Neighbors [2014]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (O)  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RE.com (2 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (2 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (S. Wloszczyna) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

What to say on this blog about Neighbors [2014] (directed by Nicholas Stoller, screenplay by Amdrew J. Cohen and Brendan O'Brien)?  After all at minimum, the film is at least in part a celebration (if largely nostalgically) of young adult / juvenile excess.  And yet (read on ...) there is actually more going on.  The film is actually _mostly_ about "growing up."

Mac and Kelly Radner (played by Seth Rogan and Rose Byrne) a young married couple still adjusting to the entry of their first child Stella (played by Elise and Zoey Vargas) into their lives has been trying really, really hard to make the transition from being "young and carefree" to "being responsible" without "selling out" (forgetting completely about how it was to be "young and carefree").  Mac's got some sort of an accounting job "downtown."  Even though Kelly and Mac met in college and so Kelly presumably has a college degree of her own, she/they've decided to have her be a "stay at home mom" if perhaps only for a while (and it's clear that she doesn't particularly like it ...).  They've bought a house in a relatively nice, still "kinda happening," residential section of town (if the film were in Chicago they'd be living in perhaps "Wrigleyville" or "Bucktown").

They're also dealing with (and again truth be told rather unhappy with) their best (and somewhat more irresponsible) friends presumably "from college days" Jimmy and Paula (played by Ike Barinholtz and Carla Gallo respectively) having decided that marriage was not for them and filing for divorce.  Indeed, Mac and Kelly are discovering how much divorce sucks "for the friends" of the divorcing couple as they've liked both Jimmy and Paula (and Mac even still works with Jimmy).  Yet now Jimmy and Paula don't want to do things together anymore ... forcing Mac and Kelly to constantly "choose between them."  Sigh ...

Well these very human adjustments (the arrival of baby daughter Stella) and frustrations/disappointments (having to deal with the divorce of their best friends) quickly get compounded in a far starker way when to their surprise, then shock, then horror the house next door gets purchased not by a "gay couple" (which presumably would have _helped_ increase the value of their home) but rather _by a College Fraternity_ from a nearby university, college students being notoriously penniless and Frats notoriously loud.  (Indeed, at one point when Mac and Kelly consider just getting-out and selling their home, this after "putting all that they had" into improving it before the Frat moved in, they're told by their real estate agent that the Frat's presence has HALVED the value of their home.  "You mean after all that we've put into our home, we lost HALF ITS VALUE because of that Frat?" they ask.  "Well, that's the bad news," the real estate agent responds. "The good news in, at least you still retain at least half its original value in this crazy time in this business."  Welcome to post 2008 financial crisis realities ...

But the Frat involves a far bigger challenge to Mac and Kelly than "merely money" (though losing HALF the value of one's house because of a Frat moving in next door is losing some serious money).  The Frat becomes a daily (and NIGHTLY) reminder to Mac and Kelly that they're "no longer young anymore."

Not that Frats necessarily represent "the Best of being Young" however.  Drugs, alcohol, utterly irresponsible sex all maim and kill.  The whole lifestyle REQUIRES _literally_ dehumanizing unwanted children produced through utterly-un-thought-through sexual activity labeling these children "fetuses" and thus allowing them to _become_ "abortable" that is _disposable_ ("Out of sight, out of mind ...").

 And yet the film, while not being that blunt about it, certainly points out the shallowness and _temporariness_ of the lifestyle:

At one point still early in the story, Kelly explains to some Sorority girls hanging out at a Frat Party that she and Mac were attending (both they and the Frat brothers were still trying to size each other up) how she and Mac met in college, fell in love, got married, moved to this neighborhood, had first child and so forth.  And the Sorority girls are all impressed: "Oooh, how sweet!" they respond with approval.  When Kelly asks one of the sorority girls how she met her boyfriend, she answered; "Well he came up to me at a party one night, told me that I was Hot ... and we've been Together ever since."  Not exactly the kind of "romance" that inspires Sonnets or Love Songs ...

Then poor, poor, ever tan and well-chiseled Teddy (played perfectly by Zac Efron), the Frat's president.  Utterly, utterly sincere, he's the only one who believes in the ritual (and party) life of the Frat.  And by the end of the film, it's clear-as-day that he's absolutely terrified of what's gonna happen after College is done.  His best friend, Frat V.P. Pete (played again to a tee by Dave Franco) is loyal, indeed as best a friend as one could have in one's young adult years.  BUT he also knows that "all this must end" and has been preparing (notably ... STUDYING) so that he could get a good job afterwards.

So for all the often very funny (if often very, very juvenile/irresponsible) antics that go-on throughout the film, the film is ultimately about Mac and Teddy on opposite sides of the transition to adulthood.  Mac (and at times also his wife Kelly) is looking back "to how it used to be" (and wishing he could still be there).  Teddy's looking toward the future ... with ever increasing fear.

But one way or another ... we all make that transition.  Hopefully, we have some good memories of "how it was."  But also hopefully we haven't "left a lot of wreckage ..."

So there it is.  Like a lot of reviewers, I'm left with the conclusion that "this film is actually better than it should be" ;-).  And I have a feeling that's what those associated with this film were aiming for ;-).

Just please honestly don't "hook-up" with people that you wouldn't have ANY idea of what you'd do with if you produced a child with them.  EVERYONE, including the child ... and God (our and the child's creator) ... deserves better than that.


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Locke [2013]

MPAA (Unrated would be R)  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RE.com (3 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (4+ Stars)

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub (A.A. Drive) review

Locke [2013] (written and directed by Steven Knight) is a remarkable in some sense truly "bare-bones minimalist" film that would be both a true film enthusiast's and A MORALIST'S delight. 

The film begins with a middle-aged construction engineer, Ivan Locke (played by Tom Hardy) at some kind of a construction site, coming to the end of day's work, coming to his car, a BMW (signalling early that he's no ordinary construction engineer but probably some sort of a project manager).  We see the sun setting to the West, but as this is somewhere in presumably Northern England, it's also starting to rain.

He enters the car, docks his cell phone to whatever "hands-free apparatus" his car would have.  We hear an automated voice referring to some sort of a "Bluetooth" (wireless) handshake/docking commencing as he starts his car.  And soon he's on his way.

Now where is he going?  Neither West (toward the Sunset) nor East (presumably toward a Rainbow as both the sun remains out if setting and it is raining).  Instead, he appears to be heading South.  Where?  Toward London, which we learn is about an hour and a half away.  Why?  Well that's what we begin to learn as we listen-in on the cell phone calls that he begins to make as he gets on some intercity expressway heading South from his place of work toward London.

We soon find out that he's heading to London, and not home to his wife and two teenage boys, because just before work's end, he had received a phone-call from a London woman, about his age, with whom he had a one-night affair some 7 months before, telling him that "her water broke" and asking him, since she was all alone, if he could come down to London to be with her for the birth of _their_ child.

Now it turns out, through hearing-in on subsequent conversations as Ivan drives toward London, that she, a rather lonely and generally depressed old sort, was pregnant with his child a few months earlier and Ivan had wanted to tell his wife about this (with all its attendant ramifications...) ever since then, but that he had "never found the right time" to do so.  And he did actually still think that he had "some time" (after all, she was only in her 7th month ...).  But now, she had called him just before this day's work with this news, and he decided that he's going to have to do this favor (of going down to be with this woman as she gives birth to his and her child) for the sake of both of them.

What to tell his wife?  What would _you_ tell your wife if you found yourself in this situation?  THIS IS A GOOD PART OF WHAT MAKES THIS FILM SO, SO FASCINATING. 

AS A CATHOLIC PRIEST counseling someone ASKING ME what to do, I'd PROBABLY TELL THAT PERSON to PERHAPS NOT LIE (though a SMALL _TEMPORARY_ LIE IN THIS CIRCUMSTANCE FOR THE SAKE OF, IN GOOD PART, THE WIFE'S OWN PEACE, I'd find completely understandable) but to FIND SOME PLAUSIBLE EXCUSE for not coming home ("Honey, the Project that I'm working on, requires me to remain here late tonight and I may not be able to come home until tomorrow.  BUT I WILL EXPLAIN TOMORROW."

Instead, _perhaps because he no longer trusted himself_ (He's had two months to break this news to his wife and HASN'T) Ivan decides that he's had enough of procrastinating and ON THE PHONE, WHILE DRIVING, WHILE IT'S RAINING, DOWN A RANDOM AND NOW DARK INTERCITY EXPRESSWAY WITH MODERATE TRAFFIC BUT SOME CONSTRUCTION tells his wife in a calm voice THAT HE'S NOT COMING HOME THAT NIGHT AND ... WHY HE ISN'T DO SO ... because he made this one mistake in 15 years of marriage 7 months ago and now he owes it to this woman, who is otherwise alone, and her and indeed his, child to be there when this child enters the world.

It's a remarkable conversation and AGAIN HONESTLY, GIVEN THE CIRCUMSTANCES, I ACTUALLY WOULD HAVE COUNSELED AGAINST IT.  This conversation, as painful as it was, deserved to be done FACE TO FACE at home.

But ... ;-/ ... that's _not the only thing_ that's going on.  HE'S A PROJECT ENGINEER ... INDEED, THE LEAD PROJECT ENGINEER for the construction of a new skyscraper being built somewhere in the northern England.  THE NEXT DAY, EARLY IN THE MORNING, THE SKYSCRAPER'S FOUNDATION WAS GOING TO BE POURED ... a complex concrete pour that we find out the local papers had reported was going to be "the biggest non-military concrete pour in Europe since the end of the Cold War."  AND HE HAS TO CALL HIS BOSS TO TELL HIM THAT HE'S NOT GOING TO BE THERE FOR IT EITHER (It was scheduled to begin early the next morning, with a tight synchronization of all sorts of cement trucks, local road closures, etc, etc).

What would you tell your boss?  He again tells him in a calm, straight forward voice, WHILE DRIVING IN THE RAIN (windshield wipers rhythmically moving to-and-fro clearing the water from the wind shield so that he could see) AT NIGHT (the glare of headlight beams and various other lights regularly appearing/disappearing on said wet-windshield) IN MODERATE TRAFFIC (the outlines and tail lights of cars as well as various traffic signs and occasional construction barriers appearing in front of him and at his sides), the same story that he told his wife: That he has to go down to London that night to be there for the birth of a child of his by a woman who was not his wife, that he did not even particularly know, but who needed and requested his presence at this very important event for her, for him and their child.

The Boss, incredulous, angry and in something of a panic, responds "Why couldn't you have just told me THAT YOU WERE SICK?" and tells him that he's going to have to report this up the line to the architectural firm "in Chicago" and that they're almost certainly going to "want his head" for this.  Ivan responds, that he knows, but that he preferred to just tell the truth at this point (even if it wasn't necessarily any of his boss' / the firm's business to know other than that he wasn't going to at the construction site that next day).

In the meantime, first the woman and then the hospital call that there are "complications with the delivery."  Again, calmly, while driving at night, in the rain, in moderate traffic down an intercity expressway with moderate construction on it, he deals with issues pertaining to the health and perhaps even future of both a woman he hardly knows and a child that he's found recently that he's having with her all because of his one-time moral failing seven months before.

Further, in the meanting, his wife is needless to say UPSET.  One of his teenage sons calls in the middle of all this happening wondering why he's not home yet 'because the game is on' and tells him how 'the game's going ...' ;-).  Then, even though Ivan's not going to be at the construction site the next day, the day of this GREAT AND VERY IMPORTANT "POUR" he has to instruct at least his SUBORDINATES "what to do" ... all while driving, while it's raining, at night, in moderate traffic on a random intercity expressway between somewhere in Northern England and London, on a road that's also having some moderate construction going on.

WHAT A MOVIE ;-) ;-)

How does it end?  GO, FIND AND WATCH IT ;-)

Honestly, what a remarkable discussion piece.

I would also add that the film makers make it RATHER CLEAR that Ivan is someone of _no faith_.  He's both fallen and has been trying to rectify things IN A MORAL FASHION not because he believes in God but because _he believes that this is the right thing to do_.  HONESTLY, VERY GOOD.  Yet for a believer or non ... I still think that this is A GREAT FILM THAT LEAVES VIEWERS WITH MUCH TO REFLECT ON and TALK ABOUT.

Outstanding, simply outstanding!


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Here's the Deal (orig. Somos Gente Honrada) [2013]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)   Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
Sensacine.com listing*

Here's the Deal (orig. Somos Gente Honrada) [2013] [IMDb] [SC]* (directed and cowritten by Alejandro Marzoa [IMDb] [SC]* along with Miguel Ángel Blanca [IMDb] [SC]* and Juan Cruz [IMDb] [SC]*) is a bitter-sweet comedy from Spain that played recently at the 30th Chicago Latino Film Festival.

Set in contemporary Spain (Galicia), it's about two friends, middle-aged -- Manolo (played by Miguel de Lira [IMDb] [SC]*) and Suso (played by Paco Tous [IMDb] [SC]*) -- who both seem to have been dumped at the side of the road by the economic dislocations of our times.  Manolo once had a construction business building vacation condos until the real estate boom dried-up thanks to the 2008 world-wide financial crisis.  Suso used to run a newspaper kiosk until the internet boom rendered his quaint little neighborhood store obsolete.

So what do the two do?  They meet each afternoon by the river flowing through their seaside town to go fishing.  Well one evening instead reeling-in "a big fish," they reel-in a plastic-covered package that turns out to contain 10 kilos of cocaine.  Wow.  What to do?  Both know that to do anything with the package (other than turn it over to the police) would be illegal and almost certainly dangerous BUT THEY FOUND 10 KILOS OF COCAINE and the street value would make A LOT of their current financial problems go away: Manolo's business had completely collapsed with the only people calling him being creditors threatening legal action, while Suso's been reduced to depending on his father-in-law to keep his family afloat with his father-in-law making it absolutely clear that he thought of him as a "complete loser of a man" and his daughter's "biggest mistake."  On the other side of the coin, Manolo's 20-something daughter is dating a cop and Suso has a college age son.  Could they bring themselves to basically sell drugs to "their kids" or at least "their kids' friends" (their kids' generation)?

So this then is their dilemma: Is economic survival / reestablishing a certain level of financial dignity (even if it's based on a lie, indeed, crime) worth the cost of not being able to look one's own kids in the eye?  (Spanish title of the film is "We're Honorable People" after all). 

The rest of the movie flows from there.  Since this is "a comedy" after all ;-), I can assure readers here that there is a "happy ending." ;-)

But wow, what a story with a lot of heartache ... yet ever told with a gentle smile. 


* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser.  

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Where the Sun is Born (orig. Releb'al Q'ij / Dónde Nace el Sol) [2013]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
Official Website

Yepan.cl review*

Where the Sun is Born (orig. Releb'al Q'ij / Dónde Nace el Sol) [2013] (directed by Elías Jiménez, screenplay by Edgar Sajcabún) is a remarkable Guatemalan film that played recently at the 30th Chicago Latino Film Festival.  It holds the distinction of being the first feature length film to be made almost entirely in the native Quiche (Mayan) language (available with English / Spanish subtitles).

Leaning on both the symbolism of the Mayan Popol Vuh as well as the now famous literary/artistic tradition of Latin American Magical Realism, it tells the story of "Maya" (played by various actresses) in four segments across five centuries from the Spanish Conquest in the 1500s to the Present day.

In the opening segment, Maya is told by her Grandmother that their World is held together by two intertwining Serpents representing Time and Space.  However, when the Spanish Conquistadors come, they burn the Tapestry of those two intertwining Snakes that the Grandmother had been making for her Granddaughter, sending Maya's world into Chaos.  Before dieing, the Grandmother tells Maya that in order to restore the previous order, she must find her way to "The Land where the Sun is Born."

However in the second segment where Maya and as well as other Mayan refugees soon find themselves is The Land "Where the Sun Dies."  Yet there is hope.  In the midst of desert and darkness she finds that she finds a "friend."  Brave, he tries to resist the Conquistadors who continue to pursue the remainder of her people.  And before he's killed he turns himself into a "humming bird" serving her from then on as a recurring animal/spiritual companion for the rest of her journey.

But the Trek from "The Land where the Sun has Died" to "The Land where the Sun is Born" is long and soon she finds herself on a Raft floating seemingly timelessly down a River (from the time of the Conquest to the Present Day) to "The Land where the Waters End."  And during this seemingly endless journey she's tormented by another kind of bird (a Parrot) who spends his time changing back and forth between his Bird form and that of the Conquistador and continually mocks her.

Finally, she ends in "The Land where the Air Comes From" somewhere in the Jungle.  There she finds both the stone monuments of her previous culture AND new helicopter born / M-16 carrying Conquistadors who seem to want to both shoot the remainder of her people and burn the jungle down.  However, in the midst of the burning forests, the Conquistadors themselves choke (for lack of clean air).

And so the Conquistadors seem to finally dissipate into the air and Maya and her remaining Mayan companions find themselves by the stone monuments (Pyramids) of their previous culture where they seek to watch the sun rise to begin a New Day and then to reconstruct that Tapestry of the Intertwining Serpants of both Space and Time.

It's really a remarkable fable, well shot and well acted by indigenous Mayan actors. The film's director Elías Jiménez, present at the screening, promised that this film along with others made (with Norwegian and Cuban support) by the indigenous Mayan Casa Comal collective will become available FOR FREE on their community's website / youtube (or vimeo) channel.  For those who are interested in indigenous cultures this film will be well worth looking up.


* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser.  

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The Railway Man [2013]

MPAA (R)  ChicagoTribune (2 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (2 1/2 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  AARP (3 1/2 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
AARP.org (M. Grant) review
RE.com (C. Levine) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

The Railway Man [2013] (directed by Jonathan Teplitzky, screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce and Andy Paterson, based on the memoir of Eric Lomax [IMDb]) tells the remarkable story of Eric Lomax (played as a young British signals officer soon POW after the Fall of Singapore to the Japanese during WW II by Jeremy Irvine and 35 years later as an older still wounded WW II veteran by Colin Firth).

The ignominious defeat of the British by the Japanese in Singapore has been largely blamed on Brits'  simultaneously arrogant and incompetent Imperial commanders who had convinced themselves that the Japanese would "never be able to reach Singapore" much less by land via Malaysia (Well they did ...) and when Japanese arrived they proved unable to organize a coherent defense against them.  The Commanders' failures, of course, were then horribly paid-for by both Singapore's heavily Chinese citizenry as well as the rank-and-file British/Colonial troops who they handed-over _largely without a fight_ to the Japanese.  The Imperial Japanese WHO NEVER HAD MUCH RESPECT FOR P.O.W.s considered the British troops so _unceremoniously_ handed-over to them by their generally gutless brandy drinking commanders as "men without honor."  The rest of the story unspooled from there...

Young Lomax along with the other members of his signals (radio) officers were transported from Singapore down to Malaysia and across to Thailand to help build the infamous Siam-Burma Railway about which the famous post-WW II film Bridge Over The River Kwai [1957] was made.  The British POWs were horribly mistreated.  Asked at one point why they were being so inhumanly treated, a Japanese guard tells them: "You are men without honor.  You (simply) surrendered."  To which Lomax and his compatriots respond, "WE didn't."  But they had, or at least were surrendered (by gutless commanders) and now were being worked to death under unbearable sweltering conditions by their Japanese captors who considered them unworthy of concern.

What to do?  Well these were former signals officers.  So with commandeered parts (and a couple of key vacuum tubes still secreted away with them from their radio sets back in Singapore -- and hidden from their Japanese captors) they build a radio set TO SIMPLY CATCH NEWS ABOUT THE WAR (Here the wartime BBC is shown serving its truly legendary inspiring role during the worst days of WW II).  Inevitably the radio war discovered.  Lomax in particular was tortured for having assembled it.  But at least they were resisting rather than simply following orders.

Eventually, of course, the Japanese lost the war and the British POWs in Thailand were freed.  What now?  How do these scarred, beaten men get fixed?

Well as in the U.S., these vets now back in Britain would meet, talk (and not talk...) about past events, but mainly just remain together as an understandably rather closed group, understanding that truthfully almost no one "outside" could possibly understand.

But life does go on ... and so in 1980 (!) Lomax (now played by Colin Firth) finds by chance on a train a woman named Patti (played by Nicole Kidman) who he soon falls in love with and they marry.  Yet, though finding himself in a position to (finally) be happy ... what's today called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder sets in.  He starts having terrible nightmares recalling the worst moments of his captivity building the railroad in Thailand.  But Patti happens to be a former nurse and she both decides and proves to have the skills to help.  There's also a friend and fellow vet/POW Filnay (played when young during the War/Captivity by Sam Reid and later in 1980 by Stellan Skarsgård).  Finally, they all find (and are appalled) that apparently one of the former Japanese officers, named Takeshi Nagase (played when young by Tanroh Ishida and as an older man by Hiroyuki Sanada), who had served as an interpreter during their torture and interrogations during the War, had apparently opened "a Museum" (!) on the Siam-Burma line (to help explain how it was built).  This offers an opportunity for Lomax, Finley, et al, to finally confront their horrific past AND BE ABLE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

The rest of the story, which IMHO is truly remarkable, unspools from there ... and certainly offers much to reflect on and to talk about afterwards.


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The Amazing Spider-Man 2 [2014]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-II)  ChicagoTribune (2 Stars)  RE.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

AUSTRALIA: urbancinefile.com.au (L.Keller / A.L. Urban) review
BRAZIL: fohla.uol.br (T. DeMenses) review*
CZECH REP.: lidovky.cz (A.A. Pokropová) review*
GERMANY: actionfreunde.de review*
GERMANY: critik.de (N. Klingler) review*
INDIA: indiatimes.com (R.G. Rasquinha) review
ITALY: CineFile.biz (A. Cassani) review*
JAPAN: japantimes.co.jp (K. Shoji) review
RUSSIA: kinonews.ru reader-reviews*

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 [2014] directed by Marc Webb, screenplay and story by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Jeff Pinkner continuing the screen-story by James Vanderbilt based on Marvel comics' Spider-Man [Wiki] created by Stan Lee [IMDb] and Steve Ditko [IMDb]) is part 2 of the current reboot of the Marvel Comics based Spider Man trilogy of 2002-2007.  If perhaps long -- the current film goes on for nearly 2 hours and 20 minutes and perhaps needlessly involves three separate villains -- the portrayal of the ever chaste if also ever angst-driven / tortured, on-again / off-again relationship between the story's principal teenage protagonists Peter Parker/Spiderman [IMDb] (played in the current series by Andrew Garfield) and his girlfriend Gwen Stacy [IMDb] (played in the current series by Emma Stone) will probably be worth the trouble for most viewers.  Teens will relate and many/most adults will reminisce:

Yes, to many/most teenagers, life is _largely_ "drama."  And so whether Peter Parker [IMDb] and Gwen [IMDb] are breaking-up or making-up, or whether Peter Parker/Spiderman [IMDb] is facing off against a crazed psychopathic "Russian Mobster" named Alexei Sytsevich [IMDb] (played by Paul Giamatti at his wild-eyed best) driving a giant iron-clad "Rhino" suit or against a, thanks to an experiment-gone-awry involving "lots of Volts" (and electric eels), previously mild-mannered, indeed _powerless_ but now terrifying Tesla-ray spewing "human capacitor" named Maxwell Dillon / Electro [IMDb] (played by Jamie Foxx), it's "all the same."  To a teenager, a make-up or break-up or a "crisis at home" or among friends _can_ and feel like "the whole world is collapsing" with "buildings crashing," "bolts of electricity shooting all over the place" and lots and lots of "glass breaking."

And so one's enjoyment of this movie -- IMHO much better than the first of the current reboot -- will depend if one can "get into the zone."  Teens will probably already "be there." Their parents?  They may have to work at it a bit.  However, the film _could_ be a fun stroll down "memory lane" ... when _everything_, every smile, gesture or frown, "made a difference."

Finally, it's emerging Hollywood/American "dogma" that these "superhero" films are _loved_ across the world.  So I made an effort (above) to check what critics / audiences around the world had to say about the film, which was actually released internationally BEFORE it was released here in the United States.  My sense is that teens/young people around the world, like teens in the U.S. "can relate," while "older critics" (like in the U.S. as well) remain somewhat befuddled, wondering "Why do our kids seem to like these kind of films?" 

In any case, the key remains: Think back to when you were young... And if one can do that, one will "get" Marvel's genius and indeed the genius of the Spiderman story-line.


* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser.  

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Red Princesses (orig. Princesas Rojas) [2013]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
FilmAffinity listing*
Official Website

LaNacion [Costa Rica] coverage*
LaNacion [Costa Rica] (Y. La Cruz) review*
DeleFoco (Y. Oviedo) review*

Red Princesses (orig. Princesas Rojas) [2013] (directed and cowritten by Laura Astorga Carrera [IMDb] along with Daniela Goggi) is a Costa Rican film that played recently at the Chicago Latino Film Festival.

Set in the 1980s, the film tells the story of 10 year old Claudia (played by Valeria Conejo [IMDb]) and her younger sister Antonia (played by Aura Dinarte [IMDb]) who as daughters of Costa Rican leftist parents Flipe (played by Fernando Bolaños [IMDb] [DF]*) and Magda (played by Carol Sanabria) had spent much of their early lives growing-up in neighboring Sandinista dominated Nicaragua following the pro-Communist Revolution there (which had ousted the hated Samoza dictatorship) and during the subsequent "Contra War" (against U.S. backed post-Samoza anti-Communist forces).

At the beginning of the film, Claudia and Antonia's parents had decided (and received permission from their Sandinista commanders/allies...) to move their family from Managua, Nicaragua back to San José, Costa Rica.  Why?  Well that's a very good question and a good part of the task given to the audience as it watches the film is to try to come-up with a satisfactory answer.

Yes, it seems that Managua had become a relatively dangerous place to live as the Contra War ground on.  And yes, Felipe and Magda were NOT Nicaraguan (but rather Costa Rican sympathizers to the Sandinista cause).  Perhaps they had enough of a war that ultimately was "not theirs."

However, it was also clear at least at the beginning of the story that they were not simply leaving Nicaragua to "run away."  Instead, as soon as they returned to San José, Felipe and Magda settled into a document forging operation in support of the Sandinista regime.  (The film's director Laura Astorga Carrera present for Q&A after the film -- and who explained that the film was based on her own childhood experiences -- she would have been the 10 year old Claudia in the story -- explained that the kind of "support operation" that Claudia / Antonia's parents would have been involved in would have been done by Costa Ricans sympathizing with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and NOT by Sandinista Nicaraguans themselves because "Nicaraguans would have 'stood out' in Costa Rica at the time").

Yet it was ALSO clear that Magda's family (very, very regular middle class) in particular was quite happy to see their (perhaps "wayward") daughter and _her_ two young daughters (along with a husband who, while they weren't necessarily openly hostile to him, had after all, "married into the family" ...) finally "back home from Nicaragua" and presumably "out of harms way..."

After Felipe and Magda along with their girls arrived in San José, Magda's family quickly put the two girls in a nice Catholic grade school.

This is when we, the audience, first begin to appreciate just how "different" (from Western norms) Claudia and Antonia's upbringing had been up to that point: They had been growing-up in a quite "Spartan" milieu of fervent Sandinista regime (basically Communists) back in Managua.  Hence they didn't have (or even think to have) a lot of "stuff" and what they did have -- Claudia's prize possession was a box of various Communist pins from all over the Eastern Bloc.  So there were Soviet ones, Cuban ones, various East European ones, perhaps even a Libyan or Angolan / Mozambican one -- didn't make a lot of sense in their transplanted Costa Rican (and now back to more traditional Catholic) surroundings.

On their first day at their new school, the principal asked them if they knew their prayers and ... of course they didn't.  On the other hand, Antonia asked her older sister "where the Pioneers are" (the Communist equivalent of the Scouts) because she had apparently always wanted to be one (as Claudia apparently already had been).  Claudia answered, that the school apparently didn't have a Pioneer group yet and for a good part of the rest of the film, poor Claudia spends a fair amount of time, putting together a guidebook (from memory ... and remember that Claudia was a 10 year old) for a Pioneer group that she was going to start for her little sister and their friends.

Now since this story is being told primarily from the perspective of the 10 year old Claudia, the school scenes become absolutely priceless:  This is the story of two little previously Communist girls adapting to live in a renewed Catholic environment where (this is Central America in the 1980s after all) there were now ALSO Protestants.  So as the real drama "begin to happen" in the story (below) Claudia's Catholic friend always suggests "well let's pray an Our Father" or a "Hail Mary" about it (and patiently teaches Claudia how to pray these prayers), while another friend of both girls -- of "Communist Claudia" and her Catholic friend -- who's a daughter of a Protestant Minister always prays for Claudia and Antonia "from the heart" with these absolutely heartfelt/delightful renditions (again, she's also just 10 years old) of the more Pentacostalist prayer style that she knows from her home (with eyes closed yet gazing heavenward, "Oh Heavenly Father ...").  So if nothing else, these little previously "Communist girls" were loved by their believing (Catholic AND also Protestant) friends.  And they appreciated the heartfelt concern of these new friends, all 10 year olds, as well.

So what dramas start "happening" at Claudia / Antonia's home after they return after some years from Sandinista Managua?  Well ... a fairly short time after returning, Magda, their mother SUDDENLY and (not getting into details) WITH HELP FROM THE AMERICAN EMBASSY DITCHES THE FAMILY AND APPARENTLY RESURFACES A FEW DAYS LATER IN MIAMI (Florida, the United States).  What the heck happened?  Felipe (Claudia and Antonia's father, and Magda's husband) doesn't know what hit him and Claudia / Antonia don't understand really either.  Claudia feels sorry for her father.  Magda's family, on the other hand seems to understand totally.

Now obviously a lot still needs to be resolved as Magda's family appears, after all, to have been more or less traditionally Catholic and so having their daughter just dump and leave her daughters with her husband that she'd be presumably leaving, wouldn't make a lot of sense.  And yet to leave everybody and everything that she previously stood for -- La Revolución! after-all -- for the "Gringo-Imperialist" citadel of Miami seems so shocking to begin with.  So why would she do it?

The director, who was present at the screening, again freely told the audience that the story was based on her own early years with a couple of key differences -- in her actual story not just her mother but also the whole the family ALL took the opportunity once they got back to Costa Rica from Nicaragua to "ditch the Revolution" and flee to Miami.  She explained that to be fervent members of a revolutionary group like the Sandinistas became LIKE BEING IN A CULT: The only way to "get out" was to "get out" COMPLETELY.

The director added the twist in this fictionalized story of Magda, the mother of Claudia and Antonia coming to the conclusion that she "wanted out" without telling her husband Felipe.  (Or perhaps she simply/primarily OUT OF THE MARRIAGE).  IN ANY CASE, "to get out" meant FLEEING EVERYTHING not just "The Cause" but also (at least temporarily?) her husband and family.

It all makes for a very interesting / compelling story.  And while I don't necessarily expect this film to play on "HBO Latino" anytime soon (to say nothing of HBO, period), I do honestly hope that the director/film makers make the film available SOMEHOW for purchase or streaming.

Being a Catholic priest of Czech descent (hence with relatives who ALSO lived in the Communist Bloc) as well as having devoted most of my years as a Catholic priest in Hispanic Ministry, I found pretty much every single character in this story both believable and often _extremely well drawn_.

The couple, the kids, the family, the kids' friends they were ALL remarkably well crafted.  This was truly a remarkably well told story about human ties in a family in a time and place that was very complicated.  And it's a story that won't necessarily be told "in the mainstream."  GOOD JOB!


ADDENDUM:

Two films that I've reviewed previously on this blog that would be interesting to consider as one viewed/reviewed this film would be (1) the African American film For the Cause [2013] that played last year at the Black Harvest Film Festival (sponsored annually by the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago) that was about an estranged African American family (mother, father and grown daughter) struggling with secrets left-over from the mother's/father's days in the Black Panther movement and (2) Marthy Marcy Mae Marlene [2011] staring John Hawkes and Elizabeth Olsen about a young woman who was trying to get herself out of a cult (and her sympathetic but "out of her depth" older sister trying to help her do so).


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