Chaos Walking

As a huge fan of both Daisy Ridley and Tom Holland as well as the Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness (I think it is a brilliant examination of colonization, the treatment of indigenous peoples, resource allocation, the abuse of power, loss of innocence, and the futility of war), I have been looking forward to the movie adaptation of the first book, The Knife of Never Letting Go, for what seems like forever.  I was so excited to see a Thursday preview last night but I ended up being very disappointed.  I know that a movie adaptation cannot possibly include everything from the source material because of time constraints but it seems like the big ideas of the novel are excluded in favor of very generic action sequences.  Viola Eade (Ridley) is a member of a scouting expedition for a larger group of settlers from Earth on their way to a planet called the New World.  Her ship crashes on this planet and she is the only survivor.  She encounters Todd Hewitt (Holland) in a settlement of earlier colonizers called Prentisstown, where all of the women have mysteriously disappeared and the men have their thoughts on display in a phenomenon called the Noise. The Mayor, David Prentiss (Mads Mikkelsen), and Aaron (David Oyelowo), a mysterious preacher, view Viola and the new settlers on their way as a threat.  Todd wants to help her so his adoptive fathers Ben (Demian Bichir) and Cillian (Kurt Sutter) tell him about other settlements on New World and they go on the run so Viola can contact the mother ship.  However, Todd's Noise makes it difficult for them to hide leading to an epic confrontation and revelations about what happened to all of the women in Prentisstown.  Todd is very one-dimensional without any of the coming of age and loss of innocence character arcs from the book and his only motivation seems to be getting a kiss from Viola but Holland is appealing enough in the role.  Viola is a bit more interesting with a few throwaway lines about the indigenous species (there is a random scene involving the Spackle that makes absolutely no sense) and the abuse of power but she is mostly reactionary.  Ridley is also very appealing and she does what she can with the role but watching someone run from Point A to Point B gets boring after a while.  The Mayor's motivation is a bit unclear (although he has some great costumes) and there isn't any development of how he is able to rule over everyone or of his connection to Todd beyond a few throwaway lines.  The other characters don't have much to do and I was really disappointed with how Davy Jr. (Nick Jonas) and Hildy (Cynthia Erivo), in particular, are underutilized.  The action sequences are surprisingly bland but I did really like the visual representation of the Noise.  Finally, I really hated the conclusion (the biggest deviation from the book) because it is very rushed and certain events make the adaptation of the next two books impossible (which might be a good thing).  Fans of Holland and Ridley will probably really enjoy this but fans of the books will be disappointed.  Ugh!

My Zoe

Last night I saw the movie My Zoe and, while it is a fascinating and thought-provoking portrait of a mother willing to go to extraordinary lengths to keep from losing her child, I found it to be very anticlimactic.  It begins as a domestic drama as Isabelle (Julie Delpy) fights an acrimonious battle with her estranged husband James (Richard Armitage) for custody of their daughter Zoe (Sophia Ally).  Then it completely shifts gears and becomes a futuristic science fiction thriller as Isabelle requests an experimental procedure that is both illegal and possibly unethical after her daughter suffers a devastating brain injury.  This involves such a strange tonal shift that it almost seems like two different movies (the screen even fades to black in between the two).  I enjoyed the first act, particularly the passive aggressive bickering between Isabelle and James as they both try to prove that they are the better parent, because both characters feel very authentic in their love for their daughter and their situation is incredibly intense and compelling.  The final act is less compelling because it requires an almost comical suspension of disbelief despite the fact that the movie is set in the near future (with some really interesting tech gadgets).  Several new characters are introduced and their actions lack any sort of motivation.  Dr. Thomas Fischer (Daniel Bruhl), a fertility specialist to whom Isabelle turns in her desperation, adamantly refuses to help her because the experiment is morally wrong and almost certain to fail but then he inexplicably changes his mind and, of course, the experiment is a success.  His wife Laura (Gemma Arterton) is horrified that he has risked everything to help a woman he barely knows but even she eventually becomes sympathetic for no discernible reason.  In my opinion, the resolution is very disappointing because the timeline jumps several years into the future without an examination of the provocative questions that have have been posed about the outcome of the experiment.  Delpy gives a passionate performance as a mother on a relentless quest but it isn't enough to keep this movie from derailing in the end.  

Crisis

There are not a lot of new releases this weekend (the new Tom & Jerry movie gets a hard pass from me) so I spontaneously decided to see Crisis even though I didn't know a lot about it.  This gritty crime thriller about the opioid epidemic is actually quite riveting and I'm glad I saw it.  DEA agent Jake Kelly (Armie Hammer), motivated by a younger sister (Lily-Rose Depp) addicted to heroin, is working undercover to bring down a multi-cartel operation smuggling fentanyl from Canada into the U.S.  Claire Reimann (Evangeline Lilly) is a recovering addict investigating the suspicious death of her son (Duke Nicholson) from an oxycodone overdose.  Dr. Tyrone Brower (Gary Oldman) is a university professor who conducts tests on prospective drugs for a large pharmaceutical company in return for grant money to fund his other research.  He has a crisis of conscience when he discovers irregularities in the test results for a non-addictive pain medication about to receive FDA approval.  The movie alternates between these three narratives until there is a loose, but incredibly thought-provoking, connection between them.  I found all three stories to be very compelling and my only criticism is that each of them could have been (should have been?) expanded and developed more for a deeper analysis because they each had the potential to stand alone.  Characters such as a university dean (Greg Kinnear), pharmaceutical company executives (Luke Evans and Veronica Ferres), the head of the DEA task force (Michelle Rodriguez), members of the Armenian drug cartel (Michael Aronov and Adam Tsekhman), and an FDA official (Scott "Kid Cudi" Mescudi) get a bit lost in the shuffle.  Hammer (I like him as an actor despite his recent troubles in the media), Lilly, and Oldman give powerful performances and I was always invested in each character's arc.  There will be the inevitable comparisons to Traffic (which is, admittedly, a better movie) but I think seeing this is an entertaining way to spend a Saturday night and I recommend it.

Blithe Spirit

Last night I went to see Blithe Spirit and, while it was a nice change to see a comedy after all of the serious dramas of late, I didn't like it as much as I hoped I would.  Successful crime novelist Charles Condomine (Dan Stevens) is trying to write a screenplay based on one of his books but he has been suffering from writer's block ever since his first wife and muse, Elvira (Leslie Mann), died seven years ago.  He is desperate for inspiration because he is facing a deadline imposed on him by his father-in-law.  While attending the stage show of Madame Arcati (Judi Dench), a fraudulent spiritualist and medium, he decides to incorporate the supernatural into his screenplay and invites her to perform a seance at his house to learn the tricks of the trade.  Instead, Madame Arcati inadvertently summons the ghost of Elvira, much to the dismay of Condamine's second wife Ruth (Isla Fisher), and chaos ensues.  I really wanted to like this movie because it is based on a hilarious play by Noel Coward and includes an outstanding cast with a stylish Art Deco production design and glamorous period costumes.  Despite all of this I think it lacks a certain spark.  There are changes to the source material, particularly in the final act, that make the narrative unnecessarily convoluted in the service of promoting a feminist message and the inclusion of Madame Arcati's sentimental backstory creates a strange tonal shift.  While there are moments of physical comedy that are really funny, most notably during scenes where Charles is the only one who can see Elvira, they are few and far between and the slapstick is a poor substitute for the usual witty back and forth banter that this play is known for.  I was really struck by the fact that the large crowd in my screening didn't seem to laugh very much.  Finally, Mann is the only one who delivers her lines with the charm and sophistication necessary for a Noel Coward comedy.  Everyone else seems bland in comparison.  The best thing that I can say about this movie is that it looks good (I found myself paying more attention to the details of the set design than to the action).  I was a bit disappointed in this adaptation and I would definitely recommend seeing this on the stage instead of the screen.

The Mauritanian

I finally checked the last movie off my must-see list with a screening of The Mauritanian last night.  This movie tells the true story of how Mohamedou Ould Salahi was held for fourteen years in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp without being charged with a crime.  Soon after 9/11, Salahi (Tahar Rahim) is apprehended by the U.S. government on the basis of suspicious activity and loose associations with people responsible for the attacks but no direct evidence.  Several years later, defense attorney Nancy Hollander (Jodie Foster), with the help of her associate Teri Duncan (Shailene Woodley), decides to take his case because holding him is a violation of habeas corpus while Lt. Colonel Stuart Couch (Benedict Cumberbatch) decides to prosecute him for very personal reasons.  When Hollander and Couch begin their separate investigations, they both uncover the same disturbing details of his detention.  This information causes Hollander, who only wanted to protect the rule of law, to become personally invested in freeing Salahi and causes Couch, who wanted someone to blame for the death of a friend, to question the legality of the case.  In my opinion, The Report, another movie which exposes the enhanced interrogation techniques sanctioned by the Bush administration, has a much better narrative structure than The Mauritanian because the latter is very slow and meandering with flashbacks that are sometimes confusing within the timeline.  However, I was much more emotionally invested in this story because it focuses on the plight of one man (rather than the investigation of several cases as in The Report) who, despite the fact we are not really sure of his guilt or innocence until the final act, is portrayed very sympathetically.  As with The Report, I found this movie to be incredibly upsetting with many scenes that made me angry, several that moved me to tears, and several that caused me to look away (the torture scenes, especially the waterboarding, are very difficult to watch).  Rahim and Foster give outstanding performances and, while I was very moved by Cumberbatch's portrayal of Couch's disillusionment, I didn't really buy his Southern accent.  Despite a few flaws, The Mauritanian has an important and compelling story to tell so I would recommend it.