On Something Unexpected with Labor Day

An escaped convict forces a lonely, agoraphobic single mother into taking him into her home where after some sensual baking experiences they fall in love. The convict, for the weekend he spends with the broken family, becomes a patriarch for the son and a new lease of life for the mother. The convict, somewhat inevitably goes back to jail (no love story is complete without tragedy) and the son becomes a famous chef after witnessing and partaking in some of the sensual kitchen activity. After twenty something years in jail the convict and the single mother are reunited and rekindle their love.

Everything about Labor Day sounds like a trashy middle-aged fantasy novel with a sun drenched book cover with a rugged convict and pretty young single mother. And Labor Day is a novel first (written by Joyce Maynard) and a Jason Reitman film second. That Jason Reitman directed Labor Day is somewhat of a surprise taking his past films into account. That the film is really quite good shouldn’t be a surprise (taking his past films into account), but considering the subject matter is better that you might imagine.

Thank You for Smoking (2005), Juno (2007), Up in the Air (2009) and Young Adult (2011), Reitman’s past features are in parts satirical, challenging, unexpected, pertinent, reflective. Labor Day is a simple, sun drenched love story. There are no unexpected twists as in Up in the Air, no culturally reflective narratives found in Young Adult or Thank You for Smoking. In, fact Labor Day is a historical love story, set during the 80s and feeling older than that.

Therefore Labor Day is an unexpected treat; it looks great, is well acted and genuinely moving. The narrative may at times stray into the realms of the fantastical or ridiculous, but Reitman does his best to keep it firmly down to earth and is mostly successful. Not only different in subject matter, which many of his films are, but different in tone and a welcome variation in both.

On the Success of Wes Anderson with The Grand Budapest Hotel

In October 2013 Abrams published a beautiful hardback book, The Wes Anderson Collection.  By Christmas 2013, the book couldn’t be found anywhere. It was a surprise hit to publishers and bookshops, but to anyone who has followed the feature film career of Wes Anderson, the shock of the book is symbolic of Anderson’s career.

From Bottle Rocket (1996) to his most recent feature, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Anderson has created characters and told stories that any business of film student will tell you shouldn’t sell. But, like the book Anderson’s inventive, anti-mainstream cinema is a success. The Grand Budapest Hotel was a number one film in the UK and worldwide has taken $12 million shy of $100 million, which is a remarkable achievement for a film with a budget of 23 million Euros. And this isn’t a rarity: The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), $71 million, Moonrise Kingdom (2012), $68 million, the animated Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) $45 million. Most filmmakers would kill for this kind of consistency!

Combine this with critical success (Anderson hasn’t made a film that disappoints) and his pick of actors (George Clooney, Harvey Keitel, Bill Murray. Edward Norton, Bruce Willis) and Anderson could be considered the most successful working director in America.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is beautifully crafted and has a collection of wonderful performances. The number of characters to which Anderson must give screen time is both a pro and a con. The former means the film is a constant delight to watch, and the latter means it lacks some of the emotional punch of Anderson’s earlier films, as we never connect on an entirely emotional level. This is a small criticism and The Grand Budapest Hotel is an incredibly accomplished addition to the Wes Anderson’s collection. 

On the Spaces of Her

What will life be like if we continue our descent into technology dependent hobbies and lifestyle choices? Her is so completely about the growing relationship between man and machine that discussing it becomes almost redundant.

Jonze has imagined a future that realistically feels only a few years away. The online relationships that are springing up, mostly in metropolises, are growing (here Jonze creates a larger, but equally transient version of Los Angeles). People engage in revealing and emotionally exposing conversations with real people over a virtual platform. Her simply posits what would happen if the real on the other end were (artificially) intelligent, but entirely artificial. It does this so well, whilst asking so many of the relevant questions about our relationships with technology it feels like a complete film. In turn this is a film with a very specific audience; one that has grown up in a landscape world and not the portrait one of print newspaper and magazines. 

Without the narrative ever drawing attention to them, there is something magical about the spaces. Jonze clearly has an interest in architecture, as his imagined LA is a thing of beauty, romanticized through a sweeping camera catching the dawn and dusk light. This is juxtaposed with the threatening glowing Terminator-esque red light that indicates Theodore's artificial girlfriend is calling. Jonze’s message is delicate, but clearly there.

Jonze's city, while being man made is also warmly populated with people of all cultures. The transience of LA being just one example of the incredible attention to detail that makes Her’s future immediately believable. Although the people of the city walk around attached to their phones, Jonze highlights the positivity of human contact. Theodore and his 'girlfriend' imagine the past and future of a family they see in a shopping mall, without realising their own past and future are in turn imagined and destined to fail. Later, when Theodore needs them after tripping, the seemingly isolated population rushes to help him. Outside of the metropolis Jonze takes Theodore to a snowy forest and sun-drenched beach. With the absence of people Jonze highlights the beauty of nature, a feature of our world that existed before us and well before the operating systems (OS) of Her's future. 

Yet Jonze is not making a sweeping statement about the dangers of technology. Much of the technology in this future is ergonomic. Jonze's comment is far more specific. Despite the difficulties of real relationships we should endure as the alternative, regardless of how exciting they may seem are damaging. This message carries even more impact due to Jonze’s handling of the romance. Theodore and Samantha, his OS are in a relationship; he openly and without embarrassment tells people about Samantha, they go on dates (‘she’ sits in his top pocket, held up by a safety pin so she can ‘see’ through the camera in the phone), they have sex, they share everything, their break up is heart breaking. This is a relationship and Jonze sells it as one and if you buy it, the pay off is impressive.

By the end, Jonze offers Theodore hope in the form of a real woman. And where do they share a moment that will, we hope, bring them together? On the roof of their shared apartment building, overlooking the glimmering, beautiful lights of LA at night. 

On The Monuments Men

As a feature director George Clooney has sought to bring forgotten or past film genres back to life. Despite the contemporary use of camera, his films feel rooted to another time. This is very different to his choices as an actor, but then writing and direction is a more personal craft.

Clooney’s first feature as director, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002) recalls the spy thriller, a rarely seen genre (Bourne and Bond are all action), while The Ides of March (2011) harks back to the politically driven cinema of 1970s America. Goodnight, and Goodluck (2005) (his most accomplished film as director to date) and Leatherheads (2008) are both films set in the past. The former, a beautifully shot, politically driven film about the dying professionalism of journalism and the latter a sports comedy full of quick banter and slapstick, reminiscent of the 30s and 40s films that employed such a style: His Girl Friday (1940), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936).

It is therefore no surprise that The Monuments Men (based on a true WWII story) looks back to an earlier style of film. The ensemble, specific skill set cast recalls the Ocean’s Trilogy, but even those films, with the quick banter could be argued have the same commonalities. The films we are looking at here are include those such as The Dirty Dozen (1967) and The Bridge Over the River Kwai (1957); enjoyable, band of brother type films with a conscience. There is undeniable pleasure in watching The Monuments Men. The cast, most of who have worked together before is enjoying themselves, and this radiates off the screen. Yet, the film doesn't reach the emotional depths it should, mostly because structurally it bounces around too much. Although when it does (Bill Murray’s carol singing grandchildren, John Goodman desperately trying to save his shot friend) Clooney displays a power and sensitivity as a director that will remain long after the film ends.

As an actor, Clooney ranges across the genres. As a director, he does the same but always with an eye to the past and while The Monuments Men may not be his most memorable film, it slots nicely into the body of work he is putting together. 

On Dallas Buyers Club

All films are about something, but Dallas Buyers Club is a film about issues and issues that matter. Within a biography (of Ron Woodruff) the film addresses, without favouring one over the other, the story of Woodruff from his diagnosis with HIV to the end of his court battle, with a biting criticism of the American health care system and a recent history of homophobia. The balancing act is impressive. 

The budget, comparatively with US films at the cinema staring mainstream actors is minuscule, and this shows on screen and adds a certain underdog charm that parallels the battle Woodruff engages in with the FDA, a battle we know he is destined to loose, despite wishing otherwise. This isn't Erin Brockovich (2000). Here the more common story is told, the story where big business wins.

Set in the 1980s Dallas Buyers Club can trace the rise of HIV and the Aids virus and the growing homophobia that swept across America. As with all the issues the film addresses, Matthew McConaughey's character encompasses them all in what will be a highlight of his career. McConaughey, with great subtly moves Woodruff from seeing his fellow HIV sufferers as hard cash into genuine sympathy and empathy, becoming an outraged public fighter; he simply claims at one point, with a mixture of exhaustion, disbelief and supplication that "people are dying". His outrage is all the more vicious as he's an outsider, a straight man with a 'gay' disease.  Where his fellow sufferers appear battle worn from the homophobia they've faced and still face, Woodruff is fresh for the fight, especially as he comes from the other side. 

McConaughey's performance has been rightly lauded, yet he is surrounded by an excellent supporting cast. The transition in McConaughey's career has been clear with the choices he has recently made although a look back over his CV shows an actor unafraid to take risks, A Time to Kill (1996), Contact (1997) and Tropic Thunder (2008) where he lampoons his persona to name but a few. Yet Dallas Buyers Club is and will remain a highlight both for McConaughey's and everyone involved. A small film deserving of a big audience.  

On Desperation and Out of the Furnace

Out of the Furnace could be a visual accompaniment to the music of Bruce Springsteen whose music has its roots in the struggles of working class Americans. Set in mining community, evocative of The Deer Hunter (1978), Out of the Furnace explores the severe effects of a country in deep recession and replete with inequality.

Unemployment for the film’s protagonists is a constant threat and where these characters may have at one time been perceived as lazy, here they are hardworking, but desperate, reflecting the terrifying statistic that for every job place in America, there are four Americans vying for it. The platitude of dead or in jail couldn’t be more apt than here, but again the characters are sympathetic, with the exception of Woody Harrelson’s cartoonish villain. The brother’s whose story Out of the Furnace follows want to work, yet for one crime and eventually death beckons and for the other, with the closure of the mining plant, an uncertain future awaits, but jail is not a stretch. Yet these are good people and the film posits their fate is the responsibility of a poorly managed economy.

Neither does the war escape criticism as Casey Affleck’s returning soldier finds his future bleak outside of the army. As he stresses in one of the film’s most powerful scenes, he offered his life for his country and has now been casually cast aside. The soldier welcomes death as the only release from the horrors he has seen as a country unwilling to acknowledge his service.

In these ways, Out of the Furnace is symbolic of America, specifically the Bush administration, but sadly also the administration of change unfulfilled that Obama is becoming associated with. The film is powerfully acted and opens with a quiet assertiveness that disappears as the inevitable ending approaches. Still, this is an important, well made film with a message not to be ignored.

On a Long Journey with Inside Llewyn Davis

Ulysses, the 1922 James Joyce novel takes its title from the Roman name for Odysseus, the protagonist of Homer’s Odyssey who took ten years to return home. The idea of an almost endless journey for a frustrated ‘hero’ is not one uncommon to the Coen brothers. Many of their characters do not reach a traditional narrative ending and feel so ingrained in their landscape that they could have been born within it. Tommy Lee Jones’ Ed Tom Bell from No Country For Old Men (2007) being a prime example as the films cuts of mid story suggesting his is one that never ends. The Gopnik family from their underrated A Serious Man (2009) are perpetually dogged by bad luck and the film ends with a continuation of this. There 2000 O Brother Where Art Thou? is loosely based on the Odyssey, with the unlucky trio meeting many interesting characters on  their journey, including the sirens.

The Coens’ most recent and highly acclaimed film, Inside Llewyn Davis (with a cat named Ulysses) employs a cyclical narrative suggesting an unending struggle for the eponymous Llewyn. Llewyn’s journey throughout the film has a sense of timelessness; he even comments at one point that only a couple of days have passed, but it feels like much longer. This sums up the feeling that Inside Llewyn Davis communicates. Llewyn’s life is one so difficult that we would feel sorry for him if he weren’t so responsible for much of his difficulties. That he is a musician, trying to make what he sees as real music against a backdrop of commercialism places his journey again within a timeless setting.

That the Coen brothers show us full song performances goes against what we expect of traditional narrative cinema, but feels necessary for Inside Llewyn Davis as the lyrics provide narrative support and the slow, steady camera supports the sensation of Llewyn’s long journey. This is further brought to life by Bruno Delbonnel’s photography, which presents New York and more specifically Greenwich Village as being trapped in a shade of grey where there is no escape from the cold.

Inside Llewyn Davis is accomplished filmmaking from two men who are perhaps the most accomplished filmmakers working in America and continues a thematic narrative technique of characters, difficult and put-upon in their own unique ways, trying to move their way through life.