The Trial of the Chicago 7

The Academy Award nominations were announced yesterday and, like last year, there are only two that I haven’t seen yet (you can read my commentaries for The Father, Judas and the Black Messiah, Mank, Minari, Nomadland, and Promising Young Woman by clicking on the titles).  Luckily both movies that I haven't seen are available on streaming platforms that I subscribe to.  Since I always like to see all of the nominees before the big ceremony, I watched The Trial of the Chicago 7, which is streaming on Netflix, last night (look for my review of Sound of Metal, streaming on Amazon Prime Video, tomorrow).  I didn't see this movie when it had a limited release in theaters last year because I am not a big Aaron Sorkin fan.  I know this is an unpopular opinion but I find his movies to be way too dialogue-heavy and that is actually my biggest complaint about this particular movie despite having an all-star cast, including a few stellar performances, and a compelling story that is incredibly relevant for today.  The year 1968 (the year I was born) is a time of violence and tremendous social unrest and the movie begins with several groups planning to protest the Vietnam War at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.  The leaders of these groups, including Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne) and Rennie Davis (Alex Sharp) of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Abbie Hoffman (Sacha Baron Cohen) and Jerry Rubin (Jeremy Strong) of the Youth International Party (Yippies), David Dellinger (John Carroll Lynch) of the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (MOBE), and Bobby Seale (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) of the Black Panther Party, as well as Lee Weiner (Noah Robbins) and John Froines (Daniel Flaherty), are arrested for trespassing and destruction of property after a riot breaks out during their demonstration.  Five months later, the new Attorney General, John N. Mitchell (John Doman), wants to make an example of the so-called Chicago Seven and directs the federal prosecutor, Richard Schultz (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), to charge them with the federal crime of inciting a riot across state lines.  The counsel for the defense, William Kunstler (Mark Rylance) of the ACLU, argues that it was the police who started the riot, even calling the former AG Ramsey Clark (Michael Keaton) to testify about the lack of evidence, but Judge Julius Hoffman (Frank Langella) shows an obvious prejudice for the prosecution, including jury tampering, dismissing eyewitness testimony, and mistreating Seale.  After spending most of the more than two hour runtime on the trial, the movie ends with a dramatic moment before the verdict is even read and then provides information about it, the sentencing, and the subsequent appeal almost as an afterthought in a series of titles during the epilogue.  It was very anticlimactic.  I can see why this movie has generated so much buzz because it definitely taps into the zeitgeist of our time by depicting an assault on free speech and I concede that it does have a powerful message.  I was also impressed by the performances, particularly Redmayne who displays a volatility I don't think I've seen from him before, Baron Cohen who steals every scene he is in, and Rylance who vividly portrays Kunstler's escalating rage at the injustice shown by the court.  However, I just couldn't get past the dialogue because it sounds so manufactured with monologue after monologue about idealism.  The characters may be saying the perfect words at the perfect time but it is not very organic, especially during a time period as emotionally charged as the 1960s, and I never really felt any kind of connection to them as people.  Does anyone really talk like a character in an Aaron Sorkin movie?  This is one of those movies that most people will probably end up liking more than I do!

The Lost Apothecary

My Book of the Month selection for March was The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner (the other options were The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton, What's Mine and Yours by Naima Coster, Too Good to be True by Carola Lovering, and In a Book Club Far Away by Tif Marcelo). This novel combines elements of historical fiction, mystery, and fantasy and I absolutely loved it. In the present day, Caroline Parcewell is in London by herself, on what should have been a ten year anniversary trip, after finding out that her husband has been unfaithful. Feeling lonely and at loose ends, she spontaneously joins a tour group of mudlarkers on the banks of the Thames River in search of relics from the past brought in by the tide. She finds an old vial with a marking of a bear on it and this reawakens a long dormant passion for historical research as she unravels the mystery of its origin. In 1791, Nella Clavinger is the proprietor of an apothecary who, motivated by her own tragedy, secretly dispenses poison to desperate women who have been wronged or betrayed by the men in their lives. She meets the twelve-year-old Eliza Fanning when the latter requests a poison on behalf her mistress for her to use on her husband. Their interactions inadvertently expose Nella's activities and put both of their lives in danger. The narrative alternates between the two timelines as Caroline uncovers events in the present as they happen to Nella in the past and I found this device to be very compelling. I was surprised by the fact that I enjoyed Caroline's story just as much as Nella's (even though I particularly loved all of the period details that transported me to 18th century London) because I am such a fan of historical fiction. Their experiences mirror each other in that they are both victims of duplicitous men and they struggle to take action according to the social norms and attitudes of the time but I loved that Caroline is inspired by the process of investigating Nella's life and that it informs the resolution to her situation. I was fascinated by the concoction of the poisons (the epilogue with recipes for the more innocuous potions is a lot of fun and I would actually like to try some) and I was very intrigued by the introduction of magic into the narrative.  I read this novel in just two sittings because I was so invested in both of the main characters and I highly recommend it, especially to fans of historical fiction or fantasy!

The Father

I had a suspicion that The Father would generate a lot of buzz at the Sundance Film Festival last year because it stars Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman who are both absolutely brilliant.  I was correct because tickets proved to be impossible to get!  I finally had a chance to see it now that it is in wide release and the hype is real.  Anthony (Hopkins) is in the late stages of dementia but he adamantly refuses to leave his flat and refuses to have a nurse care for him.  His daughter Anne (Colman) has been struggling to cope on her own but things become critical when her partner Paul (Rufus Sewell) wants them to move to Paris.  The narrative is told from Anthony's perspective so the audience is able to experience all of his confusion first-hand.  Just like Anthony, the audience is never entirely sure what is real as his perception of his environment and the people who come and go becomes jumbled.  The production design is incredibly clever because the differences between Anthony's flat and Anne's are very subtle and there were moments when I actually wondered where Anthony was (I am really looking forward to watching this again so I can pay more attention to the details).  The introduction of Olivia Williams and Mark Gatiss into the narrative also keeps things off-kilter and at one point I really did wonder which Olivia was actually playing Anne (this is a brilliant bit of casting because both actresses have similar features and it is completely plausible that someone suffering from dementia might mistake the two of them).  The script is really compelling because there are a few elements that keep recurring in various forms and in various timelines, such as Anthony's missing watch, the chicken that Anne is baking, and the conversation about Anne's move to Paris, which show the extent of his ongoing deterioration.  Hopkins gives a tour-de-force performance (one of the best in his long and storied career) in which he is simultaneously imperious, cruel, charming, and heartbreaking (sometimes in the same scene!).  Colman is also outstanding as a daughter who loves her father but is crumbling under the weight of the responsibility for caring for him.  There is one scene, in particular, where Anne is trying to paint an optimistic picture for a potential new caregiver (Imogen Poots) but her concern is betrayed by the welling of tears in her eyes.  It is so powerful!  This movie is devastating in its portrayal of dementia and I sometimes found it difficult to watch but I highly recommend it.

My Salinger Year

I read The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger when I was a junior in high school and it pretty much rocked my world (I really relate to themes of alienation in books and movies) so I was incredibly intrigued by the premise of My Salinger Year and went to see it last night.  It was not what I was expecting and I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would.  Joanna (Margaret Qualley) is an aspiring writer who decides to leave a graduate program at Berkeley to move to New York and live her dream.  She takes a temporary job as an assistant to a curmudgeonly literary agent (Sigourney Weaver) who represents the reclusive writer.  One of her duties is to respond to all of the fan mail written to Salinger with a standard form letter but she is moved by some of the letters and begins writing personal responses to them with varying degrees of success.  She also interacts with the author himself on the phone and, despite the fact that she is becoming more and more successful at the agency, he inspires her to leave to pursue her dream.  This outcome is a foregone conclusion and, even though the narrative takes its time to reach it, there is not a lot of dramatic tension.  The process by which Joanna finds her voice is very subtle and there are quite a few lesser subplots, such as a toxic relationship with another aspiring writer (Douglas Booth), a visit from a former boyfriend from Berkeley (Hamza Haq), and a best friend (Seana Kerslake) who gives up on her dream of being a writer to get married, that go nowhere and take away from the main conceit.  I also found the characterization of Salinger to be incredibly far-fetched because he is portrayed as a grandfatherly figure willing to give advice to a young writer rather than the idiosyncratic and enigmatic person he was.  I did, however, enjoy the production design because the literary world of New York in the 1990s is exactly how I pictured it with mahogany wood paneling, dusty bookshelves, portraits of authors hanging on the walls, and anachronistic equipment (I loved all of the typewriters).  Finally, both Qualley and Weaver give charismatic performances (even if their interactions are not as humorous as those of Andy and Miranda Priestley in The Devil Wears Prada) and I liked how the fans who write to Salinger are portrayed.  This movie, based on the memoir of the same name by Joanna Rakoff, is fine but I wish it had delved further into how she was inspired by Salinger.  It is really just a chronicle of a year in Joanna's life, which happens to include a few interactions with the author intermingled with other random events, that culminates in a decision to become a writer.  I was hoping for more.

Raya and the Last Dragon

Last night I saw Raya and the Last Dragon and I absolutely loved it!  In the mythical land of Kumandra there are evil spirits known as the Druun turning people into stone.  The dragons of Kumandra use all of their magic to create a gem before they are turned to stone and one dragon named Sisu (Awkwafina) is chosen to use it to defeat the Druun and revive everyone.  Many years later, the tribes of Kumandra are divided into lands known as Fang, Heart, Tail, Spine, and Talon over their jealousy to possess the gem which resides in Heart.  Raya (Kelly Marie Tran), a guardian of the gem, is betrayed when she befriends Namaari (Gemma Chan) of Fang who tries to steal it.  The resulting fight splits the gem into pieces, which are taken by each tribe, and reawakens the Druun who turn her father, Chief Benja (Daniel Dae Kim), to stone.  Six years later, Raya and her sidekick Tuk Tuk (Alan Tudyk) find Sisu and learn that all of the pieces of the gem might give Sisu the power to defeat the Druun once again.  Raya goes on a quest to retrieve the pieces and encounters Boun (Izaac Wang) from Tail, Noi (Thalia Tran) from Talon, Tong (Benedict Wong) from Spine, and her nemesis Namaari from Fang.  They must learn to trust each other to defeat the Druun and unite as Kumandra once again.  The animation is absolutely dazzling and I loved the distinct world-building for Fang, Heart, Tail, Spine, and Talon, especially the bustling street markets of Talon and the terraced rice paddies of Fang.  The character design of the dragons is so beautiful.  When I first saw the trailer I thought Sisu looked too cartoonish but, when all of the dragons take flight together, it is absolutely magical.  The theme of unity is brilliant and one that is needed right now because of all of the division in the world.  The stakes are surprisingly high for a Disney animated movie and there were actually three different times when I had tears in my eyes (I did laugh out loud many times, too).  Raya is an incredibly dynamic character because her motivation at the beginning of her journey is merely to revive her father but she ultimately applies his wisdom of trusting an enemy to bring about his dream of a unified Kumandra.  I love flawed characters who find redemption so Raya just might be my favorite Disney princess of all time!  Tran does such a good job in portraying Raya's strength and vulnerability and Awkwafina provides some welcome comic relief as the always optimistic Sisu.  I loved this movie so much and, whether you decide to see it in the theater (my screening was packed) or on Disney+, I highly recommend it!

Note:  I actually really liked the character of Rose in The Last Jedi and I was horrified by all of the abuse directed at Tran by fans who didn't.  I am so happy to see her receive some well-earned praise for this role!