Here is what I am watching (so far) during the quarantine for COVID-19.
***
Bunny Lake is Missing
This 1965 film directed by the prolific Otto Preminger is about every parent's worst nightmare: what if your child disappeared? But it goes a step further than that: what if you child, along with all evidence that they ever existed, disappeared? Ann Lake (Carol Lynley) is a single mother who moves to London with her brother, Steven (Keir Dullea) and 4 year old daughter, Bunny. She drops Bunny off at her new school, but no teachers seem to be around, so the cook offers to keep an eye on Bunny until one of the teachers is available. Since Ann is late for an appointment, she begrudgingly accepts. Cleverly, we the audience never see Bunny during this interaction.
But later that day when Ann goes to pick up her daughter, not only is she not there, no teachers or students remember seeing her. The police are called and when they go to Ann's flat, all of Bunny's toys and clothes are gone. In addition, brother Steven lets it slip that Ann had a childhood imaginary friend. That friend's name? Bunny. So, by now the police are wondering if they should call for backup for for a psychiatrist.Since the audience hasn't seen Bunny, *we* don't know what to believe either. And a shocking twist in the final third throughs the entire film for a loop. However, I have to say that Bunny Lake is Missing was both a little over the top and a tad forgettable for me. I sometimes struggle with enjoying "older" films because some (not all) of them feel stilted, both in acting and dialogue. So, I'm giving this film a solid, dignified B-. It wasn't bad, but I probably won't watch it again.
Grade: B-
***
Little Fires Everywhere
This Hulu series, based on the novel by Celeste Ng, is an intensely powerful examination of motherhood, race, class, and privilege. Artist Mia Warren (Kerry Washington) and her daughter Pearl (Lexi Underwood) move to Shaker Heights, Ohio where they encounter Elena Richardson (Reese Witherspoon) who offers to let them move into her rental property. Pearl becomes enamored with the Richardson's wealth and large family, with whom she becomes close. Mia is skeptical, especially when Elena condescendingly offers to pay Mia to be her housekeeper.
Things explode when Mia discovers that Elena's friend Linda's adopted baby is actually the same baby her coworker, Bebe Chow, had to abandon at a fire station the previous winter when she couldn't afford to feed her (and the baby refused to nurse). Mia decides to help Bebe go to court to win back her child, to the horror of Linda and Elena. Meanwhile, Pearl and the Richardson kids have their own drama going on.
I obviously can't get into everything here, but I will point out a couple things:
1) the show's plot differs somewhat from the book (I haven't read the book, but I read a plot synopsis), and in the book Mia is Asian and Elena is white. In the show, Mia is black and Elena is white, so there is still a race difference but it is tweaked to show the unique relationship between upper-class, "liberal" white women (Witherspoon is amazing in this sort of role) with less fortunate black women (Washington sears in a blistering performance).
2) the show is pretty good at making no one (and everyone) the "bad guy". We might think, "well Elena is just a privileged bitch"...and she is! But! Her backstory reveals the choices, good and bad, that lead her to be who she is today. Likewise, we might assume Mia is always in the right. But she's not perfect either, and has made some choices that jeopardize her relationship with her own daughter. Likewise, with the Bebe and Linda--it's easy to sympathize with both women, who are both in agony at the thought of losing the baby. I love these kinds of movies and shows that are able to explore explosive topics such as racism, classism, and motherhood without resorting to stereotypes and simple answers.
3) That said, the only thing keeping this show from a full-hearted "A" rating is that it gets a little over the top near the end (lots of screaming and tears). I feel that it could have been a little more subtle and still packed a powerful punch. Even so, I consider Little Fires Everywhere required viewing.
Grade: A-
***
The Plot Against America
Another series based on a book, The Plot Against America follows an alternative timeline in American history. What if American aviation hero (and anti-semite/Nazi sympathizer) Charles Lindbergh ran against and beat Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1940 election and then decided that America would not become involved with WWII?
The series focuses on the Levin family: Herman, Bess (Zoe Kazan, award-worthy here), Sandy, and Philip. They are a middle-class Jewish family who live comfortably among Jewish neighbors. But when Lindy becomes the populist president, their lives are shaken up. What's more, Bess's sister, Evelyn (Winona Ryder), becomes romantically involved with Rabbi Bengelsdorf (John Turturro) who is a supporter of Lindy and thus helps the anti-semite president soften his image among non-Jews (think about the few public people of color, like Candace Owens, who support Trump).
While the book by Philip Roth came out in 2004, during the presidency of a war-mongering conservative president, the series feels much more spooky and prescient right now during the reign of our very own populist president who gives Nazis and racists legitimacy. The episode about election night, when die-hard liberal Herman Levin listens to the radio as Lindbergh beats Roosevelt, brings back terrible memories from election night 2016.This series is beautiful to look at, with all the details of the early 1940s on point. I have to say that series was a little more slow-moving and emotionally muted than I thought it would be, but it really picks up in the last two episodes, especially with a plot line about a young Jewish boy forced to move to Kentucky where he and his mother are vulnerable targets of hate. A scene where Beth talks to young Seldon (Jacob Laval whom you might recognize from John Mulaney's Sack Lunch Bunch) long distance on the phone trying to calm him down when his mother is late coming home from work is devastating and hopefully will net Kazan an Emmy.
Grade: A-
***
Lady Macbeth
Call it "Anglican Psycho". Lady Macbeth is about a young woman, Katherine (Florence Pugh), married off to a wealthy landowner who not only couldn't give two shits about his wife, he can't even fuck her properly in order to produce an heir. He also forbids her to leave the house, forcing her into a life of boredom and restlessness.
But Katherine is no wilting rose. Quite the opposite. In today's world, she might well be diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder, but in the time period of this film--1865--she's just a woman who will do whatever it takes, including kill in cold blood, to get what she wants.
I had mixed feelings about this film. Overall, it is good and well-made. But by the end of the film, you're kind of left wondering what the point was. I do think that, whether the film was intended to be this or not, Lady Macbeth is a sort of stylized horror movie. Because this woman does nothing but hurt and kill others, beyond the point where it would be justified because she's a woman in 1865 and has no other power.
What's more distressing is that there are a number of characters of color in this film: Anna, the maid; Katherine's lover, who has an ambiguous ethnicity (the actor, Cosmo Jarvis, is Armenian); and a woman and son who show up claiming that the young son, Teddy, is Katherine's husband's ward. And Katherine fucks alllll of these people over. Granted, she doesn't just hurt people of color--she harms people, men and women, white and of color, indiscriminately (basically, whoever gets in her way). But it's disturbing to see a wealthy white woman screw over people who have much less power than her without the film commenting on this. Unless, again, the point of the film is simply that Katherine is a psychopath. The title, referencing Shakespeare's infamous Lady Macbeth, suggests Katherine will do anything for power. But the way the film plays out reveals a woman who is far less calculating and just bored and lacking empathy.
Grade: B
***
Downsizing
When Alexander Payne's Downsizing came out in theaters, I think a lot of viewers were pissed that it pulled a bit of a bait and switch. The trailer promises a hilarious comedy that takes place in a not too distant future where science has found a way to shrink humans down to five inches tall. This is helpful for the environment, but also irresistible to average people who want to experience a life of wealth and leisure, since at that size, $1.00 buys $1,000.00 worth of stuff.
And that's exactly how the movie begins. Matt Damon is Paul Safranek, an occupational therapist in Nebraska who convinces his wife, Audrey (Kristin Wiig) to "downsize" after his buddy, Dave (Jason Sudekis) and his wife do it and Dave points out that a middle-class salary translates to millions of dollars when you "go get small". But when Paul wakes up after the procedure, he finds out that Audrey declined the procedure at the last minute and has decided to stay big and leave Paul.
This leads Paul to move into an apartment (albeit a pretty sweet one) since he can no longer afford his mini-mansion. There, he meets Dusan (Christoph Waltz), his upstairs neighbor and European party-boy, who, in turn leads Paul to meet Ngoc Lan Tran (Hong Chau), Dusan's cleaning lady. Ngoc Lan was a Vietnamese political activist shrunk against her will. Now she lives in the slums outside Leisureland (the premiere small community where Paul lives), works as a cleaning lady, and by night brings all the impoverished and sick people in the slums food and medicine (often stolen from the people she cleans for). When she finds out that Paul is an occupational therapist, she drags him back with her as "doctor" to help her sick friends.
Long story short, Paul, who thinks his life is ruined because he got small and his wife left him and he lost his license to practice occupational therapy, finds new meaning and joy to life in helping those less fortunate. Honestly, this is the most open-hearted and optimistic Alexander Payne film I've seen.
The themes are pretty obvious (even though middle-class people who get small also get rich, poor people just get small and stay poor; no one gives a shit about the environment, they just want money and to party), but the concept is so unique that even the one-the-nose social messages seem fresh and interesting. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed (and was emotionally touched by) this film, especially since it got middling reviews when it came out. I highly recommend it!
Grade: A-
***
The Death of Stalin
Armando Iannucci's pitch-black satire about, well, the death of Stalin, is hilarious and absurd. Starring a bunch of British and American actors playing Stalin and his inner circle, all while using their own accents, this film feels like a Monty Python joint (it even stars Michael Palin!).
Taking place in 1953, Joseph Stalin (Adrian McLoughlin) croaks, forcing his council, made up of Nikita Khrushchev (Steve Buscemi), Lavrentiy Beria (Simon Russell Beale), Georgy Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor), Vyacheslav Molotov (Michael Palin), and others (but fuck, these people's names are hard to spell, so I'm stopping there) to figure out how to carry on without him. They elect Georgy to step in for Stalin, but both Beria and Khruschev are hoping to pull power away from the other. Beria is true believer in Stalin (and also delights in rounding up traitors and killing them...and, uh, raping young girls. He's the Big Bad) and continues to threaten his comrades in the inner circle, even though technically the man who enforces such blind groupthink is dead. Nicky Khrushev, on the other hand, is the more liberal reformer who wants to end the round-ups and killings. So, he works with the other men in Stalin's inner circle to take out Beria.
The plot isn't too difficult to follow, although it is somewhat difficult to explain in a review, so I'll stop there and just say that The Death of Stalin finds a way to make light of the horrific monsters who were collectively responsible for the deaths of millions of innocents (Hitler always gets the glory of the worst genocidal maniac of the 20th century, but Stalin was a worthy competitor). Just as films like Four Lions, Jojo Rabbit, and The Interview take evil people and make it safe to laugh at them, The Death of Stalin walks that fine line between laughing at evil men and humanizing them. I mean, granted, they *were* all too human in their greed and power-thirsty ways, but movies like this need to make sure they never tip into suggesting that these men might be, you know, ok guys. I think Iannucci does a fabulous job walking this line--he always presents these men as inherently bad people, even if they're doing and saying silly things.
I honestly feel like I need to watch this film again to fully appreciate it. I was coming at it from the perspective of someone who knows almost nothing about Russian history, so I had some difficulty keeping up. Those who are more familiar with the history of Soviet Russia will likely enjoy it even more than I did. But the central idea that absolute loyalty to the party remains a relevant one today. Even folks who are on the left should keep in mind that revolutions don't stop with the killing of the "bad guys"--soon enough, you'll be the one facing the bullet or the noose.
Grade: B+
No comments:
Post a Comment