The Weekly Gravy #44

The French Connection (1971) – ****

I’d seen The French Connection at least a couple of times before, but I was much younger then, much more interested in the exciting chase scenes and the brilliantly captured atmosphere than the story itself. In fact, I seem to recall finding the story rather hard to follow, and going back to it, just as when I went back to The Exorcist, I appreciated just how subtle Friedkin’s storytelling is, how closely one must pay attention to grasp everything that’s going on, or at least everything we’re meant to grasp. I wrote a review of it years ago in which I suggested it was an unusual Best Picture winner, at least for its time; it has neither epic sweep nor a laudable message nor, for the most part, traditionally likable characters. But it is a film which rings true as it tells the story of a massive drug deal and the cops who try to stop it.

Like The Exorcist, the film begins abroad, in Marseilles, as a policeman tails wealthy Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey) before being killed by his henchman, Nicoli (Marcel Bozzuffi). But their names, and the reason why Charnier would be tailed in the first place, will have to wait to be revealed. Meanwhile, the action shifts to New York City, where maverick narcs Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle (Gene Hackman) and Buddy “Cloudy” Russo (Roy Scheider) bust a pusher (Alan Weeks), in particular showing off Popeye’s brutish style and dark sense of humor (“You ever pick your feet in Poughkeepsie?”). After work, they go to a nightclub and spot a number of familiar faces at a table, tailing one of them, Sal Boca (Tony Lo Bianco, back to the modest lunch counter he runs with his wife Angie (Arlene Farber).

Boca would seem to be making a modest living, but he spends his evenings driving nice cars and living the high life, which Doyle and Russo find suspicious. They stake him out and discover he’s doing business with Joel Weinstock (Harold Gary), a financier for the drug trade. They convince their superior, Simonson (Eddie Egan, the real-life basis for Doyle) to get warrants for wiretaps on Boca’s shop and home, and eventually discover he’s in on a major drug shipment (which they’ve already heard a rumor about)—a shipment which, we know, Charnier is behind. As the investigation deepens, Federal agents are brought on board, including Mulderig (Bill Hickman), who distrusts Doyle because of a past case which lead to the death of a fellow cop.

Charnier and Nicoli travel to New York to make the deal, in which they’ve involved unwitting film star Henri Deveraux (Frédéric de Pasquale), and Boca leads the authorities to them, setting off a lengthy series of stakeouts. But time passes and the expected hand-off never occurs, leading the aggravated Simonson to pull Doyle and Russo off the assignment. But despite Weinstock’s cautious hedging, the deal is still on, and Charnier is well aware he’s being watched. Nicoli decides to take care of Doyle before they leave the country—but instead vindicates Doyle beyond his wildest dreams, setting in motion the final act, which culminates in a showdown where everything goes right for him—until it goes horribly wrong.

It’s in that going-wrong that the film really reflects its cynical era, with Doyle shooting the wrong man (I won’t reveal who), with the final mysterious off-screen gunshot, with that epilogue where the guiltiest parties go unpunished, where the only person to do any real time was the least guilty among them, where Doyle and Russo are taken out of Narcotics and “reassigned,” and with the impeccably eerie strains of Don Ellis’ score hanging over the images like a musical haze. The film won five Oscars and was nominated for three more, but Ellis’ work, a combination of classical police-procedural themes and experimental jazz (some of it bordering on ambient music), went unrecognized, and it’s a great shame, as it’s a truly memorable score.

But the film was rightly recognized for Friedkin’s direction, which so well captures the gritty lives Doyle and Russo lead, the painstaking way in which they must build their case, and the simultaneous luxury and ruthlessness of Charnier’s own lifestyle, with Nicoli bridging the gap between these two worlds, a gap closed in the iconic chase sequence where he wreaks havoc on an elevated train while Doyle desperately pursues him by car – the showiest sequence of the film, but by no means the only impressive one. And it was rightly recognized for Jerry Greenberg’s editing, which slowly builds the tension during the stakeouts and cranks it up to new levels during the subway chase and the cat-and-mouse game Doyle and Charnier play in a subway station.

It also earned Oscars for Gene Hackman’s performance and Ernest Tidyman’s script (based on a book by Robin Moore). Hackman never softens Doyle, never tries to make him likable or even very admirable; we can’t deny his tenacity, his great skill at observation, his fearsome stamina in the act of pursuit, but we also can’t deny his casual racism, his dangerous temper, or his capacity for violence against those he considers himself superior to. Tidyman’s script doesn’t always give the characters or the story the most room to breathe, and it’s not surprising that few of his other credits are really notable (he did write the source novel and the script for Shaft, but the writing is hardly the best part of that film), but he structures the story effectively and at the very least provides the scenes and ideas which Friedkin so well developed.

It was nominated for the sound mixing, which is quite fantastic; one touch I’d forgotten comes when Doyle first notices the gathering at the nightclub, and the pop song being performed fades away as Ellis’ score eerily fades in, telling us that the wheels are turning in his head. It was also nominated for Owen Roizman’s wonderful cinematography, which is thrilling in the chases (the foot chases in particular seem almost impossibly kinetic) and grittily glowing in the scenes of New York at night; there’s also some fascinating contrast between the sheer scope and excitement of the city and Doyle’s own small, lonely, grimly obsessed world. Lastly, it got a nomination for Scheider, and while Russo is even less developed in the script, he is wholly convincing both as a quiet, thoughtful contrast to the belligerent, bullheaded Doyle and as his devoted partner.

And it all comes together in this film which managed to win Best Picture, over the dystopian nightmare A Clockwork Orange, the elegiac musical Fiddler on the Roof, the nostalgic drama The Last Picture Show, and the old-fashioned epic Nicholas and Alexandra. Personally, among Friedkin’s films I find The Exorcist the richer, dramatically more compelling, emotionally more rewarding film, though the more I reflect on this one the more I appreciate how much it depth it conveys in its fleeting details. In any case, it’s a great film, one which plunges into the dirty world of narcs and narcotics, and dares to leave us without validation, without even real resolution, only doubt and frustration and lingering unease.

Score: 91

Music (2021) – *½

I’ve already made it clear how much the Globes dropped the ball this past year, nominating brilliant films like The Personal History of David Copperfield and Emma. for Musical/Comedy acting awards while snubbing them in Picture. And the fact that Music had earned a Musical/Comedy Picture nomination, despite universally negative reviews and accusations of ableism, only strengthened my opinion even without having seen Music. But now, thanks to Kanopy, I’ve seen it, fully validating that opinion. Music isn’t just a pathetic attempt at portraying the life and character of a person with autism, it’s a cloying, incoherent mess that doesn’t even work as a musical.

Music Gamble (Maddie Ziegler) is a teenage girl with nonverbal autism who lives with her grandmother Millie (Mary Kay Place), and lives a carefully managed, routine-based life with the support of their neighborhood. However, after Millie’s sudden death, Music’s older half-sister Kazu “Zu” (Kate Hudson) is called on to take care of her. Zu, a recovering drug addict and alcoholic, is reluctant and ill-equipped to do so, but having few other options, moves into Millie’s apartment and starts learning about Music’s life and routine.

She’s helped by Ebo (Leslie Odom Jr.), a Ghanaian immigrant and boxing teacher, and George (Hector Elizondo), Millie’s crustily lovable landlord. Also helping, from a distance, is Felix (Beto Calvillo), a student of Ebo’s who is devoted to Music, possibly to compensate for his own unhappy home life. Zu struggles to adapt her life to Music’s needs, and her only source of income is selling drugs for Rudy (Ben Schwartz), leading her to consider putting Music in a group home, but numerous trite complications later, she doesn’t. She also falls in love with Ebo, which is nice, but declares her love at his brother’s wedding (to his own ex-wife!), which is…awkward, to say the least.

Throughout this trite story, we get sequences set in candy-colored, hyper-stylized realm which, according to Wikipedia, reflect how Music perceives the world. These sequences mainly consist of fanciful musical numbers featuring original Sia songs, and if nothing else, the sets and costumes in these scenes display some imagination and invention. Unfortunately, that’s all the scenes have going for them; the songs are forgettable, the choreography is generic, and none of it does a damn thing to actually illuminate Music as a character.

But then, the script barely treats Music as a character or even a human being; she’s a plot device, a challenge to Zu’s way of living and a spur towards her personal growth, the focus of the other characters’ affection, frustration, and awe. Because she lives in a near-idyllic world which is entirely accommodating to her needs, it undermines the overt fantasy of her inner life, and the fact that these scenes fail, visually or musically, to tell us anything useful about her only underlines the film’s fundamental hollowness.

The film has been taken to task for its depiction of autism, most notably for its depiction of physical restraint, which Ebo and Zu use to calm Music during moments of crisis – scenes which Sia claimed would be removed from the film but weren’t. Even if she had, there are the myriad tics and gesticulations Ziegler uses in her performance which pervade the film and, for my money, ring utterly false. To be absolutely clear, I am not autistic, and I have very limited experience with the severe autism which Music is meant to have, but Ziegler herself is not autistic, and to me her performance feels like a series of affectations.

To be sure, I think Ziegler gave the performance Sia directed her to give, and the failure of the character – and the film as a whole – rests more on Sia’s direction and screenplay than on Ziegler’s efforts. Nor is Ziegler to blame for Sia’s own decision not to cast a neurodivergent performer, whatever dodgy reasons Sia gave for doing so. It’s still a bad performance, but I’m not too sure any performer, whatever their neurological status, would’ve done much better. I can’t really argue with her winning a Razzie, but I feel much better that Sia also won for Worst Director, even if the film is, on a technical level, not all that badly done.

No, it’s the script, by Sia and Dallas Clayton from her original story, that really sinks the film. It’s not just the handling of Music herself, but the utter vapidity of the story, the shallowness of even the neurotypical characters, the use of dreary tropes and baffling revelations, the simultaneous predictability and illogicality of it all. I’m legitimately shocked, given the film’s multiple Razzie nods and wins, that the script wasn’t cited, as it’s absolutely dreadful.

Where do I even begin with all the questions it raises? Why is Millie shown to be so well-organized and so capable at managing Music’s affairs while she’s alive, but then to have made extremely limited provisions for her welfare in the event of her death, banking on Zu’s getting her act together enough to care for her? How much time has Zu spent with Music? Why are we told Zu has been gone for a few months when it seems she’s been gone for a few years? Is Felix himself neurodivergent? How did he afford the therapy dog? Did Ebo’s wife leave him because he has HIV? Why did Sia name her protagonist “Kazu Gamble”?

Moreover, what’s with Felix’s ultimate fate (which is absurd and never remarked upon after it happens)? What’s with Sia’s ridiculous, self-serving cameo as a “Popstar without Borders,” buying illicit medication from Zu to send to earthquake-stricken Haiti? If the neighborhood where Music lives has so perfectly adapted to her needs, why doesn’t the neighborhood just take care of her? It wouldn’t be any less contrived than what actually happens in the film.

As I noted, the film is technically competent enough. The editing is a mess, but that’s more because of Sia’s own professed issues with the post-production process and because of the bad writing. The cinematography is adequate. The sound mixing is serviceable. Even the performances, outside of Ziegler’s, aren’t too bad. Hudson won a Razzie and was nominated for a Globe, and while she deserved neither, she certainly deserved the Razzie win less; she’s convincing both as the recovering addict who’s reluctant to own the mess she’s made of her life, and as the recklessly optimistic dreamer who wants to move to her personal paradise, a beach in Costa Rica. And while Odom Jr. is saddled with a dreadfully conceived character, he brings some much-needed warmth and sincerity to his performance.

But those few virtues only keep Music from sinking any lower than it already does. There’s just no escaping what a mess it is, how badly Sia misunderstands not just autism, but how to tell an organic story, and how little her songs or the production numbers which showcase them do to enrich the story and characters. Music is a disaster, the first film I can think of to be nominated for a Globe for Best Picture and a Razzie for Worst Picture, and as such, a rightful embarrassment to the embattled Hollywood Foreign Press Association. If Sia needed a reason to hide her face, this is it.

Score: 26

In the Heights (2021) – ***½

Sometimes the words don’t come so easily to me. Reviewing Music was a struggle because it was bad in ways I’m not fully equipped (or qualified) to dissect. And reviewing In the Heights is difficult, not because it’s bad (it’s obviously not), but because I can neither wholeheartedly join in the general acclaim, nor strongly counter it. It’s quite a good film, solidly made, quite well acted, with some invigorating production numbers…but little about it truly resonates with me. At the end of it, I didn’t feel like I knew the Heights any better than when I began, and I didn’t know the characters that much better- but I had enjoyed the time I spent with them.

The Heights, of course, is the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City, where Usnavi (Anthony Ramos) manages a bodega and plans to return to the Dominican Republic, where he’ll take over a property owned by his late father. He hopes to bring his younger cousin Sonny (Gregory Diaz IV) with him, but a wrinkle exists in his long-term, unspoken crush on Vanessa (Melissa Barrera), who works in the local salon but dreams of opening her own fashion studio. Meanwhile, Nina (Leslie Grace) returns from her first year at Stanford, privately struggling with the expectations her neighbors have placed upon her and with the isolation and racism she felt there.

Usnavi’s friend Benny (Corey Hawkins) has his own crush on Nina, having gotten close to her by working for her father Kevin (Jimmy Smits), who runs a chauffeur service, but plans to sell it to help fund Nina’s education. At the same time, salon owner Daniela (Daphne Rubin-Vega) is closing up shop and moving to the Bronx, and it seems as if the Heights as these characters new them will soon be no more. These various dramas all come to a head when a blackout occurs during a neighborhood party, and over the following days the characters have little to do but work out their issues, which they do in time for the finale.

A number of other characters and themes are thrown into the mix; the plight of DREAMers like Sonny is touched upon, and through the character of “Abuela” Claudia (Olga Merediz), themes of unity and legacy are explored, as she brings the community together through her devotion (she also raised Usnavi after he was orphaned), and again in the wake of her passing. On a lighter note, there’s the conflict between the Piragüero (Lin-Manuel Miranda), who sells piragua (shaved ice) from a cart, and “Mister Softee” (Christopher Jackson), who drives an ice-cream truck. Miranda, of course, wrote the songs and played Usnavi on the stage, while Jackson played Benny on the stage, adding an extra later to their conflict.

As I said, In the Heights is quite a good film, but I found myself wanting to be swept up by it more than I was. For me, part of the problem rests in the script, adapted by Quiara Alegría Hudes from her book for the original show. Although the film makes some changes, including expanding the timeline and opening up the action as only a film can, the story and characters are still comparatively thin, and in a way that can work in the stylized realm of the stage, but doesn’t quite come off in the realistic context of the screen.

Perhaps it doesn’t help that, for me at least, it’s outclassed as a gentrification narrative by Blindspotting and The Last Black Man in San Francisco, especially the latter, an elegiac portrait of a last-ditch attempt to preserve an extinct community. Even Fiddler on the Roof, which it echoes to some degree, is more effective at creating the community of Anatevka and conveying the sense of loss when its Jewish community is forced to leave. Compared to these. the ending of In the Heights rings just a bit false. even if you don’t begrudge the material its optimism.

Nina’s story is the most resonant element for me, having had my own difficulties living up to the expectations placed on me (not least by myself) and having struggled to fit in at college, though in my case more because of my own shyness than external prejudice. But I can also sympathize with the unspoken longings and the seemingly unachievable ambitions which haunt these characters, even if I find the characters themselves just a bit generic.

The acting does help; Ramos is especially good as Usnavi, providing both the plucky charm and earnest uncertainty which allow us to root for him and empathize when he falls short. But the whole main quartet is very solid: Barrera is suitably driven and daunted as Vanessa, Hawkins is spirited and passionate as Benny, and Grace nails Nina’s sincerity and self-consciousness, being at once deeply attached to her community and feeling ever-so-slightly apart from it. Diaz is a charming snarker as Sonny, and Merediz has a lovely serene warmth as Claudia. Smits, Rubin-Vega, Stephanie Beatriz as Daniela’s girlfriend Carla, and Miranda are likewise effective and enjoyable in their smaller roles.

And the filmmaking is mostly of quite a high standard, with director Jon M. Chu doing a significantly better job than in Crazy Rich Asians; helped by Christopher Scott’s vigorous choreography, he stages some of the best musical numbers I’ve seen in quite a while. Particular highlights include the opening “In the Heights,” which introduces us to the neighborhood and its residents, “96,000,” where the community talks about what they’d do if they won the lottery while romping around the local pool, and “Carnaval del Barrio,” where Daniela rouses the heat-fatigued neighborhood with a celebration of their heritage.

“Carnaval” features probably my favorite lyric in the show, when Carla says “My mom is Dominican-Cuban/my dad is from Chile and P.R. which means/I’m Chile-Domini-Curican/but I always say I’m from Queens!” It’s a neat way of summing how, their ancestries notwithstanding, these characters are New Yorkers at heart. I also quite liked “When the Sun Goes Down,” a love duet for Benny and Nina in which their passion allows them to defy gravity, and Claudia’s “Paciencia y Fe,” which uses the New York Subway as a means of journeying through her memories over the decades as she moves toward the afterlife.

My experience with Miranda’s songs is mostly limited to Moana (which did have some fantastic songs); I’ve still not seen or even really heard Hamilton, and before seeing this film I hadn’t seen or heard In the Heights. I won’t say the songs here blew me away, and few of them really stuck with me, but his rap-influenced lyrics are clever and smartly crafted (if rather hard to grasp at times) and his music is suitably tuneful. As with so much else here, I have no complaints whatever, only a vague sense that I want to be more actively impressed than I am.

That extends to Alice Scott’s cinematography, Myron Kerstein’s intermittently striking editing, the solid sets and costumes, the sound design, and pretty much everything else about the film. It is a shade overlong and shakily structured, but it’s not boring. It’s almost entirely well-done, even very well-done. But for whatever reason, nothing about it quite rises to that higher level of greatness for me. It’s the kind of good film that’s paradoxically more frustrating than a weaker one, because it’s harder to quantify why it isn’t great. But I still recommend seeing it, for those vibrantly staged numbers and the uniformly solid performances.

Score: 82