Another week, another batch of newer films to catch up on. As of this writing I just need to see one more Visual Effects nominee and two more Original Song nominees and I’ll have at least seen all the Oscar nominees in categories I give out (and, as a reminder, I’m announcing my own awards the week after the Oscars).
More significantly, this is the 900th post on this blog. Odds are I’ll reach #1000 before my birthday in November. I’ll have to do something big for that. But first, the reviews:
The Call of the Wild (2020) – ***
I’d never read Jack London’s novel, nor seen any of the previous film adaptations, but I had seen the trailer, and was morbidly excited to see how much the obvious CGI used to create the canine hero would drag the whole enterprise into the uncanny valley. The reviews were decent enough to diminish my interest, but when I checked out a number of 2020 films from the library, I added it to the pile. And, to my pleasant surprise, it wasn’t so bad. It’s not all that great, but it’s a decent enough adventure.
It details the adventures of Buck (mo-cap performance by Terry Notary), from his pampered life as the rambunctious pet of a California judge (Bradley Whitford), to being dognapped and sold as a sled dog in Alaska to mail-carriers Perrault (Omar Sy) and Françoise (Cara Gee), to being bought by arrogant fortune-hunter Hal (Dan Stevens) and being rescued by John Thornton (Harrison Ford), who proves to be his truest friend and final human master. Despite his domestic origins, Buck is inexorably drawn to the freedom of the wild.
The early scenes seemed to confirm my fears, as Buck bounds around his hometown, wreaking comedic havoc as if this were a Beethoven film and looking like what he is – a CGI creation behaving like a cartoon rather than a real dog. The film never completely abandons this exaggerated tone, but it does settle down somewhat, and more importantly, I was able to get past the CGI and accept Buck as a character. (Watching it on my TV rather than on a big screen probably helped.) Hell, Stevens’ melodramatic villainy is as cartoony as anything the animals do.
The film works best once Buck and Thornton get together, thanks to Ford’s sincere, crustily likable performance; he also narrates the film, and his laconic delivery underlines the resonance of the basic story, namely that it’s very hard not to root for the (ahem) underdog, and damn near impossible not to hope the well-meaning Buck, trying to survive in his harsh new circumstances, will endure. The other performances are mostly adequate, if broad; Sy strikes something like the right note, as a man who treats his dogs more like people, but Stevens seems to be auditioning for Snidely Whiplash.
The film errs in compressing the story as much as it does; too much of the film is reduced to montages, with John Powell’s (fairly nice) score and Ford’s narration bridging the gaps. And given that most if not all of the animals seen are CGI, one wonders why they didn’t just make an animated film and allow Buck a level of character development that this relatively (relatively) realistic approach does not. In the end, it’s watchable and even enjoyable in the moment, but it feels more like yet another adaptation of a familiar property than a film with any special vision of its own.
Score: 69
Antebellum (2020) – **½
CW: discussions of slavery, racism, and the attendant violence.
From the intriguing trailer, it was clear Antebellum had potential to spare, and the film opens with a lengthy tracking shot across a cotton plantation, taking us from the idyllic existence of the white masters to the brutal subjugation of the black slaves in a sequence whose graceful choreography underscores the inhumanity of what we’re seeing. And the rest of the film offers many more images which are strikingly lit and composed, and/or intensely disturbing. What it doesn’t offer, in the end, is a story with the weight to justify drawing upon the real horrors of American history for fictional ends, let alone a story that works as drama.
I hesitate to say too much about what exactly happens in the film, both because doing so would involve cataloguing more suffering than I’m inclined to write down, and because the film is so dependent on the gradual revelation of what is actually happening. However, it so badly botches these revelations, from a narrative gear-shift over a third of the way through that should’ve come much sooner, to a failure to explain just what’s going on or who’s responsible until one of the most blatant exposition-dumps in recent memory, that the series of climactic catharses are laughably unearned.
When I saw the trailer, with its hints that past and present were connected in some supernatural manner, I initially assumed it was an adaptation of Octavia Butler’s classic novel Kindred, and while I haven’t read the book, I have to wonder why they didn’t just adapt it, as the film’s revelations raise logistical questions which the overt fantasy of Kindred would’ve elided. And it might have also resulted in more compelling characters than the thinly-drawn (at best) figures who populate the film.
Janelle Monáe stars, and in the present-day scenes she has the vivacity and grace she’s displayed in her other roles. But in the plantation scenes, she’s oddly stiff and unconvincing, but she’s mainly asked to look agonized or coldly determined – a decided waste of her abilities. (Her facial expressions in the last minutes of the film are unintentionally funny, but that seems more the fault of the direction and editing than her acting.) Even in the present-day scenes she’s let down by the writing, which gives her character (a sociologist and author) some intensely banal platitudes to speak, to the rousing approval of the supporting cast, of course.
The supporting cast, by the way, includes some very good actors, like Jack Huston, Kiersey Clemons, Jena Malone, and Marque Richardson, but most of them are hampered by underwritten roles, offering mostly generic support, broad villainy, or one-note suffering. Only Gabourey Sidibe, as Monáe’s spirited relationship-expert friend, brings her character to something like full life. But then, Sidibe’s character doesn’t really advance the story, which really goes to show what a mess the film really is.
And yet it’s a compelling mess much of the time, with first-time directors Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz showing decided skill in their staging and imagery (kudos also to Pedro Luque’s cinematography). And even though the film makes an utter hash of telling us just what’s going on, there are some truly compelling ideas here. It’s the kind of film which is frustrating precisely because you wish someone would do its ideas justice, and because the film’s own failure makes that less likely. It’s possibly worth seeing once just so the premise can spark your own imagination, but be forewarned that it depicts the horrors of slavery quite brutally indeed.
Addendum: I’ve been thinking about the film some more and my criticism of its using real historical traumas in a fictional context, weighing it against my praise for Django Unchained, a film which also uses slavery as the backdrop for its own revenge narrative. I fully understand why – to cite a prominent example – Spike Lee objected to the film, saying that slavery “was not a Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western. It Was A Holocaust.” (I don’t know what his thoughts regarding Antebellum were.) That doesn’t change my own feelings on Django any more than, I hope, my review changes anyone’s feelings on Antebellum.
But I will give two key reasons as to why I hold Django in higher esteem. Firstly, it visits the greater part of its considerable violence on its antagonists; we do get some very brutal scenes of violence against the black characters, but more and more graphic scenes of violence against the white antagonists (even Samuel L. Jackson’s character, himself an antagonist, has a less gruesome demise than the white people around him.)
Second, and more importantly, it tells a coherent and engaging story, carefully introduces and thoughtfully develops its characters, hero and villain alike, and makes very clear the stakes of the action throughout. In Antebellum, it’s never really made clear who the villains actually are, what motivates them, or how they’ve executed their plans, nor are the heroic characters well developed – where they’ve come from, psychologically and otherwise, is not much clearer than where they’re going. It really is one of the most frustrating films of the year, because it could’ve been so much better.
Score: 62
Onward (2020) – ***
Watching Onward, I couldn’t help but think that a series based on the premise – a world populated by mythological creatures but which has forgotten magic and developed more like our own – would be more satisfying than the film we got. Now more notable as one of the last films released before the pandemic shuttered the movie theaters, it was later overshadowed by Pixar’s own Soul, and its Oscar nomination for Animated Feature feels more obligatory than enthusiastic. But so does much of the film itself, which applies an incredibly predictable narrative to its intriguing concept.
You’ve got the painfully shy young elf Ian (Tom Holland) who never knew his father, his older brother Barley (Chris Pratt) who’s obsessed with the magical past of their world and determined to preserve it (while neglecting his own maturation), and you’ve got the botched attempt to bring their late father back by magical means, only to end up with a pair of legs that must be disguised and hauled along as they seek the…not quite MacGuffin, but close, that will allow them to wholly restore the old man for what remains of the day.
And you’ve got all the expected complications along the way, from external opponents like a gang of biker sprites, a looming curse courtesy of the MacGuffin, and their mother’s well-meaning centaur-cop boyfriend (Mel Rodriguez), but also from within, as conflicts of personality and long-simmering resentments threaten to alienate the brothers when they most need to work together. Moreover, Ian must work against his own fears – one particularly unpleasant scene has him trying to invite his classmates to his birthday party (maybe it’s just me, but I found the moment more grating than sympathetic).
There are also, of course, the expected call-backs, the predictable contrivances, the subversions of our expectations, and, as is generally the case with Pixar, a few decided grace notes, especially the poignantly restrained ending. It’s also pretty well animated (I especially like the “dragon” at the end), has good voice acting (even Pratt isn’t too bad; Barley should’ve been unbearably annoying and he isn’t), has a nice score, and boasts rich production design that marries our reality to the world of high fantasy in ways that, as I said before, a series would’ve explored more satisfactorily.
Onward is an enjoyable film. It’s rare that a Pixar film can’t achieve that much. It wit and warmth – not as much as it should have, but enough to make for a pleasant viewing. It certainly could and should have been better, and it’s certainly on the lower end of Pixar’s output (though far better than, say, The Good Dinosaur), but in its own right, it’s fine. And being fine is nothing to sneeze at.
Score: 76
The One and Only Ivan (2020) – ***
I saw The One and Only Ivan because it was an Oscar nominee for Best Visual Effects, and to be sure, the effects are very strong; aside from some iffy animation on their mouths, the various creatures who star in the shopping-mall circus Ivan depicts are well realized. I’m not entirely sure how much of what we see in the film is CGI, how much is animatronic, and how much is, well, real, but that’s a testament to the strength of the effects, isn’t it? The film itself is more of a mixed bag, but for one viewing it’s solid enough.
Ivan (Sam Rockwell) is a silverback gorilla who lives in a facility at the Big Top Mall and stars in its circus, whose hammy ringmaster, Mack (Bryan Cranston), also owns the mall. Ivan is the headliner of the circus, but all he ever does is roar and beat his chest a bit, which may explain why the audiences are smaller than before and the mall appears to be losing tenants. But then Mack acquires Ruby (Brooklynn Prince), an elephant calf whose cuteness is enough to send ticket sales soaring. Ivan, meanwhile, rediscovers his love of art, thanks to a gift of crayons from Julia (Ariana Greenblatt), a girl whose father works for Mack. Mack learns about Ivan’s art and uses it to draw in ever larger crowds.
But Ivan and many of his cohorts are wild animals, not meant for captivity, and Stella (Angelina Jolie), an aging elephant who cares for Ruby when she arrives, prevails on Ivan to save Ruby from a life of captivity before her own death. Ivan, who’s been raised by Mack since he was quite young, isn’t sure how to go about this, but rest assured, he finds a way. (It’s a Disney movie, of course he does.)
At the end of the film, we learn that Ivan is based on a true story, which K.A. Applegate fictionalized for a novel, upon which Mike White based the film’s screenplay. And learning about the true story – in which the real Ivan lived in confined circumstances for 27 years in a Tacoma shopping center – adds an uncomfortable wrinkle to the film, as does the mounting drama, in contrast to the comic elements which dominate the film early on, from the baseball-playing chicken Henrietta (Chaka Khan) to the toy truck-driving rabbit Murphy (Ron Funches) to the neurotic beach ball-balancing sea lion Frankie (White) to Ivan’s best friend, a stray dog who eventually gets the name Bob (Danny DeVito).
They all perform in the circus alongside Ivan and Stella (and Ruby), and their antics are cute enough, but when we realize the bitter truth about what captivity means for them…the film doesn’t quite pull it off. And Mack himself is a far more complex figure than the film seems capable of handling, at once goofy and a bit arrogant, scheming and desperate, yet also pathetic and essentially well-meaning. We learn how Ivan living with Mack and his wife (Hannah Bourne) indirectly caused their divorce, and we see how down-at-heels Mack is when he’s not playing ringmaster, so you have to wonder what’ll become of him once the animals get their freedom at the end. It all hints at layers the film never fully peels back.
It has other issues, namely a muddled structure and a shaky tone, and I’m not sure how much to blame White’s script, Applegate’s novel, or Thea Sharrock’s direction. That it still works decently well as a family entertainment is certainly due in part to how Sharrock managed the technically-complex production, to the solid performances – Rockwell, DeVito, Cranston, and Prince are all quite solid, though Jolie and especially Helen Mirren as a vain poodle are decidedly wasted – to the excellent effects, and the typically solid Disney production values. And it does tell a fundamentally compelling story, if not to full effect. It’s just hard to imagine there aren’t other films that convey the same messages better.
Score: 73
Portrait of a Lady on Fire/Portrait de la jeune fille en feu (2019) – ***½
Probably the most significant film of 2019 I hadn’t yet seen (I’m not sure if I’d had the chance in theaters or not), this was embraced as a classic from the very start, winning Best Screenplay and the Queer Palm at Cannes and entering the Criterion Collection last June. Naturally, owing to release-date technicalities, it wasn’t the French submission to the Oscars that year and it failed to earn any nominations whatever, even as the other awards groups embraced it. For my part, while it didn’t impress me the way it did so many viewers, I can certainly see why it was so embraced, and I do think it is a very good film, anchored by two great performances – which now factor into my own 2019 awards.
First, there’s Noémie Merlant as Marianne, a portraitist hired to paint a young noblewoman in preparation for her wedding to a Milanese nobleman (it was the 18th century, that’s how it worked back then). Because previous efforts to paint her have failed, Marianne is asked not to reveal her true purpose, but to accompany her subject on walks and take note of her features. Second, there’s the subject, Héloïse, played by Adèle Haenel, who dreads the marriage, is stifled by her sheltered life, and who is as drawn to Marianne’s personal freedom and self-possession as Marianne is drawn to Héloïse’s elusive personality. It’s no spoiler to say that a romance eventually develops, but the film firmly establishes the emotional connection long before introducing the physical elements.
Merlant must show us Marianne’s confidence and artistic control, and how those are challenged by Héloïse, who not only stirs her heart but defies her artistry; Marianne produces one portrait, based only on her impressions of Héloïse, but after Héloïse herself criticizes it, Marianne scraps it and Héloïse agrees to sit for another. That Marianne is never truly compromised by her feelings for Héloïse is partly a credit to director Céline Sciamma’s script, and partly to Merlant’s performance, which shows her keen observations and emotional awakenings with superb subtlety. She did not actually produce the art we see in the film – that was the work of Hélène Delmaire – but the illusion is preserved thanks to Merlant’s quiet perception.
Haenel has a trickier role, since Héloïse has much less screen-time (it is very much Marianne’s story), and because such a character could easily disappear into their own enigmatic nature. Certainly there’s something about Héloïse that’s hard to grasp – her piercing gaze and willful nature hint at a manipulative character, and her smile suggests a devious wit. But those impressions are challenged by our realization that she’s simply stuck in a life which offers her few choices and no real freedom, and that her life in the convent has given her limited knowledge of the world. Haenel, like Merlant, gives a powerfully controlled performance, betraying none of Héloïse’s complexity for the sake of our ease. (I have made her my Best Supporting Actress for 2019; Merlant is my #2 for Best Actress.)
Some of the film’s most engaging scenes come when Marianne and Héloïse are left on their own with Sophie (Luàna Bajrami), and they’re free to simply be themselves, whether that means playing snap (or something like it), going to a bonfire party where the women start an eerie chant which becomes an earworm in its own right (and where Héloïse’s dress catches fire, inspiring Marianne’s painting which gives the film its title), or helping Sophie end an unwanted pregnancy – which leads Héloïse to recreate the scene later on so Marianne can paint it. Bajrami’s own quietly likable performance and the unforced subversion of societal repression – since it’s during this time that Marianne and Héloïse finally express their love – make these moments warm and alive.
It’s a well-done film in most every regard. Sciamma’s direction is sensitive and restrained, depicting the romance with tenderness and openness, but not to the point of prurience (unlike, say, the male-directed Blue is the Warmest Color), and Claire Mathon’s cinematography is quite lovely, both in depicting the carefully controlled interiors (Héloïse’s family chateau is rather spartan in appearance) and the raw, elemental exteriors (the film is set in Brittany). The sets and costumes are effective without being too showy, and the sound design captures the sounds of nature and the carefully broken silences of the chateau to equal effect.
If I don’t quite push the film into the **** realm, it might be because of the script, which is solid but not quite on the level of the acting or the filmmaking. In particular, a late rift between the two women, soon healed, felt contrived to me, and at least on first viewing, I felt the double epilogue threw off the pacing of the ending, at least to a mild degree. But it might just be that expectations are a curse and that, on future viewings, the film might rise higher in my estimation. In any case, I do see where its advocates are coming from, which might be what really matters.
Score: 85
The Astrologer rewatch
I spent the night at a friend’s house over the weekend and we watched The Astrologer on my recommendation. He was suitably baffled by the haphazard plotting, the terrible acting, and the film’s own uncertainty as to the reality of astrology and the main character’s abilities. (It really is one of the strangest vanity projects I’ve ever seen, if it was meant as one.) And like me, he was totally caught off-guard by the abrupt ending, assuming we had only reached the second-act low point. His attempts the following morning to summarize it for his wife were amusingly valiant.
I don’t have much to add to my previous review; it’s one of the most slapdash pieces of cinematic storytelling I’ve ever seen. It’s not as pure a piece of bad-movie joy as, say, Dancin’ It’s On!, but it’s pretty damn fun, and highly recommended.
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