The Well Digger's Daughter (orig. La Fille du Puisatier) [2011]

MPAA (Unrated)  Roger Ebert (3 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
Roger Ebert's review

The Well Digger's Daughter (orig. La Fille du Puisatier) screenplay/directed by Daniel Auteuil based on the novel and 1940 film by Marcel Pagnol [IMDb] is a film-lover's movie.  French language/English subtitled, the story is set in rural Provence (southeastern France) at the onset World War I.  As has often been the case with French films recalling the era, just about every single shot in the film could have been the subject of a painting by one-or-another of the French Impressionists [Galleries].  Due to the film's "Provençal location" the film's shots probably most resemble the works of Camille Pissarro [Galleries] and especially Paul Cézanne [Gallery]). 

The film then concerns itself with a typically French theme of the era, class differences.  Contemporary viewers will certainly notice this but will also be immediately aware of the era's gender dynamics (very different from today) and even discern a surprising (and perhaps utterly unintentional but IMHO very interesting) pro-Life message.  So a Catholic family watching this film would actually get quite a lot out of it ;-)

How then does the story set itself up?  Eighteen year old Patricia Amoretti (played by Astrid Bergès-Frisbey who younger American viewers may recognize as "the mermaid" of the last Pirates of the Caribbean [2011] movie) is the oldest of five daughters of a lowly well-digger and widower named Pascal Amoretti (played by the film's director Daniel Auteuil).  Since she was the oldest of five daughters (no sons) in the Amoretti clan, she had actually been raised away at a convent school relatively far away after a lady of some means had passed through the town when she was younger and had felt sorry for the family's "misfortune" of having so many girls.  Patricia away at that convent school meant one less burden / one less mouth to feed in the Amoretti household.  But alas Patricia's mother died and so Patricia, the oldest daughter had to return to help raise her younger sisters ...

We meet Patricia carrying lunch to her father and his assistant, Félipe Rembert (played by Kad Merad), who are working to clean a well somewhere far outside of town.  I suppose noting Félipe's last name is important here because it can serve to indicate that while Félipe is Pascal's assistant, he's "not a child," indeed appears to be far closer in age to Pascal than to Patricia...

Anyway, on her way to bring lunch to her father and Félipe, Patricia runs into another, younger, man named Jacques Mazel (played by Nicolas Duvauchelle).  He too is older than Patricia, but far closer to her age.  He's the grown son of M. and Mme. Mazel (played by Jean-Pierre Darrourssin and Sabine Azéma respectively), the owners of the mercantile shop "in town," and it appears that he's just outdoors relaxing under a tree by a stream because, well, he has the time / leisure to do so.  Good looking, suave, "dashing," we find out later that he was back home "on leave" from the air corps.

Jacques is certainly genereoux in helping Patricia to cross the stream without getting her feet wet.  Patricia didn't exactly want his help, but it did save her the hassle of unlacing her rather complicated late 19th century/early 20th century shoes, crossing the stream, barefoot, herself (carrying both shoes and stew across the stream) and then putting on and lacing-up the shoes again.  So the thus two "meet," not exactly by choice or "on equal footing..." But the help in crossing the stream both on her way to her father's work and back (Jacques, again, on leave with apparently "all the time in the world" ... perhaps made it a point to stay around the stream long enough to conveniently help Patricia cross the stream again on her way home ...) proved to be at least a time-saver for Patricia as well.

Tres bien ... That evening, back at Pascal Amoretti's home, Félipe talks to Pascal knowing that Pascal is worried about "marrying-off" all these daughters of his and asks if it'd be okay to take Patricia out on a date.  He had just bought an (old) car and has tickets for a nearby airshow.  Pascal's known him for years.  He knows that his intentions are honorable and, well, if things went well, then Patricia would come to have a husband of at least the same economic stature as her father.  Pascal gives Félipe permission to talk to his daughter.  She accepts if not particularly enthusiastically (again Félipe is significantly older than she is) but at least he is "a nice guy."  Patricia's next oldest sister Amanda (played by Emilie Cazenave) noticing Patricia's lack of enthusiasm tells her later that evening: "When you let Félipe down, do so gently because I kinda like him."

So the next day Félipe comes over to the Amoretti house with his nice used car and takes Patricia to the airshow.  Guess who is the show's Star...?  Félipe, who doesn't know that Patricia had met Jacques the other day at the stream while carrying that lunch for him and her father, reintroduces the two of them at the air show.  Smiling, debonaire, Jacques looks even better in his uniform... After the show, poor Félipe takes Patricia back to town to a café.  Very nice, but on the way back from the café,  he can't get his car started.  Who comes by?  Jacques on a motorbike.  Poor Félipe asks his friend Jacques to take Patricia home.  Smiling Jacques, goggles on, wind blowing in his face, Patricia with her arms around his chest ... takes the long way home.  They watch a nice sunset by a small lake ... He drops her off, asks her to meet him the next by a Church...

When he comes home however, Jacques finds that the French army needs him to leave immediately, at that time for Africa, but the first scents of War are appearing.  In anycase, he doesn't make it to the Church.  He's already gone but leaves his mother with a letter to deliver to Patricia.  Mme. Mezal takes one look at Patricia standing by that Church and sees simply a fair-looking girl of modest means who's probably trying to take advantage of her son and never introduces herself to her or deliver his note.

This then is the setup to the rest of the story.  As the reader here would probably guess, Jacques and Patricia did a bit more out there at that beautiful lakeside than watch the sunset...  Patricia soon finds that she's pregnant.  What to do?  Pascal Amoretti dresses himself and his five daughters including Patricia up and takes them to town to the Mezals.  Of course, the Mezals play dumb.  "How do we know that Patricia's child is Jacques'?  If we had to count every two bit girl in this region that's tried to hit on our good-looking son with an eye on our family's money... Don't get us wrong, we feel (a bit) sorry for you, but we don't believe you.  And we're not going to bother our son with this, who, by the way, is now off at war defending France ..."

On the way home, Pascal tells Patricia to pack her bags and go to his sister's: "She did silly things too when she was young ..."  She packs her bags and leaves the next day...  And at that time one would have expected that this would have been largely the end of Patricia's story.

BUT ... the story does continue...  Sometime the following year, poor ole Félipe comes back from the front.  Yes, he was close to something like 40 years old, but World War I was a war for national survival for France, so even someone like him was fighting.  Together with Amanda, he goes to visit Patricia.  And they come back home to Pascal to tell him that she has had her child.  Pascal initially doesn't want to hear anything about it.  She's dead to him.  BUT ... they tell him that SHE'S HAD A SON.  "So what?  He's a b... afterall."  BUT ... precisely because he's a b..., guess what BY LAW has to be his last name?  Amoretti.  Pascal, who had previously "mourned" his "misfortune" of having only daughters and thus not being able to pass on his name NOW, by the "misfortune" of his eldest daughter getting pregnant out of wedlock GETS TO PASS ON HIS NAME BY WAY OF HIS GRANDSON ;-)

So a few days later, there's Pascal with Amanda and Félipe heading off to see Patricia and her toddler son.  And Pascal now takes her and his grandson home.

BUT ... the story goes on.  Some months later, the Mezals come calling.  It turns out that their son Jacques had been shot down over the battlefield and the report was that his plane crashed in flames presumably killing him.  NOW THE ONLY THING THAT THEY HAVE LEFT OF JACQUES is HIS and Patricia's child.  So they come "hat in hand" to apologize to Patricia and Pascal and offering to help in his upbringing.  Initially Pascal tells them "we don't need your help."  But they really do.

FINALLY, it ends even better than that.  How?  I've written out already enough of the story, so I'll leave at least that point for some suspense...

WHAT I REALLY LIKED ABOUT THIS MOVIE besides the beautiful scenery and good-ole fashioned film-making, was its surprisingly Pro-Life message here.  Today in similar circumstances, a lot of Patricias would have gotten abortions.  Yet that utterly unplanned child actually helped two families.  Pascal finally got a grandson and a means to pass on his name.  And through this child, Jacques left his own parents someone after him.

The scenario recalls a similar scenario that played out in an American film, The Cider House Rules [1999], set in the context of World War II.  In that movie, a young adult couple finding itself facing an unplanned pregnancy, had searched out a doctor to perform an abortion.  After his fiancee had the abortion, the boyfriend went off to war only to return sometime later in a wheelchair.  The child that the couple had aborted would have been their only child ...

So inconvenient "unplanned pregnancies" can have their purpose.  In this French film, we see a pregnancy that was initially considered a "disaster" by just about everyone becomes the vehicle that fulfilled the highest aspirations of just about everyone.  What a nice (and surprising) message!


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Generation P (orig. Generation П) [2011]

MPAA (R)  Roger Ebert (2 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
Kinopiosk.ru listing [Eng Trans]
Roger Ebert's review

Generation P (orig. Generation П) [IMDb] [KP.ru] [KP.ru-Eng Trans] directed by Victor Ginzberg [IMDb] [KP.ru] [KP.ru-Eng Trans] is a Russian language (here English subtitled) comedy based on the 1999 Russian cult novel by Victor Pelevin by the same name published in English translation under the title Homo Zapiens.  Set in the 1990s during the Yeltsin Era in the decade after the fall of Communism in Russia, the film's (and presumably the book's) style reminds me very much of '60s American/English "counter-cultural" classics like Clockwork Orange (book / film) or Catch 22 (book / film).

The story is about 30-something Moscovite Babylen Tatarsky (played by Vladimir Epifantev [IMDb]).  He  explains that his name came from his parents' creative conflation of Babi Yar with Lenin (though the obvious play on the "Tower of Babel" /  "Babylon" becomes increasingly important as the story progresses).  At the beginning of the film, Babilen narrates to the audience that he had gotten a degree "in poetry" during the Communist Era. With the fall of the Communists, however, he could no longer find a sustainable job "as a poet," and given that "he didn't have any connections" he got the only job that he could get at the time -- working in a Kiosk for a "Chechen" (read basically "Mafioso...") boss.  In 1990s Moscow, a Kiosk was basically one of multitudes of 10 ft by 10 ft wooden boxes standing along busy city streets, each kiosk with a metal mesh security window through which one transacted money for cigarettes, newspapers and other nicknacks.  Babilen noted that his human contact during that time would basically be glimpsing the hands feeding him the money for the nicknacks that he was selling.  And he noted also that he soon "became proficient at his job, knowing from that glimpse of each customer's hand exactly how much [he] could shortchange him ... ;-)"  It was not much of a life but it did pay the bills...

However, Babilen did get a break afterall.  Leonid (played by Mikhail Efremov) a friend from university days, recognized Babilen's voice even if Babilen would not necessarily have recognized his hand ... ;-) ... and knowing Babilen was a "wordsmith" offered him a job where he had found work -- in still nascent but increasingly important world of Russian advertising.  Why would advertising be a burgeon field in the years following the fall of Communism in Russia?  Well, as Leonid explained to Babilen a "flood" of Western products was about to arrive in Russia but Russians would have to be introduced to them using Russian cultural syntax/symbols.  (Perhaps who better than a "poet" could do this kind of work ...).

So a good part of the rest of the movie becomes Babilen and his colleagues seeking to "translate" American/Western products into the Russian cultural context with much humor, often (and I know it's fair, but one also winces at times...) at Westerners expense.  For instance, Babilen is given the task of writing an ad for British "Parliament" cigarettes.  Playing around with the white rectangular box with a picture of the British Westminster parliament building on it, he comes up with a the idea of making the box of cigarettes rise up out of the ground like the giant, white (and recently smoldering...) Russian Parliament building (because Yeltsin had famously come to bomb it) with the slogan "Support Democracy, Support the Rule of Law, Support your Parliaments."  You get the picture ...

In perhaps the most appalling case (to us Americans, but honestly, I do understand why it would probably be funny in Russia), the team at the ad agency where Babilen worked is given the task of writing an ad for Nike (an American company making shoes in Vietnam).  So Babilen's coworkers come up with an ad featuring still imprisoned American POWs working at a Nike plant "demanding to see the (new) U.S. Ambassador."  A Vietnamese guard comes in, hits one of the American POWs over the head with his still Soviet-era Kalishnikov, and pointing to the shoes, repeats Nike's slogan: "Just do it ..."  One of the managers at Babilen's firm asks "Wouldn't an ad like this offend Nike?"  The response: "What would they care?  We've been given the task of selling their shoes in Russia, and _our consumers_ will like this kind of ad."  Again, you get the picture ...

As it becomes challenging to be continuously "creative," Babilen finds himself going out increasingly to the outskirts of Moscow to both visit a friend who had already "escaped" into Buddhist mysticism under the Communist era (mostly by consuming home-grown Russian hallucinogenic mushrooms ...) and "contemplating" a never completed Cold War era Anti-Ballistic Missile system tower, one that looked like a modern spitting image of the Biblical Tower of Babel.  While hallucinating under the influence of "home grown _Russian_ LSD" and contemplating this Tower he had conversations with both Che Guevara and goat-fleece donning Babilonian priests of Ishtar.  Honestly, the film's a trip ... ;-).

What then to say of the movie?  I enjoyed seeing what seems to me to be an authentic if rather cynical contemporary Russian comedy.  I also found the film challenging and a reminder that Americans are not the only ones that often think of themselves as "Exceptional."  Indeed, the primary theme of this film seemed to be that of  "Russian exceptionalism" declaring to the West: "We _are_ different from you.  To successfully talk to us, you're going to have to refer (and respect...) our cultural points of reference."

More positively, the film was also offering western viewers a window into how marketing imagery and techniques that work quite well in the West / United States can be manipulated (and subverted) elsewhere to some really scary ends.  Near the end of the film, Babilen finds that the "ultimate marketing campaign" is really a political campaign ... and that in creating an effective marketing strategy for a political campaign the human candidate him/herself can become irrelevant. (The suggestion is made that footage showing Yeltsin "dancing" at various political campaign events never occurred ... that simply a CGI-Yeltsin was spliced into footage from a popular rock concert ...).

Who to recommend the movie to?  In the United States, I do think that young people and intellectuals (coastal liberals ...) in general will probably appreciate the film.  Others may in fact be offended.  But then I would imagine that American films like "Red Dawn [1984] [2012] probably don't go over well in Russia (except as a joke ...) either...


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Hyde Park on Hudson [2012]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (O) Roger Ebert (3 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB review
Roger Ebert's review

Hyde Park on Hudson (directed by Roger Michell, screenplay by Richard Nelson) is a biopic/period piece about Franklin Delano Roosevelt (played remarkably in the film Bill Murray).

FDR was elected President of the United States in 1932 three years after the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the subsequent onset of the Great Depression in 1929, author of the New Deal package of legislation that subsequently led if slowly the country out of the Great Depression (at the cost of greatly expanding the role of the federal government in the United States for which many in the "free market wing" of the Republican Party have never ever forgiven him) and who led the United States during most of World War II.

Yet, this film is not about FDR's politics or achievements.  Instead, it is more about his personal life (and failings...) that came to light after the 1991 death of Margaret "Daisy" Suckley (played in the film by Laura Linney) and a suitcase full of intimate letters between her and the President had been found under her bed.  The letters were published in a non-fiction book by Geoffrey Ward (of Ken Burn's Civil War [1985] documentary series fame) entitled Closest Compainion: The Unknown Story of the Intimate Friendship Between Franklin Roosevelt and Margaret Suckley [1995].  A 2007 article about Margaret "Daisy" Suckley appearing in the New York Times entitled At the Home of F.D.R.'s Secret Friend is worth the read as well.

A criticism of the film could be made that if one went to see it without much knowledge of FDR, then one would leave the film thinking of him as simply another (vaguely) "Important Man" who mistreated (took liberties) with vulnerable (younger, and since he was President after all, necessarily less powerful) women.  HOWEVER, I do believe that this film is more complex than simply some kind of a "right wing" hatchet job (Those who have been following my blog would know that I've repeatedly noted here that Hollywood is actually far more conservative in its outlook than its libertine reputation would suggest.  For those who would doubt me here, just consider the way the that the last two sets of Academy Awards turned out [2011] [2012]):

First, the increasing mainstreaming of previously considered "feminist" radicalism _has_ resulted in some remarkable and justified historical revision.  To me, the most obvious example of this phenomenon was the portrayal of male-female relations in the film Defiance [2009] (and the book on which the film was based) about the band of Jewish partisans led by the Bielski Brothers in Nazi-occupied Byelorussia during World War II.  In the past, that story would have been presented as simply a "glowing" account of the heroism of the (largely male) Jewish partisans with the women not playing much of a role at all.  Instead, in Defiance [2009], women were key to the story and often produced a rightfully embarrassing challenge to the way history had previously been remembered.  To put it bluntly: the women were shown as not feeling particularly safe around their male counterparts.  Yes, the male partisans were certainly better than the Nazis (who fed all Jews, male and female, into the gas chambers).  But in a culture of men taking "forest wives" from among the women in their band, the women were forced to "make choices" that weren't exactly "free" ("Should I 'choose' to be a 'forest wife' of this guy or take my chances at being simply taken / raped by one or another of the "freedom fighters" ...?).

So, in the current film, FDR is perhaps a "great man."  On the other hand, he did use women who would have been considered "below his station" including the young, then presumably 20-something, Daisy.  To be sure, he "was generous" to the women he used in this way (rewarded them with access and favors that were beyond the reach what anyone "of a lower station."  BUT ... I do believe the "outing" of FDR in this way to be a fair criticism / correction of the historical record, especially since the Catholic Church itself is (hopefully) coming out of an era of scandal where many of the same tactics of "reward" for inclined to not "out" a "great man" (a priest), and punishment (of those who would be more inclined to do so) had been part of the (clerical / good ole boy) culture of the Church as well...

Second, this is not the first film in which director, Roger Michell has approached the topic of "complex" (and often unequal) relationships between younger women and older men.  Consider simply two of his films Morning Glory [2010] (which was released a few months after I began my blog), and Venus [2006] (which came out before the start of my blog).  Add that the director is English and the current film takes place in the context of the 1939 visit by King George and Queen Elizabeth of England (of The King's Speech [2010] fame) to FDR at his summer retreat on the Hudson and one could understand why this director would be interested in this story at this time.

So what then to make of the film?  I thought it was well acted and crafted.  I do think that some on the fringes of the American Right will probably get an undo thrill in watching a film about the personal life and failings of a towering (and Liberal) icon like FDR.  BUT ... there is a story here in this film and it is one that will hopefully help current and future generations of both men and women from making the same mistakes.

Finally, the film has an R-rating and probably appropriately so.  There is no nudity in the film, but the themes are such that many/most parents would probably appreciate being consulted prior to letting their child (and even a teen in high school) see the film.  


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The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey [2012]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-II)  Michael Phillips (2 1/2 Stars)  AV Club (B-)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB review
Michael Phillips review
AV Club review

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey [2012] (directed and screenplay cowritten by Peter Jackson along with Guillermo del Toro, Fran Walsh and Philipa Boyens) is the first of three films based on the J.R.R. Tolkien [IMDb] novel The Hobbit [Amazn] planned to be released over the course of the next several years.

Given that Peter Jackson was able to fit Tolkien's [IMDb] whole Lord of the Rings trilogy into a series of three films, the breaking up of a single book, The Hobbit, (shorter than any of the three books making the LOTR trilogy) also into three films each as long as those made for the LOTR series seems at first, second and third blush to be a brazen attempt to further milk previous commercial success.

But here, honestly, I'd like to say that I DON'T CARE.  If one was at all enamored by (or perhaps more fittingly here, enchanted by ;-) the LOTR series, then just bask in the opportunity to spend a few extra hours in the "Middle Earth" of these films because the New Zealand location, the CGI and the cinematography in general are once again simply AWESOME.  I saw the cheapest possible version of this movie that I could see (the 2D and presumably 24 frame/sec version) and I still was awed.  And I would imagine that _this time_ the 3D, 3D IMAX and 48 frames/sec versions would be _well worth the price_.

Further, I fully intend to recommend this film to younger vocation prospects because The Hobbit, perhaps even more than the LOTR, is about a fundamental question in Life: Does one want to spend it living safely/comfortably as a "half-ling" in a house _already_ "half in the ground" and in a "shire" where "nothing unexpected ever happens?" OR is one ABLE TO TAKE THE RISK, like Bilbo Baggins (played in the film by Martin Freeman) and _accept_ (however reluctantly initially) the invitation of "the Wizard" Gandalf (played by Ian McKellen) and go on "an unexpected journey," a journey that asks one to take up a fight that isn't even really one's own - helping the fun-loving but somewhat crass "Dwarves" (also "little people") regain their dignity/homeland?  Can one do that?

There was a Servite priest who was my "Wizard Gandalf" who entered into my life when I was in my 20s, and I am a Servite priest as a result and I've _certainly_ experienced _plenty of adventures_ both big and small and often across the planet ever since.

So I just loved this movie and encourage ANYONE who still can imagine defending justice and "slaying dragons" to go see it and especially the young: YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO DREAM and see a world that is bigger than simply the mundane, to see a world that is _wonder-full_ and ultimately worthy of the greatest wonder -- God.


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Playing for Keeps [2012]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB(A-III)  Roger Ebert (2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars with Explanation)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB review
Roger Ebert's review

Playing for Keeps (directed by Gabriele Muccino, screenplay by Robbie Fox) continues a several years long Hollywood trend of producing surprisingly serious (or perhaps even inappropriately serious, if one doesn't realize what one is getting into) "rom-coms."

Let me explain. This film is about a fictional former Scottish soccer star named George (played by Gerard Butler) and his American former wife Stacie (played by Jessica Biel).  She had apparently been "swept off of her feet" initially her charming Scottish accented soccer star ex who she met while traveling Europe in her college-student 20s.  But had left him some years later after having growing tired of (and increasingly humiliated by) being asked to play the role of a "ball player's wife" in a partied-up social environment that we Americans "across the pond" understand all too well as well: The "ball player's wife" is asked to smile in the stands while her husband "scores" even as she knows that there are at least ten other beautiful women right behind her who're "smiling" at her husband as well ... After some years of this and having a kid with George named Lewis (by film's start 10 years old and played by Noah Lomax), Stacie had packed up her bags and moved back to more sensible/down-to-earth suburban Virginia to start her life anew.

And that she did.  We find early in the film that Stacie had found a new, more sensible guy, named Matt (played by James Tupper) whom after three years of living with him (along with her/George's son...) she was now preparing to marry.   In the meantime, George's soccer playing career had run its course and the beginning of the film finds him, in his late thirties, having come to Virginia to try to finally reconnect with his kid (and perhaps, of course, with Stacie).  

So this then is the setup for this "rom-com."  It's not a bad film.  But a _light_ "date movie" it certainly is not.  I'm not sure I'd want to take children of divorce to it either.  And I would be ESPECIALLY CAREFUL with YOUNG CHILDREN of troubled marriages/divorce (honestly, Parents take note ...) because this film plays with emotions in a rollercoaster sort of a way that I'd frankly find cruel when it comes to children actually living such situations.

HOWEVER, as a _serious_ "date movie," for young couples contemplating _growing-up_ and entering into a relationship in a serious way (and that would honestly come to mean a serious, lifelong marital commitment...), I honestly think the film could be excellent because it really shows THE EFFECTS (if still in a "safe" / "detached" sort of way) of _not growing-up_ or taking one's relationships seriously. 

I write this because look back at the setup for this film: No matter how this film's plot is resolved (and I'm not going to tell you) _somebody_ in the story is going to get hurt.  The only questions are who/how many? and how much?

Yes, there are points of comic relief in the film.  During the course of the film, the former soccer star George takes on the task of serving as "coach" for Lewis' little-league soccer team, thus finding himself dealing with an assortment of largely crayon drawn upscale soccer moms / parents -- played by Catherine Zeta Jones, Uma Thurman and Dennis Quaid among others.  But even their characters / "stories" are surprisingly sad / pathetic.

So even if the movie does have some laughs, it is fundamentally _not_ a particularly cheerful film.  However, if it helps couples to enter into de facto serious relationships _seriously_ then it would be worth the watch.  Honestly folks, no one wants to hurt people when we are young, BUT if we take our time growing up ... we will.


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Killing them Softly [2012]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (O)  Roger Ebert (2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB review
Roger Ebert's review

My sense is that one's reaction to the quite violent, certainly appropriately R-rated film (parents take note...) film Killing them Softly (directed and screenplay by Andrew Dominik based on the novel by George V. Higgins), certainly aiming for Oscar consideration, will depend on one's politics.

This is because the film set in the New Orleans underworld in the fall of 2008 as the current Financial Crisis was unfolding juxtaposes speeches made at the time by the outgoing President G.W. Bush, his Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and the incoming President Barrack Obama, with a terribly ill-conceived and consequently botched attempt by a small group of "lower level wiseguys" to "knock-over" a mob run (hence already illegal) poker game.

Thus to buy-into the film one has to ask oneself if one accepts the film's premise that the U.S. economy is _also_ being run by a clique of perhaps far richer but still not altogether bright / "out of their depth" "white-collar wiseguys."  America's right-wing not withstanding, my sense is that probably the vast majority of American adult viewers and probably most viewers world wide will probably giddily relish indulging in the film's cynical / "hard boiled" premise even as they suspect the view to be over-simplified.  (To this date NO ONE has been charged much less gone to jail for the 2008 Wall Street financial meltdown...).

To the story... The film begins with lower level "wiseguy" Johnny Amato (played by Vincent Curatola) who runs a New Orleans dry-cleaning business talking two 20-something drifter-lowlifes, Frankie (played by Schoot McNairy) and Russell (played by Ben Mendelsohn), into knocking-over an illegal card game run for the mob by 40-something Markie Trattman (played by Ray Liotta).  The game had already been "knocked-over" _once_, a number of years before, and some months afterwards in a drunken stupor, Markie had _stupidly_ confessed to having staged it himself.  After being subsequently roughed-up/making appropriate amends, Markie had been given back responsibility for the card game (presumably because the mob bosses felt that Markie would ensure that the game would now be "the safest" in town ... from their perspective).

But that's how Johnny Amato got his "bright idea."  IF ANYBODY "knocked-over" Markie's card game, guess who the Mob's gonna blame? -- Markie.  So good-ole Johnny explains to Frankie: "We have to do this because if we don't SOMEBODY ELSE WILL, and _we'll_ then be kicking ourselves for being so stupid for having had the idea and not doing it first..." (Sounds kinda like the logic behind the "mortgage backed derivatives" frenzy of the mid-2000s)  "You're a genius boss!" exclaims Frankie ... and a few days later there's Frankie and Aussie-accented Russell with pantyhose over their heads knocking over Markie's card game ...

But of course, the Mob's a little more intelligent in sifting through the pieces after Frankie and Russell knocked-over the card game than Johnny expected.  A few days later there's a mob "driver" (played by Richard Jenkins) talking to the cool, straight talking "go to fixer"/assassin Jackie (played by Brad Pitt).  The "driver" explains that the Mob still has a "soft spot" for Markie, screw-up that he's been ... Jackie tells him that "guilty or not" Markie's gotta go down "in order to _restore confidence_" (again, sound familiar? ...).

And then there are the other three "clowns."  What of them?  Well Jackie suggests "outsourcing" some of the work to a friend named Mickey (played by James Gandolfini) from Maryland because Jackie himself knew one of the guys involved and it's "it's kinda hard to kill someone you've had a working relationship with ..."

The rest of the film _methodically_ ensues ...

Again, almost every adult in America and probably across the world will understand this film.  The question is whether one buys its fundamental premise. And my sense is probably most viewers, at least on a gut level will...  I would add, that I suspect that both Brad Pitt (for Best Actor in a Leading Role) and Richard Jenkins (for Best Actor in a Supporting Role) will get consideration for Oscar nominations for their performances...

ADDENDUM - A great documentary on the 2008 Financial Crisis, reviewed here, and the winner for Best Documentary at the Oscars last year, was Inside Job [2010].


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Silver Linings Playbook [2012]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  Roger Ebert (3 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (2 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB review
Roger Ebert's review

I am honestly baffled at the praise being given to Silver Linings Playbook (directed and screenplay by David O. Russell based on the novel by Matthew Quick) to say nothing of the "Oscar Buzz" that appears to surround it. Perhaps the buzz is the result of the book's/film's stab at presenting bi-polar / obsessive-compulsive disorder on screen.  Certainly, there have been plenty of dramas built around alcoholism/various kinds of addictions and even a few films about autism over the years.  But this film, honestly felt like a rather average romcom (though it perhaps intended to be more than this, but _didn't_ have the courage to be that then) only to be picked up and be inexplicably "graced" by (as is generally the case of Grace after all ...) more or less undeserved critical praise.

Don't get me wrong, I _like_ the actors.  I believe that Bradley Cooper's performance in The Words [2012] was far better than he (or that film) was given credit for (and arguably better than his performance here).  I _also_ like Jennifer Lawrence.  I was just beginning this blog when Winter's Bone [2010] came and and very quickly went, so I missed her there.  But she was _outstanding_ as Raven/Mystique in X-Men: First Generation [2011], basically "okay" (probably her biggest role but mostly "action") in The Hunger Games [2012] and even honestly quite good in the still "young" role in the recent horror picture House at the End of the Street [2012].  Then Robert De Niro is, of course, a legend.  But over all, this film feels far more like Meet the Parents [2000]/Fockers [2004] than Rain Man [1988], Clean and Sober [1988] or Shame [2011].  Consider simply last year's film, Take Shelter [2011] a film _also_ about borderline mental illness and how much more _gravitas_ it carried than this one.  I refuse to accept that Silver Linings Playbook is "as good as it gets" to take the title of another Hollywood film [1997] made about OCD.  SLP is not a terrible movie but IMHO it's not a particularly great one...

So what then is this rather average film about?  The film begins with Pat (played by Bradley Cooper) a former smalltime college professor who having been recently released from a State mental institution is now staying with his parents Pat, Sr (played by Robert De Niro) and Dolores (played by Jacki Weaver), his wife Veronica (played by Julia Stiles) who he is separated from having put a restraining order on him.

What did Pat do to warrant being placed in a State operated mental institution and even following release having a restraining order held against him by his estranged wife?  Well, coming home from work one day, he found his Department Head having sex with his wife in the shower and ... enraged (or perhaps ENRAGED) he nearly beat his now former Department Head to death.  Early in the film, we hear Pat telling the Counselor, Dr. Patel (played by Anupam Kher) who he's still required to see "I just had one bad incident in my life ..." and Dr. Patel, telling him in a calm but straight-forward voice "one bad incident can be enough..."  While incarcerated, Pat was diagnosed with having Bi-Polar disorder.

Back home now, trying to really hard to rebuild his life his shattered life on account of that "one bad incident" and still under all kinds of medication ... he _does_ exhibit _some_ classic characteristics of Manic behavior.  (1) Despite what has happened to him he remains almost "wildly optimistic."  Indeed, he calls his journal "The Silver Lining Playbook" from which the story gets its name.  And he honestly keeps believing that _somehow_ his estranged wife will take him back.  (2) Besides this almost insane and (one suspects) forced optimism, he stays up late at night, arguing with the books that he's reading (he used to teach literature...) and he tries really hard to put himself into great physical shape (again to try to win his estranged wife back).

We know, of course, that she's _not_ coming back.  And I think that more than a few of us looking at the film would wonder if he's really mentally ill.  BUT then he did nearly kill a man. BUT WHY DID HE DO THAT?  Because he caught him having sex with his wife in the shower?  BUT then why was his wife cheating on him to begin with...?

But none of this matters.  For the foreseeable future, Pat is going to be consigned to a whole lot of supervision while being prescribed a whole lot of psychiatric drugs (all with varying side-effects) with the goal of stabilizing him (rather than further destabilizing him).  AND YET he really should be happy that he's not in jail or still in a mental institution...

Into this story of a wounded, arguably shattered man, who's future is (one hopes) in the hands of competent experts at least as much as it is in his own hands, enters another wounded person.  She's a young widow named Tiffany (played by Jennifer Lawrence) who was actually a mutual friend of Pat and his estranged wife.  Tiffany _also_ took _her loss_ badly and began to act out in all sorts of (apparently sexually) inappropriate ways to the point that her parents finally had her institutionalized (for depression).  And she too, now out of the mental institution has also become a veteran of a rather robust regimen of psychiatric medicines.  (When the two sets of parents set these to broken 30-something year-olds together, Pat and Tiffany share stories of what it felt like to be on Lithium and so forth ...).

So there is the story.  It's awful.  It's confused.  Honestly more than a few viewers will wonder if either of these two people were really as "mentally ill" as diagnosed.  And yet _both_ had acted out (he once, she apparently for a sufficiently long amount of time to warrant serious concern by her parents/loved ones) in _dangerous ways_.  The coup de grace of course is that Pat's father is more or less obviously obsessive compulsive but beyond being asked by the Philadelphia Eagles to stop attending their games (because he would apparently get into fights in the stadium during their games), he's never been treated for anything...

But that then is life ... and again whatever secret doubts the viewer may have about the judgements/diagnoses that society has made about all three of these characters -- Pat, Tiffany and his father -- hopefully one understands _why_ society made those judgements.

So how does this movie flow from here?  Well, it's a Hollywood movie so it has to end reasonably well.  Much does ensue.  A narrative is sort of pieced together.  But the story isn't particularly pretty and it certainly is not neat.  It ends with perhaps as much ambiguity / confusion as it began:

Is Pat really that sick and can he "get better?"  Honestly, who knows?  BUT he really did have that _one really bad incident_ and honestly, would you/could you trust him?  Sigh ...


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