Severance
AppleTV's Severance blew my mind. The TV show, produced by Ben Stiller and starring Adam Scott, is a mix of genres and themes: workplace satire, dark comedy, drama, horror, and science-fiction all rolled into one.
The show is about a group of people who have undergone a procedure called "severance", where their memories are split, so that while at work, they have no recollection of who they are outside of their job, and while at home, they have no idea what they do at work. In theory, this "fixes" the work-life balance issue by making it literally impossible to think about work while at home. But in reality, it means that a person's work-self, or "innie" as they call it, never leaves the workplace. They get on the elevator to go home at the end of the day and then the elevator opens and they're at work again. It's like going under anesthesia--they simply have no concept of time passing.
We learn that Adam Scott's character, Mark, decided to try severance as a way to deal with the grief of losing his wife in a car accident. Obviously, the show has a lot to say about grief and how, basically, it's healthy to allow yourself to grieve and not healthy to try and avoid it. Scott is just transcendent in his nuanced portrayal of a man who has not allowed himself to feel his feelings and is now on the verge of alcoholism and is suffering so greatly, despite literally not thinking about his wife for 40 hours a week. He takes that grief with him to work, even if his "innie" doesn't understand what's going on.
All the actors in this show, including veterans like John Turturro, Christopher Walken, and Patricia Arquette and lesser known actors, like Zach Cherry, Britt Lower, and Trammel Tillman, give top-notch performances. The characters all feel three-dimensional, with complex and sometimes conflicting motivations. The acting and writing make Severance a show that is both intellectually fascinating and deeply humane and empathetic. It's one of the best shows I've seen in a while and I can't recommend it enough.
Grade: A+
***
Desert Hearts
I actually watched this delightful sapphic romance at the end of January, and failed to include it in my last monthly round-up. Many thanks to my friend Kyle for suggesting this wonderful film!
Directed by Donna Deitch, Desert Hearts is a 1985 drama-romance which takes place in 1959 (which is like if a movie that came out this year was set in 1997, which is bizarre to think about...but I digress). Professor Vivian Bell travels to Reno, Nevada for a quickie Reno divorce (if you have no idea what I'm talking about, here is some more information). She rents a room at a ranch owned by a woman named Frances.
Uptight Vivian meets free-spirited Cay, a younger woman who works at a casino and is a lesbian. Since this is 1959, the fact that Cay is gay is an open secret, but not really discussed. Over the course of her six-week stay in Reno, Vivian falls for Cay and the two begin a relationship. The film captures Vivian's reluctance, which almost verges on non-consent, making this a movie that is at odds with modern sensibilities but probably historically accurate. Vivian says "no" to Cay multiple times, but Cay gently pushes Vivian out of her comfort zone and the two women begin a sexual relationship.
The film ends on an ambiguous note that feels right for the story. There is no clear "happily ever after" ending, but rather an ending filled with hope and potential. It reminded me a lot of Carol in that way, another sapphic romance that ends with possibility and ambiguity.
Desert Hearts is a bittersweet film: bitter in that these two women can't live life as openly as they deserve, but sweet in that they still have the courage to try.
Grade: B+
***
Piggy
This Spanish film, directed by Carlota Pereda, follows Sara (Laura Galán), a fat teenager who is mercilessly bullied by three popular girls, including Claudia, her childhood friend. After a particularly traumatic run-in with the girls, Sara later witnesses the kidnapping of her bullies. Timid Sara is too scared to tell anyone what she saw, but still tries to find out what happened to the popular girls.
Piggy is a difficult watch and takes a lot of unexpected turns, not all of which I liked. Be warned that the bullying scenes in this movie are BRUTAL. Galán gives a truly vulnerable performance that is almost...too vulnerable at times. I thought this would be a movie where a weak character becomes a badass and, well, that's not quite what happens. Despite being brave enough to try to track down the whereabouts of the kidnapped girls, Sara has this overall vibe of passivity and victimhood which--though completely understandable based on what the character goes through--got old by the end of the movie. I kind of appreciate that Piggy does not have a generic and pat "every body is beautiful!" message. But I just wanted the character to be, like, 10-20% stronger.
Like Carrie, Piggy is a brutal movie about bullying and violence. It's definitely original and features an actress who is actually fat (and cute as a button, in my opinion), which is awesome. Although Sara is the butt of the joke to her tormentors, the movie itself does not make a joke of her, which is refreshing.
Grade: B
***
Swallowed
Directed by Carter Smith, this queer body-horror movie about a drug deal gone horribly wrong should not be watched by those with weak stomachs. Cooper Koch plays Benjamin, a young, gay man about to move to L.A. to become a porn star. His friend, Dom (Jose Colon), wants to send Benji off with some extra cash, so he offers to do a drug run for his cousin. But his cousin is passed out and the mid-level dealer is a very mean woman named Alice (Jena Malone) who ends up forcing Dom to swallow condoms filled with drugs at gunpoint. She then directs the young men to meet her at a rest stop over the border (maybe I'm dumb, but I couldn't figure out if this was at the Canadian border or the Mexican border...I think Canadian, since someone mentions being from Maine at one point).
After Benji and Dom have a run in with a homophobic redneck at the rest stop and Dom gets punched in the stomach...things go awry. Alice has to take the ill Dom and concerned Benji to her boss's house, and her boss is one mean sonofabitch. And he wants those drugs out of Dom's system right now. No matter how much, uh, vaseline it takes. Yeah...when you swallow drugs, they have to come out the other end sooner or later.
Swallowed is very much a queer horror movie in that the characters are queer, the actors are queer, the director is (I think?) queer, and the themes of the movie are queer. So if you are pissed that They/Them sucked as a queer horror movie, Swallowed might be more up your alley...or down your hatch, as it were.
Grade: B+
***
Barton Fink
My friend encouraged me to watch this Coen brothers movie for the first time in...20 years? I saw Barton Fink in late high school and wasn't a huge fan of it, but this time around I really enjoyed it. It has that classic Coen bros fast-and-furious dialogue and characters that feel simultaneously cartoonish and lived in.
John Turturro (so young!!) plays the titular Barton Fink, a New York-based playwright who moves to LA to start working in movies. He is given an assignment to write a script for a wrestling B-movie (the is the early 1940s, by the way) and immediately becomes blocked...probably because he thinks the material is beneath him. Fink moves into a weird, dilapidated hotel and befriends his neighbor, Charlie Meadows (John Goodman, just wild in this movie), a cheerful--almost too cheerful--and loquacious man.
Barton Fink isn't super plot-driven. It's more about the many colorful and strange people Fink meets out in LA, including the perpetually drunk writer W.P. Mayhew (John Mahoney) whom Fink worships, even though the man is clearly a hack and a piece of shit.
Barton Fink is one of those movies that's very, very sad...but also hilarious. The film is closer to the Coens' A Serious Man than to their more light-hearted comedies like The Big Lebowski. It's a movie about a man (Fink) who is almost willfully naive and ultimately doesn't know what he wants, so instead of adapting to his circumstances, he just flounders and then fails. If you're in the mood for a brainier, more intense Coen brothers movie, you can't go wrong with this one.
Grade: B+
***
Insomnia
This early Christopher Nolan movie is...fine? A remake of a Norwegian film, Insomnia follows veteran detective Will Dormer (Al Pacino) and his partner Hap Eckhart (Martin Donavan) as they travel from Los Angeles to the small fishing village of Nightmute, Alaska to solve the case of a dead 17-year old girl.
It's summer in Alaska, and so it doesn't get dark at night. Dormer can't sleep and the insomnia (we have a title!) is causing him to freak out. It doesn't help that he knows that his partner, Eckhart, is going to testify against him in an Internal Affairs investigation about whether or not Dormer planted evidence at a crime scene years ago.
I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the bad guy is played by Robin Williams. In the early 2000s, Williams began playing more villains and, honestly, it's always been a little hard to see him as the bad guy. He's not super believable as a killer in Insomnia, though he definitely comes off as creepy.
Insomnia is not Nolan's strongest work. Hell, it's not the strongest work of anyone involved in the movie. If you like hard-boiled detective stories, you'll probably enjoy it. Otherwise, feel free to skip this one.
Grade: B-
***
Wayne's World
My friend wanted to watch a funny, chill movie one night so we decided on Penelope Spheeris' classic, Wayne's World. I hadn't seen the movie in years and I was struck by how much of the movie focuses on a woman (Cassandra--played by the lovely Tia Carrere) and her journey. Like, obviously Wayne (Mike Meyers) and Garth (Dana Carvey) are the main characters, but Cassandra (Wayne's love interest) has a lot of screen time too. In fact, I'd say that you can tell this movie was directed and co-written by women because, even for it being 1992, there are not a ton of cheap jokes about women.
I have to admit I don't find Wayne's World to be the funniest movie of all time--probably because I don't really find Mike Meyers all that funny--but it's still got some great moments and Garth is sweet as all hell. It's just a goofy, fun comedy that goes down real easy and is a perfect movie for when you're feeling stressed out or down in the dumps.
Grade: B
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