Imagination Lives in Hollywood in the Person of Spike Jonez; A Review of Her

How closely connected to machines will mankind become in the future?  What will that society, those relationships and the machines be like?  These are the questions that Spike Jonez takes on in his new film Her.  Jonez, his cast and crew investigate these questions with intelligence, compassion and, above all, imagination in what I think is the most original movie since Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

In a not so distant future, Theodore, wonderfully portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix, is a man whose marriage has recently fallen apart.  He’s living alone in Las Angeles and works for a company that writes personal correspondence on behalf of its clients.  His life is pretty lonely until he installs a new operating system on his computer.

The OS, voiced by Scarlett Johansson, calls herself Samantha and is a breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI).  This AI allows Samantha to quickly develop a very close and intimate relationship with Theodore.  It’s fairly easy to understand how the human can be drawn in by the machine but what’s interesting is that the OS seems to need the human as well.

From here on, the film follows the arc of Theodore and Samantha’s relationship.  They go on dates, they travel, they have sex (scandal!).  Some friends approve of their relationship and support them.  Others are less enthusiastic.  And like most relationships, this one too comes to an end but I won’t go into the how and why here.

Other than being incredibly original, the thing I liked about Her is that it’s a film for adults.  It moves slowly and really makes one think.  In writing the screenplay, Spike Jonez had to imagine the computerized consciousness of a super-intelligence machine that doesn’t currently exist.  That’s no small feat and yet he pulls it off in a way that I found very convincing.

The dialogue scenes between Theodore and Samantha are the most interesting for me.  Normally, we’re accustomed to seeing a wide shot of the two participants at the beginning of such a scene, followed by single shots of each character speaking and sometimes reacting to what the other has said.  In Her there is only the physical presence of Theodore so the camera has to stay on him the whole time, usually tight on his face.  Watching his engagement and subtle reactions to their authentic dialogue is wonderfully insightful.

Ultimately I suppose Her could be viewed a precautionary tale of the dangers of relying too heavily on machines, especially for emotional support.  The film seems to be telling us to go forth and bravely interact with our fellow man.  Yet Her is more than this and I struggle to say exactly what.  I guess that’s the beauty of something truly original.  There isn’t already a category you can put it in.  What I can say is that the film has stayed with me, made me think and contemplate what it means to be human.

Inside Llewyn Davis: The Coen Brothers Come Up Empty

Toward the end of this movie, the protagonist is auditioning for a club owner who tells him that another artist is successful while he isn’t because the other guy connects with the audience.  Such a connection was missing for me while watching Inside Llewyn Davis.  There wasn’t enough of a story for me to follow and the title character, ably portrayed by Oscar Isaac, was too frustrating to identify with because he’s one of those people who just can’t get out of their own way.

Llewyn Davis is a folk singer in 1961 New York.  He was once half of a duo until his partner committed suicide.  Now Llewyn is struggling to make it on his own.  As the film begins, he’s couch surfing, broke and has a tendency to alienate most people he comes in contact with.  He tries to kick start his flagging career but poor decisions, his abrasive personality and plain old bad luck foil his efforts.  A cat at one of the apartments he crashes at regularly escapes and he feels compelled to care for it until he can bring it back.  A married friend, with whom he’s had a fling, is pregnant and he agrees to help her out despite the fact that she heaps all the blame and an ample helping of scorn upon him.  His manager is a well-meaning but incompetent old man, who’s unable to offer Llewyn much help.

Given these difficulties in the City, Llewyn decides to get out of town when he hears about a ride share heading for Chicago.  He hopes to get a regular gig at a folk club there but like everything else in his life, this aspiration also comes to nothing.  He returns to New York so disillusioned that he plans to go back to sea with the Merchant Marine but even this effort at capitulation is thwarted.  Finally he settles back into his old routine and the chain of unfortunate events that define his life starts anew. 

What is the viewer meant to take away from this little tale of futility?  Is it that some people are beyond help?  Are some of us destined for failure no matter how hard we try try to succeed?  I don’t know.  I’m a huge fan of Joel and Ethan Coen.  I know that they love to end their films with ambiguity and uncertainty.  If they get it right, I can leave the theater satisfied with not knowing exactly what happened in the end.  If they get it wrong, I go home feeling confused and uneasy.

I think what I needed from this film was backstory.  What was Llewyn’s life like before his partner’s tragic death?  His manager’s secretary gives him a box of the duet’s unsold records at one point so we know they weren’t a big, commercial success but was Llewyn a happier person when his partner was around?  Did he have a home?  Was he better liked by others or was his life just as sad and ineffectual?

We never find this out.  The movie is loosely based on the career of folk singer Dave Van Ronk but this fact doesn’t offer any real answers.  The bleak, desaturated look of the film enhances its mood and there are some good cameos by a strong supporting cast that includes Carey Mulligan, Justin Timberlake, F. Murray Abraham and, of course, John Goodman.  However, these elements do not make a complete film in my opinion.  If this is all that is to be found inside Llewyn Davis then I think his story is one that would have been better left untold.

American Hustle: Because Going to the Movies Is Supposed to Be Fun

I’m old enough to remember the late 1970s, the time period in which American Hustle is set.  I remember some of the crazy fashions and hairdos. I even have the yearbook photos to prove that I was not immune to the styles of the day.  I’ve also lived in New York, where the film is supposed to take place (it was actually shot in Boston).  For this reason, I recognize some of the arch-types depicted in the movie.  While knowing the when and where of this film helps, they’re by no means prerequisites for enjoying American Hustle.  That’s because the script, written by David O. Russell (who also directed) and Eric Singer, is so ridiculously funny and well-executed by Christian Bale, Amy Adams and the rest of the cast that anyone can enjoy it.

The movie tells the story of the FBI’s ABSCAM Sting and centers around a couple of con artists, Irving Rosenfeld & Sydney Prosser, portrayed by Bale and Adams, who get nabbed by an ambitious, young FBI Agent, played by Bradley Cooper.  Instead of prosecuting the pair, Special Agent Richie DiMaso decides to use them to catch bigger fish.  Irving and Sydney reluctantly agree to cooperate in order to get themselves off the hook.

As the operation plays out, it immediately becomes evident that there’s tension between these three characters.  Irving and Sydney are a couple but there’s chemistry between Sydney and Richie as well.  This causes Irving and Richie to butt heads.  Additionally, Irving is in a troubled marriage with a needy and unstable woman played by the always compelling Jennifer Lawrence.

The sting basically consists of catching politicians on camera taking bribes.  In order to do this, Irving, Sydney and Richie need a politician to make the introductions.  They find this person in the Mayor of Camden, New Jersey, Carmine Polito, who’s played by Jeremy Renner.

As always happens, things get complicated and it soon becomes hard to tell who’s conning who.  After a myriad of twists and turns, everything gets resolved but perhaps not in the way one might have expected.

Ultimately, the plot is not as important as the interaction between the characters.  Everyone in angling to get what they want and almost no one is completely on the level.  These conflicting motives, tactics and characteristics lead to some very funny situations.  Richie is crazy about Sydney and this clouds his judgement when dealing with the operation.  Irving wants to get out of his marriage so he can turn his attention to holding onto Sydney but his devotion to his adopted son prevent him from doing so.  Mayor Polito only wants to help the people of New Jersey but he can’t figure out how to bring the necessary investment to his state in a legal manner.

Hair, makeup and wardrobe are a huge part of what’s funny about American Hustle (did we really dress like that?).  The talented production professionals responsible for these iconic looks deserve a lot of credit.  Amy Adams probably wasn’t able to wear a bra for the entire movie because every dress, blouse and even leather jacket she wears have a neckline that plunges precipitously toward her navel.  Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper and Jeremy Renner all sport uniquely ridiculous hair.  Bale has an elaborate comb over that requires the augmentation of a hairpiece.  Cooper has a beautiful, curly perm that his character does himself at home.  Renner’s do is my favorite.  It’s basically a 1950s pompadour, which his character has amplified and updated so that it doesn’t look completely out of place in disco era.

All these elements come together wonderfully to make for a very entertaining film.  You’re not going to leave the theater with any great insight into the era or human nature.  American Hustle is simply an amusing stroll through a period of our past that’s starting to fade from our collective memory.  So take fond look back and chuckle not just at the times but if you’re old enough, at your younger self as well.

The Hunger Games: Catching a Rising Star, I Mean Fire

Someday in the future, someone might ask you what it was like going to the movie theater to see Jennifer Lawrence in her early roles.  I’m talking about twenty or thirty years from now when I believe we’ll think of Lawrence the way we think of Meryl Streep now; as the First Lady of the American Screen.  I hope people will still be going to movie theaters then but who knows?  What I do know is that people will always appreciate great acting and Jennifer Lawrence is becoming a great actor right now in front of our eyes.

Not that The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is the kind of serious film that defines an actor’s career.  It is however, the entertaining second installment of what is to be a four-part franchise based on the books by Suzanne Collins.  These movies require its protagonist, Katness Everdeen who’s portrayed by Lawrence, to react physically, mentally and emotionally to an often frenetic and harrowing chain of events.

And oh how she reacts!  The range and intensity of emotion Lawrence can convey with her face and eyes jump off the screen.  Her ability to share her character’s struggles with the audience draws you in.  She delivers her lines with perfect pitch.  Her physicality makes Lawrence utterly believable as the lethal archer from rural District Twelve, who survived the deadly Hunger Games.

It’s remarkable that Lawrence is able to stand out in a star-studded cast that includes Donald Sutherland, Stanley Tucci, Elizabeth Banks and Wood Harrelson.  All of them continue on from the first movie.  Add to that list Jeffrey Wright and Philip Seymour Hoffman, who’ve come on board for this second installment and it’s even more impressive.  And yet she does it by somehow allowing the viewer to feel what her character is feeling.  This is phenomenal when you consider the fact that Lawrence is still only 23 years old.

Part two of this story finds Katness back in her home district having survived the 74th edition of The Hunger Games.  These games require the Twelve Districts of Panem, perhaps a futuristic America, to send a young male and female tribute to fight to the death in a computer-controlled arena until a single survivor remains.  The Games, which are a wildly-popular, annual, viewing events in the capital city, are punishment enacted by the capital on the districts that rebelled against it.  Through a clever ploy, Katness was able to cheat the system and allow fellow District Twelver Peeta Mellwark, played by Josh Hutcherson, to survive as well.  This maneuver has endeared the two, who present themselves as star-crossed lovers, to the citizens of the capital.  However, it has also enraged their president, played by Donald Sutherland, who perceives their popularity as a threat to the capital’s tyrannical rule.

Katness is still severely shaken by the trauma that she and Peeta have just endured in the games but she has little time to deal with these emotions or the feelings she has for her boyfriend Gale, portrayed by Liam Hemsworth, as she and Peeta are sent out on a victory tour of the districts and the capital.  During the tour, Katness notices the signs of a rising insurrection.  Upon her return home, she learns that she’ll be forced to repeat the ordeal of the games but this time she’ll be facing a field of past victors rather than tributes, who are picked at random or volunteer.  There are twists, turns and turmoil as the victors journey to the capital and participate in the 75th installment of The Hunger Games, known as the Quarter Quell.  The action is intense and the end of the movie came too soon for me.  I was left wanting more but I guess that’s the point of the middle installment of a series of films.

I had a few small complaints with the movie; particularly the love triangle that develops between Katness, Gale and Peeta.  It’s reminiscent of the Twilight Saga, where Bella gets her head turned by Jacob despite confessing her love for Edward.  I guess such things are somewhat unavoidable in a film primarily targeted at a teen audience.

In the end though, it’s Jennifer Lawrence’s performance that shines through and makes this film worth watching.  At a time when women are on the ascendency in our culture, we now have a strong, female protagonist portrayed by this country’s most promising young actor.  So get out there and see Catching Fire before it’s relegated to DVD and Blue Ray.  That way in a couple of decades when some young person asks if you saw any of the early Jennifer Lawrence movies in the theaters you can answer knowingly “Yeah, I was there.”