Crimson Peak

Released:  October 16^th, 2015

Rated:  R

Distributor:  Universal Pictures

Starring:  Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Hunnam

Directed by:  Guillermo del Toro

Written by:  Guillermo del Toro, Matthew Robbins

Personal Bias Alert:  loves Pan’s Labyrinth, mixed feelings about the cast

5.5 of 10

            With the revival of Hammer Films and the popularity of FX’s American Horror Story, the indulgently thrilling subgenre of gothic horror has been making a healthy comeback over the last few years.  It’s a perfect fit for director Guillermo del Toro, who makes lush films that unapologetically dive into whatever genre he’s selected.  Commitment has never been an issue for his films, and commitment is what you need to pull off the gothic high wire.  Unsure footing easily leads to camp or lethargy, and even an assured director like del Toro can stumble and make something subpar like, well, Crimson Peak.

            Named for a creepy mansion that oozes red goo and lets the snowfall in through its ruined roof, the film is about a young author, Edith (Mia Wasikowska), who falls for the dashing British man who owns the estate.  The house proves to have some less-than-hidden demons, and soon Edith finds herself warding off strange occurrences in every cranny of the house.

            Crimson Peak certainly wears the mantle of gothic horror with pride, seizing every opportunity to ratchet up the flair surrounding its simple story.  This is a gorgeous film that understands how delightful it is to see intricate tapestries and frilly dresses surrounding its monsters.  It’s got a rather traditional aesthetic, all greys and reds that, when paired with del Toro’s inventive vision, gives you some awe-inspiring moments of visual splendor.  Expect to hear its name called out many times come Oscar season and for it to take center stage in the program’s clip packages, because short snippets of this film is really the best way to take it in.

            The issues start piling up whenever Crimson Peak tries to tell its story, which despite a long script process that dates back to 2006, never feels more than half-baked.  Part of this is because of misleading expectations; the studio has marketed it as pure gothic horror, but long portions of it is really gothic romance.  That may seem like splitting hairs, but when someone goes in expecting Mary Shelley and gets a slightly bloody Jane Austin instead, they’ll almost certainly be disappointed.  The simple fact is that, despite a clear effort, Crimson Peak isn’t actually scary.  The pacing is all off, the ghosts are neither well designed nor clearly rendered, and the ending trips all over itself.  It’s possible that this stumbling be due to the film’s age.  Back in 2006, some of the twists del Toro takes us on may have seemed genuinely shocking, but now that we have American Horror Story and Penny Dreadful bringing bloody, shocking horror into our homes on a weekly basis, the story that Crimson Peak ends up telling seems decidedly quaint.

            The more detrimental error, though, is the film’s complete inability to form full, consistent characters.  It only needs to establish four people for the film to work:  Edith, her childhood beau Dr. Alan (Charlie Hunnam), Thomas, and Thomas’s sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain).  But del Toro and fellow writer Matthew Robbins fail to make any of them interesting throughout, most notably with Lucille and Alan, who are barely-drawn sketches that Hunnam and Chastain do their best to bring to life.  Thomas and Edith get a bit more attention, but the interesting traits they are given (Edith is a bit of a feminist and Thomas is an unacknowledged inventor) are picked up and tossed away on the fly.  As gothic stories tend to be slow movers, of which Crimson Peak is no exception, the lack of characters that you really care about cripples the film’s slow progress.

            Despite these disappointing setbacks, Crimson Peak will keep your attention throughout.  The cast does their best with what they’re given, and several of them are charming enough to watch even in their most flawed roles.  Sitting back and letting its visual charm wash over you is really the best way to take this film in, as you sure as hell aren’t going to get anything from its story.

Other Notes:

Ø  What a waste of Jessica Chastain.

Ø  Those ghosts really need to give more specific warnings.

Ø  Proposed drinking game:  drink whenever the shoulder ruffles on Chastain or Wasikowska’s dresses are larger than their heads.  You will get very drunk.

The Kids Are All Right (2010)

Released:  July 9^th, 2010

Rated:  R

Studio:  Focus Features

Starring:  Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Mia Wasikowska, Josh Hutcherson, Yaya DaCosta

Directed by:  Lisa Cholodenko 

Written by:  Lisa Cholodenko, Stuart Blumberg

Personal Bias Alert:  liked High Art, excited by the praise the movie received

4.5 of 10

            Writer/director Lisa Cholodenko seems very interested in the fluidity of life.  In the two films I’ve seen of hers, this and 1998’s “High Art,” love, sexuality, profession, and addiction are explored, and the boundaries that come with each are pushed.  Where is the line between recreational user and drug addict, hobbyist and professional, cheater and strayer?  People like their boxes, but Cholodenko brings the blurriness of life into her films, often making it the most interesting aspect of the story.  “The Kids Are All Right” draws from these questions, which only serves to amplify how pat and familiar everything else in the film is.

            At its core, this is a story about a nuclear family:  two parents, two kids, all that’s missing is the dog.  The kids are in their late teens, and are the usual angsty but decent suburbanites.  The hook is that the parents are two women, Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore).  The kids, curious about their sperm donor father, contact the sperm bank and set up a meeting with their donor, Paul (Mark Ruffalo).  Paul’s sudden presence shakes the family, and their functional little unit becomes threatened from several angles.

            This could have been a fun little movie.  It’s a solid setup for the low-budget dramedy it is, but it never quite comes together.  Individual scenes are good, including a standout conversation between Nic, Jules, and son Laser (Josh Hutcherson).  It’s funny and smart and honest and it made me wish so much that the rest of the movie was like that.  Unfortunately, it too often falls back on clichés and easy answers to have any true emotional resonance.

            Undoubtedly, the weakest link in the whole movie is the characters.  It feels like writers Stuart Blumberg and Cholodenko never expanded upon them from their initial pitch.  Everyone fits into their little boxes and can be easily summarized in one sentence.  Nic is an uptight career woman.  Jules is a spineless wanderer.  Joni is a pleaser who always does what she’s told.  And Laser is, well, simply undeveloped.  They do point out that he’s not very in touch with his emotions, which lets them slip in some clichéd jokes about men (and gay men).  But let’s focus in on the worst offender:  Paul.  He’s a laid-back, plaid-wearing, organic and local gardener/restaurateur.  Of course Mia Wasikowska’s Joni thinks he’s cool, because that’s all he’s trying to be.  Nic detests him, and I’ve got to say that that drew me closer to her.  I never understood why everyone was so interested in him.  He is nice, and I guess Nic’s abrasiveness makes everyone want someone like him, someone who will just tell them that everything’s fine and they’re fine and whatever.  That still doesn’t make him an interesting character.

            As I said, Cholodenko is very interested in blurred boundaries.  Here, alcoholism and love is challenged, with Nic being a borderline alcoholic and Jules cheating.  Jules is the more interesting example, with her fling being based more on the need for support than a lack of love for Nic.  The boundary between straying and outright cheating is different for everyone, with many people claiming that a physical act isn’t cheating as long as your heart remains focused on your long-term partner.  Then there’s another version of straying, which I think the line “I’m not unfaithful but I’ll stray” from the song “Back in Your Head” by Tegan and Sara describes best.  I’ve always thought that this refers to the ebb and flow of a relationship and being honest about the fact that there will be times when your interest in the other person wanes.  In these instances, you become more interested in something or someone else, but you always come back to your partner.  Jules’s cheating falls at an intersection between all these definitions, and that makes it particularly challenging to figure out just how bad her actions are.

            These complications are interesting, but they never hide the fact that the characters are thin and the plot is stale.  I don’t understand why this script got such high praise, and I can’t help but feel that this film seemed more interesting to people simply because the home was headed by two women.  Of course two women can form a family, and of course they can have the same problems as heterosexual couples.  I don’t think that’s a novel idea, even way back in 2010.

            Other Notes:

Ø  The dialogue is clunky, especially early on.  There are exchanges that, while natural, are boring to watch.

Ø  The kid’s friends are clichés, and boring ones at that

Ø  Like Paul, this movie seemed a little self-satisfied.

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.