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About Schmidt (Alexander Payne, 2002): This Jack Nicholson-starrer plays like a mix of the best and the worst habits of Alexander Payne. It begins beautifully, painting Warren Schmidt’s (Nicholson) retirement in persuasively somber strokes, and upping the ante even more by sending Warren’s wife (June Squibb) to her grave rather early on in the proceedings. The film is at its best when it’s almost painfully sad, because it gives us a Jack Nicholson that’s so confused and misguided he reminds us of the break-out leading performance he molded in Bob Rafelson’s great Five Easy Pieces. As the film enters its second hour, however, Payne becomes less and less sure of how to distribute the film’s supporting weight: Hope Davis is terrific as Warren’s daughter, who’s about to get married to a man (Dermot Mulroney) of a questionable standard, but Payne seems more taken with the overt antics of Kathy Bates, who, though Oscar-nominated, seems to me to be sending the film in all sorts of wrong tonal directions. Meanwhile, the voice-over ploy of having Warren write letters to his Tanzanian foster child is a little too calculated: it forces Warren’s sentiments into constructed paragraphs when Nicholson is already pulling the heavy weight of communicating those feelings through gestures and the resigned sting of his voice. [Tentative Rating: ***]
The Class (Laurent Cantet, 2008): From the French writer-director of the remarkable, recession-plagued character study Time Out comes this wholly deserving Palme d’Or winner, which is a triumph of the classroom-drama genre as well as an adaption of wonderfully unique proportions. Working from François Bégaudeau’s 2006 memoir about his experiences as a teacher in a heated, racially-diverse Parisian middle school, Cantet boldly cast Bégaudeau himself in the lead role, resulting in a performance of marvelous naturalism. Cantent and Bégaudeau rehearsed and improvised extensively with real-life students, Mike Leigh-style, guiding each of them in crafting their own semi-fictional personalities. The story that develops eventually zeroes in on Souleymane (Franck Keïta), a frequent troublemaker faced with potential expulsion. Bégaudeau’s Mr. Marin has an affinity for Souleymane, and at times tries to defend him to his co-workers in a vein that resembles Henry Fonda in 12 Angry Men, but most of the school’s administrators aren’t as forgiving. In 2006, Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden gave us a piercing portrait of a teacher in Half Nelson, intimately depicting the drug-addled demons of Ryan Gosling’s Dan Dunne. Cantent’s film, however, refuses to leave the school’s grounds — the English-language translation of Bégaudeau’s memoir is Between the Walls, a much better title than The Class — and is all the more significant for it. [Tentative Rating: ****]
Intimacy (Patrice Chéreau, 2001): This examination of a no-strings-attached relationship drew a lot of criticism for its heavy dose of unsimulated sex scenes (especially in the opening half-hour, which effectively rips off Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris), but the bodily realism implemented by Chéreau and his two front-and-center performers (Mark Rylance and Kerry Fox) felt entirely justified to me: Intimacy treats the act of sex with a complexity and a seriousness we so rarely get in the movies, reminding us that boundary-pushing content need not be derided when used this profoundly. An intensely vulnerable Rylance plays Jay, an upscale bartender who’s drifted into punishing loneliness after abandoning his wife and child. In Fox’s Claire, he’s found nothing more than a once-a-week intercourse partner, though the tension of the situation heightens when Jay begins following Claire’s private life. Timothy Spall is incredible in a supporting role that’s best not ruined here — the less you know about Intimacy going in, the better — sharing the screen with Rylance in a few scenes of nearly unendurable under-the-surface suspense. There are a few minor threads — notably, Claire’s dynamic with a professional acquaintance (Marianne Faithfull) — that feel tacked-on, but the film generally sustains a fever-pitch fascination. [Tentative Rating: ***1/2]
Point Break (Kathryn Bigelow, 1991): Ridiculous, fantastic, and very frequently both at the same time, this slick, sun-burned cops-and-robbers thriller follows an ex-quarterback-turned-FBI-agent (a fresh-faced Keanu Reeves) assigned to investigate a series of bank robberies committed during a steamy summer in Southern California. Thanks to a genius idea from his partner (an awesomely cranky Gary Busey), Reeves quickly goes undercover with a group of bum surfers (led by a thrill-seeking Patrick Swayze) who may or may not be the criminal culprits. Things get even more complicated when Reeves falls for Swayze’s ex-girlfriend, played by an adorable Lori Petty. The film gets increasingly preposterous as it goes along, leaving behind the sandy California beaches for airborne, sky-diving set-pieces, but it’s a consistently superb entertainment, and Bigelow crafts the action sequences — especially the bank-robbing ones, which have the thieves wearing masks resembling former presidents — with great skill and momentum. I even like the daredevil philosophizing of Swayze’s character, who, thanks to one of screenwriter W. Peter Iliff’s many pleasingly unsubtle moves, is named Bodhi. [Tentative Rating: ***1/2]
Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt, 2008): A true heartbreaker about a young woman (Michelle Williams), her lost dog, and a broken-down Honda Civic, Kelly Reichardt’s ground-level realism reaches devastatingly relevant heights in this financially-strapped character portrait. With a transparent authenticity that exceeds her already fabulous Old Joy — another effective, lingering downer — Reichardt and her stunning leading lady (who would go on to star in Reichardt’s next film, the formally imposing Meek’s Cutoff) get under the skin of this woman and her situation, and all within the admirably compact 80-minute runtime. The film’s so open-ended it can’t help but retain a smidgen of hope — Walter Dalton’s turn as a nice-guy Walgreens security guard helps, too — but the film’s primarily a depiction of a wandering soul, cast adrift in an America that has perhaps run out of openings for people like her. Reichardt’s gift for creating sonic absorption is present throughout as well: Sam Levy’s tranquil, still-water cinematography gains dollops of power from the haunting hum of the Oregon setting’s passing-by automobiles and going-nowhere freight trains. [Tentative Rating: ****]
on January 23, 2013 at 8:55 pm
Love, love, love Wendy and Lucy. Ditto Old Joy. Two films that really grew on me over time and repeat viewings. Can’t stand Meek’s Cutoff, though. That one’s just a chore.
on January 23, 2013 at 11:19 pm
John: Meek’s Cutoff is definitely her most emotionally unengaged (and not the easiest sit in the world), though I still consider it a pretty phenomenal stylistic achievement. And I’m totally with you on Wendy and Lucy — I saw it initially in theaters, but it hit me much harder on a second viewing. Old Joy is very impressive, too, though I’ve only seen it once to date.