Noah (2014)

7 of 10

Personal Bias Alert:  Likes Aronofsky films, not religious

            “Noah” takes director and co-writer Darren Aronofsky into unfamiliar territory.  With a budget estimated at $125 million, he had nearly $100 million more to work with than he had in any of his other films.  It also marks only the second time that one of his films have received a PG-13 rating.  It’s impressive that he saved that relatively restrained content for a story about the end of the world.  Although this shouldn’t surprise us, since Noah’s story involves much more violence than sex, something the MPAA is notoriously less stringent about.  Or maybe they are just more lenient if your source material is the Bible.

            Most people know the basic story of Noah (Russell Crowe):  the world is wicked so God decides to clean the slate by sending a massive flood to cover the entire Earth.  Noah and his family are picked to build an ark that will allow them and two of every animal to survive the flood and repopulate the Earth.  Noah’s story is part of the Abrahamic religions, which includes 54% of the world’s population.  Many others, including myself, know it because they live in a culture dominated by an Abrahamic religion.  Even the most basic form of the story gives away that Noah’s family repopulates the Earth, so Aronofsky’s great dilemma in “Noah” is figuring out how to create an interesting two-hour plus epic where everyone knows the ending.

            The main way Aronofsky tries to accomplish this is by fleshing out the story through unfamiliar subplots.  The curse of Ham, one of Noah’s sons played by Logan Lerman, is a far less familiar part of Noah’s story, and Aronofsky adds to it to make Ham a covetous young man who questions his father’s judgments.  The other subplot involves Illa (Emma Watson), the wife of Noah’s son Shem (Douglas Booth).  Illa is the only female in Noah’s clan young enough to bear children, but a childhood injury has rendered her incapable of doing so.  This is an obvious problem if they are supposed to repopulate the Earth.

            Ham’s story could have been interesting, but it never quite works.  Lerman is a capable actor, but he isn’t given enough material to really flesh out the character.  Ham come across as a whining teenager who just wants to get laid, which never feels like enough motivation to actually overthrow his father.  Illa’s story is the most effective part of the movie, taking an interesting turn that carries the later parts of the film.  It leads to the most emotionally affecting scene in the movie, and Watson’s performance is a highlight of the film.

            Unfortunately, Illa’s subplot doesn’t take off until late in the film, so the viewer must slog through over an hour of an emotionally inert movie.  It’s hard to get behind the characters because they are so one-dimensional.  Noah is unwaveringly devout, Naameh, Noah’s wife played by Jennifer Connelly, only wants her children to be happy, and Tubal-cain, a doomed king played by Ray Winstone, is hell-bent on his own survival.

            Even in its uninteresting portions, the massive budget allows Aronofsky to put some really impressive visuals on the screen.  There are some CGI fallen angels that help Noah build the ark, and the naturalistic sets and costumes manage to root the fantastical story in reality.  Not all of it is good, though.  Aronofsky choose to render all of the animals using CGI, and they never quite looked real.

            Have no doubt that this is a biblical epic.  It’s a big budget, faith-affirming movie with a dark tone that may repel some of the devout viewers.  As a non-religious person, the blind faith the characters show is a bit uninteresting, but there is enough grand visuals and subplots to carry you through.  The world does end, after all, and that’s an interestingly horrifying concept for anyone.

Other Notes:

Ø  I’m sure this movie will break even, but I’m not sure that large of a budget was really necessary.

Ø  Due to the setting, there’s a latent sexism that I can’t blame the writers for, but it’s still annoying.

Ø  Apparently, God thinks it’s fine to drug animals.

Upstream Color (2013)

10 of 10

Personal Bias Alert:  tepidly responded to Carruth’s previous film “Primer,” linear narratives aren’t necessary

            Making a movie is a communal process, impossible to do alone, but writer/director/actor/editor/composer/ect. Shane Carruth is closest thing to a one-man movie maker that I know of.  He made a name for himself with 2004’s “Primer,” a twisty sci-fi story that confused genre aficionados and real-life scientists alike (I have a biology degree and didn’t understand all the science).  While many loved it enough for it to gain a cult status, I responded very mildly to it, but was intrigued by the man who put it all together.  With so much input, the responsibility falls largely on his lap, and a person’s response or criticism feels intensely focused on the man instead of the movie.  With this in mind, I’m happy to report that Carruth’s second film “Upstream Color” is a marvel to experience.

            I chose the word experience carefully, because this film doesn’t operate like most films.  The plot is murky, clear enough to get the general idea but impossible to totally understand.  Movies are described this way more often than they deserve, but here it’s earned.  Anyone who claims to figure out all the plot points after one viewing is lying either to you or to themselves.  It’s an intentional effect.  Confusion is what the film’s about and forms its heart and soul.

            What’s discernible is this:  A woman named Kris (Amy Seimetz) is drugged by a man who convinces her to liquidate as much of her money as she can so he can steal it.  The drug is the product of a rare worm, which alters the user’s personality for a long period of time.  Kris awakens with no memory of what happened, and her life spirals downwards as a result.  She later meets Jeff (Carruth), and they fall into a deep, understanding love.  Both seem to have been exposed to the drug, which they are unaware of, but they recognize that the connection between them is of an unusual sort.  There’s also something about ambient noise, a pig farmer, and the novel “Walden.”

            Incomprehensible plots can be frustrating, but here we have something palpable to hold on to:  the relationship between Kris and Jeff.  Both are flailing, unable to understand why their lives took such a dramatic turn.  They are drawn to noises and patterns they didn’t notice before, and can spend hours indulging in these little obsessions.  They allow each other these indulgences, even when they recognize how inexplicably bizarre they are.  As viewers, we understand that the pull to these things, and the pull between Kris and Jeff, are related to the drug, but like us they never fully comprehend the reasons.  They cling to each other only because they derive some level of comfort from the relationship, and that’s an affirming notion.  Comfort is a hard thing to find in this world.  We don’t always understand why we are drawn to one thing over another, and analyzing it gets you nowhere.  Like Kris and Jeff, you just need to hold on to it, even if it comes from something silly or incomprehensible.

            Other notes:

Ø  Carruth’s biggest weakness is his acting.  Seimetz is phenomenal, and the difference between their skill levels is noticeable.

Ø  The sound editing is played up here to show how the drug alters the users.  It’s well done without being overbearing.

Ø  Filmmakers seem to think that the weapon of choice against worms crawling under your skin is a chef’s knife.  Personally, I would want something with a little more finesse.

Ø  This is my favorite film of 2013.

Divergent (2014)

7.5 of 10

Personal Bias Alert:  Read and liked the book, likes the YA female-led action trend, sick of love triangles

            As we all know, there is a deluge of young adult novels being adapted into movies right now.  Most are series, so the studio knows that if they produce a film good enough to appease preexisting fans, they will have another two or three movies that will be guaranteed to make them money.  Some people scoff at this as a blatant cash grab.  Some people write them all off as silly movies for teenage girls.  I’m not one of those people.  The way I see it is that this is simply a genre, with its own subgenres and tropes and restrictions.  Like any genre, there are good films and there are bad, and if you write off the entire thing you will miss some really great films.  “Divergent” isn’t the best this genre has to offer, but it’s far from the worst.

             “Divergent” falls into the dystopian subgenre, where society now organizes itself into five factions based on their personalities.  At sixteen, each person must choose which faction they want to join, and if they don’t fit into that faction they are kicked out to join the homeless people referred to as the factionless.  This isn’t the kind of society that is easy to portray on film and there is little time to explain it.  The screenwriters took the easy way out and had the main character Tris (Shailene Woodley) lay it all out in voiceover to start the film.  It’s clear but not very entertaining, and gets the movie off on the wrong foot.

            Once things get going the film moves along at a well-controlled pace, slowly building up speed without you realizing it.  Tris chooses to leave her family and join Dauntless, the brave, military-esque faction.  Fitting in proves to be hard and is made more complicated by the fact that she is divergent, meaning her personality doesn’t fit neatly into any of the factions.  Divergents are considered dangerous, and many people, including Kate Winslet’s Jeanine Matthews, are on the lookout for them.  Tris does her best to hide her divergence while trying to pass the rigorous initiation test for Dauntless.

            One aspect of the test involves Tris going into a hallucinatory state and being forced to work through her deepest fears.  These are unnerving scenes filmed with a visual flair that make them highlights of the film.  When Tris encounters and overcomes one fear, the scene immediately folds into another, leaving Tris and the audience scrambling to determine what is coming at her next.  It’s unrelenting, and the fact that the fears are character-specific only makes it more engrossing.

            Shailene Woodley handles these action sequences well and seems comfortable carrying such a large film.  She stumbles some in the more nuanced scenes, going a bit bigger than necessary.  Theo James as Four, Tris’s love interest, brings a rigidness that fits his character.  Both performances have their faults, but they oddly balance each other almost perfectly.  The film bucks the love triangle trend, allowing Tris to fall exclusively for Four.  That puts a lot of pressure on Woodley and James to have chemistry, and they seem to fall in love with each other with ease.  That duo was expertly cast and should be capable of carrying the rest of the films in the series.

            The film’s focus takes a turn at the end.  Having read the book, I knew it was coming, but I think it’s handled well.  The steadily increasing pace prepped for it, so by the time everything is revealed, you’re ready for the big ending.

            Other Notes:
Ø  It’s a “The Spectacular Now” reunion!
Ø  In other casting news, Zoë Kravitz plays a friend of Tris.  Zoë is Lenny Kravitz’s daughter, who plays Cinna in “The Hunger Games.”  That family is locking down the YA female-led action movies.
Ø  The music was a little too emotionally manipulative for my taste.
Ø  I tried to refrain from comparing this to any of the other films in this genre, but it’s hard not to considering how much I enjoyed one of the other ones.  *cough* “Catching Fire” *cough*

Albert Nobbs (2011)

5.5 of 10

Personal Bias Alert:  Often bored by upstairs/downstairs period dramas

“I don’t know what makes people live such miserable lives,” remarks one character in “Albert Nobbs.”  It’s a perfect summation of the story, and was the main thought running through my head when leaving the film.

Albert Nobbs (Glenn Close) is a penny-pinching waiter at a 19^th-century hotel who dreams of buying a tobacco shop.  He keeps to himself, for good reason, because he is in fact a woman who has been living as a man for decades.  The reasons for this is layered, but it’s clear that he has no desire to go back to being a woman, nor would he understand how to do so.  When Albert meets the house painter Hubert Page (Janet McTeer) and discovers that he is also a woman, Albert’s dream is reimagined. 

This is clearly the setup for a happy ending (that’s sarcasm), but the film shows its hand halfway through.  This isn’t the kind of world where good things happen to decent people; only the strong-willed and the lucky get any sort of peace.  Most of the characters are stuck working jobs that barely keep them afloat, and their dreams are either too small to matter or too large to be feasible.  Hubert seems to be only one who has found happiness, and even his is tenuous.

Hubert, you see, has a wife, and it’s this fact that shakes up Albert’s life.  He begins dreaming of a wife of his own, and sets his sights on the maid Helen Dawes (Mia Wasikowska).  Helen, however, is courting the repairman Joe Mackins (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), and is only going out with Albert to leach money from him.  Albert doesn’t have a chance with Helen, but he sticks his neck out and fights for her anyway.  You get the sense that he hasn’t taken a risk like this in quite some time. 

Close makes Albert easy to root for, but I can’t say I rooted for Albert to get with Helen.  She is a self-absorbed, whiny young lady that is thoroughly unlikable.  In fact, most of the characters are pretty nasty, and even though the cast is filled with solid actors, they don’t succeed in making many of the characters watchable.   By the midway point, I just wanted to see these characters meet their miserable fate so I could get away from them.

Director Rodrigo García has worked more in television than in movies, directing episodes for several HBO series.  He’s competent here, keeping everything moving at a decent pace while drawing what life he can out of the dour settings.  He doesn’t bring anything special, though, and the film could sorely use it.  In the end, there’s nothing redeeming in this tale of unpleasant characters with unpleasant futures.

Other Notes:
Ø  Close and McTeer gave good performances, but they were far too curvy to be convincing men.  Their coats or jackets hid it fine, but as soon as those came off you could tell they were women.
Ø  Rodrigo García directed one of my all-time favorite episodes of television:  “Carnivàle” episode 1.6 “Pick a Number”
Ø  You know you’re a great con artist when you get your mark to buy you chocolate and booze.

Veronica Mars (2014)

7 of 10

Personal Bias Alert:  OFFICIAL VERONICA MARS BACKER (Yes, I contributed to the Kickstarter campaign)

            Any discussion of “Veronica Mars” has to address the elephant in the room:  the unusual way the film was financed.  It began as a low-rated television series with a devoted fan base whose stunts to keep the series on the air made national news.  They were unsuccessful, and “Veronica Mars” was cancelled after three seasons.  Subsequent DVD sales and Netflix viewing brought even more people to the series (including me) until it had such a large fan base that an extension of the series seemed plausible.  Warner Bros., who own the rights to the show, wouldn’t pony up the money, but they did allow creator Rob Thomas to do a Kickstarter campaign to see if the fans would finance a movie themselves.  Over five million dollars later, “Veronica Mars” was in the news again, this time as a green-lit, little-series-that-could success story.

            The reason the financing is so interesting (and, as it turns out, so influential) is because it inherently changes who the film is made for.  If Warner Bros. had decided to finance, Thomas would have been concerned with pleasing them, meaning he would have been trying to make the film accessible enough to make a lot of money.  With the fans as backers, Thomas is concerned (he said so himself) with pleasing the diehards who loved the series enough to chip in money in advance.  Thomas’s ultimate goal seems to be getting “Veronica Mars” started up again as a series, with the movie operating as the introduction back into the story (books and a web series have already been confirmed).

            So what happens when a television series is made into a movie specifically for preexisting fans?  Pandering, that’s what.  I’ve seen the series multiple times, so I caught all the references, in-jokes, and Easter eggs littered throughout the film.  A few would have been fine, but the amount that is crammed in leaves the film seeming more like an hour and forty-five minutes of people talking about how great “Veronica Mars” was instead of a new “Veronica Mars” storyline.

            An inherent difference between a television series and a movie is how much change is expected in a character’s situation.  In a movie, the character’s situation changes significantly, because it’s generally the only story we get about them.  In a television series or any other serialized medium, the character’s situation stays pretty much the same from week to week.  Writers Thomas and Diana Ruggiero have to find a balance between creating a satisfying film and the start (or middle?) of a serialized story.  They try to balance these expectations by creating a storyline in which the characters start in an entirely new place and move towards something more recognizable.  At the opening, Veronica has left the private eye business to become a lawyer in New York City.  She is pulled back in, and back to the small California town where she was raised, when her old flame Logan Echolls is accused of murder.  Veronica’s presence makes every character slide back into their old roles, and by the end everyone is essentially where they would have been if the writers had never made them leave in the first place.  It feels like Thomas and company are hitting the reset button, which is a bit unsatisfying.

The film, like the series, is such a mixture of genres that its tone can be hard to pin down.  The dialogue is quick-witted and humorous, the plot is a noir-style mystery, and the main character forms the center of a love triangle similar to what you see in many of today’s popular YA book series.  It’s one of the charms of the series (and one of the main reasons I like it so much), but I’m concerned that unaccustomed viewers will find the tonal shifts jarring.  If you’ve seen the series, then you know Veronica’s story often takes dark turns (the first season’s main mysteries included Veronica solving her best friend’s murder and her own sexual assault).  Without this knowledge, viewers might find the movie’s ending incongruous with the rest of the story.

            The movie exists to please its preexisting audience, and it largely succeeds.  While the story and characters are strong enough to draw in a few more fans (if they weren’t, then the series wouldn’t have developed such an ardent following in the first place), I doubt its audience will swell into significantly larger numbers.  This isn’t the best “Veronica Mars” can be, but if it serves as a gateway to more quality stories about Veronica and the gang, then this fan is satisfied.

Other Notes:

Ø    Creator Rob Thomas is NOT the lead singer from Matchbox 20.  They are two different Rob Thomas’s.

Ø    The music in this film is loud and distractingly clichéd.  Maybe you can get away with the swelling Sufjan Stevens’ “Chicago” in television, but that moment was not earned in this film.

Ø    With almost every major character from the series appearing here, it’s telling how much the character of Duncan Kane was disliked.  No one even mentions him.

RIP Backup, the presumed dead dog of Veronica’s childhood.

The Past (2013)

9 of 10

Personal Bias Alert:  I saw and loved “A Separation,” subtitles don’t faze me

            I’ve been waiting to see this film since Cannes last year.  Writer/director Asghar Farhadi’s previous film “A Separation” is a favorite of mine, so I knew I would see his new film the first chance I got.  I had to wait ten months for it to arrive at the local art theater, and it was well worth the wait.

            Ahmad (Ali Mosaffa) arrives in France to finalize the divorce between himself and his ex, Marie (Bérénice Bejo).  He finds Marie’s life to be more complicated than he realized; she is about to marry a man named Samir (Tahar Rahim), and the pair’s children aren’t happy about the merging of the two families.  Samir’s son has some behavior issues and openly dislikes Marie.  Marie’s oldest daughter Lucie (Pauline Burlet) is acting out in what is initially thought to be teenage angst, but the reasons prove to be much more substantial.

            The setup sounds melodramatic, but the plot unravels slowly and includes many things I can’t give away here.  If you are familiar with “A Separation,” then you know that Farhadi is interested in telling stories that take some unexpected twists.  These things give the film some momentum, but Farhadi’s much more concerned with unpacking the situation than figuring it all out.  The balance between plot momentum and character isn’t as well done here as it was in “A Separation,” and the movie feels a bit longer than it needed to be.  A delightful aspect of the film is how the focus shifts from one character to the next, allowing each to shed more and more light on the situation.  I don’t think we ever get a clear view of what’s really happened, but we learn as much about it as the characters are comfortable admitting.

            Bejo won best actress at Cannes for her role, which was well deserved, but at the same time it feels odd to single out any of the performers.  They’re all excellent at digging into these characters and bringing out the fully realized people Farhadi wrote.  That’s no small task considering how well Farhadi understands people’s motivations.  He knows that no one thing causes a person to do something.  It’s an amalgamation of things both realized and unrealized that cause us to react in certain ways, and many of the character’s arcs revolve around admitting to these unrealized motivations.  The movie lists only Bejo, Rahim, and Mosaffa as stars, but Burlet deserves to be billed as a star as well.  She handles just as much difficult material as the three adults.

            This will never be considered a fun film, but the rewards for the viewers willing to watch it are many.  There are intimately recognizable moments between characters that bring a sinking feeling to your gut.  Everyone’s been disappointed by someone they love, and everyone’s disappointed someone they love.  These aren’t big moments filled with histrionics and noise, but they are quietly and acutely felt.  Asghar Farhadi understands this and brings it to life as well as any filmmaker working today.

            Other Notes:

Ø    Burlet appeared as young Edith Piaf in another excellent French film titled “La Vie en Rose.”  That’s the film that put Marion Cotillard on the map here in America.  I hope this film does the same for Burlet and all the others.

Ø    The budget for “The Past” was significantly higher than for “A Separation.”  I can’t say I noticed, but that may be more a reflection of Farhadi’s skills than anything else.

Ø    I really need to see Farhadi’s other films. 

300: Rise of an Empire (2014)

4 of 10

Personal Bias Alert:  I’ve seen and forgotten “300,” not a fan of stylistic choices that make everything look fake

            When watching movies that sorely lack characterization, I often find the final lines of George Orwell’s Animal Farm running through my head:  “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”  In my head, we, the viewers, are the creatures, the supposed good guys are the pigs, and the supposed bad guys are the men.  When a film doesn’t take the time to distinguish between characters, I watch the movie screen with as much confusion as Orwell’s creatures watched the pigs and the men.   Luckily, “300:  Rise of an Empire” found a solution to this problem:  make the good guys wear blue capes!

            Where “300” told the story of how 300 Spartan men stood up to and were killed by the Persian king Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), “300:  Rise of an Empire” tells the concurrent story of the Athenian General Themistocles (Sullivan Stapleton), who is trying to unite all of Greece’s city-states into a single force large enough to defeat Xerxes.  From the first film, we know that Sparta refuses this union, and as their 300 men die in battle, Themistocles is left to repel the Persian naval attack led by the female commander Artemisia (Eva Green).  It’s a difficult task.  Themistocles is outnumbered, and his plan hinges less on winning the battle than in holding out long enough for either him or Sparta’s men to become the martyrs Greece needs.  The Spartans die first, and Themistocles retreats to make a last ditch effort to unite Greece and repel Xerxes.

            There is a long introduction to this story, with Lena Headey’s Queen Gorgo telling the story of how Themistocles killed Xerxes’s father Darius in battle, which allowed Artemisia, a Greek defector who owed everything to Darius, to exert her influence on the young Xerxes and ensure he would destroy Greece as revenge for Darius’s death.  It sets up Artemisia’s hatred for Themistocles well, which is important since the rest of the film is essentially a series of naval showdowns between the two.  Unfortunately it’s unnecessarily long, dragging out what should have been a quick re-introduction to the time period into an overblown, exposition-filled clunker.

            The introduction is fitting, since the rest of the film is one overblown sequence after another.  People yell at each other, then a battle sequence, then someone yells a rousing speech, then a battle sequence, then people whisper threats to each other, then another battle sequence.  Apparently, no one had discovered how to have a normal conversation yet.  There is a lot of stare downs, normally between Artemisia and Themistocles over impossibly long distances.  This leaves little time for character exploration, with Artemisia getting a little backstory and Themistocles getting nothing.  It’s okay though; the movie is only concerned with these characters because they get into bloody fights, so the setup of Artemisia’s hatred for Themistocles is more than enough explanation.

            The battles are well-staged and thoroughly bloody, although their violence and gore is constrained by the fact that they are primarily naval battles.  Where the first film thrived on its hand-to-hand combat, you now get some impressive ship ramming and explosions.  Yes, there’s still plenty of swordplay, and one absurd scene of sexual mind play.  The speed up/slow down shots made popular by “300” are primarily used at the beginning and end of the film, so if that was a problem for you in the first film it shouldn’t annoy you as much here.

            The battles, the special effects, the wardrobe, and the pretty people are the only reasons to see this film.  Trying to discern purpose, either for the characters or for the story at large, will get you nowhere.  And don’t even think about how this movie’s story reveals how marginally important the first film’s events are.

Other Notes:

Ø  The film’s director is Noam Murro.  His only other feature film is the independent dramedy “Smart People.”  It’s hard to find two more different films.

Ø  I have no clue how much time is supposed to have passed in this film.  A few months?  A few years?  Your guess is as good as mine.

Ø  Artemisia got the best costumes.  Her golden, spikey spine thing was cool, even if I do think it would be super uncomfortable.  Her raccoon-level eye makeup gave her the definitive edge in the stare downs.

The Savages (2007)

The death of Philip Seymour Hoffman hit me in a weird way.  I can’t say I was devastated or sad, but I was stunned.  Most of all, I felt a sense of loss.  I did have one very clear thought:  I’m not going to get any more of his work.  It’s a selfish thought, but as a movie lover Hoffman was inevitably on my radar.  You could always rely on him to be interesting, to bring something extra to every one of his roles.  The fact that he also chose to be a variety of movies, from blockbusters to indies, was an added bonus.  At any given time, there’s only a handful of actors/actresses who work at the level that Philip Seymour Hoffman did, and we’re lucky to have all of them.  Many people have said this since his death, most much more articulately than I can.  As my own little tribute, here is a review of one my favorite movies that he stared in.

The Savages

9 of 10

Personal Bias Alert:  dramedies are my favorite genre, I saw this one year after my grandfather passed away from Alzheimer’s

            The best films reach inside us, identify some part of ourselves that’s rarely seen, and assures us that other people have it too.  It evokes solidarity, which can heal us more than we realize.  Roger Ebert once said “The purpose of civilization and growth is to be able to reach out and empathize a little bit with other people.  And for me, the movies are like a machine that generates empathy.”  I don’t think all films do that, but the best, the most lasting, certainly do.  “The Savages” evokes solidarity and empathy with the best of them.

            Siblings Wendy (Laura Linney) and Jon (Philip Seymour Hoffman) are forced to work together to care for their father, whose mental health is deteriorating due to dementia.  The family was never close; their mom wasn’t around, and it’s implied that their father mistreated them as kids.  As adults, neither child speaks to him.  Wendy and Jon don’t have much to do with each other either.  They live in different cities and generally seem to leave each other alone.  These family dynamic have deeply affected both siblings, but they still try to do the decent thing by taking care of their ailing father.

The relationship dynamics and the situations that are explored in this film are difficult, but writer/director Tamara Jenkins doesn’t shy away from the humor either.  The film is intensely interested in the small oddities of life.  Everyday things we often overlook become humorous when seen from the outside, like a character using a grabber to reach a box of cereal, which is impossible to do gracefully.  The music emphasizes the humor from the beginning.  It bounces along, prepping us for these small moments and cutting into scenes that threaten to drag the story into melodrama.  Even when the middle section starts to drag on a bit too long, it still generates some big laughs.

            The movie centers around Wendy and Jon’s relationship, and Linney and Hoffman are excellent at showing both the closeness and distance that can exists between siblings.  These can be tenuous bonds, especially for people who aren’t good at forming intimate relationships.  There’s a lot of discomfort between them, but it’s also clear that they have been the most consistent presence in each other’s lives.  Pay attention to how closely Linney and Hoffman walk next to each other down hallways.  You don’t do that with just anyone.  The only other character with significant screen time is their father, played unsentimentally by Philip Bosco.  He may be a shell of his former self, but that shell is still a jerk.

            The title of the film is presented over a montage of picturesque scenes of a retirement community.  This contrasts the first scene, which shows the deterioration of the elderly couple inside one of the homes.  The film revolves around the way we hide the problems in our lives, being the deterioration of the elderly, relationship problems, or simply the struggle to achieve our dreams.  We hide them away, sweep them under a fancy rug so that the only thing people can see is a beautiful cover.  It’s a necessary thing to do so we can get on with our lives, but when the rug gets kicked away, it’s nice to know that other people feel as awkward and unsure about it as we do.

Other Notes:

Ø    There’s a scene where Hoffman’s character yells about the theme of hiding away our problems.  I often find myself wanting to yell lines from that speech.

Ø    As someone who has watched a family member slip away into Alzheimer’s/dementia, this film has many well-observed moments.  There’s a catharsis in knowing that other people noticed them too.

Ø    “You stole painkillers from a dead woman?”

Non-Stop (2014)

6.5 of 10

Personal Bias Alert:  likes well thought out thrillers, haven’t kept up with the “Liam Neeson is an action star” trend

            We had to wait until the end of February for Liam Neeson’s latest action thriller.  This one boasts an impressive supporting cast, and after seeing it, I’m at a loss to explain how they were assembled.  Was there a really impressive early draft of the script?  Did everyone decide to cash in?  Does everyone just really likes Neeson?  The finished product certainly doesn’t deserve them.  “Non-Stop” is a forgettable affair with a few decent twists, but it falls too often into familiar territory to be truly thrilling.

            Neeson stars as Bill Marks, an air marshal on a hijacked plane trying to suss out who the actual hijacker is.  His only communication with the hijacker is though text messages, which tell him that a person will be killed every twenty minutes until money is transferred into a bank account.  The situation quickly escalates, but to reveal any more would do the film a disservice.  Julianne Moore, Scoot McNairy, Nate Parker, and Corey Stoll co-star as passengers, while Michelle Dockery and Lupita Nyong’o play flight attendants.

            Marks is, of course, a troubled soul, and Neeson plays him with a weathered determination we’ve seen him do before.  Julianne Moore’s character has her own secrets, but she and Michelle Dockery’s flight attendant prove to be Marks’s most loyal supporters.  Universally, the actors do fine with their roles.  No one stands out, neither good nor bad.  They appear as required, and most of them manage to pull off even the more obvious of the plot machinations.

            The plane plays a large role in the film and is used very effectively.  It’s a small space, even if it is one of the relatively roomy jets used for transatlantic flights.  Obviously no one can leave, but the cabin’s layout also makes it easy for Marks to keep tabs on everyone.  It wears on him, as he stands staring at his mass of suspects, that he can’t identify which person is the hijacker.  The passengers stare back also, frightened and slowly losing faith in their protector.  It’s a classic potboiler, but the plane doesn’t give them room to release the tension.

            Where “Non-Stop” falters is in its script.  It’s flat out predictable, following a course we’ve all seen before.  If the twists were better, or the characters more interesting, then it could have elevated itself above the faults of its genre.  They manage a few clever things, like explaining how in the world someone could kill a person on a plane and not get caught, but it also goes for some cheap thrills, making me unable to consider it smart.  The characters are simply bland.  You get who they are from the first time they are introduced, and none of them really change.  Without decent twists or characters, a thriller falls flat.

            “Non-Stop” ended up reminding me greatly of “Flightplan.”  Remember “Flightplan?”  Neither do I.

Other Notes:

Ø    This movie has several really funny moments.  My favorite is what Marks offers to the passengers to make them calm down.

Ø    I like that Marks goes after the age-appropriate woman.

Ø    Does putting tape over the smoke detector really work?