – dating back to the 1970s and including things like the Oklahoma City bombing – in which the Cookbook was at the very least owned by the people who made bombs that killed people. He shows various Youtube clips of idiotic young people testing out the explosives Powell’s book told them how to make – including many, many close calls. Siskel very clearly wants Powell to take some personal responsibility for it all.

 

Honestly, I think Siskel pushed Powell too hard at points in the movie – not necessarily because I disagree with him - although, Powell is correct in saying that he never did anything violent to others, and the people who did, made their own choices, and certainly in the age of the internet, his book is no longer necessary for people who wants to know how to make bombs, or find the angry rantings of violent young, white guys – but more because I think the documentary is at its strongest when Powell trades to evade taking responsibility. I think about what a director like Errol Morris would do if he interviewed Powell, as Morris is a master interviewer at giving his subjects enough rope to hang themselves with, without every pushing as hard as Siskel does here (Morris does this brilliantly in both Mr. Death and The Fog of War – and tried in The Unknown Known). A simple, quiet scene like when Powell e-mails Senator Diane Feinstein, who called for the banning of the book, but giving up when he gets an automated response from her office, says more about Powell, and how he has dealt with the book than when Siskel pushes him to the point of anger.

 

In short, I think there is a better, more complicated documentary to be made about Powell and his book – which sadly, will never be completed, since Powell died a year after filming the movie took place. Siskel clearly feels righteous anger towards Powell, and wants the audience to as well – and up to a point, we do. A better, more confident documentary may well have examined the way in which Powell has compartmentalized the actions of his youth – has put it away, and doesn’t want to think about it anymore, because it’s easier not to. That’s something that anyone could relate to – and making us empathize with Powell is trickier than making us condemn him. As Powell’s wife says at one point, a lot of people have done stupid things when they were long – it’s just that most of ours didn’t get published.

Movie Review: I Called Him Morgan

I Called Him Morgan  **** / *****

Directed by: Kasper Collin.   

Written by: Kasper Collin.

 

I Called Him Morgan is a beautiful, sad documentary about a great musician whose life ended far too early. In many ways, jazz musician Lee Morgan lived the clichéd life you think of when you think of jazz – a young, gifted, African American trumpet player, whose greatness was recognized early on, but whose life was derailed by heroin. Unlike many, though, he somewhat pulled himself together – even though he still ended up dead at the age of 32 – not from the drugs, but from his wife. That was Helen More, who was significantly older than Morgan, but found him at his lowest point, and helped to drag him out of it, and back into music. She was the jealous type though, and when he started seeing another woman – even if, by (most) accounts the drugs had such an effect on Morgan, he couldn’t “perform” that way even if he wanted to, she got jealous, and shot him one cold, stormy night at Slug – a Jazz club in New York. On many other nights, he may well have survived – but that night, there was a billiard, so it took the ambulance an hour to reach him – by which point, and it was too late.

 

Although the elements of I Called Him Morgan probably sound like the stuff of documentary cliché, as directed by Kasper Collin, the film becomes something altogether more haunting and beautiful than that. Yes, it has elements of True Crime – but it’s not a whodunit, and the reason behind it are simple and straightforward. It is a portrait of these sad people, who lives were full of regret and loss. The movie is built around an audiotape interview with More, conducted in 1996, the month before she died. She tells how she meet and fell in love with Morgan – she didn’t call him Lee, because she didn’t like that name – and how eventually she killed him. Collin intercuts clips from that interview with interview with Morgan and More’s contemporaries, families, friends, etc. – giving a fuller portrait of both of them, and the era. Oddly, there is not a lot of anger in the film –everyone seemingly feels empathy for both parties involved. There are fond memories though, and a lot of Morgan’s music – which Collin lets speak for itself, not providing much in the way of context or analysis for it.

 

I Called Him Morgan is an example of what I wished more documentaries would do. Far too often, documentary directors do not think visually or aurally when crafting their films – they simply set up a camera, film a few interview, throw in some archival footage, and call it a day. When the material is strong enough, this can still work – but the best docs have something a little extra to them. Collin has crafted his film, constructing it in a way that highlights the music, and underscores the sadness of the story. This isn’t just a series of talking heads – but something greater.

 

In the end, you’re left with a sad story of two people who in many ways destroyed each other. Morgan has been gone for more than 40 years – More, more than 20 now. All that’s left now is the memory of those who knew them, sadness over the wasted lives, and, of course, the music. This is a beautiful doc that hit me harder than I expected it would – because it goes deeper than most docs of its kind do.

Movie Review: Okja

Okja **** / *****

Directed by: Bong Joon Ho.

Written by: Bong Joon Ho and Jon Ronson.

Starring: Ahn Seo-hyun (Mija), Tilda Swinton (Lucy Mirando), Paul Dano (Jay), Jake Gyllenhaal (Dr. Johnny Wilcox), Byun Hee-bong (Heebong), Steven Yeun (K), Lily Collins (Red), Yoon Je-moon (Mundo Park), Shirley Henderson (Jennifer), Daniel Henshall (Blond), Devon Bostick (Silver), Choi Woo-shik (Kim), Giancarlo Esposito (Frank Dawson).

 

Bong Joon Ho’s Okja is not a perfect film by any means – yet, in its way, it shows why perfect films can sometimes be rather dull. The Korean auteur behind such great films as Memories of Murder (he least seen film, which is a shame, because it’s his best), The Host, Mother and Snowpiercer – has crafted something truly original and strange with Okja – a film that seemingly throws everything at the wall to see what will stick. Not everything does, of course, but I’d rather a film go for broke, and not quite stick the landing, than play it safe. Okja is by no means perfect, but it’s sure as hell memorable.

 

I’ve been struggling in coming up with a way to describe the film. It is a corporate satire, but also a dark children’s fantasy film. It’s got a clear political message against the factory farming of meat – and perhaps against eating meat at all, but it does find room to poke fun at people on all sides. It is a film that children would both relate to, and find utterly, completely horrifying. It feels like a large budgeted film for some bygone era in which they were allowed to contain ideas along spectacle. And man, is it ever strange.

 

Basically, the film revolves around a little girl in Korean named Mija (Ahn Seo-hyun), who lives in basically in the wilderness with her grandfather, a farmer. He was given the title character – Okja – a genetically modified “super pig” who will be part of a 10 year experiment, in which 10 of these pigs are distributed to farms around the world, to determine the best way to raise them in order to maximize their meat production. Mija and Okja are best friends – and do everything together, and trust each other – but when the 10 years expire, he’ll be given back to the company that created him. That is, unless Mija – with the help of an animal rights group – ALF – can save him.

 

Okja, the creature, is a triumph of special effects – he looks like a giant, black pig crossed with a hamster, but he truly does have one of the most expressive faces of a CGI creation I have seen. This is crucial, because Okja is essentially about the bond between him and Mija – how much he loves and trusts her, and the expressiveness in the first act helps solidify that bond – and the sheer pain and horror on his face in the latter half, are truly horrifying. Little Ahn Seo-hyun does a great job for a child actress as well, displaying the kind of single minded devotion to principle and her friend that you really only find in children – before the world crushes it out of them. The love between these two characters is really the subject of the film.

 

The adult performers are more a mixed bag. I’m not quite sure what the hell Jake Gyllenhaal is doing in his performance – he plays a child friendly celebrity spokesperson for the company that created the super pig, and the performance is purposefully broad, but I cannot help but think it’s too broad to be at all believable. You have to kind of admire his devotion to it though, don’t you? I did like Tilda Swinton, once again playing twins – the evil sister who is now the head of the company, and the even more evil sister who used to be head of the company, and wants back in. I feel like Paul Dano could have been better as the leader of ALF, had the screenplay given him slightly more to do – the film pokes gentle fun at his obsessiveness, but I fear Bong liked him too much to push that element into the extremism that I felt the movie wanted to go in. In fact, much of the ALF stuff kept feeling like it was going to go further, and never quite got there.

 

Still, Okja is a film packed with ideas, and unlike Bong’s last film Snowpiercer – I didn’t feel a letdown by the ending. The ending here is a happy one – I guess – but not too happy to sell out what has come before it. Nothing really has changed on the larger scale of the movie – but it has on the smaller one, which here makes a difference. The film was funded by Netflix, who has done a great job with getting their TV shows in the spotlight, but a terrible one doing the same for their movies. Okja hopefully changes that – and also, hopefully, serves as their model going forward – give a great director money and freedom to do whatever the hell they want.

Classic Movie Review: The Police Officer's Wife (2013)

The Police Officer’s Wife (2013)

Directed by: Philip Gröning.

Written by: Philip Gröning.

Starring: Alexandra Finder (Christine Perkinger), David Zimmerschied (Uwe Perkinger), Pia and Chiara Kleemann (Clara Perkinger).

 

It is impossible to be entertained by a film like The Police Officer’s Wife. It is a nearly three hour film, separated into 59 different chapters – ranging from under 30 seconds, to about 10 minutes – complete with title cards announcing the beginning and end of each chapter. The film documents a woman’s long, slow implosion due to the violence she endures from her police officer husband – and the great lengths she goes to in an attempt to protect her young daughter from the truth. The film is mainly made up of long, static shots that observe the scenes as they play out in agonizing real time. This makes for a long, bleak viewing – where even the few scenes of joy are undercut by the realization of what else is happening. And yet, while it took the movie a long time to put me under its spell – it eventually does accomplish that goal. By the time the movie ended, I was surprised by how involved I was by the film.

 

The film was directed by Philip Groning – whose last film was the documentary Into Great Silence (2005) about life inside a monastery. That film generated great reviews – but somehow I missed it seeing back then. In The Police Officer’s Wife he brings a documentary approach to fiction filmmaking. He observes this family going about their daily routines – including Uwe’s (David Zimmershied) exacting routine when he comes home after work every day. His wife, Christine (Alexandra Finder) spends all of her time with their young daughter Clara (played by twins Pia and Chiara Kleemann). The play, dig in their garden, prepare dinner, etc. Basically, the first part of the movie is just about their domestic routines – contrasted with scenes of nature, and occasionally, the actions of an lonely old man (whose presence is never explained – but I think is fairly obvious, given the end of the movie). Gradually, Groning introduces violence into the equation – slowly and subtly at first, and seemingly unrelated to the family itself – a deer who is hit by a car while Uwe is at work, that forces him to take care of it, the daughter’s fascination with worms, etc.

 

If we know early on that Uwe likes thinks “just so”, and that something is not quite right between them – we actually get our first glimpse of just how serious things are in a one of the movie’s lighter scenes – a playful water fight between husband and wife, we first see the bruises of Christine’s body. These bruises will multiply and grow more severe throughout the movie. As the movie continues, there are fewer calm scenes, and more disturbing ones. Christine slowly sinks into herself – her eyes seem to recede into her head, she lets her hygiene suffer to the point where Clara complains that “Mommy stinks” – something that Uwe thinks is hilarious. But the further she seems to fall, the angrier Uwe gets – his outbreaks get worse and more frequent and violent. Clara is left to her own devices more and more often, and she starts to relate more to Uwe than the Christine – which just makes matters worse. Things will eventually explode – in chapter 54, the longest (or at least feels the longest) which is one of the most riveting and disturbing scenes you will ever see.

 

I am glad I saw The Police Officer’s Wife at TIFF. Had I tried to watch the film at home, I’m not sure I would have made it past an hour. The chapters, the title cards, the slow pace seemed to be a long, slow slog to nowhere for the first third of the movie. But a strange thing happened as I watched the movie – I feel into its rhythm. Not unlike Chantal Ackerman’s Jeanne Dielman (although that film is even more repetitious – by design, to make the title characters explosion at the more shocking), The Police Officer’s Wife has a pace all of its own, and you either fall under its spell, or else you grow bored and restless, and eventually just walk out. I cannot imagine ever watching the film again – it is such a painful film in so many ways, that watching it a second time would be torture. And yet, I cannot help but admire the film. Yes, the film is too long and too slow – and the unnecessary chapters and the title cards make things seem even longer than it otherwise might, and reeks of a director imposing himself on the material, and distances the audience for the action. Yet, the chapter headings are also somewhat reassuring – we know whatever we are seeing will eventually end, and we will be given at least a brief respite from the pain on the screen.

 

The performances by the three leads – who are the only people who have a meaningful in the movie – are about as good as the movie allows. Zimmerschied’s ordinary appearance makes his outbreaks all the more painful. Finder’s physical transformation is impressive, but her subtle quiet performance is better, and more striking, that just that. The Kleeman twins play Clara as a typical little girl – but one who sees more than she should. Occasionally, one or more members of the family will come on screen and look directly into the camera, and sing some nursery rhymes, which have never sounded disturbing than they do here.

 

The Police Officer’s Wife is precisely the film that Groning wanted to make. I cannot imagine what the audience of the film is going to be. Any foreign film with such disturbing subject matter is a tough sell – and the three hour running time doesn’t help matters. I admire Groning for making the movie, knowing that very few people would ever want to watch his film. So, did I like The Police Officer’s wife, or not? Or more importantly should you see the film? I have to admit it – I do think Groning has made a powerful film – but I cannot think of too many people who want to put themselves through the movie. But if you’ve made it this far into the review, you probably already know If they movie is for you or not.  If after reading everything I’ve written, you still think it’s something you`d like – than you`re probably right. For most though, The Police`s Officer`s wife would simply be a too slow, too creepy, too painful to watch.

 

Note: I saw this film at TIFF 2013, and at this point, I have to believe it’s not going to get a proper released in North America – so I decided to publish the review I wrote then anyway.