Chris and I caught the last four days of the Toronto International Film Festival and saw a whirlwind 14 movies, recording 15-30 minute reviews for each which will be rolled out over time. Every day, I’ll try to post a summary in this abbreviated format, along with the episode link.

TIFF Update #12: The Two Popes

Rating: 3/5

Synopsis: The soon-to-be-outgoing Pope Benedict (Anthony Hopkins) invites the soon-to-be-incoming Pope Francis (Jonathan Pryce) to his residence for a few days. Over a series of conversations — some harsh disagreements, some gentle reminiscences — the two ponder theology, personal failures, and the Church’s remaining place (if any) in the modern world.

My take: I mean this as both complement and critique: The Two Popes is exactly the sort of breezy, nonintrusive sort of movie that I’d want to watch on Netflix on a Saturday morning. Complement, because it has an easy, infectious charm to it — one owed almost entirely to Hopkins and Pryce, whose onscreen chemistry is so damn good it makes you forget that only one of them remotely resembles the person they’re playing. (Pryce is uncanny; Hopkins requires some heavy squinting on both our parts). The mood is light and the conversations delightful (then again, I could probably watch two hours of these actors talking about the weather). Critique, because they /aren’t/ talking about the weather: they’re talking about the Catholic Church, particularly regarding an era which was marked by scandal and transition. And on that subject, I can’t help but feel the film comes up short, talking around the truly heavy issues in favor of easy platitudes and a stunted sort of redemption. It gnaws at me, not because I need every movie to be Deadly Serious, but because movies about religion are rare as is, and the few we do get are typically awful and/or gimmicky. To see a perfectly good one one come along, armed with two terrific actors and an audience that expects nothing but in-depth conversation, feels like a prime opportunity to mine that subject for something more difficult, vulnerable. To give me more than hero worship for Francis (as if the Church were now magically devoid of scandal), or hand-wavey redemption for Benedict (as if, by leaving, he is nobly sharing in said magic) — to tease out their very real disagreements, and go for blood. I’m happy with the film on its own terms. Catch it on Netflix over your morning cup of coffee, and enjoy your brain being mildly tickled. I only wish it had aimed higher than that.

Pairs with: Calvary, My Dinner With Andre (I’m stretching here)

Episode link: TIFF 2019: The Two Popes

Chris and I caught the last four days of the Toronto International Film Festival and saw a whirlwind 14 movies, recording 15-30 minute reviews for each which will be rolled out over time. Every day, I’ll try to post a summary in this abbreviated format, along with the episode link.

TIFF Update #11: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Rating: 2/5

Synopsis: Crack investigative reporter Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys) is tasked with writing, essentially, a puff piece — a profile on the heroism of Fred Rogers (Tom Hanks). Ever the cynic, Lloyd hopes to use his access to reveal some untold darkness beneath Rogers’ cheery persona. But over a series of face-to-face interviews, he finds that the exact opposite is happening: it’s his own life — particularly his relationship with his father (Chris Cooper) — that is being exposed.

My take: Am I calloused? Am I dead inside? Did the insane festival schedule strip me of my ability to feel? But if so, why did the openly melodramatic Blackbird bring me to tears in the same festival? How did Marriage Story manage to rip my heart out the night before?

I ask, because the critical consensus appears to be that A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is a lovely, charming, heart-on-its-sleeve ode to the cultural impact of Mister Rogers. Whereas the movie I watched felt like a clumsy, alien soap opera which included precisely one great performance and precisely zero emotions with a ring of truth.

I’ll start with the good: Tom Hanks. Hanks’ Rogers is everything you expected it would be, and whenever the camera is fixed on him, this movie works its magic. America’s Dad turned America’s Therapist; it’s a brilliant bit of casting, and Hanks probably earns his inevitable supporting Oscar nomination.

Note that I said “supporting”. Not wanting to veer into pure hagiography, the film (wisely, in principle!) relegates Rogers to the sidelines. The problem is, the story he’s sidelined for is godawful and flat. Rhys’ Lloyd, who is far and away the film’s lead, takes the world’s corniest script and somehow manages to undersell it: every emotional moment plays like the climax to a late-season Scrubs episode which accidentally muted the voiceover. Or like a deleted scene from Wish I Was Here. Or a direct-to-Netflix sequel to The Last Kiss. He is to Zach Braff what Newman-O’s are to Oreos, is what I’m saying. And he’s hardly propped up by the cast around him: Wendy Makkena is given virtually nothing to do as his wife, and even Chris Cooper, America’s unofficial Negligent Father to Hanks’ aforementioned Dad, feels like a parody of himself.

I don’t think I blame the actors; I think this is a clear directorial choice. I believe Marielle Heller wants this to feel as stagey and Public Access-y as the show she’s homaging. And while I can respect that on a purely intellectual level, I can’t help but feel the gambit didn’t pay off. Beyond the sets and puppets and simplified emotions, what makes Rogers so compelling is that he completely believes what he’s saying: there’s no wink, no cute-for-cutes’-sake indulgence in his craft. His was a show that would rather stay silent than speak something unnecessary or untrue. And Heller herself even acknowledges the power of that silence! So I find it odd that her film doesn’t give its uncanny emotions any room to breathe. Even the script’s emotional fulcrum — the one truly powerful character moment Rhys had a shot at convincing me of — is undercut by a silly, nested dream sequence. Rather than feeling real empathy, or sitting with the quietness, I was constantly wondering if we were about to wake up. This may well have been the point (I suspect that it was), but on a gut-emotional level I find it bewildering.

Tom Hanks is so good, it’d be a shame not to watch this. But I can’t recommend it in good faith either. Instead I’ll say this: watch Won’t You Be My Neighbor first and, after cleansing all the dust from your eyes, ask yourself how badly your soul needs even more Rogers. Because Hanks does deliver the goods, albeit in short supply. If you’re already filled, you’re probably better off quitting while you’re ahead. If you aren’t, proceed here with caution. Maybe I’m dead inside, and you’ll love Heller’s film like so many in my audience did. But if you’re left feeling angry and confused, know that you’re in good company. You can stomp if you want to, or play all the lowest keys on the piano at the same time — but you can’t say I didn’t warn you.

Pairs with: Won’t You Be My Neighbor, The End of the Tour

Episode link: TIFF 2019: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Chris and I caught the last four days of the Toronto International Film Festival and saw a whirlwind 14 movies, recording 15-30 minute reviews for each which will be rolled out over time. Every day, I’ll try to post a summary in this abbreviated format, along with the episode link.

TIFF Update #10: Uncut Gems

Rating: 4.5/5

Synopsis: Howard (Adam Sandler) is a jewelry store owner in the Diamond District of Midtown Manhattan. Howard is also a raging gambling addict. Uncut Gems follows a few days of his life, as a series of bad moves gets him in deep with the mob, and he attempts square up his debts while fighting the impulse to chase his losses.

My take: In an early scouting expedition for Uncut Gems, directors Josh and Benny Safdie met a panhandling woman named Arielle Holmes who seemed like she had a story to tell. They paid her by the page to pen a memoir about her life, which would in turn be made into a screenplay. The result, 2014’s Heaven Knows What, was a synth-laden odyssey about two frequently homeless, narcotic-addicted lovers. They fight in public to the point of cruelty. They threaten suicide for the sake of argument, and nearly make good on it. Perhaps most crucially, they never even hint at sobriety: this is their world, and if you don’t like it you can leave. The protagonist “Harley” is played by Holmes.

One standout from that film was Buddy Duress, playing a drug dealer and fellow addict who gives Harley the closest thing she’s got to a source of support. That real-life acquaintance of Holmes would go on to collaborate with the Safdies on 2017’s Good Time, a riveting neon noir about a petty thief (Robert Pattinson) trying to rescue his brother from the notorious Rikers Island jail complex. Buddy’s co-starring turn was revelatory, attracting top talent like Judd Apatow — but he hasn’t been available to cash in on the goodwill. At this moment, he’s serving yet another stint in Rikers, on charges of drug-related larceny.

I write this preamble not just to bring up more excellent movies you should watch (that too, though), but to get at three important facts about the Safdie Brothers’ output. First, they are relentlessly, brutally committed to showing the world as is. Second, they pair that honesty with an in-your-face brand of romanticism — neon-soaked everything, soundtrack dialed past 11. Third, and perhaps most importantly: they don’t give a damn if you like the lead character or their decision-making process.

Uncut Gems might not be an easy pill for audiences to swallow. There’s almost nothing to like about Adam Sandler’s Howard, and the people in his orbit (LaKeith Stanfield’s grifting partner, Julia Fox’s enabling girlfriend) rarely fare better. Like Holmes in Heaven Knows What or Pattinson in Good Time (or Ronald Bronstein in Daddy Longlegs, while we’re keeping score), Howard is by far his own worst enemy: not just for the poor life choices that set the film in motion, but for choices made roughly every 20 minutes on his way to correcting them. Take any mob flick or episode of the Sopranos, and picture that one debt-addled stock character being shaken down for everything he owns. “What could that poor bastard have done to deserve this?” you might ask. Howard Ratner is the sort of bastard who unequivocally deserves this, but he never carries himself as “poor”. He’s proud. Defiant. Delighted, even.

Now picture you are that bastard, defiantly triumphant. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, wheeling and dealing even when you’ve got nothing to deal, shouting evergreen promises of “big one”s just around the corner — and picture genuinely believing it each and every time. The constant highs and lows. The thrill of the chase. The adrenaline rush of knowing that at any moment, you could soar into unimaginable greatness — or be thrown out your window into 47th St traffic. That’s the magic trick the Safdies pull off here. And it’s an exhilarating, manic ride.

I’m talking around the actual plot of movie, because I don’t want to spoil what makes it tick. But here’s what I will say. I don’t know anything about the Diamond District or its competing pawn shops and jewelry stores. I couldn’t tell you a single interesting fact about basketball, let alone transcribe the opaque lingo of those who place bets on it. But at one point in this movie, I found myself on the verge of a genuine panic attack: over a single penalty throw in a televised game, watched in a jewelry store lobby by people I mostly despised. It didn’t matter that I barely understood it, or that the guy I was rooting for had made every wrong turn en route. I felt it with all the fight-or-flight fury of an addict eyeing his next fix. This isn’t your standard-grade, walk-a-mile-in-their-shoes variety of empathy. This is the pure, uncut stuff: the ability to truly inhabit someone else, to feel their anxieties blot out the sun.

Sandler is extraordinary, and the Safdies are a treasure of guerrilla filmmaking. They’re the poet laureates of the indefatigable downtrodden, of the true Never Sleep-ers in a city that mostly pretends. Watch this movie. Let yourself be bewildered by it; lost in it; hypnotized by it; furious at it. Let yourself resent its hero from somewhere deep inside, until that moralizing part of you is all hollowed out. Peer into the walls of that freshly dug chasm, and wait for something brilliant to catch the light.

Pairs with: Heaven Knows What, The Gambler

Episode link: TIFF 2019: Uncut Gems

Chris and I caught the last four days of the Toronto International Film Festival and saw a whirlwind 14 movies, recording 15-30 minute reviews for each which will be rolled out over time. Every day, I’ll try to post a summary in this abbreviated format, along with the episode link.

TIFF Update # Nein: Jojo Rabbit

Rating: 4/5

Synopsis: Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) is a young Nazi-in-training, who spends his time conversing with two secret people in his life. One is his imaginary friend and role model, Adolf Hitler (Taika Waititi). The other is Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie), the very real Jewish girl hiding in his attic.

My take: Reviews out of TIFF have been surprisingly tepid for Jojo Rabbit. Some say it’s too schmaltzy, others say its satire is too light, and still others say it’s playing with fire. I say this is the exact combination of schmaltz, light, and fire I needed in the festival’s home stretch.

If the synopsis didn’t make it clear, Jojo Rabbit is an exceedingly silly, irreverent affair. It’s a satire built upon a simple premise: what if we take a completely average, bumbling set of characters, and transpose their behaviors to the key of Nazi Germany? 10-year-olds charge with rocket launchers like it’s rec time at summer camp; grown men “Heil-Hitler” each other with all the verve of a limp conference-room handshake. Jojo, our protagonist, is like any other kid playing make-believe in any other uplifting children’s movie — except his lava monsters are Jews and his action figure is Hitler. In one cutaway, Adolf eats a sparkly unicorn head for dinner. (That doesn’t fit with my premise, but he does and it’s great.)

This is not a brutal examination of fascism, nor is it a particularly deep dive into the radicalization of young men (I recommend Young Ahmed if you’re looking for the serious take). But I don’t think that lack of seriousness makes it toothless or twee, either. What it does, is reveals a version of satire that feels perfect for this age of Internet Irony: it undercuts its enemies rather than overtly reviling them. It posits that behind all the bigoted bluster, there’s a pack of stunted man-children playing follow-der-Führer — and knowingly destroying the world in the process. Jojo is, of course, a child. But so is everyone else in this movie: Sam Rockwell’s know-nothing sergeant, Stephen Merchant’s pompous inspector, Rebel Wilson’s go-get-em assistant. They’re all playing in the same idiotic sandbox, kicking up dirt with no regard for the other kids’ eyes. Waititi’s Hitler, for his part, could have fallen right out of a Mel Brooks musical: campy, zany, deluded to the core. As an extension of Jojo’s psyche, he’s forced to hold childish convictions. But surely the real one, in this parallel universe, is no less of a chump.

I can hear the response from a mile away: these people were /*more* than incompetent, and by reducing their ideology to a childish delusion, we’re ignoring the evil at its root — the evil that men latched, still latch, onto, across all competencies and intellects and degrees of phony accent. I completely agree, and can only imagine Waititi does as well: I think his fantasy of what the world could be is meant to be set alongside — not replace — our knowledge of what the world is. Far from being toothless, I see it as a defanging tool: not to excuse or explain the motives of wrongdoers, but to laugh at the image they’ve built of themselves. To say that people are capable of endless cruelty, but the excuses they give — the pseudo-philosophic structures they invent to justify their cruelty, comprising the big boy “ideologies” they only half-believe — that is always, always nonsense. Why not slap a mustache on it and tell it to dance?

I think laughter can still be the best medicine, and Jojo Rabbit is a total blast. The kids are great, the Nazis are ridiculous, and Johansson brings a playful energy the world needs more of. I’m delighted that, of all the things Waititi could have done to cash in on his Ragnorak credibility, he chose something so knowingly irreverent and so singularly his. This is one I’m excited to see again, in the most packed theatre I can find.

Pairs with: Young Ahmed, The Producers

Episode link: TIFF 2019: Jojo Rabbit

Chris and I spent the last four days at the Toronto International Film Festival and caught a whirlwind 14 movies, recording 15-30 minute reviews for each which will be rolled out over time. Every day, I’ll try to post a summary in this abbreviated format, along with the episode link.

TIFF Update #8: Proxima

Rating: 3.5/5

Synopsis: Sarah (Eva Green) is an astronaut who has just been selected to spend a year on the ISS. As she prepares for her mission, she struggles to balance the inherent isolation (of training and space) with the need to connect with her 8-year-old daughter.

My take: In the last 12 months or so, I’ve seen plenty of movies about space travel: Ad Astra, Apollo 11, First Man, Lucy in the Sky. They nearly always hone in on some fundamental loneliness or obsession or both — the limitless potential (whether terrible or ecstatic) of Up There jutted up against the daily comforts (whether yearned for or rendered inconsequential) of Down Here. All of them have one thing in common: their eyes are fixated upwards. Proxima carves out a humbler path, in that its concerns are almost entirely terrestrial. Not “What would drive someone to go Up There,” but “What might someone in this situation be giving up here on earth? What will life be like for them when they return?”

Sarah is never a symbol or hyperbole. She’s a loving mother and, also, an astronaut. She doesn’t long to feel the cosmos “Blow her mind” (a la Portman’s Lucy), nor does she see them as an avenue for escape (Gosling’s Armstrong) or redemption (Pitt’s McBride). She’s a scientist and a hard worker, driven by awe and ambition but never blinded by them. And what I love about that, about her fundamental humanity, is that it gives us a window into the more delicate, human sacrifices which the blockbusters paper over. How it might feel to miss a year of your child’s life aboard the ISS; how exhausting it must be to parent from a distance with a job that demands singular focus; how sad it must be to train in isolation for 14 straight hours only to return to a crackly Skype connection and a daughter who (as is the case with any 8-year-old) suddenly isn’t in the mood to talk. Rendering in cosmic-scale that gnawing feeling so many career-oriented parents must face: how can I demonstrate my love when I feel like I’m constantly being pulled outward? As Sarah’s colleague opines, “There’s no such thing as a perfect astronaut; just like there’s no such thing as a perfect mother.” No such thing as a perfect anything, and isn’t that the source of so much of our stress?

There’s no such thing as a perfect movie, either, and Proxima has its fair share of flaws. While the core family unit is given wonderful depth (Eva Green acts her heart out in at least four languages, and the young actress who plays her daughter is absolutely delightful), the characters orbiting them are fairly two-dimensional. The pacing is sometimes a bit too meandering for its own good. And a third act plot twist strains credulity, yielding to the exact impulse I’d so loved this film for resisting: going too big, too outlandish, literalizing a desire we already understood in the abstract. But the film’s heart is so pure, and Alice Winocour’s direction so tender, I can’t bring myself to fault it for long. Before you watch the next big Sci Fi, spend a few hours down on earth with Proxima. It’s well worth the time.

Pairs with: First Man, Lucy in the Sky

Episode link: TIFF 2019: Proxima

Chris and I spent the last four days at the Toronto International Film Festival and caught a whirlwind 14 movies, recording 15-30 minute reviews for each which will be rolled out over time. Every day, I’ll try to post a summary in this abbreviated format, along with the episode link.

TIFF Update #7: Marriage Story

Rating: 4.5/5

Synopsis: Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) and Charlie (Adam Driver) are a married couple living the New York dream — an acclaimed actress and a playwright sharing a young son, a vaunted theatre company, and a spacious Brooklyn apartment. The dream, except for one detail: they’re getting a divorce. The film follows that process, and particularly the custody battle, over the course of a year.

My take: There were flashier titles in this year’s lineup (Joker, Knives Out, arguably Uncut Gems), but Marriage Story was my most anticipated by leaps and bounds. Part of that is simply a matter of personnel: while director Noah Baumbach has always had a solid record, for my money his last 8 years have been just about perfect — the rhapsodic love of Frances Ha, easy charm of While We’re Young, screwball affection of Mistress America, and weary pathos of The Meyerowitz Stories all won me over in their own ways. Part of it was also the subject matter; anybody can write a graceful story about the start of a relationship, but a graceful story about the end of one? That’s premium, hard-fought, happy-sad territory, and few films have really hit the mark.

I’m thrilled to report that Baumbach’s winning streak continues. In fact, I’ll go one step further: Marriage Story is the best, most fully-realized work of his career. It’s also the strongest performance I’ve ever seen out of Adam Driver (step aside, Paterson), and the most Johansson has moved me since Lost In Translation. As long as we’re speaking in superlatives: it contains his most human dialogue, most earned comic moments, most canny observations, most perfect blurring of reality and fiction. That last bit is crucial: this isn’t the first time Baumbach has mined his personal life for material (The Squid And The Whale and Mistress America being the most obvious examples), but it’s the time where a personal angle counts for the most. Ostensibly informed by his former marriage to Jennifer Jason Leigh, it feels clear that Baumbach is at least borrowing from his present as well: Charlie the playwright who becomes enraptured by his muse, Nicole the captivating firebrand whose directorial aspirations are at odds with the label of “muse” he applies.

It’s important, because nothing about Nicole and Charlie’s relationship feels past tense: its bitter denouement only amplifies the sweetness at its root. As with Scenes from a Marriage (a reference so obvious the title even appears on a fake article about the couple), Baumbach’s film opens with each partner narrating what they love about the other. It’s a long, generous list, and it’s the backbone of every emotional low point that follows. Unlike Bergman, though, this moment — this whole film, for that matter — comes after they’ve already agreed to separate. There is no surprise, no aggrieved party, and very little by way of flashback; all the tenderness that we witness, we witness in divorce. They may become angry, may even grow to hate each other, but we’re never led to believe that one has “fallen out of love” with the other. It’s more complicated than that; more honest, more subtle, more quietly devastating. It’s the story of two people who both love and can’t stand each other, who, in the process of seeking the most graceful separation possible, are about to thoroughly ruin each other’s lives.

A lawyer backs a tearful Meryl Streep into a corner, demanding she acknowledge that she “failed” her marriage; Dustin Hoffman shakes his head and mouths an encouraging “no.” That courtroom scene in Kramer vs Kramer is what I kept returning to as I watched Charlie and Nicole’s divorce grow uglier by the minute. The cognitive dissonance at the root of it all: Kramer trying to protect his ex-wife from the very man he’s paying to eviscerate her; Nicole trying to serve Charlie divorce papers while simultaneously cushioning the blow. That fundamental relational instinct to protect, to console, to put the other first, jutting up against a legal system which demands two aggressively self-centered sides. It doesn’t make sense, the way Charlie flees from surface-level conflict while dumping his life savings into one massive fight; the hand of comfort offered by Nicole after a shouting match so brutal it leaves a hole in the drywall. “Why do we keep shrieking when we mean soft things?” as the Magnetic Fields put it. The end is as illogical as the beginning.

And yet there’s so much to mine from that deep-seated contradiction. If I told you this contains multiple tearful monologues worthy of an Oscar reel, or that there’s an argument at the center which is the most damning I’ve seen in years — it does, and there is — you might not be surprised. But what if I told you that it’s also light, brisk, and often laugh-out-loud funny? That the lawyers involved (Laura Dern, Alan Alda) are more giddy exaggerations than symbols of menace? That there’s a sight gag involving a knife which had the audience in stitches? That, despite being the longest film of Baumbach’s career, it’s also the one that went by the quickest? That of all the films I saw at the festival, this brutal two-hander about the dissolution of a marriage is the one I’m most eager to watch again? Marriage Story is a movie that pulls off a magic trick: it devastates without being dreary, makes us laugh at pain without blunting its sting. It implicates us in some fundamental absurdity. And in its own clever way, it mines it for hope: if we can survive this shit, if we can choose to do it again, we can survive anything.

Pairs with: Kramer vs Kramer, Scenes from a Marriage

Episode link: TIFF 2019: Marriage Story

Chris and I caught the last four days of the Toronto International Film Festival and saw a whirlwind 14 movies, recording 15-30 minute reviews for each which will be rolled out over time. Every day, I’ll try to post a summary in this abbreviated format, along with the episode link.

TIFF Update #6: True History of the Kelly Gang

Rating: 3.5/5

Synopsis: A heavily-fictionalized biopic about the life and death of Ned Kelly, the most famous bushranger of Australian history.

My take: Going into this screening, I knew as much about 19th century Australian history as I did Justin Kurzel’s filmography. Which is to say, absolutely nothing. Leaving, I had the strongest desire to devour both.

True History of the Kelly Gang is, in a word, a blast. A sort of Wild West Braveheart for the Australian outback, it’s a film that eschews Wikipedia-esque details in favor of mythic legend-building; conveying how it might have felt to live in this brutal era, what cult of personality might surround an “outlaw.” Kurzel’s visceral style (in-your-face fight sequences, brooding landscape shots, a jangling, menacing soundtrack) is front and center here, but it never overshadows the excellent character work at play. The cast is uniformly awesome — George McKay as the volatile Ned, Essie Davis his fiery mother, Nicholas Hault’s conniving cOnstable [sic], Charlie Hunnam’s predatory sergeant — but the standout, for me, has to be Russell Crowe. A sort of murderous, world-weary, gun-toting Falstaff, his Harry Power is a scene-stealing firebrand. My only real complaint is that this movie is only 2 hours long: the narrative feels truncated, shorthanded by an assumed familiarity in the way a moody Jesse James biopic might feel in the States. That might be a flaw in the screenplay, or it might just be my own cultural unfamiliarity getting in the way. Either way, while I was endlessly entertained by Kelly’s journey, I never quite felt like I could access him; couldn’t explain his motives if I tried, couldn’t tell you where he stood in the second chapter and how the third was fundamentally different. But if I had to pick any movie to get lost in again, this one would be high on the list.

Pairs with: Outlaw King, The Nightingale

Episode link: TIFF 2019: True History of the Kelly Gang

Chris and I caught the last four days of the Toronto International Film Festival and saw a whirlwind 14 movies, recording 15-30 minute reviews for each which will be rolled out over time. Every day, I’ll try to post a summary in this abbreviated format, along with the episode link.

[NOTE: No spoilers are in this written review. The linked episode has designated spoiler-free and spoiler sections, the former of which is totally safe to listen to.]

TIFF Update #5: Joker

Rating: 4/5

Synopsis: Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is a clown-for-hire by day and aspiring comic by night, living with his elderly mother in a poor neighborhood of 1980’s-ish Gotham. We watch as financial hardship, tragedy, and increasingly volatile internal demons, catapult Fleck out of obscurity and into villainous infamy.

My take: In The King Of Comedy, Robert De Niro plays Rupert Pupkin, an aspiring comedian who dreams of — obsesses over — finding his big break on the late night circuit. That obsession ultimately tumbles into a violent resolve; a fixation that destroys any obstacle in its path. But the true tragedy of the character is revealed before all that, in an early scene where we simply watch him watching television. In his mind’s eye he is sitting in the audience and invited to the stage, where he shares an easy rapport with Jerry Lewis and company: dishing out witty zingers and charming mugs like the Consummate Professional he knows himself to be deep down. In real life, he is alone in his basement, laughing at nothing, while his mother begs him to turn the volume down. What was charming in context becomes terrifying in isolation: an alien play-acting, or miming, social ease, magnifying cheer to its hyperbolic extreme. That laugh, that smile — there’s nothing behind it. Which is to say, there could be anything behind it.

I am certainly not the first person to compare Todd Phillips’ Joker to Scorsese’s film — everything from the casting of De Niro to a few third act twists scream that Phillips is in on the joke. But his homage, while loving, is meant for a different era, to serve a different purpose. If Pupkin is a portrait of delusional obsession, Fleck is a portrait of soul-crushing hopelessness; if Pupkin holds a mirror to the fame-craving 80’s, Fleck holds a mirror to the contentment-craving Now. He doesn’t necessarily believe himself to be great; he doesn’t necessarily believe anything at all. Before he mutates into Ledger’s self-appointed agent of chaos, he is an unwilling agent of irony: cursed with a pathological laugh and a Pagliacci grin, forced to mime a joy he has never truly felt. “In my whole life, I didn’t know I even existed” he laments, and the Gotham he lives in echoes the sentiment to an almost on-the-nose degree. A grimy, thinly-veiled Manhattan where the Haves live in decadence and the Have Not’s struggle to tread water, their city is on the verge of economic collapse. People want a voice, want to be on that stage. Even if, when they get there, they have nothing to say.

Joker is very much a movie of our time. And love it or hate it, you can’t deny the craft at work. Phillips’ recreation of Taxi Driver’s NYC is meticulous, gorgeous, captivating. Look no further than the trailer to see what I mean: the dreary, grainy greige of not-quite-Times-Square, punctuated by a spinning splash of yellow that reads “Everything Must Go” and a dancing clown who’s…off…in a way you can’t quite describe. Whether it’s an “imitation” or “the real thing” is as pointless as diagnosing Fleck’s uncanny smile: it’s in your face, and extremely effective. This is hypnotic, delirious filmmaking, and the sort rarely found in a big budget spectacle. Much of that comes down to the clown at the center: Joaquin Phoenix, giving a performance as manic and vital as anything in his career (though The Master might be the closest approximation). There’s a coiled physicality, a violent spontaneity, to him: the way he tenses his shoulders, arches his back, laughs like some deranged puppeteer is moving his mouth against his will and straining his vocal cords to a leathery chafe. One scene, where he dances in grimy public restroom, is among the most haunting of any franchise film, ever. His Oscar nomination seems virtually inevitable, and it will be as well deserved as his predecessor’s.

The discourse surrounding Joker has been nearly deafening. On one side, critics ponder whether the film is prescient or “dangerous”, leading to conflicted statements like “It feels like an imitation of a very good movie by someone who doesn’t quite grasp why it’s good.” On the other, DC fanboys foam at the mouth to defend a movie they’ve never seen based on some nonsensical Deep State conspiracy (“critics are vapid corporate shills; how much is Disney paying you to mildly criticize this while you praise Avengers…and trash The Lion King and Aladdin and Solo…”), more or less proving the critics’ point. I’m somewhere in between. I think this is a very good (especially grading on the comic book curve) movie about a social malaise that is nothing if not timely, and if by showcasing something vile it risks glorifying it, it’s in solid company — from Taxi Driver to Natural Born Killers to, hell, Nolan’s Dark Knight, there’s no shortage of works whose cautionary messages are at odds with their mesmeric thrills. The difference, I suspect, comes down to goodwill and trust: Scorsese has earned an assumption of good faith that the director of The Hangover, for valid reasons, hasn’t. Hence all the agonizing about what “looks great” vs “is great”. It’s art about emptiness; it’s supposed to feel empty. “Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial.” Is there a benefit to making Joker now?

I think yes…mostly. I think if we want our mass market movies to have artistic merit, we can’t also ask filmmakers to treat their audience with kid gloves. I also think there is no sentiment reflected here that a troubled individual hasn’t already considered, and that those who make art are rarely rewarded for underestimating those who consume it. That articulating a very real sort of hopelessness is at least as likely to serve as an outlet as a catalyst. But I also don’t feel with the same organ that I think, and if I’m being honest, I felt a real tinge of fear watching Fleck’s French Revolution blaze in my packed Toronto screening — echoes of Aurora, justified or no, will forever haunt this franchise for me. So should we throw a blanket over that terror and hope to extinguish it, or let it burn so bright on screen — alongside the real caution, real sadness, real message that is there for those who are paying attention — that the emptiness loses its spark, its terrible ironic propulsion? Even if I wish the film had devoted a bit more time to sane responses alongside the delirium, what I think, deep down, is the latter. What I feel, is conflict. And if nothing else, I’m glad for a blockbuster that can provoke that tug of war.

Pairs with: The King of Comedy, Taxi Driver, American Psycho

Episode link: TIFF 2019: Joker

[11/09/19] P.S. I recently contributed a condensed version of these thoughts to an article for QualityComix: The Evolution of the Joker

Chris and I caught the last four days of the Toronto International Film Festival and saw a whirlwind 14 movies, recording 15-30 minute reviews for each which will be rolled out over time. Every day, I’ll try to post a summary in this abbreviated format, along with the episode link.

TIFF Update #4: Blackbird

Rating: 4/5

Synopsis: When Lily (Susan Sarandon) learns she’s dying from a terminal illness, she and her husband (Sam Neill) gather the family together for one final weekend celebration. As her adult daughters (Kate Winslet and Mia Wasikowska) work through their own forms of preemptive grief, unexpected feelings come to the surface.

My take:

This is a film I went in expecting very little from. If I’m honest, I was tempted not to go in at all — star-studded cast aside, the concept seemed well-trod to the point of insufferability. A dysfunctional family airs their bourgeois grievances in some idyllic location or another. Ira Sachs had already done virtually the exact same thing with this year’s Frankie, to say nothing of Woody Allen’s ouevre. Why should I trust the director of Notting Hill to have a fresh take on the premise?

All I can say is I’m extremely glad I stuck around. Blackbird serves as a powerful reminder that understatement is overrated; that searing melodrama, when executed well, can sometimes be the most beautiful way to tell a story. And this one is damn near flawless, even as it signposts its emotional twists a mile away. The secret? A phenomenal cast to sell the emotions, and a script that gives its heavy moments ample room to breathe. Winslet and Wasikowska are given the showiest roles (and nail them), but there isn’t a dud in the bunch: from Rainn Wilson as the overeager son-in-law to Bex Taylor-Claus as the black sheep girlfriend, every actor brings a lifetime of authenticity to their role. The chemistry is uniformly fabulous, and Roger Michell is more than happy to let us luxuriate in it: if the 3 or 4 tear-jerking plot points are what burn most brightly in your brain, it’s only because of the moments of breezy, unstructured joy that proceeded them, gave them a reason to exist. Like Rachel Getting Married or About Time, this is a film that is at its best when it’s basking in a family simply /being/: one extended scene of gift giving made me cry more than every monologue combined, and virtually nothing is happening in it that the audience is privy to. Inside jokes with origins we’ll never know, knowing glances with meanings we only catch obliquely. Exuding that special, lived in sort of warmth where a laugh, alone, is enough to make you laugh — emotion as a thing shared rather than witnessed or understood. So earnest and plentiful are those nuanced moments, that when the drama tilts into heart-on-its-sleeve melodrama, I don’t feel the slightest bit manipulated — I feel filled, nourished, thankful to have these characters navigate the Big Questions alongside me. If Paddleton tackled mortality with gorgeous, quiet naturalism, Blackbird proves that there’s more than one way to get at a mystery; more than one way to grieve it, more than one way to laugh through it. What a treasure of a film.

Pairs with: Paddleton, Frankie, Rachel Getting Married

Episode link: TIFF 2019: Blackbird

Chris and I caught the last four days of the Toronto International Film Festival and saw a whirlwind 14 movies, recording 15-30 minute reviews for each which will be rolled out over time. Every day, I’ll try to post a summary in this abbreviated format, along with the episode link.

TIFF Update #3: Lucy in the Sky

Rating: 1.5/5

Synopsis: Natalie Portman stars as Lucy Cola, an astronaut unmoored by an existential crisis. Having just completed her first mission to space, she finds that her old life no longer interests her. Only one goal remains: to get back up there.

My take: This is the first (and perhaps only) film of the festival which I’m comfortable describing as categorically bad. And the root of the problem lies in the script — a muddle of comedy and drama squeezed into an ill-fitting theme that won’t stop announcing itself. At the highest level of abstraction, the film is meant to be about the cosmic insignificance of American life; American womanhood in particular — compared to the vast magnificence of the universe, that charming Houston home with its doting husband inside feels weightless, petty. The problem is, 254 miles down where the film actually resides, virtually nothing about Lucy’s journey supports that narrative. It /tells/ you it does, repeatedly, ad nauseum: here is her crisis, here is its root, here is why it’s thematically resonant, watch me change the aspect ratio every 20 seconds to prove it. But every detail it reveals seems to detract rather than add from its premise; at best, we understand no more about Lucy by the end of the movie than we did in the opening scene. At worst, we find her totally ridiculous. While the trailer sold me a moodpiece that would be /lightly/ inspired by the real-life Lisa Nowack, the final product feels more like a shot-for-shot parody — so much so, that by the time we recorded some 8 hours later, I’d forgotten they had different names. It’s as if Noah Hawley read an article about Nowack, thought “let me imagine what made her tick”, gave up after 30 minutes and pivoted to a True Crime reenactment where San Diego replaces Orlando for budgetary reasons and the diaper store happens to be closed. Portman does admirably well with the cards she’s dealt; she’s got a talent for selling us on messy characters. But even she can’t salvage this mess.

Pairs with: First Man, American Beauty, a blond wig and a diaper bag.

Episode link: TIFF 2019: Lucy in the Sky