The Weekly Gravy #170

The Burial (2023) – ***½

Movies like Air and The Holdovers appeal to a sense of cultural nostalgia, both for their period settings and for the ostensibly lost golden age of feel-good, character-driven comedy-dramas they attempt to revive in this cynical age of ours. Air is a solid film, and The Holdovers is quite a good one, but if you haven’t guessed, I’m not totally buying what they – or at least their supporters – are selling.

The Burial is not necessarily better than either of those films, but it worked for me on that level in a way the other two fell short. It helps that the stakes here are higher and more resonant than those in Air, or that the story has a greater focus and momentum than The Holdovers‘ easy-going approach, but it may just be that I’m a mark for a good courtroom drama. I won’t even claim it’s the best of that genre in a year with The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial and Anatomy of a Fall, but I was thoroughly entertained by it.

Based on true events, it deals with funeral home owner/burial insurance provider Jeremiah O’Keefe (Tommy Lee Jones), who’s facing financial difficulties and decides to sell a few of his homes to funeral-home mogul Raymond Loewen (Bill Camp). Despite a handshake deal, Loewen fails to close the deal, and after several months, O’Keefe’s junior counsel Hal Dockins (Mamoudou Athie) suggests Loewen is trying to stall him out. He also suggests they get a better lead counsel than O’Keefe’s long-time lawyer Mike Allred (Alan Ruck).

That would be Willie E. Gary (Jamie Foxx), a personal-injury lawyer with a dazzling courtroom manner and a perfect winning record. He initially declines O’Keefe’s case – it’s a contract dispute and he’s not a contract lawyer – but an appeal by Dockins, who knows that Gary will do far better with the Black jury they’re likely to get than the white Allred, changes his mind. Loewen, not to be outdone, hires an all-Black legal team led by Mame Downes (Jurnee Smollett).

And so we go to trial, with the expected bombshells, reversals, clashes of character, objections, and, of course, the final triumph for Gary and O’Keefe. It’s an old-fashioned courtroom drama. But it hits the sweet spot for me. That’s what counts with a film like this.

Sure, it’s not perfect. Maggie Betts’ direction isn’t especially distinctive, and the crisp editing aside, the film is technically efficient without being especially inspired. Even the script by Betts and Doug Wright, based on Jonathan Harr’s article of the same name, rarely strays from the expected beats, though it never pushes them harder than the film can support; the characters and their actions feel genuine, however much the film may have strayed from history. I do wish we had more exploration of the actual death industry, and how O’Keefe’s approach differs from Loewen’s, but hearing Camp say the words “The Golden Age of Death” with a shit-eating grin almost makes up for that.

The real fire in the film comes from the cast. Foxx relishes Gary’s flamboyant manner, tearing into his courtroom scenes with a fervor which consciously mirrors the introductory moment when he testifies in church, dialing it down (but not too much) when he’s still “on,” but effectively showing the moments of doubt and vulnerability which help to convince us that Gary is the real deal – that he believes in his clients and their cases.

Jones, of course, offers a more subdued performance, but he always finds the right balance of frustration, determination, wry humor, and bemusement, playing well with Foxx, Athie, Ruck, and Pamela Reed as his understanding wife – and kudos, on that note, to Athie as the earnest young lawyer who tends to catch what others overlook, Ruck as the veteran lawyer who’s at once old-fashioned and arrogant and, essentially, a decent man (a nicely nuanced character, that), Smollett as the brilliant defense attorney who gives as good as she gets from Gary, and the always-welcome Camp as the smug corporate bastard.

You could reasonably say that The Burial isn’t far beyond what you’d find on any TV courtroom drama, but I say again, it worked really well for me. That’s all some movies need.

Score: 83

Fallen Leaves/Kuolleet Lehdet (2023) – ****

Fallen Leaves is a film which rewards a love of film. It doesn’t do so with winking references for the experienced cinephile to get (though there are a few of those, especially the delightful final beat), but by inviting one to think about how Hollywood would’ve told this story – how it would’ve been embroidered to evoke a more visceral reaction, whether or not that would’ve made for a better film.

Let’s take the main characters. You’ve got Ansa (Alma Pöysti), a supermarket employee who doesn’t like to let “expired” products go to waste and will keep them for herself or let a young man in need take them, despite the petulant glowering of the security guard who will eventually get her fired. She’ll need to scramble for a new job, first at a sketchy bar and then at a foundry, but it helps distract from her loneliness. You can imagine how Hollywood might have cast an A-lister in the role to show how a glamourous celebrity can play one of the “little people,” or how her loneliness might have been played up for pathos, and the scene where she’s fired for stand-up-and-cheer defiance.

Then there’s Holappa (Jussi Vatanen), an industrial worker who drinks on the job, smokes in front of a “No Smoking” sign, and lives in a company dorm, his possessions fitting into a single duffel bag. Hollywood might play up his behavior for bad-boy charm or his drinking for dramatic tension; it certainly comes back to bite him more than once. They meet at a karaoke bar, meet again by chance, hit it off, are separated by the simplest stroke of bad luck, search for each other, find each other, run into difficulties (namely his drinking), plan to reconcile, encounter new and greater difficulties, and finally walk off into the sunset together.

The challenges they encounter might be stuff of melodrama, of emotionally charged confrontations and declarations, of sprinting towards passionate embraces, of swelling music and flowing tears on the screen and in the audience. But that’s not how Aki Kaurismäki works. For those not familiar with his style, he prefers a deadpan sensibility, dryly comic and to-the-point, one which empathizes with the characters but doesn’t patronize or indulge them. Nor does he feel the need to explain them; we get a couple of lines about Ansa’s past and nothing about Holappa’s. We don’t need to be told what we can see for ourselves.

The neat trick with Fallen Leaves is that he takes these story beats, beats which would be absurdly overwrought if played straight, and plays them for that dry, ironic wit – but with enough low-key humanity that they still work. We still root for Ansa to keep her head above water despite the unlovely jobs she has to work. We still root for Holappa to find a way out of the rut his life is in, not just to stop drinking but to find a reason not to drink. And we root for them to find and hold onto each other, and smile when they do.

The performances, as per Kaurismäki’s usual style, are restrained, but they work very well in the context he establishes. Pöysti (who is, to be fair, an established actress in Finland) actually scored a Globe nomination for her work, and she gives a charming and sympathetic performance as the quiet woman who seeks happiness, but knows what she won’t put up with, while Vatanen shows us how Holappa, despite his laconic exterior and lifestyle, wants to be loved as much as anyone, and finally allows himself to change for love.

The supporting cast have their moments as well, especially Janne Hyytiäinen as Holappa’s co-worker, an enthusiastic karaoke singer who’s about as cool as anyone in a Kaurismäki film can be (one of the funniest moments in the film is him simply putting on a pair of sunglasses) and Kaurismäki’s dog Alma as the stray Ansa adopts. This part of the story is handled with the same deadpan style, with the same sweetly charming results.

The visual style is precisely composed and quietly stylized (I have to wonder if Kaurismäki was an influence on Wes Anderson), with the production design being especially impressive in its use of colors and the same dry wit to create the world these characters move through; the seedy bar Ansa works at is a particular highlight, with its attempts at hip style falling laughably flat. Her apartment, as well, suggests a simple, lonely life, but with just enough color and detail to reflect her hidden depths.

All of this fits into 81 minutes, but it never feels rushed, thanks to the careful pacing and economic storytelling, and right up to that little wink and sweet final shot, it proves a beguiling little film that extends Kaurismäki’s own impressive career and might just open up new horizons for its stars.

Score: 88

Wonka (2023) – ***

Wonka has two large pairs of shoes to fill – one directly, one by association – and it falls short on both fronts. Directly, it’s a prequel to Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, a key film of many childhoods, including my own. Indirectly, it’s the newest film from Paul King, whose Paddington 2 is still one of the most critically lauded family films of recent years. That’s a lot to live up to, to be sure, and maybe the problem was me, but while I didn’t dislike it by any means, I found it distinctly unmemorable.

Willy (Timothée Chalamet) arrives in a city, never mind which, after traveling the world for seven years to perfect his chocolate-making craft. His dream is to open a shop in the Galeries Gourmet, but within hours of arrival, he’s penniless. Bleacher (Tom Davis) guides him to the establishment of Mrs. Scrubitt (Olivia Colman), who allows him to stay the night and pay the next day – after he signs a lengthy contract. The next day, he goes to the Galeries and introduces himself to the shoppers and his rivals, chocolatiers Slugworth (Paterson Joseph), Prodnose (Matt Lucas), and Fickelgruber (Mathew Baynton).

He offers them his “hoverchocs,” which contain an insect whose flight causes the consumer to float into the air, and despite the public’s approval, the police – on behalf of the “chocolate cartel” – confiscate Willy’s earnings. To make matters worse, Scrubitt reveals her contract included surcharges for everything imaginable, leaving Willy with a mountain of debt which he’ll have to work off in Scrubitt’s laundry room, alongside several other luckless souls.

The saddest of all is Noodle (Calah Lane), who was left at Scrubitt’s in infancy. Willy befriends her, introduces her to chocolate, and begins to hatch a plan to sneak out of the well-guarded establishment and outwit his well-established rivals – who, however, have the Chief of Police (Keegan-Michael Key) in their pocket, thanks to his incredible sweet tooth. And, while it takes him a while to show up, Willy is being followed by Lofty (Hugh Grant), an Oompa-Loompa seeking restitution for the cocoa beans Willy unwittingly stole from his people.

The story also includes giraffe milk, a corrupt church in league with the chocolatiers, a secret ledger, a giant tank of chocolate, a budding romance between Scrubitt and Bleacher, and Noodle’s dream of finding her real family. That’s a lot to pack into a light-hearted family film, especially when you also have to make room for the musical numbers, and the film doesn’t have the clockwork precision to pull it off; it feels forced, as if it were trying to create magic by sheer force of will.

The characters don’t really help. Part of the appeal of Willy, especially in the 1971 film, was his trickster-god unpredictability. You never knew quite what he was going to do, so that his climactic tirade was wholly believable…as was the joyous reversal which followed. This Willy is a likable fellow, but he just doesn’t have that spark. That’s not really Chalamet’s fault, as he gives an earnest and frequently charming performance, but even Johnny Depp’s tiresome take on the role came closer to that quicksilver spirit.

Noodle is a pretty standard spunky-hopeful orphan, though Lane has a nice dynamic with Chalamet. Scrubitt and Bleacher are likewise pretty standard grotesques, and while their romance is amusing, it feels like something we’ve seen before, though Colman and Davis are likewise committed to the bit. Willy’s fellow inmates are (mostly) pleasantly generic; Jim Carter is always good value, but Rich Fulcher falls flat as a cheesy stand-up comedian. Sally Hawkins brings some real warmth to the role of Willy’s mother, but it’s barely more than a cameo.

One misstep in the script was to give Willy three rivals, then give almost all the characterization to Slugworth. Joseph is well up to the task – his overripe villainy is quite entertaining – but Baynton has nothing to work with and Lucas, as the villain who says the quiet part out loud, wears out his welcome quickly. Grant is considerably better as the tenacious Lofty, but the film also does too little with him (and his appearances are marred by some dodgy CGI). Key is decently funny as the affably amoral chief, but after a good villainous-seduction number he too is underused (and the running gag of his weight gain has rubbed some the wrong way).

Speaking of the numbers, the songs by Neil Hannon are pleasant in the moment, but the use of “Pure Imagination” and “Oompa-Loompa” in the film (the latter’s catchiness is lampshaded) does them no favors. “Scrub Scrub” and “Sweet Tooth” are all right and “A Hatful of Dreams” is a decent opener, but at least on first viewing, none of them stick in the head the way the songs in the 1971 film do. Granted, I’ve heard those songs many, many times over the years, but setting those long-established classics against brand-new songs was a gamble, and I don’t think it paid off.

It looks nice, with fine sets, excellent costumes, and solid cinematography. None of these are aspects are truly dazzling compared to, say, the candy-colored dreamland of Barbie (same year, same studio), but the kids in the audience seemed to enjoy it pretty well. They may cherish this film the way I cherish the original – but time alone will tell on that. For now, I think it’s pleasant, colorful, and slight – easy to watch and easy to forget.

Score: 74

All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (2023) – ***½

If any film justifies the full range of possible reactions, it’s this one. I could understand finding it ravishingly beautiful, evocative, emotional, and tenderly personal; I could understand finding it hollow, tedious, self-indulgent, and stubbornly opaque. I lean more towards the positive side of things, but I find it in many respects an immensely frustrating film, precisely because it works so often, yet for me falls short of true greatness in the end.

It has ample greatness within it. The imagery, with considerable kudos to writer-director Raven Jackson and cinematographer Jomo Fray, is frequently gorgeous, especially in its meditations on texture – of skin, fabric, water, and especially soil, a central visual motif of the story, such as it is. The title is never explained, at least as far as I could tell, but the characters’ literal connection to the earth is passionately evoked.

So is their connection to each other, given the frequent images of embraces, whether it’s the protagonist as an infant in her mother’s arms, her mother and father as they slow-dance to “If I Were Your Woman,” the protagonist and her grandmother in a time of mourning, or the protagonist and her first love in the first heat of passion, and again years later, holding each other and weeping over what might have been.

These people have names – the protagonist is Mack, her sister is Josie, her love is Wood, her mother is Evelyn, her father is Isaiah – but the lack of dialogue, the frequent focus away from the characters’ faces, and the way it moves back and forth in time between childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and even middle age make it difficult to think of them as characters so much as symbols.

The thing is, Jackson’s approach does work at times. When Mack and Wood reunite as adults, the tearful embrace they share, depicted at full length, really does suggest the lingering affection they share and the warmth of sheer human contact. The fleeting glimpses of Evelyn’s death, despite not really revealing what happened (though her death seems to have been accidental), convey the horrible shock of the discovery for Mack. And a late scene in a church, a long take which seems to move about in time, is magnificently poetic.

But the longer the film runs, the more it starts to weigh on us how little we actually know about these characters and their lives, and Jackson seems to relegate vital information to off-hand remarks, avoiding exposition so determinedly it starts to feel more affected than if the characters had simply spoken to one another. It seems as if Mack had a child by Wood who was raised by Josie and her husband, but I badly wanted to know more, and the film didn’t want to say more.

The anachronic structure of the film also wears thin towards the end, such that several times I wondered if a given scene was the final one, and that when the end finally arrived, it felt arbitrary; it could have ended a few scenes sooner or gone on longer and felt just as right, at least to me. Jackson’s commitment to her vision is admirable, but I struggled with the end result as often as I admired it.

The actors fit well into her style, and if they rarely transcend it, they give Jackson’s elliptical vision a human core. Charleen McClure plays Mack as a teenager and adult, and she ably conveys Mack’s deeply felt yet cautiously expressed emotions. Sheila Atim plays Evelyn, and her distinctive physicality, while too little used, adds considerably to the scene where she dances with Isaiah (Chris Chalk) and the scene where she cradles Mack as an infant in their front yard. Chalk, for his part, conveys the loving gruffness and stoic grief of his character with just a few gestures. That’s all he’s allowed, to be sure, but he delivers.

Special mention is also due to the sound design, which brings the settings to vivid life, whether it’s a quiet walk on a dirt road, a tragic moment during a rainstorm, a party enlivened by Motown records, or a church service with full-throated singing. There’s a bit of original music as well, which isn’t bad, but it’s too sparsely used to be really effective. (But then, what could measure up to “If I Were Your Woman,” one of the most beautiful of all Motown’s songs?)

Ultimately, your life experience and your willingness to meet the film’s style halfway will make the key difference in how you feel about it, which another motif might well sum up. The harvesting and eating of clay soil occurs several times throughout the film, and I was so unfamiliar with the practice that I wasn’t even sure what was being consumed. Jackson’s interview with The Hollywood Reporter touches on this point:

LOVIA GYARKYE: Can you say more about how the practice of eating clay dirt ties everything together?

RAVEN JACKSON: It speaks to everything. It speaks to these characters’ closeness to Earth. It speaks to the water, because folks who eat clay dirt usually do so after it rains, when the Earth smells so rich. It speaks to what’s passed down from generation to generation. My mom ate clay dirt in her youth, which was passed down from her mother. And it’s not just any dirt, it’s very specific. It’s a detail I was really intentional about getting right. 

If you’re familiar with the practice, or you or your family engaged in it, or you’re simpatico with the notion, the film will likely work for you. If you’re wondering why the characters are eating soil, or hung up on the health risks of doing so, you may well struggle with the rest of it. But that’s the risk so intensely personal a film runs.

Score: 82