Movie Review: Cries from Syria

Cries from Syria *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Evgeny Afineevsky.   

 

Cries from Syria is the third documentary this year that I have seen about the current situation in that country – following Last Men in Aleppo and City of Ghosts. I really do wish I had watched this film before those two – I think it’s a slightly better film than either of those, but that’s not the reason – the reason is that it does the best job of giving an overview of what exactly has happened in Syria since 2011. Last Men in Aleppo is focused on the White Helmets – who rush when bombs fall to try and save people, and City of Ghosts focuses on the civilian journalists – many in exile – who worked to document what happened. Their strength is in their focus on one aspect of the tragedy that is Syria – Cries from Syria’s strength lies in the opposite direction – by giving a wider scope. Cries from Syria lacks the depth of those films to be sure – and I wish the film had expanded its lens even wider, to show the International response (or lack thereof) – but I understand that’s not its goal. It’s amazing that for all the talk about Syria, there has not been as much talk as how they got there. This film helps explain it.

 

In the wake of the Arab Spring – where numerous countries rose up against their brutal dictators to overthrow them, civilians in Syria decided to do the same thing. A group of kids wrote “It’s your turn, doctor” on the side of a school – referencing Assad, their brutal leader, to step down. Assad does what brutal dictators do by capturing, torturing and killing the young men (and they were teenagers) responsible. Of course, that didn’t quell the rebellion – it just fed it. As it grew, so did Assad’s response –all the way until Assad is using chemical weapons on his own people. Hundreds of thousands have been murdered, and so far, the International response has been woefully inept.

 

Cries from Syria has images that will haunt you for the rest of your life. Some of them are already famous – the body of drowned toddler on the beach, the image of another toddler soaked in blood and dust, stunned as he sits in a chair – and some that you have not seen before. Much of the footage in the film comes from on the ground reporting – videos shot with cellphones, etc, which – like those other films – gives you a glimpse of what it’s like on the ground and Syria (and really, is the only way we would get any footage – Assad isn’t going to allow a free press after all.

 

I find films like Cries from Syria both very powerful, and very frustrating. Frustrating because I cannot help but wonder if those who can actually change anything are going to see them. There is an element of preaching to the choir here – those who are going to watch a documentary about Syria, are those who already want to help Syria – and the mass of refugees who are trying to escape certain death (and who people like Donald Trump and his supporters paint as potential terrorists, so they simply let them die). Cries from Syria is a film that everyone should see. I do wish it was a film that took more time, and dug deeper into many of its subjects – or did show the lack of response from the rest of the world. But as an overview of the situation, the film is invaluable.

Movie Review: Megan Leavey

Megan Leavey *** / *****

Directed by: Gabriela Cowperthwaite.

Written by: Pamela Gray and Annie Mumolo & Tim Lovestedt.

Starring: Kate Mara (Megan Leavey), Tom Felton (Andrew Dean), Edie Falco (Jackie Leavey), Bradley Whitford (Bob), Common (Gunny Martin), Geraldine James (Dr. Turbeville), Will Patton (Jim), Damson Idris (Michael Forman), Ramon Rodriguez (Matt Morales), Jonathan Howard (Pete Walters), Miguel Gomez (Gomez), Varco (Rex).

 

We all know – the easiest way to get people to cry watching a movie is to have a dog in it. There are no happy dog movies – not really – even the ones that are happy for most of their runtime, will always end with that dog dying. That’s the way these things work. I will fully admit that I have watched many of these movies, and most of the time they do what they set out to do – make me cry. But I don’t often feel good about myself the next day when a film like Marley and Me makes me cry. They are so baldy manipulative, and you cry, and that can be cathartic, but when you look back at it, you feel silly.

 

Megan Leavey is the latest dog film – it’s about the title character, played by Kate Mara, who is going nowhere in her life – just hanging out, depressed, and arguing with her mom (Edie Falco). Seemingly out of the blue, she decides to enlist in the Marines. Once a Marine, she sets her sites on working with the K-9 unit – with a bomb sniffing dog, although I doubt even she could explain why. If you’ve read this far, you probably already know how this is going to play out – and you would mostly be correct. She eventually gets a dog – the meanest one in training – named Rex, and the pair will eventually bond – and head off to Iraq together – to prove themselves, which they do. Then, injured, Megan decides to leave the Marines – and wants to adopt Rex – and will not take no for an answer. (Full disclosure, even writing this summary is making me mist up a little bit).

 

There are a few things that make Megan Leavey a better than normal dog movie – one that still made me cry, but not one that makes me feel silly for crying. For one things, it’s more than a dog movie – it’s also a war movie. And while war movie clichés are even more ingrained than dog movie clichés, you don’t often see the two of them together – and it works quite well. The war scenes are different, even when they feel the same – because of that dog, and the different perspective it gives to those scenes. But the main difference is in the way director Gabriela Cowperthwaite makes the film. She doesn’t push too hard, doesn’t try to underline every moment with emotion – she allows the actors and their actions to do that naturally. The war scenes are not kinetic energy in the form of rapid fire editing to convey chaos – but more clearly, fluidly directed. Upon her return to America – and leaving the Marines, Megan falls back into depression – but Cowperthwaite doesn’t overdo these scenes either – not even when Mara (who is quite good as Leavey) has a monologue about Rex at a group therapy session. Cowperthwaite, moving to features after her documentary Blackfish about poor Tilikum the Killer Whale became one of the most talked about docs of recent years (seriously, it’s pretty much the only doc in the last decade people who don’t normally talk to me about docs mentions), and she proves herself more than able her. For her part, Mara – who is an actress I’ve always liked, even though she isn’t often given the best roles – proves herself more than capable to carry a movie on her back.

 

It’s undeniable that the movie is built on clichés – that’s kind of the deal here, and you know that going in. But it delivers on those clichés in ways that are satisfying – both as you watch, and when you look back at it.

Movie Review: Darkest Hour

Darkest Hour *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Joe Wright.

Written by: Anthony McCarten.

Starring: Gary Oldman (Winston Churchill), Lily James (Elizabeth Layton), Ben Mendelsohn (King George VI), Kristin Scott Thomas (Clementine Churchill), Stephen Dillane (Viscount Halifax), Samuel West (Sir Anthony Eden), Ronald Pickup (Neville Chamberlain), Richard Lumsden (General Ismay).

 

Gary Oldman has been one of the best actors in the world for decades now – and an actor who is never afraid of going wildly over-the-top in any role from Sid & Nancy to The Professional to Hannibal to The Contender to Dracula and on and on. Sure, Oldman can do subtle if he wants to – he finally received his first Oscar nomination for his intricate work in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and he was the quietest member of the ensemble in Nolan’s Batman films as Commissioner Gordon – but it’s always a pleasure to see Oldman in full bluster. In Darkest Hour, Oldman starts his performance in a bathrobe, shouting, and only gets bigger from there. He’s cranked up to 11 from the hop – and the amazing thing is, it works. He is playing Winston Churchill after all – a man in love with his own voice, and absolutely never shut up. The film is tightly focused on the early days as Prime Minister – the first month or so – when he takes over for Neville Chamberlain, and is immediately a war time Prime Minister. Europe is on the brink of collapse, and his own troops are likely to trapped at Dunkirk (yes, the film works very well as a companion to Nolan’s film – telling you everything it didn’t) and being pressured at all times to negotiate a peace treaty with Hitler – something he adamantly does not want to do. The movie hinges on Churchill’s big speeches – speeches where he will do anything to inspire the British public – including tell bald faced lies if need be. The film is about the power of that language.

 

The film was directed by Joe Wright – perhaps picking a safer choice after his Pan bombed in 2015 – and he knows what to do with this film. Written by Anthony McCarten, the movie in many ways feels like it was adapted from a play (it wasn’t) – as the whole thing takes place in smoky chamber rooms or underground bunkers – a few scenes in Parliament, or the palace. The cinematography by the great Bruno Delbonnel is wonderful – full of desaturated colors, and darkness – and wonderful tracking shots through those bunkers. The score, by Dario Marianelli is even better – and keeps the movie moving along, even during moments where the film sags. None of this is as ambitious as Wright’s last costume drama – Anna Karenina – or as perfect as Wright’s Atonement (which also featured Dunkirk) – but its prestige, British costume drama done correctly.

 

The movie goes along at a remarkable clip up until its final act. It’s here – when Churchill for a time actually does consider negotiating with Hitler – when the movie sags more than a bit. With Churchill cowed for a few scenes, and quiet and sputtering, the movie loses its way for a while. This reaches its nadir in a sequence that plays as pure fantasy, as Churchill gets onto the “tube” and talks with regular Londoners about the war (for all of one stop – but hey, it’s a long one). The scene is supposed to be the inspirational heart of the film – but it plays as completely phony. The movie recovers with the finale – in which Churchill delivers his infamous speech to the House of Commons (also heard in Dunkirk, in less bombastic fashion).

 

The supporting cast for the film is mostly excellent. Sensing that Oldman is going to do more than enough acting for all of them, they for the most part play their roles quietly. In some cases – like the normally charming Lily James, who plays a typist supposed to be an audience surrogate, she threatens to recede entirely into the background and be forgotten. In others, like Ben Mendolsohn as King George, he is able to nicely underplay the role of the stuttering King, with more nuance that Colin Firth (for the record, I still quite like Firth’s work in The King’s Speech). Kristen Scott Thomas is a delight in a few scenes as Churchill’s wife. Most of Churchill’s “enemies” in the house kind of blend together – we remember Chamberlain because of his mustache, and Stephen Dillane’s Halifax because he’s the biggest stick in the mud in recent memory.

 

Overall, Darkest Hour does precisely the job it wants to do. Yes, it is straight down the middle – a middlebrow, prestige drama, the kind favored by the Masterpiece Theater crowd (and Oscar voters). But that doesn’t mean the film is bad. Wright knows how to do this type of drama well – and he uses Oldman’s blustery performance to perfection. Sometimes, Oldman has looked silly going so wildly over-the-top in films that don’t know how to use him properly. This one does – and surrounds a great performance with a good movie.

Movie Review: Justice League

Justice League ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Zack Snyder.

Written by: Chris Terrio and Joss Whedon and Zack Snyder based on characters created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger and William Moulton Marston and Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel.

Starring: Ben Affleck (Bruce Wayne / Batman), Henry Cavill (Kal-El / Clark Kent / Superman), Amy Adams (Lois Lane), Gal Gadot (Diana Prince / Wonder Woman), Ezra Miller (Barry Allen / The Flash), Jason Momoa (Arthur Curry / Aquaman), Ray Fisher (Victor Stone / Cyborg), Jeremy Irons (Alfred Pennyworth), Diane Lane (Martha Kent), Connie Nielsen (Hippolyta), J. K. Simmons (James Gordon), Ciarán Hinds (Steppenwolf), Joe Morton (Silas Stone), Amber Heard (Mera), Billy Crudup (Henry Allen).

 

Justice League is a big, entertaining mess of a film from beginning to end. It would be easy to find fault with much – perhaps even most of it – and rip it to shreds in a review. The movie has a lot of problems – the two biggest ones are probably that it forgets to tell a coherent story for most of its runtime and the second is that the villain is awful in almost every conceivable way imaginable – and yet, oddly enough, I kind of liked the movie. It is a step up from last year’s Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad – the second and third film in the DCU, but a massive step down from this year’s Wonder Woman – one of the best comic movies in years. The movie doesn’t really work in any conventional sense, and yet it’s all kind of fun – and actually, for the first time, has me thinking that perhaps DC can pull all this crap together someday into a decent series. It ain’t there yet – but it’s getting better.

 

The film takes place in the aftermath of Batman v. Superman – with Superman still dead, Wonder Woman still hiding, and Batman wondering what he needs to do to protect humanity. What he wants is to assemble a team – a justice league if you will – of people with special powers. That includes Wonder Woman of course – but he’s also got his eye on teenager Barry Allen aka the Flash who can run really fast, Arthur Curry aka Aquaman, who swims a lot, and can speak to fish, and Victor Stone aka Cyborg who is, well, a cyborg. Batman needs this team together – and pronto – because an ancient villain has return to earth. This is Steppenwolf (Ciaran Hings) – who invaded earth thousands of years ago with the help of three boxes (please don’t ask) – and is back again. Last time, he only lost because everyone on earth banded together to fight him. Now, with Superman dead, everyone on earth is demoralized. All Steppenwolf has to do is assemble the boxes, and he’s won.

 

I said earlier, it would be easy to rip Justice League to shreds in a review – and it would be. A lot about this film doesn’t really work. Out of the three new additions to the team – only Ezra Miller’s Flash is an unabashed success – I’d watch a movie of just him right now, as Miller brings something that has been missing from the previous Zack Snyder superhero films – unabashed joy. He’s a riot. Jason Momoa’s Aquaman is, um, interesting, I guess. He isn’t the Aquaman I grew up – but everyone mocks the Aquaman I grew up with, so maybe that’s why they’ve turned him into an Entourage extra in this film (seriously, I kept expecting him to ask Flash “Do you even lift, bro?”). I may be persuaded to like Ray Fisher’s Cyborg at some point – but they really need to decide what the hell this guy can do – because in this film, he’s seems to be able to do anything the screenplay needs him to do at even given time, even if it’s never been mentioned that he can do that before. Also, if there’s something this series of movies did NOT need it was more damn brooding – and Cyborg (who I mainly know from Teen Titans, where’s he a lovable goofball hanging out with Beast Boy) is nothing if not brooding. This is Affleck’s second time as Batman (okay, third – he did have a scene in Suicide Squad) – and I still cannot tell if he’s bored, or just has the most flat, one note reading of Batman imaginable. Gal Gadot kills it again as Wonder Woman – making me want a sequel to that film as soon as possible.

 

We know the film was cobbled together now by two different directors – that Zack Snyder shot the film, and delivered a rough cut, before having to step away because of a family tragedy – and being replaced by Joss Whedon, who came in, reshot a bunch of stuff, and took over post-production. The film certainly does have a cobbled together feel to it – but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. This series needed to the lighten the hell up, and Whedon’s trademark banter fits the mold for this film just fine. The film still has too much slow motion – a Snyder trademark – but at least there it makes sense to a certain extent here.

 

I could go on pointing out flaws here – seriously, Steppenwolf is awful – but I have to admit one thing about Justice League: it’s kind of fun. Yeah, it’s goofy fun – and the fun is fleeting (this is a parking lot movie, in that you’ll forget it as soon as you leave the theater and hit the parking lot) – but it’s still fun. Batman v. Superman was a long, dull, slog of a film – no fun at all. Suicide Squad wasn’t much fun, unless it featured Margot Robbie bouncing off the walls as Harley Quinn. This movie is lighter and a hell of a lot more fun than it really should be. Is it a good movie? Not really. But it’s a step in the right direction for this huge, lumbering franchise.

Movie Review: Novitiate

Novitiate **** / *****

Directed by: Margaret Betts.

Written by: Margaret Betts   

Starring: Margaret Qualley (Sister Cathleen), Melissa Leo (Reverend Mother), Dianna Agron (Sister Mary Grace), Morgan Saylor (Sister Evelyn), Julianne Nicholson (Nora Harris), Liana Liberato (Sister Emily), Denis O'Hare (Archbishop McCarthy), Maddie Hasson (Sister Sissy), Ashley Bell (Sister Margaret), Marco St. John (Father Luca), Sasha Mason (Cathleen, age 12), Eliza Mason (Cathleen, age 7).

 

There’s some much going on in Margaret Betts’ debut film Novitiate, it’s a minor miracle that she keeps it all on track. The film is set in the 1960s, during the Vatican II meetings, and takes place at a convent run with an iron fist by the Reverend Mother (Melissa Leo) – who has not left its grounds in 40 years. Vatican II will bring sweeping changes to the Catholic Church – and to the role of nuns within the Church, and the Reverend Mother is not happy about it. For many movies, that would likely be more than enough to base a movie around – and yet here, it’s the secondary subplot.

 

The movie is really about the group of young women – all in their late teens – who arrive at the convent, determined to become nuns. The process will take them two years – and they all start off eager – but not all of them will last. The movie’s main character is Cathleen (Margaret Qualley) – who discovers Catholicism when her mother (Julianne Nicholson – continuing to make her case as one of the best character actresses working today) sends her to an all-girls Catholic school – because she can do so for free. Her husband has just left, and she’s now a single mother – and far from perfect, even if she loves her daughter. When Cathleen announces her intention to become a nun, her mother is dumbfounded (she is an atheist after all) and thinks she’s throwing her life away. But Cathleen is in love she says – in love with God.

 

The movie is really about that deeply confusing love that Cathleen – and the other young women – feel for God. Do they love God, or are they in love with God – and if they are going to “marry” him – does it matter which one it is? The young women are all devote – but none of them are certain either. And what happens when their sexuality starts to emerge – and feelings of lust overtake them – either for men or boys they used to know (or know in their minds) or for each other. The movie explores this – but not in an exploitive way. This isn’t a nuns gone wild exploitation film – but one that asks the questions in ways that I think open minded religious people can relate to.

 

As a director Betts is remarkably restrained for the most part. She perfectly case Qualley in the lead role – because Qualley has one of those wide, open, deeply expressive faces, in which so much can be read into while she does so little. Qualley, who didn’t do so well in Death Note earlier this year, deserves for this to be a breakout role for her. On the other end of the scale is Melissa Leo – who goes at times wildly (and wildly entertainly) over-the-top as the Reverend Mother. She can be cruel and vicious when she senses weakness, she pounces, and can destroy the young nuns in minutes. Yet, even she becomes more than just a caricature as the film moves along – you cannot blame her for being put out by Vatican II – which, after all, completely undermines what she has dedicated her life to. When she complains to the local Arch Bishop that the sisters “weren’t even given a voice” in the Vatican II meetings, he coldly explains “That’s not how this works”. The Reverend Mother is on one hand a monster – and another, a victim.

 

That Betts keeps both of these plots going through the film is deserving of high praise – especially since this is her debut film. It’s as an assured debut as you will see this year – and a complex film, that asks difficult questions, and comes to difficult conclusions.

Movie Review: Mudbound

Mudbound **** / *****

Directed by: Dee Rees.

Written by: Virgil Williams and Dee Rees based on the novel by Hillary Jordan.

Starring: Carey Mulligan (Laura McAllan), Garrett Hedlund (Jamie McAllan), Jason Clarke (Henry McAllan), Jonathan Banks (Pappy McAllan), Jason Mitchell (Ronsel Jackson), Mary J. Blige (Florence Jackson), Rob Morgan (Hap Jackson), Kerry Cahill (Rose Tricklebank), Kelvin Harrison Jr. (Weeks), Lucy Faust (Vera Atwood), Henry Frost (Teddy), Dylan Arnold (Carl Atwood).

 

There have been a lot of films about racism in America over the years, but few and far between are the ones that treat it as Dee Rees Mudbound does. Set during and just after WWII, in the rural South, the film tells the story of two different families, sharing the same land. The land is owned by Henry McAllan (Jason Clarke), who has moved his wife Laura (Carey Mulligan), their daughters, and his overtly racist father, Pappy (Jonathan Banks) to this muddy patch of land, thinking he would become a big shot land owner, only to discover the opposite is true. He thinks of himself as something of a big shot – but knows, deep down, he isn’t – and if he ever thinks otherwise, Pappy is there to inform him otherwise. The other family is the Jackson’s – led by patriarch Hap (Rob Morgan), and his wife Florence (Mary J. Blige). They’ve been on this land for years – sharecropping – and Hap has pride in the land, and his job – and also his large family. Hap knows the “rules” for being a black man in the South – and while he doesn’t like them – he knows how to get along without getting in too much trouble.

 

Both families are affected by WWII – as they both send a man over to the war. For the McAllans, it is Henry’s brother Jamie (Garrett Hedlund) – who when we meet him before the war, is dashing and handsome and charming – the opposite of his quieter brother. For the Jacksons, it is their son Ronsel (Jason Mitchell), who joins and fights his war in a tank in Germany – even falls in love with a German girl. They both return from the war changed men – to a place that has not changed. Ronsel is barely back, before Pappy and Henry remind him of his “place” at the local general store – the irony is not lost on us – or Ronsel – that an enemy country treated him with more respect than he gets at home. Jamie struggles with PTSD, which he treats with alcohol. Jamie and Ronsel eventually bond with each other over their war experiences (in this small town, it’s almost like no one else went to the war) – but even in their more peaceful meetups, there is an air of danger hanging over them. In this time and place, a white man and a black man cannot be friends.

 

If Henry and Hap are one matched pair – one benefitting from the racial system, one quietly accepting it, and Ronsel and Jamie are another matched pair – returning from war to a world that hasn’t changed, even if they have, then Laura and Florence are a third matched pair. Their relationship begins when Laura’s kids come down with whooping cough, and Henry cannot get into town for the doctor – so he brings back Florence – who is a midwife – to help. Florence knows what to do to help the kids, and soon she will be hired to help out the McAllans more and more. While both Laura and Florence outwardly respect their husbands, and accept their roles as their wives, they both subtly undermine them as well. They relate to each other as mothers and wives – and are more than willing to go against their husbands if they feel it is the right thing to do.

 

The structure of Mudbound is mainly episodic – and to be honest, at times, the transition between episodes is choppy at best. This is especially true in the scenes when Jamie and Ronsel are at war, and we go from quiet, rural South, right into the middle of a war. The transition can be jarring – and not always in a good way. But as it moves it, the film finds it rhythm better and better. The film – adapted from a novel by Hillary Jordan, who used shifting narrators – at times provides each of the major characters a chance for voiceovers, which lets us into their point-of-view of what is happening. This helps, because Mudbound is mostly a film of small moments that slowly gather a cumulative power. The technical aspects of the film are expertly handled – the period details of the costume and production design, Rachel Morrison’s great cinematography.

 

The ending of the film is inevitable, and has been telegraphed before it arrives. My only complaint about it really, is that I wish Pappy was treated as a complex character as everyone else. Jonathan Banks is a great actor – see him on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul – but Pappy is an old school, one note racist, and I wish he was something more. Jason Clarke’s Henry is a racist too – but he’s given some sort of complexity – and he has a way of delivering his dialogue to Hap with a smile that makes it sound like he’s saying it with contempt anyway. With Pappy, it’s just out and out hate.

 

The film ends on a up note, and even though it’s a different ending than the book (and will apparently make a sequel, that novelist Jordan is working on, harder to do as a direct sequel to this) – I think it is the right choice for the film. With all the heaviness, and brutality, we see before this – it’s good to see an ending that isn’t completely devoid of hope – one that doesn’t suggest everything is completely broken. Perhaps that ending is realistic – but it’s the one we want anyway.

Movie Review: Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond - Featuring a Very Special, Contractually Obligated Mention of Tony Clifton

 

Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond - Featuring a Very Special, Contractually Obligated Mention of Tony Clifton **** / *****

Directed by: Chris Smith.

 

Jim Carrey was one of the biggest stars in the world when he made Man on the Moon – Milos Forman’s 1999 biopic about the late comedian t Andy Kaufman. Carrey had a string of huge hits starting in 1994 with Ace Ventura – and going on to include films like The Mask, Dumb and Dumber, Liar, Liar – etc. The year before he made Man on the Moon, he made his first drama – Peter Weir’s The Truman Show – which showed his chops outside of comedy – which, of course, never delivers the kind of prestige many want. Man on the Moon seemed to be the culmination of Carrey’s career up until that point – and remains a high water mark for Carey’s career. There have been rumors and stories for years about just how committed Carey was to the role – did he really go to set and insist on everyone calling him Andy – or Tony, on those days he had to play Kaufman’s own alter ego. There is a strange blurring of the lines between Jim and Andy – something Kaufman likely would have loved, since no one could ever tell just how serious he was about anything, what was an act, and what was real.

 

The new documentary Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond is made up of footage shot by Kaufman’s Lynne Margulies and his partner Bob Zmuda on the set of Man on the Moon – Carrey wanted them instead of a typical “making of, press kit crew”, and a very candid modern day interview with Carrey himself. Tellingly, the movie doesn’t interview anyone else involved – no Forman, or any of Carrey’s co-stars and crew – so in effect, this is still a performance piece for Carrey himself. How much of what we see is an act – how much is real? Did Carrey play it up when he knew the cameras were rolling, or was he really that demanding all the time? Carrey says that Universal didn’t want the footage to come out because they didn’t want people thinking that he was an asshole. They were right to be worried.

 

I don’t think Carrey is an asshole – and I don’t think the footage on the set shows him being one. I do think it shows the extremes of method acting – something that is at times admired, and at others times mocked (to be fair, if Daniel Day-Lewis needs to go wholly method to deliver performances like Gangs of New York, There Will Be Blood and Lincoln – go for it – but is Jared Leto needs to send used condoms to his co-stars to become The Joker is freaking Suicide Squad, it’s not worth it). How much of this all is an act, is something that Carrey is still toying with us in the modern day interview. Perhaps he needed to keep everyone on edge, because that is what Kaufman did as well. He knew what was an act, and what wasn’t – no one else did.

 

The modern day interview with Carrey is interesting and revealing. Carrey has stepped back from the spotlight in recent years – only occasionally doing lead roles anymore, and even more infrequently in the type of comedies that made him famous in the first place. He is fairly candid in his interview about his process – and his own mental state, which he has struggled with at times. He talks about going up on stage and a Mr. Hyde coming out of him – that’s not Jim up there, that’s someone else entirely. Watching the film, you get to see the connections between Jim Carrey and Andy Kaufman even more than you did before. Part of the issue with Man on the Moon – which is a really good film, but not quite a great one – is that Kaufman remains an enigma throughout that film – it never really gets under his skin, because he worked so hard to keep you on the outside, questioning what is an act and what isn’t. That is precisely what Carrey and Man on the Moon captured so brilliantly – and yet feels somewhat incomplete (to be fair, I haven’t seen Man on the Moon in years – but now I want to). Carrey lets that barrier between performer and person (and audience) down a little bit during the course of this film. He’s still toying with us – sure – but we see at least a part of him. This film is about two comic geniuses, yes, but only one do we really get to know. The other will be a permanent enigma – which is how he always wanted it.