Frank

Released:  August 22^nd, 2014

Rated:  R

Distributor:  Magnolia Pictures

Starring:  Domhnall Gleeson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Scoot McNairy, Michael Fassbender, François Civil, Carla Azar

Directed by:  Lenny Abrahamson

Written by:  Jon Ronson, Peter Straughan

Personal Bias Alert:  likes offbeat music, relates to weirdos

8.6 of 10

Acceptance (n.): 

1.      The act of assenting or believing

2.      the fact or state of being accepted or acceptable

It’s a hard thing to achieve, acceptance.  Be it from a group of people or from yourself, it requires an honesty that most find uncomfortable.  It’s often easier to just keep it inside, to settle for a half-truth that leads to a half-acceptance.  But what would you to do if you couldn’t keep it inside, if you had to wear your oddities on your head for the world to see?  You would be forced to accept them, to become comfortable with them, and hopefully, to find a group of people who accept you along with the thing on your head.  All that’s already happened to the titular Frank (Michael Fassbender) when he rolls into Jon’s life sporting an oversized papier-mâché head that he never takes off.  Instead, it’s Jon (an excellent Domhnall Gleeson) who must go on this journey, pushed by his own frail desires and the otherworldly people who’re dragging him forward.

            Jon, you see, dreams of being a musician but fails to find inspiration in his humdrum life.  When Frank’s band, with the unintelligible name Soronprfbs, loses their keyboard player to a psychotic break, they allow Jon to fill in for a gig and eventually invite him to help record their new album.  Reactions within the band to Jon vary, with Frank being accepting and nurturing while theremin player Clara (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is hostile and dismissive.  The rest seem to not really care for but not overly care about Jon, leaving him increasingly isolated as the recording session drags out. 

Frank and the others undoubtedly have something that’s working, even if their music is far from the mainstream.  They throw themselves into their craft in a way Jon doesn’t understand but is determined to figure out.  He believes wholeheartedly that he can learn to become a great musician, but as he discovers, trying for your dream only brings you closer and closer to a resolution.  Many find it easier to remain in a dream state, which Jon might very well have been happy to do if Frank, Clara, and the others hadn’t swept him up.  But in the Irish countryside, surrounded by people who tell him exactly how good he is with an honesty as brutal as Clara’s sucker punches to the face, he’s stuck finding out just feasible his dream is.

Now, this movie may sound like a total drag, but it sugar-coats its blows with an acerbic wit that keeps the audience laughing the whole way through.  Whether it’s Jon’s exaggeratedly pathetic tweets or the borderline-insane environment that surrounds him, there’s always something to chuckle at amidst the darkness.  It’s also an understatedly beautiful film to take in.  The rustic cabin where the band records makes for a rich backdrop, allowing the fog from outside to blend with the cigarette smoke from inside to form an inescapable, otherworldly environment.  And the music that the band performs is odd, yes, but also hypnotically precise and always pleasurable to hear.

Frank is certainly an ambitious film, juggling so many moving parts that it’s a bit hard to take in.  It’s immediately enjoyable, yes, but you may not understand why you care so much about this little band of weirdos right off the bat.  Its offbeat tone seems aimed at more serious movie-goers, most of whom are likely to get frustrated by this obliqueness.  If you don’t find its meaning, Frank may strike you as enjoyable but trivial, and if you leave it without any further thought it might very well remain there.  Some pondering and a bit of space is what ultimately reveals the depths this film explores, which is something everyone might not have the time to give it.

Other Notes:  

Ø  The characters, for all their weirdness, never seem unreal.  It’s easy to imagine a group like this out in the woods banging away on their instruments, oblivious to the rest of the world.

Ø  The music was all performed live, so I guess all the actors are pretty good musicians.  Also, I guess Gyllenhaal learned how to play the theremin.

As Above, So Below

Released:  August 29^th, 2014

Rated:  R

Studio:  Universal Pictures

Starring:  Perdita Weeks, Ben Feldman, Edwin Hodge, François Civil, Marion Lambert, Ali Marhyar

Directed by:  John Erick Dowdle

Written by:  Drew Dowdle, John Erick Dowdle

Personal Bias Alert:  claustrophobic, wasn’t feeling well during the screening

2.3 of 10

Full Disclosure:  I did step out for a minute in the middle of this film because of nausea.  It was due to illness and not anything onscreen, and I don’t feel it affected my viewing at all.

            This movie starts out on the wrong foot, stays on the wrong foot, and ends on the wrong foot.  It opens with a scene of our main character, Scarlett (Perdita Weeks), on a bus to Iran.  She explains into her camera that she is entering the country knowing that she will be killed if she’s caught, but that it’s her last chance to find some key thing before they blow it up.  Now, what the audience is supposed to learn from this little scene is that our heroine is determined, stubborn, and moderately reckless.  What we actually learn is that she’s dumb enough to say out loud that she is committing an act that she can be killed for on a bus full of people in a normal speaking voice.

            That’s a frustrating start that the film never recovers from.  It plods along for another twenty minutes trying to establish that Scarlett and her friend George (Ben Feldman) are smart (they speak multiple languages and like old things!), but we know better.  Once things start going down, I knew they would make dumb decision after dumb decision because Scarlett had already proven that that’s what she does.  You can have all the degrees and speak all the languages you want, but if you follow the supposedly dead guy into the tunnel that no one returns from, not a soul on Earth is going to think you’re smart.

            Despite the rough setup, I did actually take a liking to the two leads.  Weeks is a Brit, and if there’s one thing that makes exposition and setup go down smooth it’s an attractive person with a British accent spouting it.  Feldman’s a good looking guy, too, but my crass observations about their appearance is selling them short.  These two actually manage to show off some decent acting despite their poorly drawn characters, and their likability stems more from their talent than their looks.  I’d actually like to see the two paired up again in the future, albeit in a better film.

            While poorly paced, I did appreciate that the film took the time to establish a clear motivation for the two’s journey into the catacombs of Paris:  to find the philosopher’s stone.  They even build in some nice puzzle mysteries to slow down and explain to uninformed audience members such as myself (a.k.a. those who didn’t read Harry Potter) what the hell the philosopher’s stone is and what some of the mystical symbols they encounter are.  Early on, it seems like the filmmakers are actually trying to establish a mythology, which would make the early slow parts worth it if they actually stuck with it to a grand ending.  Instead, some lazy storytelling techniques muddles the mythology and the ending doesn’t add up to anything, including satisfaction for the viewer. 

            I thought going into this that setting a horror film in an inherently creepy place like the catacombs of Paris would at least ensure some creepy visuals, but this film even managed to let me down there.  Admittedly, they were effective in triggering my mild claustrophobia, but everything else here is downright tired.  Creepy cult people?  Check.  Dead children?  Check.  Shaky cam that blurs potentially scary images?  Check.  When even I, who is not a horror film aficionado, thinks your costume department raided the nearest Spencer’s and Hot Topic, you’ve done something terribly wrong.

            I’m sure As Above, So Below sold due to its creepy setting, but the laziness behind the camera drags this film down lower than the characters ever go.

  

Other Notes:

Ø  How did Scarlett run back to the room where she got the stone so fast?

Ø  I’m glad Scarlett’s fluent in so many languages except the one she actually needs to know.

Ø  That was the laziest way to get George down into the tombs.

Ø  Oh, that over-the-top shaky cam.  I get the conceit that he’s filming a documentary, but his shot should be steady during Scarlett’s interview.