The Cineman ::: Redux

‘Up in the Air‘, the third film from Jason Reitman, is a generational film much like Nichols’ ‘Graduate‘ and Ashby’s ‘Shampoo‘. All deal with the emotional detachment of its protagonists, difficult social and political climates, and the collective ambiguities of its endings. While ‘Graduate’ suffers from the neglect of its fascinating supporting cast and ‘Shampoo’ becomes a self-indulgent comedy vehicle for producer-star Warren Beatty, ‘Up in the Air’ is a confident exercise in taste and validity. Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) is a corporate downsizer with a hardly-used apartment in Omaha. He finds comfort in living on-the-go, obsessing over his cache of frequent flier miles and hotel card advantages. When he’s not laying off people, he moonlights as a motivational speaker discussing the importance of dropping committments. He’s a man of his word, until young start-up Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick) offers a low-budget layoff system via webcam. Ryan decides to teach Natalie the ropes of nurturing these desperate employees into a new life, while starting a budding relationship with fellow in-and-out traveler Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga). As time goes by, Ryan reanalyzes his empty life, reconsidering whether connecting flights mean as much as connecting with his family. “This is a rebirth,” says Ryan to laid-off Bob (J.K Simmons). Wise words from a man who can talk the talk, yet refuses to walk. Or fly coach.

Clooney’s vulnerability is what sets the Bingham character apart from the film, as well as the actor’s body of work. Ryan’s personality is that of a young Cary Grant; his soul’s of a young Jimmy Stewart. Clooney’s smooth talk reflects defense rather than assurance, and his chemistry with the beaming Kendrick is proof of this. Kendrick’s new-age skepticism responds to the Gen-Y pessimism commonly mishandled in ‘Post Grad‘ and ‘Nick and Nora‘. The young actress finds her niche displaying the driven archetype of a recent college graduate: the necessary foil to Ryan’s pigeonholed lifestyle, defined by post-Sartre existentialism and corporate incentives. On a side note, the use of product placement plays a smartly enigmatic role in Reitman’s film, as neither a hearty promotion nor a shadowy antidote. Farmiga’s romance with Clooney has hints of Katharine Hepburn’s acerbity, and she has her tamed Spencer Tracy to boot. Reitman examines the effect of unemployment to people’s family life, noted by montages of real-life lay-offs and their plights. Detractors will argue that these sequences are slick and political, but Reitman is more concerned with their fulfillment being compared to Ryan’s evident disconnect. Gorgeous aerial and grounded cinematography from Eric Steelberg makes for resilient realism, and music by Rolfe Kent serves as his ‘Sideways‘ score for a crowded air terminal. Reitman and Sheldon Turner’s script is a cool medium or comedy and tragedy, demonstrating the evolution of a lost man: from routine to realization to rebirth. It is one of the year’s best and most fulfilling films.

[****]

Based on the Susanne Bier’s ’Brødre‘ (which I regret I haven’t seen, eagerly Netflixed now), Jim Sheridan’s ‘Brothers‘ is an observant film dealing with family, fidelity, and war. There are no angry polemics here, no worn-out caricatures of familial disputes, no trite conversations. This is thoughtful, challenging drama that works above the industry’s middling standards of approaching post-traumatic stress disorder and dynamics of the people it affects. These are not meltdowns that audiences savor (Schumacher’s cruel ‘Falling Down‘ comes to mind), but the kind they arduously try to come to terms with. Sam and Tommy (Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal) are brothers – Sam’s going to serve again in Afghanistan, Tommy’s leaving jail after serving for armed robbery. They care for each other, though father Hank (Sam Shepard) sees Sam’s duties as dad/soldier as signs of strength – and Tommy’s delinquent behavior falls short. But when Sam’s helicopter crashes over water, his wife Grace (Natalie Portman) is falsely notified of his death. While Sam and his colleague are held captive by local terrorists, Tommy grows closer with Grace and her two daughters Isabelle and Maggie (Bailee Madison, Taylor Geare). Tommy’s growing appreciation of his uncle status helps bring him closure to his former life, but this is interrupted by Sam’s surprising return. And while he remains alive, his soul died in Afghanistan – changing the world he once knew at home.

Maguire’s performance will touch nerves, but his acting remains organic around his castmates. His transformation after war doesn’t result in hyperbole; Sam’s fate worse than death is reflected in both Portman’s struggle to reattach his commitments and Madison and Geare’s unrehearsable chemistry with Maguire. These two girls brim with personality, and Sheridan utilizes their youthful dispositions to bring the other actors to common ground. Gyllenhaal’s reverse transformation is subtle but charming, as Tommy’s presence prevents Maguire from unintentionally upstaging. Portman’s Grace is an understated warmth, a centerpiece whose interactions with Gyllenhaal and Maguire reveal themselves as selfless and real. Sheridan (whose track record was marred by 2005’s pedestrian ‘Get Rich or Die Tryin‘) has made a film devoid of starpower, preferring ‘Brothers’ be colored with the richness of its performances.

[****]

It takes a lot for Lee Daniels’ ‘Precious‘ to really shine through. For all the hype that’s been boiling up about his adaptation of Gen-X poet Sapphire’s novel ‘Push’, it’s disappointing how much of the drama relies on the unendurable castigation of the protagonist/audience. Guilt plays a major role in the success of ‘Precious’. It’s an analyzation of the undervalued, after all – our poor titular character (Gabby Sidibe) is an overweight black girl living in Harlem with her physically- and sexually-abusive mother Mary (Mo’Nique), and she is also pregnant for the second time from her estranged father. She is beaten in the head with frying pans, has televisions thrown at her and her newborn child, and is pushed around by complete strangers on the street. Precious is the Candide of the new millenium, who somehow finds a reason to keep cultivating that garden. She finds solace in her special ed teacher Ms. Rain (Paula Patton), who urges Precious to find catharsis in writing, and through social worker Mrs. Weiss (Mariah Carey), who urges Precious to tell the truth about her family life.

Gabby Sidibe is not at fault in ‘Precious’: her tragic impassivity trumps all critical praise for flat-faced Sasha Grey in Soderbergh’s ‘Girlfriend Experience‘, proving that Precious’ irregular silences are justified defenses against her difficult family life. Furthermore, Mo’Nique’s brazen performance is worth the hype; Mary’s unstable matriarchy is just as much a front as Precious’. And while her character isn’t defendable, the acting is daring and determined – the true star to watch. When Mary screams at clay pigeon Precious, “Real women sacrifice!” – it’s the movie’s ending that will pack a wallop for unsuspecting moviegoers. Yet Daniels succumbs to sociopathic actions (like throwing a television at Precious) and occasional racism (Precious stealing fried chicken, the variation of dark-skinned to light-skinned characters) but these details may go by unnoticed. It isn’t to say ‘Precious’ is all for naught, the final scene resonates as some of the year’s most powerful drama and Sidibe’s overarching work is consistent and believable. But there’s still a heap of Oscar bait glurge here – you’ll have to dig through a lot of zirconium to find some diamonds.

[***]

A lethal concoction of human kinetics and a taste for traditional manga, James McTeigue’s ‘Ninja Assassin‘ is a strange case. It seems to have been created for scant reasons – giving Korean actor Rain another shot at breaking international boundaries as a martial arts star, employing whiplash fight choreography to actualize cartoonish violence, and a nifty knife-on-chain weapon that wields more power than you’d think. The gifted Wachowskis, whose ‘Speed Racer’s visual design was shamefully overlooked in 2008, produced ‘Assassin’ and their fingerprints are all over it – they have a knack for orchestrating action, and McTeigue seems to work well on their level. Rain is Raizo, an orphaned assassin who has broken off from the Ozunu ninja clan under mysterious circumstances. As Europol agent Mika Coretti (Naomie Harris) digs deeper into her investigation on the clan with agent Maslow (Ben Miles), Raizo swoops in to protect her. The clan is on to her, and the young renegade must prevent her assassination – ninja style. See what I meant by scant?

The opening sequence speaks a lot for the rest of the film – abruptly beginning with merciless bloodshed on some meathead Yakuza members, drifting off tangentially from there. I started wondering when the cryptic Raizo’s backstory would come; and when his motives do become clear, it’s too anticlimactic. Rain has the makings of a star, but one wishes it wasn’t for such gimmicky Americanized material. Granted, the violence is deliciously staged. There are enough Foley sounds here to create a novelty song – blades spin in the air, shirukens slice in the blink of an eye, bodies are diced Popeil-style. Leaving the theatre, I believed to have enjoyed myself, yet in retrospect, the film ended abruptly in high hackneyed fashion with little accomplished. J. Michael Straczynski’s threadbare screenplay was written in 53 hours (it shows); the action is so densensitizing it’ll convince audience members they’ve been genuinely entertained. No work and all play makes Jack a dumb boy.

[**]

Behind those violent tantrums and piercing eyes, Nicolas Cage’s Terrence McDonagh isn’t really a bad guy – he’s just got “bad days”. Similar in tone but not in structure to Abel Ferrara’s masterpiece of the same name, Werner Herzog’s ‘Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans‘ dabbles in the surreal. Emotional detachment begins to personify itself through swamp creatures, heightened by the shadowy cinematography of Peter Zeitlinger. Lt. McDonagh saved a man locked in his prison cell shortly after Katrina hit the Big Easy – and is left with crippling back pain for the rest of his life. He juggles a homicide investigation while keeping the pain away by peddling dope, crack, and more Vicodin, fucking the pain away with the help of hooker girlfriend Frankie (Eva Mendes), and gambling the pain away via creep bookie Ned (Brad Dourif). But one thing leads to another, and the pain keeps finding its way back.

Cage is Herzog’s new Klaus Kinski – a hot-headed monster with moments of a clear conscience. For all the criticism the actor gets these days, the character of McDonagh is a true return to form – zany, arrogant, yet admirably pathetic. Mendes and rapper-turned-actor Xzibit also make commendable turns with such heavy material. While aggressively lurid, the film feels all too real at times, and is only levelled by McDonagh’s own mental deterioration. Wayward POV shots of iguanas, lizards, and assorted waterlife make their way into the narrative, existing as if their amphibious blank stares are the only things really keeping an eye on McDonagh – and he can’t seem to shoo them away. For a movie of the same name, the primary difference between the two versions are a change of folios – while Ferrara composed a tragedy, but Herzog likes a comedy. Harvey Keitel sees a vainglorious end in Ferrara’s ‘Lieutenant’. But if the main character stays alive at the end, is it necessarily a happy ending?

[***]