"The More I Forbid, The More You're Provoked": A Quills Retrospective

Movies: Quills

Those who know me well probably know my deep abiding fondness for a little movie titled Quills. Based on the play by Pulitzer winner Douglas Wright and directed by Philip Kaufman, Quills came out in 2000. I've probably seen the film, oh, 10-15 times? I've also been privileged to see a stage adaptation as well.

Quills is a fictionalized account of the final years of the Marquis de Sade, a nobleman and writer of violent pornography during Revolution era France (he died in 1814). Sade was no saint in real life. He was a criminal who was accused of poisoning (not lethally) prostitutes and whipping/cutting a housekeeper. You can read more about his exploits on good ol' Wikipedia.

The film tidies up the Marquis' legacy by implying that he was a harmless horny old man who wrote naughty stories about innocent girls losing their virginities to perverted priests and the like, when the reality is that his novels are overly long, violent to the point of hilarity, and contain long passages praising atheism. I've read some of his stuff and it isn't sexy at all--more like a combination of ridiculous and nauseating. But the film Quills is not meant to be a true to life account of Sade as much as it is a fable of the dangers of censorship and repression.

Let's focus from here forward on the film itself, not the true events of Sade's life.

The film opens with Sade (played impishly by Geoffrey Rush) as a patient in the Charenton Asylum for the Insane. The Asylum is run by the gentle Abbe de Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix during his prime "hot" years), who believes that art therapy can cure many ills. It is discovered that Sade has been smuggling out manuscripts with the help of the lusty laundry lass, Madeline (the forever-hot Kate Winslet). So, a new and extremely strict doctor, Royer-Collard (a devilish Michael Caine), is assigned to oversee the asylum and put an end to any monkey business.

Royer-Collard prefers strict punishments to control the inmates at Charenton. That, combined with his arranged marriage to a very, very, very young convent girl, Simone (Amelia Warner), implies the question, "Who is the real pervert here?" While Sade's name gave us the term "sadist"--someone who derives pleasure from hurting others--the real sadist is, of course, the "Christian" doctor, Royer-Collard.

Royer-Collard and Coulmier butt heads at every junction: the priest prefers art, music, theatre, and kindness to help his inmates where Royer-Collard prefers shackles and confinement. When it comes to the Marquis, Coulmier bends under Royer-Collard's commands--he reacts to the Marquis smuggling his naughty manuscripts out by taking away his writing utensils (we have a title, people!). But the Marquis responds by using chicken bones and wine to write on his bedsheets. The Abbe counters by stripping him of his bedsheets and anything he could use as an de facto ink and quill. The Marquis responds by cutting his own fingers to write in blood on his clothes.

The metaphor here is basic enough for a ninth-grader to grasp, and, in fact, the Abbe in a fit of despair exclaims, "The more I forbid, the more you're provoked!" The thesis of the movie is that censorship not only doesn't work, it leads to acting out. If you don't ban something, it doesn't become forbidden fruit. If you DO ban something, it becomes an obsession. But I saw Quills for the first time when I was in 10th grade. I was 16-ish years old. I was at the perfect age during which sex was becoming fascinating to me, feminism was something I deeply believed in, and I was beginning to see the ways in which religion sought to control people and make people feel ashamed of otherwise natural desires. I was ready for this movie. Quills was cupid's arrow right to my bleeding, liberal, young heart...and every time I've watched it since, I feel the pangs of youth, happiness, righteous anger, and--a feeling that is more rare with each year--naughtiness. A desire to break the rules. Raised a good girl, Quills (among many other movies) helped release and reimagine what it means to be "good" and created an alternative in which "bad" was right and "good" was wrong. I needed this movie to teach me that there is no black and white, there is only grey--and you get to decide where you fit in.

To this day, I adore the film. Its lovely soundtrack, its ribald sense of humor, its simple yet fiery sense of morality. I love how it doesn't pull any punches: in the end, the Marquis' violent stories lead almost directly to the death of an innocent. Because violent stories can, in fact, inspire violence. But the greater message is that when it comes down to it repression, censorship, and control are more violent than the potential consequences of freedom of expression, and that the most righteous of men can be the most despicable of criminals. For better or for worse, I owe my suspicion of "moral" people to this film--the most pure people always seem to be hiding the most grisly secrets.

Grade: A+

She's So Unusual

TV: Jessica Jones

I mentioned in my review of Deadpool that with the waterfall of superhero movies over the past decade, there is finally a place for me, someone who is deeply uninterested in superheroes. But give me a hero with a filthy mouth, mildly perverted sexual tastes, and a thirst for booze and I'm sold. Oh, they can fly/heal instantly/punch through a wall too? Well, that's just the cherry on top.

Along with Deadpool, Jessica Jones emerges as a superhero for people who are goody two-shoes averse. Jones (played by she of the lovely and perpetual resting bitch face, Krysten Ritter) is not a goody two-shoes at all. She's a private investigator who is overly fond of brown liquor, lives in a squalid New York apartment, and harbors deep secrets and hidden shames.

Jones wants nothing more than to be left alone to do her PI business: photographing people cheating on their spouses. But when a missing person case comes across her desk with eerie similarities linking the girl's captor to her own past abusive relationship with a man known only as Kilgrave, Jones is reluctantly forced back into the world of supernatural powers.

Kilgrave (played with the right mix of vulnerable puppy-face and sociopathic evil by David Tennant) has the powers of mind control. He can make people do whatever he wants. Victims describe the feeling as not wanting to do the things he commands, but feeling irresistibly compelled anyway. Jones, for all her abilities (super strength mainly, with some flying abilities sprinkled in), was a victim of Kilgrave's. Once she broke free, Kilgrave became hell-bent on finding her and "winning" (i.e. forcing) her back into his arms, and he was willing to get her attention by any means necessary.

Thus, Jessica Jones is a superhero show like no other because the relationship between the baddie and the good guy is an abusive relationship. A deeply feminist show, Jones confronts Kilgrave and says "You raped me." He sneers at her and asks at what point was it rape: after the delicious dinner? When they got to the fancy hotel? Clearly, the audience knows that there was nothing consensual about Jones and Kilgrave's relationship because of his mind control abilities, but the metaphor is potent: even the most "romantic" relationships can be violent underneath it all. And not all violence is physical--it is just as often emotional and psychological.

A lot happens over the course of Jessica Jones' 13 episodes, but it leads to one place: a showdown between a woman who was abused and the man who abused her and continues to delude himself that she wanted it. Ritter and Tennant are perfectly cast: a strong, no bullshit woman secretly terrified of a dangerous man and a man who appears harmless--even charming--but whose deep insecurities lead him to violence.

The other players on the show are just as three dimensional: bitter, hardened lawyer Jeri Hogarth (Carrie-Anne Moss) whose motives are difficult to pin down and who would probably be considered "Lawful Evil" on the D&D alignment chart; Luke Cage (Mike Colter), Jones' sexy hook-up and fellow super person with indestructible skin; Jones' best friend, Trish Walker (Rachel Taylor), probably the purest of heart in the whole show; Trish's police officer boyfriend (Wil Traval), who comes off as a cross between hopelessly stupid and annoyingly macho.

That all the characters are written with such depths so that no one is 100% bad or 100% good helps Jessica Jones transcend a lot of the simplistic superhero junk. Also, the super-people's abilities are far more subtle than, say, in an Avengers movie. Jones, if anything, prefers not to use her super strength if she can avoid it. She is a hero who lives in the shadows and doesn't want glory, or fame, or eyes on her.

In an entertainment culture filled with super heroines in skintight outfits whose purpose is to arouse as much as it is to save the day, Jessica Jones stands out as an exception--she isn't interested in being a sex object. She isn't interested in being a hero. She is reluctant to get dragged back into the world of heroes and villains, but a soft spot in her hardened heart encourages her to confront the most terrifying demon of all: her own vulnerability. Jessica Jones is a hero for the average Jane, and we need more like her.

Grade: A

Hurts So Good

Books: A Little Life

Once in a great while I'll read a book that is so good, I'll stand up in my apartment and say out loud "SOOOOOO GOOOOOOOD" like I'm some kind of demon being showered in virgin's blood.

A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara's 720 page doorstop of a novel, is such a book. Reading it was an ecstatic experience for me. It's a very intense, emotionally hardcore book, but written so well that it grips your heart and slithers into your brain.

A Little Life is the story of four college friends who move to New York City and begin to pursue their careers. They are: Malcolm Irvine, the biracial son of wealthy parents, who works at a fancy architecture firm; JB Marion, a temperamental, gay artist who acts like a spoiled baby at times because he was raised by his overly accommodating mother, aunts, and grandmother; Willem Ragnarsson, an aspiring actor with dead parents who is as kind and gentle as he is handsome; and Jude St. Francis, a law student who eventually becomes a vicious litigator. Jude was abandoned near a dumpster at birth and raised in a monastery. He remains closed off about his past, even to his closest friends, and suffers mysterious pains and ailments.

Although the book follows all four friends into mid-life, A Little Life is Jude's story. From the get-go it's clear that something went terribly wrong in Jude's childhood, but Yanagihara reveals the extent of the horrorshow of his life slowly and tantalizingly. The reader finds out he cuts himself. That he's never had a girlfriend or boyfriend. That the agonizing pains he experiences in his back and legs stem from a "car injury" (note, not an "accident", an "injury"). Because Jude is so taciturn around his friends, Yanagihara makes the reader feel like they're being let in on a secret--a terrible series of secrets. And she does a cruel thing as well: she makes the reader feel an enormous connection to the characters, and to Jude in particular, so that when all is revealed, his pain is your pain. Much like his friends who are loyal to Jude for decades, the reader feels helpless, angry, and frustrated at Jude's stubborn insistence that his past will haunt and cripple him until his death. I can't speak for other readers, but I felt like I had fallen in love with him by the end of the book.

Some readers won't like this. A Little Life has been described as "excessive" and "tragedy porn", and I see exactly where that sentiment is coming from. The sufferings heaped on Jude are so constant and awful, that the book seems almost Biblical or Shakespearean. A Little Life is undoubtedly about pain and the repercussions of abuse...but it's also about hope and grace and friendship. More details on this later.

Despite the heaviness of its plot, A Little Life is staggeringly beautiful and unique in its vision of the world. I was drawn to book from the first moment I saw its cover:

When I first saw it, beckoning me from a table in Barnes & Noble, I thought the cover image was of woman. I drew closer and saw that it's actually a picture of a young man. It seems clear that he is in some kind of emotional agony or pain. In fact, the cover shot is titled "Orgasmic Man" and is a photograph by Peter Hujar, who did a series in the late 1960's of men's faces while they...well, you know. What you're looking at here is not the face of a man at a nadir of pain, but rather at a zenith of pleasure. But who could really tell the difference? And that's what makes both the cover of the book, and the story inside the book so compelling--the story examines both extremities in life: a childhood of abuse that leads to a lifetime of emotional and physical pain, paired with explorations of love and friendship and hope so sweet that it almost feels painful. The two extremes are so intimately entangled that it's hard to differentiate them in the end.

Plot spoilers below! I'm not kidding!



It's not hard to guess at the generalities of Jude's past, but the almost baroque intensity of his abuse is shocking. He is sexually and physically abused by the monks who raised him. He is then abducted by one of the monks, Brother Luke, and taken on a cross-country trip where Luke allows him to be raped by men for money. Interestingly, in his memories, Jude refers to these men as "clients", not rapists or abusers, which makes sense given Jude's internalizing of what happened to him. He grows up thinking, as Brother Luke tells him, "You were born for this." He believes he was born to be used and that he deserves all the pain he receives.

Jude is rescued at age 12, only to be sent to a home for boys where he is further sexually and physically abused. He escapes and hitchhikes (using his body as payment, naturally) across the country until he is kidnapped and held captive by yet another adult man who tortures him and attempts to kill him, which results in a spinal injury that a doctor describes as an "insult to the body". It is only then that Jude St. Francis, age 15, is actually rescued by a social worker and sent to college at 16, where he meets Willem, Malcolm, and JB...and he begins to try to distance himself from the horrors of his childhood.

And then, despite his strangeness, his inability to discuss his past, his self-hatred, Jude is shown unconditional love by many friends throughout the rest of his life. In his adulthood, he is legally adopted by his mentor from law school, Harold, and Harold's wife. He is surrounded by friends and is considered almost scarily competent at his job. In perhaps the most surprising turn of events, his decades-long friendship with Willem shifts into something more as he and Willem enter their late-40's. I suspect some readers will call bullshit on this, as Willem is essentially heterosexual until he, conveniently, and almost by sheer force of will, falls in love with Jude.

The fluid sexuality of the characters in A Little Life, as well as the unrealistic cruelties and love shown to Jude, in addition to the fact that the story seems to take place in a continuous present day (the book covers five decades, but there are no indications of what year it is. Computers exist when Jude is a child, suggesting that the end of the book happens around 2050), mark the book as existing somewhere outside of our current reality. I referred to the suffering in the book as "Biblical", and indeed other reviews have described the novel as "mythic", or even possibly set in an alternate reality. I don't think Yanagihara intended the book to be speculative fiction, but I do think that--not unlike the world created by director Peter Strickland in my favorite movie of 2015--she created her own version of reality in the service of telling this story.

And like Strickland's Duke of Burgundy, which takes place in a world without men, A Little Life is almost entirely free of women. There are female characters--the social worker who rescues 15 year old Jude is a woman; Jude's adopted father Harold has a wife, Julia; and there are various female friends and girlfriends who enter and exit the story. But the number of lines spoken by women in this 720 page book probably amounts to less than 10 pages. But I don't believe this authorial choice is sexist or misogynist. I believe Yanagihara stripped women completely out of the picture in order to focus on what it means for men to love other men, as friends or as something else. And also to focus on the ways in which men destroy other men, as Jude is systematically dismantled by the endless series of men who beat and rape him.

Whether Yanagihara's insights into male love and male hate are accurate or not, I can't say. But I love the relationship she creates for Jude and Willem--the friendship that is *more* than friendship, but is not a traditional romance either (especially since Jude can't stomach sex, and he and Willem have an affectionate, but ultimately celibate relationship). It did make me wonder: are there men out there who have friendships like this? Women are at least given the freedom to be openly affectionate with one another. When I visit my best friend, we sleep in the same bed together and think nothing of it. We say "I love you" to each other and mean it. Do men who don't identify as gay have this? And what would the world be like if they did?

/End spoilers


A Little Life is like no other book I've read before. It seized my heart and then took a scalpel to it, slowly, painfully, and elegantly tearing it apart. As I mentioned above, extremes of love and pain are explored in A Little Life, yet it doesn't feel cheap or melodramatic or inauthentic--at least not to me. In fact, the characters felt so real, that it was hard to accept that the book had to end and there would be no more fussy Malcolm, or bitchy JB, or gentle Willem, or tortured Jude. Those 720 pages are all there is, and it's just not enough for me.

Grade: A+

Captain Snark

Movies: Deadpool

Deadpool knows that the way to this movie-lover's heart is through profane language and raunchy jokes about pegging (Google it. Not on your work computer).

I've never much been one for superhero movies, although between Jessica Jones on Netflix and Tim Miller's irreverent, fourth-wall breaking Deadpool in theatres, I'm realizing that there IS a place for me--someone who couldn't give a hoot about fight scenes and shit blowing up--in the vast superhero genre.

I like my heroes morally compromised. I don't want no goody two-shoes muscle man in a cape going around pulling kittens out of trees. I want my heroes to be hard-drinking, no bullshit, sarcastic, tortured, promiscuous smart asses. And Deadpool (as well as the above-mentioned Jones, which I shall review later) delivers.

Ryan Reynolds--the subject of a recent clickbait article on Jezebel where the author feels that much like Gretchen Weiner's use of the term "fetch", we should just stop trying to make Reynolds happen--plays Wade Wilson, an amoral mercenary who does things like rough up stalkers and other baddies for money and dates a beautiful, intelligent stripper (this is still a Hollywood fantasy after all). Things are going pretty well for Wade...until it is revealed that his extremely hot, jacked body is actually riddled with cancer.

Desperate to save his own life, he seeks out an experimental treatment that will supposedly not only cure his cancer, but give him incredible powers. The "treatment facility" ("torture dungeon" is really a more fitting description) is overseen by a sadistic man named Ajax whose goal is not to create superheroes, but super-slaves: people with amazing abilities who are so broken after endless rounds of torture that they become his obedient servants. Ajax promises to wipe the wiseass sense of humor out of Wade, who replies, "We'll see about that."

Ajax's methods do indeed bring out the powers in Wade--by the end of his "treatment", Wade is now indestructible. He cannot be killed. Cut off his hand and it grows back. Shoot him in the ass and the wound heals instantly. An unfortunate side effect is that Wade looks hideous--like he has third degree burns all over his body. He is convinced that his girlfriend, Vanessa, will never want to be with him again given his gruesome visage.

It's pretty cool that male body insecurities play a huge role in the plot of this film.

Now going by the name Deadpool, with a tight costume to show off his still quite amazing ass, Wade focuses his energies on finding Ajax and taking revenge. And unlike other superheroes who are morally averse to killing, Deadpool has no such code of honor, leaving a bloody trail behind him on his quest to find his tormentor.

Although some may find it tiring, the best thing about this film is its irreverent (I love that word) sense of humor. With apologies (or not) to the Jezebel article above, Reynolds is actually the perfect actor for this role. He is hilarious and sexy in a glib, wink-wink kind of way. Also, although the movie only hints at it, Deadpool is actually pansexual, which means he's into women, men, and all manner of people in between and outside of the gender spectrum. Reynolds portrays him as a flirt who cracks jokes about how his off switch is near his prostate--"Or is that the on switch?". But it's pretty cool to see such a fluidly sexual, over-the-top character, especially in a genre that is closely tied to traditional depictions of masculinity.

Deadpool was extremely entertaining and fun. Paired with last summer's Mad Max: Fury Road, it's yet another example of a genre film breaking the mold and achieving a level of innovation that's frankly fucking refreshing after a thousand dumb Marvel movies.

Grade: A-

And his costume makes him look like he's wearing nothing at all...nothing at all...nothing at all...
 
  

All of Them Witches

Movies: The Witch

It is scary to think about America's roots...how much of it is based in hysterical religious fanaticism. To read an American history textbook is to read a horror story itself: genocide, slavery, hangings, conquering, brute force...all alongside progression, bravery, a thirst for freedom. America is a land of bifurcated people: lust for money, power, and sex, but held fast by a deep-seated history of Christianity that demands we reject pleasure and desire and sin. We didn't need Orwell's 1984 to teach us the concept of "double-think" because we live it every day, and always have.

We're a fucked up bunch, y'all. Which makes Robert Eggers' freshman film The Witch (subtitled A New England Folktale) such a keen horror story that looks into the heart of early America's religious fundamentalism and paranoia.

The film takes place in 1630, 60 years before the events at Salem, Massachusetts. A family of puritans is cast out from their small plantation village and seeks a new home near the foreboding woods. William, the patriarch of the family, is convinced they'll have a better life away from what he considers to be the "false Christians" at the plantation. His wife, Katherine, is unconvinced. They have five children: eldest daughter Thomasin (played by wide-eyed newcomer Anya Taylor-Joy), son Caleb, younger twins Mercy and Jonas, and baby Samuel. When Samuel disappears one day during a game of peek-a-boo with Thomasin, the family is torn apart by grief...and an increasing sense of terror about the woods around them.

The Witch is not a typical horror movie. There aren't many jump scares or gory special effects. The film is dedicated to historical accuracy, not just in clothing and scenery, but in dialogue, and it's difficult to understand half of what the characters are saying. They're speaking English as it was spoke 380 years ago, with "thines" and "thous" aplenty, which makes them sound at times as if they're speaking a different language entirely.

While the film makes good on its promise of supernatural hijinks, the real horror is the paranoia the family falls into after Samuel the baby is gone and Caleb falls ill after being lost in the woods overnight. Mercy and Jonas accuse Thomasin of being a witch, and instead of thinking that the 7 year old twins are clearly making believe, William and Katherine believe them instantly...forcing Thomasin to defend herself and even accuse Mercy of witchcraft. To me, the ease with which people took the accusations of children seriously was the most chilling part of the film, especially knowing that this is precisely what happened at Salem decades later, leading to the deaths of innocent people.

But another aspect of The Witch is its feminist subtext. Being a Puritan must have been hellish. In addition to the struggle of carving out a life in the wilderness, the Puritans lived lives of guilt and fear--fear of an angry God and of eternal damnation. Being a Puritan woman was especially difficult, given that women were considered by nature evil during this time (a far cry from Victorian America's view of women as pure, gentle "angels of the home"). Thomasin faces the brunt of religiously-based misogyny in this film and is a symbolic stand-in for both the girls who accused others of being witches in Salem and the accused themselves.

Did witchery really happen at Salem, or throughout Europe during the witch hunts? Did women truly dance naked with the Devil? I personally don't believe so, but if you were a woman during these eras--repressed to the point of insanity, wouldn't you want to act out by seizing on the floor, by screaming and accusing others, by taking your clothes off and running through the woods? I know I would. When acting insane is the only escape, then insane we act. Part of the pleasure of doing things you were raised not to do--have sex, drink, vote for Green Party candidates--is the ability to throw "virtue" back in the face of whoever taught it to you. And the girls of Salem did exactly that.

The Witch is both a fictional, supernatural horror film and a metaphor for America itself: a land and a people that pride independence, perseverance, wanderlust, and hard work...but also a deep-seated fear of pleasure, of sex, of women, and a need to control all these things, even if it means burning them at the stake.

Grade: B-

Man Vs. Nature

Movies: The Revenant

It's very likely that you've already heard all there is to hear about Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's The Revenant and formed an opinion about it. This review probably won't offer many surprises. Simply put, The Revenant is overly long and somewhat boring. It has beautiful scenery and a compelling, solid performance by Leonardo DiCaprio that will inevitably land him a Best Actor Oscar this year, not so much for this particular performance, but for all the amazing work he's done since, well, What's Eating Gilbert Grape.

Some people were blown away by The Revenant, but I thought it was simply good. For one thing, the 156 minute running time is unnecessary. 20-30 minutes could have easily been shaved off the film and it would still be the exact same film. Secondly, I have to say that Leo's character, real-life fur-trapper Hugh Glass, is not all that interesting. Certainly, Glass's story is mind-blowing: he was mauled by a bear during a hunting expedition and left for dead by Fitzgerald and Bridger, two men commanded to watch over him. He survived the mauling and pursued the men for 200 miles. The film adds the (fictional?) plot line of Fitzgerald (played by Tom Hardy) killing Glass's half-Pawnee son, Hawk, which gives Glass extra motivation to survive. But apart from watching Leo's Glass hang on to life by the skin of his teeth, there's not a lot of...depth here.

On the other hand, Hardy gives an interesting and entertaining performance as Fitzgerald. He's the villain of the movie (second only to cruel Mother Nature, of course) but more incredibly self-centered than evil. My favorite scenes were hands down the ones with Hardy, as he manipulates the Bridger (Will Poulter) into leaving Glass for dead and teaches the young man some rather hard knocks of life.

Glass faces so many challenges that it's difficult to believe. After surviving the bear attack (which is a GREAT scene by the way), he avoids starving by eating marrow out of dead bison bones. He nearly drowns in a river. He is chased by Native Americans on horseback. He rides that same horse OVER A CLIFF, survives, and uses the dead horse's carcass as a sleeping bag of sorts so that he doesn't freeze to death. Now, I haven't read anything other than the Wikipedia article on Hugh Glass, but holy shit I don't know if I believe the guy rode a horse over a cliff and lived. In any case, I literally laughed out loud in the theatre when that happened because it seemed so ridiculous to me.

Leo wheezes and grunts as he toils and suffers through his journey. Apparently, he did a lot of suffering for the film in real life, working in freezing conditions and eating raw meat. He definitely committed to it and deserves all the awards he gets. Leo is known for his intensity onscreen, though I prefer movies where he has more than 10 lines of dialogue.

Ultimately, The Revenant is exactly what most people will expect it to be: a brutal film that juxtaposes the extreme beauty of nature with its extreme not-giving-a-shit about human life and comfort. The main thing I took away from The Revenant is that nature is a bitch that wants you to die. And when you're out in the wilderness, lost and injured as Glass was, you're just part of the food chain.

Grade: B-

Amazon Prime/Netflix Binge: Pt. 2

Movies: Goodnight Mommy, The Overnight, Locke

After a weekend trapped indoors, I have some interesting movies to review.

Goodnight Mommy

Woof. This was a freaky movie. Directed by Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz, Goodnight Mommy is an Austrian horror film that layers the dread on thickly. Susanne Wuest plays a woman recovering from a car accident. She is released from the hospital and returns home, where her twin boys, Lukas and Elias (played by real life twins Lukas and Elias Schwarz) await. They are understandably freaked out by the bandages obscuring her entire face, and become more suspicious of her when she ignores Lukas completely, only setting out one dinner for Elias.

The twins begin to seriously suspect that this woman is an imposter and is not their mother at all.

*Spoilers*

Goading each other on, the twins eventually tie their mother to her bed, and using torture methods that seem quite appropriate for 9 year old boys (a magnifying glass, floss, super glue...) try to get the woman to either prove to them that she's their mother, or confess that she isn't.

*/spoilers*

The last third of the film is incredibly intense and horrifying, but it's also a bit of a relief after the slow build up of tension in the first two-thirds. Some reviews have argued that Goodnight Mommy is one of the scariest movies ever made, but I found it more unnerving than anything else. The scariest thing about this movie is that the "monster" in Goodnight Mommy isn't a serial killer or a boogey man hiding under the bed, but the disintegrating relationship between a mother and her children.

Grade: B

***

The Overnight

It's hard to fit Patrick Brice's indie movie The Overnight into one category or genre. It's both a sex comedy and a relationship drama. It's both intriguingly kinky and cringe-worthy. But it's definitely memorable.

Adam Scott and Taylor Schilling play Alex and Emily, a married couple in their early 30's with a young son. They have just moved from Seattle to Los Angeles and are trying to make new friends. While taking their son to the playground, they're approached by Kurt (Jason Schwartzman, who's pretty much perfect in this role), a hipster-dad type who also has a young son. Kurt chats them up and invites them over for pizza night with him and his wife Charlotte (Judith Godreche). Alex and Emily are impressed by Kurt and Charlotte's artsy-bohemian lifestyle, and when Kurt and Charlotte suggest putting the boys to bed so that the adults can continue to have fun, they readily agree.

What's so great about The Overnight is that you can see what's coming a mile away (especially when Kurt brings out a giant bong, and then suggests the foursome skinny dip in their pool), but it still manages to surprise you by making sharp turns in directions you can't see coming at all. Yes, it's clear that Kurt and Charlotte were hoping for some sexy action when they invited the much more uptight Emily and Alex over, but exactly *what* they want is not what you might think.

I have to hand it to the actors: they are all in for this crazy ride, especially Scott, who typically plays nice, vanilla dudes. Halfway through the film, his character Alex reveals a deep shame he's been carrying around his whole life, and it's both eye-rollingly silly and deeply moving.

The Overnight can be uneven at times, swerving from silly to sexy and back again, but it's a LOT of fun and, hey, it's streaming on Netflix. Why don't you check it out? You know you're curious.

Grade: B+

***

Locke

Locke has a compelling premise, but is ultimately not as substantial or satisfying as I thought it'd be. It's like the movie equivalent of a bacon and peanut butter sandwich: you think, "now there's an intriguing idea!" but after you eat it, you're just like, "well, that was different, but a regular peanut butter and jelly sandwich would have been better."

Locke is a movie where a guy, Ivan Locke (Tom Hardy), drives around for an hour and a half making phone calls and trying to put to rights a few things he has majorly fucked up. Literally, that is the movie. A guy in a car making phone calls.

I'm going to put a Spoiler warning here in case you don't want to know any of the details of these phone calls before you see it.

We come to learn that Ivan Locke is a construction manager and it's the night before a *huge* job--a concrete pour that Locke is supposed to supervise. Only thing is, he can't be there because a woman he had a one night stand with is giving birth to his (two month premature) baby in London. Locke has decided that since no one else is there to be with her, he will. So he calls one of his underlings to supervise the pour for him. Said underling understandably freaks the fuck out.

Meanwhile, Locke is planning to tell his wife about this blessed turn of events over the fucking phone as he is driving to see the birth of his, well, not love child...wine and loneliness child, I suppose. Locke seems to have convinced himself that he's doing the right thing by dropping this fucking nuclear bomb on his wife over the phone. So there's that.

So, basically, this dude is juggling calls from wife, mistress, guy he's the boss of, and his own boss for the entire film, trying to stay in calm control while his life falls apart around him. He also occasionally talks to his "dad"--the empty backseat---berating the presumably dead old coot and telling him exactly how different a man he, Locke, will be. Unlike dear old dad, Locke will take responsibility for his actions!

It sounds pretty hackneyed, but it's actually not a bad movie. Locke really does make you pay attention, especially since it's an entirely dialogue based film. But the more I thought about it, the more I was like, really? The film seems to want to be a redemption movie: Locke is doing the right thing by telling his wife of his indiscretion, skipping the most important job of his career, and being there for the woman who is giving birth to his kid. But it also seems to suggest that he made the decision to do these things at the last possible minute/on a whim, suggesting that he hasn't actually learned anything or redeemed himself so much as just made a spontaneous, potentially career-and-marriage destroying move. Are we supposed to see Locke as a hero, or a guy trying to do his best? Because he's seems more like a fuckwit to me.

Tom Hardy is great in it though.

Grade: C