Classic Movie Review: Hollywood Shuffle (1987)

Hollywood Shuffle (1987)

Directed by: Robert Townsend.

Written by: Dom Irrera and Robert Townsend and Keenen Ivory Wayans.

Starring: Robert Townsend (Bobby Taylor / Jasper / Speed / Sam Ace / Rambro), Craigus R. Johnson (Stevie Taylor), Helen Martin (Bobby's Grandmother), Starletta DuPois (Bobby's Mother), David McKnight (Uncle Ray), Keenen Ivory Wayans (Donald / Jheri Curl), Lou B. Washington (Tiny), Anne-Marie Johnson (Lydia / Willie Mae / Hooker #5), Don Reed (Maurice), Sena Ayn Black (Receptionist / Missy Ann / Woman on Cliff), Lisa Mende (Casting Director), Dom Irrera (Writer), Eugene Robert Glazer (Director / Teacher / Amadeus / Chicago Jones / Dirty Larry), John Witherspoon (Mr. Jones), Le Tari  (Rudy), Paul Mooney (President of NAACP).

 

Robert Townsend’s Hollywood Shuffle caused quite a stir when it was released in 1987. Coming out the year after Spike Lee’s breakthrough film, She’s Gotta Have It, this appeared like another film by an ambitious, talented young black director who decided to do things his own way to get his film made. The story about how he made the film are well-known – he begged those he knew for all the film they could get, got friends to work on the film for next to nothing, etc. And it worked. Hollywood Shuffle looks like a studio comedy from the 1980s, even if it was made for under $100,000. It was supposed to be Townsend’s calling card – his way of truly breaking into the industry he had struggled to do in more than a decade of trying to be a working actor, getting small parts only. All these years later, Hollywood Shuffle is still the film that Townsend is best known for. He has worked fairly steadily – as a writer, director and actor. But his career in feature films lasted just a decade or so – with Hollywood Shuffle followed by The Five Heartbeets, Meteor Man and BAPS, and almost legendarily bad movie – which pretty much killed it. It is still a triumph that Townsend got Hollywood Shuffle made at all in 1987 – and sadly, the film is still more than a little accurate. It’s still sad though that for whatever reason, he was never really able to follow it up with something that really realized the potential so clearly in display in this film.

 

In the film, Townsend stars as Bobby Taylor, just one of many working black actors in Hollywood – or at least trying to work. He works at a hotdog stand to make ends meet, and lives with his parents, his grandmother a little brother, and is always heading out for one audition after another, and never getting them. The main thrust of the movie is a series of auditions he has to go through to get his first lead role – a huge opportunity for him. Yes, the role is a stereotypical gang member, and a white person’s version of that to boot – and bears no resemblance to any of the black people Bobby knows. But if he gets the role, it will surely lead to others, right?

 

That’s the plot of the movie, sure, but Townsend and company really use it as a jumping off point to explore the way that Hollywood sees black actors, black people. The film shows us any number of stereotypical roles for black people – gang members, slaves, etc. It also shows us Bobby imagining himself in roles that a black actor would never get – a film noir detective like Sam Spade, an action hero named Rambro. He imagines what may happen if he makes the movie he knows is offensive to black people – and what may happen if the NAACP decides to boycott – not the film itself, but him personally. My favorite segment is probably an extended riff on Siskel & Ebert, where two black men review recent movies that they managed to sneak into.

 

The film is far from perfect. While it has the look of a studio comedy from 1987, it is rough around the edges – some of the performances don’t quite work, some of the segments go on far too long, and even at just over 80 minutes, it feels padded to get there. And yet, its hard to not to admire the film for its balls to the walls approach – how it throws one punch after another at Hollywood. And it’s hard not to see its influence on others. One of the co-writers and co-stars of the movie was Keenan Ivory Wayans – who the next year would make his directorial debut I’m Gonna Git You Sucka – a spoof of Blaxploitation films, and just two years after that would create In Living Color. There is more than a little of Hollywood Shuffle in those projects. So the legacy of Hollywood Shuffle continues – even if, for whatever reason, Robert Townsend was never quite able to replicate its success.

Classic Movie Review: Woman of the Dunes (1964)

Woman in the Dunes (1964) 

Directed by: Hiroshi Teshigahara.

Written by: Kôbô Abe and Eiko Yoshida based on the novel by Abe.

Starring: Eiji Okada (Entomologist Niki Jumpei), Kyôko Kishida (Woman). 

 

Woman in the Dunes is about two people trapped in a sand dune in rural Japan – one who willing there, and embraces her role trapped in there, and the other who fights against it for most of the movie. The film is clearly an allegory, except of exactly what it perhaps left unclear. We certainly aren’t meant to take the situation as in any way realistic – there are many things that wouldn’t make logical sense, from just how high the walls of the dunes are themselves, to the economics that underlie their predicament – that the two of them down there dig up enough sand, and send to the townspeople above, who then sell the sand and support the whole town. Yet as surreal as a situation as this is, it is almost made more so by the way director Hiroshi Teshigahara shoots the whole movie. He got his start in documentaries, and he shoots this in many ways with that eye for realism – that eye for the physical reality of what we see. As a result, we almost feel the texture of the sand. By making everything feel realistic – at least visually – it almost makes the story itself more surreal.

 

Although the film is called Woman in the Dunes, the main character is actually the man – an Entomologist whose name we don’t learn until the final frames (it’s not really a spoiler – but it also doesn’t really matter at all). He is in a remote area of Japan studying bugs – he hopes to find a new breed of cricket, which will make him famous in his small world. He gets so involves searching for them in the desert, that he misses the last bus back to the hotel. He asks some locals if they know a place he can spend the night – and that’s how he comes to stay with the Woman in the Dunes. He descends to her house via ladder, and spends an odd night there. The house is surrounded by sand, constantly threatening to bury the house completely. It comes in everywhere. When he wakes up in the morning he heads outside, and is surprised – but not initially concerned – that the ladder is gone. Soon though it becomes clear that he is meant to stay there forever – helping the woman dig out the sand. He is convinced that he will be missed – that people will come looking for him. But in the meantime, he doesn’t really have a choice – he either digs out the sand, or gets buried by it. And the woman is attractive, and nice to him – and she doesn’t seem to mind being trapped down there. It’s also clear from the beginning that she is more than willing to use sex to keep him down there. And, well, what else does he have to do?

 

Woman in the Dunes is a very sexual, erotic film without ever being graphic about it. Those early scenes down in the fit are as filled with sexual tension as anything I can remember – especially an early moment that looks at the woman’s naked back as she sleeps – and alongside the Entomologist, we simply watch her. Like he does with the sand Teshigahara makes the woman’s physical reality pop off the screen in a way that makes it seems like you know what it would feel like to touch her skin. Those early scenes are erotic in a way that later ones are not – as they settle into their roles, and seem to be wearing more and more clothes. The sexual politics of the film are complicated – I cannot help but wonder what the conversation around them would be had the film been released today. In particular, there is a scene late in the film that is really rather ugly – in which the villagers come to the top of the dunes, and try and coax the two of them to have sex in front of them – something that man wants (they are being offered a chance out of the dunes – occasionally in return) – and the woman resists. The scene is ugly – although it never gets to the point of rape, it isn’t for lack of effort – but it’s portrayed in an interesting way. Yes, it’s ugly – but it’s also the villager’s way to try and actually welcome the Entomologist into their community. That he is now one of them.

 

The two central performances in the film are both very good. Eiji Okada has more range to play as the Entomologist who goes from happy-go-lucky, too angry to desperate to resigned over the course of the movie. Kyôko Kishida has the more enigmatic role – we never really learn why she ended up down there in the first place, or why she has come to except as she has. She tells a story about a husband and child bury in the dunes during a wind storm, but that’s as much backstory as we get. Anyway, she certainly doesn’t want to leave. And by the end of the film, the Entomologist doesn’t want to go either. It’s more complicated than finding happiness in slavery – or even that he loves the woman. The end of the film leaves him in a rather precarious situation – alone, with no guarantee that he will ever not be alone again. But, still, he doesn’t want to leave. Because, of course, in a way we are all in the pit – and you spend long enough down there, it’s more comfortable than leaving. Because, by then he’s made improvements to the pit – and you can’t just leave those behind now can you.

Movie Review: Avengers: Endgame

Avengers: Endgame **** / *****

Directed by: Anthony Russo and Joe Russo.

Written by: Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely basics on comics created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and Jim Starlin.

Starring: Robert Downey Jr. (Tony Stark / Iron Man), Chris Evans (Steve Rogers / Captain America), Mark Ruffalo (Bruce Banner / Hulk), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Scarlett Johansson (Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow), Jeremy Renner (Clint Barton / Hawkeye), Don Cheadle (James Rhodes / War Machine), Paul Rudd (Scott Lang / Ant-Man), Benedict Cumberbatch (Stephen Strange/Doctor Strange), Chadwick Boseman (T'Challa / Black Panther), Brie Larson (Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel), Tom Holland (Peter Parker / Spider-Man), Karen Gillan (Nebula), Zoe Saldana (Gamora), Evangeline Lilly (Hope van Dyne / The Wasp), Tessa Thompson (Valkyrie), Rene Russo (Frigga), Elizabeth Olsen (Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch), Anthony Mackie (Sam Wilson/Falcon), Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier), Tom Hiddleston (Loki), Danai Gurira (Okoye), Benedict Wong (Wong), Pom Klementieff (Mantis), Dave Bautista (Drax), Letita Wright (Shuri), John Slattery (Howard Stark), Tilda Swinton (The Ancient One), Jon Favreau (Happy Hogan), Hayley Atwell (Peggy Carter), Natalie Portman (Jane Foster), Marisa Tomei ( Auny May), Taika Waititi (Kong), Angela Bassett (Ramonda), Michael Douglas (Hank Pym), Michelle Pfeiffer (Janet Van Dyne), William Hurt (Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross), Colbie Smulders (Maria Hill), Sean Gunn (On Set Rocket), Winston Duke (M/Baku), Linda Cardellini (Laura Barton), Maximiliano Hernandez (Agent Sitwell), Frank Grillo (Brock Rumlow), Hiroyuki Sanada (Akihiko), , Vin Diesel (Groot), Bradley Cooper (Rocket), Gwyneth Paltrow (Pepper Potts), Robert Redford (Alexander Pierce), Josh Brolin (Thanos), Chris Pratt (Peter Quill/Star-Lord), Samuel L. Jackson (Nicky Fury), Lexi Rabe (Morgan Stark).

 

So, here we are finally. After 11 years and 21 previous films, we finally get to the Endgame. And even if we know this isn’t really the end – there is another MCU movie scheduled for release in July – and various others in stages of development, and numerous TV series either ongoing right now or coming in the near future. But it is the end of this universe as we currently know it – as the heroes who have been at the heart of this universe for the past decade will step aside in one way or another and make room for some new heroes – either ones we already know, some not. So there is a lot riding on this movie – which brings an end to a chapter in this series.

 

The major accomplishment of Endgame is that it someone manages to make this massive series, with countless characters, and 21 prior movies, feel like it was all leading to this one place. It has to somehow bring together everyone in one place, for one task and make it feel natural. That is no minor feat. It is the same trick that Game of Thrones is trying to pull right now in its last season with mixed results (the second episode of the current season was one of my favorites of the whole show – the third – the huge battle – was okay, but kind of a letdown). That writer/director Joe and Anthony Russo pull it off is something that cannot be dismissed. This is a huge logistical challenge, and they pull it off. They also manage to make what is essentially a three-hour movie based mostly on fan service, and turn it into a satisfying movie. This isn’t a standalone to be sure – you may be able to follow the major plot of the movie without much knowledge of what came before, but really, what would the point of that be?

 

And so, here we are. The Snapture has happened, wiping out half of our heroes, along with half of everyone else in the Universe, all because Thanos (Josh Brolin) thinks the universe would be better off with people living creatures in it. There are limited resources, and know, they can sustain everyone. That was where Infinity War left us, and pretty much exactly where Endgame picks up. I’m not going to get into spoilers here – not really – not because I’m that worried (the film made $350 million in North America in one weekend, so if you really wanted to see it, you have seen it – but mainly because if I started to explain the plot, I’d have to go on for 10 pages, and that is something no one wants. I think many people had many theories of how Endgame was going to resolve the wiping out of billions of lives – including heroes who we already know have upcoming projects with them in it – and while I won’t spoil it, I will say that while most of those theories turned out to be wrong in terms of specifics, they weren’t that far off either.

 

I mentioned Game of Thrones last season above, and I am reminded of that now – because essentially what Endgame is the second and third episode of that series’ last season merged together into a single film. The second episode of this season had all the surviving characters at Winterfell, knowing that the Night King was descending on them and preparing to fight, even if they all thought they were going to die. The third episode was the massive battle of Winterfell – where that fight actually happens. That is essentially Endgame – where the two hours is the surviving heroes at their most existential – trying to figure out a way to win, however slim the chances are, and the final hour being the massive battle we all know is coming. True, the second hour has what they call a time heist in it – which is just basically pure fun in the most fan service way possible. But there is more darkness in this film than most other Marvel movies – and not just in the way of Infinity War, which ended on a downer that we all knew was temporary – but something deeper and darker and more sustained than that. And unlike the Battle of Winterfell, Endgame doesn’t chicken out in the end in terms of who lives and who dies.

 

Endgame is a huge movie in every way, and what’s most surprising about it is that it works as well as it does. It works better than Infinity War did for me – that film felt like it was trying to pummel be for nearly three hours, and while ultimately, it is a fine film, it’s little more than that. Endgame goes farther, and is a truly fun and moving experience. I’m not going to overstate this movies importance – some users on Twitter who have claimed this is the peak human achievement of all time have taken care of that. But it is a film that sets itself a huge task, and then remarkably achieves it. It is a satisfying way to end this chapter of the MCU – which has had its ups and down over the past decade, but has mainly been a lot of fun. It’s better than most of them, but not all of them – but it’s a fitting way to not say goodbye – since the series isn’t ending – but at least, See you later.

Movie Review: High Life

High Life **** ½ / *****

Directed by: Claire Denis.

Written by: Claire Denis & Jean-Pol Fargeau & Geoff Cox and Nick Laird.

Starring: Robert Pattinson (Monte), Juliette Binoche (Dibs), André Benjamin (Tcherny), Mia Goth (Boyse), Agata Buzek (Nansen), Lars Eidinger (Chandra), Claire Tran (Mink), Ewan Mitchell (Ettore), Gloria Obianyo (Elektra), Scarlett Lindsey (Willow Baby), Jessie Ross (Willow). 

 

I’m not sure I ever asked myself the question of what a space movie directed by Claire Denis would look like, but if I had, the answer would undeniably be High Life – the French auteur’s latest film in which she is deliberately playing with time and space, and narrative constructs – and putting a host of images into your mind that you will not soon forget, some because they are haunting and beautiful, and some because they are revolting and vile. This is what you expect from Denis when she takes on more genre fare – like her vampire film (Trouble Every Day) or her noir-esque detective story (Bastards). She will give you some of what you think you want, and a whole lot else you never knew you needed.

 

High Life is a film about a doomed space mission. It opens with Monte (Robert Pattinson) and a baby girl named Willow – who he feeds, rocks to sleep, comforts, talks to, etc. – much like any parent would, except he’s on a big, bulky, square spaceship floating through space, and there is no one else around. As in common with Denis’ film, the narrative here is fractured – so we will flash back and forth in time to a time when there was no baby on board, but there were more people alongside Monte. Eventually the basics will become clear – that this is a group of convicts, who are being used as scientific guinea pigs, and although we know there is no way for them to ever get back to earth, they don’t – at least not at first. There seems to be a very loose leadership structure on board – but basically Dibs (Juliette Binoche) is running things. She’s conducting experiments on the rest of them – trying to get the women pregnant, and able to carry to term in space. Boyse (Mia Goth) is one of those women – and doesn’t much like it – but doesn’t have much of a choice. There are others on board – like Tcherny (Andre Benjamin) who really only bonds with the plants on board that help keep them all alive.

 

On a basic plot level, yes, High Life does describe everything – it describes how that baby got there, and why no one else but that baby and Monte are there by the time we see them at the beginning of the film. Along the way, there will be haunting images you will not forget – the beauty and horror of dead bodies floating in their space suits. There will be moments that may well shock you – as any movie that contains a room called the Fuck Box is bound to. It is not a movie that is afraid of bodily fluids – any of them – as they all pretty much get their opportunity for a close-up here.

 

But it is the larger meanings of High Life that will haunt you long after you’ve left the movie. This isn’t a simple sci-fi film – there are great special effects, sure, but this isn’t a space opera or a Star Wars film. You will likely be reminded of perhaps Kubrick’s 2001 or Tarkovsky’s Solaris rather than typical Hollywood film. Denis has made a film full of ideas, and doesn’t really feel the need to explain them to you. This is true right up until the end of the film which is perhaps hopeful or terribly sad depending on how you want to see it, and more than likely both.

 

Denis is aided by the performances from her cast. Pattinson has become one of the most interesting around since Twilight made him a star (and likely, enough money for him to live on forever). Since then he’s concentrated on working with interesting filmmakers – James Gray, David Cronenberg (twice), David Michod, the Safdie brothers (where he delivered one of the best performances of the decade in Good Time), Werner Herzog, Brady Corbet – and upcoming films by Christopher Nolan, Antonio Campos. Robert Eggers, Ciro Guerra and Joanna Hogg. He is best in High Life when he is quiet – and he’s quiet most of the time. It’s an interior performance as much physical as anything. Binoche once again proves that she up for just about anything (she gets the most memorably sequence in the aforementioned Fuck Box), and it’s not even her most memorable sequence in the film. Mia Goth continues her run of really strange, interesting work (Suspira, A Cure for Wellness, Nymphomaniac) – and has become one of those strange screen presences I light up when I see on screen.

 

Denis’ film is probably best seen with people who like to talk about and argue about a film after seeing it – or, as in my case, when you have a while to at least sit with it in your own head. If you see it in the theater (and you should) there will be walkouts – and more than likely someone will say – loud enough for everyone to hear when the credits start to play – “What the fuck was that?” as they did at the screening I attended. Love it or hate it, you may well ask yourself the same question when the film ends.

Movie Review: Body at Brighton Rock

Body at Brighton Rock *** / *****

Directed by: Roxanne Benjamin.

Written by: Roxanne Benjamin.

Starring: Karina Fontes (Wendy), Casey Adams (Red), Emily Althaus (Maya), Miranda Bailey (Sandra), Martin Spanjers (Davey), Matt Peters (Kevin), Susan Burke (Coroner), John Getz (Sheriff), Brodie Reed (Craig).

 

Although Body at Brighton Rock is her debut feature, I was already a fan of writer/director Roxanne Benjamin, based on her segment of the omnibus horror film Southbound (and less so of her segment of the other omnibus horror film XX – which was stylish, but empty). She’s got the chops of a great horror filmmaker in a way that calls to mind the films of the 1980s, without it becoming an empty throwback to those days. Body at Brighton Rock is not great film – from a number of reasons – but it confirms Benjamin’s talent, and makes me really want to see what’s next for her.

 

The film’s opening credit sequence may be my favorite sequence of the film – a kind of perfect tribute to low rent, 1980s horror films that immediately makes you think of the films of John Carpenter, or at least the best of the recent films aping his style – Adam Wingard’s The Guest. It’s a cheque that the rest of the movie can never quite cash – because this really isn’t an exploitation movie in any way, or even a very violent one. The style is at once instantly recognizable and done well, but somewhat at odds with the content. Benjamin will settle that style down – at least for long stretches – but it’s such a rush to see her do it so well, I really want to see her really do a 1980s style slasher film – with her own take on it of course.

 

What Body at Brighton Rock is really about though is a survival tale about Wendy (Karina Fontes) – a young woman, a part time park ranger, who usually works the entrance gate or gift shop – or with children’s groups – who wants to prove something to her park ranger friends who thinks she couldn’t hack it as a real ranger – as someone really out there in the wilderness. So she switches job with her friend for the day, and heads out onto the trail – her job is to replace all of those brightly colored signed you see stapled to things in parks that we always ignore. But Wendy, well, she isn’t really good at this hiking thing, and eventually when she scales a peak and takes a selfie to share with her friends, she figures out she isn’t where she thinks she is. Even more disturbingly however, in the background of her selfie, she notices a dead body. She radios it in – and is told she’ll have to spend the night out there. Things will not go well.

 

It was smart of Benjamin to establish early on that Wendy is not much of an outdoorsman – it helps to make some of things she does seem believable, like when she loses her maps, or the moment where she sees another man, living this time, hovering of the body and is so scared of being seen that she does something that not only gets her immediately noticed, but also gives away her position. It helps that newcomer Fontes is never less than charming in the role – she isn’t portrayed as dumb, just as ill-equipped for what she has to do – which, if you’re someone like me, who would be even more ill-equipped, is relatable.

 

The film only runs about 87 minutes, and Benjamin probably has to pad things to get it to that runtime. You spend a surprising amount of time setting everything up in the daylight – and then that creepy encounter with Red, which you cannot shake, but also don’t quite know what to make of until the end. There’s also a quite a few fake-outs throughout the film – a dripping bag for instance, or all those moments when she thinks something is happening that isn’t. And the ending comes right out of left field.

 

And yet, all of that is part of its charm. I think Benjamin knows what she’s doing here – she’s making a low budget film, that is a riff on low budget films, and gives us everything you think you could want and more. It’s fun little movie – you won’t remember it for long after you’ve seen it, and its best not to think too hard while watching it – but it shows promise and skill, and is an entertaining way to spend 87 minutes. And I don’t think its ambitions were any higher than that.

Movie Review: Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace **** / *****

Directed by: Sydney Pollock & Alan Elliott.

 

In 1972, Aretha Franklin recorded the bestselling Gospel album of all time, over two nights at New Bethel Baptist Church in Watts in Los Angeles. She was joined on stage by Pastor James Cleveland, and backed up by his great Community Choir, and performed in front of a large congregation, who were encouraged to be as loud as they wanted to. Franklin could have, of course, recorded this in a studio, but she wanted to get the feel of a Baptist service for the album, and thought the best way to do that was live. The great filmmaker Sydney Pollock (who had already made They Shoot Horses Don’t They? at this point) was hired to film the two-day event for television – but because of some kind of technical error, syncing the audio with the visual was impossible at the time, and so the footage sat in the vault for 35 years with no one looking at it. As Pollock was dying of cancer in 2008, he gave the footage to Alan Elliot, in the hopes that a film could be completed. It took a while – technical challenges, legal battles, etc. – stymied the release. And now, finally, we all get a chance to see it.

 

It is amazing to see this film – mainly because it’s amazing to see Franklin sing these songs – songs that obviously meant a lot to her, and that she pours everything into over these two nights. Franklin doesn’t really speak in the documentary – I don’t remember her doing so anyway – but instead does all her speaking in the singing. There is a lot of talk in between the songs – but it’s almost all done by Reverend Cleveland, who if he were a fictional character, who would say he was a little too much of a clichéd black Baptist Preacher – as he does everything you expect him to do. He’s funny and charming, playing with the audience, but also capable of delivering his sermons – getting his meaning across. The other major speech is by Franklin’s father – another black preacher, a little less clichéd than Cleveland, but that could be because he’s speaking from the heart about his daughter.

 

But let’s be honest, if you watch the movie, you are watching to hear Aretha Franklin belt out these sings – and she does not disappoint. This is an artist at the height of her powers, knows it, and pushes herself even farther. Since the album was such a hit, you may well know these songs – and these renditions of those songs – better than I did, but you’ll still want to watch the film to see Franklin belt out the songs. And to the see the reaction from the congregation and crowd (including some celebrities, who don’t speak and aren’t even introduced in the film). The best reactions may be those of the choir members themselves – they are a great choir, and they can see – and they are still in awe of what she does.

 

It’s also interesting to see the film because it’s almost a documentary about the making of itself. Pollock and his crew are visible throughout the film – perhaps had he assembled it at the time, he would have picked different shots to edit himself, and his camera people out. As it stands, it’s interesting to see them all work – see them film, and all the work they did. Most of it undone because of a silly mistake by Pollock.

 

But man, the music. If you have any interest in this film, see it in a theater. You want to experience it there – where it can have the biggest impact. For the second time this month, we have a film that will likely go down as one of the best concert docs in recent memory – this one uncovered at long last and released so we can all see it.

Movie Review: Gloria Bell

Gloria Bell *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Sebastián Lelio.

Written by: Alice Johnson Boher and Sebastián Lelio and Gonzalo Maza.

Starring: Julianne Moore (Gloria), John Turturro (Arnold), Caren Pistorius (Anne), Michael Cera (Peter), Brad Garrett (Dustin), Holland Taylor (Hillary), Rita Wilson (Vicky), Jeanne Tripplehorn (Fiona), Sean Astin (Jeremy), Barbara Sukowa (Melinda).

 

I’ve seen the musical Next to Normal on stage twice – once in New York, near the end of the Broadway run, when the original lead – Alice Ripley – had already left, and once in Toronto when it went on tour a couple years later, and Ripley had returned to the role for the tour. It’s a great musical – and the lead character in it, played by Ripley, is a manic depressive. The first person I saw play the role focused more on the depressive side of the role – making the lead a little sadder, more passive – while Ripley ripped into the manic aspect of the role – it’s a much wilder performance and musical with her in the lead. Both were brilliant – but they were different.

 

I thought of this while watching Gloria Bell because in essence, that is what is going on here. This is an American remake of a Chilean film from not that long ago – 2013 to be exact – with Paulina Garcia in the lead role. It was the international breakthrough for director Sebastian Lelio – who would go onto win an Oscar for A Fantastic Woman. Leilo returns to the director’s chair for this remake – and while they throw in a few lines to spell out we are in America now (unnecessary) and her love interest is made her own age instead of older – but other than that, this is essentially the same film as Leilo made just 5 years ago. The main difference is that instead of Paulina Garcia, he now has Julianne Moore in the lead. And she approaches the lead role in a slightly different way than Garcia did - in many ways, I think she has better defined aspects of the characters that Garcia (deliberately) left more ambiguous. Much like the two productions of Next to Normal I saw, I don’t really know which one is better – they are in many ways, the same thing. But in some ways, there is enough difference to make them their own unique thing.

 

For those who have seen neither version of Leilo’s film, they focus on a middle aged woman named Gloria (Moore). She has been divorced for 12 years, has two grown children out living their own lives, works a boring job at an insurance company (that she is very good at), has a few close friends, and not much else. She spends some nights at a dance club for older adults – sometimes she makes eyes with the other men, sometimes it goes nowhere. It is here where she meets Arnold (John Turturro) – divorced only a year, who has a different sort of relationship with his family. They don’t seem to want to let him go – and they are on the phone with him a lot. He says he wants to break free and live his own life – but he always seems to be sucked back in – mainly because, in some way, he wants to be sucked back in.

 

Moore is one of the best actresses of her generation, and there is seemingly nothing that she cannot pull off. When you look at the range of her work from Short Cuts to Boogie Nights to Magnolia to The Hours to Far From Heaven to The Kids Are all Right to Still Alice and a whole lot more, she is not an actress you catch in a bad performance often. This is one of her better recent roles (certainly better than the aforementioned Still Alice, for which she finally won an Oscar – which was a great performance in a snooze of a film). It is a film built by small moments and gestures – because in many ways that is Gloria’s life (isn’t it all of our lives, really?). She has no one to confide in – not really. Her kids are living their lives, with their own problems. Her best friend (Rita Wilson) is still married, and while supportive, doesn’t quite understand Gloria. Her co-worker (Barbara Sukowa) is worried about her job. Her mother (Holland Taylor) has her own issues. And Arnold is someone she is just getting to know – feeling each other out. Gloria is outwardly happy – and perhaps most of the time, she is inwardly happy as well. But there is a creeping loneliness to her – seen only briefly in great moments of acting by Moore that really drive the performance and the movie. The last scene in the film – set to one of the cheesy pop songs Gloria loves so much (fittingly, Gloria by Laura Branigan) is such an amazing moment of acting by Moore that it made me like the film as a whole much more than I thought I did.

 

And it also must be said that John Turturro is almost equally as great as Arnold. The original film cast an older man (who, frankly, I have mostly forgotten in the years since) – but Arnold is Gloria’s own age. Turturro brings interesting nuance to a character, who frankly, is more than a little bit of a cowardly asshole. And yet, Turturro makes you like him – at first anyway – and even in the end, you feel sorrier for him than anger with him – no matter what he has done.

 

As for Leilo, I’m not sure what he really had to gain by making this film again. He does a good job here – great with the actors, and as for the rest, he basically did the same thing as last time. As with the original and A Fantastic Woman and Disobedience, Leilo is building a solid resume of interesting film that are interested in a female point-of-view. I’m not sure he’s made a great film yet – but he certainly hasn’t made a bad one either. And even if this feels like a retread for him, it’s a good one.