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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 08 February 2019

In 2013, filmmaker Barry Jenkins felt his head was in a “really good place” and, on the advice of a friend, he took an impromptu trip to Europe to help spur his creative juices.  Over 10 days in Brussels, he wrote the screenplay for Moonlight, a stunningly good drama about a young man in search of love and his place in the world.  It made history by becoming the first movie with an all-black cast and the first movie with an LGBT story to win the Academy Award for best picture.  Jenkins himself took home an Oscar for best adapted screenplay (shared with Tarell Alvin McCraney) and was also nominated for best director.

Amazingly, Jenkins came from Europe with not one but two incredible scripts.  After finishing up in Brussels, he spent 6 weeks in Berlin where he wrote an adaptation of James Baldwin’s 1974 novel If Beale Street Could Talk.  He didn’t own the rights but after sending a copy of his script to the trustees of the Baldwin estate, he was able to build their trust and get the green light for his highly anticipated follow up to Moonlight.

Set within an African American community in 1970s New York, Beale Street offers up two distinct narratives that have been perfectly woven together by Jenkins.  On one hand, this a beautiful love story about two warm, kind-hearted people.  22-year-old Fonny (James) and 19-year-old Tish (Layne) have known each other since kids but only recently has their closeness developed into something deeper.  They’re hired actors but you could be forgiven for thinking Kiki Layne and Stephan James were a real-life couple given their on-screen chemistry.  The way they speak and look at each other creates an authenticity that will win over any cynic when it comes to romance.

On the other hand, this is sad story about the oppression of black people in America.  There’s a powerful, unforgettable scene where Fonny catches up with an old friend, Daniel (Henry), who opens up about his deepest, darkest thoughts after spending two years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.  Fonny also finds himself on the wrong side of the law (undeservedly so) but there’s little that he and his passionate family can do given the depth of corruption within the white, racist police force.

There is so much to admire about If Beale Street Could Talk.  There’s a gorgeous love-making sequence involving Fonny and Tish that best encapsulates Jenkins skills as a director.  It features a long continuous take (applauds the editor), a slowly moving camera that oscillates between the characters (applauds the cinematographer), the soothing sound of heavy rain on the roof (applauds the sound technicians), and a jazz-laden music score that encapsulates the era (applauds the composer).  The poetic narration adds another important layer.  

It’s hard to fault any performance.  The two leads are outstanding and the supporting players all pull their weight when called upon.  Regina King (Ray) has garnered the most attention, including an Academy Award nomination, for her tender performance as Tish’s mother.  She shines during an early, entertaining scene when she invites Fonny’s family into her home to reveal some big news.  There’s another moment involving Dave Franco that highlights the skilful way in which Jenkins balances the heavy material with splashes of comedy.

If you’re putting together a list of the 10 best films of the year, see If Beale Street Could Talk and you’ll only need 9 more.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 28 January 2019

On 13 April 1987, former United States Senator Gary Hart announced his candidacy for President.  He’d spent several years making a name for himself and now the time was right to seek the nomination of the Democratic Party and take control of the White House back from the Republicans.  He was well-liked, he was ahead in the polls and he faced no serious competition.  One month later… his campaign was over.

There are two predominant narratives in The Front Runner.  The first is a character study of 50-year-old Gary Hart (Jackman) which provides insight into his history, his family and his ideals.  He had a slightly unorthodox style, at least by today’s standards, in that he was more focused on developing policies than endless photoshoots and public appearances.  He also had a strong relationship with journalists.  They would continually share lunch as Hart openly and passionate spoke about his long-term vision for the United States (and also the benefit of his perfect hair in the polls!)

The second, more interesting narrative involves the journalists themselves.  Acting on an anonymous tip, a team from The Miami Herald put Hart’s Washington D.C. townhouse under surveillance to confirm if he was having an extramarital affair with Donna Rice, a model-actress living in Miami.  After seeing Rice enter the residence, the Herald decided they had enough information to publish a front-page exposé with the damning headline “Miami woman is linked to Hart”.

What followed over the coming days was a media storm from which Hart would never recover.  He denied having a relationship with Rice but it was the manner of Hart’s denial that added more fuel to the fire.  He felt that his personal life should be “off limits” to the press and it should have no bearing on his ability to serve as President.  The media disagreed.  More questions followed and within a matter of days, he ended his campaign.

Brought to the screen by Oscar nominated director Jason Reitman (Juno, Up in the Air), The Front Runner doesn’t try to answer questions about the relationship between Hart and Rice.  Were they just friends or were they something more?  We’ll never truly know.  The purpose of the film is to get you thinking about the line between what is public and what is private when it comes to politicians.  Does the public dictate where the line is or are journalists making the decision for us?  Also, are we consistent when comparing one politician to another? 

This a polished production from Reitman.  It features a snazzy film score from Rob Simonsen and distinctive cinematography from Eric Steelberg who uses long, continuous shots to give it a documentary-like feel.  We’ve come accustomed to seeing Hugh Jackman in musicals and action films in recent years and so it’s nice to see him sink his teeth into a dramatic role about a real-life person.

In a similar vein to Steven Spielberg’s The Post, The Front Runner delves into the important role of journalism in a world filled with corruption and “fake news”.  You may not like Gary Hart and you may not like the journalists but it’s a great conversation starter.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 03 February 2019

It was always a matter of when rather than if a major Hollywood studio would make a horror flick set in an escape room.  The fad began in Japan roughly 10 years ago and there are now estimated to be close to 10,000 rooms around the world (including about 200 here in Australia).  As a fan of puzzles, I’ll admit that I’ve given them a go several times and have never had a bad experience.

Turning to the movie… we need a way to bring this random group of characters together and so screenwriters Bragi F. Schut and Maria Melnik use money as the hook.  Six strangers have been given a box that invites them to participate in one of the best escape rooms going around.  They’re told that no one has been able to complete it within the required time frame but if they do, they will each receive $10,000.  It’s an offer that too hard to refuse.

They are escorted into a waiting room and they get to know each other with a few quick, probing questions.  Danny (Dodani) is the brains having completed close to 100 rooms, Mike (Labine) is the old guy who doesn’t know the game works, Ben (Miler) is the joker who badly needs the money, Jay (Ellis) is the smartly dressed know-it-all who asserts his authority, Amanda (Woll) is the strong, tough woman who can take it up to the guys, and Zoey (Russell) is the shy introvert who is scared of new things.

It takes about 15 minutes to set up the premise but once that’s out of the way, it’s time for the fun to begin.  I don’t want to give too much away (similar to a real-life escape room) but suffice to say these characters will have to solve difficult puzzles and navigate their way through a series of intricate rooms.  This is no standard game and instead of trying to win $10,000, they’ll soon be fighting to stay alive.

You can’t take a movie like this too seriously.  There are a lot of plot holes and a lot of convenient moments that fall into place to help prolong the narrative.  As an example, did none of them tell a friend or family member exactly where they were going?  How did those behind the game expect to cover up the death of certain people so easily?  I guess it’s calling upon the old movie cliché of an incompetent police force.

That’s not to say you can’t have fun watching this.  I was surprised by how engaged I became in the storyline and like the characters themselves, you’ll be wondering what they need to do to escape each room.  The film moves at a quick pace which is both a positive and a negative.  It allows for plenty of scenarios to be put to the audience but the rush to solve them becomes too chaotic in places.

Director Adam Robitel (Insidious: The Last Key) makes a few stylistic choices that feel unnecessary.  This includes the introduction (which gives away part of the finale) and a bunch of quick flashbacks that provide a visual representation of each character’s chequered past.  Still, he deserves big praise for pulling together such an elaborate project, which includes many cool sets, on a budget of just $9 million.  The fact it was shot in South Africa with a largely no-name cast helped keep costs down.

There are similarities with the successful Saw franchise and given that has been milked for 8 movies in total, I’ve a hunch we’ll be seeing more from the Escape Room franchise in the coming years.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 27 January 2019

Timothée Chalamet and Lucas Hedges are two young actors who have found themselves on strikingly similar career paths.  Chalamet is 23, Hedges is 22 and both were born and raised in New York City.  They each have an Oscar nomination under their belt – Chalamet for Call Me by Your Name and Hedges for Manchester by the Sea (a role that Chalamet also auditioned for).  They’ve even appeared in a movie together – competing for the affections of Saorise Ronan in Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird.

The similarities don’t end there.  Several months ago, Chalamet played a drug addicted teenager struggling to connect with his father (Steve Carell) in the Amazon Studio produced Beautiful Boy.  Now, Lucas Hedges plays a similar character in Ben is Back, the story of a young man who has spent months in a rehabilitation centre and is now being helped by his mother (Julia Roberts).

There’s a family connection here given the film is written and directed by Lucas’s father, Peter Hedges, who has some worthy screenwriting credits to his name including What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and About a Boy.  You might think that Peter always had his son in mind for the lead role but that wasn’t the case.  He had other actors in mind because he was worried about failing his son and “making a dud”.  It took the strong encouragement of Julia Roberts, who was really keen to work with Lucas, for Peter to make a final decision.

The timeframe here is narrow with Ben is Back spread across a 24-hour period covering Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  Holly (Roberts) arrives home from church to find Ben waiting in the freezing cold outside the front door.  She didn’t think he’d be home for Christmas but after managing to stay “clean” for 77 days, his longest stint in more than two years, Ben checked out of the rehabilitation centre to make it home in time for this special day.

In a similar vein to Beautiful Boy, the focus here is more on the parent as opposed to the child.  Julia Roberts calls upon a wide range of emotions in illustrating the complexity of the situation.  There’s the initial excitement upon seeing her son but that quickly changes as she worries about his vulnerable nature and the chance of a relapse.  We see her rushing to clean out the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and having tough conversations with her husband (Vance) and daughter (Newton).

Holly agrees not to let Ben out of her sight (not exactly ideal when trying to plan Christmas Day festivities) and that serves as the catalyst for drama.  Ben is approached by people from his darker past and in the process, Holly is startled by secrets that Ben has long kept hidden.  You get the sense that she should have confronted her son many years ago about certain things but her kind, trustworthy nature was a barrier rather than a help.

The performances are great but Ben is Back does feel unnecessarily formulaic in places.  Early groundwork is laid for future subplots but it’s far too obvious.  The best example is a sequence involving another mother (Bay Jones) and the attendant at a drive-through pharmacy.  There are also a handful of head-scratching scenes, such as one where Holly confronts her son’s former doctor in a fast food court, that disrupt the film’s flow.

Ben is Back has some important things to say but the emotion of the situation doesn’t resonate as strongly as it should.

Details

Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 03 February 2019

She’s well known within the legal fraternity but it’s kind of cool that at the age of 85, Ruth Bader Ginsberg is finally getting her “15 minutes of fame” in Hollywood.  Last year, filmmakers Betsy West and Julie Cohen made a wonderful documentary entitled RBG that followed Ginsberg’s upbringing, career, and time as a Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.  It’s favoured to win the Oscar for best documentary feature at the Oscars later this month.

Now, less than a year later, we have a biopic about Ginsberg with Oscar nominated actress Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything) in the lead role.  I’ll admit to being sceptical about this production.  Given the quality of the documentary and its in-depth interviews with Ginsberg, what could a dramatic movie possibly add that would make it more informative and engaging?

Screenwriter Daniel Stiepleman, who happens to be the nephew of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, has found an answer.  Rather analyse her whole life, as was done in the documentary, Stiepleman has chosen to focus on a court case argued by Ginsberg in front of the U.S Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in 1972.  It was the only time in her career that she argued alongside her husband, Martin (Hammer), a successful tax lawyer in his own right.  Pointing the spotlight on just one case allows Stiepleman to provide more specifics when it comes to the importance and significance of her work.

Ginsburg had long pushed for gender equality and women’s rights without success.  The culture was changing in the United States but the courts, weighed down by decades of precedence that judges refused to overturn, were lagging behind.  This is where she got creative.  She took on the case of a man who had been discriminated against because of his sex.  If successful, it would set a new precedent that could be relied upon in similar cases involving women.

The person at the centre of the legal proceedings was Charles Moritz - an unmarried man who worked full-time at a publishing firm.  He had employed a carer to tend to his ailing mother while at work but the Internal Revenue Service had denied him a tax deduction for such costs.  American tax legislation stated that only a woman is entitled to a tax deduction for expenses related to the care of an invalid parent.  It was clearly written under the false presumption that men would never to incur such costs because they would always have a wife at home to take care of such matters. 

This is a powerful, eye-opening story that reminds us about the inroads that have been made when it comes to gender equality in recent decades.  There’s a brief introduction set in the 1950s where we see Ginsburg grilled by the Dean of the Harvard Law School (Waterston) as to why she’s taken a place that could have gone to a man.  There’s another scene after where she goes to a job interview for a law firm and is told she should be more worried about having kids and attending bake sales.

Felicity Jones gives a fine performance in portrayal Ginsburg as a determined, passionate woman who, despite being subject to continual discrimination herself, was unrelenting in her quest to overturn archaic laws that didn’t treat men and women as equals.  Importantly, the film doesn’t try to portray her as a saint.  It acknowledges that she did make a few small missteps along the way (as we all would) but she was able to learn from those mistakes and improve her powers of persuasion.

Directed by Mimi Leder (Deep Impact, Pay it Forward), On the Basis of Sex makes for great viewing.