The Danish Girl

Released:  November 27^th, 2015

Rated:  R

Distributor:  Focus Features

Starring:  Eddie Redmayne, Alicia Vikander, Matthias Schoenaerts, Ben Whishaw, Amber Heard

Directed by:  Tom Hooper

Written by:  Lucinda Coxon

Personal Bias Alert:  loves Vikander, haven’t read the book

6.8 of 10

            Welcome to your stuffy British Oscar bait!  You’d be hard-pressed to make a film more tailored for awards season than The Danish Girl, which has the distributor, topical storyline, and pedigree to make its run blindfolded.  In a way, that appears to be what it’s doing, as after a rousing premiere at the Venice Film Festival it stumbled in Toronto and has been limping along ever since.  But it’s still got foolproof nominations for Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander, who’s strategically running in the supporting category, and remains in consideration for several other categories.  That’s the power of perception for you, because taken on its own accord, The Danish Girl deserves little more than a polite nod as you leave the theater.

            That topical storyline has to do with the growing prominence of transgendered people in Western media.  The Danish Girl draws upon the story of one of the first people to ever get sex reassignment surgery, the artist Einar Wegener/Lili Elbe (Redmayne).  I say draws upon because this story plays very loose with the facts, an easy freedom that isn’t inherently negative, but unfortunately wasn’t used here to form a well-structured movie.

            The Danish Girl is adapted from the novel of the same name, which I’m assuming is where the focus on the relationship between Einar and has wife, Gerda Wegener (Vikander), comes from.  It’s an excellent plan to root the story in the universally relatable situation of loving someone who’s changing before your eyes, and the pairing of such emotive actors as Redmayne and Vikander really allows that story to take off.  They play off of each other so well, vivaciously bubbly when they’re in love and misty-eyed when in rough patches, that the complexities of their ever-changing relationship is remarkably easy to track.

            The problem is that screenwriter Lucinda Coxon doesn’t match this relationship’s emotional arc to the plot’s structure, allowing the turning point in the relationship to come far too early and for the same dynamics to drag along for long stretches of time.  The plot itself becomes very bogged down in the physical aspects of Einar/Lili’s transition, from the adoption of feminine movements to the surgeries themselves.  This is understandable considering that her physical transformation is what she’s remembered for, but this doesn’t bear much emotional heft on its own.  By not pairing the plot’s climax to the couple’s relationship, the back half of this film becomes remarkably dispassionate, and its ending feels like nothing more than a rote bid for tears.

            Director Tom Hooper has a certain self-aggrandizing tone that he uses as his de facto mode of storytelling, which has led to two straight Best Picture nominations and certainly produces austerely beautiful films.  The Danish Girl proves to be no exception, as everything from the score, sets, costumes, and cinematography is impeccably done.  His framing of shots have often resembled posed paintings, which fits nicely with the galleries and workshops much of this film takes place in.  Stills from this movie would look lovely framed and hanging on a wall, but this style matches poorly with the film’s uneven emotional resonance, so much so that when the couple’s relationship ebbs from time to time, the film becomes very flat.  Hooper does nothing to address the story’s shortcomings, apparently feeling that a nice presentation was all the screenplay needed, which indicates a massive failure to understand the story he was tasked with telling.

              Thank god for Redmayne and Vikander, who prove to be the only ones capable of injecting some life into these stiff proceedings.  It’s encouraging that, for all of The Danish Girl’s Oscar maneuverings, the two people who truly delivered at their jobs are the only ones assured of its golden recognition.

Other Notes:

Ø  Ben Whishaw and Matthias Schoenaerts give solid, if stiff, supporting turns.

Ø  Whishaw may be one of the few people to have appeared in more films than Vikander in 2015.

Ø  I adore the way this film shows people painting through the back side of the canvas.

In the Heart of the Sea

Released:  December 11^th, 2015

Rated:  PG-13

Distributor:  Warner Bros.

Starring:  Chris Hemsworth, Benjamin Walker, Cillian Murphy, Tom Holland, Ben Whishaw, Brendan Gleeson

Directed by:  Ron Howard

Written by:  Charles Leavitt

Personal Bias Alert:  never read Moby-Dick, likes man-versus-nature themes

5.3 of 10

            Walking through the local movie theater a few months ago, I spotted a poster for In the Heart of the Sea.  It’s a great poster, using the massiveness of the whale to emphasize the futility of men, and then I noticed that it listed the old March release date.  The film was delayed for nine months, allegedly to position it for an awards season run, but few people bought that explanation.  It originally would’ve competed with the releases of Cinderella and Run All Night, while it’s new December slot had it up against zero wide releases.  A stinker was suspected, and the long wait soured many, like me, who were intrigued by this film.  Now it’s finally out in the world, and while it’s not a complete travesty, it does blow a solid premise and a strong cast.

            In the Heart of the Sea endeavors to tell the real-life inspiration for Moby-Dick, where the crew of the whaling ship Essex is attacked and stranded by a massive white whale.  There’s no one here to call Ishmael, but the storyteller role remains, taken over by the grizzled and haunted Thomas (Brendan Gleeson) who was the cabin boy on the ill-fated trip.  Novelist Herman Melville (Ben Whishaw) drags the story out of him, and what unravels is a tale of many, but unfortunately incohesive, sides.

            Charles Leavitt gets the lone screenwriter credit here, but story credits also go to the writing duo of Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver.  Leavitt’s spotty track record includes the excellent Blood Diamond and the terrible Seventh Son, while Jaffa and Silver have collaborated on blockbusters like Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Jurassic World.  That’s not a particularly strong team, and they clearly struggled with the cumbersome, sprawling nature of this story.  There’s a lot of characters to set up as well as the unfamiliar business of whale hunting, and then they needed to condense what is a very long story into a manageable size.  They never seem to land on how to do any of this, as characters are paper-thin but made to have unsatisfying arcs (á la Jurassic World) and the story is allowed to plod on far longer than is needed (á la Seventh Son).  To add to the messiness, there’s a part of the film that tries to take on the myriad of themes that run through the story, but there’s also clearly a pull to make this into an action film (there’s a moment where Chris Hemsworth jumps at the whale with a hatchet).  This overall disjointedness nearly ruins what should be an epic tale, one that Melville himself was able to form into an American classic.

            Luckily for the audience, even when the story struggles there’s always a top-shelf actor onscreen to make it sort of work.  Hemsworth leads the group, and even though his accent is a bit shaky, his shoulders and acting ability are more than broad enough to carry the load.  He, Benjamin Walker, and Cillian Murphy make a nice threesome as the ship’s leaders, and they smooth out some of the dark turns that the film takes.  Tom Holland plays the younger version of Gleeson, and he yet again proves to be a young actor worth watching.  But it’s the scenes back on land with Gleeson and Whishaw that pop the most, proving yet again that masterfully played conversations can be more riveting than CGI spectacles.

            And there is a lot of CGI in this thing, as everything from the whales they are hunting to the backdrop behind the characters is digitally rendered in a strangely obvious way.  It’s the kind of film where the real things feel more palpable and set apart from those that aren’t, and it’s such a pervasive feeling that it’s hard to determine whether it was intentional or not.  Director Ron Howard would be the man to ask, and whether you find this effect and his constantly moving camera beautiful or a bit annoying will be dependent on your personal taste  It certainly makes it impossible to forget that you’re watching a movie, and while it does lead to a few impressive shots, that doesn’t make up for how jarring it often is.

            In the Heart of the Sea had a tough legacy to live up to, both from the history of its story and from the talent involved in its production.  It’s disappointing that it is such a long, jumbled mess, but there’s still bright spots peppered into this long slog.  Then again, it’s kind of fitting that the filmmaker’s attempt to make an epic out of the story behind Moby-Dick ended up as their white whale.

Other Notes:

Ø  Warning:  this film contains unnecessary whale gore.

Ø  As good of a job as Hemsworth did, I still feel that he was miscast.  He’s just too lumbering and imposing of a figure to be in the cramped spaces of a boat.

Ø  Is it possible for Frank Dillane not to feel smarmy?

Spectre

Released:  November 6^th, 2015

Rated:  PG-13

Distributor:  Columbia Pictures

Starring:  Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Léa Seydoux, Ralph Fiennes, Monica Bellucci, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris, Dave Bautista

Directed by:  Sam Mendes

Written by:  John Logan, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Jez Butterworth

Personal Bias Alert:  not a Bond fan, liked Skyfall

7 of 10

            This guy.  We all know Bond, James Bond and the cars, women, and martinis that come with him.  We also know Daniel Craig’s spin on the man, and whether you enjoy his dour era, you can’t deny that it’s banked some good money.  Spectre, no matter how well it does, will be hard-pressed to continue that trend, with the production budget inflating to a reported $350 million (for perspective, Titanic cost $200 million and Avengers:  Age of Ultron cost $250 million).  And what do audiences get for all this dough?  Just an average outing, one that delivers exactly what you expect from a Bond film and nothing more.

            This is a disappointing outcome after a promising pre-production.  The return of Sam Mendes as director had many hoping for another series highlight like Skyfall, and many were excited by the more serious duo of Bond girls that were cast.  But instead of pushing the envelope, Spectre falls back to its roots, taking Bond down another secret organization rabbit hole littered with chase scenes and loose women.  It’s hard to fault the film for the first element (these are action films, after all), but the latter is just tiresome, as eye-roll inducing as many of the antiquated trademarks have become.  What would be so wrong, Bond fans, with loosening the formula a bit?  Wouldn’t it be better to allow Bond to become a modern emblem of masculinity instead of the sad, boozy Sinatra impersonator he’s in danger of becoming?

            Series issues aside, Spectre gets so tied up in trying to bring you everything that you want from Bond that the screenwriters fail to add anything special.  It’s as uninspired as a band playing their decades-old hit; they hit all the right notes, but the boredom is undeniable.   There’s no love and care given to the villain, the love story, or even the investigation.  It’s all familiar beat after beat, endlessly referencing Bond’s past in a vain attempt to bring some meaning.  On the page, none of it is menacing or romantic, and any spark that appears is clearly coming from the excellent work of the people trying to bring the shoddy script to life.

            Mendes blew many fans away with his stylish approach to Skyfall, and he continues that gorgeous effort in Spectre.  If the film was being graded solely on presentation, it would earn top marks, with special accommodations going to cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema and conductor Thomas Newman.  They provide an example for how to make Bond’s tropes elegant, delivering the thrilling action sequences and extravagant locations we all expect in a modern package.  Care was given to the background activity of every scene, the lighting, and the music cues, culminating in a film that leads you through every obvious beat without being obnoxiously controlling.  They never betray the formula; they just make it the best it can be.

            Craig continues to keep his Bond an arm’s length away from the audience, and you’ll already know if he’s your cup of tea or not.  Monica Bellucci makes a brief and wasted appearance as an age-appropriate Bond girl (woman?), quickly seceding the film to French actress Léa Seydoux.  There are certain things you must do in the main Bond girl role, primarily serving as a seductress, which Seydoux excelled at in the Cannes-winning Blue Is the Warmest Color and in this.  The extra bit she brings is an air of self-confidence, not that of a plucky upstart, but of a woman who’s taken care of herself for a long time.  She does her best at what is the worst-written character in the film, and her energy saves the role from being an outright failure.  The same cannot be said for Christoph Waltz’s villain, not due to any poor effort from him, but from how largely absent he is.  The lack of a proper villain, or even a clear end goal, is the most problematic aspect of Spectre, and even a mustache-twirling Waltz can’t make him seem menacing enough to last.

            It’s lucky that such a cast and crew came together to lift Spectre’s stale script into decency.  Their efforts make it entertaining, a thoughtless but enjoyable ride that we’ve all been on before.

Other Notes:

Ø  I really like Ben Whishaw as Q:  “I’ve got a mortgage and two cats to feed.”

Ø  The intro of Waltz’s character is captivatingly weird.

Ø  As a Bond novice, I needed more of an explanation for the octopus, but I liked all the imagery they worked in.